Rifle fully loaded once more, Caleb shifted position until he could peer through a notch between two boulders. The raiders’ wiry, ugly little ponies were scattered across the meadow, feeding eagerly, indifferent to the booming of guns around them.

«How bad is Deuce?» Caleb asked.

«He’s burned across the chest. His left foreleg is swelling, probably strained when he fell. I don’t think he’ll be able to take a rider very far.»

«You’d be surprised, honey. Is he bleeding much?»

«No.»

«Any other horses hurt?»

«The mares are done,» Willow said, trying to keep her voice as unemotional as Caleb’s. «They’ll follow as long as they can, but —»

A big hand squeezed Willow’s shoulder gently. «What about Ishmael?»

«He’s tired, but still strong enough to take me anywhere I tell him to go.» «That’s one game stud,» Caleb said admiringly. «Makes me understand why Wolfe is so set on mustangs.»

«What do you mean?»

«Mustangs are descended from the Spanish horses, which came from Arabian stock. Don’t judge all mustangs by those ponies out there. They’re as mongrel as their riders. Tough, though. Damned tough. Give them a hatful of hay and less water and they’ll go a hundred miles a day for weeks at a time.»

While Caleb spoke, he reached into one of the saddlebags and came out with the spyglass. Methodically, he began covering the ground in front of him, quartering from side to side. The glass brought up each blade of grass, each shift from sun to shade, each suspicious bit of color or movement. Caleb looked up from the glass, then through it, mentally marking the spot of every raider the spyglass picked out.

The glass confirmed what Caleb had already suspected. TheComancheros were scattered out in such a way that there was little or no chance of sneaking through them to the pass trail — especially with seven tired horses.

Caleb turned and began studying the land behind him through the spyglass, seeking anything that looked like a possible route out or enemies sneaking up. He saw nothing human moving, even after several very careful sweeps. Yet something kept nagging at his mind, something about the shape of the land itself.

«Dad’s journal,» he whispered suddenly.

«What?»

«Switch places with me.»

Willow scrambled around Caleb.

«If something starts movingdownslope, shoot,» he said.

While Willow kept an eye on the raiders, Caleb pulled his father’s journal out of the saddlebags and flipped through the pages quickly. He studied first one page, then a second, then the first again, flipping back and forth and checking the peaks rising behind the boulders.

«There’s another pass,» Caleb said in a low voice, reading quickly. «It’s a righteous bastard, eleven thousand feet and then some, but it can be climbed by a horse.»

«Do theComancheros know about it?»

«Doubt it. According to Dad, no one had used the route for a long time when he saw it. It’s from the time before Indians had horses, when going twenty miles out of the way for an easier pass meant losing a lot of travel time.»

The silence was destroyed by a single shot that whined off the rocks shielding them. Despite herself, Willow flinched and made a low sound.

«It’s all right,» Caleb said, setting aside the journal and sighting down the barrel of his rifle. «They just want to see if we’re still awake up here.»

The rifle leaped and a crack of sound made Willow flinch. Even before the echo reverberated, Caleb shot again and again, pouring bullets into the areas where he had seen raiders through the spyglass. He fed shells into the rifle in the pauses between shots, mentally thanking Winchester’s cleverness in making a weapon that could be reloaded almost as fast as it could be fired.

Several choked screams told Caleb that his aim had been good. He kept firing until one of the raiders broke and ran for better cover. Carefully, Caleb shot once more. The runner took a step and fell face down. He didn’t move again. Two shots came in return, but only two. The remainingComancheros weren’t in any hurry to collect the bounty on Caleb’s scalp.

Sound cracked through the area, making Willow flinch in the instant before she realized that it was thunder rather than rifle fire rolling down the mountainside. Before she could take another breath, a barrage of water pelted down, announcing the beginning of the afternoon thunderstorms. Within minutes it was raining so hard that she couldn’t see more than a hundred feet in any direction.

«Take the shotgun and run for the horses,» Caleb said as he fireddownslope once more, hoping to discourage theComancheros from coming up the slope under the cover of rain.

«What about you?»

«Run,» he commanded.

Willow ran.

Caleb’s shots rang out behind her, yet by the time Willow saw the horses, he had caught up and was running right beside her.

«Watch for raiders,» Caleb said curtly.

While Willow watched theirbacktrail, Caleb yanked the riding saddle off Deuce, relieving the injured horse’s burden. For a moment he considered using one of the mares as a pack animal, but a single look at their hanging heads and the lather dissolving on their coats beneath the driving rain told Caleb the mares were worse off than Deuce. Working quickly, he transferred as much equipment as he could to the saddlebags and bedrolls tied on behind the riding saddles. When he was finished, Deuce was carrying less than thirty pounds, none of it vital for their survival.

Caleb pulled on hisshearling jacket and lifted Willow into Ishmael’s saddle.

«It will be a hard, steady climb,» he said in a low voice. «Stick with it even if Deuce and the mares don’t. Promise me, Willow.»

Biting her lower lip, Willow nodded.

Caleb reached up and brushed her cheek with his fingertips, leaving a trail of warmth in the cold rain. Then he swung up on Trey’s back.

«I’m not going to stop short of the summit,» he said. «We need every bit of daylight to get over that pass.»

Even as Willow started to say something, Caleb merged with the rain and vanished. The horses filed out in the driving rain, with Deuce limping in the rear.

After the first thirty minutes, Willow stopped listening forComancheros and looking over her shoulder every few minutes. After the first hour, she stopped checking to see that the Arabians were following. They were keeping up well enough, but Willow didn’t know how much longer the mares would be able to go on. Despite the slow pace, they were breathing as though they had been trotting for hours. True to Caleb’s prediction, Deuce kept on coming despite his game leg, walking quickly enough to overtake the slowest mare.

They climbed steadily, relentlessly, until Willow couldn’t remember a time when the land hadn’t tilted steeply in front of her. Willow alternated between a headache and a lightheadedness that made her fear for her health. Beneath heavy curtains of rain, the dark shape of spruce trees appeared more frequently among pines and aspen. Every few minutes she peered through the sheets of water to where Caleb was, clinging to his presence as the only certainty in a world gone the color of rain.

Thunder boomed occasionally, but no longer startled Willow. They forded a stream and climbed a forested, rolling ridge on the far side. Gradually the route leveled out somewhat, then ascended into another grassy park. A clean, racing creek boiled down the center of the clearing between shrub-covered banks. Caleb crossed the water and turned upstream. The land rose steadily beneath the horses’ feet once more, making even a slow walk an effort.

Once, when it was very steep, Caleb dismounted. Willow followed suit before she led Ishmael toward the rain-shrouded figures ahead. After thirty feet she went to her knees and swayed dizzily.

Caleb appeared from the rain and caught Willow up in a hug. «You should be riding, honey. You’re not used to the altitude.»

«It didn’t bother me — this much — in Denver,» she panted.

«You were four thousand feet lower in Denver. We’re almost two miles high here.»

Willow looked at Caleb with dazed eyes. «No wonder — my horses —»

«Yes,» he said. «But they keep on going just the same. Like you.»

For the first time Willow noticed the bruise on his forehead.

«You’re hurt!»

«I’m all right. You’re dizzier than I am and there’s not a mark on you.»

The relief in Willow’s hazel eyes was as transparent and intense as her concern had been. Caleb held her even closer, savoring her emotion. It had been a long, long time since anyone but Willow had worried about him.

«Thank you,» he said finally.

«For what?»

«For coming back after me when bullets were flying and a lot of men would have cut and run. For having the sense to know I’d need the saddlebags and the courage to bring them to me. For laughing when other women would have cried or whined or yelled at me. For being a hell of a good trail partner.»

Willow’s eyes widened in the instant before she looked away from Caleb, feeling lightheaded again. The blaze of his whiskey-colored eyes warmed her as no fire could have.

«That’s very kind of you,» she said huskily.

«I’m not a kind man.»

«Yes, you are. I know I’ve caused you trouble. Because of my stubbornness about the Arabians, you’ve had to risk your life again and again.» Willow smiled wearily and glanced up at him from beneath her eyelashes. «So when I want to scream or yell or whine, I think of what it would be like without you and I keep my mouth closed.»

Caleb laughed and held Willow even closer. He heard her ragged sigh, felt her body leaning trustingly against his, and tried not to think about a man called Reno.