Elizabeth Lowell (28 page)

He voice trailed off. He knew that it was unreasonable of him to be angry with her for having been in danger. She could no more help her position in the wild land than he could.

“This can’t go on,” he said beneath his breath. “I’ve got to get you to a place where you’ll be safe.”

Thunder muttered across the plateau, reminding him that danger wore many faces, and another one was looking at them right now. Reluctantly he turned and measured the hair-raising trail that awaited the injured stallion.

The path began at the head of a narrow ravine that rapidly branched sideways and downward, threading a tortuous zigzag route across the crumbling east face of the plateau. After the first quarter mile the path became less steep. After a mile the trail merged with the sloping outwash plain that began several thousand feet below the plateau itself. At that point the path became no worse than any other game trail in the rugged land.

But that first quarter mile was a nightmare, and the last three quarters were little better. It had been difficult enough to scramble up onto the plateau via that trail. Climbing down was always more dangerous.

Ty didn’t see how they were going to negotiate the steep path without losing the tug-of-war with gravity and falling a long, long way down.

“The first part is the hardest,” Janna said.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Well, it shouldn’t make you feel worse.”

For an instant his smile flashed whitely beneath his black mustache. He brushed his lips over her answering smile before he released her.

“Keep Zebra back until Lucifer is through with the worst of it,” Ty said. “I’m going to have enough trouble staying out from under the stallion’s hooves. I sure don’t need to be looking over my shoulder for the mare, too.” He turned to the stud and pulled gently on the hackamore’s lead rope. “Come on, son. Might as well get it over with. As my daddy used to say, ‘We can’t dance and it’s too wet to plow.’

Lucifer walked to the beginning of the path, looked down the slope, and refused to take another step.

“Don’t blame you a bit,” he said soothingly, “but it has to be done.” He increased the pressure on the lead rope. “Come on, you big black stud. Show Janna what a well-behaved gentleman you’ve become during our walk today.”

The stallion’s head came up sharply, counteracting the pressure that tended to pull him toward the steep, dangerous path. Thunder rolled and muttered. A freshening wind brought with it the scent of rain, warning that the possibility of a storm grew greater with every passing minute.

“Come on,” he said gently, increasing the pressure on the lead rope until he could pull no harder. “If you think that little bit of a path looks rough now, wait until it’s raining fit to put out the fires of hell. When that happens we want to be long gone from here.”

Lucifer’s ears went back as he set himself more firmly, pulling hard against the pressure on the hackamore.

“Your daddy must have been Satan’s own black mule,” Ty said, but his tone was still mild and reassuring. “Come on, son. You heard the lady. The first part is the hardest. After that it’s as easy as licking honey off a spoon.”

Lucifer’s ears flattened against his head.

Ty had several choices. He could keep pulling and hope the stallion would give up. He could keep pulling and have Janna make a loud noise, stampeding the stallion over the rim—and right onto Ty. Or he could lure the stallion onto the trail using the oldest bait of all.

“Janna, do you think that cat-footed mare of yours will go down this trail?”

“I don’t know. It’s worth a try.”

“Easy, son,” Ty said as he went up to Lucifer and put pressure on the horse’s black nose to make him back up. “If you don’t want to be first you’ll just have to get out of the way and let your lady show you how easy it is.”

The stud willingly backed away from the trail. Wind gusted suddenly, bringing with it a foretaste of the chilly storm. The stallion pricked his ears and snorted, feeling an instinctive urge to seek shelter.

Ty wrapped the lead rope and secured it around Lucifer’s neck, freeing his own hands and at the same time making sure that the stallion didn’t get all tangled up in loose rope. When he was ready, he led the stallion aside, making room for Janna and Zebra to approach the rough path. When Zebra was pointed in the right direction—straight down—Janna smacked the mare on her warm haunch.

“Down you go,” she said hopefully.

Zebra turned and looked at Janna.

“Shoo, girl. Go on, get on down that trail. Get!”

The mustang shook her head as though ridding herself of persistent flies. Deliberately she backed away from the trail.

“Dammit,” Ty said. “Maybe if we—Janna, don’t!”

It was too late. She had already darted around in front of Zebra and started down the trail herself. She picked her way down the first steep pitch, found a relatively secure place to stand and turned to call to Zebra.

“No,” Ty said urgently. “Don’t take the trail in front of Zebra. If she slips she’ll roll right on over you and leave you flatter than a shadow!”

“I’ll stay out of her way,” Janna said, but her voice was tight. She knew even better than Ty the danger of being on the downhill side of a horse on a slope like this. “Come on, girl. Point those black hooves in this direction. Come to me, Zebra. Come on.”

As always, Janna’s coaxing murmur and her outstretched hands intrigued the mare. She edged as far forward as she could without committing herself to the trail. Neck outstretched, nostrils flaring, ears pricked forward, Zebra leaned toward Janna. Her hooves, however, remained firmly planted.

Without hesitation, Janna retreated farther down the trail.
When she reached another relatively level patch of ground, she was fifty feet away. She put her hands to her mouth and a hawk’s wild cry floated up. Zebra nickered nervously and shifted her feet. The hawk cry came again, reminding the mare of all the times she had answered the call and found Janna waiting with her backpack full of treats.

One of the mare’s black hooves lifted, then set down barely a few inches away. Another hoof lifted. Another few inches gained. Ears pricked, skin flinching nervously, Zebra literally inched her way down the trail.

Janna melted away in front of the mustang, calling softly, praising Zebra with every breath.

As Ty watched, his body ran with sweat. A single hesitation, a loose stone, any miscalculation on the mare’s part, and Janna quickly would be engulfed in a flailing, lethal windmill of horse and human flesh. There was no place for her to leap aside, no place to hide.

If Zebra fell, Janna would be killed.

Unknowingly Ty prayed in low tones, never lifting his glance from Zebra’s mincing progress, feeling as though his soul were being drawn on a rack.

If you get out of this alive, Janna,
he vowed silently,
I
’
ll make sure you stay out of danger if I have to tie you up and stuff you in my backpack and never let you out.

Lucifer whickered nervously, calling to Zebra. The mare ignored him, intent on the trail and on the girl who kept retreating down the dangerously steep slope. The stallion’s next call was louder and more urgent but it had no more effect than the first. He whinnied imperiously. Zebra’s ears swiveled and her tail swished. She lifted her head to look, began slipping and sat down on her haunches.

For the space of several breaths the mare simply remained motionless, then she slowly gathered herself and resumed her inching progress down the trail.

The stallion’s barrel swelled as he took in air for another whinny.

“Shut up, son,” Ty said.

Long, powerful fingers closed gently and completely over the stallion’s nostrils, making it impossible for the horse to whinny. Lucifer threw up his head but Ty hung on, talking calmly the whole time.

“Yelling at her won’t do any good right now,” he assured the stallion. “That little mare no more listens to you than Janna listens to me. Later I’ll be glad to let you give your woman a royal chewing out—and I plan to do the same to mine—but first let’s get them to a safe place.”

The firm hands and reassuring voice held Lucifer quiet, though his half-flattened ears told anyone with eyes that the stallion wasn’t very happy about the situation.

Ty only kept part of his attention on the stud. The farther the mare got down the trail, the more impossible it seemed that a horse had descended it at all.

But Zebra had. The evidence was everywhere, in clumps of dirt gouged out by hooves and in hoofprints elongated by skids. Beneath his breath Ty counted out the steps remaining on the last steep pitch before the trail leveled out to the point where Zebra didn’t have to go down half-sitting and braced on her stiffened forelegs.

“Seven, six, fi—”

Zebra skidded the last fifteen feet and then stood quietly, absorbing Janna’s praise.

Ty let out a long breath as he released his grip on Lucifer’s muzzle.

“All right, son. It’s our turn. And this time I’m not taking no for an answer.”

Lucifer went to the edge of the plateau, whinnied loudly, and was answered by Zebra. He whinnied again. Zebra looked up the steep path but didn’t move one step in the stallion’s direction.

“She’s not about to scramble up to you,” Ty said calmly. He stood to the side of Lucifer’s head and pulled steadily forward on the hackamore. “If you want her, you’re going to have to do it the hard way.”

The stallion stood at the trailhead, laid back his ears…and began climbing down.

Janna found it more unnerving to watch Ty descend alongside the stallion’s big hooves than it had been for her to climb down the plateau’s face in front of Zebra. The first quarter mile was especially dangerous, for there really wasn’t enough room for Ty to stand alongside the horse on the path without being under Lucifer’s feet half the time.

Let go, Ty. Let Lucifer do it alone,
Janna urged silently.
He won
’
t back out now. He can
’
t. The only thing he can do is keep coming down and he knows it.

Snorting, mincing, sliding, sweating, the muscles in his injured leg trembling at the strain, the stallion negotiated the first quarter mile with surprising speed. More than once it was Ty’s timely jerk on the hackamore that saved Lucifer from a fall by levering his head up, which helped the horse to regain control when his feet started sliding. Under normal conditions the mustang’s own agility would have been sufficient to get him down the trail, but his injury made the difficult footing all but impossible had it not been for Ty’s help.

Without warning the stallion’s injured leg gave way and he lost his footing.

Ty threw all his muscle behind the hackamore, forcing Lucifer back onto his haunches. Front legs braced, hooves digging into the path, the horse slid about twenty feet before he came to a stop. Sitting up like a big black hound, the stallion sweated nervously while displaced pebbles bounced and rattled down the slope.

Right beside him, the man sweated just as hard. It had been much too close to disaster. Someone with less strength than Ty wouldn’t have been able to prevent the horse from falling.

Janna held her fist against her teeth as she forced back a scream. Ty had taken a terrible gamble, for if his weight and leverage hadn’t been enough to counteract gravity, he would have been swept away with Lucifer in a long, lethal fall.

“That’s it, son,” Ty said, his voice soothing despite the hammer blows of his own heart. “You rest and get your wind back. That old leg just keeps fooling you. You expect it to be there for you and it isn’t, not the way you need it to be. That’s the problem with strength. You get to counting on it and then it lets you down. So use your head instead. You can’t just rush the path and scramble and slide and get it over with the way you would if you had your usual muscle and coordination. Now you have to take it nice and slow.”

When Lucifer’s skin no longer rippled with nervous reaction, Ty gradually released his pressure on the hackamore. Gingerly the stallion shifted his weight forward and began descending once more. As though he had understood Ty’s words, the mustang moved more slowly now, demanding less of his injured leg.

Even so, by the time Lucifer reached the end of the steepest portion of the path, Janna was trembling with a fear she had never known for herself. When both man and horse were on safe ground, she let out a shaky breath and ran to Ty, throwing herself at him, holding on to him with fierce strength despite her bruised arm.

“I was so frightened,” she said against his neck. “All I could think of was what would happen if Lucifer got to sliding too fast or lost his footing completely and you couldn’t get out of the way in time.”

Ty’s arms closed around Janna, lifting her off her feet. “The same thought occurred to me about every other step,” he said roughly, “but worst of all was watching you stand in front of Zebra and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do if things went to hell.” He held her hard and close, savoring the feel of her in his arms, her living warmth and resilience and the sweet rush of her breath against his neck. “God, little one, it’s good to be alive and holding you.”

A cool wind swirled down the plateau’s face, trailing the sound of thunder behind. Reluctantly he released Janna and set her back on her feet. A moment later he fished the crumpled rain poncho from his backpack. Without a word he tugged the waterproof folds over her.

“That should do it,” he said. “Now let’s get off this exposed slope before lightning has better luck at killing us than that damn trail did.”

With the casual strength that kept surprising her, Ty tossed her onto Zebra’s back.

“Don’t wait for me. Just get off the slope,” he said. He stepped back and smacked Zebra lightly on her haunch. “Get to it, horse. And you keep your rider hair side up or I’ll skin you for a sofa covering.”

Zebra took to the path again with an eagerness that said more plainly than words that the mustang understood the danger of being caught out in the open during a storm. Lucifer was just as eager to see the last of the exposed trail leading from the foot of the plateau to the lowlands beyond, but his injury forced a slower pace. Limping heavily, the stallion started off down the rocky slope.