Winter Fire (14 page)

He simply turned and watched her with eyes that were far too wintry for a man who otherwise looked only a few years older than Sarah herself.

Suddenly she felt weary all the way to her soul. Her thoughtless questions had transformed Case into a cold stranger rather than the intriguing man she had brought back from death with her hands and her prayers and sleepless nights. A man whose dry humor and gentleness hinted at possibilities she didn't even name.

But she knew they existed.

She had sensed them as clearly as she sensed his male hunger for her.

Never mind that
, she told herself.
Never mind who Emily was or what she did to Case. It doesn't matter
.

Nothing matters but finding the silver for Conner. He knows how to laugh and love and hope
.

“Hal had an old map,” Sarah said.

“How old?”

She shrugged. “He didn't say. I didn't ask.”

“Was it just a drawing or were there words?”

“A few here and there. And a letter.”

“What did it say?” Case asked, curious despite himself.

“That a pack train of silver crosses, coins, bars, cups, plates, candle holders, and rosaries was lost during a flood.”

“A whole pack train?”

She nodded.

“Most of the worked silver was recovered by the Spanish,” she said, “but ten bags of silver coins weren't found. About three hundred pounds of silver bars were never seen again either.”

He whistled softly. Then he ran a speculative eye over the immense, rugged land around him and called himself a fool for even being interested.

Three hundred pounds of silver bullion could vanish into any one of the thousands of nameless little canyons and never cause a ripple. The land was built on the scale of eternity rather than man.

“Were the words in Spanish or English or French or Latin?” he asked, curious despite himself.

“Latin mostly,” she said. “Some Spanish.”

“Are you certain?”

“The man who wrote the letter was a Jesuit priest,” she said distinctly. “Latin was the preferred language for church documents, although some correspondence was in an ancient form of Spanish.”

His dark eyebrows rose. “Your husband must have been quite a scholar to figure out that letter.”

“Hal couldn't read or write English, much less anything else.”

“Who translated the letter?”

“I did.”

Case made a satisfied sound, as though he finally had run some prey to ground.

“You know Latin,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Greek?”

“Yes.” She looked over at him. “Surprised?”

“Only that you're still at Lost River ranch.”

“What do you mean?”

“With your education, you could get a job teaching school in Denver or Santa Fe or San Francisco.”

Sarah felt her throat contract and her face stiffen.

She didn't want to live in the cities where her learning would be valued. All she wanted was to live on her ranch with the wild canyons and the sweet water and the timeless wind singing to her soul.

But it's my land only until I find the silver
, she reminded herself.
Then my half of the ranch belongs to Case
.

“I could,” she agreed.

Her tone said that she would rather be in chains.

“Where is the map now?” he asked.

“I don't know.”

“A secret, huh?”

“No. I simply don't know,” she said evenly. “The last time I saw it—and Hal—was years ago in autumn when he went looking for silver.”

“He never came back?”

“No.”

“How did he die?” Case asked.

“I don't know.”

“But you're certain he's dead?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“My brother backtracked Hal and found him dying. Conner buried him where he lay.”

“Seems kind of strange that a man in his prime would just up and die,” Case said neutrally.

“Hal was more than three times my age.”

He gave Sarah a swift sideways look. He tried to imagine someone with her quick tongue and gift of laughter being married to a man old enough to be her grandfather.

No wonder she doesn't want to talk about it
, he thought
uneasily.
I doubt that a man that old had much patience with girlish ways
.

“I'm surprised your brother didn't bring back the map,” he said after a time.

“He brought back what we needed to survive—the horse, the overcoat, the supplies, and the weapons.”

Case pictured the Kennedy cabin in his mind. Ten feet by fourteen. Ill-made. No window glass. No floor but dirt that Sarah drew whimsical designs on when she wasn't too tired from spinning and cooking and washing and nursing various creatures.

Without the touches that she brought to the cabin—the herbs drying in one corner, the scented sprigs of juniper tucked in the mattresses, the smell of cornbread and fresh laundry—without them the cabin would have been about as welcoming as a grave.

“Must have been pretty tough for you with a young boy to raise and no man to help out,” Case said.

“Conner learned to be a fine hunter. I'm a fair shot myself.”

“What about your husband?”

“Hal was gone treasure hunting a lot of the time. He expected food on the table when he came back.”

That wasn't all her husband had expected. She didn't think about the rest of it anymore, except sometimes in the middle of the night, when she would wake up cold and sweating with fear.

“How long did Hal look for silver before he died?” Case asked.

She shrugged. “All the time I knew him and some years before that, I suppose.”

“That map must have been worth less than a hill of beans.”

“Why?”

“He didn't find anything.”

“Hal drank.”

The stark words told Case more than anything else Sarah had said about her husband.

“When he sobered up,” she said, “he didn't remember anything that had happened.”

“Are you telling me that you think he found the treasure and then forgot it?”

“Yes.”

“A man would have to be pretty damned drunk to forget finding a treasure.”

“When Hal was drinking, he was blind, deaf, and dumb as a rock,” she said grimly.

Case watched her out of the corner of his eye. From what he had gathered in the past weeks, she was no older than twenty, and maybe younger.

Yet when she talked about her husband, she looked as worn as a widow twice her age.

“If Hal found the treasure,” he said after a while, “then lost it again, the map won't do you much good, will it?”

“There's no ‘if' about it. I know Hal found the treasure.”

The certainty in Sarah's voice stopped Case. He turned in the saddle and stared at her.

“How do you know?” he asked bluntly.

She took off one of her deerskin gloves and dug into the pocket of her pants. After a moment she held out her hand to him.

Two crudely cut silver
reales
lay against her palm. Despite the tarnish brought on by age, silver gleamed through the black where someone had polished a part of each coin.

“Do you want to change your mind about taking half the treasure instead of half the ranch?” she asked.

He looked from the ancient coins to the wild, untouched land surrounding him.

“No,” he said. “This country has something that money can't buy. You can have the silver.”

I don't want it
, Sarah thought bleakly.
Like you, I only want the land
.

Yet half of the ranch she loved belonged to Conner.

And all too soon the other half would belong to a man who didn't believe in laughter, hope, or love.

A
cold, clean
wind blew down the canyon. The riverbed Sarah and Case were using as a trail lacked water except for occasional shallow pools. Despite that, grass and shrubs flourished at the margins of the dry wash and on up the steep slope to the point where the sheer stone cliffs began.

“That's good graze for cattle,” he said. “Surprising, without running water.”

She smiled slightly.

“The land is full of surprises like that,” she said. “There are a handful of springs and countless seeps where water trickles out of cracks in the stone.”

Through narrowed eyes, he scanned the rugged sides of the canyon. There were indeed places where the brush grew thickly. In fact, isolated pine trees were tucked into some of the most protected and well-watered creases.

Like money in the bank
, he thought.
Little caches of water and feed hidden away
.

No wonder there's so much sign of game
.

“In West Texas,” he said, “when it was dry, it was generally dry all the way to the bone.”

“That's the way it is farther down Lost River Canyon,” she said. “The mouth of the canyon opens onto a wide valley. The river flows for a while, the land drops down,
and finally it all unravels into a maze of slickrock and barren red canyons.”

“Where does Lost River go?”

“According to Ute, it doesn't go anywhere. It just gets smaller and smaller until it dries up completely.”

Case looked thoughtful, as though he were rearranging the land in his mind.

“Lost River doesn't flow into other water?” he asked.

“No.”

“Does it end in a lake?”

Sarah shook her head. Her next words confirmed what he already suspected.

“During the dry season,” she said, “Lost River is the only sizable water for a long way in all directions.”

“Has the river ever dried up before it gets to the ranch?”

“Not in the six seasons I've been here.”

“What does Ute say?”

“He's never heard of it going dry in Lost River Canyon,” she said.

“Chancy thing, just the same.”

“I'd feel better if I had the time and skill to build a few simple spreader dams and maybe a pond for the worst times,” she admitted. “A well would be nice, too.”

“We'll work on that after you get the silver out of your system.”

Her eyelids flickered.

She wouldn't be on the ranch after she found the silver.

Saying nothing, she turned away from him and watched the flight of an eagle. The bird was first black against the sky, then a radiant bronze as it turned and caught the sun at a different angle.

Case waited, but Sarah still didn't say anything about the time when he would own half of Lost River ranch.

“Or did you plan on dividing the land and have me take one side of the river and you the other?” he asked.

It was a moment before she answered.

And even then, she looked at the eagle's flight instead of him.

“No,” she said huskily. “I think it would be better to keep the ranch intact. Unless you want it divided…?”

He shook his head, but she didn't see.

“I'm not much of a hand with gardens and spinning and weaving,” he said, “but I know ranching. I think we all would do better if we kept on pooling our talents the way you and Ute and Lola have.”

For Sarah, speaking was impossible without revealing the sorrow that was strangling her. She simply nodded and longed with all her soul for the freedom of an eagle riding the wind.

Silently Case looked from one side of the rapidly narrowing canyon to the other. The land was pitching up more and more steeply beneath his stallion's hooves. Timber that had been washed down from higher up the canyon was lodged in crevices six feet above his head.

“I'd hate to be here when a flood comes,” he said after a time.

“It's…frightening.”

Caught by the raw edge of terror in her voice, he turned and looked at her. Only then did he remember how her family had died.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean to bring back bad memories.”

“I'm used to them.”

“Sometimes that doesn't make them any easier.”

“No, sometimes it doesn't,” she said matter-of-factly, meeting his glance. “Those are the bad times.”

His breath caught. Looking into her eyes right now was like looking into a mirror—beneath the surface there were shadows of horror and grief, rage and pain.

Yet on the surface, nothing.

Nothing at all.

It told Case that Sarah had been as deeply hurt by life
as he had. Yet she hadn't turned her back on emotion in order to survive.

How did she learn to laugh again?
he wondered.

Then came a question he had never asked himself.

Why?

Why did she open herself up to more grief?

Laughter and hope and love…The road to hell is paved with them
.

He had vowed never to return to that agonizing hell. He nearly hadn't survived the first time through.

Sarah isn't stupid. Surely she knows the pain that feelings cause as well as I do
.

And yet she smiles, she laughs, she cries
.

She even loves
.

That's why Ute thinks she's an angel. Despite everything, she allows herself to care
.

Her reckless courage was breathtaking.

“When did you first see those coins?” Case asked abruptly, uneasy with his own thoughts.

She accepted the change of subject with a relief that didn't show in her expression.

“After Hal died,” she said.

“Where did you find them?”

“In a tobacco pouch in his jacket pocket.”

“Do you think he found the silver just before he died?”

For a time Sarah didn't answer. The rhythmic noise of the horses' hooves, the cry of a startled bird, and the restless wind were the only sounds.

“No,” she said finally.

“Why?”

“He was on his way out to prospect rather than coming back to the ranch.”

Case looked thoughtful.

“Where did your husband die?”

“I don't know.”

“You said Conner tracked him.”

“My brother was twelve years old and on foot,” she
said. “He had never been away from the cabin without me. If Hal's horse hadn't known the way home…”

Her voice faded. She shook her head without finishing the sentence.

Case started to ask what Conner had been doing out on foot alone, but the look on Sarah's face stopped him like a wall.

“I backtracked the horse as far as I could,” she said. “But it was raining like the sea turned upside down. Every ravine was full of water. Lost River was a muddy flood too wide and deep and dangerous to ride alongside, much less cross.”

“So the tracks washed away.”

“Yes.”

“Then what's the point of continuing the search?” he asked. “What are you looking for now?”

“Just what I said I was. Ruins and red pillars and a narrow canyon. That's all Conner remembers.”

“How many places within a day's ride fit that description?”

“I don't know.”

“Guess.”

“Hundreds.”

He grunted. “How many have you searched?”

“How many did we pass on the way here?” she asked sardonically.

What she didn't say was that there was one canyon she was dreading searching, but she didn't know just which one it was.

She hoped she never would. The thought of stumbling over her husband's bones made her cold.

Conner
, she thought helplessly.
How can I ever repay you? How can I ever make it up to you?

“No wonder you don't have enough firewood, much less a tight cabin,” Case said. “You've been too busy chasing foolish hopes of silver.”

“That's my business.”

“Not when I have to watch you shiver with cold every morning,” he said flatly.

When she ignored him, he went back to searching the sides of the canyon. Silver skeletons of piñon, big sage, and juniper stood against the rusty cliffs. Pine logs washed down by past floods lay scattered about. A lot of the wood was still solid enough to make a hot fire.

“Next time we'll bring packhorses,” he said. “We can collect firewood while we look for dead men's silver.”

“Next time I'll bring Conner. He doesn't complain every step of the way.”

“Like hell you will.”

She turned sharply and faced Case with narrowed eyes.

“I'm a widow and fully grown. If I want to come out here alone, I will.”

“You're not that much of a fool.”

She didn't bother answering.

“You know as well as I do that Ab has someone watching the ranch,” Case pointed out.

“I haven't seen anyone.”

“You haven't been up on the rim.”

“But—”

“If you don't believe me,” he interrupted impatiently, “ask your brother.”

“Why would he know better than I do?”

“Hell of a question.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means,” he said in a flat voice, “that you have Conner tied so tight to you with those apron strings it's a blazing wonder he can breathe.”

For a moment she was too angry to answer. By the time she found her tongue, she also had a better grip on her temper.

“Conner is my business,” she said coldly. “Keep out of it.”

Case gave her a sideways look.

“What are you going to do when your brother wants to marry and move on?” he asked bluntly.

The startled look on her face told him that she hadn't thought of her brother in that way.

“He's just a boy,” she protested.

“Horse apples,” Case said in disgust. “When will Conner be sixteen?”

“In a few months.”

“I've known
men
that age with a wife and a baby.”

“No. I want Conner to have an education.”

“Put what you want in one hand and spit in the other and see which hand fills up first,” he suggested sardonically.

“I'd rather spit in your hand.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled.

“I don't doubt that one bit,” he said.

Pointedly she looked away from him and up the canyon where it branched around a jutting nose of rock.

“The ruins are up on the south side, not too far from here,” she said.

Her tone said even more. It told Case that she was finished talking about Conner.

“I spotted the ruins the last time I came here,” she said, “but it was too late in the day. I had to go back.”

She urged her mustang forward. The little mare obliged with a trot that nearly shook the
reales
out of Sarah's pockets. Cricket kept up with a fast, fancy kind of walking gait that was smooth as satin.

Sarah tried not to notice the difference between the two mounts, but it was impossible. The shovel tied on behind her saddle kept bouncing up and banging her in the rear every few steps.

Shaker had been well-named.

The dry creek wound around a nose of solid rock. A few hundred feet farther up, another piece of cliff came in from the other side. The bottom of the canyon narrowed and became steeper as it climbed higher. Finally there was
little more than thirty feet between the base of the cliffs that formed the canyon sides.

Huge blocks of sandstone rose out of the dirt and brush, silent testimony to the fact that even the massive canyon cliffs were slowly being brought down by rain, ice, and wind.

The horses scrambled through the obstacle course of rocks and thick brush. The mustang had an easier time of it than the stallion, but both horses were sweating by the time Sarah reined in.

“There,” she said, pointing to the south rim of the canyon. “See the castle?”

It took Case a moment to notice the ruined walls poking out from a deep alcove near the base of the canyon wall. Though half-tumbled down and screened by brush, the walls were definitely made by man.

The ruins appeared to be little more than four or five small rooms with a few stone storage cribs off to one side.

“Castle?” he asked. “Looks more like stables.”

“Whoever stayed here lived better than we do at Lost River ranch,” she said dryly.

“Try chinking the logs instead of looking for treasure.”

“Chinking won't make the cabin any bigger.”

“Be a damned sight warmer, though. Another room to sleep in wouldn't be amiss, either.”

“Conner won't need it. He'll be away at school.”

“I was thinking of you,” Case said, “not your brother.”

“What about me?”

“A girl shouldn't have to share her bedroom with every wounded drifter who turns up. Wouldn't that kind of privacy be a treasure worth working for?”

Sarah didn't answer.

He looked at the determined set of her jaw, swore under his breath, and tilted his hat back on his head.

“Now that we're at the so-called castle,” he said, “what do we do next?”

“We look for silver.”

“Didn't you tell me that the silver was buried at the base of a tall pillar of red rock?”

“It was supposed to be. I can't say where it might be now.”

“If the treasure weighed in at a few hundred pounds, and your husband was too drunk to remember finding it, chances are he didn't pack it out on his back.”

Sarah had thought about that. A lot. On the other hand…

“I've dug around all the pillars in this canyon,” she said firmly. “Now it's time to go over the ruins.”

“If there's nothing there, then what?”

“I'll try the next canyon.”

“And then?”

“I'll go on to the next canyon and the next and the next until I run out of canyons or find that damned silver.”