“Cautious man.”
Shannon shrugged. “It was just Silent John’s way.”
“Did he have any other work besides prospecting?” Whip asked, curious if Shannon knew about her husband’s other life as a bounty hunter.
“No.”
“Didn’t find much gold for all the time he was gone, did he?”
“We never went hungry.”
“Didn’t he work for other people if the prospecting was slow?” Whip probed.
“Silent John? Hardly. He hated people. Anyway, who would hire him? He was wiry but he wasn’t what you would call a strong man. And he was old. He would be more likely to hire something done than to hire out himself to do another man’s labor.”
“There are some jobs that don’t need a lot of strength,” Whip said dryly.
Shannon frowned. “Silent John never would have tended bar or been a storekeeper or whatever. He was no good with people.”
Whip looked at Shannon’s clear, innocent eyes and realized that she hadn’t the faintest idea that she was the widow of one of the most feared man-hunters in the Colorado Territory.
“You mentioned that Silent John had several claims,” Whip said, changing the subject. “Which was the best one?”
“Rifle Sight.”
“Which one is that?”
“The highest one,” Shannon said. “Way up against the rock wall, a ravine not much bigger than the notch on a rifle sight, and a steep drop-off at the mouth of the ravine.”
“Hard rock mining?”
Shannon nodded.
“Damn,” Whip said. “Tunnels?”
“Just one.”
“One is too many.” He grimaced. “After digging Reno out of a cave-in last year, I don’t hold much love for tunnels and mines.”
“We could try the Chute first.”
“What’s that?”
“Another gold claim. It’s in the belly of an avalanche chute.”
Whip looked out the window. Last winter’s plentiful snows still gleamed on the peaks.
“I’ll pass on that one, thanks,” he said. “There’s too good a chance of an avalanche.”
“Silent John usually worked that one later in the summer,” Shannon agreed, “after most of the snow was gone.”
“What of the other claims?”
“There’s just one more that I know of.”
“What’s it like?”
“Cold. Wet. It’s a miserable crack in the rock where rain collects.”
“Silent John wasn’t a man for comfort, was he?”
“He never said one way or the other.”
Whip grunted and gazed past his coffee cup, considering the claims.
“None of the claims sound real appetizing,” he said finally. “But then, if I liked digging gold, I’d have stayed in the west with Reno years ago instead of going on to China. Is there any feed for horses up at Rifle Sight?”
“Some. There’s a meadow a quarter mile from the mine.”
Whip grunted. “Grizzlies?”
“That’s where the other mule died.”
“I don’t think Sugarfoot will have a problem that way.”
“Sugarfoot?”
“My gelding,” Whip said absently. “They cut him too late, so he still thinks he’s king of the mountain.”
Shannon waited while Whip held his coffee cup and stared into a distance only he could see. As she waited, she memorized the arching line of his fair eyebrows, the catlike tilt of his gray eyes, and the clean planes of his cheekbones and jaw. His mustache gleamed like captive sunlight above his lip. There was a faint sheen of coffee on his mouth.
“What are you thinking?” Whip asked softly.
“That I’d like to lick the coffee from your lips.”
Hearing her own words, Shannon flushed.
Whip’s breath came out with a low sound that could have been a curse.
“Dangerous words, honey girl.”
“I’m…sorry. I didn’t realize how it would sound until I said it.”
“Give me your hand,” Whip said softly.
Hesitantly Shannon held out her hand to him. He turned her palm up and inhaled deeply.
“Spearmint,” he said huskily. “God, I’ll die remembering the sweet scent of you.”
“Whip,” she whispered, her throat aching.
Whip held Shannon’s palm to his mustache, rubbing softly against her sensitive skin.
“I’d give you the kiss we both want,” he said, touching his tongue to her skin, “but if I feel your mouth open beneath mine right now…”
Slowly, thoroughly, Whip tasted Shannon’s palm.
“If I felt your mouth,” he said in a deep, low voice, “I’d start unbuttoning clothes.”
He bit her tenderly, felt her tremble, heard her whimper with passion and surprise.
“If I start unbuttoning clothes,” Whip said, “I’d have you right here, right now, sitting astride my thighs, and I’d watch you ride me all the way to the sun.”
Whip looked up, pinning Shannon with blazing gray eyes.
“Would you like that, honey girl?”
“I…I…”
“Don’t know?”
“I can’t think when you touch me,” she said, her voice husky. “And when you aren’t touching me, all I can think about is the next time you’ll touch me.”
Whip shuddered and gripped Shannon’s hand a little fiercely. He slid his tongue between two of her fingers in a hot, tender rhythm.
“Your honesty makes me burn,” Whip said against Shannon’s skin. “When you burn in the same way, come to me. I’ll wait as long as I can.”
“Then you’ll leave?” she whispered unhappily.
“No, honey girl. Then I’ll come to you.”
9
“I STILL think we should split any gold we find fifty-fifty,” Shannon said stubbornly over her shoulder.
Beneath Shannon, Razorback plodded at a surprisingly good pace up the steep game trail that led to the headwaters of the east fork of Avalanche Creek. On the trail behind Shannon, Whip sat easily astride his big gray gelding, following her to Silent John’s solitary claims.
“Whip?”
Ignoring Shannon, Whip looked over his shoulder. The packhorse was following more slowly with each foot of elevation gained. And there had been a lot of elevation. Avalanche Creek’s east fork went up the side of the mountain like lightning, zigzagging from ravine to cascade to ravine.
“Cat got your tongue?” Shannon asked acidly.
“I’ll take wages, just like any other coolie,” Whip said.
“Someone should bridle you, shoe you, and use you as a mule,” she said under her breath, believing Whip couldn’t hear.
“Anytime you want to ride me, just ask,” Whip said in a deep voice.
“You have a mule’s long ears, too,” she retorted.
Whip saw the flush on Shannon’s pale cheeks and laughed aloud.
“You’re so sweet to tease,” he said. “I swear, I could get drunk on you.”
“It’s the altitude.”
“No, honey girl. It’s you.”
Shannon shook her head vigorously, but her eyes were sparkling. Whip’s tender, sensual teasing was a constant surprise to her.
“I never know when to take you seriously,” she said, sighing. “You’re the first man I’ve ever known who wasn’t hell-bent on gold or fighting or…”
Too late, Shannon realized where her words were leading her.
“Sex?” Whip asked dryly.
She nodded.
“Oh, I’m hell-bent on that,” he assured her.
“You have an odd way of showing it,” Shannon muttered.
His smile flashed against his tan face.
“You noticed,” he said.
“What?”
“That I haven’t touched you since breakfast two days ago.”
“Now why would I notice a thing like that?” she retorted coolly.
Whip’s laugh was as darkly ma
sculine as his smile.
“Are you burning yet, honey girl?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know. That’s why I haven’t touched you.”
Shannon bit her lip. “How will I get less naive if you don’t touch me?”
“Good question. When you think of the answer, let me know. I’ll do the same for you.”
She made an exasperated sound and turned back to the trail, ignoring Whip’s gentle smile.
Prettyface was waiting up ahead where the trail forked. One vague path led to the Chute, which was still buried under summer avalanches. The other path led to the Rifle Sight claim, by way of a place Silent John called Grizzly Meadow.
“Go right, Prettyface,” Shannon called, waving her arm to the right.
The big dog promptly trotted off to the right.
Shannon glanced behind to see if Whip was suitably impressed by the dog’s obedience. But Whip wasn’t watching her. He was looking through a gap in the trees back down the trail. His narroweyed intensity was nearly tangible.
“Whip?”
He held up his hand in a sharp signal for silence.
Uneasily Shannon waited, eyes scanning the back trail for anything out of the ordinary. She saw only trees bending slightly beneath the breeze, and cloud shadows dappling the green-and-gray flank of the mountain.
After another minute Whip finally turned in the saddle to face Shannon.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just a bird startled by a deer, I guess. Indians have no reason to climb this high and outlaws are too darned lazy.”
“Grizzly?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. We’re following a game trail. Bears follow it, too. They don’t break any trails they don’t have to, unless it’s berry season. Then they’ll plow through hell itself to get to a ripe thicket.”
Shannon looked around at the mountainside. Spruce, fir, and aspens grew thickly, shutting out much of the view. Ahead, there was a thinning of the forest that signaled the approach to Grizzly Meadow. The meadow with its rim of bushes and willows was the last good browsing for deer. After the meadow, plants grew more and more scarce until there was nothing left but rocky heights rising naked to the windswept sky.
“Have you seen any sign of grizzlies?” Shannon asked uneasily.
“Look on that tree to your right.”
Shannon looked. All she saw was a place well above her head where the evergreen’s thick bark had been scraped off, revealing the lighter wood beneath.
“Do you mean this scar?” she asked.
Whip nodded.
“But it’s at least eight feet off the ground,” she objected.
“Closer to ten.”
“What does that have to do with grizzlies?”
“Silent John didn’t teach you much, did he?”
“No. My learning comes from books he brought—brings me from time to time so I won’t bother him with my chatter.”
“When a male bear marks out his territory,” Whip said, “he rears back on his hind legs and slashes as high up on a tree as he can.”
“Why?”
“An old trapper told me it was to warn off other males. If a wandering male couldn’t measure up to the resident claw marks, he just put on his best behavior and drifted to new territory.”
Shannon looked at the claw marks and tried not to think about the size and power of the grizzly bear that had left its sign so high in the tree.
“From the looks of those marks,” Whip added, “there’s a fair-sized grizzly that stakes his claim here in the summer.”
Instinctively Shannon’s fingers went to the saddle scabbard. The shotgun’s cool stock reassured her. The weapon was loaded, needing only to be cocked before it was ready to fire.
“Don’t worry,” Whip said without looking at Shannon. “It’s early for bears at this altitude.”
“Maybe. After the mule was killed, Silent John told me bears are notional creatures. Like Indians. They do or don’t do according to their own whims. And a female with cubs is pure poison. You see one and you go the other direction. Quick.”
Shannon looked away from the forest and smiled oddly at Whip.
“I think that was the most words Silent John ever spoke to me all at once,” she said. “It was his way of telling me how important the information was.”
The thought that Shannon had been so essentially alone for the past seven years troubled Whip. It made him feel like he was scheming to steal candy from a baby instead of planning to share mutual pleasure with a widow who understood what passed between men and women.
“Don’t worry,” Whip said tightly. “Those claw marks aren’t fresh. Anyway, most of the time bears want nothing to do with men, except to steal food if you’re fool enough to leave some lying around where you’re sleeping.”
Despite his reassuring words, Whip kept checking the back trail, as well as both sides of the vague track that led to the high claim.
As Silent John had warned, bears were notional creatures.
Whip saw nothing for his efforts but the untamed beauty of the country itself. It was a place of jagged stone crowns thrust up to the clean wind, of high green divides, and of quaking aspens whispering among themselves while thunderstorms stalked the skyline on stilts made of lightning.
“Can’t you get more speed out of the mule?” Whip asked after a long time of silence.
“I’ll try.”
“There will be sleet before long.”
“Hail, more than likely,” Shannon said. “Those are mean-looking clouds the wind is pushing toward us.”
She urged Razorback to a quicker pace. The mule didn’t object much. It, too, had smelled the raw edge of ice on the wind.
Once in the meadow, Whip and Shannon went about making camp as quickly as possible. While she picketed her old mule and Whip’s horse, he took the packhorse he had named Crowbait to the south edge of the meadow. There among the trees was a burned ring where Silent John had camped from time to time.
But not recently.
“How did you know this was the most sheltered campsite?” Shannon asked, coming up behind Whip.
“I’ve been here before.”
“When?”
“When I was looking for signs that Silent John was still in the area.”
“And?” she asked tightly, afraid that Whip might have discovered proof of Silent John’s death.
“No new sign. Not then. Not now. Near as I could tell, no one has been here but me, and I left damn few tracks.”
“Did you get up to Rifle Sight?”
“Yes.”
Shannon’s eyes widened. “Was there any sign of Silent John?”
“Nothing fresh. A broken pickax. A tin can filled with paraffin and sporting a tail of rag for a wick. The rag hadn’t been burned at all. The charcoal had been scattered by wind. There were signs of avalanche and a rock slide old enough to have wildflowers growing in the cracks.”
Shannon swallowed and tried very hard not to think of Silent John buried beneath the rubble.
“What about the Chute?” Shannon asked.
“If it’s over that ridge and off a bit to the north—” Whip began, pointing.
“It is.”
“—then it’s still buried in snow. Anyone there is buried, too. There are a few other places someone has been digging, but they’re up the north fork and don’t show any signs of recent—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Shannon interrupted.
“That I was looking for Silent John?”
Shannon nodded curtly.
“You weren’t talking to me then,” Whip said, his voice dry.
“Then why were you looking?”
“Because I don’t hold with adultery.”
The blunt words weren’t what Shannon had expected. She didn’t think of herself and Silent John in those terms, because it hadn’t been a real marriage.
Whip turned and faced Shannon fully. He looked very large to her with his broad sh
oulders and heavy wool coat and his collar lifted to turn the wind. But it was his eyes that held her. His eyes were as untamed as the sky.
“More than once in those first few days,” Whip said, “I tried to ride off and keep on riding. But I wanted you too much to keep my hands in my pockets.”
“You’ve done a fine job of overcoming that,” Shannon said ironically. “I’m proud of you.”
“You’re proud, period.” Whip smiled a slow, off-center smile. “I like that, Shannon. Gives you sass and vinegar to go with all the honey and cream.”
Abruptly Shannon turned her back and found something to do. She was no longer able to meet the sensual knowledge in Whip’s eyes without putting her arms around his neck and begging for a kiss that would never end.
Not until camp was secure and a cold supper had been eaten did Shannon say anything to Whip again. She hadn’t meant to speak at all, but lightning struck and thunder pounded and then hail started hammering down.
Quickly Whip pulled Shannon beneath the tarpaulin he had drawn over himself when he realized how fast and furious the storm would be. With a few deft, powerful motions, he seated Shannon between his drawn-up knees with her back to his chest.
“Pull your knees up or else your feet will get hammered,” Whip said.
Shannon was drawing up her knees even before Whip spoke. Beneath the canvas it was like a sheltered golden dusk, except for the times when the wind tugged some of the tarpaulin out of Whip’s fingers or lightning burned so brightly that it turned the world white for a few instants.
“Hang on to this,” Whip said.
With her right hand, Shannon grabbed the corner of cold, stiff canvas he was holding out to her.
“And this,” he said.
The fingers of her left hand closed around the second bunch of tarpaulin Whip gave her.
“Got them?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. Whatever you do, don’t let go, or we’ll get the coldest bath you’ve ever taken.”
Shannon nodded.
The motion knocked her hat askew. Instinctively she reached up to right the hat. A blast of ice-tipped air swept beneath the tarpaulin. Quickly she dragged her hand—and the cloth—back into place on the ground.