“Damnation,” Shannon said beneath her breath.
She opened the door, grabbed Prettyface’s muzzle with both hands, and clamped down.
“You can come with me, but you have to be quiet.”
Prettyface quivered eagerly. And quietly. He knew the hunting ritual too well to make noise now that he was going to be included.
Silently Shannon and the big dog set out in the darkness. She knew that Whip could follow her tracks as easily as she hoped to find and follow deer, but it was several hours until daybreak.
In any case, Whip was going to be waiting around for his brother to show up, not looking for Shannon. Whip had made it savagely clear that he had no desire for more of her company.
With luck, Whip wouldn’t even come to her cabin. Then he wouldn’t even notice she was gone.
* * *
THE sound of a shotgun being triggered woke Whip up. He lay beneath the tarpaulin and a layer of fresh snow and listened intently. Another shot came, sounding the same as the first.
One man. One shotgun.
No answering fire.
A hunter, probably, taking advantage of the tracking snow.
Whip lay half awake, half asleep, feeling worn out and used up, as though he had spent the night in hell rather than in a comfortable bedroll while snow fell softly, making another warm blanket for him to lie beneath. Through slitted eyes, he measured the peach-colored light in the eastern sky. True daybreak was two hours away, for the sun had to climb over some tall peaks before its brilliant rays could fall directly on Echo Basin.
A third shot came echoing through the cold air, quickly followed by another.
Whip smiled thinly.
Must be a miner. No other kind of hunter would take four shots to bring down a deer. Sounded like he was using both barrels, too.
No sooner had the thought come than Whip sat bolt upright in his bedroll, scattering snow in all directions.
She wouldn’t!
But Whip knew that Shannon would. He had never met a girl more stubborn.
Whip crammed his feet into cold boots, adjusted his bullwhip on his shoulder, grabbed his rifle, and ran to the stony outcropping that overlooked the clearing.
There was no smoke coming from the cabin.
She could be asleep.
Then Whip saw the tracks leading away from the cabin. He began swearing under his breath.
A very short time later, Sugarfoot was saddled, bridled, and crow-hopping his way across the clearing. It was the horse’s way of letting Whip know how much it resented a cold blanket and a colder saddle.
Whip rode out his mount’s tantrum without really noticing it. He was still consumed by the knowledge that Shannon was out prowling the gray, icy predawn, hunting her next meal as though she had no other choice but to fend for herself.
Does she think I’m such a bastard that I won’t hunt a winter’s worth of game for her before I leave? Is that why she’s walking around in worn-out boots and clothing that’s fit only to be made into a rag rug?
The answer lay in the tracks showing starkly against the gleaming silver snow. Shannon obviously believed she had to hunt for her own winter supplies.
A harsh wind keened down from the peaks, stirred up by the rising sun. Whip shivered and swore and pulled the collar of his jacket higher against the icy fingers of wind.
She must be cold.
The thought only increased Whip’s anger.
Why didn’t she wait for me to hunt for her? I’m not so much a bastard that I wouldn’t help her out. She must know that by now.
Christ, other men would have taken what she offered and never looked back when they left.
But Shannon hadn’t offered herself to other men. Only to Whip.
And he had turned her down flat.
Remembering Shannon’s pain and humiliation, Whip suddenly knew why Shannon was out hunting in the icy morning alone. She wouldn’t take food from his hand if she was starving to death.
Grimly Whip followed the tracks, making the best speed that the land allowed—certainly much better speed than Shannon had made, for she was on foot.
She at least could have ridden one of the damned racing mules. They’re hers, after all. Sure as hell the Culpeppers don’t need them anymore, and Razorback will be lucky to make it through the winter.
Whip knew that Silent John’s old mule wasn’t the only creature that would be lucky to survive the coming winter. The thought of Shannon struggling against hunger and cold was like a splinter jammed deeply under Whip’s thumbnail, aching with each heartbeat, painful no matter what was done to ease it.
She’s too damned poor to be so proud. There would have been no shame for her in accepting a place with Cal and Willy. It’s honest work. And they liked her.
But Whip didn’t fool himself about his chances of getting Shannon to be practical and take the job with Caleb and Willow. After what Whip had said to Shannon yesterday, she wouldn’t go anywhere near relatives of his.
It’s for her own good. Surely she can see that. If only I had put it more gently….
Just how many gentle ways are there to tell a girl not to touch you, especially when you would move heaven and earth and take on hell just to be touched by her?
The thought of being caressed by Shannon’s warm and loving hands made Whip shift uncomfortably in the saddle. His own swift, pulsing arousal made him angry with himself, with her, with everything. He had never been this vulnerable to a woman in his entire life.
He didn’t like it one damned bit.
Hurry up, Reno. Find the gold that will free Shannon from this place.
And me.
The tracks Whip was following veered abruptly. As soon as he looked up, he understood why. Off to the right was a small clearing. Through the screen of trees he could see that deer tracks circled the clearing partway and then dashed across the fresh snow in the center as though the deer had been startled into flight.
Whip reined Sugarfoot over to the edge of the clearing and confirmed what he had already guessed. Several deer had been browsing along the margin of forest and meadow. The wind must have been on Shannon’s side, because she got within one hundred feet of them before they discovered her.
There was an area of trampled snow where Shannon had stood. Spent shotgun shells lay where they had been pulled out of the chambers and dropped as she reloaded.
A closer examination of the deer tracks gave a picture of animals eating shrubs one minute and running flat out the next. There was no sign of blood in the tracks.
Must have been a clean miss, Whip thought.
The rest of the tracks made it clear that Shannon and Prettyface were in hard pursuit of their quarry. The deep, skidding impressions in the snow told of a girl running recklessly across the meadow and into the forest, leaping small obstacles and scrambling over larger ones. The tracks of a large canine ran alongside Shannon’s. The raggedness of the dog’s stride told Whip that Prettyface was favoring his wounded haunch.
Abruptly Whip flung his head up toward the peak looming above and listened with every sense in his body.
He heard only silence.
Uneasiness blossomed darkly in him. He had a clear, uncanny certainty that Shannon had just called his name.
He listened again with an intensity that made him ache. Nothing came to him but the increased wailing of the wind.
Grimly Whip forced his attention back to the tracks in the snow.
Shannon never should have taken Prettyface along. What was she thinking of? he asked himself bitterly.
Hell, if she was thinking at all, she never would have left the cabin.
But Whip was too late to do anything about that, just as he had been too late to prevent Shannon from setting off into the frigid morning in search of food he could have—and would have—hunted for her.
A tracking snow might be pretty as the devil’s smile, but like the devil, it hides a lot of mischief.
The tracks led across a boulder-strewn creek
where snow hid broken branches and logs slick with snow and water. Sugarfoot was a fine trail horse, but he had to pick his way with care.
Suddenly, spots of blood gleamed brightly among the tracks. The spots dogged one deer’s tracks, sticking with them no matter what the terrain or where the other deer veered off to find cover.
Shannon didn’t miss after all. Not completely.
When Whip saw clear signs that Shannon had slipped and fallen, his temper mounted. A bleak, unspeakable anxiety was pressing against his guts, chilling him.
He kept hearing Shannon calling his name with an urgency that was making him wild.
Yet he knew that the only sound in the landscape was that of the keening, ice-tipped wind.
The little fool. She could break an ankle running like that. A wounded deer can go for miles or days, depending on the wound. If she keeps running she’ll sweat and when she stops running the sweat will freeze.
Whip didn’t want to think about what would happen after that. He had found more than one man dead of cold or wandering around with no more brains than a bucket of sand, too numbed by cold even to think.
The reckless trail went on, crossing and recrossing the creek as the deer bounded ahead. The signs of blood became more pronounced and frequent. One deer was tiring, struggling to keep up with its companions.
The ravine gouged out by the creek became steeper and the way got more rough. Even the deer that weren’t wounded had a hard time of it. Despite having four agile feet apiece, there were signs that the animals slipped on the rough, snowy terrain almost as often as Shannon and Prettyface did.
Abruptly Shannon’s tracks shortened from a full running stride to a complete halt. Spent shotgun shells poked up from the snow, telling their own story.
Whip stood in the stirrups and looked around. He quickly sported the remains of the deer. Shannon had dressed it out with an efficiency that told Whip this part of hunting wasn’t new to her. What meat she couldn’t carry, she had strung up on a rope over a high branch, keeping the venison beyond the reach of other predators.
Well, Silent John was good for something, I guess. The hide itself won’t be worth much from all the buckshot holes, and a man will have to be real careful not to crack a tooth on stray chunks of lead, but the meat will fill an empty belly just fine.
Shannon’s tracks aimed toward a notch just ahead, a side ravine that snaked up and over the shoulder of the mountain. Whip’s past explorations told him that the notch would open out into a steep forested slope about half a mile from the cabin. Except for having to cross a fork of Avalanche Creek several times getting through the notch, the trail was a handy shortcut back to the cabin for someone on foot.
Whip wasn’t on foot.
For a moment he was tempted to push as far up the notch as he could on horseback, just to ease the clammy fear in his gut that something had happened to Shannon.
Don’t be a bigger fool than you already are, Whip advised himself harshly. The trail ahead is no worse than the one behind. There’s no point making Sugarfoot walk in ice water and take a chance of breaking a leg on those damned slippery rocks just to see Shannon’s tracks heading up and out of the notch.
Yet Whip wanted very much to do just that. The uneasiness that had begun shortly after he started tracking Shannon had grown into flat-out fear.
Common sense told Whip that Shannon was all right.
Instinct whispered a different message, her voice calling wildly to him in the silence.
Abruptly Whip reined Sugarfoot around and headed back down the ravine. Although he was savagely uneasy, he didn’t hurry the big gelding as it picked its way over the uneven ground. He kept reminding himself that by the time he reached the cabin, Shannon would already be safe inside. There would be a cheerful fire and mint-scented water to wash in and fresh biscuits baking.
But not for Whip.
The thought did nothing to shorten the two miles back to the cabin.
When Whip arrived, there was no smoke coming from the chimney, no scent of biscuits baking—and no tracks coming in from the direction of the notch. The uneasiness that had been riding Whip exploded into raw fear. He spun Sugarfoot around and examined the sparse, windswept forest where Shannon would have descended from the notch to the cabin.
Nothing was moving.
Whip yanked open the buckle on his saddlebags and pulled out a telescoping spyglass. He snapped it out to full length and held it up to his eye. Between spaces in the trees, snow gleamed whitely in the growing light.
Not a single track marred the perfect snow.
17
WHIP was nearly all the way to the notch itself before he found Shannon. She was in ice water up above her knees, pushing hard on a branch stuck between boulders in the creek.
Suddenly there was a dry, cracking sound. The branch splintered and Shannon fell headlong into the small pool of water.
Only then did Whip see what was wrong. Prettyface had slipped while scrambling across the stony creek. Somehow the dog had managed to wedge a hind foot between two boulders. The boulders were too heavy for Shannon to shift aside even an inch.
From the looks of the broken branches thrown beyond the creek, she hadn’t had much luck finding a sturdy lever to help her free Prettyface.
When Sugarfoot came to a plunging, snow-scattering stop near the stream, Shannon was pulling herself upright. Her motions were clumsy, as though she had little feeling in her hands and feet.
Whip dismounted in a rush.
“Get out of there before you freeze to death,” he ordered curtly.
If Shannon heard Whip above the chatter and splash of the icy creek, she didn’t respond. She simply picked up the longest of the discarded branches, jammed one end beneath the smaller boulder, and heaved upward with all her strength.
The branch broke.
Only Whip’s quickness saved Shannon from another ice water bath. He grabbed her, lifted her high, and dumped her into Sugarfoot’s saddle. With swift motions he peeled off his jacket and stuffed her into it.
“Stay right here,” Whip commanded. “Do you hear me, you little fool? Stay put.”
“Pre-Pretty—”
“I’ll get him out, but so help me God, if you move from that saddle I’m going to take you to the cabin and tie you to the bed before I help Prettyface. Hear me?”
Dazed by cold and fear for her dog, Shannon nodded jerkily. When Whip took her hands and wrapped them around the saddle horn, she hung on instinctively. He looked at her for a searching instant before he turned abruptly toward the dog who was standing three-legged in the rushing creek.
“Well, Prettyface,” Whip said as he waded into the frigid meltwater, “you’ve landed yourself in a mighty cold kettle of fish.”
The big dog waved his tale in greeting and watched Whip with clear wolfs eyes. Except for his legs, Prettyface was dry. If the dog was cold, he didn’t show it. He wasn’t even shivering.
Whip bent and ran his hands lightly over as much of the captive leg as he could reach. There were no swellings and only a few scraped places.
“You’re better off than your mistress, aren’t you?” Whip muttered. “Now all we have to do is get your foot out without banging it up any worse than it already is.”
Whip rubbed the dog’s head affectionately as he talked, but there was no gentleness in Whip’s silver eyes as he measured the problem. He pushed against one of the boulders, then another, testing them.
Heavy, damned heavy, but not impossible, Whip told himself.
Prettyface whined softly as Whip tested the boulders again, trying to decide which might be easiest to lift.
“All right, boy. I hear you. I won’t pinch you again.”
Whip gathered up several of the broken branches and jammed them between the boulders as far down as he could on either side of the dog’s captive paw. Then he picked up a water-rounded stone and hammered the branches down between the boulders until the heavy sticks would go no farther.
“That
should keep the boulders off your paw,” Whip said. “Now hang on tight, Prettyface. There’s going to be some shoving and swearing.”
With that Whip squatted, plunged his hands into the ice water, and groped around the base of the boulder he had chosen. There was a lot of gravel and smaller stones. He began raking the rubble away from the bottom of the boulder until he could get a better grip on it. He worked quickly, for he knew his hands would soon go numb from the icy water.
“We’re in luck,” Whip said, wrapping his arms around the boulder and straining upward. “There’s a nice little ridge—near the bottom—to hang—on to.”
The words were spoken through Whip’s teeth as he straightened slowly, driving his body upward with his powerful legs while he gripped the base of the boulder. Stone gnashed over stone. Whip’s feet slipped slightly, icy water sluiced over him, but he didn’t let go.
Despite the freezing water, sweat stood on Whip’s face. The pulse in his neck beat hard. His eyes were slitted and his teeth were clenched with effort as he poured his strength into shifting the heavy boulder enough to free Shannon’s dog.
Suddenly Prettyface jerked aside and scrambled out of the creek with a happy yip.
Whip let go of the boulder and straightened, breathing hard and smiling widely. Prettyface was favoring the foot that had been caught, but otherwise was moving well.
“Go home, boy,” Whip said, gesturing down the slope.
The big dog looked toward Shannon, who was slumped in Sugarfoot’s saddle.
“Home,” Whip commanded, wading out of the icy creek.
Prettyface turned and trotted unevenly down the slope toward the cabin.
Whip went to Shannon. He took one look at her dazed eyes and blue lips, and knew that only will-power was keeping her from succumbing to the cold.
Yet she was trying to dismount.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” Whip demanded. “I told you to stay put.”
Shannon tried to speak but her lips were too cold. She pointed with a hand that shook.
For the first time Whip noticed the ragged back-pack and the haunch of venison that had been thrown aside in Shannon’s rush to rescue Prettyface.