Deep Trouble (19 page)

“I don’t have a job. I have money from my family, enough to live on.”

Tyra’s opinion of him sank to the sandy desert floor. “Doesn’t that get boring? I mean, what passes your day when you wake up in the morning? Surely you don’t just sit around the house all day, waiting for bedtime.”

“No, I keep busy with… things.”

“And Shannon, too? Does she have so much money she doesn’t need to work or get married to get by?”

“If anything, Shannon’s family is wealthier than mine. Of course she doesn’t have a job, and she doesn’t need a husband to support her.”

Tyra was unable to stop a snort of disdain. “Well, no wonder she’s running around out here in the wilderness. She was probably half crazy from all that time hanging heavy on her hands.”

Buck was silent for a while. Finally he said, “You know, you might be right. Honestly, in some ways, that’s how I ended up here, too.”

“And you said your family money came at least partly from a fur trader?”

Buck nodded. “Since I’ve headed west, I’ve enjoyed thinking I can feel a bit of Henri Chatillon’s blood in my veins. We talk a lot about heritage, our roots, how important our families are.”

“You and Shannon?”

“No, well, some I guess, but more my parents, my mother, and her friends. I think since I’ve been out here, away from that talk, I’ve started to realize I want more for myself than rich, powerful
ancestors
. I think there is a little Henri Chatillon in me.”

Tyra shook her head. “Never heard of the guy.”

“He was a fur trapper.”

“So you said.” Tyra nodded. “Out here?”

“In the Rockies. I think he traveled all over. Don’t think I’ve ever heard of where exactly he trapped. Just the Rocky Mountains.”

“That covers a lot of territory. The tail end of the Rockies reaches all the way south to Mexico. Though some folks say different names for the mountains, different ranges, to me it all seems part and parcel of the same big old bunch of mountains. We could be riding straight along your grandpa’s trail right now.”

“He’s not my grandfather. He’s more distant than that, a cousin a few generations back. But he’s part of me.” Buck sat more erect in the saddle. Tyra heard a ring of iron in his voice that hadn’t been there before.

“Tell me about him. The name isn’t familiar, but maybe some of the stories will be good’uns.”

Buck told a winding story about his mountain man kin. She thought, from his tone of affection, maybe there
was
some of the guy’s blood flowing in the city boy’s veins. The city boy with so much money he thought the word
job
was some foreign language.

S
hannon’s day started out with dreamlike beauty and ended up being a nightmare.

Yesterday when she’d set eyes on the canyon, she’d been awestruck. Plain and simple. Every word she said was faint praise, every thought, ever flight of poetic language, all so pale and insufficient.

She would have told anyone in the world that she could never stare long enough, never get close enough to the beauty.

One day later, she was heartily sick of it.

They were riding along the east wall so they had shade until about noon, though the heat was stifling. She’d ridden in a daze of confused pleasure after Gabe’s warm kisses and quiet strength. The lure of him was wonderful, added to the surrounding beauty, and yes, Shannon’s morning had been a walk in paradise.

Then the sun rose high enough to slip over the canyon rim, and the whole world became an oven that burned every ounce of poetry and romance clean out of her heart, mind, and soul.

The trail they’d set out on this morning had nowhere to stop, nowhere to rest, nowhere to graze the horses or refill canteens. Shannon sipped carefully, drinking only enough of the tepid, sulfuric-scented water to wet her throat.

The horses’ hooves ground steadily against rock until it was sand scraping on Shannon’s ears. The group ate jerked meat, and there was plenty, so they wouldn’t starve. So great, they’d live a long, miserable life unless the oven managed to cook them to death.

Water was nowhere to be found though. With no end to this trail, she worried about having enough to keep the horses going.

They were virtually crawling along the canyon wall. A layer of rock, barely wide enough for the horses, formed a terrace that stretched ahead of them as far as they could see—which wasn’t far. The vista out into the canyon was undeniably spectacular. The striped colonnades glowed red and white and blue. But the view didn’t give them a respite from the heat nor a drink of water. The terrace followed the rattlesnake curves of the canyon. They jutted out then curved in. They climbed in places then dropped.

And if that had been the only problem, she might have been fine. But every few hundred yards or so the trail was cut by talus slides, a crumbled stretch that reminded Shannon of the way those ledges at the cliff dwellings had broken off under her feet. The sure-footed horses picked their way across slopes Shannon would never have attempted.

Her throat went dry every time they had to face another obstacle, which made the water shortage even more punishing.

There was no talk. They were strung out too far to make that practical, though occasionally Hozho, in the lead, would shout a warning or instructions as she neared another death-defying spot. Hosteen followed her. Then Shannon. The parson came next, and Shannon could hear the steady grumbling the man did at his horse. Gabe brought up the rear.

Hozho and Hosteen were calm. They moved as if they were part of this land, as if they needed no water, felt no heat. They left the work to their animals and never shifted or wiped at sweating brows. It gave Shannon a notion of how differently they’d lived, how much a part of this hard land they and their people were.

Shannon pulled her map out often, more to distract herself from the thirst, the burning of the sun, and her fear. But as the day wore on and the heat baked into her bones, she grew dull and stupid and quit caring what lay ahead. She’d been following all day; she’d continue to follow. It took no effort on her part.

Studying her map for what had to be the tenth time, inspired more by boredom than need, she barely noticed when her horse suddenly stepped onto a talus slide, already crossed by two horses.

The rocks gave. She wasn’t even holding the reins.

The horse slid, screamed in fear, and then leaped forward. Shannon tumbled backward, and the pinto left her behind.

She landed hard. The terrible drop she knew lay below her drove her to claw and scramble. A scream hurt her ears. She only distantly realized it was her own.

Fighting to hang on, the rocks skittered away. A stone slammed into her face. She slid, belly down. Dug in with her toes and knees. An agonizing jerk on her arm stopped her. With a sickening swoop, she seemed to take flight.

Then she landed with a dull thud flat on her back. Swinging her hands, hunting for something to grab hold of, the pain felt like a knife rammed to the hilt in her shoulder.

She was no longer falling. She was stabbed, pinned like a bug to the canyon wall, her back and arm in agony.

Blinking, it took a second for her vision to clear. She could see Gabe kneeling beside her. The parson was past Gabe’s shoulder holding the reins of two horses.

“She’s all right,” Gabe yelled.

Craning her neck, Shannon saw the Tsosis across the treacherous trail with her horse firmly in hand. When she moved her head, the whole left side of her body caught fire. She instantly stopped moving.

The pinto had made it across the slide without a scratch. She was tempted to side with the parson in his constant grumbling about horses.

“What happened?” Her voice grated, her words were slurred. The fall was only dizzying, vague images distorted by terror and pain. How had she kept from plunging to the bottom of that cliff?

Gabe reached for her, touched her gently on the forehead, and pulled his hand back.

She saw blood.

“You fell.”

“Off the cliff?” Shannon thought of the wicked ledge they’d been on. “How… how am I still alive? How am I up here with you?”

“You didn’t fall to the bottom. You just fell off your horse, and before you went over, or just as you did, I lassoed you.”

“Around my tough belly again?” He’d saved her twice now. Him and his trusty rope. Tears burned in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. Being dehydrated no doubt helped.

Gabe smiled. “I got an arm this time.”

Following the line of his gaze, she saw that he was loosening a noose around her wrist. And then the pain came fully alive. Shannon’s vision twisted. “My arm. I—I think it’s broken.”

Gabe quit moving the rope. “It must have been too much. I yanked so hard.” His eyes, black with regret, suddenly turned calm and steady. She remembered he’d been in the cavalry. He was a strong man who’d faced trouble many times.

That steadiness helped her to stave off panic at the thought of a broken arm, so far from medical help.

Gabe looked across the talus slope. “Can you get back across here, Hozho? Her arm may be broken. You’ve done some doctoring, right?”

Shannon wasn’t sure how Gabe knew that. Then she thought of that trail. “No! They can’t come across that slide. They can’t!” Shannon gritted her teeth to turn, wave Hozho back, only to find the elderly woman already at her side.

“No need to fret,
ah-tad
. I’ll set the bone.” Hozho knelt beside Shannon on her left.

“S–set the bone? Doctors set bones.” Shannon had never had a broken bone, but she’d been to the doctor a few times. Her mother was related to one of the most respected doctors in St. Louis.

Gabe was on his knees on her right. Shannon saw the parson, his lips moving as if in prayer, his eyes solemn, standing behind Gabe.

“We think there is a way to lower ground ahead.” Hozho brushed Shannon’s hair back off her forehead. “Hosteen will take the horses and find grass for them, then come back.”

“We can’t cross that.”

“Shhh, ah-tad.”

“I don’t know why I brought you all here. Why did I think this was important?”

“Hold here.” Hozho spoke with little more than a grunt to Gabe. She rested steady hands on Shannon then pulled away and let Gabe’s hands replace hers.

“Hold where?” Shannon asked.

Gabe was suddenly all she could see. His face filled her vision, her world. She saw terrible regret in his eyes.

Hozho’s fingers moved expertly, straightening Shannon’s elbow.

White-hot pain arched Shannon’s body until her back came off the ground.

Before she could get up, run, scream, Gabe had her firmly back on the rocky ground. “I’m sorry, Shannon,” Gabe whispered. “It will hurt, but we have to keep you still.”

The traitor wasn’t going to help her escape from Hozho’s torture. Shannon’s jaw firmed, and she did her best to lie still when every impulse she possessed told her to flee.

When the elderly woman touched Shannon’s shoulder, the pain glowed like a fireplace poker. Pinned to the stone ground by Gabe, recoiling from it was beyond Shannon’s control.

“Don’t let her move.”

Gabe’s hands became iron bands. She didn’t fight him; it was too painful.

“Not broken,” Hozho said with grim satisfaction. “Her arm has been pulled out of the shoulder joint. We can fix.”

Hozho pushed Gabe back firmly then was in front of Shannon’s eyes. “It will hurt to push the joint back in place, but I’ve done this before. You will be fine. Much quicker to heal than a broken bone. But it will hurt terribly for just a few seconds.”

Since Shannon was hurting quite terribly right now, that didn’t worry her all that much. She looked into ancient eyes. Hozho seemed full of wisdom.

For the first time, Shannon realized that the elderly woman had been right to try and force Shannon to marry Gabe. She’d been right to insist that such a situation couldn’t be allowed to continue. But Shannon had thought she knew better and found a way out.

Found a way to avoid marrying the nicest man she’d ever met. A man who’d lassoed her twice to save her life.

“Thank you, Hozho.”

“You may not thank me in a few minutes when I’m hurting you. But it has to be done, ah-tad.”

“What is that?” Shannon needed to focus on something besides her arm. “Ah-tad.”

“It means girl.” Hozho took Shannon’s wrist and lifted slowly, steadily.

Every movement caused Shannon’s shoulder more pain. “No, wait. I’m not ready.”

“Look at me, Shannon.”Gabe’s warm voice drew her attention. In that awful heat of the canyon, her arm suffering until she could imagine the torments of the devil, his voice might save her life just as his lariat had.

A deep moan that might have been the wind sweeping between the colonnades and canyons and river, or might have come from her, was the only response.

Then came a brutal attack. Hozho jerked on Shannon’s arm. A dull snap near her left ear, and Shannon’s shoulder went from blazing with pain to merely hurting like mad.

A scream cut through the canyon. That scream, Shannon’s own, echoed back to her over and over, as if the pain had a life of its own and would forever be a part of this majestic, terrible gouge sliced into the belly of the earth.

Call the canyon grand, because it was, certainly. But call it a killer, too.

Shannon opened her eyes to see mercy and guilt on Gabe’s face. Then the world narrowed until she looked through a tunnel, only Gabe’s face, only his eyes, only darkness. The pain in her shoulder followed her into unconsciousness.

It was irrational.

He recognized that. So he controlled it. But Gabe really needed to punch somebody.

Watching Shannon scream and faint from pain while he held her down made him fighting mad.

He looked up at Hozho. No, probably not an elderly woman.

He looked down at Shannon. Well, that was just stupid.

He heard the parson praying quietly over Gabe’s shoulder while he wrestled with his horse. Not right to hit a man of God. Not right at all.

Hosteen was long gone with three of the horses. Not that Hosteen had done a thing wrong.

Gabe had a strange impulse to punch himself in the face. He was the only one left, and he really needed to punch somebody.

In the time it took to rule out the potential victims, he gained control of his furious need to pound his fists into someone’s face.

Then he looked back at Shannon. Her cheek was bleeding, scraped against the rocks as she fell. There were bits of sand embedded there. Her skin was burned red by the sun. Little blisters on her lips told the story of how much that was going to hurt later. Her shoulder was probably going to help distract her from the sunburn. Her hair was snarled, and it looked like it was half full of gravel.

Yep, looking for a city of gold had been a little slice of genius.