Willow hauled hard on the reins, spinning Ishmael around so tightly that great chunks of earth flew from beneath his hooves. There was no time for thought, no time for planning, nothing but the knowledge that Caleb was afoot in a place where to be afoot was to die. She bent low over Ishmael’s lathered neck and sent him back down the trail to Caleb, asking the stallion for everything he had. As the Arabian swept past the log, Willow called out to Caleb.

«Get on behind me!»

Rifle in his right hand, Caleb came up off the ground like a mountain cat. As Ishmael surged past, Caleb grabbed the saddle horn with his free hand and leaped on behind Willow. Despite the much greater burden, the stallion hit his full pace within three long strides.

Willow expected bullets to shower around them, but nothing came except adrumroll of hooves as Ishmael raced past the confused mares, sweeping them up in his wake. Trey appeared alongside, running hard. When Caleb looked back, Deuce was on his feet again and running raggedly after his trail mate.

A rifle went off very close, making Willow cringe in the instant before she realized it was Caleb firing.

«Cut right!» he yelled.

Instantly, Willow reined the stallion hard to the right. No sooner had the horse set off on the new course than shots sizzled past, kicking up dirt where Ishmael would have been had he not been turned aside.

«Get to the top of that rise before they can reload!» shouted Caleb.

Bending low over Ishmael’s lathered neck, Willow called to her straining stallion. He answered with a burst of speed despite the steepness of the way and the weight of two riders.

«I’ll drop off at the top in the boulders,» Caleb said. «Take the horses on into the trees. Hear me?»

«Yes,» she said loudly.

«Just another hundred yards,» Caleb said under his breath, looking at a clump of boulders that marked the end of the rise. «Run, you red demon.»

Ishmael’s steel-shod hooves dug into the slope, tearing out clots of earth as the stallion attacked the steep mountainside. By the time Ishmael surged over the top, the horse’s breath was coming in labored groans.

Caleb dropped off and landed running, rifle in hand. He took cover among the boulders as a bullet whined off granite four feet away. Three more shots were fired, but none of the slugs came close enough for Caleb to hear where they hit.

«Too eager, boys,» he muttered. «You have to take your time and aim. Especially when all you have are single-shot rifles.»

Following his own advice, Caleb chose his target carefully from among the seven that were offered. An instant after he squeezed the trigger, he was rewarded by a scream of surprise and pain from down the slope as aComanchero threw up his hands and fell from his horse. The other six scattered to either side, seeking cover in the meadow. Caleb stood up and fired shot after shot, knowing he would never have a better chance of shortening the odds.

But the range was five hundred yards and increasing with every second. In the end Caleb managed to hit only two more men before he had to take cover again himself. As he dropped behind the boulders he mentally counted the bullets left in the rifle. Five. He would have to let the remainingComancheros get in damned close and then finish them off with the pistol. At least he could reload that weapon with bullets from his belt. And when he ran out of bullets for the six-gun, there was always his knife.

Caleb smiled sourly at his own thoughts. The raiders were greedy and over-eager, but not totally stupid. They wouldn’t make things easy for him. Either they would wait until dark and rush him, or they would spread out and come in from all sides at once. They might easily have reinforcements on the way. Numbers, time, and geography were on the raiders’ side. They had taken cover smack across the route to the only pass around.

Deuce’s ringing whinny came up the slope and was answered by Trey. Like the Arabians, the Montana horses had been raised together. They would stick close to each other if they could. Trotting raggedly, Deuce struggled up the slope despite the bullet wound gleamingredly across his chest.

Caleb thought longingly of the extra ammunition tucked into the saddlebags that Deuce carried. He considered making an attempt to get into them, but discarded the idea. If he whistled the horse over, the raiders would guess he was going after more ammunition or weapons and would shoot Deuce dead before the horse got close. If he tried to get to Deuce, Caleb would be shot dead. The horse was a hundred yards wide of the boulders and there was nothing but grass for cover in between.

Caleb watched Deuce vanish into the trees, then turned his attention back to the raiders. Nothing was moving. The men had gone to ground in whatever cover they could find. Methodically, Caleb began checking the field of fire on all sides, sighting on possible bits of cover and gauging the range.

When Deuce limped up to his trail mate, Willow grabbed the reins and spoke soothingly to the frightened animal. As soon as Deuce would allow it, she unfastened the saddlebags, knowing that was where Caleb kept his spare ammunition. She wanted to loosen the cinch to ease Deuce’s breathing, but was afraid to. They might have to mount up and ride with no warning.

Deuce was too edgy to allow Willow close to his chest, but she saw enough. The wound was shallow, as much a burn as a gouge. It was the swelling on the horse’s left foreleg that spelled trouble. She doubted that Deuce would be able to carry a rider at all, much less one of Caleb’s size.

Nor could the mares carry Caleb. Not right away. They were still breathing hard, trembling, all but run into the ground. Ishmael was hard used. So was Trey, but of them all, Trey was in the best shape.

Don’t think about the horses, Willow told herselfgrimly. Youcan’t do anything for them now. What you can do is get these cartridges to Caleb.

As Willow dug quickly through the heavy saddlebags, she found five boxes of ammunition. Two contained shotgun shells. Three contained cartridges, but one of the boxes had a different size of ammunition than the other two. She didn’t know which would go with the rifle and which with Caleb’s pistol. There was also the spyglass, a compass, and other miscellaneous personal items.

In the end Willow decided to take everything, not knowing what might be useful to Caleb. She grabbed the saddlebags, dragged them into place on her shoulder, picked up the shotgun, and walked cautiously to the edge of the trees. Caleb was a hundred feet away from her at almost the same elevation, separated from her by a low runoff channel. The distance was too great for her to throw a box of ammunition, much less the saddlebags. But if she crawled and was quick about it, she shouldn’t be visible from below for more than a few seconds.

«Caleb,» Willow called softly, «I’m coming in behind you.»

He spun around, ready to tell her to do no such fool thing.

It was too late. She was on her hands and knees already, crawling toward him with no more cover around her than the low ditch could provide.

Swiftly, Caleb turned back and began firing at places where raiders had gone to ground, hoping to pin them down while Willow crossed the trough. Realizing what he was doing, Willow scrambled to her feet and raced toward the rocks. Just as she threw herself down beside Caleb, bullets began whining off the nearby boulders.

«You little fool!» Caleb said savagely. «You could have been killed!»

«I —» The need to breathe shut off Willow’s words. Panting from a mixture of altitude, exertion, and fear, she fought for oxygen.

Caleb took the short-barrelledshotgun from Willow’s hands, pointed itdownslope, and waited for movement. When it came, he let go with both barrels. He didn’t expect to kill anyone at that range, but he sure could raise welts on their hides withdoubleaught buckshot. At the very least, theComancheros wouldn’t stick their heads up for a minute or two.

When Caleb reached into the saddlebag for more shotgun shells, the correct box was thrust into his hands. He reloaded quickly, fired, reloaded, and glanced back to see how Willow was doing. She had two other boxes of ammunition out and opened, ready to be used, and was puzzling over how to reload his rifle. Though she tried to conceal it from him, her hands trembled when she wasn’t actually using them.

«I’ll do that,» Caleb said. «Take the shotgun and sit with your back to me. If you see anyone sneaking up, don’t waste time telling me about it. Just shoot.»

Willow nodded and took the shotgun, relieved to have something to do with her hands. She sat cross-legged and looked from side to side, hoping she wouldn’t see a man creeping up on them.

They aren’t men. They’re coyotes jumping around on their crooked hind legs.

Silently, Willow repeated Caleb’s grim reassurance and watched for movement. At the back of her mind she counted the shells Caleb was loading into his rifle with a speed that spoke of great familiarity.

«Youarea one-man army,» she said finally.

«You’re not half as surprised as those raiders were,» Caleb said, smiling wolfishly. «They were sure they had me after I fired that one lone shot. It won’t last, though. Sooner or later they’ll find someone to sell them repeating rifles. Then the civilized folks will be in a hell of a mess.»

Rifle fully loaded once more, Caleb shifted position until he could peer through a notch between two boulders. The raiders’ wiry, ugly little ponies were scattered across the meadow, feeding eagerly, indifferent to the booming of guns around them.

«How bad is Deuce?» Caleb asked.

«He’s burned across the chest. His left foreleg is swelling, probably strained when he fell. I don’t think he’ll be able to take a rider very far.»

«You’d be surprised, honey. Is he bleeding much?»

«No.»

«Any other horses hurt?»

«The mares are done,» Willow said, trying to keep her voice as unemotional as Caleb’s. «They’ll follow as long as they can, but —»

A big hand squeezed Willow’s shoulder gently. «What about Ishmael?»

«He’s tired, but still strong enough to take me anywhere I tell him to go.» «That’s one game stud,» Caleb said admiringly. «Makes me understand why Wolfe is so set on mustangs.»

«What do you mean?»

«Mustangs are descended from the Spanish horses, which came from Arabian stock. Don’t judge all mustangs by those ponies out there. They’re as mongrel as their riders. Tough, though. Damned tough. Give them a hatful of hay and less water and they’ll go a hundred miles a day for weeks at a time.»

While Caleb spoke, he reached into one of the saddlebags and came out with the spyglass. Methodically, he began covering the ground in front of him, quartering from side to side. The glass brought up each blade of grass, each shift from sun to shade, each suspicious bit of color or movement. Caleb looked up from the glass, then through it, mentally marking the spot of every raider the spyglass picked out.

The glass confirmed what Caleb had already suspected. TheComancheros were scattered out in such a way that there was little or no chance of sneaking through them to the pass trail — especially with seven tired horses.

Caleb turned and began studying the land behind him through the spyglass, seeking anything that looked like a possible route out or enemies sneaking up. He saw nothing human moving, even after several very careful sweeps. Yet something kept nagging at his mind, something about the shape of the land itself.

«Dad’s journal,» he whispered suddenly.

«What?»

«Switch places with me.»

Willow scrambled around Caleb.

«If something starts movingdownslope, shoot,» he said.

While Willow kept an eye on the raiders, Caleb pulled his father’s journal out of the saddlebags and flipped through the pages quickly. He studied first one page, then a second, then the first again, flipping back and forth and checking the peaks rising behind the boulders.

«There’s another pass,» Caleb said in a low voice, reading quickly. «It’s a righteous bastard, eleven thousand feet and then some, but it can be climbed by a horse.»

«Do theComancheros know about it?»

«Doubt it. According to Dad, no one had used the route for a long time when he saw it. It’s from the time before Indians had horses, when going twenty miles out of the way for an easier pass meant losing a lot of travel time.»

The silence was destroyed by a single shot that whined off the rocks shielding them. Despite herself, Willow flinched and made a low sound.