Then she sighed and tried another approach.

«Why don’t you just give her some of your own gold from that Spanish mine?» Eve asked. «Lord knows you’ve barely touched it.»

«In her place, would you take it?» Reno asked before Whip could speak.

«No. But I was in love with a man who was a fool for hunting gold.»

«And Shannon,» Reno said, «is in love with a man who is a fool for yon —»

«She doesn’t really love me!» Whip interrupted harshly.

«Is that what she says?» Eve retorted. «Or is it what you hope?»

«She’s never been around anyone but a snake-mean old man hunter, and a tough old hermit called Cherokee, and a bunch of young miners with the manners of rutting elks,» Whip said. «Of course she would think the first man who treats her decently is special.»

«In other words, she loves you,» Eve summarized.

Whip grimaced and said nothing.

«Let’s see if I have this straight,» Eve said blandly. «You don’t love Shannon, but you care about her safety. She doesn’t want to be someone’s hired girl. You don’t want her to live alone in Echo Basin, and you don’t want her marrying anyone, including you. So you’ve decided to find enough gold on her claims to salve your conscience before you take off yondering again. Does that about cover it?»

Whip’s eyelids flinched.

Reno’s breath came out in a low rush of air. «Eve…»

She ignored him.

«If you were a man,» Whip began, his voice uninflected.

«If I were a man you’d be beating the tar out of me,» Eve said. «That’s one of the reasons God made women, so that men would have tothinkas well as fight.»

Whip’s expression said he would rather fight.

Eve stood and went around the table to where Whip sat coiled and struggling within a cage of his own making. She stroked his sun-bright hair, so different from her husband’s.

«I love you, Whip,» Eve said softly. «You and Caleb and Willow and Wolfe and Jessi. You’re the family I always wanted and thought I would never have. Be mad at me if it helps. Because I want to help you. I ache to see you so unhappy.»

Whip closed his eyes. A visible tremor went through him. Then, slowly, his grip on the table loosened. He looked up at Eve and gave her a smile so sad that it brought tears to her eyes.

«You’re like Willy,» Whip said softly. «A handful of sunshine. I can’t stay mad at either of you for more than a few minutes at a time.»

Eve touched Whip’s cheek and smiled in return.

«What do you find in all those foreign places?» she asked softly.

«I don’t think I can put it into words.»

«Will you try?»

Whip raked his fingers through his hair, then ran his fingertips over the soothing coils of the bullwhip on his shoulder. The gesture said much about his restlessness, as did the narrowness of his eyes and the bleak line of his mouth.

«It’s exciting,» Whip said finally.

«What is?» Eve asked. «New land? New languages? New cities? New women?»

Frowning, Whip pulled the long lash off his shoulder and began running the supple coils through his fingers, absently probing for frayed places.

«It’s not the women,» Whip said. «Oh, they’re pretty, all right. Some of them are as exotic as anything you can imagine. But Shannon is a lot prettier to me than any girl I’ve seen across the ocean. It’s not the kind of pretty that wears off, either. She just gets more beautiful every time I look at her.»

Reno’s black eyebrows went up, but he said not one word. Pointing out that Reno felt the same way about Eve would only make Whip’s temper flash.

«The languages are kind of intriguing,» Whip said after a moment. «Chinese is pure hell to get a handle on, but Portuguese isn’t, and their explorers settled some far-flung ports. Between Portuguese and English, I can get by in most places around Asia, so long as I don’t stray too far from the water.

«And Portuguese and Spanish aren’t all that different, once you get the hang of how to pronounce the same words in a different way. I can go anywhere in South America and Mexico….»

Reno waited quietly, watching his brother wrestle with the roots of his own yondering urge.

Eve stood close by, touching Whip’s shoulder from time to time, silently urging him to talk, to loosen the harsh tension that lay just beneath his surface.

«The cities…» Whip began.

Then he stopped and shifted restlessly, running the bullwhip through his fingers the whole time.

«The cities…?» Eve coaxed softly.

Whip’s wrist made a lazy movement. The bullwhip uncoiled across the floor. The lash popped softly.

«It was the cities that lured me, at first,» Whip said. «I couldn’t get enough of them. Strange ways of putting together buildings, exotic faces, new smells and sounds and foods. Some of what I saw was good and some was plain awful, but it all wasdifferent.»

Reno nodded and made an encouraging sound.

Eve waited.

«Funny thing,» Whip said quietly, «but after a time, all that difference ends up feeling pretty much the same to me. I never thought about it until just now.»

The bullwhip stilled, then resumed its whispering movements, popping softly, punctuating Whip’s thoughts.

«As for the land itself,» Whip said slowly, «that’s a big part of it. This old world is plain incredible when it comes to putting rock and water together in new shapes.»

«Yes,» Reno said. «That’s why I came back here. For my money, the Colorado Territory has some of the most extraordinary and curious shapes of land. Not to mention a lot of gold waiting to be found.»

«Do you have your own favorite landscape,» Eve asked Whip, «one you can’t wait to get back to?»

Whip shook his head. «I never go to the same place twice.»

«Then you haven’t found what you’re looking for yet, have you?» Eve asked simply.

Whip opened his mouth. No words came out.

He stood up and walked out of the house into the glorious Colorado day. As he moved, the bullwhip seethed around him, nipping delicately at the grass, snapping softly as a campfire.

«What do you think he’s going to do?» Eve asked Reno in a quiet voice.

«What he has always done.»

«Yondering.»

«Yes,» Reno said.

«Poor Shannon.»

«Poor Whip. He’s not exactly what I’d call happy.»

«That’s his choice,» Eve said. «It’s a choice Shannon didn’t get to make.»

«You sound like you wouldn’t mind hammering on my brother’s thick skull.»

«One thick-skulled man at a time is all I can handle,» she retorted.

«And I’m the one?»

Eve smiled slightly, went to Reno, and ruffled his midnight hair with her fingers.

«You’re the one,» she agreed.

Smiling, Reno pulled Eve onto his lap. For a long time there was no sound in the kitchen but that of soft words and kisses that started as gentle comfort and swiftly became smoldering promises that would be kept later, when they were alone in the big bed.

When Whip finally came back to the house, the long lash was once again riding quietly on his shoulder. Nothing was mentioned about Shannon or yondering.

Whip permitted talk only of gold — where it was found, how it was found, how to mine it. While Reno listened intently, Whip described the claim he had worked. Then they talked through sundown and well into the night.

At dawn the next day, the silence was broken by a drumroll of hooves. Horses, running hard.

Moments later Whip eased out the back door, rifle in one hand and bullwhip on his shoulder, and his pants only half fastened. Reno stood back from the front window, watching through narrowed eyes. Eve stood beside him, a shotgun in her hands.

There were two horses. Only one of them carried a rider. Reno identified that horse instantly. The redgold coat, flashing white stocking, and tail carried like a red silk banner could belong only to Willow’s prize Arabian stallion.

«That’s Ishmael,» Reno said. «And that’s Wolfe riding him!»

Reno whistled sharply, a signal left over from childhood. A few moments later, Whip appeared around the side of the house, saw who the visitor was, and ran out to greet Wolfe. Whip noted that both horses had been ridden hard and fast, which told him that Wolfe had come on the run, switching mounts to rest first one horse, and then the other. The second horse was tall, long-legged, with the lean lines of a racing horse and the stamina of a mustang.

«What happened?» Whip and Reno asked urgently as Wolfe reined to a stop in the yard.

«Cal galloped up to our house leading Ishmael, handed me the bridle, and told me to find Whip and find him fast. Then he hightailed it back to Willow.»

Whip looked up into Wolfe’s dark face. Eyes the same blue-black as twilight looked back at him.

«You found me,» Whip said. «Now spit it out.»

«You have a woman called Shannon?» Wolfe asked.

Whip was too surprised to answer.

«Let me put it this way,» Wolfe said sardonically. «If youknowa woman called Shannon, she’s not staying with Willow and Cal anymore.»

«What? Where is she?»

Wolfe took off his hat, smoothed back his straight black hair, and settled the hat firmly into place once more. Whip had the look of a man on a hair trigger. Wolfe suspected that his next words would set his friend off.

«All Caleb said was the tracks went north and he couldn’t leave Willow alone to follow them,» Wolfe said. «Besides, Shannon wasn’t lost. She knew where she was going.»

Whip started swearing in a language none of the others had ever heard. But they knew it was cursing just the same. Whip didn’t have the look of a man strewing blessings.

He ran toward the corral, cursing fit to burn stone at every step.

«Stop by our place on the way,» Wolfe called out. «Jessi will give you a fresh horse to use along with your own.»

Whip jammed the rifle into the saddle scabbard and grabbed his bridle and saddle from the corral rail. He walked swiftly toward the hobbled horses that were a hundred feet away, grazing at the river’s edge.

Reno glanced at Wolfe. «Are you coming with us?»

«Do you need another gun?» Wolfe asked bluntly.

«Doubt it.»

«Then I’ll stay with Jessi.» Wolfe’s smile flashed, changing the predatory lines of his face to something much gentler. «She started losing her breakfast a week ago.»

Reno’s face lit up with an answering smile. «Congratulations! Other than losing her breakfast, how is Jessi taking it?»

«Just fine. Seeing Ethan born took away most of Jessi’s fears about childbirth. My biggest problem is keeping her from dancing around so much with joy that she wears herself out.»

Whip swung up onto Sugarfoot and cantered toward the house.

«Where should I meet up with you?» Reno asked.

«Avalanche Creek,» Whip said curtly.

«Which fork?»

«East!»

With that, Whip set his heels in the big gelding and headed out at a dead run.

16

Shannon stood at the door to Cherokee’s tiny cabin. Prettyface was by her side, looking almost as healthy as before the fight. Above Shannon the wild Colorado sky seethed with clouds in every color from pearl to pewter to a strangely radiant midnight. A freshening wind swept over peaks and forests alike, making narrow stone ravines sing eerily and trees shiver and bow.

«Nice-looking mule,» Cherokee said from the doorway.

Shannon glanced back at the old woman. She was leaning on the cane she had carved to ease the burden on her ankle. Shannon suspected that the cane might become a permanent part of Cherokee’s life. The thought made Shannon frown. It was Cherokee’s stalking skills that had kept both of them alive the past winter, when snow had come early and stayed late.

«Last time I saw a mule like that was nigh onto two years ago,» Cherokee said, «when I dusted a Culpepper’s hat with two bullets from more than a thousand yards.»

«They thought it was Silent John doing the shooting.»

«Close enough. I used his long gun. Shoots true as a dying man’s prayer. I was grateful. No need to waste a fine mule with bad shooting.»

Shannon looked at the long-legged mule that was tied to a tree, waiting patiently while she visited with Cherokee.

«After the ride from the Black ranch, Razorback was too tired to go another foot,» Shannon said. «I don’t like riding a dead man’s mule, but there wasn’t much choice. Crowbait isn’t broken to the saddle.»