«Can you walk?» he asked.

Eve sighed and nodded.

One of Reno’s arms slid around her waist.

«Tired littlegata. Put you arm around me and lean. It’s not far.»

«I can —»

Abruptly Reno’s hand came down over Eve’s mouth, shutting off her words.

«Quiet,» he whispered against her ear. «Someone is coming.»

Eve froze and strained to hear beyond the wild beating of her heart.

Reno was right. The lazy breeze was carrying the sound of someone cursing savagely.

«Damnation,» hissed Reno. «Get down!»

Eve had no choice about it. He had her pressed on her stomach against the rock before she could blink.

«Keep your head down,» he said in a very soft voice. «They won’t be able to see you until they’re at the top of the slope above us.»

Reno took off his hat, handed Eve the canteen, and drew his gun. She watched as he began crawling on his stomach up the ten-foot slickrock incline.

On the other side were three Comancheros leading wiry mustangs. They were headed straight for Reno. Crooked Bear was in the lead. He spotted Reno immediately. When the Comanchero shouted, bullets started whining and ricocheting off the pale stone, sending sharp chips of rock flying.

Instantly Reno returned the fire, picking targets with care, for the range was better suited to a rifle than to a six-gun. There wasn’t much cover, but the Comancheros made good use of every irregularity. They flattened themselves in the shallow basins, dove behind hardy pinon, or threw their bodies into one of the many cracks on the seamed surface of the slickrock.

Unfortunately, all except Crooked Bear were beyond the range of Reno’s six-gun. The Comanchero took a bullet in his arm, but the wound wasn’t bad. The most it would do was slow the big Indian down a bit.

Reno slithered back down the slope to Eve and pulled her to her feet.

«They’ll stay put, but not for long,» he said. «Get ready to run.»

Eve wanted to object that she couldn’t run, but a look at Reno’s jade green eyes made her change her mind. His fingers wrapped around her right arm just below the shoulder.

«Three steps, then jump,» he said.

There was no time for Eve to waver or worry. Reno was thrusting her forward. She took three running steps and jumped like a doe. He was right beside her, flying over the black channel, landing, holding her upright when her foot slipped. Seconds later they were running flat out over the slick-rock.

Eve had never moved so fast before in her life. Reno’s powerful hand was clamped around her arm, lifting her, hurtling her forward, then lifting her again the instant her feet touched the ground.

They were almost to the horses when rifle bullets began crashing and whining around them, screaming off the slickrock. Reno made no attempt to take cover. He simply tightened his grip on Eve and ran faster toward the ravine ahead. He knew their best chance of survival lay in reaching the ravine where the horses were hidden before Slater’s Comancheros reloaded their single-shot rifles.

Breath tore in and out of Eve’s lungs as she sprinted beside Reno, captive to the iron grip on her arm. Just when she thought she could run no farther, a bullet ricocheted nearby. She ran faster than before, trusting Reno to catch her if she stumbled.

Suddenly the rock sloped away beneath their feet. Together Eve and Reno skidded down the steep incline. The mustangs snorted and shied with alarm as he threw her into her saddle, vaulted onto his own horse, and headed up the ravine at a gallop.

All too soon the way began to narrow and climb steeply toward yet another slickrock terrace. Reno kept the horses pointed uphill, not stopping even when the way became so narrow that stirrups scraped against stone. Scrambling and clawing like cats, the agile mustangs climbed through stony debris.

Abruptly they were in the clear. A wide mesa opened up before them. Reno didn’t stop to congratulate himself on their good luck at not finding themselves smack up against a slickrock cliff. He spun the blue roan around and raced back to the Shaggy that carried the small barrels. He jerked one barrel free, grabbed a leather sack from the back saddle, and turned to Eve.

«I’m going to try to close the trail,» he said curtly. «Take the horses about a hundred yards up the draw and hobble them.»

She grabbed Darlin’s reins, kicked the dun, and took off up the shallow, grassy ravine that drained the plateau. The two Shaggies followed. A scant one hundred yards later, Eve threw herself off the dun, hobbled her, and ran back to Darlin’. The mustang snorted in alarm but was too tired to bite when strange hands slapped hobbles around her forelegs. The two Shaggies were already cropping grass eagerly. They were hobbled before they knew what had happened.

Eve yanked the repeating rifle out of Reno’s saddle scabbard, grabbed her own shotgun, and ran back to where Reno worked at the lip of the plateau.

«Can you see them yet?» she asked breathlessly.

He spun toward her in surprise. «What are you doing here? I told you to —»

«They’re hobbled,» Eve interrupted.

«They better be, or we’ll be afoot.»

Reno bent over the ground once more. Working quickly, he poured black powder into a second tin can.

«What are you doing?» she asked.

«Getting set to bring a chunk of slickrock down around those boys’ ears.»

The sound of voices came up the ravine.

«Hell’s fire, but they’re fast,» muttered Reno. «Can you shoot a rifle?»

«Better than a six-gun.»

«Good. Keep those Comancheros pinned down while I finish. Leave the shotgun with me.»

As Eve started for the lip of the mesa with Reno’s rifle, he grabbed her.

«Keep down,» Reno ordered in a low, hard voice. «Go on your stomach for the last few yards. There are three of them, and they don’t have a repeating rifle, but it takes only one bullet to put you six feet under.»

Eve crawled to the lip of the mesa and stared down the narrow ravine. No men were in sight yet, but their voices carried clearly, as did the sound of hooves on stone.

«The next time goddamn Jericho wants me to go chasing goddamn Reno Moran, I’m gonna make goddamn damn sure I — goddamn!»

The sound of Eve’s shot echoed and reechoed through the narrow ravine. She levered in another shot and fired again. The bullet whined and caromed from stone to stone. She fired one more shot for good measure.

No one fired in return. They were all too busy diving for cover.

Eve looked over her shoulder. Reno was hammering the edges of the second can shut with the butt of his six-gun. A two-foot fuse dangled from each can.

«Keep them pinned down,» he said.

With a silent prayer, Eve sent bullets flying down the ravine while Reno crawled over to a ledge of smooth rock that jutted out to one side of the ravine. Carefully he shoved both cans into a deep crack.

«Keep firing,» Reno said.

While rifle shots echoed, he struck a match and lit both fuses.

Eve kept firing until she was snatched to her feet and set to running flat out away from the ravine. Scant seconds later, a sound like double thunder came from behind them. Reno took Eve down to the ground and covered her with his body while rock exploded and fell in a hard, sharp-edged rain.

Behind them a piece of the plateau sheared away. Skidding, bouncing, grinding, groaning, the stone avalanche went down the narrow ravine until it hit a barrier and piled up in a boiling cloud of dust and grit.

«You all right?» Reno asked.

«Yes.»

Reno rolled aside and came to his feet in an easy motion, bringing Eve with him. He approached the edge of the plateau cautiously and looked over.

The ravine was choked with stones of all sizes.

«Be damned,» he said. «That crack must have gone farther down than I thought.»

Numbly Eve stared, astonished at the change two cans of black powder had made.

Above the sound of random debris settling along the slope came the rhythmic beat of hooves. The sounds retreated farther and farther down the ravine as the mustangs fled the unexpected thunder.

«Even if those boys survived, they’ve got a long walk ahead of them,» Reno said with distinct satisfaction.

«Then we’re — safe?»

Reno gave Eve a rather dark smile.

«For a time, yes,» he said. «But if there’s another way onto this plateau, Slater’s Comancheros will know about it.»

«Maybe there isn’t,» Eve said quickly.

«You better hope there is.»

«Why?»

«Because their way up is our waydown,» Reno said succinctly.

Eve rubbed her dusty forehead against her equally dusty sleeve and tried not to show her dismay at the thought of being trapped on top of the plateau.

Reno saw anyway. He squeezed her arm reassuringly just before he turned away.

«Come on,» he said. «Let’s go see how well you hobbled the horses.»

13

Eve watched the blue roan scramble back up the head of the steep ravine. It was the fifth chute down the plateau Reno had tried in the past two hours. So far, each ravine had ended in a cliff that horses couldn’t descend.

This time, however, Reno had been gone at least half an hour. Though Eve didn’t say anything, she couldn’t keep a look of hope from her face. Without realizing it, she ran her tongue over her lips. No shine of moisture followed.

«Take a drink,» Reno said as he rode up. «You’re as dry as stone.»

«I can’t drink when my horse is so thirsty, she tries to crawl in my pocket each time I pick up the canteen.»

«Don’t let the sweet-faced fraud fool you. She sucked one of those littletinajasdry while you were a quarter mile back, trying to fall into that big slot.»

«Tinajas?» Eve frowned, then remembered what the Spanish word meant. «Oh. Those holes in the rock where rainwater collected. Is the water good?»

«The mustangs liked it.»

«You didn’t drink any?»

«The horses needed it more than I did. Besides,» Reno admitted with a slight grin, «I wasn’t thirsty enough to strain all those little critters between my teeth.»

Eve’s laughter surprised Reno. She was dusty, worn-out, scuffed from crawling over rock…and he had never seen a woman who appealed to him more. He tucked a tawny lock behind her ear, ran his fingertip over the line of her jaw, and touched her lips with the ball of his thumb.

«Mount up,» he said softly. «There’s something I want to show you.»

Curious, Eve stepped into the stirrup and rode alongside Reno as far as the trail allowed. To her surprise, the shallow ravine didn’t get deeper right away as the others had. Instead, it got wider and wider, descending gently through pinons and cedar.

Gradually the slickrock became buried under dirt. More and more small gullies joined the ravine, widening it, until they were riding through a valley that was nearly surrounded by steep walls of stone.

Eve turned and looked at Reno with hope on her face and a question in her eyes.

«I don’t know,» Reno said quietly. «But it looks good. I rode another mile and nothing changed.»

Eve closed her eyes and let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding.

«No water, though,» Reno added reluctantly.

For several miles there were no sounds but that of an eagle keening on the wind, the creak of leather as the horses walked, and the muffled beat of hooves on the dry earth. Though it was late in the afternoon, the sunlight still held an amazing amount of heat.

Clouds gathered into groups high overhead. Their color ranged from white to a blue-black that promised rain. But not on the plateau. It wasn’t high enough to trap these clouds. Only the mountains were. Nowhere had Eve seen running water on the plateau.

«Reno?»

He made a rumbling sound that said he had heard.

«Does it rain here?»

He nodded.

«Where does it all go?» she asked.

«Downhill.»

«Yes, but where is it? We’re downhill from something, and there’s no water.»

«The streams only run after a rain,» he said.

«What about the mountain streams?» she persisted. «It rains there all the time, and snow melts. Where does the water go?»

«Into the air and into the ground.»

«Not down to the sea?»

«From here to the Sierra Nevadas of California, I know of only one river that gets all the way to the sea before it dries up — Rio Colorado.»