Only 03 - Only You

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 anotherway 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 way down ,” 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
    E VE 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 little tinajas dry 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 therock 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 piñons 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