Only 03 - Only You

again.
    Eve gasped as passion ravished her body once more.
    “Reno.”
    “I warned you,” he said in a low voice. “Until we can’t even lick our lips.”
    Reno moved powerfully, pulling the night down around them like a cloak of black fire.
    And like fire, they burned.

18
    T HE jumbled waste of rock, sand, and tough shrubs looked like it went on forever in all directions, but Reno knew it didn’t. It was simply another wide step down in the long descent from the Rockies to the place more than a hundred miles to the west, where the mysterious, powerful Rio Colorado coiled invisibly between stone banks.
    If it weren’t for Slater hovering on the horizon like a vulture, I’d be happy to camp by fresh water and not move for a few weeks.
    Or months.
    Reno smiled wryly at his own thoughts. For the first time in his life, he was in no real hurry to find Spanish treasure. He was having too much pleasure in other explorations, charting the undiscovered territory of a dual sensuality that was both savage and sublime, violent and tender, demanding and renewing. He didn’t want it to end untilboth of them had drunk the dark wine to the last heady drop.
    Until we find the mine, you’ll be my woman whenever I want you, however I want you.
    Eve had kept her end of the bargain with a generosity that was as unexpected and consuming as the sweet violence of their joined bodies. The thought of never again reaching for her in the darkness was unsettling to Reno. Whenever the thought came, he pushed it away.
    Sufficient unto each day the troubles thereof.
    The old advice echoed in the silence of Reno’s mind. He had no argument with it. He had enough troubles for this or any other day.
    By now, word of the presence of a man and a woman riding along the edges of the stone maze would have gone out along the mysterious, efficient grapevine that existed throughout the West wherever strangers met at a water hole or crossroads, or shared a cup of coffee over a tiny campfire.
    Hope Rafe hasn’t forgotten all the old signs we used to leave each other when we hunted as boys.
    And I hope Wolfe hears I’m out here with a woman looking for gold. He knows the country. He’ll know I need a good man at my back if I find the mine.
    Damn Slater and his hawk-eyed half-breed tracker. Anybody else would have given up a week ago.
    By the end of the following day, Reno and Eve were camped at the base of a red sandstone formation that rose against the sky like a sail hewn from a single piece of stone. High up on the side of the cliff, rock had weathered away more quickly than in other parts of the formation. The result was a window set like a gem in the solid rock wall. A shaft of light from the setting sun speared throughthe opening, gliding everything it touched with deepest gold.
    Yet even more astonishing than a window in stone was the muted murmur of fresh water nearby. They had climbed out of the stone maze and were riding once more through a landscape where mountains were close enough to make out individual peaks. The camp they made was between a series of sunny river bends.
    Reno had been right about Eve’s reaction to water after having ridden through a rock desert. The first time she saw a trickle of water twisting through the center of an arid valley, she talked excitedly about riding next to a “river” again. Reno had teased her about it, but he hadn’t objected when she asked to camp at the point where the small stream spread out into a series of sunwarmed pools bordered by whispering cottonwood trees.
    At sunset and dawn, the land looked like an illustration for a mythic tale from a book men had forgotten how to read. It made Eve wonder if she had stumbled into an enchanted land where time stood still.
    “It looks like it’s been here forever,” Eve said.
    Reno followed her glance to the golden window time had carved from stone.
    “Nothing lasts forever,” he said. “Not even rock.”
    Eve looked at Reno, then back to the sail of stone rising improbably against the endless sky.
    “It looks like it does,” she said softly.
    “Looks don’t count for much. That window gets a bit bigger each day as grain after grain of the sandstone is chiseled out by the wind,” Reno said.
    Eve listened, and sensed what lay beneath thewords, change coming whether it was wanted or not.
    “Someday that little window could be a full-blown arch,” Reno said. “Then the arch will get worn thin over time until it collapses, leaving a