Only 04 - Only Love

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 was different. ”
    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 incrediblewhen 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 longtime 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, withthe 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