Only 06 - Winter Fire

for Conner .
    For Case .
    It’s not a foolish plan. Not really. Not when you think about it from all directions .
    She kept telling herself that as Shaker began the climb out of the canyon up onto the large, windswept plateau. Lost River had eaten through the plateau’s solid stone to create the valley where grass and willows and cottonwoods thrived. Lost River Valley was the biggest canyon that water had gouged from the body of the plateau, but not the only one. There were hundreds of other, smaller side canyons.
    Spring Canyon was one of them.
    Before the raiders came, the canyon had been Sarah’s refuge, a place of mystery and peace and dreams. She had gone to it many, many times. Along the canyon’s south-facing wall there were ruins in a large alcove fifteen feet below the lip of the sheer stone cliff. The ancient rooms were slowly, silently dissolving back into time and dust. Only a few handmade stone walls stood as crumbling ramparts against an enemy long dead.
    Twenty feet farther down the sheer cliff were the springs that had allowed the ancient tribe to build their fortress. Ten feet below the mossy crack where stone wept cool, sweet water, the outlaws had set up their camp.
    Sarah never hesitated on the way to the ruins. Many times she and Conner had hidden among the ancient rooms when Hal had gone on a drunken frenzy, lashing out at everything in sight.
    No matter how hard her husband hunted her, he had never found her. Though slender for a man, he still had been too thick to squeeze through the hidden passage she had discovered leading from the plateau top down to the ruins.
    Conner is too big now , she thought. I’m the only one who can fit in that crack .
    There was no other way into the ruins except to climb down on a rope from the top. Hal had done that once, looking for silver. He found nothing but dust and broken pottery.
    Without hesitation Sarah reined her mustang onto a trail she hadn’t used since Hal’s death. This particular route up the plateau was too steep, too dangerous, to take under normal circumstances.
    Especially at night.
    But night was when Hal went crazy. Night was when the fastest way to get to a safe place was worth any risk.
    â€œGal, where’n hell you going?” Lola asked.
    â€œUp on the plateau, then over to the rim of Spring Canyon.”
    â€œYou’re plumb loco.”
    Sarah didn’t disagree. “Stay here, then.”
    â€œLike fiery hell I will.”
    The mustangs were blowing hard by the time they scrambled up the last steep pitch that led to the top of the plateau. No ranch-raised horse could have made the climb. Only an animal that had grown up running wild through the steep canyons had the uncanny sense of balance and hard hooves to stay with the trail.
    The wind whipped and snarled around them like a living thing, howling its strength.
    â€œLola? You still here?” Sarah called.
    â€œI ain’t never speaking to you again, gal.”
    â€œPromise?”
    â€œShee-it.”
    â€œCan you see that notch?” Sarah asked.
    Her arm made a solid black pointer against the stars and moonlight.
    Lola grunted.
    â€œThat’s the start of an old foot trail to the springs,” Sarah said. “It’s not wide enough for a horse.”
    A stream of tobacco juice landed on the wind-scoured rock. It was Lola’s only comment.
    â€œYou don’t have to go,” Sarah said.
    The old woman hissed a word and waited.
    â€œAbout a quarter-mile down,” Sarah said, “there’s a place where a man can look out over the canyon. If I were Ab or Moody, I’d have a guard there.”
    Lola grunted.
    â€œTake a pocket full of silver,” Sarah continued. “If you find a guard, tell him you’ve stolen the rest and want his help.”
    â€œLead is cheaper.”
    â€œNoisier, too.”
    â€œLong as it’s done quiet like, you care what happens to that son of a bitch, supposing he’s there?” Lola asked.
    â€œNo. I just don’t want anyone firing across the canyon at Case and Ute.”
    â€œI’ll be quiet as a knife.”
    Sarah reined her horse closer, gave the other woman a hug, and said, “Thank you.”
    â€œHell, gal. No need. My man’s tail is stuck in the same crack as yours.”
    But Lola hugged her hard in turn before she dismounted and set off for the notch.
    After an anxious look at the eastern sky, Sarah sent her mustang at a