Only 06 - Winter Fire

trot toward the hidden trail down to the ruins.
    The land dipped where runoff water collected before it raced down and over the cliff in a seasonal waterfall. Now only a ragged veil of snow lay in the dip. Wind had peeled the land down to bare rock bones.
    The same wind went through Sarah’s jacket as though the wool was little more than muslin. Shivering without realizing it, she dismounted and unfastened the saddlebags. They hit the ground with a thump and jingle.
    Wind overwhelmed the sound and swept it behind her, away from the canyon, burying everything in a howlingkind of silence. The wind would do the same for any noise short of that made by gunfire.
    She glanced at the sky again. Her stomach clenched.
    The eastern horizon was a lighter shade of black.
    Hurry!
    Teeth set against the cold, she half-carried and half-dragged the saddlebags down the runoff channel. Moving in the dark over rough land with the heavy saddlebags took so long that she wanted to scream with frustration.
    Then the land dipped steeply beneath her feet. She gave up trying to control the bags and simply let them bump and tumble in her wake. More quickly than she had expected, less quickly than she had hoped, she found herself in a narrow crevice that rapidly deepened until it rose over her head, all but shutting out the stars.
    Without the wind, the sound of her own panting seemed loud enough to raise the dead. She looked up only once, just long enough to tell her that time was running out for her. The faintest of the stars directly overhead were already fading.
    The men will be on the other rim soon .
    Hurry!
    Panting, yanking at the stubborn saddlebags, trying to keep her shotgun and rifle from banging against the stone that was closing in on either side, Sarah fought for every inch of progress she made. None would have been possible but for the long dead hands that had chiseled parts of the passage from solid stone, and the footsteps that had worn sharp edges into smooth ripples.
    Just a few more feet .
    Sweat ran down between her breasts as she jerked and heaved, yanking the saddlebags of silver closer and closer to the entrance of the ruins.
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    Forerunners of daybreak spread across the sky in shades of pale yellow and faint peach. Night began to slide down the sides of the plateau and gather in the canyon bottom.
    But there was no place to hide from the sun. Even the canyon floor would know the weightless caress of light.
    Tumbled by the wind, voices drifted up from the canyon floor forty feet below the east rim.
    Angry voices.
    â€œDammit, it’s dawn and I don’t see no silver, dammit. Don’t see no woman, neither, dammit.”
    Moody’s complaint was echoed by several other men.
    â€œNo sun,” Kester said.
    â€œDammit, Ab told me dawn, not daybreak, dammit! I say kill the kid and go after the silver.”
    A ragged chorus of agreement came from Moody’s men.
    â€œNo sun, no dawn,” Kester said.
    â€œDam—”
    â€œNo dawn,” Kester interrupted.
    The fact that he was holding a shotgun meant more than any logic. Moody and his men subsided into curses that grew louder as the sky grew brighter.
    Case and Ute merged their outlines with the piñon growing near the east rim of the canyon. Behind them, dawn was spreading tongues of red and gold over the wild, windswept land at the top of the plateau.
    â€œThem boys is getting short of patience,” Ute muttered.
    Case glanced to the east. The sun wasn’t above the edge of the plateau yet.
    â€œThey’ll have to wait,” he said.
    â€œIs Ab still in them willows with Conner, just beneath the spring?”
    Case nodded.
    â€œYou see Morgan?” Ute asked after a time.
    â€œNo. But he’s down there. Somewhere.”
    â€œHunter?”
    â€œHe’s on the south rim, at that lookout you told him about.”
    Ute grunted. “Probably a guard there.”
    â€œProbably was. Now Hunter is there.”
    The old outlaw chuckled.
    Silently, inevitably, the burning arc of the sun ate through darkness at the eastern rim of the canyon. As the arc swelled into a half-circle, Case stepped out of the shadows into the shaft of light. The heavy saddlebags hanging from his shoulders transformed his long shadow into that of a black angel sweeping across the canyon.
    â€œLook!” called one of the men below. “Up on the east rim!”
    â€œAb!” Kester called.
    â€œI see him!”
    Another,