Only 06 - Winter Fire

Though the stallion was carrying double, he didn’t raise a sweat or breathe hard.
    â€œThis is far enough,” Sarah said.
    Case swung down off Cricket. As he reached up to help her, slanting sunlight turned her eyes to a luminous golden-gray, like twin candles burning in mist. The same light transformed the cinnamon of her hair into fire, sleek and radiant and inviting.
    It was all he could do to keep from pulling off her battered slouch hat, untying her braids, and plunging his fingers into the silky flames.
    Hunger pulsed, angering Case with its urgency. He lifted Sarah out of the saddle, set her on the ground, and quickly stepped away from her.
    The fact that he limped when he moved didn’t improve his temper at all.
    â€œYou know that hawk is going to get some of your chickens,” he said, his voice carefully neutral.
    She gave him a sideways glance. Although he appeared controlled to the point of coldness, she sensed that there was more to his feelings at the moment than he was showing.
    â€œThe hit-or-miss way Conner collects eggs,” she said, “there should be plenty of chicks to go around.”
    Case shrugged.
    â€œStay here until I free the hawk,” she said. “I’ll need room to swing my arm.”
    Crooning gently to the bird of prey, she walked to a point where a level slab of bedrock jutted out from thesteeply sloping knoll that Cricket had just climbed.
    Despite cool air flowing down from distant heights, the land far below kept enough heat to send currents of warm air rising along the knoll. Like an invisible wave, the breeze lifting up from the canyon floor broke across the ledge where she stood. Once past the ledge, the warm air rose up into the sky.
    The hawk flapped its wings and leaned eagerly into the warm wind.
    Crooning softly, Sarah stroked the bird, calming it.
    â€œHush now,” she murmured. “Your craw is full of food. Your wing is healed. There are a lot of safe roosts nearby. All you need is a good boost to be on your way.”
    After a time the bird stopped trying to fly. But eager shudders still ran though the hawk’s body, as though it knew freedom was finally at hand.
    What followed happened so fast that Case could barely separate the motions Sarah made. She pulled off the hood with a quick movement of her left hand and at the same time launched the hawk into the air with an upward sweep of her right arm.
    Wings flared blackly against the golden-orange light of the setting sun. The hawk dropped below the lip of the rock and vanished.
    For a heartbeat Case was afraid that the hawk had been unable to fly. Then a shape burst above the ledge of rock like a black comet. The hawk shot higher and higher with each powerful wing beat until it was invisible against the colorful radiance of the sky.
    A sweet, wild cry fell down to the earthbound man and woman watching from below.
    Limping slightly, he went to the ledge. He ignored the ache in his wounds. He had endured much worse before. He had no doubt that worse was probably in store for him in the future.
    But at the moment, all that mattered to him was the silvery flash of sorrow he had seen in Sarah’s eyes.
    Silently he came and stood next to her.
    â€œThe hawk will be all right,” he said. “It’s flying beautifully.”
    â€œI know,” she said huskily. “It’s just…”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI would give my soul to fly with it.”
    The yearning in her stitched through him like a golden needle. He felt a kinship with her so intense it was painful.
    More dangerous than any physical desire, the sense of being joined to Sarah pierced the armor Case had built against all feeling. She touched him in an elemental, frightening way.
    Abruptly he turned away from her and stared out over the deserted, mysterious land.
    To the northwest the snowy heights of a distant cluster of mountains peeked above the high plateaus that lay between sky and desert. The mountaintops reflected a rich, creamy yellow light. All but the highest part of the peaks was hidden by the series of ragged, eroded plateaus that swept out and down in all directions.
    The sun descended swiftly until it was only a handspan from the horizon. Darkness gathered.
    In the vast landscape, the knoll where Case and Sarah stood was no more significant than a grain of sand.
    Time to be going , he thought reluctantly.
    As he turned back toward the lip of the ledge, shimmering orange light