There was no answer.
Whip muttered a curse and swung into the saddle. Then he cursed again and shifted his weight in the stirrups. Seeing Shannon walk through the clearing to the cabin had drawn a pronounced response from his body. She had a way of moving that could set fire to stone, and Whip was a long way from stone.
He was both annoyed and amused by his own arousal. He hadn’t been this hot and bothered over a woman since West Virginia, when Savannah Marie had set out to tease one of the Moran brothers into marrying her. Whip had known precisely what she was doing, but the scented sighs and rustling silk petticoats and peekaboo glimpses of her nipples still had made his body as hard as an ax handle.
But Shannon wasn’t wearing silk petticoats, and her breasts were hidden unless the wind blew hard enough to press cloth against the surprisingly lush curves of her body. Whip hadn’t gotten close enough to discover whether Shannon’s breath was scented, but he had discovered the spearmint someone had planted by the creek, and he had seen her pick springs and take them to the cabin.
Whip wondered if Shannon would taste of cream and mint when he dipped his tongue into her.
Then he wondered again why she had cried over the flowers.
Maybe she’s just lonely.
He considered that possibility as he began casting for sign on the trail that led away from Shannon’s cabin to Holler Creek. He knew that widows were often lonely, especially if they had no children or nearby family or friends.
Hell, any woman would be lonely in those circumstances.
Of course, there’s that old shaman in the cabin on the north fork of Avalanche Creek. Shannon visits him often enough. That’s company, of a sort.
Whip had been surprised the first time he had tracked Shannon to the tiny, remote shack where the shaman lived. Then Whip had seen the old man’s crooked stance and realized that Shannon was helping him out.
She must be used to taking care of old men. If gossip can be trusted, Silent John is no spring chicken.
Or was.
Is he dead like the Culpeppers think, or did he take a bead on the wrong man and find himself ambushed in turn and is lying low until the other man gives up?
The only answer Whip could think of was another question.
Maybe Silent John is like that half-breed shaman, bunged up and waiting to heal before he comes back. After all, he was seen riding out over Avalanche Creek Pass at the first thaw.
The thought made Whip’s mouth thin. Much as he wanted the pleasure he would find within Shannon’s body, he no more wanted to seduce a married woman than he did a virgin. It wasn’t something a decent man did.
That was why Whip had spent much of the past week quartering the land and scrambling up the various forks of Avalanche Creek, looking for any sign that Silent John was working on his claims or had gone to ground to wait out an injury.
Whip had found nothing for his trouble but a few ragged holes far up the mountainside, signs that someone had taken a pickax to hard rock and gone looking for gold. But there was nothing to tell Whip how long ago the holes had been worked. All he could be certain of was that the ashes of the various campfires he discovered hadn’t been disturbed since the last rain, three days before.
Three days.
Three weeks.
Three years. No way to tell.
Hell, Caleb told me of coming across charcoal from fires built against cliffs high in these mountains. Nothing had changed since his daddy surveyed those same charcoal remains thirty years ago for the army.
And the fires had been built by Indians three hundred years ago, before they had stolen horses from the Spaniards and learned how to ride.
I don’t have three hundred years to find Silent John.
Whip did’t know how much more time he would spend in the Rocky Mountains. Already he had stayed here longer than he had in any place since he had left West Virginia all those years ago, when he was man-sized and boy-stupid.
Part of what still held Whip in the Rockies was the presence of his brother Reno and his sister Willow, and friends like Caleb and Wolfe. But the land itself was also an extraordinary lure. The taste of the wind and the colors of the land were like nowhere else on earth. Something about the clusters of high, icy peaks and the long, green divides between the groups of mountains fascinated Whip.
Yet as much as he loved the landscape, he didn’t expect to settle down and live in the midst of the wild Rockies. Sooner or later wanderlust would reclaim his soul and he would go wherever the mood took him, searching the earth for something he was able to describe only as the sunrise he had never seen.
But until the yondering urge comes, there’s nothing to keep me from enjoying the sunrise I have right here.
Accompanied only by his thoughts and a restless wind, Whip cast for sign in the long, raking light of late afternoon, He saw tracks of elk and deer and mountain lion. He heard the high, fluting cry of an eagle calling to its mate. But he neither heard men nor saw signs of anyone moving over the land.
There were no new mule tracks where Holler Creek’s racing white water joined with Avalanche Creek’s eastern fork. The tracks of four mules were still there, blurred somewhat by a light rain but unmistakable.
The Culpeppers had ridden to the fork in the trail that led to Shannon’s cabin. Three of them had stayed there for a time, sitting on their mules and drinking while the fourth Culpepper scouted the east fork of avalanche Creek.
Whip had been on the rise behind Shannon’s cabin when he saw Darcy sneaking through the woods. Whip had pulled his carbine out of the saddle scabbard, sighted, and send rock splinters peppering over Darcy’s chest. Darcy had run back to his mule and set off at a hard pace.
Whip had backtracked him to where the others sat their mules and awaited their brother’s return. The Culpeppers didn’t hang around for whoever had taken a shot at Darcy. They threw two empty whiskey bottles onto the rocks and put spurs to heir racing mules.
When Whip got there, all that was left were telltale tracks and shards of glass glittering in the sun.
Days ago, Whip thought, looking around the valley where the two creeks joined. The Culpeppers haven’t been back since.
But they’ll get around to it. Soon as they work up the nerve.
For a long time Whip sat on his horse, thinking about the Culpeppers and Silent John and the frightened girl with a walk like honey. Nothing Whip had found as he searched the Avalanche Creek watershed made him believe that Silent John was still alive, much less working any of his claims.
I suppose he could be out man-hunting on the other side of the Great Divide.
The thought made Whip frown.
But if I had to lay money on it, I’d say Silent John was dead. No man as canny as he’s supposed to be would leave Shannon alone for six weeks when coyotes like the Culpeppers are sniffing around.
But if Silent John were dead, Shannon was left to fend for herself without a husband’s help. She was a young girl in a woman-hungry land, a silky lamb among snarling coyotes. No matter how big and savage Prettyface was, no matter how careful Shannon was, sooner or later the Culpeppers would catch her off guard.
Sooner, probably.
Whip didn’t like to think about what would happen when the Culpeppers got their hands on Shannon.
Silent John or no Silent John, it’s time for me to close in on my beautiful, almost-tamed mustang.
5
The next day Shannon awoke not to the sound of Whip’s flute calling up the sun, but to the rhythmic sounds of a man splitting wood.
It was a sound she hand’t heard for years.
Instantly Shannon looked toward Prettyface. The dog was lying with his head on his massive paws and his ears cocked in the direction of the noise. He was growling slightly, but with no real menace.