When Janna could do no more for the stranger, she pulled the blanket over him, sat next to him and watched the sky catch fire from the dying sun. She loved the silent blaze of beauty, the incandescence and the transformation of the sky. It made her believe that anything was possible-anything-even her fierce, silent hope of someday having a home where she could sleep without always waking alone.
Only when it was full dark and the last star had glittered into life did Janna put her arms around her knees, lower her forehead to them and sleep, waking every few minutes to listen to the small sounds of the living night and the breathing of the man who trusted her enough to sleep naked and weaponless at her feet.
Chapter Three
Tyrell MacKenzie awoke feeling as though he had slept beneath a herd of stampeding steers. Despite the pain lancing through his head with every heartbeat, he didn't groan or cry out; his instincts were screaming at him that he had to be silent and hide. The Civil War had taught Ty to trust those instincts. He opened one eye a bare slit, just enough to see without revealing the fact that he had returned to consciousness.
A pair of moccasins was only inches away from his face.
Instantly memories flooded through Ty's pain-hazed mind-Cascabel and his renegades and a gauntlet of clubs that had seemed to go on forever. Somehow he had gotten through it and then he had run and run until he thought his chest would burst, but he had kept on running and trying to find a place where he could go to ground before the Indians tracked him down and killed him.
Another memory came to Ty, that of a thin boy with ragged clothes and steady gray eyes warning him to be silent. Ty opened his eyes a bit more and saw that the moccasins belonged to the boy rather than to one of Cascabel's killers. The boy had his head on his knees and was hugging his long legs against his body as though still trying to ward off the chill of a night spent in the open.
The angle and direction of the sunlight slanting between the towering black thunderheads told Ty that it was early afternoon rather than early morning, which meant that he had slept through yesterday afternoon, all of the hours of darkness, and most of the day, as well. He was surprised that the cold hadn't awakened him during the night. Even though it was still August, the countryside wasn't particularly warm once the sun set behind Black Plateau.
The boy turned his head until his chin rested on his knees. Ty found himself staring into the clear gray eyes he remembered. Such a steady glance was unusual in a boy so young that he wouldn't need a razor for a few years. But then, Ty had seen what war did to children. The ones who survived were old far beyond their years.
The youth raised his index finger to his lips in a signal for Ty not to make a sound. Ty nodded slightly and watched while the boy eased through the underbrush with the silence of an Indian. Despite the aches of his bruised and beaten body, Ty didn't shift position. That was another thing the war had taught him. The man who moved first died first.
While Ty waited for the youth to return from reconnoi-tering, he noticed that there was a blanket covering his body, protecting him against the chilly air. From the look of the corner covering his arm, the blanket was as ragged as the boy's clothes. Ty realized that the blanket must belong to the boy, who obviously had stood guard throughout the cold night and the long day as well, protecting a helpless stranger, giving him the only cover.
Hell of a kid, Ty thought. Wonder what he's doing out here alone?
It was the last thought Ty had before he drifted off into a pain-filled, fitful sleep.
He was still dozing when Janna returned through the brush as silently as she had come. Even so, his eyes opened.
Like a wild animal, he had sensed that he was no longer alone.
"You can move around, but we can't leave yet," Janna said in a low voice. "Cascabel and his men are still searching for you, but they're on the east side of Black Plateau."
"Then you better get out while you can," Ty said hoarsely. He shifted position with cautious movements, grimaced with pain and kept moving anyway. He had to find out what his body would be good for if he had to run again. And he would have to run if Cascabel were still searching. "I left a trail a blind man could follow."
"I know," Janna said softly. "I wiped it out as I followed you."
"Won't do any good," Ty said in a low voice that was more like a groan. He forced himself into an upright position despite dizziness and the excruciating pain in his head. "Once Cascabel sobers up, he'll find your sign. He could track a snake over solid rock. Go on, kid. Get out while you can."
Janna saw the stranger's pallor and the sudden sweat that covered his face. She wanted to tell him to lie down, not to move, not to cause himself any more pain; but she knew that he might have to move, to run, to hide. Better that they find out now how much strength he had so that they could plan for his weakness rather than being caught by surprise.
"I laid a false trail to a blind keyhole canyon way back up Mustang Canyon," she said softly. "Then I climbed out. I'd stopped bleeding by then, so I didn't leave any sign of where I went."
"Bleeding?" Ty looked up, focusing on the boy with difficulty because pain had turned the world to red and black. "Are you hurt?"
"I cut myself," Janna said as she unwrapped the bandanna from her arm. "Cascabel knew you were bleeding. If there weren't any sign of blood, he wouldn't believe the trail was yours."
The last turn of the bandanna was stuck to Janna's skin by dried blood. She moistened the cloth with a small amount of water from the canteen, gritted her teeth and pulled the bandanna free. The cut oozed blood for a moment, then stopped. There was no sign of infection, but she dug in the leather pouch and sprinkled more herb powder over the cut anyway.
"You all right?" Ty asked thickly.
Janna looked up and smiled. "Sure. Papa always told me that cuts from a sharp knife heal better than cuts from a dull one, so I keep my knives sharp. See? No sign of infection."
Ty looked at the long red line on the back of the unmus-cular forearm and realized that the boy had deliberately cut himself in order to leave a trail of blood for Cascabel to follow.
"Your papa raised a brave boy," Ty said.
Janna's head came up sharply. She was on the edge of saying that her father had raised a brave girl, when she caught herself. Other people had mistaken her for a boy since her father had died, especially after she had done everything she could to foster the impression. She bound her breasts with turn after turn of cloth to flatten and conceal her feminine curves. For the same reason she wore her father's old shirts, which were much too big, and his old pants rode low on her hips, hiding the pronounced inward curve of her waist. She wore her hair in thick Indian braids stuffed beneath a man's hat, which was also too big for her.
Being taken for a boy had proven useful when Janna went to the few ranches around to trade her writing and reading skills for food, or when she went to town to spend a bit of Mad Jack's gold on store-bought clothes or rare, precious books. Being a boy gave her a freedom of movement that was denied to girls. Because she loved freedom as much as any mustang ever born, she had always been relieved when strangers assumed she was a boy.