Nightway Read online

  “I know. You’d better go back,” Lanna advised and despised her own apathy. She turned her head away, gathering the reins more firmly in her hand. “I’m not very good company, anyway. I’m sorry.”

  Ignoring Hawk’s frown, she dug her heels into her mount and started for camp. A despondency weighed even heavier on her when she heard the tattoo of the chestnut’s hooves cantering in the opposite direction.

  Chad was already in camp when she arrived. Coming forward, he helped her dismount and handed the reins of her horse to one of the ranch hands. When she mentioned she wanted a cup of coffee, he got it for her and one for himself.

  “What’s wrong with me, Chad?” she sighed and glanced at the man sitting next to her on the felled log.

  “Don’t you feel well?” He was quick to show concern.

  “I’m not sick. I just don’t have any energy or the desire to do anything but sit. I’m beginning to feel like a vegetable.”

  “I’m sure you are exaggerating.” he smiled.

  “I’m not, Chad,” she insisted with a weary shake of her head.

  “You’ve been through a lot lately, both physically and emotionally. Your body is probably demanding a rest. What better way than shutting down some of the systems?” he reasoned. “You’ll be feeling better soon. You’ll see.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” It did sound logical, but she continued to worry, anyway.

  The rest of the afternoon, Chad stayed by her side, making certain that she took it easy. His undemanding solicitude was reassuring. When he suggested she might prefer to return to the ranch instead of spending the night sleeping out, she refused. She had already created enough problems for him without interrupting more of his plans.

  That evening, Lanna didn’t have any chance to speak to Hawk, not with both Chad and Carol sitting beside her. Although she felt his eyes on her often during the evening, he didn’t approach her. It was early when Carol suggested they turn in for the night, advising Lanna that they would be rising with the sun in the morning. Chad brought their bedrolls from the truck.

  “I’ll fix your bed for you,” Carol volunteered.

  “You really don’t need to wait on me like this,” Lanna protested.

  “It’s no trouble.” Carol shrugged.

  “Here.” Chad offered a tin cup to her.

  “I don’t want any more coffee, thanks,” Lanna refused.

  “It isn’t coffee. Mother put some sassafras tea in a canteen and sent it along for you,” he explained.

  Lanna took the cup, confused by the effort Katheryn had made on her behalf. It didn’t seem like her. “That was very thoughtful of her.”

  “We have all grown to care a great deal about you, Lanna.” Chad smiled with affection. “Drink up.”

  This compassion and concern the Faulkner family expressed for her made Lanna feel as though they really cared. Yet she was bewildered by it, too, when she considered the way they had treated Hawk. It seemed out of character.

  Chapter XVIII

  Hawk sat in the shadows outside the circle of the firelight. A horse stamped restlessly in the rope corral holding the remuda. His gaze made an absent sweep of the area, then returned to the camp and its snoring occupants. Automatically, he sought out Lanna’s sleeping figure.

  Hawk wasn’t certain what he had expected during their encounter earlier in the day. He had known Lanna wouldn’t throw herself into his arms but he hadn’t believed she would be so ambivalent. And he didn’t accept her explanation. This change in her personality kept nagging at him, depriving him of sleep.

  The fire was flickering and dying. Its glow was cast by the red ember remains of dead wood. Soon the night’s chill would be invading the camp. Wearing moccasins, instead of boots, in camp, Hawk walked soundlessly to the firewood stacked near the edge of the circle and picked up two of the larger chunks. Sidestepping sleeping bodies, he moved to the fading fire and added the fresh logs to the hot coals.

  The hungry flames leaped over the dry bark, enlarging its circle of light in a sudden burst of fire. Hawk watched the fire cast its illumination on Lanna’s sleeping form. His gaze sharpened when he saw the involuntary twitching of her body beneath the quilted blanket. He moved to her side to awaken her from the nightmare.

  “Lanna, wake up,” he whispered very softly so he wouldn’t disturb Carol, on the other side of her. When his hand touched her shoulder, she jerked in a convulsive reflex. He quickly covered her mouth with his hand, anticipating her outcry of alarm and stifling it. “You were having a nightmare,” he explained when her widened eyes focused on him and removed his hand.

  “Your eyes,” she murmured in a peculiarly absent voice, “they are so blue.”

  Something was wrong. The feeling was so intense, it left him shaken. He studied her with a new sharpness, noticing the dilation of her pupils and the flush of her skin. The pieces to the puzzle began to fall into place: the vividness of color, the disinterest, the twitching. Hawk recognized the symptoms and cursed silently for not suspecting something like this before.

  “Listen to me, Lanna,” he whispered urgently. “It’s very important.” She gave him a wide-eyed look of unnatural concentration. “When you drank that coffee before you went to sleep, did it taste funny to you?”

  “No coffee.” She tried to shake her head, but her coordination was poor. “Katheryn sent tea.”

  Hawk rocked back on his heels, glancing beyond Carol’s slumbering shape to Chad. His jaw flexed in hard anger. Lanna whispered something to draw his attention back to her. It was part of a hallucination and unimportant at the moment.

  “Close your eyes, Lanna. Go back to sleep. Everything is all right. Do you understand?” He watched her relax and close her eyes. The rest of his questions would have to wait until the effects of the drug had worn off. He couldn’t risk upsetting Lanna in her present state. First, he had to confirm his suspicions; then he had to make plans.

  Leaving her side, he slipped cautiously past Carol and Chad. Logic dictated that the tea had been previously prepared, since Chad wouldn’t risk fixing it when so many people were around. It narrowed Hawk’s search considerably. He found the canteen of tea in Chad’s saddlebags. A taste confirmed it was peyote, a very weak blend.

  He had the proof in his hands, but who would believe him? In her present drugged condition, Lanna could be too easily influenced against him. It would take fortyeight hours, at the very least, for the effects of the peyote to wear off. Which meant if he wanted her to rationally consider his evidence, he had to get her away from here. Recapping it, Hawk returned the canteen to the pouch and put everything back the way he’d found it.

  With a quick glance around the campfire, Hawk made sure no one had awakened before he retraced his steps to the outer circle of the camp. This was one time when it was an advantage to be isolated from the others. Using the saddle blankets and pads to muffle the clunk of metal and leather, Hawk carried his gear to the rope corral. Then he returned to raid the camp mess of a sackful of supplies.

  The horses snorted and milled nervously when he appeared, then settled down when they recognized the quiet sound of his voice. He was able to walk right up to the gentle-natured sorrel Lanna had been riding, catching it with ease. Outside the corral, he tied it to a tree and put his saddle on it. He went back to drop a loop around the big dappled buckskin and lead it out. There was no saddle for it. Hawk couldn’t risk trying to take Lanna’s. When the time came, he would have to ride it bareback.

  Gliding silently back to the campfire, he went directly to Lanna. He didn’t awaken her as he gently picked her up in his arms and carried her back to the horses. The sorrel stood quietly as he set Lanna in the saddle and swung on behind her. It didn’t object to its double burden. The buckskin resisted the initial pull on the rope around its neck, then yielded to follow the sorrel and its two riders.

  Staying at a walk, Hawk kept the sorrel to the carpet of grass. Its thickness would muffle the sound of the horses until they were well
away from the camp. As soon as there was distance between them, Hawk urged the horse into a trot to cover more ground.

  Chad would follow them as soon as he discovered Lanna was gone. If the rest of what Hawk suspected was accurate, Chad wouldn’t let her be taken from him without a fight. Hopefully, he wouldn’t leave until morning. He might guess that Hawk was taking her onto the Reservation. Rawlins would know where his mother’s hogan was located, but Hawk was counting on the fact that he wouldn’t know about the cave in the bluffs above it. It would take at least two days, maybe more, for the effects of the peyote to wear off. He had to keep Lanna hidden out that long.

  Every hour, Hawk stopped to rest the horse. It was nearly two o’clock when he switched the gear to the buckskin and started out again, leading the sorrel. At four o’clock, he crossed the interstate, only a short distance down from the southernmost boundary of the Navaho Reservation.

  Although she mumbled incoherently several times, Lanna never roused from her trance-like sleep. Each time Hawk looked at the woman in his arms, swaddled in the quilt from her bedroll, he was stirred by a great feeling of protectiveness. Its powerful force drove out the weariness in his own body and pushed aside the need to rest and sleep.

  When the sun peered over the eastern horizon, Hawk stopped the buckskin to study the terrain ahead. It was less than three miles to the abandoned hogan of his mother. The buckskin shifted beneath him and blew loudly in the dawn stillness. Careful not to disturb her, Hawk eased Lanna into a more secure position in his arms. The early light of a new morning touched her face, highlighting the wing of her brow and the proud bones of her cheeks. His gaze lingered on the alluring curve of her lips, soft and generously wide. He smoothed the brown satin hair away from her forehead with humble gentleness.

  “It’s going to get rough from here on,” he murmured aloud. “I’ve left tracks a blind man could follow. We’re going to have to take to the rocks now. It’s nothing you have to fear.” Hawk knew how sensations could be intensified in her drugged state. “It’s just going to be a little bumpy. You’re safe. Remember that. Nothing is going to hurt you.”

  She made a faint sound, as if she’d heard him. It was likely she had, since peyote intensified the user’s perception of sight and sound. His voice had probably inserted itself into one of her dreams. Violence trembled through him, directed toward those who had done this to her. But it wasn’t the time for such an emotion, and Hawk suppressed it with iron control.

  Ahead was a dry wash. Hawk pointed the buckskin at it and tugged on the sorrel’s lead rope. The horses would leave no distinct tracks in the loose sand. There wouldn’t be any way to distinguish them from the impressions left by a flock of sheep that had passed this way a few days ago.

  A hundred yards down the gully, a bank had been caved in by a gravel slide. Hawk spurred the buckskin up the loose rock. It plunged and bucked its way up the slope, sending a cascade of new gravel down to cover its trail. At the top of the slide was a jumble of boulders and a clay sand that the desert sun had baked as hard as concrete. Hawk followed it to the stone mesa that formed the walls of the canyon where the abandoned hogan stood.

  His roundabout route added two miles to their journey. Their destination was ahead, below the canyon rim. He halted the buckskin and wrapped the lead rope around the saddlehorn in a half-hitch. Dismounting with Lanna in his arms, Hawk laid her on the ground well clear of the ground-tied buckskin, then went to investigate the last leg of their trip on foot. It had been a long time since he’d traveled the narrow trail winding down the cliff to the cave gouged in the canyon’s rock face. The erosion of wind, rain, and time might have wiped out part of it or all of it.

  Crouching at the rim, Hawk studied first the canyon floor. It looked deserted in the early morning hour, but its inhabitants were many. A coyote was feasting on a rodent it had unearthed, and a long-eared hare was busy washing its face, pausing often to test the air for the scent of danger.

  Almost directly below Hawk was a spring, the only source of water for several miles. During drought years, even this spring had been known to go dry. But where it trickled out of the rocky desert soil, a stand of cottonwood trees grew. One giant towered high, hugging the rock wall and reaching for the canyon rim. It was this tree, with its thick and spreading limbs, that concealed the cave entrance from the view of anyone on the canyon floor, unless they specifically knew of its existence and exact location.

  The old trail stopped at the narrow ledge outside the mouth of the cave. From there, the canyon wall sheered straight to its floor. Handholds had been chiseled into the rock face by the long-ago dwellers of the cave. They came within a few feet of reaching all the way to the bottom of the canyon. Hawk hoped they were still intact, since they would provide his quickest access to water. Otherwise, he would have to lower himself by rope and hope it was long enough to reach the bottom, or else ride all the way around to the mouth of the canyon, which meant leaving tracks for the searchers to find.

  The rounding roof of the hogan was barely visible from his position, but he could see the remains of the stick corral and its fallen ramada. Satisfied that he could observe most of what went on in the canyon, Hawk began to move cautiously down the ledge of rock that formed the narrow trail to the cave.

  There were places where erosion had cut into the trail, yet it was still possible for a sure-footed horse to traverse it. A fallen boulder blocked a third of the entrance, but it only added to the natural concealment of the cave opening. Entering the cool darkness, Hawk struck a match and held it high. The interior had been crudely hollowed out to form a large cavity, large enough to accommodate the horses, just as Hawk had remembered. He hadn’t trusted his memory because he didn’t know how much of it had been exaggerated by a child’s perception of size.

  Emerging from the cave, Hawk climbed the trail to the top where he’d left Lanna and the horses. He gathered Lanna in his arms and carried her down the narrow trail to the cave. After making her as comfortable as he could, he went back to lead the horses down, first the buckskin, then the sorrel. He checked to be sure Lanna showed no signs of waking up before he left the cave again.

  A glance at the position of the sun in the morning sky warned Hawk that he was running out of time. When Chad discovered that he was gone, as well as Lanna, he would set out in pursuit of them. Hawk guessed that the search party would be split up into two groups—at Rawlins’ directions, since Chad would never think of it. One group would track them on horseback. But the other group, the one Chad would lead, would travel by pickup to the canyon. Depending on how quickly they got organized, the first group could be here within an hour—certainly not more than two.

  It was the second group that concerned Hawk now, and the wiliness of Tom Rawlins. He retraced the last mile of their route. Where a metal horseshoe had left a white gash on the stone, he rubbed dirt into it. He sprinkled sand over any vague imprint of a hoof on the ground. He knew better than to sweep them away with brush, since the marks left by the branches would leave their own trail. Painstakingly, he repositioned stones that had been overturned, revealing their ground-darkened underbelly instead of the sun-bleached whiteness of the others around them. All the while he took care not to let his moccasined feet leave any tracks. He found the place where the flock of sheep had grazed and cut a shirtload of grass to feed the horses.

  Satisfied that the only thing that could follow their trail now was a bloodhound, Hawk returned to the cave, tossed a third of the grass to the horses, and shook the rest out of his shirt near the rear wall before putting his shirt back on. Gathering twigs and broken pieces of branches the wind had blown onto the ledge from the towering cottonwood, Hawk built a tiny fire in the rear of the cave and put coffee on to boil. He flexed his tired muscles and knew he would have to be content with snatched minutes of sleep for the next forty-eight hours. He rubbed his eyes, feeling their grating rawness, and rocked back on his heels to patiently wait for events to unfold in their own time.

 
What would happen if Chad found them? Hawk wasn’t sure how desperate his brother was. He would have to play it as it happened and prepare for the worst.

  Lanna’s eyes opened slowly in the shadowy darkness. She had difficulty figuring out where she was. A horse stamped restlessly somewhere nearby. She felt the vibration of it beneath her. A light flickered and she focused on it. A man’s figure was hunched beside a small fire, his hands cupped around a tin mug. She began to understand the hardness of her bed and the darkness. They were camping out with the cowboys on the fall drive.

  She turned her head to see if Carol was awake and was blinded by a patchwork of light flooding in through an opening in the darkness. It startled her, causing her to become instantly wide awake. Two horses were standing behind a rope strung in a diagonal line and tied around opposing rocks. In the shadowy dimness, she recognized the sorrel horse she had ridden the day before. The second animal was light-colored and a hand taller.

  It slowly began to dawn on her that she was in some kind of a cave. Lanna scooted uneasily into a sitting position, her alarmed gaze racing to the man near the fire. Her movement had drawn his attention. With a trace of relief, she recognized Hawk, but his presence didn’t solve her confusion.

  Straightening, he walked over to her and offered her the cup in his hand. “Coffee? We only have one cup, and it has to serve as both pot and drinking mug.” He didn’t refer to the strangeness of her surroundings.

  “Where am I?” Lanna absently accepted the cup he handed her. “How did I get here?”

  “I brought you here,” Hawk admitted with casual ease.

  “Yes, but…”—Lanna looked around her again—“ … where is ’here’? And how did you manage to get me here without me knowing it?”

  “You were drugged.”

  “Drugged? That’s nonsense!” She laughed in disbelief, then sobered when she realized he was serious. “What did you do? Give me something while I was asleep?” Her question held more bewilderment than accusation.