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  “Have you ever heard of peyote? You would probably be more familiar with it as the drug mescaline, which is obtained from the button-top of the peyote cactus.” He crouched down to be nearly level with her, balancing on the balls of his feet.

  “Mescaline, yes.” Lanna had heard of that. “It’s a psychedelic drug, in most instances non-habit-forming and rarely leaving any lasting side-effects, depending on the user.” She recited what she remembered about it. “Are you saying that I took it?”

  “It’s usually brewed into a tea,” Hawk stated.

  “A tea.” Lanna began to realize what he was implying, although she didn’t understand how he knew about it. “Sassafras tea? I’ve been drinking a cup before I go to bed at night. Carol usually brings it to me”.

  “Last night it was Chad.”

  “Yes.” She nodded as a cold chill shivered down her spine. “He said Katheryn had sent some in a canteen for me. It explains the dreams I’ve been having, doesn’t it? Why didn’t I suspect something before?” Lanna wondered as the truth became starkly clear. “But how did you guess?”

  “I tried to awaken you from what I thought was a bad dream last night. I’ve seen the peyote dream-trance before. The Native American Church uses it as a sacrament in certain religious ceremonies under very controlled conditions. When I found the canteen of tea in Chad’s saddlebags, it confirmed my suspicions.”

  “But why? What did they hope to gain?”

  “The dream state or the time of heightened awareness lasts about twelve hours. Usually the effects of the drug wear off completely after twenty-four. But when it’s used regularly—and you’ve been taking it every night—those last twelve hours you lose interest in what’s happening around you—you don’t feel like doing anything.”

  “That’s exactly what happened.” She brushed a hand across her face, suddenly realizing why she had been acting so strange. “I couldn’t understand why I was feeling so apathetic about everything. That’s why! But what does that accomplish?”

  “Since you started having these dreams, have you signed any documents without reading them first?” Hawk questioned as he watched her closely.

  “No, I—” Then she remembered. “Chad had some papers that he wanted me to sign. He said they were proxies so he could vote my shares.”

  “Did you sign the papers?” His mouth thinned grimly.

  “No. I didn’t feel like reading them, and, even though he explained to me what they contained, I wouldn’t sign.” Lanna was amazed that she hadn’t signed them. “I couldn’t understand why he was pushing me so hard.” She stared at him, reading in his face his mistrust of Chad. “He was trying to cheat me in some way. That’s why he was drugging me.”

  “I can almost guarantee it. Drink the coffee before it gets cold,” Hawk ordered.

  She obediently took a sip, but her mind was still racing. “What do you suppose was in that document? Was I signing everything over to him?”

  “It was probably much more subtle than that,” Hawk replied dryly. “More than likely, it was a legal document that gave him control of your inheritance, similar to a power of attorney, giving him the right to act in your behalf and depriving you of any say-so.”

  “But Chad is already well off—rich in his own right. Why did he do it?” Lanna protested the lack of reason.

  “It’s commonly known as greed.” Hawk smiled. “Why should he settle for half when there was a way he could get all of it?” He scooped up a handful of loose dirt from the cave floor and let it trickle through his fingers. “There might be another reason, too. All his life, Chad has been second. He was second to J. B. in Katheryn’s affections. Even Carol came to his marriage bed secondhand. In business, he was second in command to J. B. Maybe he even believed he was second to me. Chad hated sharing. When he learned he was sharing the inheritance with you, it was probably more than he could take.”

  “And I thought he was being so good and kind to me.” She shook her head at her gullibility. “I kept thinking how much like John he was—so considerate and thoughtful.”

  “J. B. was really considerate and thoughtful,” Hawk mocked. “He should have known that when he left you all that money, he was making you a target for every swindler in the country. That’s probably why Chad brought you to the ranch—to eliminate all the competition for control of your money.”

  “But why drug me? I already trusted him.” Lanna combed her fingers through her hair as if to smooth out her feelings of confusion. “It never even occurred to me that I shouldn’t—not even after all the negative things you said about him. I thought you were just prejudiced.”

  “Maybe he was worried that the Faulkner charm wouldn’t work on you. He might have discovered that you weren’t susceptible.” He crooked a finger under her chin and lifted it. “Were you?”

  The searching fire of his gaze examined her expression. A tremor started in her heart and spread throughout her veins.

  “I am definitely susceptible to the Faulkner charm, but not Chad’s,” Lanna informed him.

  The corners of his mouth deepened in a pleased smile as his thumb held her chin still for his kiss. There was restraint in his passion, arousing, yet controlled. Lanna yearned for him madly, and she realized the lingering influence of the peyote was heightening the sensation. Hawk reluctantly ended the kiss to rub his thumb over the outline of her trembling lips.

  “Under the circumstances”—his voice had a husky catch to it—“Chad must have decided he needed an alternative to his charm. At a guess, I’d say the solution came to him when Bobby Crow Dog showed up at the ranch.”

  “Why?” Lanna was disappointed when Hawk took his hand away.

  “If you aren’t going to drink that coffee, I am.” He lifted the cup from her hand and straightened to stand above her. “It was out of character for Chad to let Bobby Crow Dog stay at the ranch. But the old man would know where to get the peyote and not arouse anyone’s curiosity. Chad certainly couldn’t, not without starting rumors about his possible drug habits.”

  “So he had Bobby Crow Dog obtain it for him,” Lanna sighed.

  “Chad probably paid him with whiskey. I asked Bobby where he got it and he told me he had sold some big magic. I thought he was talking about one of the trinkets he was peddling—not peyote,” Hawk admitted. “He even told me that he sold it to the Two-Faced One, but the name applied to too many people who I was acquainted with, including Chad.”

  “And Katheryn and Carol,” Lanna added to the list. The names sparked her anger, but it was self-directed. “I can’t believe I was so damned gullible! I wasn’t fooled just by Chad, but by them, too!”

  “You aren’t the only one who was fooled. So was I. In my arrogance I thought they wanted to get rid of me because I was an unwanted reminder of the past. But they wanted me out of the way so I wouldn’t uncover the game they were playing with you,” Hawk explained. “I must have had a premonition when I said they would turn on you if I wasn’t around. Any real or imagined threat from me against them died with J. B.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t go,” Lanna declared. On her own, she would never have discovered what was happening to her until it was too late.

  “We aren’t through this yet,” Hawk cautioned.

  Which brought Lanna full circle back to the first question. “Where are we?”

  “I’ll show you. Come look.” Hawk held out his hand to pull her to her feet.

  Folding back the quilt that covered her feet, she took his hand and stood up, a little awkwardly. He led her to the mouth of the cave. The sunlight spilling through the brown leaves of the tree outside created an intricate pattern on the interior walls of the cave. Lanna stopped short of the outer ledge and looked straight down to the canyon floor. Quickly averting her gaze from the dizzying sight, she noticed the narrow trail leading up to the rim.

  “See the roof of that building near the entrance to the canyon?” Hawk pointed and Lanna nodded, just barely making out the convex roof. “That’s whe
re I lived as a child with my mother. We are on the Navaho Reservation.” When his arm came down, it was to curve around her waist.

  “Why did we come here?” She turned to look up to him, liking the strength and self-possession she saw.

  “Because I needed somewhere to keep you for a couple of days until the effects of the peyote wore off. Maybe by late tomorrow, you’ll be back to normal.” His eyes moved over her, keen and assessing. “Right now, your senses are still under its influence, which is half the reason I’m not going to bed with you. I don’t want an exaggerated response from you to taint the experience with phoniness.”

  Lanna wouldn’t argue with that, although she longed to. “What’s the other half?” she asked instead.

  “Because we’re going to have company soon, and I want to know the moment they arrive.” His gaze left her face to make a slow, thorough sweep of the canyon, the rim, and its entrance.

  “You haven’t explained why you picked this place. There must have been half a dozen other places we could have gone.”

  “Rawlins and several of the older hands know every inch of the ranch as well as I do. If we had tried to make it to a town to hole up, we would have been seen. The Faulkner money and power can persuade a lot of people to talk about what they’ve seen. But this place”—with a nod of his head, he included all of the surrounding countryside—“is homeground only to me. Rawlins knows the location of the hogan, but I’m staking everything on the ace he doesn’t know about this cave.”

  “It’s Rawlins you expect to come here.”

  “Chad will be here first. Rawlins will tell him how to get to it, but he’ll track us with a couple of riders, hand-picked to keep their mouths shut.”

  “He’s following our trail. It will lead him right here, won’t it?” she questioned in faint alarm.

  “He’ll lose it about a mile away, if not before,” Hawk assured her and turned to study her for a silent minute. He ran a leather-gloved finger down the curve of her cheek in a subdued caress. “I might be getting you into a worse mess, Lanna. Before, all you stood to lose was money. It’s hard to say how desperate Chad might be feeling right now or what lengths he might feel compelled to go to in order to cover up what he tried to do or carry it through.”

  Lanna recognized the potential danger of the situation. “I’m not afraid.” Which was strangely the truth. And the knowledge lent a calmness to her voice.

  “As long as we aren’t out there, moving around, we won’t be spotted. We can stay hidden away in here until they get tired of looking for us.”

  “What about food and water?”

  “I took the liberty of raiding the camp supplies before we left,” Hawk confessed with a rash grin. “As for water, there’s a spring directly below us.”

  “And the pump to get it up here?” Lanna asked in jest.

  “You can’t see them, but there are handholds chiseled into the face of the rock leading down to the canyon floor. All I have to do is climb down and fill the canteens.”

  A glance at the perpendicular rock wall alarmed Lanna. “What if you fall and break your neck?”

  Soft laughter came from his throat, mocking her concern, as his arm tightened to curve her closer to his length. “Now why would I do a foolish thing like that?” He brushed a kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be careful,” Hawk promised.

  Lowering her head, she rested her forehead against his shoulder bone. “We can’t stay here forever, Hawk. After a few days, then what?”

  “Then … we’ll choose the time to confront Chad.” He was almost offhanded with the statement.

  Lanna closed her eyes, liking the way Hawk kept saying “we.” “You once told me that you didn’t get involved in other people’s affairs. You aren’t exactly a disinterested observer now.”

  “This time there’s a difference—” His explanation was never finished as he stiffened, his fingers biting into her shoulder. Lanna could feel his whole body coming to a state of full alertness and lifted her head to see what was wrong. She heard the rumble of a vehicle an instant before Hawk warned, “They’re coming.” He pushed her toward the inside of the cave. “Kick the fire out and keep the horses quiet.”

  The tiny fire had nearly burned itself out. All Lanna had to do was smother the coals with the loose dirt from the cave floor. She moved to the horses, stroking the nose of the buckskin while the sorrel nuzzled her shoulder. Tension was coiling in her stomach as she glanced toward the opening. Hawk was lying flat on his stomach at the cave entrance. She wished she was with him so she could watch what was going on, too, but she had to guess what was happening by the distant sounds she heard.

  The vehicle stopped; its motor switched off. There was the tinny clap of metal against metal as doors were slammed. That was followed by a tense silence. Lanna strained and caught the faint sound of voices, or so she imagined. She couldn’t be sure. The buckskin turned its head toward the opening, pricking its ears. Remembering her job, she caught at its nose.

  Time creeped. After what seemed like hours had passed, her mind began to question the need to remain with the horses. This time Lanna didn’t listen to it, recognizing her waning attention and determination as side-effects of the peyote. Finally, Hawk inched backward into the cave before he rolled quietly to his feet and came to her.

  “What’s happening?” Lanna whispered and searched his impassive features. “Are they leaving?”

  “No.” A slight negative shake accompanied his low voice. “I think Chad intends to wait to see if Rawlins trails us here.”

  “How long will that be?”

  “This afternoon, probably late. Tracking is slow business,” he explained. “Rawlins will keep to the trail even after he guesses where we’re heading.”

  “You said he’d lose it a mile from here,” she reminded him.

  “When he does, he’ll send one of the riders on ahead to meet up with Chad. But Rawlins will stay behind to worry the area—ride a few circles around the point where he lost our tracks—trying to pick up a trace. He won’t give up easily.” But Hawk didn’t sound concerned as he moved to the rear of the cave and picked up an armful of yellowed grass to feed the horses. “You might as well relax for a while,” he advised. “It’s going to be a long day.”

  It was made even longer by the pressure of confinement and the need to keep all sound and movement at a minimum. As Hawk had predicted, it was the middle of the afternoon when a lone rider approached the hogan. More than an hour later, two more riders came. A short while after that, Lanna heard the slam of doors and the truck starting up.

  “Are they leaving?” Lanna whispered from her post by the horses.

  “No.” Hawk was crouched in the shadow of the boulder at the cave entrance. “Chad is leaving, but Rawlins and his men must be planning to camp here for the night. They’ve picketed their horses and are building a fire.”

  Lanna stifled a sigh and glanced at the sack of supplies. “We might as well eat, too. I’ll make coffee and fix the meal,” she volunteered.

  Before she could open the sack of supplies, Hawk was standing beside her. “No coffee and no fire,” he told her. “We’ll have a cold sandwich, the same as we had for lunch. There is still enough bread and meat left.”

  “But why?” she protested.

  “Right now they only suspect we are in the vicinity.” Hawk stressed the verb. “But if they smell food cooking or woodsmoke, they will know we’re around here.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Lanna conceded reluctantly.

  Both the bread and the cold beef had begun to dry out, and there was only water from the canteens to wash it down. It was tepid and flat. A cup of hot coffee would have gone a long way in keeping out the night’s chill that invaded the cave when the sun went down. Lanna wrapped the quilt around her and huddled in its warmth near the feet of the horses. A fire at night would carry the added risk of exposing a light that might be seen by the men camped in the canyon. Lanna knew it was out of the question to suggest it, so
she shivered in silence.

  Leaving his vigil, Hawk moved noiselessly into the heart of the cave and stooped to pick up his bedroll. He untied it and separated the groundsheet from the quilt. Shaking it out, he spread it on the ground lengthwise from the saddle.

  Glancing at Lanna, he said, “There’s no point in both of us losing sleep. You might as well get some rest.” He wrapped the quilt around his shoulders like a cloak and moved back to the entrance.

  Lanna looked at the tarp with the saddle for a pillow and ignored its invitation. Instead, she got up and walked to where Hawk was sitting with his legs stretched out and his back resting against the hard cave wall.

  “Let me watch for a while and you get some sleep,” she suggested.

  In the dim light cast by the moon, she saw the tired smile curve his mouth as he shook his head in refusal. “Go lie down,” he ordered softly.

  “If you aren’t, neither am I.” Lanna sank to her knees beside him. “I’ll stay here with you.”

  He hesitated, then lifted an arm to open the front of the blanket. Lanna accepted the invitation to join him inside the fold of his blanket and rested her head against the curve of his shoulder. She spread her quilt over both of them.

  “We’ll be warmer this way,” she said.

  “Mmm.” She felt the vibration of Hawk’s agreeing sound and the stir of his breath on her hair. “As long as it doesn’t get too warm,” he murmured.

  She smiled in the darkness, enjoying the comfortable weight of his arm across her stomach and the invigorating warmth of his body heat combining with hers.

  Chapter XIX

  There was a whir of wings and Hawk’s eyes snapped open. Angrily, he realized his half-conscious catnap had become a sound sleep. For how long? He shot a glance at the sun, newly risen in the sky. Two hours, maybe, not much more than that. Lanna was heavy in his arms, breathing deeply in sleep.

  His body was stiff and numb from being in the cramped position, but Hawk held off moving. Something had alarmed those birds, so he remained motionless and listened. It was several seconds before he separated the rustling sound of a breeze stirring the brown leaves in the tree from the swish of something or someone walking through tall grass. Then he heard the distinctive sound of a horseshoe striking stone. It came from almost directly below, and there was more than one.