Page 54 of Falling for the Cowgirl
Within the half hour, he was on his way northeast up into the Kenosha Range, his weapons loaded and canteen full. He’d been there often over the years and was familiar enough with the rock formations to guess approximately where Ivy was taking the men. It was a long trip, and he wasn’t taking any chances.
Still attired in his Sunday-meeting clothes, he rode at a punishing pace, sifting through the details he’d gathered about Hance and Otis. From all appearances and everything they’d said, they were just ordinary fellows trying to build successful businesses in the Fairplay community that Mayor Steele had worked hard to develop.
However, Jericho would use the opportunity today to spend time with them and hopefully discover more about their backgrounds and the treasure they were searching for—Spanish or otherwise.
By midday, as he traveled into the area known for its unique rock patterns, he found evidence of fresh tracks and horse droppings and guessed Ivy was headed to Windy Peak. He veered his mount in that direction, even though everything within him resisted the prospect of going to the area wherehis brother had died. He’d never been back, had promised himself he wouldn’t return.
But today the urgency to protect Ivy drove him. He had to make sure she was alright.
The farther he traveled, the more the wind picked up and the smoke thickened, like fog settling over the evergreens. As he reached a high point with boulders towering from the earth, he reined in, took out his spyglass, and studied the land surrounding Windy Peak for any motion or color that would indicate Ivy’s presence. From a distance, one of the rock formations wound upward from the bottom of a ravine, curving back and forth. Jericho guessed it could suffice for a snake.
Was that the spot Hance was seeking? Maybe they’d already discovered it. At the very least, Jericho needed to ride closer and scour the area.
Something in his peripheral vision caught his attention. He shifted his spyglass, and his stomach bottomed out. In the middle of thick clouds just to the north, red billowed above the treetops.
Fire. A swath of flames raged through the forest, the high winds fanning and causing them to jump from one tree to the next faster than he’d ever seen fire move. He didn’t know if these flames were a part of the larger area that had been burning over the past couple of weeks or if this was a new fire altogether. But what he did know was that it was moving rapidly toward Windy Peak. If Ivy was anywhere nearby, she would soon be in grave danger.
Desperation clogged his airways. He had to find her. And fast.
Chapter
17
Smoke stung Ivy’s eyes. But she blinked and attempted to focus. “We should be close now.” Her voice came out scratchy after breathing in the smoke-laden air for the past hour of searching.
The high walls of the red-brown granite shielded them from the intensity of the wind but couldn’t protect them from the smoke. Both Hance and Otis coughed into the neckerchiefs they’d raised over their mouths and noses.
“Maybe we should head back,” Otis called from a dozen paces down the rocky mountainside. Laboring to breathe, the stout man had stopped and was studying the sky, now obscured by gray mounds of smoke that contained an edge of dark fury, like thunderheads before a storm.
Upon reaching the rocky slopes, they’d left their horses behind since the route was too treacherous, and they’d continued by foot, the sparse, dry brush providing holds that allowed them to make the climb.
Ivy peered up the steep incline through the haze. Thesummit was within sight. “We’ve come this far—we can’t quit now.”
Lines of perspiration made trails through the grit on Hance’s forehead, and his spectacles slid down his nose. “The smoke seems to be getting worse.”
“Hopefully we’ll move out of it once we get a little higher.” She stepped up again, her nimbleness and her sturdy boots helping with the climb. She was having an easier time with the hike than Hance and Otis. Both were as clumsy as newborn calves, and Otis had been hacking and coughing for the past hour.
She hiked several more feet before glancing back. The two stood in the same positions as before. Their faces—at least what she could see of them—were red from the exertion as well as the heat of the summer afternoon.
Hance was staring up at the ever-darkening skies too. “You don’t think we’re in danger of fire?”
“Nope. I reckon the wind is causing a ruckus and blowing the smoke is all.” She’d checked with teamsters yesterday and learned that the fiery area was still quite a way to the northwest. Even this morning during the ascent, the blackest smoke remained well out of this part of the range.
At the silence behind her, she halted again. The men were leaning against the rock.
“C’mon. Let’s go.”
“You’re adventurous and brave,” came Hance’s muffled reply from behind his bandana. “More than we are.”
With the way the wind was picking up, it wouldn’t hurt to have a place to tuck into if the fire happened to head their direction. “If we run into trouble, we can always head back to that cave we explored just down around the bend. Itain’t big, but it’ll do if we need a quick place to wait things out.”
Thankfully, their horses were tied loosely enough that they’d be able to get free and outrun the fire if it got close to them.
“That’s a fine idea.” Hance took off his hat and wiped his brow, clearly exhausted.
Otis nodded, but his chest heaved in and out as he labored for another breath.
“I tell you what. While you rest a spell, I’ll head on up the last of the climb, take a look around, and call down to you if I see the rattlesnake rock formation.”
