Saturday, 15 April, 1870

     They gave me the benefit of the doubt.  They all agreed to keep going, even knowing the difficult—maybe even impossible—challenge we faced.  While Hank took first watch, I lay on my pallet and pretended to sleep, while I pondered it all.

      I hadn’t really been surprised by Matthew, whose loyalty I could always count on—or even Brendan, who’d been unexpectedly open-minded and understanding, in spite of the rocky beginning we’d had.  But Hank—now there was a revelation.  Only a short time before we’d been at each other’s throats, hurling insults back and forth.  Hearing him call me crazy and berate me for bringing them all out here on a wild goose chase had been especially hard—since I’d spent so much of my own time punishing myself over Michaela’s kidnapping, and anguishing over whether I was doing the right thing, dragging everybody so far from home all on the strength of one mysterious clue and a fragile theory about Bloody Knife taking Michaela to Red Rock.  Receiving the vision from Michaela had restored my faith to a large degree—but just because I believed in it, didn’t mean the others were obliged to.  Fact is, as outlandish as it must have sounded to them, it’s a wonder they didn’t all turn tail and run straight back to Colorado Springs.

     But no.  They chose to cast their lot with me, even though it seemed to fly in the face of all reason.  In Hank’s case, I suspected that his decision to stick around had a lot more to do with his admiration for Michaela, than any loyalty he felt to me—but the reasons weren’t important.  If he cared about Michaela and what happened to her (and I had no illusions about his feelings in that regard—I’d seen a certain look in his eye more than once in the years since Michaela had come to town)—then he’d fight for her to his last breath.  Think what you would about Hank (and I’d thought plenty—and said it too, from time to time), he was a man of conviction.  If he made up his mind to do something, then he’d see it through, and damn the cost.

    It was an unexpected quality in a man who seemed to go out of his way to foster his reputation as a scoundrel. Hank had spent a lot of years cultivating his villainous image, and he was proud of it.  Fact is, I think he would have sooner faced a firing squad than ever admit to doing a “good deed” for anybody.

    And yet I knew that a lot of his bravodo was just a sham—a pose he maintained to hide that small kernel of kindness lurking at his core.  Of course he’d deny it.  The mere idea of anybody thinking he was “soft” was enough to horrify him.  But as hard as he worked to disguise that part of his nature, I knew he had some decency inside, even if you had to look real deep to find it.  I’d seen the proof, more than once.  Like the time Michaela and I had to collect samples of water contaminated by mercury from Harding’s Mill.  Hank had been a member of the search party dispatched by the town to warn us we were in danger of getting shot; and from what I heard later, he’d done more than his share of grumbling about having to come to our rescue.  (At least they *thought* they were rescuing us—though it was more like the other way around, when we had to lead them back to town after they got hopelessly lost.)  But the fact remained that he did try to help, despite all his bluster.

    And there was last Christmas, when the Jewish family came to Colorado Springs.  Loren, Jake, and plenty of other folks had been against them—had done everything in their power, in fact, to drive the Frankels out.  But Hank had refused to have any part of it.  It turned out a Jewish family had saved his life once when he was caught in a blizzard, and the experience had marked him.  Hank was no saint—far from it.  He carried a lot of grudges around inside him, like the way he felt about the Indians, the Chinese and the immigrants.  But he also possessed his own brand of integrity, convoluted though it might be.  He never forgot a debt, or a kindness.

    Hank also had a son—whose existence he’d managed to keep secret for a lot of years after the boy’s ma died when the child was five.  But when the woman Hank paid to take care of his son also passed on a few years later, the truth about Zak, and the identity of his father, finally came out.

    On the face of things, it seemed like a cold and heartless act for Hank to turn his back on his son —letting somebody else raise him, and not even letting on to Zak that he was his pa.  But there had been reasons for Hank doing what he did.  And maybe, in his way, he’d believed he was doing Zak a kindness.

    Zak’s mother, Clarice, had been one of Hank’s “girls.”  And though Hank had loved her, they hadn’t been married, and there were no prospects in that direction.  Hank had known what it would be like for Zak growing up—the whispers and vicious gossip, the pointing and staring—if folks knew about his parents:  his ma an unmarried prostitute, his pa the owner of the saloon where she “entertained.”

    And Zak was . . . slow—for lack of a better or kinder word.  Something having to do with a problem when he was born.  It made him a target of folks’ cruelty, even before they found out the truth about Hank being his pa.  I think maybe during those years after Clarice died, Hank had figured to spare Zak some suffering, by keeping him out of town and out of sight.

    The one thing Hank hadn’t figured on was caring so much for his son, which made him admit the truth about being Zak’s pa to protect him from the townspeople who wanted to put Zak away in some asylum.  Hank had been prepared to raise Zak, even knowing that the saloon was no place to bring up a young boy.

    But the unexpected discovery that Zak possessed artistic talent, had changed all that.  Michaela had contacted an art school in Denver, and it turned out they were eager to welcome the child.  He would be able to live there while he learned and developed his skills, and his pa could visit whenever he wanted.

    It was a happy solution, and a lucky one, solving a lot of problems.  I figure it was mostly a relief for Hank—the life he lived hardly allowed much room for a child, and Zak was clearly better off going away to school.  But if the school hadn’t been an option,  Hank would still have been willing to do what he could to make a life for Zak—just like he’d provided for the boy all his life.  I believe he loved Zak—and that he was proud of him.

    Yeah, there was more to Hank than met the eye.  He cared about folks—certain folks—a lot, and he wasn’t afraid to put himself on the line for them, if he had to.  He was here with me now—which surely proved something.  And despite how ornery he could be at times, I was still grateful to have him on my side.

    Which brought me back to our present situation.  Thinking about Hank had diverted me for a while from my worries about Michaela, but it hadn’t helped me to solve my own problem:  how to find one waterfall among many, in a mountain range that stretched across the landscape for better than fifteen miles.

    The others had been right—tracking down the waterfall without any clue as to its location wouldn’t be easy.  Fact was, it would be damn hard.  But we would do it.  We had to.  My mind and my heart wouldn’t accept any other outcome.

    But without anything to point me in the right direction—and in this case, not even Brendan could help me—I had to come up with another way to ferret out where the waterfall could be.

    It seemed like the only way I was going to manage it, would be to put myself in Bloody Knife’s shoes—to try to think like he did—repellent a prospect as that was.  I lay there and thought about Bloody Knife.  I thought about him for a long time.

    From the moment Brendan told us the origins of the stone (or “petroglyph” as he’d called it), I”d known that Bloody Knife’s abduction of Michaela hadn’t been an impulsive act.  While for days I’d lain close to death from pneumonia and the bullet he’d nearly put in me; and then all those weeks after when I’d been unconscious of the threat he posed to us because of the amnesia . . . he’d watched, and he’d waited . . . his hate crystallizing more every day as he conceived and plotted his revenge.

    Likewise, his selection of a remote and distant place like Red Rock had been no accident.  He’d wanted his revenge over me, but he’d also wanted to stretch it out . . . to sweeten it by toying with me and prolonging my suffering.

    But why he’d felt the need to go clear to Red Rock to accomplish his purpose, I couldn’t say.  As Hank had pointed out only this afternoon while we rode along, there were plenty of other places—equally unknown to me but a heck of a lot closer—where Bloody Knife could have lured me.  I hadn’t been able to give Hank an answer then, and I didn’t have one now.  But I let my mind explore the question for a bit.

    The first thing that occurred to me was that Red Rock Canyon might be significant or special to Bloody Knife in some way.  Perhaps it had been a place of conquest for him, where he’d won a great victory in battle—and he wanted to repeat his triumph by defeating yet another enemy on the site of his former glory.  Or—it could have been the opposite.  Maybe he’d suffered some kind of defeat or degradation here—and he wanted to wipe out the shame of his previous failure by finally killing me, as he’d sought to do on that fateful night.  Or maybe . . . it was neither of those things.

    I sighed.   Truth was, there could have been any of a dozen reasons why Bloody Knife had picked the place he did—and crazy as he was, his choice didn’t have to make any sense.  Which was the thing about him that scared me the most.  With his mind so twisted, there was no telling what he might take it into his head to do to Michaela.  What he might already have done . . .

    Sweat broke out on my brow and my stomach lurched sickeningly, threatening to bring up the acid remains of what little I’d had to eat.  Desperately I breathed deeply, willing the nausea away.  I couldn’t let Hank see me being weak—puking my guts out as if I didn’t have the stomach for what lay ahead.  The fragile confidence I’d worked so hard to elicit from him would evaporate like dew in the morning sun.

    Gradually the feeling of sickness faded, and the sweat dried on my clammy skin.  I continued to take deep breaths, trying to clear my mind of everything save my consideration of Bloody Knife’s actions.

    Mentally I reviewed my facts.  The scout had spent weeks formulating his malicious plot; and when the time had come to execute it, his plan had gone off without a hitch—except maybe for Michaela managing to wound him—if in fact she’d been the one to hurt him, rather than the other way around.  But even allowing for being injured, he’d still succeeded in stealing her away, so for all intents and purposes, he’d gotten away clean.

    Except—he hadn’t.  That was the strangest and most vital part of this mystery.  He could easily have escaped with Michaela, with none of us the wiser or having any idea where he’d gone—but he hadn’t.  Instead, he’d left a clue behind.  Granted, the clue—the stone—was obscure, and he must have known it might take a lot of doing on my part to find out what it was and where it had come from.  But he’d also known I wouldn’t rest till I did.  And that then—I’d come after him.

    So his trap was set to lure me hundreds of miles away to the mountains and desert of Nevada, where he’d triumph over me at last.  The thing was, he also knew it would take a long time for me to reach him—the days crawling past while he was forced to wait for his revenge.  Why would he be willing to postpone that pleasure?  To make me sweat a little longer?  Maybe.  But even Bloody Knife couldn’t wait indefinitely.  By now, he had to be as impatient as I was—all but salivating for the conclusion of our end-game.

    My thoughts returned to the waterfall.  As I’d said to the others before we’d left Colorado Springs, Bloody Knife couldn’t have known we’d have someone to guide us to Red Rock.  And he surely couldn’t be aware of the vision Michaela had somehow sent me.  As far as he knew, we faced a nearly impossible task in tracking him down somewhere within this vast stretch of mountains.  And fact was, even with the advantages we had, the prospect of finding the scout under these conditions was daunting.

    Except—if Bloody Knife made it impossible for us to find him, he would never achieve the revenge he wanted so desperately.  He wouldn’t win.

    So, knowing all this, would he have selected a place so well concealed that we might never come across it?  Or would he have hidden in plain sight, choosing a spot I couldn’t help but find?  He’d controlled every aspect of this tragic drama since he’d set it into motion.  It stood to reason he’d carefully planned the final act as well.

    I couldn’t be sure if any of my speculation was true.  But something in my gut told me I was right—that I’d had a glimpse into the darkness in his heart and seen the truth.

    There was less than twenty miles left to go till we reached the sandstone foothills of Red Rock.  If we kept a steady pace—and I would let nothing delay us now—we would get there well before sundown tomorrow.

    That feeling of “knowing” came over me again.  I couldn’t say why I suddenly felt so certain, but I knew it in my heart—and in my soul.  Tomorrow . . . we would also find the waterfall.

    Tomorrow would be the day of reckoning.

* * * * * * * * * *

 
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

     “Sounds like wishful thinkin’ to me,” Hank commented as Sully finished sharing his insights from the night before.  The barkeep emptied what remained of his coffee over the guttering campfire.  A cloud of steam arose, coupled with an audible hiss which filled the predawn quiet.

     “I know that’s how it sounds,” Sully conceded, pulling on his gloves.  There was a rose-colored glow in the eastern sky as the sun began to emerge above the mountain peaks, but its rays were still too weak to counteract the night’s lingering chill.  This would change within an hour or so, but for now, he shivered slightly beneath his buckskin coat.  “I mean, think about it,” he continued, strolling over to where Hank now stood by his horse, tying his bedroll to the saddle.  “Bloody Knife waited all those weeks to set his plot into motion, and then waited even longer for us to get out here.  He had this whole thing planned from the start, but by now he’s gotta be gettin’ impatient to bring it all to an end.  ‘Sides, he already left a clue to lead us to this spot.  So why would he make it hard for us to find him now that we’re here?”

     “My point exactly,” Hank replied, lighting his first cigar of the day.  “He’s been waitin’ a long time.  He’s good at it.  Most likely enjoys it, too, leadin’ us by the nose like we was a bunch of dumb jackasses, followin’ a carrot on a stick.  Seems to me he wants to stretch out the torture long as he can.”

     “He’s getting’ his pleasure out of this, and no mistake,” Sully agreed grimly.  “I ain’t arguin’ that.  I’m just sayin’ that things are reachin’ a head now.  He’s been expectin’ me for a long time, and he’s ready to finish me off.  And I got a gut feelin’ that it’s gonna be today.”

     “”Nother one of them ‘visions’?” Hank inquired, regarding him with a mildly jaundiced eye.

     Sully returned Hank’s skeptical look with a frank one of his own.  “No, not this time,” he replied matter-of-factly.  “Just common sense—along with a hunch about what makes him tick.”

     “It sounds like a valid conclusion to me,” Brendan remarked, joining them.

     “Me, too,” offered Matthew.

     “Mighta knowed you’d both agree,” Hank said drily.

     “You sayin’ you don’t?” Matthew asked.

     Hank shrugged.  “Ain’t sayin’, one way or the other.  Just warnin’ ya not to get your hopes up.”

      “One thing you can count on Hank—far as Bloody Knife goes, I got no illusions about how dangerous or deceitful he is,” Sully said flatly.  “And I’m prepared for anythin’.”

     “Then we’d best get to it,” Hank advised.  Sully nodded, and the four men mounted their horses.  With Sully and Brendan in the lead, and Matthew and Hank following, they set off on the final leg of their journey.

* * * * * * * * * *

    She was cold.  She was so cold.  The damp and clammy chill seemed to penetrate every bone in her body, and she felt as if she would never be warm again.  Beyond the mouth of the cave, the barricade of relentlessly plunging water created a constant white noise that roared in her ears.  She yearned for silence, but had almost forgotten what that sounded like—or didn’t sound like—she thought wryly, amazed that she could find even a particle of humor—black though it might be—in her desperate circumstances.

    Michaela knew she should try to move, to stretch her limbs, but her mind and body recoiled from the prospect.  Her arms and legs were no longer bound, but that made no difference.  Scarcity of food and water had made her appallingly weak, and frequent drugging had left her feeling groggy, disoriented, and sick.

    A thin blanket covered her, but it provided little warmth.  Nor did she need to look beneath it to know that she was swimming in her clothes.  It frightened her a little to think of how much weight she’d lost; of how much this ordeal had sapped her strength.  There were also the effects of exposure to consider.  Every limb, every muscle in her body ached from the damp, and she found herself wondering if she might permanently suffer from arthritis after all this was over—assuming, of course, that she survived at all . . .

    She looked down at her hands, the flesh transparent, her fingers thin and clawlike.  Gingerly she tried to flex them, and moaned softly at the explosion of pain.  She thought of the time Colleen’s fingers had become frostbitten from exposure to the cold of the mountains.  Michaela had feared she might have to amputate Colleen’s hands to save her life, though mercifully that hadn’t proved necessary.  Colleen had recovered.

    But would she end up suffering a fate similar to the one she’d managed to avert for her daughter?  Would she lose the use of her fingers to arthritis, or worse; and thus be forced to give up her career—her life’s blood?  Tears slipped unbidden down her cheeks as soundlessly, helplessly, she began to cry.

    A moment later a surge of stubbornness washed through her, and she awkwardly wiped at her face with the backs of her hands, blotting the tears away.  Weeping would do her no good.  And  dehydrated as she was, she knew she couldn’t afford to waste even a fraction of her body’s diminished resources.

    For the moment she was alone.  Bloody Knife had disappeared on some unknown errand, confident in the knowledge that she wasn’t going anywhere.  And even if she could have summoned the strength to move, to leave the cave—where would she go?  She was somewhere in the desert—she knew that much—but the knowledge was useless to her.  Repeated exposure to the chloroform had robbed her of large blocks of time, as well as completely confusing her sense of direction or distance.
 
    At the thought of the chloroform, her stomach turned over.  It had become like a part of her now.  The odor was constantly in her nostrils; her hair and clothing reeked of it.  Again, she thought of the future.  Would she ever be able to use chloroform on a patient again—assuming her hands didn’t suffer permanent damage—assuming she even lived?

    Stop it! she told herself angrily.  Indulging in self-pity didn’t help—it certainly wouldn’t get her out of this.

    And there *was* a way out of this—there *had* to be.  She couldn’t accept that Sully had triumphed over so much suffering—that they both had—only to be vanquished after all.

    Sully.  As her mind spoke his name, as she pictured his face, a torrent of longing for him flooded through her, and she couldn’t prevent the hot tears which scalded her cheeks once again.  She had tried to avoid thinking about him, because the thoughts were too painful.  As desperately as she yearned for him, as much as she prayed for him to appear, she was equally terrified for him.  She knew he would come after her, that he would let nothing stop him from rescuing her.  But the price of her survival might be his death.  Perhaps even her own, in a way—because if Sully forfeited his life to save hers, she wouldn’t want to go on.  She might continue to exist, for the children’s sake, but it would be a mockery of life—cold, sterile and empty.

     Michaela tried to push the thoughts of Sully from her mind.  But even as she made the attempt, she realized that the effort was futile.  Because even if she avoided thinking of him consciously, she couldn’t prevent him from filling her dreams.

     The dreams.  They had been her constant companion since all this began—her only means of escape.  At first they had been a jumbled collage of memories—bits and pieces of times she and Sully had spent together, random fragments of conversations and exchanges of loving words and embraces between them.  But a few days ago—she couldn’t say how many—a different sort of dream had come to replace the others.  One in which she saw Sully in the desert beneath the blanket of a vast, velvet sky sewn with stars.  At first he was alone, but suddenly she felt herself by his side.  She reached out to touch him, but her form was ghostly, transparent, and her hand passed right through his body.

    He seemed to be calling out for her, pleading with her to tell him where she was.  She wanted to answer—oh, how desperately she tried!—but to no avail.  Just as he couldn’t feel her touch, he couldn’t hear her voice.

    She thought it was useless; that there was no way to reach him, no way to let him know that she was there.  Because she wasn’t there—not really.  Her mind and heart might be with Sully, but her physical body was far away, marooned in a cold, dank cave screened by a powerful waterfall.  How could she tell him where she really was?  How could she help him to find her, when the location of her “prison” was as much a mystery to her as it was to him?

    But then, miraculously, something of what she was thinking or feeling seemed to communicate itself to him.  His eyes widened with knowledge, and he looked up into the night sky and spoke to her.  Only a whisper, but his words sounded like a clarion in her mind.  He had heard her—and he would find her.

    The dream always ended at this point, leaving her heart soaring with hope—until she awoke and was reminded once again of her bleak reality.  It was a beautiful fantasy, but no more than that.  And she couldn’t pin her hopes on a fantasy.

    As the familiar feeling of devastation which always followed the dream claimed her yet again, a shadow darkened the entrance to the cave, and Bloody Knife entered.  Warily she watched him approach.  As he drew closer to her, she noticed an unusual expression on his face—one she hadn’t seen before.  Suddenly it came to her.  He looked . . . happy.

    The scout knelt down beside her, his eyes bright and alive with expectation.

    “What it it?” she managed apprehensively, her voice little more than a croak.  Bloody Knife stretched out his hand and stroked her cheek lightly with his thumb.  Michaela tried not to flinch.

    “He comes,” the Indian said.

* * * * * * * * * *

    “I don’t like this,” Hank said grimly several hours later as they picked their way across the desert floor, its sandy, hilly surface carpeted with scrub, cacti and scattered rocks.  He glanced up uneasily at the sandstone and limestone peaks that circled them on three sides.  “I feel real exposed out here—like we’re bein’ watched.”

    Sully knew what he meant.  He had been experiencing the same sensation the last couple of miles or so, but he hadn’t been sure if the feeling was genuine, or just paranoia fostered by the knowledge that they were now so close to their adversary.

    His eyes traveled over the unending crags, folds and hollows in the peaks and domes surrounding them.  Thousands of places where somebody could hide, where he could watch . . .

    “He probably*is* watchin’,” Sully said aloud, glancing back over his shoulder at Hank.  “That’s what I’d be doin’, if I was him.  ‘Sides, his line of sight stretches for miles.  No way he could avoid spottin’ us out in the open like this.”  He drew back slightly on the reins and brought his horse to a stop.  The others followed suit, Hank pulling up alongside him.

    “That’s ‘sposed to make me feel better?” Hank asked Sully dourly.  Again he squinted up at the
mountains ahead from under the brim of his dusty black hat.  “We’re lined up here like a row o’ tin cans on a fence, just waitin’ for him to pick us off.”

    But Sully was shaking his head.  “No—that ain’t the way he’s gonna do it.”

    Hank looked at him pityingly.  Obviously he believed Sully to be hopelessly naïve.  “Injun’s crazy—he ain’t stupid,” he said flatly.  “This is his chance.  Ya really think he’s gonna pass it up?”

    “Yeah, that’s what I think,” Sully responded.  He maneuvered his horse around so that he was facing all three of them.  Leaning forward over the animal’s neck he said, “Don’t you get it?  It’s too easy.  Pickin’ us off from a distance—like he was a sniper—that’s the coward’s way.  ‘Sides, where’s the challenge in that?  Where’s the reward?

    “Bloody Knife went to a lotta trouble to set this up—to bring me all the way out here,” Sully went on.  “And he’s a warrior, don’t forget that.  He wants to meet me in battle—to confront me face to face.  He wants me to know who it was who defeated me.”

    “Well, that’s all right for you, but what about us?” Hank argued.  “What’s to stop him from killin’ the rest of us so you and him can have a clear field?”

    “That’s a possibility, I guess, but—“ Sully began.

    “Ya ‘guess?’” Hank interrupted, his voice dripping with sarcasm.  “Pretty free and easy with other folks’ lives ain’t ya, Sully?” he added caustically.

    Sully drew a deep breath, holding onto his temper.  “What I was *gonna* say, is that it’s possible he might do that—but I don’t think he will.  Too much potential for somethin’ goin’ wrong, for one thing.  He might manage to take down one or two of us, but it’s still four against one.  At least one of us could probably hit him before he managed to get the rest.  ‘Sides, he’d be givin’ away his location, makin’ it easier for me to track him, and that might spoil his plan.  He wants to get the drop on me, not the other way around.

    “And there’s one more thing—maybe the most important thing,” he added.  “If all he cared about was killin’ me, he coulda done it while we were fightin’ the fire.  I was right there in front of the saloon—a perfect target.  He coulda just shot me through the window of the clinic.  But that wouldn’t have given him the pleasure he craved.  And I woulda never known who it was who killed me.

    “Everythin’ he’s done since he started all this points to him wantin’ to face me, eye to eye, and then defeat me,” Sully concluded earnestly.  “And if he can do it in front of an audience—“  He glanced around at each of their faces.  “—so much the better.”

    “So what do you propose we do?” asked Brendan.

    Sully shrugged.  “Keep goin’.  Keep lookin’ for the waterfall and see what turns up.  That’s about all we *can* do, for now.”

    “It don’t sound like much of a plan,” Hank objected, still disgruntled.  “I don’t like bein’ at anybody’s mercy—lettin’ ‘em have the advantage over me,” he added.

    “Me neither—but it looks like we don’t got any choice at the moment,” Sully said.  “’Course, if you got any better ideas, I’m open to suggestions.”  He regarded Hank levelly.

    The saloon owner stared back at him defiantly and seemed on the verge of uttering a sarcastic retort—but then flicked his long hair back from his face and took up his reins.  “Let’s just get on with it,” he muttered.

    Sully glanced at Brendan and Matthew, and they nodded in confirmation.  He turned his horse’s head around, and nudged the animal forward.  The others followed, and they began moving again.

* * * * * * * * * *

    Michaela began to tremble.  “Who comes?” she asked apprehensively, knowing the answer in her heart, and both longing and dreading to hear Bloody Knife utter the name.

    “You wish to hear me speak it?” he said with a cold smile.  “Very well—if I must.  Your man,” he told her, his smile of anticipation broadening.  “Your . . . *beloved.*”  The way he said the word made it sound like an epithet.  “He comes to ‘rescue’ you—just as I predicted.  Just as I planned.”  He wore a look of smug satisfaction.

    Michaela’s cheeks drained of what little color they’d had and her heart began to hammer against her ribs.

    “What?” he said unctuously, his smile becoming a leer.  “The news does not please you?  But I thought you cared  for this man.”  His fingers toyed with the lank strands of hair laying against her cheek.  Michaela’s skin crawled at his touch.

    “I do care for him,” she managed, barely above a whisper.  She gathered her courage.  “How do you know he’s coming?” she asked, her voice slightly stronger.

    “I have seen him,” Bloody Knife replied.  “He is very close.  He will be here soon.”  The scout’s expression altered, became darker.  “He comes with other men,” he announced.  “Your son—“

    Michaela’s heart skipped another beat.  Matthew, she thought.  Oh, Matthew.

    “The long-hair from the saloon—“ Bloody Knife went on.

    Hank, the voice spoke in her mind.  She was curiously unsurprised to learn that Hank was a member of the posse, and her spirits lifted minutely at the knowledge that he was there to provide back-up for Sully and Matthew.

    “And one other, who I do not know,” the scout concluded.  “Tall, dark.  He speaks like a white man from the east.”

    Michaela’s eyes widened in stunned disbelief.  Could Bloody Knife be describing Brendan?  Brendan accompanying Sully on this rescue mission?  How could such a thing have possibly come about?  True, Sully had promised her he would try to make peace with the younger man, and she knew he’d keep his word—but beyond apologizing for his actions, she’d been certain that Sully would have nothing else to do with the archaeologist.

    Bloody Knife peered at her closely, noting her startled expression.  “Who is he?” he said.

    “Just—a friend—of my family,” Michaela answered haltingly.  “He was visiting.  He has nothing to do with this.”

    “Clearly you are mistaken,” the scout countered.  “He is here—that means he has made it his business.”

    Guilt washed through her.  It was bad enough that Sully’s and Matthew’s lives were in danger on her account.  But now she had to bear the responsibility of Hank and Brendan risking their safety as well.  Where Hank was concerned, she didn’t feel quite so badly—she knew that Hank wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want to do.  But Brendan was uninvolved—entirely innocent in all this.  If anything happened to him because of her, she could never forgive herself.

    “Please,” she spoke up.  “Don’t hurt them.  They only came to help Sully—you have no quarrel with them.”

    “They are the friends of my enemy, therefore they are my enemies,” Bloody Knife retorted.

    “But why is Sully your enemy?” Michaela burst out in anguish and frustration.  “He did nothing to you!”

    “He attacked me,” the scout said harshly.

    “Only in self-defense!” she exclaimed.  “To protect his friend, Cloud Dancing.  He would never have done it if you hadn’t tried to harm them first.  You tried to kill them,” she insisted.  “You nearly succeeded, with Sully.  Isn’t that enough for you?”

    He gave her a lethal look.  “It will not be enough until he is dead.”

    Icy fear sliced through her.  “Why did you attack Sully and Cloud Dancing to begin with?” she persisted recklessly.  “Because of *orders* from General Custer?  Why would you let Custer use you in that way?  How could you murder someone in his name—someone who’s never done you any harm?”

    “I am loyal to the Son of the Morning Star,” Bloody Knife stated flatly.  “If the half-breed and the Cheyenne are his enemies, they are my enemies.”

    “Please,” Michaela entreated, accepting at last that there was no reasoning with him.  “I’m begging you.  Do what you want with me, but spare Sully and the others.  I’ll do whatever you ask.”

    The scout rose to his feet, ignoring her plea, and moved to the mouth of the cave.

    Michaela was seized with panic.  “Where are you going?” she asked quickly.

    He stopped and faced her.  “I am not so heartless as you believe,” he said, the leer reappearing on his face.  “Soon, the half-breed will come.  I will allow you time alone to say good-bye.  Make the most of this chance.  It will be the last one that you have.”  He ducked his head and exited the cave.

    “Wait!” Michaela called after him frantically.  “Please!”  But her appeal went unanswered.  He was gone.

    Tears of rage and fear sprang to her eyes.  “Damn you!” she choked as a black cloud of misery enveloped her. “Damn  you . . .”

* * * * * * * * * *

    As he rode along, Sully kept his eyes trained on the mountains and bluffs hovering over them,
searching for any trace of landscape that seemed familiar.  Periodically he dropped his eyes to the ground as well, studying its surface for any visible signs of Bloody Knife’s and Michaela’s passage.  But he did it more out of reflex, rather than with any real hope of detecting anything.  They hadn’t been able to rely on tracks to guide their way on this journey up till now; and he seriously doubted that any such clues would be forthcoming at this late date.  Noticing some unusual and attractive vegetation immediately ahead, he adroitly angled his horse a few paces to the side to avoid a cluster of tiny cacti, their round and oval stems resembling the blossoms of a minature garden.

     He was gazing at the crest of a limestone peak, its charcoal summit thrusting up boldly against the sun-washed blue of the sky, when Matthew suddenly spoke.

     “Look at it,” the young man said.  “Just look at it . . .”

     Sully glanced at him sharply, thinking for a moment that Matthew had spotted something; but immediately recognized that Matthew’s expression was not one of discovery, but awe.

     “It’s amazin’,” Matthew went on more softly.  “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this.”

     Despite the sense of urgency impelling him onward, Sully had to agree with Matthew’s assessment.  The terrain surrounding them was truly a collection of contrasting and colorful wonders.  On his right, vibrant green patches of desert grass yielded to a band of rust-colored sandstone—it’s red-orange hue glowing in the light of the afternoon sun.  And beyond that rose a limestone ridge, its coal-black contours like a row of jagged teeth silhouetted starkly on the horizon.

    On his left lay another stretch of sandstone, the folds and crevices in its weathered face reminding him of the swirls of frosting on a birthday cake.  A little further on hunched a larger sandstone monolith, its tumbled layers infused by an even deeper shade of red.  Deep fissures, created by thousands—perhaps millions—of years of erosion, sliced into its surface and cleaved its summit, making it appear as if an enormous block of clay had been squashed by a giant hand.  Ahead, a mass of clouds swept dramatically down from the sky, sheathing the crests of distant limestone peaks in a mantle of white.

     On all sides, the vistas were stunningly beautiful, primitive and wild, and Sully wished he could give these gifts of nature the reverence they deserved.  But until he found Michaela; until he held her safe in his arms again, he knew that none of Mother Earth’s creations—regardless of how exquisite—would have the power to move him.

     “What’s this?” Matthew spoke again, breaking into Sully’s thoughts.  “Looks like a road.”  The young man was pointing off to the left.  A relatively clear swathe of desert stretched before them, cleaving a path into the foothills.  It did indeed resemble a road, albeit one peppered with a scattering of rocks, clumps of scrub and the sword-like stems of the occasional yucca.

     Sully studied it.  “Probably a wash,” he concluded.

     “That’s correct,” Brendan confirmed, drawing abreast of them.  “Storms in the mountains frequently produce flash floods, which in turn create raging torrents of water that fill dry washes like this one and sweep rock fragments—even boulders—toward the valley.  See all these rocks and stones?”  He gestured with his arm to encompass the scene before them.  “They were carried down out of the mountains by the water.”

     “So are we gonna head this way?” Hank asked.

     Matthew raised an eyebrow.  “Seems as good a direction as any.”  He glanced at Sully.  “What do you think?”

     “Appears to be safe,” Sully judged.  “You agree?” he consulted Brendan.

     “If there was any threat of a storm, I’d recommend that we avoid it,” Brendan replied.  “These washes can turn dangerous very quickly, as I’m sure you know.  But since the weather’s clear, there shouldn’t be any problem.”

     “You sure ‘bout that?” Hank persisted.  “I don’t exactly cotton to drownin’ out in the middle of the desert.”

     “Of all the things we got to worry about, Hank, I’d say gettin’ caught in a flood is the least of our concerns,” Sully remarked drily.  “We ain’t deliberately gonna head into any danger.”

     “Whatta ya think we been doin’ all this time?” Hank retorted sarcastically, and spurred his horse forward.  Sully shook his head, as Matthew caught his eye with a look of commiseration.  On his other side, Brendan shrugged and flashed him a resigned smile.

     “Well, c’mon!” Hank called back to them sharply.  “Day’s not gettin’ any younger!”

     Recognizing that Hank was correct on this point at least, the others formed a column and followed his lead.

     For a stretch of time they pursued the course of the wash, as it led them through the foothills.  Eventually it emptied out into another open plain, the horizon crowned with still more gaunt and towering limestone cliffs.

     Sully’s eyes continued to scour the face of the mountains, looking for any hint of what he’d seen in his vision, his anxiety level starting to climb as the view remained stubbornly unfamiliar.  He began to wonder if Hank had been right after all.  Perhaps he *was* unbalanced.  Perhaps his tortured mind had invented the image of the waterfall, and he had been pinning all his hopes—not to mention the lives and the safety of his companions—on a fantasy.  Grimly, he wondered how soon the others would reach the same conclusion.

     He marked the passage of the sun.  It was markedly lower in the sky now, and with its steady descent ebbed the last traces of his confidence.  A pervasive fear began to gnaw at him, as his anxiety turned to desperation.

     He was staring down at the ground again, ostensibly searching for clues, but seeing nothing through the black cloud of depression that shrouded him.  What if he’d been wrong about everything?  What if they were forced to give up?  God help him—what if he never found her . . .

     “Sully!” Matthew said  sharply, his voice tight with excitement.  “Look!”

     Sully’s head snapped up and his gaze followed the line of Matthew’s outstreached arm as it pointed ahead.  Almost directly before them, perhaps a mile distant, stood a tall limestone peak, its dark and ancient surface cleft with myriad folds and fissures.  Issuing from the heart of this ediface was a towering rush of water cascading hundreds of feet to the bottom.

     Sully suddenly found it hard to breathe.  He stared at the sight, half-convinced for a moment that he was witnessing a mirage.  If Matthew hadn’t spotted it first, he would have sworn he was imagining it.

     Matthew was watching him anxiously.  Peripherally he was aware of Hank and Brendan staring at him as well, awaiting his pronouncement.  But for several long moments he was incapable of speech.

     “Well?” Hank said impatiently at last.  “Is that it, or not?”

     Sully swallowed hard and wet his dry lips.  Finally he managed to find his voice.

     “We made it,” he said softly.  “We’re here.”