He heaved a weary sounding sigh. "I ain't never got lost in my whole life." At her dubious look, he drew his brows together in a scowl. "Lost is not knowin' where the hell I'm at. I know where I am. I just ain't sure where I'm goin'."

"Oh." She rubbed a hand over her eyes. "It doesn't seem to me that there's a measurable difference."

"That's because you ain't sure where you're at, you ain't sure where you're goin', and you don't got the" He broke off and cleared his throat. "You don't got the know-how to figure out either one."

Laura had the feeling that he had nearly said she didn't have the brains. Given the circumstances, she didn't suppose she blamed him.

He swung off his horse, circled the dog, and strode toward her. Grasping her waist, he lifted her down to stand beside him. "Don't look so gloomy. It may take more doin' than I reckoned on, but I'll find where you live. If there's one thing I'm a fair hand at, it's findin' my way."

He led her to a spot of dirt that was free of rocks and bathed by the light of the moon. Crouching, he smoothed the surface with his palm, then picked up a twig. Glancing up at her, he said, "Come on down here, girl, and do what you do best."

So tired she felt numb, she dashed at a tear on her cheek. "At this point, I'm not sure I do anything well. Even a stupid dog can find its way home."

He shot a look at Chief. His eyes held a definite twinkle when he glanced back at her. "You run at the lip real good, Boston. It's one of the first things I noticed about you. You can talk up one side of a man and down the other so fast, he don't know what hit him." He patted the dirt. "So get down here and start talkin'. Tell me how it looks around your spread."

Hope ribboned through Laura. "You mean you can find it if I tell you what it's like there?" She sank to her knees. "From my door, I can see the most beautiful peaks. All craggy, like big jags of granite."

She met his gaze to find him studying her with an odd expression on his face. Her voice trailed away. "What?" she asked.

"Nothin'. I was just makin' a picture of it in my mind." He smoothed the dirt again. "How many peaks? And how're they shaped?"

Laura did a fair job of describing the landscape while he tried to duplicate it in the dirt. "No, not like that." She grabbed the stick and sketched the peaks herself. "From my dooryard, that's exactly how they look."

He studied the drawing for a moment. "Lookin' at them mountains from this angle..." He pointed with a finger to illustrate. "In the mornin', lookin' at them that way and standin' in your dooryard, where does the sun come up?"

Laura closed her eyes, concentrated, and raised her right hand, positioning it as precisely as she could to indicate where the sun rose in the sky. When she lifted her lashes, he nodded, then pushed to his feet and helped her to stand. "You did good, Boston. Real good. I think I can find it. Or at least get you close enough to know where you're at."

Relief made her legs feel weak. "Do you, really? Thank God. Which direction is it?"

"Westish."

Chapter 6.

*The morning wind whistled down a rocky wash and raised dust funnels in an erratic path across the dooryard. Particles of dirt blew into Laura's eyes. She blinked rapidly to clear away the tears. If she displayed weakness of any kind, Deke Sheridan might change his mind about taking her with him on such a long trek.

Feeble sunlight slanted into her face. In her distorted vision, her newly hired tracker was a large blur of blue chambray, denim, and bronze skin. His manner surly and uncommunicative, as it had been most of the night, he paced the yard to examine the tracks left behind by the kidnappers and their horses. Chief, his constant shadow, plopped down nearby to gnaw on his deer leg. The dog had carried the gory possession all the way from Denver, a feat that seemed rather phenomenal to Laura. But, then, nothing about Deke Sheridan or his pet was ordinary.

Returning her attention to the man, she wondered for at least the dozenth time what had compelled him to help her. More than once she had seen his lips thin with distaste when he looked at her. What was it about her that he found so objectionable? Though she didn't count herself the highly admirable sort, especially out here where her ignorance manifested itself at every turn, she didn't normally inspire active dislike, either.

Unbidden, the dire predictions made last night by the man in Denver returned to torment her. She couldn't discount Deke Sheridan's failure to deny the accusations made against him. He had stood there in stony silence, not even reacting when the other man had spat at his feet. Sheridan might be many things, but she couldn't believe him a coward. He must have had reason for not retaliating, the most obvious that the charges were true.

Observing him now, it wasn't difficult to believe he hated all white people. At first glance, he looked pure Indian with his dark hair and skin. Only his silvery eyes betrayed him. Everything else about him seemed unnervingly savage, from the impossibly silent manner he moved to the expert way he studied the tracks, tracing them lightly with his fingertips as if in tactile communication with the earth itself.

She hugged her waist. If the man intended to harm her, he had already had opportunity. His only reason for waiting would be to lure her farther from Denver. If her body were found, the townspeople might lay the blame at Sheridan's door. They had last seen her in his company, after all.

Stop it! Just stop it! If she continually tried to second guess this man, she would drive herself mad. His reasons for coming with her didn't matter. All she cared about was that he help find her baby. If he turned on her later, she would face it then. At least she was trying to do something, which was better than waiting in Denver for help that would come too late.

His gaze fixed on a trail of footprints, Sheridan straightened and walked toward the creek. Numb from what had seemed to her an endless horseback ride, Laura couldn't muster the energy to go after him. Her legs felt permanently bowed, her backside bruised, her insides ached relentlessly, and to make matters worse, her chest hurt with every breath she drew. She wanted nothing more than to sink to the ground and curl up in a miserable ball. Only thoughts of Jonathan kept her standing.

When Sheridan drew near the stream, he slowed to pick his way through the rocks, his half-crouched stance suggesting that he was still following a trail. In beds of stone, how could he possibly tell where someone had walked? Halfway down the bank, he hunkered near a cluster of large boulders, bent forward to study something, and then slowly stood, her water bucket clasped in one hand. Incredulity washed over her as she realized it had been her own footprints from yesterday that he had been following. En route back to the yard, he jerked off his hat and slapped it against a thigh, his every step exhibiting a distinct play of muscle beneath the tight denim of his jeans. It would definitely not be wise to make an enemy of this man.

While somehow managing to keep a grasp on the Stetson, he measured off a scant inch with thumb and forefinger. "You came just that close to seein' what hell is like."

The statement swam in her mind for a moment. "Pardon?"

He gestured at the stream. "A man followed your tracks clear down to the rocks. He walked within four feet of where you was layin'. If he had been as good at trackin' as a Cheyenne, he would've found you." Flat and unreadable, his eyes met hers. "Looks to me like he combed the bank on both sides for a goodly distance each way."

A crawling sensation washed over Laura's skin.

Indicating the other footprints in the yard, he added, "It's plain the sons of bitches searched for you, and searched hard. If them boulders hadn't hid you from sight" He broke off and turned to gaze at the mountains. "My guess is they was comancheros or renegades."

The information hit Laura with the impact of a fist. "H-How can you possibly dedetermine that?"

Setting his hat back on, he knelt on one knee and jabbed a blunt finger at the dirt. "Them there cuts was left by a Spanish spur, what us cowpokes call a Californee spur. Ain't many white boys who wear 'em."

Laura couldn't help but notice that, despite their uncommon size and breadth, his work-hardened, badly scarred hands were oddly graceful, the tips of his nails remarkably clean and half-mooned with white. Hands so callused they were probably impervious to the winter cold or the bite of barbed wire. Hands that, knotted into fists, could probably concuss a full-grown bull, and most likely had.

Indicating another mark, he said, "That was left by an Anglo spur. There was unshod horses in the group, too, which leads me to think Indians traveled with 'em. Mix gringos, Mexicans, and Indians together, and you usually come up with comancheros or renegades."

Pressing a hand to her lower back, Laura bent stiffly to look. "I see little difference in those two footprints."

He touched the first track. "See how much deeper the spur cuts is on this one? And here, in front of the heel, see that little line goin' across?"

"Yes."

"A Mex wears his spur loose with a chain under the instep of his boot. That's what made the line. An Anglo wears a tight spur leather." He took measure with the tip of his little finger. "The rowels is bigger on a Californee spur, too, and leave a deeper cut."

After comparing the two prints more closely, Laura began to note the dissimilarities. Finally convinced, she straightened. Struggling to stay calm and keep her thoughts focused, she said, "You guess them to be comancheros or renegades? I didn't realize there was a difference."

His lips drew back over gleaming white teeth. "There ain't. Not so's you could tell, anyhow. You take the dirtiest, cruelest white men you can find, toss in a few Indians and Mexicans who can give 'em lessons in meanness, and you got comancheros or renegades. They got loyalty to nothin' and nobody, and what one don't think of, another one will. You can be damned glad they didn't find you down in them rocks. By the time you came around, the party would've done commenced, with you providin' the fun."

While passing through Denver, Laura had seen men such as he described, the sort who seemed to thrive on being cruel.

"Men like those took my baby?" As though it had become a turbulent body of water, the earth seemed to churn and swell into rolling waves under her feet. "They have my Jonathan?"

She heard the bucket clank. Strong hands curled over her upper arms. "Don't go faintin' on me."

Laura felt the chambray of his shirt pressing against her face, the disgusting necklace of bear claws pricking her cheek. She flattened her palms against vibrant warmth and dimly realized her fingertips had found purchase on his chest, hat the lean, hard length of his body was holding hers erect. She knew she should pull away. His sort needed little if any encouragement to take liberties, especially with a white woman. But, God help her, she didn't have the strength.

She had imagined he might smell vile, as those in his profession often did, a rank blend of cow manure and rancid sweat. But instead, masculine though it was, the smell of him was inexplicably soothing, a blend of earthen scents like those she sometimes caught on the Colorado wind.

The sheer strength of him made her all the more aware of her own frailty. The muted but steady thrumming of his heart set a cadence that made her own sound thready and frantic. His grip on her arms was such that her shoulders were lifted and compressed, the heels of her shoes raised slightly off the ground.

Villain or protector? She was too exhausted to speculate. This moment presented her with challenge enough. Tristan was dead, and she was alone, so horribly alone. Jonathan's fate rested entirely on her shoulders, and right now, her shoulders didn't feel very broad. To rescue him, she was faced with a grueling journey on horseback. No matter how desperately she yearned to be strong, she wasn't certain her body could endure the punishment.

"My baby... Oh, God, oh, God. I want my baby. Why has this happened? Whatever shall I do?"

He slid one of those heavy, pawlike hands down from her shoulder to rub her back. Laura couldn't resist the sturdiness of him. Even though he clearly disliked her, even though she knew him to be potentially dangerous, he was the only comfort she had. She dug her fingers into the rock-hard muscle of his chest. If he thought she was weak, she no longer cared. Pride was something she had possessed yesterday.

"I don't think they'll hurt that baby," he said gruffly. "I can damned near promise you that. He's money in their pockets."

His words offered Laura a feeble ray of hope. Though she tried to stifle the sob that welled from within her, it erupted, dry and crackly. "D-Do you really think not?"

"My guess is that their main reason for comin' here was to take you. Across the Rio, a woman with your colorin' would bring a mighty dear price. When they couldn't find you, they must've settled for the kid."

"But why? To sell him in Mexico? He'll never survive that long a trip. And even if he could, what decent person would buy someone else's baby?"

"Looks to me like they're headin' northwest into high country, probably to try tradin' him to Indians."

"Indians?" The word rushed from Laura on an expelled breath of horror. "You think they might trade my baby to Indians?"

She found the strength to move slightly away from him. "Not Indians," she whispered, remembering the unspeakable things that had been done to the Huntgate family, and that only a few short days ago. "Why would Indians want a white baby?" The terrible possibilities were chilling. "Toto torture and mutilate him? Dear God in heaven, they're animals. Why would they want a white baby unless they meant to kill him?"

His hand ceased its kneading motion on her back, and she felt his body stiffen. Too late, she registered exactly what she had said. And to whom she had said it.

"I Mr. Sheridan, I didn't mean" She staggered and nearly lost her footing when he set her away from him.

"Somethin' you should know about them animals," he said, emphasizing the last word with exaggerated clarity. "Some Indian women is barren. Or sometimes their little ones just don't live. Either way, all they know is that their arms is empty. I was only four years old when my folks was massacred by Kiowa. Two weeks later, the Cheyenne stole me from 'em in a raid. Never once was I treated bad, not by either tribe. If your Jonathan gets traded to Indians, he'll be loved by some squaw like he was her own. That's a damned sight more than I can say about any fancy white lady who got stuck with a redskin baby, you included."

Even shaded by his hat, his quicksilver gaze glittered. A muscle twitched along his jaw as he knelt on one knee to reexamine a boot track. The wind caught his mahogany hair and drew it across his burnished face. A few strands caught in his lashes, but he seemed not to notice. His anger electrified the air, and his suddenly curt manner said more plainly than words that, in his opinion, if anyone was an animal, she was.

Laura could think of nothing she might say to mend her fences. She stood there in a helpless quandary, knowing she had to do something. She needed Deke Sheridan desperately. What in heaven's name would she do if he rode off and left her?

"Mr. Sheridan, I"

"I think enough's been said," he interrupted, his speech clipped. "You got your way of thinkin', I got mine, and there ain't no mixin' the two."

"But I don't want you believing that I dislike Indians on general principles."

"Don't you?"

"No, I"

With a sudden upward jerk of his chin, he cut her short and swung a scathing glance to the front of her jacket. "I think you could put this time to better use than just standing there. Don't you, Mrs. Cheney? Looks to me like your cream's risin'."

Laura hadn't a clue what he meant. He plucked at his shirt to draw her gaze. When she looked down and saw two dark splotches on the chambray, she wanted to die. She pressed a hand to her chest, horribly aware of the dampness under her palm.

Blood surged to her cheeks, turning her skin so hot it burned. Her lips parted, but no sound came forth. Without a word, she stumbled toward the cabin, her one thought to escape the searing contempt in his silvery eyes.

Already wanting to kick himself, Deke watched Laura flee to the house. House? He'd seen some hovels in his day, but never one so poorly built. Cheney must have been drunk when he fitted those saddle-and-rider corners.

He glanced down at the wet spots on his shirt. If Laura had noticed them on her own, she would have been humiliated enough. Highfalutin' city gals didn't own up to having breasts, let alone mother's milk.

He rubbed between his eyebrows. Jesus, what was the matter with him? She was three days out of childbed, so weak she could scarcely stand up, nearly hysterical with fear for her baby, and he was taking shots at her.

So she hated Indians and considered them to be little more than animals? Given the recent hostilities between the whites and Cheyennes, who could really blame her for thinking that? She had no way of knowing that her own people had been just as vicious, or that they had been the first to behave like animals. It wasn't something white folks were likely to brag about.

Deke took a deep breath and slowly expelled it. He wanted to roll a cigarette and drown himself in a jug of whiskey. Maybe in several jugs of whiskey. So he could forget the past, forget Laura Cheney and his promise to help find her baby, forget every damned thing, most especially himself and what he had become. That last was the kicker. When he turned his gaze inward, he was no longer certain he even recognized himself.

He had been living up to his bad reputation for so many years, it had become second nature; that was the problem. Deke Sheridan, bad and fightin' mean, easy to rile, fast with a gun, and always ornery drunk fifteen minutes after he hit town. A mask he had worn these last fourteen years, nothing more, his way of giving back as good as he got and to hide his hurt because the white world, where he had once believed he could belong, had shunned him.

A man will go the way he walks.

That wise Cheyenne saying, one of his adoptive mother's favorites, whispered softly to him from the past. He saw himself at about ten, puffing out his chest and bullying the smaller boys. His mother had placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and said, "Flint Eyes, a man will go the way he walks. Fix your gaze far ahead of you and see where it is that you go. Now Deke realized that saying had a far deeper meaning than any he had ever interpreted. He had walked the way of his reputation, pretending to be exactly what people expected him to be, and now his feet had been on the path for so long that they knew no other way.

Damn him to hell for his mouth. A decent man would go after Laura Cheney and apologize. Deke guessed he wasn't decent. Either that or his yellow was showing. The truth was, the woman scared him spitless.

Every time he glanced into those big amber eyes of hers and saw the pain reflected there, every time she amazed him by pushing herself just one step farther when he knew another woman might have already collapsed, he tasted fear on the back of his tongue. Not just because she was beautiful, although that was definitely a part of it. What really got to him were his feelings of protectiveness toward her. Sentiments like that toward a woman like Laura Cheney bordered on madness. He was nothing, a crude and uneducated, half-savage cowboy she wouldn't even speak to under other circumstances.

Face it, Deke. You were fool enough once to let a city woman get you astraddle a buck-and-rail fence, and then the little bitch kicked your feet out from under you. Hatin' Laura Cheney and makin' damned sure she hates you is the only way you know of to protect your balls.

Pushing to his feet, Deke aimed a kick at the bucket and sent it clanking and rattling over the uneven dirt. So he didn't like himself much for the way he had treated her. What the hell difference did it make? No one else liked him much, either, and he should be accustomed to it by now.

It was probably just as well. If Laura Cheney didn't set out on this journey despising him, she undoubtedly would by the time it was over. In the end, this entire mess would boil down to choices, damned difficult choices, and he would be the only one capable of making them.

A suffocating sensation crept up the back of his throat. No matter what he had told Laura to ease her fears, the heartbreaking truth was that her child's chances of survival were mighty slim. Three days old, and taken from his mama by a ragtag bunch of misfits? Jesus. How long could an infant survive rough handling and a grueling journey on horseback with only possibly broth and sugar water as nourishment?

Not long, if Deke guessed right. Not long at all. Three days, on the outside. Maybe less. Under ideal circumstances, Deke would have made every effort to catch the kidnappers quickly, before the baby suffered the ravages of starvation and before the Indians got possession of him. But the circumstances weren't ideal, and Deke could think of no way around them. The other men already had a day's head start, and traveling with a city woman, fresh out of childbed, was bound to slow Deke down even more.

Considering Laura's background and the fact that she had probably never known much hardship, she had surprised him at every turn so far, not complaining even once during the long ride from Denver. She was clearly prepared to push herself harder than she probably should to reach her son.

The question was, could he allow it? The answer was no. Not to save a child who might be beyond saving.

"We're going to do what?" Laura asked a few minutes later. Her previous embarrassment was completely eclipsed by this turn of events. Surely she hadn't heard him correctly. "Mr. Sheridan, we can't lay over here until noon! We will lose nearly six hours of daylight."

Standing only a few feet away, her tracker gave an insolent shrug. "I'm tuckered."

He was tuckered? Laura was so exhausted that she could scarcely think. She clenched her teeth. Her baby was in peril, and he planned to take a nap? She wouldn't stand for it.

Struggling to keep her voice calm, she said, "You can't be serious. Think what might happen to my child during the delay."

"He's money in their pockets, I told you. They'll take good care of him. As for us losin' time, travelin' with a kid is bound to make 'em haze. We can afford to stop more often."

"Haze?"