"You'll have a scar," Ty said tightly, looking at Lucifer's haunch, "but that's little enough for a bullet wound to leave as a calling card."

Silently Ty wondered what wound would be left on his own life by the much softer, much more agonizing brush of a satin butterfly's wings.

"Soon Lucifer will be strong enough to go to Wyoming," Janna said, speaking her worst fear aloud.

"Yes." Ty's tone was curt. 'fYou won't be able to take much except clothes, but your books should be safe enough here. When things settle down in the territory, you can…" His voice died. "I'll see that you get your books. I'll see that you get everything you need for the kind of life you deserve."

Janna turned away from Ty, hiding her face, not letting him see in her expression the decision she had made not to go to Wyoming. She really had no choice but to stay. Instinctively she knew it would be easier to live alone in the valley than anywhere on earth with Ty always within reach, never touching her.

"Janna?" he asked roughly.

After a few seconds she said calmly, "I'll do what has to be done."

It sounded like agreement, yet…

Ty stared at the back of Janna's head and wished that he could read her mind as easily as she seemed to read the animals and the clouds. And himself.

"The sooner we start, the better," he said.

Janna said nothing.

"We should get out of here before the Army decides to move against Cascabel."

She nodded as though they were discussing nothing more important than the shape of distant clouds.

"We'll have to take it slow until I can find a horse to ride. Even if Lucifer would accept me as a rider-which I doubt-he should have another week or so without any strain." Ty waited. Janna said nothing. "Janna?"

Auburn hair flashed in the sun as she turned to face him. Her eyes were as clear as rain-and haunted by elusive shadows.

"Yes, it would be better for Lucifer not to have to take the strain of a rider for a few more days."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

Janna hesitated, then shrugged. "The first days will be slow and dangerous. Walking is always slower than riding."

"You're coming with me," Ty said bluntly.

' 'Of course. Lucifer would never leave the valley without Zebra," Janna said, turning away again, stroking the mare's dust-colored hide with loving hands.

"And Zebra won't leave the valley without you," Ty said.

"She never has before."

Ty's scalp prickled. Every instinct he had told him that Janna was sliding away from him, eluding his attempts to hold her nearby. She was vanishing as he watched.

"Say it," he demanded.

"Say what?"

"Say that you're coming to Wyoming with me."

Janna closed her eyes. Hidden beneath Zebra's mane, her hands clenched into fists. "I'm leaving the valley with you."

"And you're coming to Wyoming with me."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Force me to lie to you."

"What does that mean? You can't stay here forever and you know it!"

"I can't stay on your brother's ranch in Wyoming, either."

"You won't have to stay there forever."

"Just long enough to set a marriage snare for some man who's too stupid to know the difference between true silk and an ordinary sow's ear?" Janna offered bitterly.

"Dammit, that's not what I said!"

"You don't have to say it. I did." She swung onto Zebra's back with a quick motion that was eloquent of wild emotions barely restrained. "I promised to help you get your stallion. You promised to teach me how to please a man. Those promises were made and kept on Black Plateau. Wyoming was no part of it."

Abruptly Zebra exploded into a gallop.

In seething silence Ty watched while the mare swept toward the far end of the valley where Indian ruins slowly eroded back into the stony land from which they had come. Janna had spent a lot of time in the ancient place since they had brought the stallion into the valley. Ty had thought J anna's sudden interest in the ruins was an attempt to remove Zebra's distracting presence while he spent hours with Lucifer, accustoming the wild stallion to a man's voice and touch.

But now Ty suspected that Janna had been trying to wean Lucifer of Zebra's company so that the stallion wouldn't balk at being separated when the time came for Ty to head for Wyoming-without Janna.

"It won't work!" Ty called savagely. "You're coming to Wyoming with me if I have to tie you over Zebra's back like a sack of grain!"

Nothing answered Ty but the drumroll of thunder from the mare's speedy, fleeing hooves.

Ty's words echoed mockingly in his own ears. He knew that all Janna had to do was ride off while he slept or worked with Lucifer. On foot he couldn't catch her. Even if she didn't ride Zebra, Ty wasn't much better off. Black Plateau was an open book to Janna; she could hide among its countless ravines the way a shadow could hide among the thousand shades of night.

He would find her eventually, of course. Assuming Cascabel didn't find them first.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The stallion's clarion call resonated through the valley, echoing and reechoing from stone walls, telling anything with ears that an enemy had appeared in the tiny, concealed Eden.

Ty dropped his dinner plate, grabbed his carbine and sprinted for the willows. Within seconds he was under cover, but he didn't slow his speed. Running, twisting around slender limbs, leaping roots and rocks, heedless of noise, Ty raced toward the entrance of the valley.

When he arrived at the edge of the willows' dense cover, he stopped and watched the meadow for signs of man. Nothing moved near the cleft, which was the valley's only access to the outer world. Carbine at his shoulder, Ty stared down the metal barrel at the expanse of grass. Nothing moved in the emptiness but the wind.

Lucifer's wild, savage call to arms came again, making the skin of Ty's scalp ripple in primal response. The stallion was far up the valley, out of sight in the narrow bend where the Indian ruins were hidden. Neither Zebra nor Janna was in sight.

Desperately Ty wanted to call out to Janna and reassure himself that she was safe. He kept silent. He didn't want her to give away her position to a skulking renegade.

Ty had no doubt that the stallion's savage cry had been triggered by the presence of a sttange human being. In the weeks since he had come to the valley, Ty had never seen signs of anything larger than a rabbit within the valley itself. Of all the animals in the vast land, only man had the curiosity-or the need-to follow the narrow, winding slot through stone-lined darkness into the canyon's sunlight.

Stay down in the ruins, Janna, Ty prayed silently. You'll be safe there. The Indians avoid the spirit places.

The birds that usually wheeled and darted over the meadow were silent and hidden. Ty's narrowed glance raked the valley again, looking for any sign of the intruder.

Suddenly Lucifer burst out from the area of the ruins into the larger meadow. Zebra was running at his side. When the stallion dug in and stopped, the mare kept galloping, stopping only when she was several hundred feet beyond. Lucifer reared and screamed again, hooves slashing the air, putting himself between the mare and whatever danger threatened.

As the stallion's feral challenge faded, the cry of a hawk soared above the silence, followed by J anna's voice calling what could have been Ty's name. He turned toward the sound. Over the metal barrel of the carbine, he saw Janna coming from the area of the ruins. A man was walking behind her. Reflexively Ty took slack from the trigger, let out his breath and waited for the trail to turn, giving him a view of the stranger.

It was Mad Jack.

Gently Ty's finger eased from the trigger as he lowered the carbine from his shoulder. When he emerged from the cover of the willows and trotted out into the open and across the meadow, Lucifer neighed shrilly, as though to warn him of danger. Ty turned aside long enough to reassure the stallion.