"I don't know how to c-count," Janna said, trying to blink back tears and laughter at the same time.

Ty swung up on Lucifer, brought the stallion alongside Zebra and gave Janna a fierce kiss.

"Sweet liar."

Ty smacked Zebra hard on the rump, sending the mare into startled flight. Lucifer leaped to follow. Together the two mustangs settled into a ground-covering gallop. The plateau's rumpled surface flew beneath their hooves.

Twice Janna and Ty heard gunfire. Each time they veered more to the east, for the sounds were coming from the north and west. About every ten minutes Janna would slow the pace to a canter, allowing the horses to catch their breath.

Despite the itching of his backbone, Ty never complained about the slower pace. He knew that the mustangs might be called upon to outrun Indians at any moment; the horses wouldn't have a prayer if they were already blown from miles of hard running.

During the third time of resting, the distant crackling of rifle fire drifted to Janna and Ty on the wind. This time the sound was coming from the east.

"Should we- " began Janna.

She was cut off by a curt gesture from Ty. He pulled Lucifer to a stop and sat motionlessly, listening.

"Hear it?" he asked finally.

"The rifles?"

"A bugle."

Janna listened intently. She was turning to tell Ty she couldn't hear anything when the wind picked up again and she heard a faint, distant cry rising and falling.

"I hear it. It must be coming from the flatlands."

"Where's the closest place we can get a good look over the edge?" Ty asked.

"The eastern trailhead is only a few miles from here."

Janna turned Zebra and urged the mare into a gallop once more, not stopping until she came to the crumbling edge of the plateau where the trail began. Lucifer crowded up next to Zebra and looked out over the land, breathing deeply and freely, appearing for all the world as though he had barely begun to tap his strength.

Ty examined the land through his spyglass, sweeping the area slowly, searching for signs Of man. Suddenly he froze and leaned forward. Six miles north and east of his present position, a small column of cavalry was charging over the land, heading south, sweeping a handful of renegades before it. Well behind the first column of soldiers, a larger one advanced at a much more sedate pace.

Ty swung the spyglass to look to the south, closer in to the plateau's edge.

"Christ almighty," Ty swore. "Cascabel's got an ambush set up where the trail goes through a ravine. That first group of renegades is the bait. He's got enough warriors hidden to slaughter the first group of pony soldiers before the rear column can get there to help."

"Can we get down in time to warn them?"

Grimly Ty looked at the trail down the east face of the plateau. It was even more precipitous than he had remembered. It was also their only hope of getting to the soldiers before Cascabel did.

"Would it do any good to tell you to stay here?" Ty asked.

"No."

"You're a fool, Janna Wayland."

Ty jerked his hat down on his forehead, settled his weight into the rope stirrups, gave a hair-raising battle cry and simultaneously booted Lucifer hard in the ribs.

The stallion lunged over the rim and was launched onto the steep trail before he had a chance to object. Front legs stiff, all but sitting on his hocks, Lucifer plunged down the first quarter mile of the trail like a great black cat. In helping the stallion not to overrun his balance, Ty braced his feet in the rope stirrups and leaned so far back that his hat brushed the horse's hard-driving rump.

When Lucifer stumbled, Ty dragged the horse's head back up with a powerful yank on the hackamore reins, restoring the stallion's balance. Surrounded by flying grit and rolling, bouncing pebbles, horse and rider hurtled down the dangerous slope.

Zebra and Janna followed before the dust had time to settle. As had the stallion, Zebra sat on her hocks and skidded down the steepest parts, sending dirt and small stones flying in every direction. Janna's braids, already frayed by the wind, came completely unraveled. Her hair rippled and swayed with every movement of the mustang, lifting like a satin pennant behind her.

When Lucifer gained the surer footing on the lower part of the trail, Ty risked a single backward look. He saw Zebra hock-deep in a boiling cloud of dirt and pebbles, and Janna's hair flying behind. The mustang spun sharply sideways, barely avoiding a stone outcropping. Janna's body moved with the mare as though she were as much a part of the mustang as mane or tail or hooves.

Lucifer galloped on down the sloping trail, taking the most difficult parts with the surefootedness of a horse accustomed to running flat out over rough country. Ty did nothing to slow the stallion's pace, for each second of delay meant one second nearer to death for the unsuspecting soldiers in the first column. As soon as the trail became more level, iy pointed Lucifer in the general direction of the advancing column, shifted his weight forward over the horse's powerful shoulders and urged him to a faster gallop.

When Zebra came down off the last stretch of the eastern trail, she was more than a hundred yards behind Lucifer. But Janna knew the country far better than Ty. She guided Zebra on a course that avoided the roughest gullies and rocky rises. Slowly the mare began to overtake Lucifer, until finally they were running side by side, noses outstretched, tails streaming in the wind. Their riders bent low, urging the mustangs on.

Rifle fire came like a staccato punctuation to the rhythmic thunder of galloping hooves. A lone rifle slug whined past iyrs head. He grabbed a quick look to the right and saw that the Indians apparently had abandoned the idea of leading the soldiers into a trap. Instead, the renegades had turned aside to run down the great black stallion and the spirit woman whose hair was like a shadow of fire. Even Cascabel had joined the chase. Dust boiled up from the ambush site as warriors whipped their mounts to a gallop and began racing to cut off Janna and Ty from the soldiers.

Ignoring the wind raking over his eyes, Ty turned forward to stare between Lucifer's black ears, trying to gauge his distance from the column of soldiers. Much slower to respond than the renegades, the cavalry was only now beginning to change direction, pursuing their renegade quarry along the new course.

It took Ty only a few moments to see that the soldiers were moving too slowly and were too far away to help Janna and himself, whose descent from the plateau had been so swift that they were much closer to Cascabel than to the soldiers they had wanted to warn of the coming ambush. What made it worse was that the renegades who had waited in ambush were riding fresh horses, while Zebra and Lucifer had already been running hard for miles even before the hair-raising race down the eastern trail. Now the mustangs were running flat out over the rugged land, leaping ditches and small gullies, whipping through brush, urged on by then-riders and by the whine of bullets.

Ty knew that even Lucifer's great heart and strength couldn't tip the balance. The soldiers were simply too far away, the renegades were too close, and even spirit horses couldn't outrun bullets. Yet all that was needed was two minutes, perhaps even just one. With one minute's edge, Janna's fleet mustang might be able to reach the soldiers' protection.

Just one minute.

Ty unslung his rifle and snapped off a few shots, knowing it was futile. Lucifer was running too hard and the country was too rough for Ty to be accurate. He hauled on the hackamore, trying to slow the stallion's headlong pace so that he could put himself between the renegades and Janna. Gradually Zebra began pulling away, but not quickly enough to suit Ty. He tried a few more shots, but each time he turned to fire he had to release the hackamore's knotted reins, which meant that Lucifer immediately leaped back into full stride.