Dammit, horse, I don't want to have to throw you to make you stop. At this speed you 'd probably break your neck and I sure as hell wouldn't do much better. But we're dead meat for certain if the renegades get us.
And I'll be damned in hell before I let them get Janna.
Ty's shoulders bunched as he prepared to yank hard on one side of the hackamore, pulling Lucifer's head to the side, which would unbalance him and force him to fall.
Before Ty could jerk the rein, he heard rifle fire from ahead. He looked over Lucifer's ears and saw that a group of four horsemen had broken away from the column of soldiers. The men were firing steadily and with remarkable precision, for they had the platform of real stirrups and their horses had been trained for war. The repeating rifles the four men used made them as formidable as forty renegades armed only with single-shot weapons. The horses the four men rode were big, dark and ran like unleashed hell, leaving the cavalry behind as though the soldiers' mounts were nailed to the ground.
For the second time that day, Ty's chilling battle cry lifted above the thunder of rifles and hooves; but this was a cry of triumph rather than defiance. Those were MacKenzie horses and they were ridden by MacKenzie men and Blue Wolf.
Janna blinked wind tears from her eyes and saw the four horses running toward her, saw the smoke from rifles and knew that had caused Ty's triumphant cry: the speed of the four horses had tipped the balance. They were going to reach Ty and Janna before Cascabel did.
"We're going to make it, Zebra. We're going to make it!" Janna's shout of joy turned to a scream as Zebra went down, somersaulting wildly, sending her rider hurtling to the ground.
Chapter Forty-Three
Before Janna hit the ground Ty was hauling back and to the right on the reins, forcing Lucifer into a hard turn. Despite the speed of Ty's reflexes, the stallion was galloping so fast that momentum alone swept them far past the place where Janna had fallen. Long before the stallion completed the turn, Zebra staggered to her feet to stand alone and trembling, favoring her left foreleg. Rifle fire erupted around her. She lunged to the side, seeking the cover of nearby pinons.
Ty saw the mare's three-legged motion and knew that she would be no help to Janna. A few yards from the mustang, Janna was struggling to her hands and knees, obviously dazed and disoriented by the force of her fall. A half mile beyond her, Cascabel and his renegades were bearing down in a cloud of dust and triumphant yells, certain that their prey was finally within their reach.
Measuring the distances involved, Ty quickly realized that Lucifer wasn't running fast enough to get Janna to safety before the Indians came within range. The stallion was straining, running with every bit of strength in his big body, but he was carrying more than three hundred pounds on his back.
Ty's knife flashed, severing the leather band that held the saddlebags full of gold on Lucifer's lathered body. The heavy pouches dropped away just as the mustang leaped a small gully. The gold vanished without a sign into the crease in the earth- Freed of the dead weight, Lucifer quickened his gallop.
"Janna!" Ty shouted. "Janna! Over here!"
Barely conscious, Janna turned toward the voice of the man she loved. She pushed hair from her eyes, forced herself to stand and saw Lucifer bearing down on her at a dead run. Ty was bent low over the horse's neck, giving the stallion all the help a rider could and at the same time calling for Lucifer's last ounce of speed.
Rifle slugs whined overhead and kicked up dirt around Janna. She noticed them only at a distance, as if through the wrong end of a spyglass, for she was concentrating on the wild stallion thundering down on her with Ty clinging like a cat to his black back.
A hundred yards behind Ty, four riders raced over the land like the horsemen of the Apocalypse, sowing destruction and death to any renegade within range of their rifles. The barrage of bullets slowed the charging Indians, who were unused to coming up against the rapid-fire rifles.
At the last possible instant, Ty twisted his right hand tightly into Lucifer's flying black mane and held his other hand out to Janna. He knew that he had to grab her and not let go-the momentum of the racing stallion would lift her quickly from the ground, allowing Ty to lever her up onto the horse's back.
"Get ready!" Ty shouted, hoping Janna could hear him.
His voice stitched between the war cries of the Indians behind Janna the erratic thunder of rifles and the drumroll of galloping hooves. She gathered herself and waited while Lucifer bore down on her like a runaway train. Despite the danger of being trampled, Janna didn't flinch or move aside, for she knew that her only hope of life lay in the man who was even now bending low over the stallion's driving body, holding his hand out to her.
Between one heartbeat and the next Janna was yanked from the ground and hurtled onto Lucifer's back just behind Ty. Automatically she scrambled for position, thrusting her arms around his waist and hanging on with all her strength while Ty hauled the mustang into a plunging, sliding turn that would take them away from the renegades. As the mustang straightened out again, Ty let out another chilling battle cry. Lucifer flattened his ears and his hooves dug out great clots of earth as he gave his riders the last bit of strength in his big body, running at a furious speed despite the additional weight he was carrying.
Ty's battle cry came back to him doubled and redoubled as the four horsemen bore down on him. They split evenly around the lathered, hard-running stallion. Each man fired steadily, making full use of the tactical superiority their repeating rifles gave. They were close enough now for accuracy, even from the back of a running horse. The relentless rain of bullets broke the first ranks of the charging renegades, which slowed those who were immediately behind and confused those who were on the sides.
A shout from the biggest MacKenzie sent all four horses into a tight turn. Soon they were galloping hard in Lucifer's wake, snapped at by sporadic rifle bullets from the disorganized melee of renegades.
There were only a few warriors who gave chase, for Cascabel had spotted the larger column of soldiers, which had been galloping hard to catch the smaller group since the first burst of rifle fire had come. Cascabel was far too shrewd to fight the Army on its own terms. An ambush was one thing; a pitched battle was another. The renegade leader turned his horse and began shouting orders. In a short time the renegades had reversed direction and were retreating at a dead run, preserving their arms and ammunition for a better battleground.
The first group of soldiers swept by Ty and then the MacKenzie brothers. Neither group broke pace. Not until the brothers were within sight of the larger Army column did they overtake Lucifer.
Knowing that it was finally safe, Ty slowed the stallion to a walk, stroked the mustang's lathered neck and praised him over and over. The biggest of the MacKenzie brothers reined in alongside.
"That's one hell of a horse you're riding. Am I to presume he's the fabled Lucifer?"
Ty's flashing grin was all the answer that was needed.
"Then that must be your famous silken lady riding postilion," the man said dryly.
Janna flinched and looked away from the tall rider's odd, golden-green eyes. She knew instantly that this man must be Ty's brother, for surely no two men could look so alike and be unrelated. Tall, powerful, dark haired-on first glance he was Ty's twin. A second glance showed the differences; a hardness of feature, a sardonic curl to the mouth, eyes that summarized what they saw with relentless pragmatism.