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Another rider was thundering towards them. Dec fired. The guy tumbled from his saddle. The horse, reins dangling, kept coming.
“Son of a bitch!” Dec snarled.
He stepped into the path of the terrified horse. It shied away, but he grabbed for the reins, snagged them and swung into the saddle.
“Annie!”
He yelled her name, leaned over, his arm extended towards her. She grabbed his hand. He hoisted her up behind him.
The last thing he saw as they galloped for the trees was the Black Hawk gaining altitude as it rose over the meadow.
CHAPTER FIVE
They made it into the forest.
The trees were tall, their trunks massive. There wasn’t lots of space between them. Moving as fast as they were that could have been a problem, but the horse seemed to know the place and threaded his way through without any encouragement.
That was good.
Even better was the amount of fire the Black Hawk was putting down.
Dec knew that it couldn’t stay on the scene much longer and there was no way of knowing how many bandits were in pursuit, but the helicopter would take out a lot of them out.
He hoped.
The horse was big, fast and smart. It gave Dec all the speed he asked, but he knew there was a limit to how long and how far he could make such demands of the animal before it faltered.
You didn’t grow up on the New Mexican desert without knowing something about horses.
Annie’s arms were wrapped around his waist. She was leaning into him. He had the feeling she knew horses, too, and that was a damned good thing considering that they were all but flying.
“Ahead of us,” Annie gasped in his ear. “Some kind of trail…”
Dec saw it. To their right, a narrow opening that wound down through the trees, probably into a valley.
To their left, the land rose higher and higher. There was no discernible trail.
The sounds of gunfire, of the helicopter, had faded. Dec risked a quick look over his shoulder. Nobody behind them…yet.
The trail leading downhill was coming up fast.
Taking it was the logical choice. Heading further up the mountain would be crazy. The climb was going to be rough. There was no trail. And there was no promise of what they’d find at the top.
But every instinct Dec possessed told him that logic had no place in what was rapidly becoming a puzzle as complex as any he’d ever experienced.
Dec slowed the horse. Took one last glance at the downhill trail.
Then he touched the horse’s flanks lightly with his boot heels and turned the animal uphill.
* * *
They rode for hours, the horse picking its way between trees, its pace quickening whenever the trees thinned out and the land flattened, but then the land would rise again and the horse would slow. The uphill portions were steep, plus the animal was carrying two riders.
The rain stopped.
That, at least, improved things.
They took a short break. Annie took off the poncho and shook it out. Dec put it back in his pack. They gulped down water—the horse drank from Dec’s cupped hands—and then they got moving again.
