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Behind her, Tanner dropped his own horse’s rope and leaped out, seemingly to his death, but his boots landed on a narrow foothold just below the level of the trail. He thrust his hands out, one against Stormy’s shoulder, the other against her flank. With a grunt of exertion, he pushed the horse back onto the trail and motioned for Shannon to lead the horse forward. Once Stormy was out of the way, he hopped back up onto the trail behind her.
For a few seconds, all Shannon could do was stare back at him, her eyes and mouth circled in shock at what she had just witnessed. Then her heart started beating again, and she was able to speak.
“Tanner, thank you!” she said, her eyes watering with tears of relief as she rubbed Stormy’s snout. “Thank you!”
“Don’t mention it,” the alpha said as casually as if he’d done nothing more than hold a door open for her. He lifted his hand to tip his hat, but realized it was gone. It had fallen off when he’d saved Stormy, and now it was fluttering its way down the side of the mountain. He watched it for a few seconds, then shrugged. “’Bout time for a new hat anyways. Let’s get on up this mountain so I can get me enough firestone to buy one.”
They pressed onward. After a while, the trail widened, giving them a little more room to maneuver, but it did little to settle Shannon’s nerves. Every now and then she thought she could hear the sounds of Flarity’s men carried by the warm updrafts rising from the stones below.
They had to hurry.
Ahead of her, Rufus and Logan came to a stop. The trail had leveled out into a broad, flat patch of stone. She and Tanner moved forward to stand beside their companions.
“Where do we go from here?” Logan asked.
Shannon looked around in dismay. All around them, featureless walls of stone rose upwards toward the mountain’s summit. There was nowhere left for them to go.
Had they taken the wrong trail? No. Shannon was sure they had gone the right way. Everything had matched perfectly with her father’s map. This was the place where they were supposed to find the entrance that would lead them to the firestone deposit. Her father had labeled it as a “door,” but Shannon had assumed that meant the mouth of a cave or perhaps even an old mineshaft.
Only there was nothing of the sort here. Just hard, flat sandstone baking in the stifling heat of the sun.
“I don’t know,” Shannon said, shaking her head. “I don’t know…”
“Well, we need to come up with a plan,” Tanner said. “Those old boys are coming up the trail behind us, and they’ll be here before too long. I reckon we don’t want to meet ’em on that ledge back there. Best thing will probably be to hole up here and wait for them to come to us.”
Shannon felt like the blood had all drained out of her body. They would be cornered up here. She knew the alphas weren’t afraid of a fight, but there was no way they could go up against fifteen armed men without getting themselves hurt.
It had to be here! This had to be the right place. Her eyes darted around, searching for any sign of an entrance.
Then she saw it.
“Look!” she said, pointing.
It was a symbol, scratched into the rock wall. It looked like a backwards letter D with a capital R attached to it. That was the brand her father had devised for Duffy Ranch. Of course, he’d never actually used it on the hucows; he considered the practice of branding to be cruel. Nevertheless, he’d felt like his ranch needed a brand.
And clearly he’d put it to use here, to mark the entrance.
She stepped forward and pressed her hand against the symbol, feeling the heat of the sunbaked stone under her palm. She traced her fingers along the grooves, and a tingle went up her spine as she thought about the fact that her father had carved those grooves himself many years ago, when he’d been about the same age she was now.
“Where?” she whispered, half expecting her father’s voice to answer her. “I don’t understand. What am I supposed to do?”
She pushed against the symbol, but it didn’t budge. Next, she dragged her hand along the stone wall, searching for something, anything. A crack that marked the edge of a door perhaps, or some sort of hidden mechanism. At first she felt nothing, and then…
Her fingertips wentthroughthe stone.
Shannon’s heart jolted. She yanked her hand back as if she’d touched a hot stove. Behind her, the alphas rumbled in surprise, and Rufus growled softly.
“Shannon?” Logan asked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she answered, inspecting her fingertips. They were all intact and unharmed, so she decided to test it again. This time she put her whole hand through the wall until it disappeared up to the wrist.
“It’s not real,” she gasped. “The stone here, it’s… it’s some kind of mirage or something.”
“Shannon, be careful,” Tanner said behind her. “Maybe you’d better let me check it out first before you—”
But Shannon wasn’t listening. She put a leg through, and when she felt hard stone beneath her foot, she took a step forward. Her whole body disappeared into the rock wall.
CHAPTER 34
