It was full daylight by the time Jake drew Buck to a halt near the entrance to the mine. He swung slowly out of the saddle and scanned the surrounding hillsides for a wraith of silver and black. Lobo. His throat tightened as he moved toward the gaping black hole of the tunnel. Jeremy rode up and leaped from his horse.
“Well, we’re here, and there’s no goddam wolf,” he said. “Can we go back down now and follow the tracks?”
“Shut up, Jeremy. Go back if you want, but if you’re staying with me, shut the hell up.”
Jake bent to grab a lantern. He quickly lit it and held it high, stepping to the yawning black entrance. Fear pounded through his body. He half expected to see Indigo lying dead before him. Instead, he spied gleaming, golden eyes. His pulse quickened. Then a shrill howl echoed out at him.
“Sonny,” he said with a tremulous laugh. “Hey, fella.”
Clearly spooked, Jeremy laughed, too, the sound shrill and shaky. “Well, that explains our wolf howl. Inside the tunnel like that, the echo made him sound louder than normal.”
Jake no longer cared who had done the howling. “Jeremy, if Sonny’s here, I know Indigo is.”
Without waiting for a response from his brother, Jake held up the lantern and hurried into the mine. A deathly cold closed around him.
Drifting . . . drifting in blackness. Indigo fought against the feeling, but it felt so comforting to succumb to it, to feel apart from her frozen body. Words jumbled in her head. Her mother’s prayers, her father’s songs. A heavy numbness had crept over her. Her aching lungs drew breath shallowly, the pace fast and frantic.
“Our Father—blessed is the fruit of thy womb—heartily sorry . . .”
The words spilled ceaselessly from her lips, her only comfort, the only weapon she had to fight off the panic. Indigo Rand. Rand, Rand, Rand. She closed her eyes on frightened tears. So afraid. She didn’t want to die alone, a speck of nothingness in utter blackness. A speck that was being absorbed and becoming smaller and smaller. A tiny spinning speck. She pictured Jake’s face. In her swimming mind, he seemed so real, so close. She imagined his arms closing around her, strong and warm. . . .
And then Lobo. His wet tongue touched her cheek. Ah, yes, Lobo, her good friend. He gave a low, mournful howl that rose around her and cascaded from the ceiling in rippling echoes. Lobo, her loyal wolf. She had remained beside him to sing his death song, and now he had come to sing hers. She wasn’t alone after all.
“Lobo,” she whispered.
He whined and licked her face again. Then he lay down beside her. So real, so real. Indigo longed for her arms to be free so she could wrap them around his thickly furred neck, as she had in life. Instead, she settled for pressing her cheek against his fur. His warmth seeped into her and surrounded her. Her tears trickled through his ruff.
Lobo. . . .
“Oh, sweet Jesus, no . . .” Jake stood frozen and stared at the collapsed section of the drift, his heart slamming with a fear so cold it turned his blood to ice. From out of the rubble trailed two ropes. He took one look and knew what had happened. He set down the lantern, panic seizing him. “Jesus, Jeremy, she’s in there.”
Jeremy came up behind Jake. “You don’t know that, Jake. The thing to do here is try to stay calm.”
Jeremy no sooner spoke than Sonny bypassed Jake and scratched frenziedly at the wall of dirt. Jake swore and started throwing rock. “Brandon Marshall! Jesus Christ! It was him all along. I should have watched over her every second. The bastard buried her in here!”
Jeremy caught Jake’s arm. “We need shovels. Jake, for God’s sake, get a hold on yourself. You can’t dig her out with your bare hands.”
Jake jerked his arm from Jeremy’s grasp and proceeded to do just that. He tore at the dirt and rock like a wild man, swearing, praying, sobbing.
“She may be—”
Jake whirled. “Go get me a goddam shovel!”
Jeremy retreated a step, frightened by the crazy look in his brother’s eyes.
Four hours later, Jake dug through the last barrier of dirt with bloody hands. The opening he and Jeremy had tunneled was narrow, and too much movement might cause it to collapse. Jake knelt before it and stared through at the pit of blackness beyond, more terrified than he had ever been in his life.
“Indigo?”
Silence bounced back at him. He shot Jeremy a tortured glance. “I’m going in.”
Jeremy grasped his shoulder.
Both men knew that Jake could easily be buried alive if the earth shifted. Jeremy would never be able to dig him out in time. Jake met his brother’s gaze. For once, words weren’t necessary. Some emotions couldn’t be expressed, and even Jeremy was reduced to speechlessness.
Jake turned back to the opening and carefully started through. At this point, he had become so afraid he could no longer feel. Death held no threat. Living without Indigo was what terrified him.
An awful airlessness hit Jake’s face as he gained the other end of the makeshift opening. He fell into bottomless blackness. His lungs immediately convulsed and grabbed frantically for oxygen. He knew then. . . . He knew but he couldn’t turn loose of that last bit of hope.
Groping in the blackness, he found her. So small and cold. Air, he had to get her out into the air. He crawled with her toward the shaft of dim light. When he reached it, he called through to Jeremy.
“I’ve got her, Jer. I’ve got her. I’m going to hand her through to you. Grab her shoulders and pull her on out.”
Carefully, oh so carefully, Jake shoved her toward the light. Jeremy crawled forward to catch her by the shoulders. From there on, Jake could only watch and pray that Jeremy got her through before the earth collapsed. To the light. Surely God would grant him that. If not for Jake, for Indigo, a girl made of moonbeams and wind songs. She didn’t belong in blackness.
When Jeremy pulled her through, Jake nearly cried with relief. Safe, she was safe. Struggling to fill his lungs with the air that wafted through the opening, Jake fought off a wave of dizziness brought on by lack of oxygen. Then he started through himself, hand over hand, a foot at a time. Toward the light and Indigo. When he crawled free, he slid down the other side in a shower of collapsing earth. An instant later, the tunnel he and Jeremy had clawed in the earth closed its jaws behind him. It was a miracle they had both gotten out in time. A miracle. God had given him another miracle.
Jake staggered to his feet, filled with leg-trembling joy. He turned and saw Jeremy standing between him and the huddled form of his wife. From the way Jeremy stood, his legs braced wide apart, Jake knew. But his mind couldn’t accept.
“Jake.” Jeremy’s voice shook, and a horrible expression came into his eyes. “Oh, God, Jake, I’m sorry.”
A shudder ran through Jake’s body. He stood there a moment, staring at his brother’s stricken face. Then he moved his gaze to the lifeless body behind him. “No . . .” The word hit the air in tremulous denial. “No . . .”
With battered, shaking hands, he touched her cheek, then her neck, searching the cold, lifeless flesh for any sign of a pulse.
“Jake, she isn’t breathing,” Jeremy whispered. “I know you see that.”
Not breathing. Lying her across his thighs, Jake cupped her face between his bloody hands and touched his lips to hers. He’d make her breathe, goddammit. He sucked in air and forced it from his lungs into her mouth. It stopped at the back of her throat. He tipped her head back and forced her teeth apart.
“Breathe, Indigo. Do you hear me? Breathe, dammit!”
He forced another breath into her body. And another.
“Jake, for God’s sake.” Jeremy turned away with a broken cry. “Get ahold of yourself. Please.”
Jake came up for air and shot his brother a wild-eyed glare. “Pray, goddam you! Don’t stand there doing nothing! Pray!” Turning back to Indigo, he pressed his hands frantically to the sides of her face. “Breathe, Indigo. Do you hear me? Breathe, damn you! You’ve done every other thing I ever asked of you. I’m t
elling you to breathe. Do you hear me? I’m your husband, and I’m telling you to breathe.”
When she didn’t respond, he started to weep. “I love you. You can’t die. I didn’t give you permission to die, goddammit!”
For several minutes more, Jake shared his breath with her. He knew it wasn’t enough. In the back of his mind, he knew it wasn’t enough. He wanted to give her his beating heart. He wanted to pour his pulsing blood into her. He wanted to give her his warmth. He would have gladly died in her place and given her his very life. But that wasn’t the way of things. And sharing his breath with her simply was not enough.
In the blackness, there was a tiny tunnel of light. Someone spoke to her from there. The voice was rich and warm and wonderful, yet strangely sad. The words drifted to her, scarcely more than whispers at times, then deep and resounding, all repeated in echoes.
I love you, the voice said. The words curled around her, warm and sweet. I don’t think I ever told you how much. Warm hands moved over her. Strong arms held her close. A ragged sob shuddered through her. She drifted closer to the voice. It spoke to her about moonlight and Lobo, of yellow-and-white daisies, of songs in the wind and wild creatures eating from her hands. It sounded wonderful, like heaven. I know that’s where you are. Off somewhere, floating on moonbeams.
Indigo frowned and tried to lift her eyelashes. She wasn’t in a field of daisies. She felt cold, horribly cold. Jake. . . . She tried to reach for him. He was crying. Not silent tears, but great, wracking sobs that shook his whole body. She had to comfort him. But she couldn’t find him. He was close, very close, somewhere in the blackness. She moved toward the light. Yes, that was where he was, beyond her reach in the tunnel of light.
Suddenly, she heard him cry out. She’s alive. Jeremy, goddammit, get in here! She’s alive. The voice bounced around her. She moved closer to the light. Blinding bright. She squinted and tried to move her head so it wouldn’t hurt her eyes.
“Indigo. . . . Sweetheart? Indigo . . .”
The world went into a spin. Arms were lifting her. Someone was carrying her. Indigo tried desperately to go into the light, but instead, she spun away again, back into the blackness.
When Indigo next surfaced, Jake’s haggard face was the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. She blinked and focused, perplexed because she was safely at home in bed with moonlight streaming in the window. Jake sat on a kitchen chair drawn close to the bed, his elbows propped on the mattress, one of her hands held in his.
“Welcome back,” he said huskily. After kissing each of her fingertips, he smiled. “What a lazybones you are, sleeping the day and half the night away.”
Indigo touched his whiskery cheek. “I had the strangest dreams,” she whispered hoarsely. “Terrible ones. Have I been sick?”
He took a shaky breath. “I almost lost you.”
She ran a fingertip under his eye. “I dreamed you were crying.” She managed a quavery smile. “It’s all a jumble. Brandon Marshall and Denver—” She closed her eyes. “And Lobo came to me. I thought I was dying, and he came to sing my death song. It seemed so real. . . .”
Slowly, so she could absorb it, Jake told her what had happened. “Brandon and Denver are in the Jacksonville jail. Marshal Hilton and the sheriff rounded them up late this afternoon. Brandon has confessed to everything. He says he met Hank Sample in the J’ville saloon a few months back. Sample needed some work of a confidential nature done, and Brandon was interested. When he discovered your father’s mine was the target, he saw a way to take his revenge against you and be handsomely paid while he was doing it.”
“By your father,” she said sadly. “What will happen to him now, Jake? To your father, I mean?”
He bent his head to kiss her hands again. “Indigo, I’ve been to hell and back again today, because of my father and because of Brandon Marshall’s sick prejudice. You weren’t breathing when I got you out of there. We thought you were dead.” Tears filled his eyes as he looked at her, and he shrugged one shoulder. “I guess it sounds crazy, but I think maybe you really were and that—”
His voice cracked, and he looked out the window for a moment before going on. At last he shook his head. “All that doesn’t really matter now. What counts is that I walked out of that mine with you alive in my arms, and there’s no room left inside of me for my father. No love, no hate, just a feeling of nothingness. Jeremy and I have decided to let the law decide his fate.”
The look in his eyes told Indigo he truly meant that. Never had she seen him look so exhausted. Yet he also seemed strangely at peace. Sad, but at peace.
“He’ll always be your father,” she said softly.
His mouth twisted. “The man who sired me, but never a father. There’s a difference. My one consolation is that I don’t believe he ever meant for anyone to be hurt. His mistake was being ruled by greed and hiring a madman like Marshall to do this job for him.” He fastened a determined gaze on hers. “But those were his mistakes, not mine. I’m finished with paying for what he does.” His grip tightened on her hand. “Today, I nearly paid the ultimate price. I think from now on he can atone for his own sins.”
“I’m not dead, Jake. I’m right here, talking to you.”
He nodded, clearly unable to speak. In the moonlight, she saw tears spilling down his cheeks. After a moment, he swallowed and said, “We have a second chance, you and I. I’m going to make the best of it and live every second as if it’s our very last.”
She wiped the tears from his cheeks, then slid a hand to the back of his head. “Don’t cry then. I want our last second to be happy.”
With a horrible sob, he joined her on the bed and drew her into his arms. Indigo hugged him close, frightened because she had never seen him like this. His whole body was shaking. He held her so tightly that she had the feeling he was afraid to let go.
After several minutes, he drew a ragged breath and relaxed, drying his cheeks on her hair. “Don’t ever leave me. Promise me that.”
She closed her eyes and smiled, remembering all the revelations that had come to her in the mine. “I promise, Jake. Where you go, I go. Even if it’s to Portland. As long as I’m with you, the thought no longer frightens me.”
“To hell with Portland,” he replied in a husky voice. “I may have to go up for a few weeks to set Jeremy on track, but after that, Wolf’s Landing is my home, and it’s where I’m staying.”
“When you go, I’ll go there with you.”
“I know,” he said with a smile in his voice.
“You don’t even sound surprised.”
“I’m not.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “You and I are meant to be together. Whatever problems we run into, we’ll get them worked out.”
“What about Ore-Cal?”
He laughed softly. “I think it’s about time Jeremy takes over. And why not? I’ve carried the load for years. Now it’s his turn. He can handle it. I’ve earned the right to be my own person and live my own life. I plan to do that here in Wolf’s Landing, with my little powder monkey and our twelve children.”
Indigo stirred, acutely aware of an unstated message behind those words. “Me? Mrs. Jake Rand, a powder monkey? We’ll see what tune you sing when it’s time to do some blasting.”
He ran a hand up her back, loving her as he had never loved anyone. “I learned an important lesson in the last twenty-four hours. I can’t protect you from everything. I was with you last night when Brandon came along, remember?”
“Well, he hit you from behind. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
He sighed. “No. And I can’t go through life blaming myself for every other bad thing that happens either, just because I can’t prevent it.” In a halting voice, he told her about his mother’s death. “Nearly losing you made me stop and realize that it’s the quality of life that matters, not how long you live.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled on a sigh. “The true tragedy about my mother’s life was that she was miserably unhappy during
her short stay on earth. I can protect you into old age and make every day of your life miserable, or I can give you the freedom to enjoy every minute.” He grew quiet for a moment. “I’ve been wrong, Indigo, about so many things. Mary Beth, for instance. I can only pray it’s not too late for me to change.”
“You’re going to let her study law?”
“I’m finished with wrapping the women I love in cotton.” He took a deep breath and exhaled on a sigh. “Take you, for instance. I want to know I gave you happiness. In the end, when we have to say our final goodbyes, those memories are the only things that comfort us.”
He sounded as if he had learned that from personal experience. Indigo pressed her cheek against his chest and listened to the even, sturdy beat of his heart. “You mean it, don’t you? You’re actually going to let me handle dynamite and set the charges.”
He tightened his arms around her. “Honey, I’ll always be overprotective. That’s part of my makeup, just as a need to be free is part of yours. I can’t see myself happily standing aside while you do backbreaking labor. We’ll have to reach compromises we can both live with. But the dynamite is different. Unless it blows accidentally, it won’t hurt you to handle it.”
Indigo’s heart welled with happiness. “I’ll be careful, truly I will.”
He chuckled. “You’d better be. I’ve already made up my mind I’m going to be right beside you when you handle the damned stuff. If you get blown to kingdom come, I’m going with you.”
Except for the wind whipping under the eaves outside the house, a peaceful silence settled around them. Enveloped in happiness, Indigo grew drowsy and drifted between sleep and wakefulness. She blinked awake when Jake gently moved away from her and got out of bed.
Unaware that Indigo was awake, Jake moved to the window. He didn’t know why, but the sound of the gusting wind drew him. He pressed close to the glass and stared out into the moonlit darkness at the shifting shadows. When he stared long enough, those shadows seemed to take shape. He knew it was his imagination, but in the distance, he thought he heard the forlorn howl of a wolf on the wind.