Prologue
1874, San Carlos Reservation, Arizona
The cat was large, over two hundred pounds and nearly eight feet long. High up in the mountains, it lay on a boulder, its eyes riveted on a spot thirty feet below, where the slope leveled off to form a wide ledge. There among the tall pines was a small herd of wild horses, roped off. They were nervously stamping the ground, sensing the cat’s presence even though there was no breeze to carry his scent.
Suddenly the cat sensed danger. Then he saw the two men winding their way up the mountainside leading a string of horses, seven more to add to the waiting herd. They were quite young, the two men, and looked almost identical. Both had darkly bronzed skin and long black hair flowing loose about their shoulders, and both wore kneehigh moccasins and long white breechclothes spanning well-muscled thighs. But one was tall and bare-chested beneath his short black vest. The other was much shorter and wore a long-sleeved white cotton shirt girded with a cartridge belt sitting low on his hips.
When the new horses were added to the herd, the cougar rose from his perch and leaped from the boulder, moving cautiously toward the two young men. One was half-Apache, and the other, taller man wasn’t an Indian at all.
The two men stopped, frozen, staring up at the huge cougar. Why hadn’t they sensed him? All was still except for the prancing of the horses.
The tall man stuck out his hand, and the cougar closed the distance between them with a thundering purr. The cat rubbed his head into the extended hand and wrapped his body around the man’s bare legs. After a moment, he moved the whole tawny length of his body under the open hand, then sauntered off and plopped down on a smooth piece of ground two feet away.
Billy Wolf let out his breath very slowly so the other young man wouldn’t hear him. His hands were close to trembling, and it threatened his manhood.
“Sonofabitch!” Billy said in the language his friend had taught him so well, then more loudly when that didn’t get the taller one’s attention. “Sonofabitch! You hear what he’s doin’ to the mares, Slade?”
The taller man turned his head and bestowed on Billy one of his rare smiles. “Doing, Billy,ing. Get thatgon there.”
“Shit, don’t talk to me about grammar now!” But the point had been made, and Billy wouldn’t forget again. “Weren’t you just a little nervous before you knew it was him?”
“A little,” was all Slade Holt said before he went over to quiet the horses.
Billy Wolf followed rapidly. “Will you just look at him lying there like he knows he’s welcome, like he never left your side.”
“He does know he’s welcome,” Slade said flatly.
Billy stared at the cougar and shook his head. “You ain’t seen him in eight months, and it was a year before that time. How does he remember you? How do you recognize him now that he looks like any other mountain lion?”
“I didn’t recognize him,” Slade admitted, a grin beginning. “I just knew he wasn’t a threat, same way you knew I wasn’t a threat when we first met.”
Billy thought that over for a moment and accepted it as reasonable. As was his way, he abruptly changed the subject.
“Are you really set on leaving tomorrow, Slade?” When the other simply nodded without answering and sat down next to the giant cat, Billy frowned. “But are you sure you’re ready?”
Slade glanced over at a crevice dug in the side of the mountain. The crevice contained a blanket, one set of white man’s clothes, boots he’d had Billy trade a horse for last winter, a sack of canned goods Billy had brought him, and the handgun and holster he’d stolen two years before, when Cactus Reed had taught him how to use the gun. It was that gun he was thinking about now. Learning to handle it with a degree of expertise had been the only thing he’d felt lacking in his education. It had taken two years of daily practice before he admitted to himself that he was good—better at least than the man he planned to kill with it.
“Ready?” Slade’s light green eyes rested on the cougar, and he reached out to rub the big cat between the ears. “My problem has been a waiting problem for too many years. I was a kid, aching to grow up fast because I couldn’t do anything about the pain others had caused me until I was grown up. I was twelve when you finally got up the nerve to approach me.”
“Nerve!” Billy interrupted indignantly.
“Admit it, Billy,” Slade said, amusement in his voice. “Your people thought I was crazy, and not just because I lived out in the mountains alone. You were only a year older than I was. Even your warriors took a wide berth around the crazy white boy.”
“What were we supposed to think, you being a dirty, half-naked kid whose stink could be smelled a mile off? Anyone who got within shouting distance of you, you pulled an imaginary gun and shot them with it. If that’s not loco—”
Slade burst out laughing. “I shot you, too, when you first showed up.”
“With your finger,” Billy grunted, but he smiled. It was rare that Slade Holt laughed with genuine humor instead of bitter cynicism.
“I told you why I stunk so bad back then. It took half a year before that skunk smell wore off.”
“It would’ve helped if you’d availed yourself of a creek.”
“Why? Back then, not having to take baths was about the only thing I liked about my freedom.”
Billy twitched his nose. “You’re of a different mind now. I’m grateful.”
Slade shrugged. “Some things change over the years. I don’t shoot make-believe guns anymore, either. It was a game I used to play with my twin brother.”
