Chapter Fifteen

The rain had slackened by the time made his way to the barn and Robert allowed himself to hope the storm was passing. But no sooner had he climbed into the saddle and accepted a flashlight from the stable boy than thunder crashed nearby.

“Be careful,” the boy said. “You got a flint, in case you need to take shelter somewhere and build a fire?”

Of course he didn’t. Robert was practical in many ways, but in Unitas he had staff to keep him out of trouble when they were on the road. Gratefully, he accepted a tinderbox and slipped it in his saddlebag.

He walked his horse through the squelching mud to the east ridge trailhead under a sky vivid with lightning. They had scarcely started the climb when the downpour returned with a vengeance. At first he tried to stay on his mount, but the mare balked and stumbled. He was forced to dismount and lead her through the mud, stepping over fallen branches and tripping over rocks that had tumbled down the slope. Even with a flashlight, he had to find his way by feel, tugging on the reins to get his horse to follow. Finally the mare dug in her heels and would go no farther. Robert cursed at her and was about to remove his coat and cover her eyes when he heard a rumbling like a freight train that for a terrifying moment drowned out even the sound of the thunder as the earth shook and his horse whinnied and tried to wrench free of his grasp.

The boulder missed them by only a few feet, massive and black against the darkness as it crashed through the underbrush, rolled across the trail and launched itself into oblivion below.

Robert waited a few moments, breathing heavily, as he gathered up the courage to go on. He patted his mare’s neck and spoke soothing words as the rain continued to drench them both. This was a fool’s errand, just as Miguel had warned, but Sophie was somewhere up that mountain and as soon as his heart quit pounding, he tugged on the reins and they continued on.

#

He found Sophie at the quarry, or rather, she found him, spotting the beam of his flashlight through the rain as she and Bandera huddled under a ledge. Robert almost didn’t hear her shouting but for a momentary lull in the wind. “Sophie?” He got off his horse and followed her voice on foot.

“Over here!”

It took him several minutes to find her in the rain and fallen tree limbs, wondering all the while why, if she could see his light, she didn’t come to him. When he finally found where she was sheltering, he saw why. She sat under a rocky ledge with her foot propped up beside her, boot off and her ankle crudely bandaged with her bandana.

“Baby, what happened?” He tried to give her only a brief hug so he could check her foot but she threw her arms around his neck and wouldn’t let go.

“You found me!”

“Well, yes. Did you think I would abandon you?” He disentangled her and shone the flashlight on her foot. “What is this?”

“I twisted it. It hurts to walk and I can’t get my boot back on.”

Robert bent over for a closer look. The ankle was indeed very swollen, but hopefully it was just a sprain. He couldn’t imagine what she had been getting up to on a horseback ride that would’ve resulted in such an injury, but now wasn’t the time to ask.

She had done a good job of getting herself to safety, at least. She was on high ground, sheltered from the rain, with her knife, food pack and canteen within easy reach. Nearby, Bandera kept an uneasy watch.

The rain and wind were slackening but the storm front had left a deep chill in the air. Remembering the tinderbox in his saddlebag, Robert built a fire using dead branches that had remained dry under the sheltered ledge.

Sophie watched in fascination. “I didn’t know you could make a fire. I mean like outside and not in a stove or fireplace.”

“It’s not very different. I learned to do a lot of things in the civil war.”

They gazed at each other frankly in the firelight, assessing. They had been close in those first few years when Diana struggled to come to terms with motherhood. But once Sophie took to horses, she and her mother had become inseparable, leaving Robert the odd one out. Now it was just the two of them, as it had been in the beginning. He couldn’t leave her with Amalia while he risked his life to pursue old dreams. Whatever might come next, they were in it together.