Merline Lovelace by Countess In Buckskin Page B

basket is perhaps a little heavy, it is true. But I must...what do you do? Stop! Stop at once!”
    Ignoring her screeched command, Josh drew out his knife and went down on one knee. In two fast slashes, he sliced through the rawhide thongs securing the basket’s top. A quick wrench sent the lid skimming across the snow.
    Incredulously Josh gaped at the contents. Sticks! Nothing but sticks. In neatly bound bundles, tagged and identified in Russian script. His mittened hand fumbled through several layers, searching among the brittle twigs for something that made sense of Tatiana’s desperation. He found only more sticks. Disbelieving, he drew out one of the tagged bundles.
    She snatched it out of his hand. “You must not expose them!”
    Like a mother putting a child to bed, she knelt and carefully tucked the bundle back in the basket. “They were in the sea. I don’t know...”
    Josh wrenched her around so hard she almost toppled over. “What in the hell are these?”
    “They are cuttings.”
    “Cuttings?”
    “From the trees my father has nurtured.”
    “You’re hauling trees through mountains covered with stands of virgin timber?”
    “Yes!”
    She tried without success to pull free of his hard grip. Josh tried without success to rein in his soaring fury.
    “You’re risking your life and mine for trees?”
    “These cuttings came from most special trees!” She blinked rapidly to clear her wind-teared eyes. “From the peaches, and the pears and the apples of a most hardy kind. My father himself developed this apple. He named it in honor of...” Her mouth twisted. “He named it in honor of Nikolas, the Tsar of all Russias. It is called the Tsar’s Treasure.”
    Josh surged to his feet, yanking her up with him. The absurdity of the situation staggered him. They were standing on top of the world, caught in a sea of wind, moments away from a blinding blizzard, and this addlepated female worried about a basket of dried, twisted sticks.
    “I don’t care who the hell they were named for,” he roared in a voice to match the howling wind. “Those twigs are staying here.”
    “No!”
    Without another word, he shoved past her and grabbed the pony’s reins. He’d taken three stiff-legged strides across the snow-covered slope before Tatiana caught up to him. Her feet slipping and slithering on the steep incline, she dragged at his arm.
    “Wait! You do not understand! I must get this stock to Fort Ross before the sap begins to rise in the trees that are there. Only then can I...”
    “You don’t understand!” Josh hurled at her. “If we don’t get to shelter, and quickly, you’re not going to make it off this mountain, much less to Fort Ross. Make tracks, Countess. Now!”
    Pulling free of her frantic grip, he put his head down and stepped into the stinging flurries. The pony followed, its hooves muffled on the snow. They were still five miles to the timberline on the west slope, Josh estimated. Once there, he could fashion a shelter under the branches of a tall pine. If only the damned clouds would lift for a few moments so he could get his bearings.
    Instead of lifting, the grayish light merged with the snowy surface until a hazy, shimmering luminescence coated everything and created dangerous false illusions. Large stones that Josh went out of his way to skirt around weren’t even there. Others, he whacked right into. Once he stepped high to avoid what looked like a drift and fell flat on his face when his foot went down into a deep depression. Swearing, he dug himself out He was brushing the snow from his face and beard when he noticed that Tatiana was nowhere in sight.
    His hand froze in midair. Sudden, pounding fear clawed in his throat. Had she wandered off the path in this treacherous light and gone into a crevasse? Had the wind swallowed up her scream? An instant later, another, far more likely possibihty hit him.
    She’d gone back for her damned basket! He knew it as surely as he knew his own