Wild Horses by D'Ann Lindun

downed the last of his water. “I’d better be going.”
    Heather folded up her map and stuffed it in her back pocket. She looked at him like he was a bad science experiment. “Lacey and I will travel with you a ways and make sure you’re headed the right direction.”
    He ought to hurry back to the cabin and see what was going on, but exhaustion overwhelmed him and the soft blankets felt so good. A short nap would do him good. “I can’t take another step until I rest for a bit.”
    Heather glared at him. “One hour. That’s plenty of time to catch a nap and make it back to Dead Horse Canyon before nightfall.”
    He couldn’t hold his eyes open another second. “Okay.”

Chapter Seven
    Castaña and Patty sat on a high point overlooking the forest, eating a late lunch. By the sun’s position in the sky, the time was around three, but they had wanted to press on to the lookout before taking a break.
    “Where next?” Patty took a bite of roast beef sandwich and observed the forested valley below.
    “I honestly don’t know,” Castaña admitted. “It’s getting late and it’ll take at least two hours to ride back to camp. But I want to check the old Hampstead place first. There’s a corral there that Martin sometimes used.”
    “I know where it is,” Patty said. “Where do you suppose the others are?”
    “I have no idea. I thought we might be able to see something from here.” From their vantage point, they could see for miles in every direction, but all they saw were pine trees and the glimmer of sun on water. A bee buzzed around, looking for something sweet in their lunches.
    Patty nudged Castaña’s arm. “What’s that?”
    “What?” Castaña didn’t see what Patty looked at.
    “There.” Patty pointed to a dark spot in the clear blue sky. “I think it was one of the flares.”
    In a minute, another bright burst of red light flashed across the sky.
    “I see it.” Castaña motioned ahead of her. “They’re close to the deer pond. We can go down this way and be there in about an hour.”
    Patty already had her lunch packed and was on her feet. “I wonder if this means they found someone.”
    Castaña prayed it wasn’t Martin.
    In seconds, they were mounted up. Castaña led the way, quickly finding the steep trail down the face of the peak. One of Gato’s hooves slipped a little on some loose rocks and Castaña gasped. Her mouth felt like she’d swallowed sand and her heart thudded in painful, rapid beats. She didn’t know if her sticky hand wrapped around the saddlehorn would ever come loose. She hated this narrow path, but it was the fastest way down. It would take hours to backtrack and ride around the bottom.
    “You okay?” Patty called.
    “Yeah. Fine.” Castaña kept her gaze straight ahead, leveled between Gato’s black-tipped ears. As long as she took a lot of deep breaths and didn’t look off into the deep chasm she was okay. Sort of.
    “I see something,” Patty called.
    Castaña didn’t turn around to look at her. “What?”
    “I think it’s a horse.”
    “Where?” Castaña assumed Patty pointed at something, but she wasn’t about to turn around in her saddle to find out.
    “Over by the pond.”
    Castaña risked a glance out over the treetops. Quickly, she turned her eyes back to the trail in front of her. “I can’t look right now. Can we get to them when we get down?”
    “I think so,” Patty said.
    The rest of the trip was made in tense silence.
    At the bottom of the hair raising trail, Castaña reined in and Patty moved up beside her. “I always forget how much fun that ride is. Whew. It’s not for scaredy cats.”
    “You’ve been down it before?”
    “Yeah.” Patty bent around in her saddle and pulled a bottle of water out of her saddlebags. She twisted off the cap and took a long swallow. “I once helped rescue a hiker who slipped and fell.”
    Castaña shuddered and reached for her own water. “Did it kill him?”
    “Unfortunately,