Deep Trouble Read Free Page B

miss, your face is all bloody.”
    Shannon looked down at her hands and saw blood. “I had a nosebleed.”
    “That doesn’t explain all of it, I don’t think. I heard gunfire.”
    “Ricocheting bullets. I—I don’t think—” She scanned her body, assessed her aches and pains, and didn’t feel shot. “I wasn’t struck by one, but—” She did seem to remember being hit. “I think maybe some rocks went wild when the bullets struck. They may have hit me.” Getting hit by rocks, getting shot—none of it was the least bit pleasant. It took more energy than she had to tell him more.
    She did take a moment to wonder just how bad she looked. A woman liked to make a good first impression, and she seriously doubted she was accomplishing that.
    “Let me think. I’ve got a lasso on my horse. I could throw it to you, and you could tie it off.”
    Shannon looked around the utterly empty cave. “There’s nothing to tie it to.”
    “Okay, okay… uh… what’s your name? I’m Gabe.”
    “Shannon.” She barely had the energy to say that out loud. In fact, she didn’t have the energy to say much more of anything. “Don’t leave.”
    “I wont.”
    “Promise me, swear to me on your mother’s life, you won’t leave.”
    “My ma’s dead, but I won’t leave. You have my word, I’ll stay, and we’ll figure out a way to get you down from there.”
    She just barely had the strength to roll away from the ledge.
    “Shannon?”
    It was like someone was talking to her in a dream.
    “Shannon, answer me.”
    For just a second she thought it was Bucky calling her. Poor Bucky. He’d told her not to come.
    “Shannon!”
    As things stood right now, Shannon had to admit the man was probably right. She wouldn’t mind being back in her mother’s elegant drawing room right now.
    “Shannon, are you all right?”
    She tried to figure out when she’d agreed to let her fiancé come along on this trip. And why he was shouting at her so loudly. And while she pondered that, she stared at the roof of her cave and wondered why it was going inexplicably black.

    She could be dying up there for all he knew. But how to reach her? Gabe closed his eyes and prayed for inspiration.
    Rebuild the ladder?
    Pieces of it were scattered on this narrow ledge, more pieces had fallen all the way to the canyon floor. There was one fairly long section with a few broken rungs clinging to it. Maybe he could do it.
    Had it been a still, small voice suggesting that? Since it was an idea very unlikely to work, Gabe didn’t think so.
    Was there another way to the top of this cliff? He had a long rope on his horse. Could he get above her and lower a noose? He leaned back to look up and up and up. It was too high for his rope to be of any use. Besides, he didn’t see any way up there.
    Praying quietly, he scooted along the ledge and stepped into the cave opening nearest him. Nothing. Not one rough spot or heavy rock of any kind. If her cave was like this one, she was absolutely correct in saying there was nothing to tie on to.
    Gabe poked his head out the cave opening and looked down on his horse, standing tied to the mesquite bush. He had an idea. He had to climb all the way back down, which was fairly terrifying considering the ledges were only slightly sturdier than the hardtack biscuits he had in his saddlebags.
    And Shannon had to help. A lot. Since she was bleeding and unconscious, that was a real weak spot in a real weak plan.
    While he was down there, he’d look at those ladder fragments and see what he could do. There were no trees of any size to use to build a new ladder. How far might he have to ride to find such? And then he had no ax to cut down even a small tree. Hacking one down with his knife was possible, probably, though it might take days of hard work. Still, he’d do that if he had to.
    Leave her up there alone while he rode away? She might well lose her mind if he did.
    Gabe could almost hear his ma nagging him to quit dallying and