I wish I could thank all the guest reviewers personally, so I'll just say a quick thanks now to everyone for commenting and being so appreciative. It means so much to receive such great feedback :-)

With a suddenly lighter load, the animal made short work of the slope. Clara's head rocked up as she flung her arms around the horse's neck, hanging on for her very life. Adam didn't need to think twice. Thumping his feet hard against his mare's ribs, he spurred her after the runaway horse. The girl disappeared from sight as she crested the ridge and seconds later Adam was at the top as well. The track had levelled out and he could see Clara clinging onto the horse as it flew down the track ahead of him.

Adam dropped low over his mount's neck. Shouting in the animal's ear, he urged her to move, go faster, go, go! His horse thundered down the track behind Clara, kicking up a cloud of sandy dust as the mare's legs pounded over the hard ground. Either the girl's horse was tiring or Adam's was enjoying the sudden burst of speed because soon his mare's outstretched head began to edge past Clara's horse. Adam kicked hard against the mare's flanks, spurring her to move faster and was soon neck and neck with the white-eyed runaway. Clara was hanging low over the horse, her face pressed tight against its neck and her eyes wide with fear. Adam cursed his tied hands as he had no way of reaching across for her, or grabbing the creature's reins, and maintaining balance on his own horse at the same time. Adam glanced ahead. Not too distant was a bend in the track.

"Clara! You've got to stop the horse, grab the reins!" he shouted.

The girl threw a white-eyed look at him, put her head down and squeezed her eyes shut.

They turned into the bend.

Dammit! Adam could think of no other recourse. He urged his mount a short way ahead, and then, using all the strength he had, yanked hard to one side, pulling her into the path of the runaway. Adam's mare went down hard on her side but Adam was ready and hit the ground with a roll, tumbling towards the side of the track. The runaway's front legs crashed into the fallen animal and Adam watched as Clara was thrown from the saddle. He scrambled to his feet, amazed he had not smashed a rib or knocked himself senseless by this reckless action. As he ran towards the girl, the two horses staggered to their feet and stood dazed on the track. Clara was pushing herself into a sitting position as he reached her.

"Are you okay, you're not hurt?"

"I…I don't think so."

Adam glanced down the trail towards the bend. He had no doubt Cordell and his men were behind them, but presently their pursuers were out of sight. He ran towards the two stationary horses, waving his bound arms and shouting, satisfied when both animals tossed their heads in alarm and ran from him down the trail. He hauled a still-stunned Clara upright and over to a jumble of boulders, the girl tripping over her feet as he tugged her along. Retreating behind a large rock, Adam yanked Clara down to the ground beside him. She began to speak but at the sound of approaching riders Adam clamped a hand over her mouth. He hardly dared breathe as they pounded past. It was only when he had peered over the rock and watched the last rider disappear from view that he removed his hand from her mouth.

"Come on," he said, pulling Clara to her feet once more. "It won't take them long before they realise we've given them the slip."

But Clara wasn't going so easily. She yanked her hand from Adam's grip. "Mama. She's…" She looked back in the direction from which they had come, back to where her mother lay unmoving on the ground. Her eyes filled with tears and she began to stumble back to the track. "I have to go back. Mama…She…"

Adam grabbed one of the girl's arms and pulled her around to face him. "We don't have time for this. Your mother is…" He paused, his gaze wandering from the girl's accusing stare. He looked back at her. "We need to keep moving. Now come on."

He pushed her ahead of him, away from the rocky boulders and down into the pine forest that cloaked the side of the valley. Adam's fear for what the men would do if they caught up with them made him belligerent. The girl floundered over tree roots and found ankle-twisting dips in the thick of pine needles that carpeted the forest floor. Time and again she would fall to her knees, and each time Adam would yank her up and tug her along, ignoring her indignant yelps and cries as she scratched her hands and skin on bark and cone. But she was not the only one to stumble. The angled slope, slippery pines underfoot and Adam's bound wrists meant he struggled to keep his balance. Branches whiplashed into his face and as he threw his head away from the oncoming limb, his foot would slip out from under him in his rush to keep moving. Landing heavily on his backside, he would slide down the slope before picking himself up and continuing on.

The sound of rushing water began to break through the closely growing trees, growing louder as they slipped ever nearer to the valley bottom. And then another noise could be heard: those of men shouting and careering through the forest behind them. Adam threw a desperate glance behind him and then tugged Clara along even harder.

But then, without warning, the ground ran out and they were poised on the edge of a cliff. To their backs was the forest, Cordell and his gang. Twenty feet below them a river was cutting its way through the side of the valley forming a narrow canyon of fast-moving water. Squeezed into a thin channel of rock, the water was moving at a speed and ferocity which made Adam's throat dry. He looked both ways along the cliff edge but there was no discernible path, only a mesh of trees growing at all angles and splayed out over the river. He twisted quickly to see their pursuers coming into view, shouting as they ran and slid down the slope.

Adam grimaced. "We're gonna have to jump."

The girl turning terrified eyes on him. "I can't swim."

Adam's face creased into an instant frown. "But you were at the pools back in Chia Springs."

"I sat in the shallows whilst Mama swam."

Adam swivelled on his heels to see the men drawing closer. "We've got no choice, we have to jump. Unless you want those men to catch you."

Clara clamped her mouth shut and shook her head.

"Good girl. Now untie this knot." Adam thrust his wrists out to Clara who began to pick at the rope. He kept his eyes on the men who were nearly upon them. "Dammit! There's no time, we've gotta go!"

He pushed Clara over the precipice, hearing her scream as she fell, and then leaped off the cliff edge.

~8~

There was no sound.

He fell for no more than a few seconds but in that time the world fell silent. Adam thought he would hear the river as it rushed up to greet him, or the shouting of the men scrambling down the forested slope, or Clara's penetrating scream. But it was as though all the noise in the world had been sucked out of the air. And it was as this peculiar fact registered in Adam's brain that he hit the water and plunged beneath the surface.

It was cold, so mind-numbingly cold, that for a moment all Adam could do was tumble head over heels through the river, his body in shock as the blood fled from his flesh. Which way was up or down—his thought processes were as frozen as his body—he had no idea. The question couldn't even form in his mind.

But Adam had been taught to swim the Indian way, as had both his brothers. On a warm summer morning when he had been eight years old, his father had taken him to the lake, tied a rope around his waist, and thrown him in the water. Adam would always remember the panic as his arms thrashed frantically and he struggled to keep his head above the surface. Someone was shouting at him to kick his feet, but his tense body had sunk, and he had been hauled out of the water at the end of the rope. It took several dunkings before what his father was saying registered. And as Adam began to kick, and his arms held him upright, a wave of euphoria produced a wide grin on his face. He'd never been afraid of water after that.

Now, as the silence of his fall was displaced by the muffled roar of agitated water, and the shock of the sudden cold dissipated, he felt a calmness direct his thoughts. His eyes adjusted to blurry greyness and he began to kick his way up towards the swirling blue light above him, his locked-together arms pumping up and down to aid his ascent. He was aware of the water propelling him along with the current. But then he broke through and was hit with the angry thunder of racing water. Adam's senses were buffeted: hard water was an assault on his face, the canyon cliffs rocked in and out of vision at crooked angles and the noise was overpowering.

Adam gulped in several gasps of delicious air, and seemed to drink half the river at the same time. But he didn't care about that, or that he was being tossed about like a piece of loose driftwood. He was alive. He'd survived the mad jump into the violent waters.

Clara! Where was Clara? Adam spun in every direction, straining to see through the rise and fall of the choppy current. There was no sign of her. He twisted again, kept scanning the water. Nothing. Good God, what if she had hit her head on a rock, or become entangled in an underwater tree root. What if she had drowned? It would be his fault. He had disregarded her plea that she couldn't swim. Adam's heart was already beating nineteen to the dozen, but it seemed to beat even more as fear for the girl began to overtake him.

But then what looked like the top of a head bobbed up a short distance away. Adam blinked the water out of his eyes and stared towards where the head had appeared. But it was gone. She was gone. He rose out of the water as high as he was able and strained to find another sign of the girl. Clara was nowhere to be seen. Adam let the current carry him, not caring whether he hit submerged rocks or was propelled towards the canyon walls. His entire concentration was focussed on finding the girl. But then...yes…there she was! She broke the surface, coughing and crying, and Adam threw himself across the flowing water, desperate to not lose sight of her again. He was feet away when she went under once more. Adam dived. The world became muffled and as his eyes adjusted to the murk, he saw a flash of bright colour. He kicked towards it, his two hands reaching out in the gloom. They connected with something. Cloth. He grasped tightly, his fingers finding a solid form, and not letting go, he pushed to the surface.

Adam gulped in fresh oxygen once more and pulled the girl up so her head was above the water. She struggled in his grip, her body bucking as she panicked.

"I've got you, I've got you, it's okay, you're okay." Adam shouted over and over.

His grip on her was tenuous, his two hands holding tightly to her upper arm. "I can't hold you, you gotta hold on to me."

Clara twisted violently around to face him and flung her arms around his neck. She was crying and shaking with fear as the water rushed them down the river. After a while she began to regain control and raised her head from where it was buried in his shoulder. Adam found a smile. "Whatever you do, don't let go."

She lowered her head once more and together they were propelled down the river.

~8~

There was no way of telling how long they were in the water. The current took them for what seemed like miles, carrying them through the narrow canyon cut into the valley edge. They had left Cordell and his men behind a long time ago, a distant splash of colour on the cliff as they were spirited out of sight. The river twisted and curved until the canyon walls gradually lowered and were replaced with close growing trees, their roots a-tangle on the river's edge. Then as they were bundled around a bend in the river, they suddenly slowed, for the river had broken free of its constraints and widened across the valley floor.

Clara never loosened her grip on Adam's neck, but kept her face locked against his shoulder. She didn't even look up as the river quietened into the soothing wash of water over stone. Adam kicked over to the shallows and found himself sitting on the pebbly river bed with Clara on his lap, weighed down by his waterlogged clothing and the girl clinging to him.

He spoke her name softly but still she would not look up. After a few moments, Adam nudged her with a shoulder and she raised her head. Her eyes were wet and red-rimmed and Adam knew it was not only the river water in her eyes. When she saw they were no longer moving and spied the green grass on the bank she clambered to her feet, her sodden skirts wrapped around her legs, and sat down heavily on the ground. Adam dragged himself out of the water and collapsed on his back, staring up at the sky above.

He took a few moments to appreciate a world no longer constantly in motion. Closing his eyes, he relished the heat of the sun on his skin and the stillness in his limbs. He turned his head to look at the river and observed how gentle it was now it had passed the canyon.

A black object floating in the shallows caught his eye. Adam jumped to his feet and waded back into the river. It was his hat. He couldn't believe it had not become snagged in a branch or rock farther upstream. After he had knocked out some of the water, he placed it on his head, feeling properly dressed once more.

Clara was quiet—too quiet—which made Adam pause; his jaw protruded as he contemplated her. Knelt on the sandy earth, Clara was leaning forward on clenched fists, staring down the river towards the canyon they had been so roughly spat out of. Her gaze was fixed on the water that flowed at speed around the bend. Her face showed no emotion, and those blank, unblinking eyes worried Adam more than any hysterics would. He sighed. She was here physically, but her mind was back where they had come from, back where the men were, and the horses, and her mother.

Adam was torn between comfort and practicalities and grimaced as he considered his next move. He looked around to get his bearings. The opposite bank of the river was lined with thickly growing trees. It would slow their pursuers down, but not for long. A few steps away from the river he mounted a small rise and saw where the river meandered away from the steep valley edge and cut a swathe through the flat wet plain. A quick glance at the sun and Adam concluded the river was flowing south. He had an approximate idea of where they were, somewhere in the forests and mountains north of Tahoe in the heart of the Sierra Nevada. If they followed the river south, maybe, just maybe, he would see a landmark he recognised and they could get to safety.

But for the moment, that was nothing more than a distant dream. He looked down at himself: wet-through, with no gun or knife, his hands still tied together at the wrists. And Clara, her dress bedraggled and sodden, not saying a word, not crying. Just staring towards where her mother lay on a hard, dry road, forever silent.

Adam walked back to her and tapped her shoulder with his fingers. "Clara, we've gotta move, we can't stay here."

She ignored him, her gaze not moving from the river.

"It won't take long for those men to come after us. We have to move."

The girl's obstinacy or distraction or whatever it was, began to fray on Adam's nerves.

"This isn't what your mother would have wanted. She was trying to get you away from those men when she…" He stopped, not wanting to say the words. Clara sat back on her heels, but continued to stare at the river. It was a start, thought Adam.

He softened his tone. "We can't go back, Clara. There's nothing there for you now."

She looked at him sharply, and Adam was taken aback by the blazing anger in her eyes. "Mama's back there."

He sighed gently. "Your mama's dead."

The anger faded, and then Clara burst into tears. She rocked forward and Adam dropped to his knees to catch her, as best he could with two bound wrists. She fell against his chest and Adam let her cry for the duration of a few breaths.

"Come, child, there's time enough for that later. For now, I need your help."

She raised wet eyes to his and he held up his wrists. And as Clara began to pick at the rope with young nimble fingers, Adam wondered how he would get out of the predicament he found himself in. He was stuck in the middle of rough country with a grief-stricken child; they were soaked to the skin; he had no weapon and a gang of men were probably already following the course of the river in pursuit. He had been in tough spots before, but this was definitely one of the worst.

The wet, swollen ropes came loose after a deal of effort and Adam flexed his sore wrists in relief. He hid the frayed strands in the scrub at the base of a nearby tree, and covered the marks they had made on the river bank as best he could.

He stood for a moment, staring south, towards the big blue lake, towards home. Then, taking Clara's hand, he began to walk in the opposite direction.