Free Hawk's Way by Joan Johnston Page B

trusted anyone in her life—for good reason—but Dallas was different. Maybe it had something to do with reaching out to him in the darkness of the cave, but she felt a closeness to him that she had never felt with any other human being.
    Angel shivered when she thought about how angry Dallas was going to be when he discovered that not only had she run away, but she had stolen his horse. She consoled herself with the thought that she wouldn’t be around to deal with his wrath.
    â€œGoodbye, Dallas,” she whispered as she tiptoed across the porch and down the front steps. “Think of me sometime.”
    Then she was off and running for the world she had left behind.

CHAPTER 5
    A ngel greeted the approaching cave entrance with a weary smile of relief. It was a starry night, so she hadn’t been forced to deal with total blackness, but there was something eerie about being in a time and place where one didn’t belong. Red started nervously dancing sideways, and she patted his neck to calm him down.
    â€œThere’s nothing out there, boy. Nothing but hill country and you and me. Nothing to get spooked about. Take it easy now.” It was questionable which of the two of them she was trying more to convince. Red’s ears flicked forward and back, as though he was listening to her but distracted by something else.
    Was there something out there? Most likely a coyote, she thought. Or maybe a snake slithering away from Red’s hooves. “Don’t worry, boy,” she soothed the anxious horse. “They’re as afraid of us as we are of them.”
    As she stepped down off the gelding at the cave entrance she felt the hairs rise on the back of herneck. She patted the horse again but didn’t speak aloud. There was someone here. She felt sure of it. She let the reins trail on the ground, effectively ground-tying the animal, knowing any good cowhorse was trained to stay where he was left.
    She had the child’s Mickey Mouse flashlight Dallas had bought for her, which made a less-bright light than the flashlight he had used. But it was light. She didn’t have to stand there in the dark. Still, she felt reluctant to turn it on. What if there was somebody—some human—around here? She hadn’t forgotten the incident that had brought Dallas to her rescue. Angel fingered the penknife she was carrying in her pocket through the rough denim of Dallas’s jeans. She stood quietly, listening, but heard nothing. Things just didn’t feel right.
    Angel started talking to herself. “I have plenty of light. I have a knife. What else do I need? Quit spittin’ on the handle, Angel, and get to work!”
    She flicked on the flashlight and felt a lot better. The trail of light was easy to follow, sweeping away the dark as she went. Unfortunately the dark closed in behind her. The deeper she went into the cave, the greater her sense of foreboding.
    â€œStop acting like a hen on a wet griddle,” she chastised herself. “There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.”
    But she was afraid. She tried to talk herself out of it. “Give yourself something else to think about, Angel, so you don’t spend so much time pondering on the dark. Now there you go again, making note of how black this pit of hell is. Think about something happy. Something wonderful. Like Dallas.
    â€œNow there’s a man God spent some time on. Whooee! He is one fine-looking fellow. Never thought you’d fall for a handsome face, Angel, but you sure did go for that Ranger! He—”
    Angel distinctly heard a voice. A male voice. And it was behind her. Dallas must have woken up and followed her!
    She wasn’t about to get caught before she had a chance to look for some sort of portal to the past. She moved faster, almost running. However, she couldn’t hold the light steady at that pace, so she missed seeing a dip in the cave floor and lost her balance. She reached