The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (61 page)

While stirring the pudding, she contemplated leaving a suicide note, and decided against it. No one she knew would really care why she had done it; most wouldn’t even know she was gone.

When the pudding was cool, she poured all of it into a large bowl, sliced a banana on top, then sat at the kitchen table and savoured every bite. Good thing she was dying tomorrow, she thought with a wry grin, since she’d just shot her diet all to hell.

She spent the next hour finishing the book she was reading, then she cleaned her house from top to bottom. She didn’t want whoever found her body to think she lived like a slob.

Lunch was perfect. She lingered over every French fry, even the little crusty ones at the bottom of the bag.

While fixing dinner, she listened to her favourite fifties oldies. When dinner was ready, she lit a fire in the fireplace and ate in the living room. She grinned ruefully as she again savoured every bite. Six months at the gym, wiped out in one day.

By six, the rain had turned into a thunderstorm. Lightning slashed the skies, thunder rocked the heavens, a ferocious wind rattled the windows. She had always loved a storm. What better way to spend her last night than walking in the rain? One thing for certain, she wouldn’t have to worry about catching a cold.

After pulling on her favourite sweatshirt and an old pair of cowboy boots, she went outside. For a moment, she just stood there, her face lifted to the skies. Was anyone up there? Was there life after death? Were her parents waiting to greet her on the other side, or was death the end of everything?

She’d know the answer tomorrow. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans and then, with no particular destination in mind, she started walking. It was kind of spooky, walking in the dark. She glanced over her shoulder from time to time, making sure the lights from the house were still in sight.

A flash of lightning split the skies. Macie stared at it. Was that a horse, she thought, startled, and then laughed out loud. “You’re losing it, Macie,” she muttered, and let out a yelp when her feet suddenly went out from under her and she found herself falling head over heels down a rocky hill.

A shrill cry rose in her throat, ending in a groan as she slammed into a boulder at the foot of the hill.

And then everything went black.

Cold and wet, Macie woke with a groan. For a moment, she simply lay there, her whole body aching. Why was she so sore? she wondered. Then, in a rush, it all came back to her. She’d fallen down the hill at the far end of the property. If she’d had any luck at all, she thought glumly, the fall would have killed her.

With her eyes still closed, she took inventory and decided that, even though she hurt from head to foot, nothing was broken.

With a sigh of relief, she opened her eyes. She frowned when a thick grey mist rose up from the hill in front of her, let out a surprised gasp when a white stallion materialized out of the mist. It was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. Even in the dull grey light of the overcast day, the stallion’s white coat glinted like liquid silver. A thin black scar, shaped like a bolt of lightning, adorned its right flank.

“Hey, boy, what are you doing here?”

There hadn’t been any horses in the area since Macie was a little girl. Most of the barns and corrals had been torn down, replaced by RV parking and swimming pools.

At the sound of her voice, the stallion lowered its head and nudged her shoulder.

Taking a deep breath, Macie grabbed hold of the stallion’s mane and used it to steady herself as she pulled herself to her feet.

“So, what’s your name? Snowball? No. Thunder? No.” She ran her fingertips over the scar on the stallion’s flank. “Lightning,” she murmured. “I’ll bet that’s your name. And you fell out of the sky, didn’t you? Or maybe I’m hallucinating and you’re not really here. But I’m going to call you Lightning, just the same.”

The stallion’s dark, intelligent eyes met hers, almost as if he understood her words.

“You don’t know it, horse, but you came along at just the right time. Thanks to you, I won’t have to walk up that hill.”

Macie didn’t know where the stallion had come from, but somehow, she knew that it had been ridden before. She hadn’t been on a horse in years, but it was something you never forgot. Grasping the stallion’s mane, she swung on to its back, and nudged its flanks with her boot heels. When she clucked softly, the horse turned and walked up the hill.

Macie shivered as the mist grew thicker, darker, until it blanketed the whole area, so thick that she couldn’t see a thing. Muttering, “I hope you can see where you’re going,” she clung to the stallion’s mane with both hands.

The mist grew thicker as they climbed steadily upwards. When they reached the top of the hill, the stallion came to a halt and the mist disappeared.

“What the heck?” Macie stared at the scene before her. Where was her house? Her car? The sidewalk? The neighbourhood?

She glanced from right to left. Closed her eyes. Opened them again. The world as she had known it was gone. “I must have hit my head harder than I thought,” she muttered. Because everything she knew was gone.

She blinked, and blinked again, but nothing changed. Buildings she had never seen before lined both sides of a dusty street. An odd ringing sound filled the air; it took her a moment to realize it was the sound of a blacksmith’s hammer. A number of horses were tethered to hitching posts up and down the street. Women in long dresses and floppy bonnets strolled along the wooden boardwalk accompanied by men in denim pants, leather vests and muddy cowboy boots. Somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed the hour.

A rumbling like thunder sounded behind her. Startled, Macie glanced over her shoulder to see a stagecoach bearing down on her. She jerked hard on the stallion’s mane, sneezed as a cloud of dun-coloured dust rose in the coach’s wake.

The stage pulled up at the far end of the street. The driver jumped down from the wagon seat. When he opened the door, a half-dozen men and women emerged.

Macie stared at them as they gathered their luggage and disappeared into the hotel. Patting the stallion’s shoulder, Macie muttered, “Where the heck are we?”

Two

“Where the heck are we?” Macie repeated when a wagon rumbled past, raising another cloud of dust. “And where the heck is my house?”

The horse, of course, had no answer.

Macie clucked to the stallion and he moved off briskly. She glanced from side to side as she rode down the street, which looked like a set out of every western movie she had ever seen. There were three saloons, a dry goods store, a bootery, a barber shop and a two-storey hotel. The assay office and the post office shared a false-fronted shop. The sheriff’s office was located in a red-brick building.

Several men and women stopped to stare at her as she rode past.

It had to be a dream, Macie mused, but if it was, it was the most realistic one she’d ever had. She could feel the breeze on her face, taste the dust. Beyond the last building, there was nothing but open prairie as far as the eye could see. Macie tugged on the stallion’s mane in an effort to turn him around, but the horse kept going.

“Whoa, boy,” she said, tugging on Lightning’s mane again. “I don’t want to go out there.”

But the stallion didn’t stop.

Macie was considering sliding off the horse and walking back to town when Lightning broke into a gallop. With a startled cry, she leaned low over the stallion’s neck, her hands clutching his mane, praying all the while that the horse wouldn’t step in a prairie dog hole and break its leg. Or her neck.

The horse was incredibly fast. Grass, trees and hills flew by in a blur as he raced across the ground until the town was far behind and there was nothing ahead but tall yellow grass and scattered stands of timber.

Just when she was beginning to think the animal would never stop, it slowed to a trot, then a walk, and came to a halt at the head of a shallow draw.

“About time,” she muttered. After taking a couple of deep breaths, she slid off the stallion’s back.

And found herself staring into a pair of dark eyes that belonged to a tall, dark man with a gun in his hand, a knife in his belt and a dark red stain spreading over the lower half of his shirt front.

Before she could think, before she could speak, the weapon fell from the man’s hand and he pitched forwards to land face down at her feet.

Pressing a hand to her rapidly beating heart, Macie stared at him.

Good Lord, was he dead?

She stood there, staring at him, wondering what to do, even though there was nothing she
could
do. They were miles from town, and even if they weren’t, there was no way she could lift him on to the back of the horse. Besides, he really did look like he was dead.

Macie was still debating her next move when the stallion nudged her from behind. She stumbled forwards, landing on her knees beside the man. Reaching out to steady herself, she accidentally hit the dead man’s arm.

And he groaned.

Not dead then, she thought. But she still couldn’t lift him.

Kneeling there, she noticed a pair of saddlebags, a bedroll and a canteen lying in the dirt behind him. And beyond his gear, the body of a horse.

Heaving a sigh, Macie gained her feet. Maybe he had something in his bags she could use for bandages.

Rummaging inside, she found a box of ammunition, a sack of what looked like beef jerky and a clean shirt. Feeling like Florence Nightingale, Macie rolled the man on to his back, drew his knife from the sheath and cut the shirt into strips.

Taking her lower lip between her teeth, she lifted his bloodstained shirt, and gagged when she saw the bloody furrow in his left side, just above his belt. Had he been shot? She had never seen a gunshot wound before, but that’s what it was, she was sure of it. She wiped away the blood, then saw that the bullet hadn’t penetrated his flesh, just gouged a deep gash along his side.

Using water from the canteen, she cleaned it up as best she could, then wrapped several strips of cloth around his middle to staunch the blood. When that was done, she sat back on her heels and blew out a sigh. She had done all she could. The rest was up to him.

Macie glanced around, wondering how far they were from town. When she looked back at the man, he was awake and watching her.

“Water.” His voice was deep, raspy with pain.

Macie retrieved the canteen, uncapped it, and held it for him.

He drank long and deep, then looked at her through narrowed eyes. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the one who just bandaged you up. Who the hell are you?”

His lips twisted in a wry grin. “Ace Bowdry. Excuse me if I don’t get up, Miss . . .?”

“Jenkins.” She cocked her head to the side, studying him. Long dark hair hung past his shoulders. Dark eyes, high cheekbones and skin that was more red than brown. “You’re Native American, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Indian. You’re Indian, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “That a problem for you?”

Macie shrugged. “No, why? Is it a problem for you?”

He groaned softly when he sat up. “Sometimes.”

“What happened to you?”

“I got into a disagreement with a fella about the way he played cards.”

“You got shot over a card game?”

“Yep. Fella was dealin’ off the bottom. When I called him on it, he called me a name I won’t repeat in your presence, and then he pulled a gun on me.”

“Oh!”

Bowdry nodded. “He nicked me. I killed him, and then I hightailed it out of town.”

“What happened to your horse?”

“He took a stray bullet meant for me. He was a game little stud. I didn’t know he’d been hit until he dropped out from under me.” Bowdry glanced over his shoulder and there was a note of admiration in his voice when he said, “I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did. So,” he added, his tone brisk, “what the hell are you doing way out here? And why are you dressed like that?”

Macie glanced down. What was wrong with the way she was dressed? True, her jeans had faded from red to a washed-out pink, her boots were a little run down at the heel and her sweatshirt was a trifle large . . . she sighed again. So, she wasn’t at her best.

Shrugging, she said, “I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone.”

“Who’s the white-haired guy on the front of your shirt?”

“It’s Grumpy. You know, from
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

Bowdry frowned at her. “Grumpy?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of Snow White?” she asked, then realized that, even if he had, Disney’s version hadn’t been written yet. “Do you live around here?” she asked, changing the subject.

“No, I was just passin’ through.”

“Is there a town closer than the one I just left?” She glanced up at the sky, which had grown considerably darker in the last few minutes. Dark grey clouds scudded overhead, blanketing the sun and bringing the promise of rain.

“There’s a ghost town a few miles from here.” He swore softly as he gained his feet, one hand pressed against his side. “I’d be obliged if you’d give me a ride,” he said, then whistled softly when he noticed the stallion for the first time. “Is that Relámpago?”