ChasetheLightning (6 page)

Returning to the living room, she grabbed the book she had
been reading for the past week and carried it upstairs. She paused outside the
bathroom. She usually read while soaking in a hot bubble bath before going to
bed. But not tonight. With the phone out and the mysterious stranger
downstairs—and that unexplained stash of old money to trouble her, she knew
sitting naked in the tub would leave her feeling far too vulnerable.

Going on down the hall to her bedroom, she tossed her book
on the bed, then locked the door. She reached for her nightgown, and then
decided to sleep in her clothes—just in case. Mindful of some of the stories
Rob had told her, she took the ladder-back chair from her desk and placed it
under the doorknob, and then, still not feeling safe, she pulled Trey’s gunbelt
out of the closet and put it on the floor beside the bed.

She stared at his gun a moment, and then, overcome by
curiosity, she reached for it. The big six-shooter came out of the holster
easily enough, but it was much heavier than she had expected. She glanced at
the front of the cylinder. She didn’t know much about guns, but those heavy,
leaden noses showing in the chambers didn’t look like her idea of blank
cartridges.

She lifted the gun with both hands and aimed it at the door.
Would she even know how to shoot it, if it came to that? Would she, if she
could? A line from an old John Ford Western floated through her mind, something
to the effect that even an empty six-gun commanded respect.

She shoved the heavy old gun under her pillow, then sat
there, her back propped against the headboard, trying to read.

But the plot of the story was not nearly as intriguing as
the white stallion, his good-looking rider, or the ancient loot.

It rained on and off for the next two days. Trey spent most
of his time catching up on lost sleep, giving his body a chance to heal. The
wound in his back wasn’t serious, but it was sore as a boil. He wasn’t usually
one to laze around in bed, but he needed the rest, and he had to admit he
enjoyed having the woman look after him.

Now it was morning again. Dark gray clouds hovered low in
the sky. A fierce wind blew across the face of the land. Trey stood at the
window, looking out. He had always loved desert storms, the violence, the
beauty, the unbridled strength. His Apache grandfather had told him there was
power in the wind and the rain and had admonished him to call upon that power
in times of trouble.

Trey grunted softly. He was sure as hell in trouble now. And
where the devil was his gun?

He glanced over his shoulder as the door opened. The woman
stood there, a plate in one hand, a cup in the other, a newspaper tucked under
her arm. He was struck again by her quiet beauty.

“I thought you might like something to eat,” she said,
moving into the room. “I brought the paper, too.” She shrugged. “In case you
want something to read.”

“Thanks.” He sat down on the bed, his legs stretched out,
the pillows between his back and the headboard.

She handed him the plate, put the paper and the cup on the
bedside table. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“Better. How’s my horse?”

“Your horse is just fine, don’t worry. We’ve become good
friends.”

“Is that right? He doesn’t usually take to strangers.”

“Well, he seems to like me.” She laid her hand across his
forehead. “Your fever seems to have gone down some.” She backed away from the
bed. “I hope you enjoy your breakfast.”

“Smells good.” It looked good, too, he thought. Eggs and
bacon and fried potatoes. And a cup of black coffee.

With a nod, she left the room.

He ate quickly. Life on the run didn’t give a man much
chance to enjoy a good meal.With a sigh of contentment, he put the plate aside
and unfolded the newspaper, which had a lot more pages than any he had ever
seen before.

He frowned as he read the headlines. “White House Promises
Support in the Mid-east”, “Dow down 70, Nasdaq gains 27”, “California Nears
Plan for Energy Crisis”, “Mid-East Peace Talks Called Promising”, “Bush
Reaffirms Missile Defense”, “India Quake Recovery Under Way”.

He shook his head. He read the words, but they made no
sense. Peace talks in the Mid-East? Hell, the war had been over for years. And
what the hell was Dow? And Nasdaq?

He turned the pages, words and phrases he had never heard of
swimming before his eyes: ReelTime Reviews, Cyber-squatter, Toshiba, Internet
Banking is Here Now, Shop the Web.

He glanced at the top of the front page again. It was then
that he noticed the date, though not so much the day as the year. January 26,
2001. He read it again. Wiped his eyes. And read it again. January 26, 2001.
2001! What the hell?

He looked up as the woman entered the room. “What is this?”
he asked, rattling the paper.

“A newspaper?”

“It doesn’t make any sense. And what about the date? January
twenty-fifth,
2001?
Is this some kind of joke?”

She frowned at him. “A joke? What joke? What are you talking
about?”

“The date. Dammit, the last time I looked, it was 1869.”

A rolling crash of thunder punctuated the sudden silence in
the room.

Amanda stared at him. “18…69?” Well, that would explain a
lot of things, she supposed. His clothes, the money in the sack, the reason he
didn’t know what a can of beer looked like… Oh, but that it was impossible.
Crazy. And she was crazy for considering it, even for a minute. “Where did you
get all that money?”

His eyes narrowed. “How do you know about the money?”

“I found it in your saddlebags while I was looking for some
ID. Identification.” She blew out a sigh of exasperation. “You know, something
to tell me who you are.”

He glanced at the chair across the room. “Where’s my gun?”

“I have it. The money? Where did it come from?”

He shrugged. “A bank.”

“You robbed a bank?”

He didn’t answer. Swinging his legs over the side of the
bed, he stood up. He didn’t like being unarmed in a strange place. And while
the woman looked harmless enough, and seemed to be alone, he couldn’t forget
that he was a wanted man.

Amanda backed toward the door, her mind reeling. He couldn’t
be from the past. It just wasn’t possible. He was just some nut… She took a
deep, steadying breath. He looked suddenly ominous standing there, even though
he was clad in nothing but the lower half of a pair of long underwear.

“Just give me my gun and my clothes, and my money, and I’ll
be on my way.”

“You can’t go, not now.” She gestured toward the window.
“It’s raining cats and dogs out there. And you’ve still got a bit of a fever.”
And
it’s probably not safe for you to be running around without a keeper
, she
added to herself.

He looked at her speculatively. “You wouldn’t be trying to
keep me here until the law arrives, would you?”

She shook her head, trying not to notice how dark his skin
looked in contrast to his long johns, or the breadth of his shoulders, or the
way he stood there, tall and lean and dangerous-looking, with his eyes glinting
at her and every muscle taut. He was trembling, his face pale beneath the
natural bronze of his skin.

“Why don’t you sit down?” she suggested. “I’ll get your
shirt.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and left the room.
She didn’t want him to leave, not yet, though she shied away from the reason
she wanted him to stay.

She turned up the heat on her way to the laundry room where
she’d hung his clothes. She took his shirt from the hanger, thinking she could
use a cup of coffee.

He was in the kitchen when she got there. Sitting at the
table, he was staring out the window, his expression troubled. He must move as
quiet as a cat, she thought. He had obviously followed her out of the guest
room, and she had never heard a sound.

“Here.”

She handed him his shirt. It had been washed and ironed, the
bullet hole neatly mended.

“I was going to have some coffee,” she said. “Would you like
a cup?”

“Yeah, thanks.” He shrugged into his shirt and buttoned it
halfway up. “Did you tell the law about me?”

“When would I have had time to do that? The phone’s out, and
I couldn’t very well leave you alone to go into town.”

“Phone?”

“Never mind.” She moved to the counter, pulled two mugs from
the cupboard and poured a cup for him and one for herself. Carrying them to the
table, she handed him one of the mugs, then sat down across from him.

He folded his hands around the cup. “Where am I?”

“What do you mean?”

She watched him glance around the kitchen, frowning as his
gaze rested briefly on the stove, the refrigerator, the microwave on the
counter, the hanging light over the table, the sink.

He made a broad, sweeping gesture with his hand. “Where the
hell am I? What are all these, these…” He broke off, having no words to
describe what he saw.

“Don’t tell me,” she said. “You’ve never seen a stove or a
refrigerator before, either.”

“Of course I’ve seen a stove.” But nothing like this one.
Stoves were made of heavy dull black cast iron, they weren’t gleaming white
with glass in the doors.

“Well then?”

He shook his head. “I must be outta my mind.”

“That’s what I think, too,” she muttered.

He slammed the palm of his hand on the table. “I’m not
crazy!”

“All right, all right, calm down.”

“None of this makes any sense.”

“You’re telling me.” She took a deep breath. “All right, if
you’re from 1869, how did you get here?”

“I don’t know…” He rubbed a hand over his jaw, remembering
the day he’d been shot, the strange buzzing sound in his head, the thick gray
mist that had enveloped him, the way the world had seemed to blur before his
eyes.

“You can’t have come from very far,” she said, thinking
aloud. “Your horse has been here before several times. He’s quite a jumper,
isn’t he?”

“My horse?”

She nodded. “He showed up in my corral one day. I thought he
must have strayed from one of the ranches in the area. He was gone the next
day, and then he was back again.”

Trey stared at her. “My horse,” he murmured. “You brushed
him, didn’t you?”

“Someone had to,” she retorted. “You certainly don’t.”

“My horse.”
Treat him well.
Walker on the Wind’s
voice echoed in the back of his mind.
And he will always carry you away from
danger.
Relámpago had sure as hell carried him away from danger this time,
Trey mused. Damn, if what the woman said was true, Relámpago had carried him
over a hundred years into the future.

He shook his head. “No, it can’t be.”

“I don’t believe it, either,” Amanda said. “But here you
are.”

Trey sipped his coffee; then, putting the mug aside, he
stood up and moved toward the refrigerator.

Amanda watched him run his hands over the outside, slide his
fingers over the handle, and give a tug. His eyes widened as cool air moved
over him. He stared at the bottles and jars and containers on the shelves
inside, then put his hand on the top shelf. It was cold to the touch.

“That’s a refrigerator,” Amanda said. “It keeps food cold so
it stays fresh longer.” Rising, she opened the freezer door. “This keeps food
frozen until you want to use it. Have you ever had ice cream?”

He shook his head. “What is it?”

“You’ll see. You look like a chocolate kind of guy to me,”
she decided. Taking a carton from the fridge, she scooped a generous amount
into a bowl, then handed it to him, along with a spoon. “Go on, try it.”

He looked at it a moment. Took a small bite, and then a
bigger one. It was so cold it felt like it burned his tongue. But the taste was
delicious. He swallowed too fast, and the cold burned a trail down his gullet.
He coughed, washed the sting away with a swallow of coffee, and smiled.

“It's good, isn't it?” she said

“Yeah.” He stood there, eating, while she showed him how the
appliances worked. Natural gas, electricity—she might as well have been
speaking some foreign language. When she turned on one of the burners on the
stove, he jerked backward, then moved closer, fascinated by the fact that she
could produce a small blue flame at the turn of a knob.

He finished the ice cream, licked the spoon, and then handed
her the empty dish. She rinsed it off and opened a shiny door under the kitchen
counter. He saw a rack, with other dishes in it. A cupboard? She put the plate
and spoon in the rack and closed the door with a soft thunk.

Trey glanced at the sink. “You don’t wash your dishes?”

“Of course I do. This is a dishwasher. It washes them for
me.”

He shook his head. “More elec-tricity?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

She pulled a chicken leg from out of the cold storage
cupboard she called a "fridge" and placed it on a napkin. He watched
as she opened a small door on the counter. A light came on inside the squarish
box and she placed the chicken inside, closed the door and punched some numbers
on the front panel. The light came on again and he peered inside, watching the
chicken leg go round and round on a glass plate.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Why’d you put it in there?”

“That’s a microwave oven. It heats things up in a few
minutes.”

In a few moments there was a sharp “ding” and she popped the
door open and handed him the chicken. It was warm, but not too hot. He munched
on it while she showed him how the garbage disposal and the electric can opener
worked, how to switch the lights on and off. She turned on the faucet, let him
feel the hot water. Next, she dropped a slice of bread in another gadget called
a toaster. The bread came out warm and crusty. He ate that, too.

She grinned, thinking how amazing it must all seem to him.
Truth be told, it was amazing to her, as well, now that she thought about it.
Even though she took such modern conveniences for granted, it was nonetheless
miraculous that she had heat and light and power all at the flip of a switch.
And her computer…of all the wonders of modern technology, it was the one that
amazed her the most. To think she could send words and pictures across the
world with the touch of a mouse, well, it was just mind-boggling. She decided
to save a journey into cyberspace for another time.

She showed him the stereo, sat him down on the sofa and
turned on the TV. He watched in wide-eyed fascination as she picked up the
remote and flipped through the channels—news, commercials, the latest Brad Pitt
movie, a re-run of
M*A*S*H
, an old episode of
The Lone Ranger
.

He pointed at the screen and laughed. “I’ve never seen a
cowboy that clean in my whole life,” he remarked. “Or heard an Indian talk like
that. What tribe is he supposed to be from?”

“Well, the Lone Ranger isn’t exactly a cowboy,” she said.
“Anyway, it’s all just make believe.”

“How does it work, this tele-vision?”

She tried to explain it to him; no easy task, since she
wasn’t really sure how it worked, either. In the end, she admitted she just
didn’t know. “How can you not know? How do you make the pictures move and
talk?”

“I just turn it on. I’m not an electronics wizard. I have no
idea how or why it works. It just does.”

She felt a familiar thrill when she heard the theme music
for
Star Wars
, stopped switching channels as the opening scene of
The
Empire Strikes Back
unfolded on the screen.

Trey leaned forward, completely caught up in the magic of
the story he was seeing. She couldn’t blame him. It was one of her favorites,
one she had watched numerous times.