Back to Tomorrow

Chapter 15

Chapter 15After Jake joined them, they held an even slower pace. Zach saw the gambler seemed genuinely concerned about the black and very solicitous of the animal, checking the horse’s right foreleg every time they stopped. That was often enough, to let Jake switch to ride double on another horse. If his behavior was an act, the man was one hell of an actor. Of course the animal was valuable and maybe that was at the root of Jake’s concern.

Zach almost hated to acknowledge the gambler’s obvious concern for his horse when he showed so little for anyone else’s welfare, but perhaps he truly cared for the animal. It was a fine looking beast, and probably of excellent bloodlines.

Darkness had fallen before the posse rode into Tombstone. As the seven weary horses ambled down Allen Street toward the marshal’s office and the jail, Zach saw a group enter the street from the west, where the road came in from Charleston. When one of those riders hailed the marshal, he realized it was the rest of the posse—and some added riders, as well. Had they caught the bank robbers? He cursed his luck for going with the wrong section of the posse.

The man with whom Jake was riding had fallen back and brought up the rear, some fifty yards behind the rest. Zach turned as he approached, just in time to see Jake slide to the ground. The gambler caught the black’s lead when the other man unwrapped it from his saddle horn. In a moment, he and his horse vanished down a side street, before Zach had time to suggest the marshal detain and question him.

For a few minutes, confusion reigned as the two groups met and mingled, milling in the street. The deputy marshal, jubilant about catching the robbers, eagerly supervised the escort of each of them into the jail.

Zach made mental notes, thinking ahead about compiling his dispatch. Too bad he couldn’t get a sketch of the tall, dark man with the villainous looking moustache. The chap looked the perfect outlaw leader—all he needed was pistols in his double holsters and a loaded bandoleer over his shoulder to go with his harsh, sharp edged face.

As the group thinned, Zach noticed a smaller rider on a buckskin pony who hung back at the shadowed edge of the street. There was something familiar about the slight, slumped figure. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost think it was Emily. But Emily was safe in Bisbee.

She certainly wouldn’t be riding into Tombstone with a posse and a group of outlaws!

Rusty shuffled, drawing Zach’s attention. He’d better get the bay to the stable and make sure he got an extra measure of oats tonight and a good rubdown as well. The excitement was about over for now anyway, with all the outlaws behind bars and the posse starting to drift away to their respective homes.

Zach slid out of the saddle and led his horse off toward the stable.

He was stumbling a bit himself. Each boot felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds, which told him he’d also put in a long day, the second in a row. His stomach growled, a sharp reminder that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast in Bisbee. Probably be too late to dine at Nellie’s table too. That meant he’d have to get some money from his room and go elsewhere to be fed. Well, first he’d check on Mary Ann, and then he’d go eat.

* * * *

Emily faded into the shadows as she recognized Zach. She hung back when he dismounted and led Rusty away. What was he doing with the marshal and his posse? Much as she wanted a confrontation, she wasn’t ready for it now, and certainly not in front of such witnesses.

Fortunately, there were two stables in Tombstone and the one where she was to leave the buckskin wasn’t the one where Zach kept Rusty.

She started to head off toward Stephens’s Stable when the marshal stepped out to forestall her departure. “Not so fast, young lady.

There’re still some questions I want to ask you.”

Emily’s stomach fell. All she wanted was to get the horse safely settled and make her way back to Nellie’s. Maybe she could wash up again before she fell into bed to sleep for at least a week. She’d never suffered through two such days in her entire life!

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” She shuffled, stirring dust around her feet.

At her plaintive tone, the marshal hesitated. She let herself droop a little farther, no hard task, and quit trying not to look pitiful. “I’ll be quite willing to talk to you all day tomorrow if need be, but tonight I’m just so exhausted.”

The marshal drew a deep breath and exhaled sharply. “All right, but don’t even think about leavin’ town. Where are you going to be?”

“At Mrs. Cashman’s. I’ve been working there. I just, well, I’ll explain about Bisbee tomorrow.”

He shook his head. “You’re quite a piece of work, miss, but I reckon I can trust you, ‘specially if you’re at Nellie’s. Don’t let me down. I hate to be disappointed.”

“I’ll be in your office at—would nine be all right?”

“Nine’s fine.”

He spun around and stalked off, as if put out by his own capitulation. Emily released her held breath in a long sigh, tugged on the buckskin’s reins, and started off to the stable.

* * * *

Emily hoped to slip into Nellie’s unnoticed, but no such luck. Nellie herself was in the kitchen and came to unlatch the back door to let Emily in. If Nellie was surprised to see Emily, she concealed it well.

“You look done in, child. Sit. I’ll rustle you up some eats. Then you can tell me about your adventures. Mr. Tremaine sent a note, said he’d left you in Bisbee, but I can see you didn’t stay put. I didn’t figure you would.”

Emily tugged a chair out from the table and slumped into it, resting her arms on the table. Nellie sat a tall glass of water in front of her, which she drained before speaking. “How is Mary Ann?”

“She’s doing well. That medicine you had seems to have done the job for her. Of course she’s young and reasonably healthy. She’ll be none the worse for it in time. Probably live to have a half dozen babes, but with a better father for them than that McEuen let us hope.”

Working while she talked, Nellie soon had a plate ready. Setting it in front of Emily, she drew out the opposite chair, sat down and waited while Emily ate. Shaking her head, Nellie tsked over Emily’s clothes.

“I see I can’t keep you in proper skirts. Do ladies really wear trousers in the future?”

Emily nodded, unable to answer with a mouthful of cold roast beef.

She swallowed. “Yes, they do, and you’ll have to admit that trousers are a much more practical garment for riding than skirts are! And in Angelina’s blouse, I got a terrible sunburn yesterday. I brought her clothes back, but they’re in pretty sad shape.”

Emily then related her adventures, beginning with being snatched off the street by Jake’s hulking partner and ending with her promise to tell the marshal all she knew the next day.

Nellie shook her head again. “My word, child, you draw trouble like sugar draws flies. I suspected Jake was behind your sudden disappearance. In fact, I sent a couple of young men to Charleston to look for you, but by the time they got there, you were gone.

“They saw that brute Gallager ranting and raving around and brought me back the news you’d escaped. I suspected Mr. Tremaine had a role in that. Well, go on up to bed and get a good night’s sleep.

Things will look better in the morning.”

Emily dragged herself out of the chair and stood a moment, contemplating the long stairway to the second floor. Somehow her shaky legs would get her there—wouldn’t they? Even though the second floor looked farther away than New Hampshire’s green hills. At that moment, Zach appeared in the doorway from the dining room.

Emily stopped dumbfounded, aghast. Not here, not now!

“Excuse me, Mrs. Cashman,” Zach said. “I don’t guess there’s any chance I could get something to eat at this hour, is there?”

Nellie harrumphed. “You know the rules…oh well, I just fed Emily, so I suppose I can feed you, too. Thank heaven for leftovers. Sit down, son, and let me see what I can find.”

Zach stepped to the table, passing within an arm’s length of Emily.

He started to pull out a chair, stopped, spun back and stared at her.

“Emily? Emily! What in the world are you doing here? That was you on the buckskin, wasn’t it?”

She wasn’t ready for this. She was too tired, too dull-witted, and too timid to speak her piece in front of Nellie. The language she wanted to use would probably shock the older woman to the tips of her toes! She would ignore him, just turn and march off up those stairs, which loomed like Mt. McKinley between here and the peace and comfort of her bed. But she couldn’t.

“I decided not to stay in Bisbee. I told you I didn’t want to, but you had to be stubborn about it.”

“I was trying to keep you safe! Out of harm’s way. But you don’t seem to have sense enough to see it.”

Nellie stepped back to the table, slapping her hand sharply on the smooth wood to get their attention. “That’s enough! Miss Dennison is a resourceful young woman, Mr. Tremaine, and perhaps not as much in need of a man’s care and guidance as the young ladies of today. I’m sure you meant well, but this is not the time to discuss it. What’s done is done and cannot be changed, so let’s concentrate on the next step without wasting effort on recriminations.”

Her sharp black gaze pinned each of them in turn. “Go to bed, Emily. Tomorrow morning will be soon enough to sort all this out. And Zachary Tremaine, if you want to eat, you’ll keep a civil tongue in your head and do as I say.”

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Emily fled. The stairs proved not to be an insurmountable barrier after all. She didn’t stop until the door of her room shut firmly behind her.

The gaslights shining on Allen Street precluded the need to light a lamp. A slight breeze blew in the open window, billowing the white lace curtain. Sinking onto the side of the bed, she peeled off the denim trousers and heavy flannel shirt. The cool air felt heavenly on her hot, parched skin. She kicked off her shoes, now bearing the dirt of Bisbee along with that of Charleston and Tombstone. Those athletic shoes were getting a real workout.

Although she was tempted to toss the boys’ clothing on the floor, she got up and put the garments across the single chair. Since she might have need of them again, she’d take them to the laundry tomorrow. The stiff fabrics would profit from hot water and a good scrubbing, both to clean and to soften them.

Emily simply couldn’t bear the thought of the borrowed nightgown rubbing her still-tender skin. She slipped between the cool, silky sheets in her underwear, vowing to deal with the issue of washing up and making herself presentable to go talk to the marshal when she awoke.

Morning would no doubt come all too soon.

However, sleep did not. Emily tossed and turned, finding she couldn’t shut off her mind. Her brain insisted on trying to frame explanations that she hoped would satisfy the marshal while not implicating her in any activities of the bank robbers or of Jake and his cronies.

She couldn’t help a sense of certainty they were one and the same, even though Jake hadn’t been with the group the posse had apprehended. And she mustn’t let out her secret of being a traveler through time. The marshal seemed much too practical a man to accept that wild tale, under any circumstances.

And then there was Zach to contend with. Had Nellie not intervened, she didn’t doubt they would have gotten into a heated discussion if not an outright shouting match. They had both been too tired and cross to be civil.

Thus occupied, she was still wide-awake when soft footsteps passed her door and another door, two down from hers, opened with a slight squeak and then closed gently. Zach. He must have stayed to talk with Nellie a while before coming upstairs, or perhaps he had gone first to the other end of the hall to check on Mary Ann.

A sudden and irresistible impulse sat Emily up in bed. Did she dare? Why not? She really had nothing to lose. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well make use of the time, midnight or not. She fumbled into the second outfit Angelina had loaned to her before tiptoeing across to the doorway. Cool to her touch, the white porcelain knob turned smoothly and silently.

She drew the bolt latching the door, opened it slowly to guard against any betraying squeak, and stepped out into the hallway. The hall was darker than her room, lit only by the single window that looked down onto Fourth Street, which didn’t have the gaslights that Allen Street, as the actual main street of Tombstone, boasted. But Emily didn’t need much light to creep down to the second door beyond hers.

A thin thread of light leaked from beneath that door, indicating Zach had lit his lamp and was still up. Raising her hand, Emily knocked lightly. She heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back and muffled footsteps crossing the room.

“Who is it?” Zach spoke barely above a whisper, sensitive to the fact most of the residents were asleep.

“Emily.” For a moment, she feared he wouldn’t let her in, either from propriety or his displeasure with her actions, but after a few seconds, the door swung open as he backed up enough to admit her. His gaze skimmed her, full of questions, but he didn’t speak. After she stepped past him into the room, he closed the door quietly behind her. When the silence lengthened uncomfortably, Emily plunged into her explanation. “I have to go see the marshal in the morning. Trying to plan what to say to him and what to say to you was keeping me awake.

I finally decided my best bet was to get at least one of those confrontations over with now.”

“And you figured I wouldn’t raise my voice in the middle of the night?” Zach’s tone wasn’t quite truculent, but he didn’t sound pleased.

However, when he looked at her, his eyes seemed curiously bright in the lamplight, not the reddened and weary eyes expected of one who had ridden most of the day in the blazing sun.

He backed away from her a step or two, almost to the foot of the bed. Folding his arms across his chest, he drew in a deep breath, which he let out slowly. “Take the chair,” he said after a long moment. “I suspect this is going to take a while.”

* * * *

Zach watched Emily cross the room, her bare feet making no sound on the braided rug and little on the hardwood floor. As she approached the desk where he’d been sitting trying to bring his journal up to date, the lamplight limned her figure in a golden haze. Shining through the thin blouse, the glow revealed her shape, every perfect curve of it. He didn’t need that reminder to picture clearly the way she’d looked this morning, the way she had felt and tasted.

He backed up to sit on the edge of the bed, folding his hands in his lap to conceal the inappropriate ridge in his trousers. She was here for an argument, not an assignation! He had to clear his throat before he could speak.

“All right, I’m prepared to listen to your explanation. But I warn you, I’m not happy you deceived me, only pretending to acquiesce to my plan, since I can see now that you had no intention of abiding by it.”

Emily turned the chair and plumped down, her back to the light, which shadowed her face so he couldn’t read her expression. However, her stiff posture and the tight clasp of hands in her lap looked defensive if not downright defiant.

“No, I didn’t actually deceive you. I never said I would stay in Bisbee. But I could see there was no use arguing with you. We were simply wasting time both of us could put to better use. So I just shut up and let you go ahead with what you wanted to do.”

“Well, you implied…” Zach swallowed the burst of angry words, forced himself to sit still when all he wanted to do was jump up and pace the floor, yelling to punctuate each step.

Emily ignored his interruption. “Once I found there was no stage until tomorrow, I decided to rent a horse, and I knew it would be best to dress as a boy, to protect myself from both the sun and unwanted attention. For the most part, it worked, until Sancho Perez roped me.”

At that point, Zach couldn’t keep silent. “Everything you did was totally foolhardy and irresponsible! Jake could have caught up with you at any point, and apparently you did fall in with the bank robbers.

Whatever people do in—in 2000 or whenever—you are here and it is 1889! You simply cannot take matters into your own hands this way.

You could be killed or even worse!”

“Worse than killed?” Even with Emily’s face in shadow, he could see her eyebrows shot up almost to her hairline. “Oh, yes, the infamous ‘fate worse than death.’ But I wasn’t. I am here—right now, safe, unmolested, and unharmed. True, I do have to go talk to the marshal tomorrow, but I’m sure I can convince him I’m innocent of any wrong doing.”

She paused and drew a breath. “He said I was ‘quite a piece of work,’ but also that he would trust me.” She giggled.

Zach shook his head, seeing she was totally uncontrite, in no way awed or intimidated by the dangers she’d skirted with uncanny ease.

What am I going to do with this woman? She’s impossible!

Emily leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, chin in her cupped hands. “I know Jake was a part of it—Bucky, his friend, was with them, and they didn’t have any of the money!”

She sounded so earnest and intense Zach really wanted to believe her. For a moment, he let himself be distracted by the idea that Emily also felt Jake was involved in the robbery, but he had to play devil’s advocate.

“Are you sure? We ran into Jake several miles out of town to the east and he had a very good story as to why he was there. I think the marshal accepted his word, but McEuen did slip away as Deputy Drake and the rest joined us.”

When Emily shifted, moving as if the hard chair wasn’t completely comfortable, Zach suppressed a smile. She’d ridden most of the day too.

“Yes, I’m positive. Nobody said anything but it’s—well, a really strong hunch. The other night Jake and Bucky had their heads together.

I knew they were plotting. They left the Hulk to guard me and went back to Tombstone. When Jake said something about getting hold of more of the payroll, I thought he just meant playing poker, but he could have meant robbing the bank too!”

As significant as that news was, Zach wouldn’t let it divert him from the lecture Emily required. She had to learn to take orders and behave in such as way as to keep out of danger. He couldn’t look after her and get Mary Ann off to safety at the same time, and both actions were of critical importance.

“How in the world did you end up with the robbers? Marshal Cooper and the five of us looked all day and didn’t find a thing, but you ride into the middle of them.”

“Coming down the canyon, I saw a cloud of dust. Not knowing what it might be, I tried to stay off the road, out of sight. I guess I drifted too far to the west, ‘cause we ended up at the river. Dusty wanted a drink, and I couldn’t turn her away, and then I saw the robbers were there, resting their horses. Only I thought they were just cowboys. I was about to go on, but then the posse arrived, and the marshal suggested I ride in to Tombstone with them.”

“What about Sancho Perez. You said he roped you?” Zach clenched his fists, recalling things he’d heard about Perez, who had a villainous reputation to match his appearance. He’d heard whispers that no woman was safe around the Sonoran bandit.

She shrugged, Angelina’s little twitch of the shoulder, as if it was all of no importance.

“That was just before the posse arrived. He’d been off to one side and I didn’t pay any attention—he had his hat down over his face. I guess he suspected something in spite of my boy’s clothes and trying to act stupid, so he threw a loop over me to stop me from riding off.”

Zach leaped to his feet, unable to sit still another moment. “You stumbled right into the middle of them, and attracted the attention of one of the most notorious outlaws of the area in the process! Lands sake, Emily, you need a keeper.”

He crossed to her in two long strides and grabbed her by the shoulders, intending to shake some sense into her. But the moment his hands settled on her upper arms, everything tilted and shifted, every sane thought fled. He didn’t shake her but lifted her to her feet, and dragged her into his arms. She came willingly, stumbling a little at the urgency of his pull, but without any resistance.

“I…mmmmm.”

He silenced whatever she was about to say with his mouth over hers, a kiss that developed its own fusing heat. Heat that spread swiftly upward and downward, welding them into an entity, a single unit of hunger, urgency, and need. Without ever taking his mouth from hers, Zach swung Emily clear of the floor, turned, and deposited her on the bed.