Showdown

by Deborah Chester

  The monster didn’t eat his father because his father didn’t believe in it. But Noel believed. He could see its yellow eyes glowing at him from the depths, and nothing could have convinced him that it was only the reflection of the overhead lights.

  “Jump, Noel, Damnit!” said his father. “Duck your head and go right in. I’ll catch you.”

  Gasping with terror, Noel hesitated between the death he expected and his father’s wrath.

  “Noel!”

  He launched himself at the water, and it closed over him like death.

  “Forty-four,” said Kansana’s voice, steady and without inflection.

  Noel surfaced dimly into the brightness and heat. The wet saltiness he smelled was blood, not chlorine. He had almost drowned before his father lifted him from the pool. Noel dragged in a lungful of hot desert air and remembered his father’s warm breath blown into his mouth. His father had been crying. He’d cracked one of Noel’s ribs while trying to pound the water out. Later, wrapped in a blanket, Noel had been held in his father’s arms upstairs in bed until he fell asleep. When he woke up the next morning, he saw his father’s beard-stubbled face on the pillow and his father’s large hand was still clasped around Noel’s.

  “Forty-five.”

  Noel wanted his father now, wanted him with an intensity that hurt. His father had been a mathematician. Everything existed in black and white absolutes for him. He did not see the gray shading of human interpersonal dynamics the way Noel did. What happened in history did not interest him. It was the here and now that mattered to Jeffrey Kedran. Time travel intrigued him only because of the mathematical theories involved. Building a time computer fascinated him; using one never tempted him at all.

  “Forty-nine.”

  Yotavo must have taken the last turn. Noel heard the horse coming faster than any had before. The sound of the whip in the air was shrill, vicious. The pop of leather and the rip of flesh came simultaneously. Noel felt something give within himself, as though his will had broken. He felt the scream tear itself out from the depths of him and go hurtling out.

  His mouth opened. He gasped for air, but no sound came.

  He fainted first.

  Chapter 8

  “Cut him down,” said a harsh voice.

  He was only a faint pinprick of consciousness. The blazing sun had burned away the rest of him. Every thought was feeble, a dim flicker of awareness that came and went.

  The taut rawhide cords twanged beneath the strike of a knife. Leon fell in a heap on the ground, his shoulders screaming with raw agony. He was kicked over onto his side. The knife cut through the bonds on his wrists, and his arms fell free of each other. He groaned.

  “Tend him,” said the same harsh voice.

  Leon faded, but the wet coolness of water upon his face brought him back. He blinked and squinted, forcing open his swollen eyes.

  His vision was blurred, and at first he could see nothing.

  The terrible heat was gone, however. They had dragged him into the shade. He drew in a cool breath, and felt life returning by slow degrees.

  More water upon his face…cool wetness upon his lips. He drank in sudden, choking eagerness, reaching blindly for the gourd dipper, causing the water to spill.

  “Careful,” said Lisa-Marie’s voice.

  He drank more, and the dry ache in his throat eased. A sigh of relief escaped him. He licked his cracked, swollen lips and tried to focus on her.

  His vision was still blurred, but improving. Her oval face swam before him. He saw the tangled spill of her hair, the thick curls glinting a dozen shades of gold, platinum, wheat, honey, and auburn. Burnished, beautiful hair…an abundance cascading upon her shoulders. In longing, he reached up one of his numb hands and tried to touch one of her curls.

  She jerked back. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped.

  Her voice was rough with hostility and something else. Her eyes looked red and puffy. Had she been crying?

  He closed his eyes and gathered enough strength to reach into her mind. Swirling confusion, anger like a crimson bath, fear lancing here and there with icicles of clarity. He found memory, and a floodgate opened, showing him a dusty scene of a man trussed by the heels, hanging upside down like a slab of beef, and the Apache riders hurtling at this target…

  Leon felt the sting of the lash, and jerked.

  But it wasn’t happening now. It had already taken place while he was semiconscious, dying in the sun. Amazement trickled through Leon. Before, when they were in medieval Greece together, his attempt to have Noel murdered had backfired because whatever pain Noel felt Leon felt, too. Now either his own debilitation was blocking the link to Noel, or the link was fading.

  Am I becoming real?

  Hope filled him. Leon pushed himself to one elbow. “Where…is he?” he whispered hoarsely.

  Lisa-Marie had seated herself on a rock away from him, but at his question she glanced his way. Tear tracks streaked her dirty cheeks. She did not answer.

  Leon sat up, although the world spun around him. “Where is he? Is he dead?”

  Wide-eyed, still crying, she pressed her hand to her lips and swiftly shook her head.

  The young Apache called Tahzi appeared. A squaw in a shapeless deerskin dress followed him. She carried Leon’s hat and a canteen. At Tahzi’s gesture, she laid these items on the ground beside Leon.

  “You go,” said Tahzi in slurred English.

  Leon squinted at the sky beyond the shaggy top of the salt cedar tree casting shade over him. The sun was still high. “Now?” he said.

  Tahzi frowned and pointed emphatically at the end of the canyon. “You go now,” he said.

  Lisa-Marie rose to her feet. She stood waiting for Leon with her back to him. She made no effort to help him as he staggered and struggled to his feet. The circulation was returning to his hands, bringing new agony. He found it difficult to grasp his hat brim and finally crammed the hat on his head with the heels of his hands. Getting the canteen strap slung over his shoulder was even harder. When he finally stood erect, he had to close his eyes against an attack of vertigo. He felt hot from sunburn and his thoughts were scrambled. It was hard to remember what he was supposed to do.

  Lisa-Marie followed Tahzi and the squaw. Leon stumbled after her. When he left the shade and emerged into the blazing heat once again, he flinched and cringed, holding up a hand to shield his watering eyes.

  The children—skinny, beady-eyed creatures—buzzed around him like mosquitoes, jeering and slapping him from all sides. He did his best to ignore them, although their scorn infuriated him.

  “Cries hard,” they chanted, skipping alongside. “Cries­Like-Baby!”

  Some of the women smiled as he stumbled past them. Hard smiles of superiority, faint and mocking. He flushed. So what if he’d groveled for mercy when they’d been torturing him? What was he supposed to do? Take it in silence?

  Leon believed in making any deal at any time in order to survive. Even now, it looked like the Apaches were letting him and the girl go. Noel must have passed the test, but where was he?

  Ahead stood a small cluster of braves, waiting near the mouth of the canyon. The women began to run about, snatching up possessions and packing baskets. His hopes sank. Maybe the Indians weren’t letting them go. Maybe they were just breaking camp.

  Lisa-Marie halted about twenty feet short of the men waiting near the tall gateposts. Leon limped up beside her and stopped, too. He felt short of breath and exhausted as though he’d walked miles instead of a few yards. Two braves still sat on their ponies. With a cold feeling low in his gut, Leon noticed one of the riders was Yotavo, who had captured him in the first place.

  Maybe this was just another Apache game. He hated all of them.

  Kansana, tall with gray hair and terrible scars, stepped forward. His eyes swept coldly over Leon. “Your brother has done well,” he said. “He has great courage. Alone he came here to give ransom. With his courage he bought the life of this woman. You, Cries-Lik
e-Baby, we give to him also, although he did not ask for your life.”

  Leon flushed with anger. His gaze sought out Noel, who was standing among the men. The old rivalry and hatred swept through Leon like a grass fire. What gave Noel the right to decide he was something worthless to be discarded?

  You didn’t get rid of me this time, thought Leon. You will never get rid of me.

  Kansana walked away. Tahzi pointed at the mouth of the canyon. “Go,” he said.

  The other braves melted away, leaving Noel standing alone. Glaring at him, Leon noticed that Noel was oddly stiff and drawn as though his clothing hurt him. His face might have been carved from stone, and only its pallor gave him away. Then his gray eyes lifted to meet Leon’s.

  Across that short distance something leapt between them and connected. Noel’s pain lanced into Leon, who staggered and nearly fell down. Leon gripped Lisa-Marie’s arm to steady himself, and fought to break the link with Noel for his own self-preservation.

  It would not snap, but finally he succeeded in muting it. His old fear surfaced. If something happened to Noel, Leon did not think he could survive it.

  Angrily he turned and called after the Apaches, “Kansana! Tahzi! Give us horses at least.”

  Only Tahzi glanced back. He scowled. “You have lives. Is enough.”

  “My brother will die if he has to walk all the way back—”

  “His spirit is strong,” said Tahzi with a swift glance of respect at Noel. “He will not die.”

  “Wait!”

  But Tahzi was gone. Only Yotavo and the other brave waited on their horses. Yotavo’s black eyes smoldered with resentment. He pointed, and Leon started walking. Lisa-Marie kept step in silence.

  When they drew even with Noel, he fell in with them. Leon did not like being this close to his double. It was like standing next to a powerful energy generator and feeling the current oscillate into your own electrical system. The friction scratching between their bodies sang on Leon’s nerves.

  Noel moved slowly like an old man. Smears of blood had dried on his face and neck. Fresh blood seeped through his plaid shirt in places where the cloth stretched tight against his side. His gaze was focused inward, and his lean, chiseled face remained impassive.

  Beyond the clearing, the trail grew narrow and rough. It was necessary to crouch down and jump into a shallow crevice, then scramble over a series of boulders to where the trail resumed.

  At this point Yotavo and his companion reined up. Leon’s back itched with vulnerability. He wondered if Yotavo would plant an arrow in them, but none came.

  When he glanced back a few seconds later, Yotavo and the other man were gone.

  Lisa-Marie jumped first into the crevice. Leon and Noel looked at each other. Leon gestured irritably for Noel to go next.

  Noel crouched slowly, as though he might shatter if he bent his body. When he jumped, he grunted with pain and nearly fell.

  Only Lisa-Marie’s grab of his arm kept him on his feet. He staggered to a rock and leaned there, gasping and white­faced. Leon had his own problems getting down. The pain in his swollen hands was almost unbearable, and the deep cuts in his wrists throbbed. He found it agonizing to lift his arms even a few inches.

  Even so, he didn’t feel as bad as Noel looked. He stared at his double critically.

  “Can you make it?” he asked. “The trail will be rough all the way down the mountain—”

  “Yeah,” said Noel, choking out the word.

  “He can barely walk,” said Lisa-Marie. “The heat will—”

  “Go,” said Noel. Through half-shut lids, his eyes shimmered as though they were melting. He pushed himself away from the rock’s support and walked on like an automaton.

  Leon had no sense of time. It seemed an eternity before they reached the foot of the mountain. The heat increased until it seemed they were descending into an inferno. He tried to keep his face shaded with his hat brim, but everywhere the sun touched him felt as though he were being fried in oil. He wasn’t always certain if the water on his face was perspiration or tears. Noel’s silence chafed him. How could Noel be so much stronger? How could he endure the torment he was suffering without a word, without a moan? How could he keep walking when he must be ready to collapse?

  At the bottom of the mountain, they paused to rest in the scant shade of a dead tree. A hawk was nesting in the top branches. It flew, its cry a thin scree on the hot wind.

  To the west, the sun sank low. They had perhaps a couple of hours yet before nightfall.

  Leon wiped his face. “We’d better wait till the sun goes down before we go on,” he said.

  As he spoke he glanced involuntarily at Noel, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground with his back ramrod stiff. Noel opened his eyes and gave Leon a brief nod.

  “Pass around the canteen,” said Lisa-Marie. Her bare arms were pink with sunburn, and she had been limping a long while. “I’m so hot I could smother.”

  Leon did not move. “Do you know where the next water hole is?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “Then we’d better wait till later to have a drink.”

  She glared at him but didn’t argue. Instead she touched Noel’s arm with a gentle hand. He flinched, and she flinched, too.

  “I’m sorry!” she cried. “Can’t we do anything for you?”

  Jealousy burned in Leon. He was hurt also, yet Lisa-Marie spared no sympathy for him.

  “Nothing,” Noel said tightly as though even speaking hurt. “I’m fine.” He turned his head and met Leon’s furious gaze. A flicker of a smile touched his lips. “Allies for once. Weird for us, isn’t it?”

  Leon stared at him, too astonished to answer.

  “You’re in charge,” said Noel. He shifted position and winced. “You get us home.”

  The sun crept lower, and the hot wind blew incessantly, swaying the weeds. Before them the world was infinity, empty miles stretching in all directions. Yet the emptiness was an illusion, just as the vision of water shimmering a few hundred yards away was not real. Somewhere in this wasteland were people, shelter, water, and food. Leon could not remember the direction they were supposed to go.

  While he struggled with himself, debating on whether to betray his incompetence by asking, Noel stretched out on the hot ground and lay there like a dead man, hatless and diminished in the sunshine. Grasshoppers as brown as toast whirred by, jumping in search of food. A jackrabbit ambled near them, then froze, its long ears pink beneath the brown fur. If Leon squinted his eyes just so, he could envision Noel as a skeleton lying there, white bones bleached in the sun and picked clean by beetles.

  The image frightened him more than he wanted to admit. He poked his own throbbing palm, taking pleasure in the pain he dealt himself, as though to confirm his own existence. He knew he was less than whole. Something crucial in him had always been missing.

  He was a blurred, imperfect copy. Shorter than Noel by nearly an inch, his skin was pitted, his jaw not as lean. His features were less chiseled. His eyes held less gray, less color. He could eat but not taste the food. He could look at Lisa-Marie’s beauty and long to possess her, yet passion was a shadow to him. He could pretend that he was not different, yet the truth always lay in him deep.

  ‘We won’t have to walk the whole way,” said Lisa-Marie.

  Her voice startled Leon from his thoughts. He lifted his hot face from where it had been resting on his knees. “What?”

  “I said we won’t have to walk the whole way. My grandfather and brother will be looking for us.” She paused a moment, then looked straight at Leon. “When they find us, they’ll string you up from a cottonwood tree and let the buzzards pick you clean.”

  “That’s not—”

  “—fair?” she finished for him. Her blue eyes flashed with scorn. “And just what do you think you deserve? You burned our ranch. You tried to kill my family. You carried me off like a sack of potatoes—”

  “I care about you,” he said desperately. “I just w
anted to get to know—”

  “Don’t insult me like that!” she retorted, scarlet-cheeked. “You’re nothing but a bandit. If I had a gun right now I’d shoot you myself.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he felt ugliness replace his admiration for her. “Watch what you say. Right now you need me.”

  “For protection?” She laughed with scorn. “You’re useless with Apaches. It took your brother to get us free. If it weren’t for him we’d still be prisoners back there, and—”

  “I would have gotten us free!” said Leon. “I just needed time.”

  “Don’t lie to yourself, mister. You ought to be thanking your brother instead of—”

  “I’ll go to hell before I thank him for anything!”

  “I think we’re already there,” said Noel softly, startling them both.

  At once Lisa-Marie knelt beside him. “Do you want some water? You, help him sit up.”

  Leon felt the urge to hurl the canteen into the brush. Instead, he gripped Noel by the arms and pulled him upright. Noel shuddered in his grasp, sending his pain into Leon, and Leon released him swiftly to avoid more agony.

  Noel swayed and would have toppled over had Lisa-Marie not steadied him.

  “You fool!” she said to Leon. “Be careful with him.”

  “My name is Leon, not hey-you,” he retorted.