An Outlaw in Wonderland

by Lori Austin

  “That’s enough dust for an entire posse,” Annabeth murmured.

  “That’s not a posse.” And he’d thought lack of a full bottle was his biggest worry. “That’s a twister.”

  Ethan faced forward and allowed their mount, which had begun to sidestep and fight the bit, its head. Annabeth wrapped her arms around his waist and held on.

  He’d seen tornados before. This was Kansas; they were common. However, Ethan had never been out on the range, on a horse, with nowhere to run or hide as a killer storm bore down.

  The wind picked up; the sky went dark. Though no rain fell, Ethan could smell it somewhere, along with the lightning. The distant thunder became one long, low, rumbling snarl. The earth shook as though a train approached, though the nearest track lay twenty miles’ distant.

  Annabeth shouted, but he couldn’t make out the words. Debris flew past them, picking up speed. Ahead, several tumbleweeds fell into space.

  Gully. Ethan headed right for it.

  He pulled the horse to a stop several feet way—wasn’t easy—the animal wanted to get gone. Annabeth slid off, tugging Ethan’s leg so hard, he nearly fell on top of her. He risked a glance west. The cloud had turned black and seemed to fill the horizon from north to south.

  As soon as Ethan leaped free, Annabeth towed him toward the hollowed-out ditch created by spring runoff. He attempted to bring the horse, but the animal reared, yanking the reins from his hands before sprinting east.

  Ethan jumped into the long, narrow crevice; his wife landed next to him. She shoved him beneath the slight overhang on the far side, then pressed her belly to the ground beneath the one opposite. Above them, the wind screamed.

  Unless that was his horse.

  Ethan rose onto his knees. His mount was gone. He didn’t think the animal could have run fast enough to be out of sight by now, but he certainly hoped that was the case.

  Annabeth slammed into him, pushing him back where he’d been and then shielding his body with hers. She said something, but he couldn’t hear it above the gale. His ears crackled and popped; the air seemed to snap and buzz. She wrapped her hands around his neck. His arms circled her waist as the storm tried to pull her away.

  Ethan tugged Annabeth close—hip to hip, chest to breast—he hooked his ankle over hers. She pressed her face into his neck. Her breath tickled his collarbone. He curled himself around her and murmured, “Don’t let go.”

  Considering the trill of the wind, the thud of his heart, the sudden torrent that beat down, turning the dry gully into a river of mud, she should not have been able to hear. Just as he should not have been able to hear her answer: “Never.” But he did.

  Ethan kept his eyes closed against the slap of grit and rain. He clasped Annabeth with every ounce of strength he had so she would not be whirled away like his horse. His fingers were slick; they kept slipping. He feared he would not be able to outlast the ferocity of the gale, but he would not lose her again.

  His ears rang so loudly, he first became aware of the passing of the storm more by the lessening of the pull on his wife than by the lessening of noise. Cautiously, Ethan opened one eye, then the other. A shaft of sunlight blazed between slate clouds.

  “Beth.” His voice sounded far away. His wife’s ears must have been equally beleaguered because she didn’t answer; she didn’t move. “Beth!”

  This time he shouted, or thought he did, and shook her a bit. Her head came up so fast, she nearly knocked him in the chin. He reared back and knocked his head on the earth overhang. Grass and dirt and rocks rained down.

  Her deep blue eyes appeared black, huge in her pale face. She seemed to have more freckles than he remembered.

  “Is it gone?” she asked.

  His gaze went again to the shaft of sun, which had become wider, pushing against the clouds on either side. “From here.”

  “So fast?”

  “Fast?” To him, the time he’d held her, afraid his strength would not be enough to save them, had been an eternity.

  “Was that five minutes? Ten?”

  “All right,” he agreed, still dazed or perhaps just dazzled. She was so damn pretty.

  A crease appeared between her brows. “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong?” He still held her as if the storm might take her away. He didn’t want to let her go.

  Annabeth laid her palm to his cheek. “No fever.” She brushed her fingertip along his stitches. “Do they hurt?”

  He shook his head. He wanted her to touch them again, touch him again.

  “I should take those out.”

  “Okay.” He tilted his face toward her, and she laughed.

  “Not now. The only thing I have that might be sharp enough to do the job is my teeth.”

  The thought of her using her teeth on his forehead was unappealing. However, the idea of her using her teeth elsewhere . . .

  Annabeth stilled. She had felt his response. This close, how could she not? Ethan kissed her; he couldn’t help himself.

  For an instant, he thought she might pull away, roll away, stand up and run away. Then she seemed to melt—into him, through him. She became part of him. She still tasted like dawn, like hope. And oh, how he needed it.

  He traced her lips with his tongue, rubbed his thumbs along the lowest ridge of her ribs, learned again the contours of her mouth, her teeth, discovered anew the flavor of her skin. Drinking her sigh, he marveled at the sweetness of her breath. His must bring to mind month-old milk.

  She didn’t seem to notice; in fact, she breathed in deeply, as if trying to draw him within, to memorize his scent as he longed to memorize hers.

  When he lifted his head, her eyes remained closed; her tongue darted out and ran over her lower lip. “You still taste like . . .”

  “What?” he whispered, and her eyes opened.

  For an instant, a smile trembled, threatening to break across her face like dawn broke the night. Then she drew back, released him, and the moment was gone. He could have held on, but why? The harder he tugged in one direction, the faster she would run in the other.

  Annabeth rolled onto her back, plopping into the mud at the lowest point of the gully. She didn’t appear to care; she was too intent on getting away.

  She hauled herself upright and then took a giant step onto the prairie, shading her eyes from the now-abundant sunshine. Somewhere along the way, she’d lost her hat. “Is that . . . ?”

  Ethan had planned to remain where he was, at least until his erection went away, maybe longer—he wasn’t feeling too well. The shiver he’d experienced at the image of her teeth tasting him, her tongue taunting him, had become a full-blown shudder, so deep his bones ached. Yet his skin had broken out with a light sweat. But her words had him rolling free and standing, too.

  He swayed a bit, forced himself to stop before he asked, “What?”

  Annabeth dropped her hand; those lips he’d so recently and thoroughly kissed at last spreading into a smile. “I think it’s your horse.”

  He looked where she had. “It’s a horse,” he allowed.

  “Good enough.” She started to walk, stepping over bits and pieces of debris that lay here and there or, in some cases, tumbled past. Dry leaves. Sticks. A tree limb from which hung a bit of cloth. Her boot heel clipped something that sounded like a tin cup.

  Ethan was dizzy and hot; his stomach churned. His bowels gurgled like the muddy water in the ditch behind them. He didn’t want to walk to the horse, which he knew from previous experience was a lot farther away than it appeared, but he also didn’t want to walk back to Freedom, which was even farther.

  Annabeth turned. “What’s wrong?”

  Ethan stroked his thumb over the empty blue bottles in his pocket. He ducked his head as his eye began to twitch. “Nothing,” he said, and joined her.

  “We should find a place to stay for the night.”

  Ethan’s heart jerked. He rubbed the empties again. If he rubbed them enough, would a genie grant his wish that they might suddenly
become full?

  Ethan snorted. Those were the kinds of fantasies he had after he’d drunk more laudanum than he had today.

  “No,” he said.

  Annabeth cast him a confused, concerned glance and continued walking. “I don’t think we’ll make it to Freedom before dark.” She pointed at the horizon. “Even if we manage to catch that horse.”

  As expected, the animal appeared farther away now than when they’d started out. Was it a mirage? The silhouette had started to waver. “I have to get back. Tonight.”

  “I suppose Cora will worry.”

  He stopped walking, rubbed his aching eyes, then scratched at the invisible ants crawling up his arm. “About Cora,” he began.

  The sun flickered, as if a great hand had waved before it—over and back, over and back. Sweat dripped to the end of Ethan’s nose; his shivering caused it to fly right off.

  “Ethan?” Annabeth’s frowning face appeared in front of him an instant before the great hand closed around the sun, squeezing until his whole world went black.

  CHAPTER 22

  Ethan’s eyes rolled back. Annabeth caught him in her arms.

  They were nearly the same height, and he was so thin, he couldn’t weigh much more than she did. However, dead weight was a helluva lot heavier than live weight. Her legs gave out. They landed atop the muddy grass in a tangle.

  Someone was keening, “No, no, no,” and it was her. Annabeth hunched over Ethan, protecting him from . . .

  She wasn’t sure. At first she thought he’d been shot again. But there’d been no report; there wasn’t any blood. Had a lethal infection crept into his brain? What would she do? Out here, she had no way to help him.

  A watery, slightly hysterical laugh erupted. She had no way to help a brain infection anywhere. No one did.

  Annabeth lifted her head, let her gaze wander the horizon. The only living thing in any direction was the two of them and the horse. If anyone were out there shooting, they’d be dead. The sniper wouldn’t need a quarter of Fedya’s skill with a gun to put an end to them sitting in the middle of a great big nothing just waiting to die.

  Annabeth laid Ethan on the ground. His breath came far too fast, too shallow, and he was pale, sweating, yet he shuddered as if a blue norther had followed the storm. Gently, she slapped his cheeks, received no response. Even if he woke, she doubted he’d be able to walk very far. She needed that horse.

  She glanced again toward the horizon, hoping the animal might have begun to wander in their direction. But luck had never been on her side.

  Annabeth set her lips to Ethan’s ear. “I’ll be back as fast as I can.” Her only response was another shudder that racked him from head to toe.

  She left Ethan alone in the mud and the wet grass, the sun blazing on his damp face. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.

  Annabeth was tempted to run. But in this heat, without water, she’d be exhausted before she got there. Besides, a fast approach might frighten the animal. She wished for a grove of trees, not just for the shade but for the cover. However, if wishes were horses, then—

  “I wouldn’t need that horse,” Annabeth muttered, and fought another hysterical bubble of laughter.

  The sun had moved past the apex before she came close enough to see that the horse wore a saddle—at least it wasn’t wild—though she couldn’t tell if it was the horse they’d rode in on.

  Didn’t matter. She just hoped the animal was past spooked and moving toward thirsty, hungry, lonely, or anything else that might make it stand still and not run away.

  She approached slowly, murmuring nonsense. Perhaps her luck had changed, because it walked toward her with a lowered, docile head and allowed her to scratch between its ears, then swing into what appeared to be Ethan’s saddle.

  She couldn’t believe their mount hadn’t been whirled away with the wind. But twisters were strange. She’d seen them take a house and leave a barn, uproot this tree and leave that one untouched—no rhyme or reason to the destruction at all. Was there ever a rhyme or reason to destruction?

  Her gaze went to where she’d left Ethan, and her heart thudded once before lodging at the base of her throat. He no longer lay on the grass. Instead he stumbled, nearly falling, before dragging himself up to zigzag some more.

  Annabeth urged the exhausted horse into a gallop. The animal shied as they approached, and Ethan veered into their path, then out again.

  “Whoa,” she said. The animal listened; Ethan did not. He muttered unintelligible words as he continued to make his awkward way toward Lord knew what.

  Annabeth leaped to the ground, keeping a firm hand on the reins. Ethan swung toward her. His eyes were wild; he smelled the same. Sweat glistened on his face, his neck, and dampened his shirt.

  “Find,” he muttered. “Find!”

  “Hush.” She wasn’t certain if she was talking to man or beast, or if Ethan, at this moment, was a little of both.

  The horse snorted, spraying snot across Annabeth’s shoulder. Ethan tilted his head like a dog that had heard a voice it just might recognize.

  “You want to ride, Ethan?”

  His head tilted the other way when she said his name. But he didn’t answer, and her concern deepened.

  “You’re sick,” she continued. “We need to get out of the sun.”

  “Find,” he said, and stumbled on. Was he talking about Annabeth? Cora? The baby? Freedom?

  Who knew? Did it matter?

  “It’ll be easier to search on the horse.”

  He didn’t answer, didn’t even glance her way. Annabeth tugged on his arm, but he yanked himself free and continued. She couldn’t make him take the saddle. But if he fell, she doubted she could lift him into it either.

  Annabeth chewed her lip and followed her husband across the prairie.

  • • •

  Ethan was hot; he was cold. Sweat ran down his back, even as he shivered and shook. His teeth chattered. But up ahead was something he had to find. He couldn’t stop. He needed . . .

  He wasn’t quite sure.

  His mouth was dry. His skin itched. His stomach rumbled, though not with hunger. He hoped he didn’t disgrace himself. But who would know?

  The woman who trailed behind him along with the horse might look and sound like Annabeth; however, he knew a hallucination when he saw one. He’d been seeing them for a long time. He should climb on that horse and leave her behind. Although perhaps the animal was as much a delusion as the wife.

  There’d be no getting rid of her. Not when he slept, not when he woke, not when he drank another bottle dry. She was there—always—unto the end of his life.

  And that was all right. That was what he had craved all along. If he hadn’t wanted to see his missing, possibly dead wife, he wouldn’t have bothered with the cursed blue bottles. Not only did they take away the pain, but they brought back her.

  “Ethan?”

  He glanced over his shoulder, and the agony in his head faded a bit at the sight of her.

  “Let’s ride the horse,” she said, as if he were an imbecile.

  He was tired; he was hot; he was dizzy and nauseated. He was an imbecile. Why not ride the horse? Even if he rode only in his mind.

  Ethan swung into the saddle. Before he could direct the animal forward, Annabeth climbed on behind. Her breasts pressed into his back; her thighs slid along his; her hair brushed his neck; her arms circled his waist. He waited for his body to respond as it always did to her touch, be she real or imagined. When it didn’t, he began to suspect that he was sicker than he’d ever been before. Maybe this time, at last, he would die.

  “Where are we go—?”

  Ethan urged the horse into a gallop, and the rest of her words flew away with the wind. He ignored every question she asked after that. Even when they slowed to a brisk walk, making conversation a possibility, he did not speak. He didn’t have the strength.

  He skirted the gully that had saved their lives. Eventually, the crack in the earth wi
dened to a stream, then a river.

  “I’m thirsty,” Annabeth said, her voice vibrating against his back, causing the shivers he’d thought gone to return. “Aren’t you?”

  He clucked to the horse, which began to trot. The black dots that had been dancing across the bright blue sky increased in number until they nearly obscured his vision. He gritted his teeth; he would not allow them to collide. If that happened, he might not wake for days.

  At last they rounded a bend, and Ethan reined in. Annabeth’s fingers clenched on his hips. Memory shimmered—of another place, another time, another life.

  “We should go,” she whispered.

  Instead, Ethan slid to the ground and strode inside the tepee.

  • • •

  Annabeth held her breath, waiting for Ethan to come back out. She only hoped he did so alone.

  She had seen such structures before, though less and less in the past few years since the Kansa Indians had been relegated to the reservation at Council Grove. Before that, they had lived in villages of round, earthen lodges. The men used tepees for hunting—back when they’d been allowed to hunt.

  Whenever she’d seen the tepees, Annabeth had given them a wide berth. Still, for hours afterward she would be nervous, twitchy, expecting the Indians to appear as if from the earth in front of her, or perhaps sneak up behind. Annabeth had the same feeling now. She even looked over her shoulder, but nothing was there.

  As no Kansa brave had burst free of the lodge carrying her husband’s head, or even his scalp, she breathed a little easier. Of course, they could have killed him and left him where he fell.

  The horse had lowered its head and begun to drink from the river. Annabeth ground tied the animal and followed Ethan.

  Approaching the tepee, she drew her gun. “Hello?”

  When nothing answered but the wind, she drew back the flap. No outcry was raised, no weapon discharged. She peeked inside. The tepee appeared empty.

  “Ethan!”

  What did she expect? What did she fear? That he’d found a bottle that said, DRINK ME, shrunk like Alice, then slid down the rabbit hole into Wonderland?

  Another hysterical burble of laughter escaped her dry, brittle lips. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be chattering in the corner like a lunatic.