Zach recognized both he and his mount had to have rest and food before they could go on. He'd been on the go for a good twenty-four hours, and he had not slept all that much the night before.
Recalling the previous night led him to thoughts of Emily, bringing to mind vivid images of how she'd looked in the lamplight, how she'd felt in his arms. How could he endure never again to experience the wonder of loving her?
No! He must not let doubt and despair enter his thoughts. Someone would find her. He would find her and she would be all right. Clinging to that hope with all the determination he could muster, Zach rode into Tombstone as the sun edged above the crest of the Dragoons.
There was no good news. After a quick check at Nellie's, Zach joined the rest of the searchers gathered at Shefflin Hall, Tombstone's largest building. Townswomen brought in food for them all and gallons of coffee. Men talked in subdued voices as they compared notes and struggled to frame a plan for further searching.
Both the stable owners offered every fresh horse available to remount anyone who was able to go out again to search by daylight. They also agreed to shelter and feed the weary steeds that had gone the first relay. The town's response warmed and encouraged Zach. Surely with so much effort devoted to her rescue, Emily could be found.
After eating breakfast, Zach fell asleep in his chair only to awaken a couple of hours later to join a search party headed by Deputy Drake. He learned then that they'd agreed to form into four larger groups, each taking a cardinal direction. Riding out from town, a hundred yards or so between riders, they'd look for any possible sign and every potential hiding place. After they rode out for three hours, they'd move to the right enough to cover a new patch of ground, and head back.
As frequently happened, the day following a severe storm turned out to be fair and dry. Although a few small clouds built over the mountains, they showed no tendency of growing into the massive thunderheads that brought violent electrical storms and drenching rains. Although Zach scanned the sky often, dreading another storm, his anxiety on that count was soon relieved. Drake's group drew the south quadrant, the terrain Zach and Emily had cut across on their way to Bisbee, and the path the bank robbers had followed to end up at the river. The area was extremely rugged, cut by steep-sided canyons and part of the Tombstone Hills, which covered the rich ore bodies currently being mined. Their second sweep would bring them back up the river to Charleston.
Zach kept thinking the answer to Emily's disappearance lay in the mill town, if not in the cabin Jake had rented, somewhere in that area. He wanted to go directly there, but agreed to take his part in the planned search pattern, in spite of his vague hunch.
His borrowed horse was a gray, a tall, raw-boned animal with little in the way of looks to recommend him. However, the gelding proved to be sure-footed, full of stamina, and smooth-gaited enough to make riding comfortable, even though Zach still felt the effects of last night's long hours in the saddle.
An hour out of town, they came across the tracks of at least two horses traveling down a canyon toward the river. Their riders had passed that way after the storm, since running water had not erased the tracks.
When Drake asked for two men to follow the trail, Zach volunteered to be one of them. His partner was an older fellow, a stove-up cowboy no longer able to handle ranch work on a daily basis, but still canny in the ways of the outdoors and handy with horses. A man of few words, the fellow simply said, "Call me Joe."
Joe and Zach turned down the canyon and moved along briskly, following the clear path of tracks imprinted in still-damp sand.
The horses had been moving at a walk, apparently side by side, or perhaps one on a lead behind the other. The second horse appeared to be more heavily laden and occasionally sank into softer sand, almost up to the fetlocks.
"Might be a pack horse under a heavy load," Joe opined laconically.
Either that or ridden by an unusually heavy man. At that notion, Zach immediately thought of Tug Gallagher, Jake's ox-like disciple. Certainly Tug would be a serious burden for the average sized saddle horse. Normally, he rode a big gray that probably had a good measure of Percheron blood. However, this animal did not leave the size of track that horse would make.
Zach and Joe followed the trail of the two horses to the river, where the tracks turned south along the bank, as if the riders sought a good spot to ford or planned to follow the stream south to the border. Still swollen from the previous day's rain, the stream ran higher than normal, making many regular crossings impassible.
"I don't like the looks of this," Zach said. "If they've got Miss Dennison and take her across the line into Mexico, we'll play hell getting her safely back."
"Yup," Joe said. "Better pick up our pace and try 'n catch up."
For the next hour, they alternately loped and trotted their horses, making good time along the relatively easy route. Finally signs indicated they were catching up. Joe counseled they slow back to a walk so as not to alert the unknown riders to their approach.
They caught up in a grove of cottonwood trees, about five miles north of the border by Joe's estimate. Zach was not surprised to find one horse was indeed burdened with Tug Gallagher. But the big man did not ride astride. He lay tied across the saddle, much as Marshal Cooper had been returned to Tombstone, and appeared in little better shape.
Bucky Flanagan rode the other horse. He offered no resistance when Zach and Joe approached and ordered him to halt.
Zach asked the first question on his mind. "Where's Jake?"
Bucky shrugged. "Don't know. Haven't seen him for several days."
"What happened to Gallagher?"
"Claims he knew where Jake hid his cut of the loot and he was going to get it, at least our share. Reckon Sancho Perez got there first. Tug came upon him and two of his men digging in an arroyo halfway to Gleeson. Guess Tug figured he could take them, just a couple of peons and Sancho. He was wrong."
Bucky shook his head, a woeful expression on his face. "Tug's in a bad way, but if I can get him down to the Green Ranch where his cousin works, one of them Indian brujas can help him. The old horse wrangler down there has a squaw what's a good healer."
Zach wasn't sure whether he believed Bucky's tale or not, but he could see Tug was both beaten and seriously cut up, probably with one of those big knives like Sancho and most of the vaqueros carried.
"So you don't know where Jake is?"
Bucky shook his head. "Nope. We've split. He ain't playing square with us no more and I'm tired of his crap. We were s'posed to get a share of that money from the bank, but he hid it after they split up to throw off the trackers and wouldn't tell nobody where he put it. Tug figured he knew, but I ain't so sure-could be Sancho didn't find it either. Mebbe that's why he was so mad."
"How about Miss Dennison, the young lady Tug grabbed and took to Charleston at Jake's request?"
"Ain't seen hide nor hair o' her since me and Jake left Charleston the night before the robbery."
Zach swore. They'd spent two hours tracking these two men and learned nothing of value-except that Jake was involved in the robbery. "We ought to take you in, for the robbery and the beating of Marshal Cooper."
"I didn't take no part in that job on the bank and I didn't lay a hand on the marshal." Bucky glowered at Zach and Joe. "You can take me back if you want, but Tug'll never last all the way to Tombstone. He's already lost too much blood. If you want his death on your conscience..."
"He wouldn't have suffered any qualms if he'd killed me that night we fought," Zach growled. "Why should I worry about him?"
Bucky's shoulders drooped. "Tug's been my pard for nigh onto ten years. It's only 'bout a mile to the ranch and twenty back to Tombstone. Let me take him on to Green's, and then I'll go back with you if you want."
Zach and Joe looked at each other for a moment. Their object was to find Emily. Should they set that aside to capture a man on whom charges might not stick? Finally Zach shrugged.
"All right. If you sw
ear you don't know where Jake is or Miss Dennison, I'll let you go on about your business. It's them we need to find. I really haven't got a bone to pick with you."
"On me sainted mother's grave," Bucky said. "An' as for what they done to Cooper, I'd 'a stopped that if I could. Jake and Sancho, they done that and iffn I'd really tried to stop them I'd 'a wound up the same way."
"Git," Joe broke in. "We've gotta get back and catch up to Drake and them."
Zach watched Bucky start off, moving slowly so as not to jostle the injured giant any more than could be helped. Zach actually felt sorry for Gallagher, in spite of the harm the brute had done to him.
After all, Gallagher had not mistreated Emily when she was left in his care. He'd been lax enough in guarding her that Zach had been able to manage a rescue. Whatever grudge he might once have felt no longer mattered.
Setting his spurs to the gray, he trotted off to catch up with Joe. By now, their search party would be heading north toward Charleston. He and Joe could probably catch up with Drake's bunch there if they kept a brisk pace.
Weariness dogged Zach as he and his companion trotted along the riverbank back to the mouth of the canyon they'd followed to the river. Holding on to a thread of hope was getting more and more difficult as the minutes ticked by. Already close to twenty-four hours had passed since Emily had vanished off the Tombstone street in a flash of lightening. The trail quickly grew cold and dim, trickier to follow.
The key had to lie with Jake McEuen, and so far Jake had proven as difficult to locate as Emily. That must mean they were together. The notion left a sour taste in Zach's mouth and a cramp of anxiety in his gut. He'd gotten one woman away from the gambler, but could he manage the feat again?
Failure was not an option. He'd do it or die in the attempt. That vow made, he straightened in his saddle and forced himself to a semblance of alertness. There might be only one small clue, so he was determined not to miss it.
~*~
Ft. Huachuca, Arizona
June 7, 2000
"I've got to get back to Tombstone, old Tombstone."
Emily paced Carol's cozy kitchen, too restless to sit still. "Day after tomorrow is the anniversary of the last entry in Zach's journal, the day he duels with Jake McEuen."
Carol shook her head, a pitying expression flitting across her face. "I don't know what to tell you, Em. You've spent a week in Tombstone already, and in spite of your efforts, you're still here, still in the present. You came back yesterday sopping wet from standing out in a thunderstorm-you're really not recovered enough to risk pneumonia like that."
"I'm all right," Emily protested. "It was just the shock and maybe I was hit by lightening."
"I hate to say it, sweetie, but you're obsessing. You've admitted you aren't positive you were really in the past for a month, so how can you expect to get back a second time?"
Emily sighed, shook her head, and sank onto a chair. "I can't, not really. I guess wanting is just not enough. But I can't make myself give up, can't quite accept it was all a dream or temporary schizophrenia or who-knows-what. Somehow I just know I was there in 1889. I met some wonderful people and I left them in the lurch when I was snatched back to 2000."
Pouring them each a cup of coffee, Carol sat opposite Emily. She sighed, a resigned sounding sigh. She hesitated a moment, as if debating with herself.
"Well, there's this psychic in Bisbee. I've never talked to her myself, but a couple of women in the Officer's Wives Club went to her, and they swear by her abilities. Maybe she can help you."
Emily straightened in the chair, hardly daring to, but hoping in spite of herself. "I guess it's worth a try. Is she in the phone book?"
Carol shrugged. "I have no idea but we can look."
They did and she was. Emily dialed the number, her hand trembling so much she kept missing the buttons. She heard the ring on the opposite end, once, twice, four times...and finally an answering voice.
"Dorian Brookhurst. How may I assist you?"
"I-I have a problem," Emily stammered. "I'm not sure if you can help, but I'd like to come talk to you."
"Certainly. I have some free time this afternoon, about two o'clock. Will that work for you?" The woman's low voice had a calming effect, and she spoke slowly, deliberately, with a trace of an accent Emily could not identify.
"I'll be there. Thank you for agreeing to see me."
Borrowing Carol's little Ford again, Emily soon headed for Bisbee. She found the town had changed drastically since her previous visit, and getting there was a great deal quicker and easier. As she drove down the twisting main street, still called "Tombstone Canyon," she noticed many familiar landmarks, even buildings that had been there in 1889.
Strangely, Ms. Brookhurst's place of business was in the building that had served as Mrs. Woodbine's rooming house in 1889. The structure looked to have gone through several remodelings, but the basic appearance was much as it had been. Freshly painted in off-white with dark green trim, the long narrow building hugged the canyon wall on one side and the street on the other, with only a narrow sidewalk and no place to park.
Emily left the car across the street in the lot of a restaurant and skipped across Tombstone Canyon to tap lightly at the second door-a new addition since her previous stay. Her knock was answered almost at once.
Though tall and angular, Dorian Brookhurst somehow reminded Emily of Nellie Cashman. She had the same dark hair, which she wore piled on her head, and piercing dark eyes. She also had the commanding presence that engendered confidence and respect.
Dorian took Emily's hand, and instead of shaking it, simply held it for a moment in both her own. "You've come a long way," she said. "But I feel your traveling is not yet over. Come, I've made some tea. We'll sit and talk."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Dorian led the way into a smaller, cozy room furnished with delicate pieces that Emily felt sure were genuine Victorian antiques. A fragile tea set awaited, arranged on a lacy white doily spread across a low table. When Dorian filled the cups, a heady aroma rose with the steam. Bending over, Emily inhaled the sweet, exotic scent.
"Mmmmm, that smells wonderful."
"It's my own special herbal blend," Dorian admitted. "After talking to you this morning, I had a hunch you'd appreciate it."
After she'd taken a few sips of the tea, which tasted as good as it smelled, Emily felt much calmer. Catching Dorian's expectant glance, she plunged into her tale, beginning with her receipt of Zach's journal and ending with awakening in the Sierra Vista hospital. Dorian listened with bright-eyed attention, not interrupting once to question any of Emily's statements.
"I knew it," she said when Emily stopped. "I knew you'd had some incredible experience. Oh, I'd give anything to be able to move through time-it's a gift, though, and one I do not have. I've tried every means I could and it simply won't happen for me. So I feel you are very, very fortunate, although I can understand your anguish now."
Dorian paused as if thinking, refilled their cups, and shifted in her chair. "I'm convinced you really did travel through time. There is no other plausible explanation. Yes, most people will think you are either very imaginative or quite mad, but don't let their narrow-minded doubts bother you. As to getting back there, though, I'm really not sure."
Emily's heart sank at Dorian's words. "You don't think the lightening had anything to do with my shifts?"
Dorian gave a tiny shrug. "No, I didn't say that. In fact I suspect the discharge of such powerful energy in your vicinity may have triggered something inside you, which actually caused the shift. But whether that would work again, and if it did whether you'd transpose into the exact time you want is doubtful. To be truthful, I've no notion of how this could be controlled."
Emily's lower lip developed a disconcerting urge to tremble, and she blinked against her sudden tears. She had reached the end of her options it seemed, and now this, too, was going to be a disappointment.
"I've only got two days now, and then I suspect
it will be too late to save Zach. If he had not been killed, I don't think his journal would have been left behind that way."
Dorian leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and her fingers steepled in front of her face. "It's been one hundred and eleven years. That's an extremely powerful number, by the way, one one one. Double and triple numbers are always something of a wild card, but powerful, far beyond the normal meaning of the integer. The power in that number itself might just be enough to draw you back-if you are at the right spot at the right time."
She paused, inhaled deeply and squinted, staring off into space. "There's a power point over in the San Pedro valley, one of those significant vortices similar to the one near Sedona. I've never been to the exact spot, but it's close to the river, west of Tombstone a few miles..."
Her voice trailed away as she stared past Emily's head as if seeing something unseen by normal vision. Emily waited, a twist of expectancy beginning to stir within. There might be a way...if there were any chance at all, any slight hope, she'd try.
Hardly daring to breathe and hesitant to break into Dorian's concentration, she could only wait. The woman looked as if she'd gone into a trance.
"I've got it," she cried suddenly. "We'll find the spot. Let me get a map and a pendulum and we'll locate the exact point. If you can go there on June eleventh at eleven in the morning, I think you can go back through."
Dorian leapt up and hurried from the room, returning in a few minutes with a Chamber of Commerce map of the Tombstone/Sierra Vista area and a clear crystal point suspended on a fine silver chain. Spreading the map on the table from which she'd removed the tea set, she lowered the crystal, letting it dangle from its chain above the surface of the map.
Emily's gaze was riveted on the shining quartz. Clear as glass, the stone was slightly larger than a pencil in diameter and about two inches long. A capping band of filigreed silver covered the blunt end and the silver chain was fastened through a ring set in that cap.
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