"If they stop, let me do the talking," Emily warned. "They're going to be curious and probably fearful of getting involved in something awful."
A solitary woman drove the dark green sedan. For a moment, Zach didn't think she was going to stop, but suddenly, she did. The vehicle squeaked and slid in the gravel at the roadside.
Lowering the window, the woman stuck her head out, looking at them. "Good heavens, what's wrong?"
Zach saw she was an older lady, probably at least Nellie's age.
Emily squared her shoulders, drawing herself up straight. "Exploring in the Preserve, we ran into some UDAs, probably drug dealers. They fired at us and one shot hit me in the shoulder. Could you possibly drive us to Sierra Vista? I do need to see a doctor."
The woman frowned, obviously debating with herself over whether or not she believed Emily's explanation, and whether she wanted to risk getting involved. "I'll take you," she said, finally, her tone grudging. "But your boyfriend ought to stay and take care of the horse."
Emily nodded her agreement. She glanced down at Zach. "Help me down," she whispered. Aloud, she went on. "We rented this mare from Esquivels. Zach can take her back." She looked at him again. "Can't you?"
He nodded. Though not happy with the idea of again being separated from Emily, he accepted getting medical help for her was the highest priority. "Yes, I can take the mare back. Then maybe someone there can give me a ride to Sierra Vista, to the hospital."
"Yes, that's a good plan. If you ask at Esquivels, I'm sure they'll be cooperative. They've been very nice about everything. Just tell them about the UDAs, our thought that it was drug dealers...so they'll understand about my accident."
Emily's expression told Zach she was trying to convey as much information to him as she could without arousing the woman's suspicions. He listened carefully to fix her words in his mind so he would not forget any key part of their story.
He dropped the mare's reins. As a cow pony, she'd surely stand ground tied. After he lifted her down, Zach kept his arm around Emily and walked her the few steps to the car. The woman did something to make the door open. Then he helped Emily ease herself down onto the soft, plush seat. She relaxed there with a small sigh.
She looked so small, pale but resolute.
"You'll be all right now?"
She nodded, smiling up at him. "Oh yes, I'm sure I'll be okay. I'll look for you as soon as you can get there, too. And Zach, I love you."
"I love you, too." He'd never meant anything more. Stooping to duck into the car, he kissed her, a kiss holding a week's worth of longing and anguish and need. "I'll be there just as quickly as I can."
As he backed away and shut the door, Zach saw Emily turn her head slowly, her gaze followed him. He stood at the roadside to watch the car roll smoothly away, suddenly understanding exactly how far he had come since daybreak. And now he had to cope by himself with life in the year 2000. Never in his entire twenty-four years had he felt more alone.
Zach didn't move until the glossy green automobile that carried Emily away vanished around a curve in the road. Finally he turned back to collect the mare. Tugging on the reins, he started walking south toward the Esquivel ranch. He could hardly believe the ranch still existed. Certainly nothing there would look as it had when he'd last seen it, in 1889.
He'd ridden to the ranch while searching for Emily, a week or so-no, one hundred and eleven years and some odd days ago. A shiver of mingled anxiety and excitement rippled over his body. This very moment he was living an adventure like none he had ever dreamed.
At the moment, besides worrying about Emily, his main concern was the loss of his journal, stowed in a dresser drawer at Mrs. Cashman's. Maybe that almost mundane distress was simply his mind's way of coping with the shock of shifting one hundred and eleven years and a few minutes time. Concentrating on the lost journal was easier to deal with than wondering how he'd manage in an era so different from his own.
Not that he didn't recall in perfect clarity nearly every word he'd written in the small book, but someday he might want to refresh his memory. That leather bound tome held the material for a dozen novels, once he found time to scribe them. Well, he could hardly go back for it now.
Zach glanced around as he walked, noting the tall poles with wires strung on them-for electricity, Emily had said. She'd described how electricity was wired to every home, powering all the devices people used, or close to it-although the "cars" ran on gasoline, a petroleum product. He hadn't quite taken some of her descriptions seriously. At the time, they had seemed too far-fetched, surely the product of an overactive imagination.
Maybe they weren't.
Except for the poles, the hills didn't look too different from the ones he'd ridden through this morning on his way to meet Jake. He noticed more brush and less grass now, more and deeper ditches and arroyos, but the mountains remained in their places and the sky was still the same brilliant, vivid blue set off by a few scattered clouds.
Although Emily had said the automobiles should not frighten the mare, he chose to wade across the river at a shallow rocky spot instead of using the bridge on which the paved road crossed. From there, he had only to go about a mile to reach the ranch.
As he came down the dusty lane into the yard, he saw a young girl who reminded him of Angelina. She was cleaning a paddock by the barn. She dropped her shovel and came to meet him.
"You're bringing Queenie back. What happened to the lady who rode off on her this morning?"
Zach hesitated, making sure he remembered exactly what Emily had told him to say. "We met up near Charleston and were going along together when we encountered some UDAs. They must have been drug dealers, because one of them shot at us. Miss Dennison was hit in the shoulder. We managed to get back to the highway and flagged someone down to take her on to the hospital. She wanted me to return your horse."
The girl's eyes widened and her mouth shaped an "O" of shock. "Oh my. I hope she'll be all right. She seemed like such a nice lady. Are you okay?"
Zach nodded. "Yes, I'm fine. But I need a ride to Sierra Vista, to the hospital, if possible. I'd take forever to walk there."
The girl agreed. "Oh yeah, it's about ten miles. Let me see if Derek can take you. He's been shoeing a horse and should be about done. But Miss-um, your friend-left her car here. Can't you take it?"
For a moment Zach didn't know what to say. Then he remembered Emily mentioning something about a car key. "I don't have the key."
"Oh yeah-but I thought she left them in the car. Kind of weird but...wait, she locked it; I distinctly remember that she locked it. So I guess that's out of the question. Let me check with Derek."
She scampered off, leaving Zach to look around, mentally comparing what he saw with what he recalled. The house had not changed greatly, but the barn and corrals were new. Where he dimly recalled a buckboard and maybe a wagon, a couple of vehicles-trucks-sat between the barn and the house, under a cluster of towering cottonwood trees.
As he watched, a tall, lean man in dusty jeans and a dark blue shirt came around the barn and climbed into one of the trucks. He started the motor and drove over to where Zach stood.
"Hear you need a ride to town, that your lady friend just got shot. We've gotta do something about these drug runners. It's gotten plumb out of hand."
Zach nodded. "I really appreciate your help."
"Well, hop in," the other man said. "I reckon you'd like to get there as quick as you can, so let's go."
It took Zach a moment to figure out how to open the door, but he managed and climbed up into the cab. As they started away, quickly picking up speed as they went whizzing away up the dusty road, he watched closely, trying to see what the other man did to make the vehicle move.
Zach looked around for something to hang on to but there wasn't anything handy. He'd never gone so fast in his life. Although he didn't want to look foolish by admitting his consternation, he found it hard to sit still and appear calm. A dial on the panel in front of the wh
eel the driver used to guide the vehicle said 60. Could that be miles an hour? Amazing!
They didn't take fifteen minutes to get to Sierra Vista. Zach scanned the sights as they went up the street, zooming along among dozens of other vehicles of every size and color, all moving as fast or faster than they were. He felt as if he couldn't breathe, for all the speed and rush.
Buildings were still buildings. Some of those he saw looked peculiar, but the structures were not nearly as astounding as all these cars. In a few more minutes, Derek pulled into an area behind a sprawling stuccoed building. The sign at the entrance said "visitor parking."
Grateful that the language had not changed, at least not the common, ordinary words, Zach read every sign he saw. Most of them he understood, although a few words gave him no clear image.
Pulling into a vacant space, the driver pointed to the right. "Here you are. The main entrance is right over there. I expect with a gunshot wound that your friend went to the emergency room, so you'd want to go there first."
Zach held out his hand and shook hands with the other man, Derek, the girl had called him. "Thanks, Derek-I didn't catch your whole name. I'm Zach Tremaine."
"Derek Clanton. No problem, Zach. Glad to help out. Hope the lady is all right."
Zach scrambled from the truck and started away as Derek backed out of the space where he'd stopped and took off. Shaking his head at the wonder of it all, Zach climbed the ramp to the entrance. He could not contain a start of surprise when the doors opened in front of him, with only a faint whooshing sound.
A mature lady with iron gray hair sat at a counter in one corner of the room. "May I help you?"
"I want to check on a friend, Miss Emily Dennison. She should have arrived about an hour ago with a gunshot wound in her left shoulder. We ran into some UDAs down by the river and one took some shots at us. I had to return the horse she'd rented, so it took me a while to get here."
"Did she come to the emergency room?"
Zach had no idea, but that was what Derek had suggested. "I think so. We stopped a passing car and got her a ride-so I'm not sure, but I think that's were she'd have gone first."
"Let me check for you." The woman got up and walked through a swinging door to one side of her station. She returned quickly. "Your friend is in here. Come with me."
Zach followed the receptionist through the door and down a wide hallway. Pushing aside a curtain hanging across one doorway, she waved him into the small room beyond.
The first thing he saw was Emily. She lay on a high bed made of shiny metal with a mattress of dark leather. Her face looked almost as white as the sheet wrapped around her, and tubes and wires were running every which way. Zach hesitated, fearful of dislodging something critical to her care.
"Emily?"
Her eyes popped open when he spoke. She struggled up to lean on her good arm. "Oh, thank goodness, you're here! The doctor's supposed to be in to see me in a minute. All they've done so far is hook me up to this IV and a monitor and put a new bandage on my shoulder." She exhaled a gusty sigh, sinking back onto the mattress.
"Oh, and they called the darn sheriff. Seems that if you have a gunshot wound it's got to be reported to law enforcement. And they gave me an injection of something, for the pain they said. It's made me sleepy, but I wanted to stay awake until I could talk to the doctor and I was hoping you'd get here, too."
Although Emily still looked pale, the drawn appearance had faded from her face and she didn't appear to be in pain. Relief flooded through Zach. She was not going to die. In fact, she'd probably be all right. He moved closer to the bed and reached out carefully to take her right hand. Her skin felt cool but she curled her fingers around his and squeezed, even as her eyes drifted shut again.
After a moment, she opened them once more. "I need to call Carol, soon as the doctor sees me so I can tell her when they'll allow me to go. And about her car, being down at Esquivels. Don't let me forget. My brain is so fuzzy right now, I hardly know my name."
Zach promised, not completely sure what she meant by "call" but willing to help any way he could. As lost and confused as he was, there was little enough he could do. Frustration at his helplessness gnawed at him.
~*~
An hour later, Emily was ready to leave. Yet another bandage now covered her shoulder, and she had a sling to support her arm. After the x-rays revealed no bone damage or bullet fragments, the doctor had decided she did not need to be admitted. He gave her a prescription for antibiotics and instructions to see her personal physician within five days for a follow-up.
Emily looked back over her good shoulder at Zach, following close behind as a nurse pushed her wheel chair out to the lobby. He looked as shell-shocked as she felt, maybe even worse. Perhaps she should have insisted the doctor check him over, as well. Small wonder, though, since he'd been getting a crash course in twenty-first century life, an awful lot to take in at once. So far he seemed to have managed very well, though. She'd have to tell him how proud she was of him.
He hadn't left her side since he walked in except when they took her down to the x-ray room. Then they'd made him wait in her cubicle until they brought her back. She wasn't sure if he was showing devotion or merely clinging to her as his only touchstone of familiarity in a world completely strange. Maybe a bit of both. Still, it helped her a lot simply to have him there.
Meeting his gaze and returning his smile, a dizzy joy flooded through her. He's safe, he's here, and we're back together. In spite of her injury, she felt better than she had in a long time.
She searched her mind quickly and found no trace of fear, no hint of hunches, dread or impending doom. Everything truly was going to be all right.
From the lobby, she called Carol, explained briefly why she was in the hospital, and listened to a long silence.
Finally Carol spoke, strain clear in her voice. "We'll be there as soon as I can reach Tom and he can leave his office. I don't have transportation, you know."
Now she and Zach just had to wait. Fortunately the wait was brief. Emily looked up at the whoosh of the automatic door. Carol, carrying Terry, saw her at once and made a beeline to her side. Shifting the baby to her other arm, she stooped to give Emily an awkward one-armed hug.
"My Lord, Em, what next? First you vanish and then you get yourself shot! What in the world happened this time?"
Emily hugged back with her good arm. "Officially it was UDAs, maybe drug dealers. I think it's best to stick with that story since I don't want to be locked up as a nut case. That's all we've said to anyone. I'm just glad the bullet went through clean, no fragments to be analyzed."
"We?" Carol pulled herself up to stand erect. She frowned and gave her head a little shake. Then she saw Zach, hovering close behind Emily's chair. Her eyes widened as she took a step back. "Who...?"
Emily darted a quick glance first at Zach and then at Carol. No easy way to do this, just get it over with. "Carol, this is Zach. Zachary Tremaine."
"No! I don't believe it! For you to go back to 1889 and return was crazy enough, but now he's here? No way!" Carol's arms tightened around her son as she backed away another step, shaking her head in denial. "Somebody is crazy here, and it darn sure isn't me!"
Tom stepped forward then and extended his hand to Zach. "Hello, Zach. I'm Tom Hodges and this is my wife Carol and our son Terry. I'm not sure what to make of Emily's experiences, but she's a special friend of ours, so that makes you a friend, too. You're going to need some time to get oriented, so you and Emily had better come home with us. I'll see what we can do to help."
Emily looked up at Tom, her eyes misting with appreciation. He was a jewel, a real gentleman. Carol was so lucky, almost as lucky as she herself was. Emily turned back to Carol.
"I understand, Carol. This is hard to accept, confusing and amazing, a little bit scary. But this really is Zach and he really is a nice guy, just like Tom. Give him a chance, okay?"
Carol nodded, her glance still skittering among the three of them. "My
car's still down at Esquivel's, right? We'd better go get it." She led the way from the hospital, walking stiffly with short, choppy steps.
Emily sighed, understanding the reasons but still hurt by her friend's behavior. Though bubbly and outgoing, Carol was a literal, down-to-earth person. This was just too much for her to accept all at once, but Emily would bet she'd come around in a few days. Zach would win her over. When he put his mind to the task, he could charm just about anybody.
Tom and Zach helped her into the back seat of Tom's SUV. Zach slid in beside her while Carol got into the front after she settled little Terry in his car seat in the middle. Then they drove back down Charleston road to the Esquivel ranch to retrieve Carol's Escort. She drove her car home, taking Terry with her.
As they drove back to Fort Huachuca, Tom chatted calmly about the weather and the upcoming Independence Day celebration just as if gunshot wounds and visitors from the past were an everyday occurrence. Emily blessed his steady common sense approach. She hoped he could help bring Carol around to acceptance. Otherwise, things were going to be really uncomfortable.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Sierra Vista, Arizona
13 June 2000
Two days later, Emily rented a furnished one-bedroom apartment in Sierra Vista and a car so that she and Zach would have transportation. Carol had begun to accept Zach, but Emily didn't know whether or not Carol actually believed he had come from 1889. In spite of the ease in tensions, Emily felt they were imposing on the Hodges and everyone needed a little more space.
Besides, she and Zach were going to have to do some serious talking and make some important decisions about their future. For that, they needed peace and privacy.
Emily cooked their first dinner in their new lodgings on the gas range and the microwave. Zach watched every move she made, asking questions and reading everything that had print on it.
"No wonder you prefer your time. I can see women have life a lot easier here than back in 1889. Fixing a meal like this took two or three hours in Mrs. Cashman's kitchen."
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