Not much changed from my own time, I observed. Not with the highways, at least. The rest? Well, it made me fair sick to think about the rest.
Commerce was being moved by weird little engines with a string of transport lifts behind, sort of like a train, but without the tracks. Trucks and trailers, I guess, though very different from what I was used to seeing. Everything, including the buses and cars, hovered inches above the surface of the road. Most of the individual transportation was by things that looked either like a four-wheeler or sometimes a motorcycle, only they, too, rode on a cushion of air. The vehicles ran silently, except for a slight whirring sound. None of them went particularly fast, but not slow, either. I didn’t know what fueled them.
Light from the rising sun caught on the dark-lens goggles Teagun had pushed to the top of his white-blond hair, glancing off as he moved his head. “In another hour, it will virtually be empty. Only fools and tourists travel in the heat of the day. And outlaws.”
Feeling as though I had stepped into a Saturday morning cartoon, I dragged my eyes away from the sight, turning back quickly as motion at the hotel entrance caught my attention.
“Somebody came outside,” I said. “A woman. Is that your mother? Hand me the binoculars. I want to see her.”
I didn’t recognize the woman.
“It’s Adainette Plover,” Teagun said with such patent bitterness that I stared at him.
“Who—?” I began, and watched with interest as his dark skin flushed.
“She worked for us. My mother hired her to manage the hotel, to come for the season and see if she liked the job and liked the country. Some people go crazy, you see, here in the empty land, so it’s best to hire people on a contingency basis. No long-term contract. If they can’t stay, there’re no hard feelings.”
“Empty? It doesn’t look empty to me,” I cut in.
“But no one stays,” he pointed out. “Everyone passes through. Anyway, in the beginning, everything went fine. Adainette worked hard, was conscientious and good at her job. Then one day, when I was out at the farm, three men showed up at the hotel and said they were taking it over. My mother is plenty tough, but she couldn’t win against all three. And three turned out to be four.”
Suspicion dawned. “Ah. Adainette Plover?”
“She set us up. Called in her gang. Figured a couple of dumb rustics in the Great Empty would be easy pickings. Especially if they had my mother off by herself when they made their move. They planned to take me next and catch me by surprise when I came in from the farm.”
Teagun’s binoculars adjusted my eyesight to the distance and lighting conditions, bringing Adainette Plover into perfect focus. The reason for Teagun’s heightened color became clear. My first impression being that she was knock-’em-dead gorgeous, though a long way from innocent looking, I suspected he’d been making time with her. Trying to, at least. Hadn’t he said his mom wanted to retire? The clues were there that Mom might have been looking for more than just a manager when she hired Adainette.
Tall and slender, the woman was equipped with long, long legs and sticky-out parts in all the right places. The outfit she wore made a point of displaying her charms. A jumpsuit kind of affair, it clung to her well- developed body like a second skin. A bolero jacket went over the top.
She looked as though she must work out regularly. Her hair, a brilliant burgundy red color that was a hundred miles from natural, fell straight and flowing down her back. As the binocs zeroed in on her features, I did find a few flaws. She had a short, flat nose, a prominent zigzag scar along her jaw line, and an angry, petulant expression that, in my opinion, spoiled her looks. I repeat, in my opinion. It may have been my imagination, but something about her seemed almost inhuman. Frightening.
“Hmm.” A shudder raised bumps on my skin. “Based on appearance alone, I’d say this is one tough babe. Did your mother really think she would suit you?”
He didn’t bother to deny a spot of matchmaking had been the purpose—one of the purposes—of Adainette’s employment. Moreover, he seemed to be defending both the woman and the intent. “To survive in the Great Empty, Ms. Irons, a woman needs to be strong. Not many are strong enough.”
Good lord, he sounded like a character out of one of those old cult movies about the apocalypse.
“We’re talking about two different things,” I said. “Competence is good, in any time, in any place, but from what I’m seeing, this woman’s strength is of a different kind. Mean, hard, and . . . and empty.” There, I’d found the word I was looking for.
His dark eyes searched mine, and he nodded once, point taken.
“So, what’s the law doing about all this?” I raised the binoculars again, feeling him watching me as I watched Adainette Plover. She wasn’t doing much, just gazing off along the east bound highway with a hand cupped over her brow.
Teagun didn’t answer right away.
“What?” I repeated.
He replied finally, although the words caught in his throat. “I am the law,” he said, his accent more marked than ever. “My mother, Petra, and I together. We patrol for one hundred miles each side of the hotel. Half of our income comes from the bounties we take.”
I gaped at him. His white hair shone pink and at first it seemed he was blushing into and through the roots of his hair, until I became aware the sun had risen beyond the horizon and shone in a red morning sky. In my day, this meant wind and dust.
“Bounties, huh? I can hardly wait to meet your mother,” I said. Bounty hunters! At least this explained why Adainette put neither of the Dills off. Petra Dill was probably a piece of work herself.
Without the binoculars, I saw two men join Adainette and begin talking and gesticulating, in all likelihood arguing. More of her gang, I surmised. One was tall and spidery; the other short and massive. I had no desire to look into their faces. I only wanted to go home.
“Why don’t you shoot her?” I asked, wondering at his restraint. Perhaps he’d cared more for the woman than he’d let on. It was easy to tell there’d been something between them. “You’ve got the authority. You’ve got a perfect opportunity. This is an easy distance for the Weatherby.”
“I’m afraid the others will kill Petra if I do.” Fury, withheld and stifled, harshened his voice.
I handed him back the field glasses. “Have you seen your mom since these people came? I don’t want to alarm you, but how do you know she’s still alive?”
He looked grim. “I got a signal from her yesterday. Today? I don’t know.”
Rolling onto my back, I narrowed my eyes against the sun’s glare, leaving him to keep watch. “So tell me the rest. What happened when the outlaws came? Obviously you didn’t get caught. How were you able to avoid their trap?”
“We’re not the unsophisticated rustics city people think we are,” he said with a smattering of satisfaction. “We have the web just like outlanders do. Whatever they have, we can also get. Years ago, when I became old enough to go out to the farm alone, we bought a simple communications system. Old technology and cheap. But reliable, and being antiquated and simple, nobody ever thinks to scan for it. We’re used to the device, so neither Petra nor I ever remembered to mention its existence to Adainette.”
Teagun dug his arm loose from the folds of the enveloping cloak he wore, and showed me a large watch strapped over the top of his shirtsleeve. At least, I took the article for a watch; I was only partly right, because it did much more than keep time. Included among its functions were wireless communications and a computer. He’d called the technology old. I’d have said cutting edge. I sighed. What next? Telepathy?
“So your mother was able to warn you to stay away?”
“Yes.” Beside me, Teagun stiffened, following the outlaw’s example by staring off through the binoculars toward the east. “The devices can be activated to pulse a code against the wearer’s skin,” he said absently. “Nothing is heard, seen, or shows up on the chrono screen. Dammit,” he swore suddenly. “This must
be what they’ve been waiting for!”
I flipped onto my belly again, following his gaze. “What?” I could see for myself. It wasn’t what, but who. Four bikes and one four-wheeler had pulled up in front of the hotel, one of the bikes carrying double. The group waiting at the front was carrying on like it was a joyful family reunion.
“Looks like it’s time you called for backup, Mr. Dill,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re going to need reinforcements. There must be someone you can contact; someone you can rely on.”
The sober look in his dark eyes faded under the white flash of his grin. “Oh, I have, Ms. Irons. I called you.”
“WHAT IN THE world were you thinking?” Dry, dusty soil puffed in clouds beneath my feet as I stomped angrily back toward Teagun’s camp. “I’m a gunsmith, for God’s sake, not a gunslinger. What do you expect me to do?”
I moved rapidly through the heat. Too rapidly, probably, for though only an hour past sunrise, the day was already beastly hot. Sweat dampened my hair. My face, exposed to the sun, felt burned and dry. My hands, also bare, were scorching redder by the minute. Skin cancer waiting to happen, I thought resentfully. I won’t get the chance to worry about the premature wrinkles. Melanoma would get me first.
Teagun’s long legs easily kept pace with mine. “Slow down, Ms. Irons,” he said. “You’re moving much too fast. This country will kill you if you don’t take care.”
“Great,” I retorted, feeling a little woozy. “What a deal! The country or the people? Do I get to choose?”
He either didn’t understand sarcasm or elected to ignore it. “Do as I tell you and you won’t need to choose. I’ll take care of you.”
Black dots danced before my eyes. Take care of me, would he? In my recollection he’d said he brought me here to help him! Anyway, I can’t say I liked the sound of that.
“Give me back my LS, and I’ll take care of myself,” I said. “You didn’t answer my question. What do you want from me? And why me?” If he said anything, I didn’t hear. Looking ahead, I saw the distinctive rock formation that marked Teagun’s encampment, but it was the funniest thing. It wavered in my vision like a monolithic hula dancer. My eyes ached. I staggered, feeling Teagun catch at my arm.
I plunged on, found the rock and clung there a second or two, before letting go and floundering across the campsite to the sleeping bag. Under the ledge, a little of the nighttime coolness remained. I collapsed onto the bed like a felled tree, let my head droop back and closed my eyes in gratitude for the shade.
“Drink this,” Teagun said a minute later. He shoved a tumbler, cool and wet into my hand. “You’re dehydrated.”
“What have you people done to the world?” I guzzled the water gratefully as he went over to his supplies and rummaged around in one of the chests. He returned carrying a tube of medicinal cream he said would cure the sunburn and proceeded to smear it on my face, taking special care around my eyes.
“You have things mixed up,” he said, his white-crowned head blotting out the light as he stroked cream into my skin. “Ask what your people did to the world. I’ve read the history. I know things used to be different, before the polar ice caps and the glaciers melted. With my own eyes I saw what it was like for you. Nothing has changed much in my lifetime. Not better, not worse.”
“Wait a minute! Polar ice caps?” I repeated, clutching at his arm to stop its motion. “In the Antarctic, you mean? And the glaciers? Are you serious? You mean⏤ They really did—really do—melt?”
The scientists had been warning us for years. I’d seen television coverage showing huge chunks crumpling from the great Alaskan glaciers and being dumped into the sea. Raising the sea level, so we’d been told. And yet now, even with Teagun’s confirmation, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that, with the turn of the next year’s cycle, the climate hadn’t righted itself.
“Yes, they’ve melted, “ he said, resuming the slow smoothing of sunburn cream along the curve of my neck. “Many of them. Not all. Not quite.”
There was a bad moment, a bad several moments, when I realized all the protests I could make about blame were of no use. The causes behind the worldwide changes he told me about, more than I wanted to know, had happened because of seeds sown in my time, and in the generations before me. Inevitable. The word stuck in my craw.
Teagun’s lack of rancor, I judged, came because he didn’t know any different. Personally, I felt a frothing anger and a nagging sense of responsibility.
I closed my eyes again. “You’re right,” I said. “Blame belongs to us, all of the generations leading to this time.”
Now that he had me nicely softened up and feeling guilty, he gave me the tube of cooling, miracle-working cream so I could do my own hands. With me thus distracted, he outlined his plan. To say I was thrilled is not quite the case.
“Are you afraid?” he asked, as though wondering how such a thing could be.
Finished with medicating my hands and feeling better physically, I sat up. “Of course I’m afraid,” I said indignantly. “What do you think I am, a moron? One minute you’re telling me these people are killers. The next minute you want me to walk right into the hotel and start hobnobbing with them like they’re my best buddies. Yes, I’m afraid.”
He shrugged. “Good. You’ll be more wary if you’re frightened. Your reactions will be faster, your senses more alert. Which could help save your life.”
“Well, thanks a lot for your concern.” I wasted my breath with the comment, for I could see he was impervious to mockery. I said, not hoping for much, “Let me go. Either you take me home or let me use the Weatherby and I’ll take myself.”
He cocked his head. “Can you? Work the power for yourself, I mean? Back in your shop, I saw how reluctant you were to touch the gun without those gloves. You were afraid. I don’t think you can.”
“Oh, yeah?” I made myself sound confident, a bald-faced lie if ever I’ve told one. “Hand it over, stand back, and watch.”
Telling Teagun I could get home was a major blunder I recognized almost as soon as I detected his expression. His concern regarding my health rapidly cooled.
“Thanks for the warning,” he said. “I’ll be sure to keep the Weatherby with me from now on.” He hesitated. “If something happens to me, use it with my blessing. Until then? Well, Ms. Irons, I brought you here for a purpose. Your cooperation will be to your advantage.”
My jaw clamped in anger. Pedantic, ruthless S.O.B. I’d as soon he’d said, “Screw you,” right out loud instead of saying these formal words that ultimately meant the same thing. Cooperation will be to your advantage indeed!
He meant to leave me no choice, to force my cooperation. And in giving me no choice to do otherwise, of course, his tactics won. I forced a smile at him that felt tight and false on my face. “Call me Boothenay, Teagun. Looks like we’re going to be partners from now on.”
A major problem in finding my own way home arose from a little technicality I didn’t see fit to mention to Teagun. None of my family knew where to find me. Very likely, no one had yet discovered I was gone! Time was measured differently when the power took over and claimed the use of my life, generally lasting longer inside of history than it did in real time. Sometimes quite a lot longer. I’d been here for several hours already. At home, had Teagun Dill not taken me, I might only be putting on my nightie.
Unless, horrifying thought, time went the other way when traveling into the future, and I had already been gone so long everyone had given up on me.
I’d always had someone waiting at home, a talisman, a beacon to help guide my way. Without the talisman? Without Dad, Scott, or now Caleb, to provide the beacon at the other end of my lifeline, I feared I might be lost. It’s always love that draws me home. Trouble is, if no one was aware of my need, they couldn’t be there to help.
But that still wasn’t the technicality I mentioned, or only the lead in to it. The real sticking point came when I finished the sentence that said, it’s always love that dra
ws me. To properly complete that line I must add, and a rivulet of blood that carries me. Well, whose blood would be required this time? I was afraid I knew the answer. It would be my own, as always, and I can’t say as I looked forward to the shedding.
I DREAMT OF CALEB, and in the dream he drew me slowly toward him, both of his hands on my upper arms. My eyes locked with his green, green gaze, raw anticipation shining out. We came closer and closer to each other and I wanted, more than anything, to simply walk into his soul.
Our bodies touched, came together along their whole lengths. His mouth lowered to mine, hot with a searing passion, yet softly, too, with love.
“Caleb,” I cried aloud, hearing my own voice though I slept on. I felt his breath, his hands on my body. Watched the heated smoldering of his eyes, tasted his lips, smelled his scent, a mixture of Caleb Deane and Aqua de Gio. I heard him say my name in his soft North Carolina accent. “Boothenay, sugar.”
“Caleb,” I cried again, and awoke with a sudden jerk, feeling both bereft and disoriented. I opened my eyes.
Teagun Dill loomed over me, back from wherever he’d been. It was getting dark outside. I saw purple and red streamers billowing across a sunset as bright as a child’s painting.
“Holy hell,” he said, looking pale under his dark skin. “Who was that?”
CHAPTER 5
There is nothing worse than waking abruptly to find a befuddled man trying to make sense of an impossible scene he’d walked in on by accident.
“Huh?” I said, less than intelligently. “What do you mean?”
“Who was that?” Teagun demanded, repeating himself. “Where’d he come from? Where has he gone? How did he disappear? “
Crossroad (The Gunsmith Book 3) Page 5