“I’ll be right back,” she said, patting his arm. Thankfully he relaxed his grip on her. “You just hold on.”
He lay back flat against the dirt, and when his hand relaxed, she saw what he held: a silver pocket watch.
She reached out for it and he flinched, clutching the watch to his chest with both hands, mumbling something. To Sally it sounded like: “Have to guard the anchor.” Though that didn’t make any sense. He held a watch, and there wasn’t a large body of water around for miles.
“Okay, okay,” she said, drawing her hand back. “Here.” She took off her apron and folded it into a makeshift pillow, tucking it under his head. “I’m going to get the wagon now.”
She felt awful, leaving him there in the dirt, but what else could she do? She ran back to the barn and hitched Maisy to the wagon as fast as she could, leading her back up the road.
When she returned, at first she was alarmed that he was unconscious. She gasped a sigh of relief as she held her ear to his lips and felt his ragged breath. She put her head against his bare chest and both heard and felt his heartbeat, still strong.
But now that he was out, getting him in the wagon would be nearly impossible. Sally was strong, but not strong enough to haul him up into the bed.
She knelt over him and took the watch from his hands. She turned it over, not seeing anything remarkable about it. The watch didn’t seem to work. Maybe it had some kind of sentimental value. Had he found it wandering around? She didn’t remember seeing him with a watch before. In any case, she put it in her shirt pocket, then stood up.
Guess I’m gonna have to make a travois, she thought. She’d never made one herself, but she’d seen them a few times.
Sally walked back up to the barn and found two long pieces of wood meant for fence posts. They’d do nicely. She went in the house and came out with an old, faded blue blanket she’d been meaning to get rid of. She grabbed a knife from the kitchen as well.
Once she had everything down by the wagon, she tore a strip from the blanket and used it to fasten the two pieces of wood together. Then she cut strips into the blanket along its edge and used those, still attached to the blanket, to fasten them to each piece of wood. The sun was rising, and she tried to work fast, but it still took her nearly an hour before she had what looked like one side of a tent hitched to the rear of the wagon.
It’s not pretty, but it’ll do, she thought. Then she got behind Logan, hooked her arms under his, and dragged him onto the makeshift stretcher. She secured him to the travois with more strips of blanket, then climbed into the wagon seat, already tired. She had to get him inside, though.
Considering she’d never made one before, the travois worked pretty well, well enough to allow her to pull Logan up to the front of her house. From there, she dragged him up the steps and inside, and that was slow going. By the time she hauled him up into her bed, she was exhausted.
But the weariness in her bones was offset by the joy in her heart. He’d come back. She liked to think it was mostly for her, but everything about his disappearance had been peculiar. Maybe it had happened the way the Sheriff said. Maybe he squeezed between the bars, naked as a jay, and gotten loose. Had he really been wandering outside of town for five days, though? All sorts of things about that didn’t make any sense.
She had a lot of questions to ask him when he woke, but the first order of business was to get him some water, clean him as best she could, and make sure he got plenty of rest.
Sally fetched a basin of clean water from the well and used a cloth to clean his face. She dipped the tip of the cloth in the water and dabbed his chapped lips, then tried to squeeze a little in his mouth. He was still out cold, so she didn’t want to choke him, but she hoped he’d wake soon so he could drink some water himself.
In the meantime, she cleaned the rest of his body, feeling a bit voyeuristic as she did. They had touched only a couple of times, and only briefly. Bathing him this way felt more intimate than any other contact they’d had. She wiped the reddish-brown dust from his chest and his arms, noting the same scars she had before, the long one running under his ribcage, almost as if someone had tried to gut him, and the round, puckered ones near his shoulder that looked like gunshot wounds.
She ran the wet cloth across the taut muscles of his arms, his chest, and his abdomen. Though he seemed delirious, she didn’t think he looked malnourished. His body looked as strong as ever.
As she moved down, she kept glancing at the patch of hair between his legs, and at…it. She debated whether or not to clean him there. What if he woke while she had him in her hands? The thought aroused her, and she quickly tried to push the idea away. Now wasn’t the time to be indulging in girlish fantasies.
In the end, she decided to give it a few quick wipes with the cloth while she watched his face closely for any signs of waking. She couldn’t help the little smile crossing her lips as she did, the quickening of her heartbeat in her chest at the forbidden touch.
Then she took a deep breath and cleaned his legs and washed his feet. When she was done, she covered him with a fresh blanket and pulled the chair a little closer to the bed to watch over him.
While she did, she took the watch out of her pocket and looked at it. Why was it so important to him? Maybe he had gone a little crazy wandering around in the wilderness. How had no one seen him?
She worried, but not too much, about someone riding up. But the Sheriff had seemed satisfied with the search. Worse yet would be if Sturgess’s men showed up. She had found the old hunting rifle and wasn’t afraid to use it. She figured they’d likely both die, but she was damned if she was letting anyone take him away from her again without a fight.
Sally sat there by the bed until the sun went down. Every so often, she put the wet cloth on his lips, squeezing it to let a few drops run down into his mouth. When the house got dark, she didn’t bother lighting candles. She let the moonlight through the window be their only light.
All the while, she watched him for signs of waking. Finally the exhaustion overtook her. She thought of crawling into the bed beside him, but as much as she wanted to, it still felt like taking advantage of the situation. But she couldn’t leave him alone, either. In the end, she settled for folding her arms on the bed beside him, and resting her head on his stomach. The gentle motion of his breathing put her at ease, like a buoy on soft waves.
Soon she was fast asleep.
The rooster crowed.
Sally’s eyelids fluttered open to the dim new light of the morning, and the first thing she saw was his face, his eyes open. Her own eyes snapped open, and she lifted her head up, suddenly wide awake.
He was smiling just a little, the disoriented haze no longer in his eyes. He’d been watching her sleep.
“You’re awake,” she said, instantly feeling silly for stating the obvious, though she wasn’t quite sure what else to say.
“Yeah,” he said. The way he was looking at her made her face flush. It was no longer the expression of a man who thought he recognized someone else. He knew exactly who she was, and his eyes were filled with adoration, the look of a man who thought he would never see someone he loved again.
She felt embarrassed by the raw longing in his eyes and began to turn her head. In response, he reached out, taking her cheeks in his hands and turning her eyes back to his.
“Logan, I—”
He pulled her toward him as he leaned forward, drawing her lips to his own. She opened her mouth to meet his, closing her eyes as she did.
For the first time, they kissed, the long, passionate kiss of lovers who had been apart for months or even years. His lips were still chapped, but she didn’t care. She tasted him, felt the strength of his hands holding her face, felt the roughness his stubble.
The kiss could have lasted five seconds or an hour. She didn’t rightly know, and couldn’t have cared either way. With their lips together, she was lost in him, and time and space no longer had any meaning.
He pulled back, sti
ll holding her face, and she let out a soft sigh, already missing the feeling of his lips, already wanting more. Instead, he put his forehead against hers.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he said.
“And I’ve been wanting you to,” she said.
He smiled, then lifted his head and looked around the room, seeming to realize where he was for the first time since he’d woken up.
“How did I get here?” he asked. He dropped his hands to his lap, and she instantly missed his touch.
“I found you outside,” she said. “You were walking down from the main road. What happened? How did you escape?”
His brow furrowed, as if trying to remember. He opened his mouth to say something, then noticed the watch in her hands.
“The watch,” he said. “The anchor. It made it through.”
“You said that yesterday when I found you,” she said. “About an anchor. What does that mean?”
“It means they can’t find me anymore,” he said. “They can’t pull me back.”
“What does that—”
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said. “But first, you need to find a safe place for that.” He nodded at the watch. “I mean a very safe place. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head.
“Do you have more clothes?” he asked. “And is there anything to eat? I’m starving.”
She was starving, too, but not for food. She didn’t know what she wanted more: him or his answers. But he’d been clear about his priorities. The watch was important to him, and she needed to find a safe place for it. There was a lockbox under some loose slats in the barn. She kept her mother’s brooch and a few important papers in it as well. She would put the watch away while he dressed, then fry him up a nice piece of steak.
Half an hour later, she put the plate down in front of him. He was dressed nearly as he had been the last time she’d seen him. The Sheriff had given her back the clothes they’d found in the cell.
He tore into the steak, cutting off a huge piece and stuffing it in his mouth.
She sat down across from him. “So?” she asked. “You said you would tell me everything.”
He swallowed and looked at her, his eyes all business. “I don’t expect you to believe me,” he said. “But the first thing you need to know is this: I’m from the future.”
10: Logan
He told her everything.
Despite his exhaustion, he sat at her table and talked through the meal. Then Sally made coffee, and together they sat and drank it as he talked. They drank the entire pot, and then she made another.
He told her he came from the year 2026. He’d already told her about Natalie, how he quit the military, how he’d gotten a job in construction and risen up through the ranks until he was managing entire projects.
She listened with rapt attention, eyes wide, never flagging. She didn’t interrupt him with questions, though he could tell she had an unending supply. The one thing he didn’t see in her eyes was doubt. He had been worried that she would think he was crazy, that she just shake her head and tell him to leave. And then where would he go?
But she didn’t tell him to leave. On the contrary, she took his hands as he talked, listening to every word without uttering a single one of her own. Until he got to the part where he started work on a new project.
“The new building was going to be called Sturgess Tower,” Logan said.
Her eyes grew even wider than before. “What?” she asked. “What did you say?”
He nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “His name was…is Harken Sturgess.”
“Is he…?” she slid her hands back to her lap, dumbfounded. “Does he have anything to do with—”
“They’re related all right,” he said. “If I had access to a computer the last time I went back, I could have verified it. But I didn’t need to. I could tell the instant I saw Camden. It’s the same bloodline. No doubt about it.”
“What’s a computer?” she asked. Now that the floodgates were open, she couldn’t seem to help herself.
“A machine that performs all sorts of useful tasks,” he said, smiling. “Including searching for information.”
She looked like she had more questions about computers, but she let it pass.
“Well that’s a hell of a coincidence,” she said, getting up to make another pot of coffee.
“I don’t think it is,” he said.
“You think God sent you here?” She said it without a hint of irony in her voice.
“I don’t know,” he said. “God. Fate. The universe. Something. I just don’t think this is happening by pure chance. I think I was sent here.”
“Based on what you’ve told me, I tend to agree.”
“There’s more, though, Sally,” he said. “A lot more.”
She poured them each another steaming cup as he talked, telling her more details about how Sturgess, his Sturgess, bought off city inspectors, making the construction of the new building a hazard for the crew, even before it was completed.
He told her again how Sturgess fired him without any kind of severance or benefits, and how he found out that Natalie was deathly ill. He told her about how he planned and executed the robbery of Sturgess’s home, and how it had been a success. And also about how it had been too late.
He fought back tears, clearing his throat.
“I told you I gave the money and the diamonds back, and they sent me to prison,” he said, gaining control of his emotions. “But I lied about getting out.”
He told her about The Icebox, about Kazu and Doctor Sam Tidwell, and how once he’d been strapped to the chair, Harken Sturgess had appeared.
“Oh dear God,” Sally said.
“I somehow knew he was always there, all the while I was in prison,” Logan said. “I could almost feel him. And then, there he was.”
He told her how they made him swallow the pill, and how they’d sent him back to her. He told her about the anchor, the watch, and how they’d pulled him back.
She looked horrified when he described how he had convinced the scientist to help him and how the last thing he had seen was Sam’s death at the hand of Harken Sturgess.
“But now you’re here,” she said. “And they can never bring you back?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But at some point, I have to go back.”
“What?” she said. “No. Why would you do that?” She got up and went around the table, kneeling in front of him, putting her hands on his leg. “You came back. We can be together. Let’s leave this place, right now, and never come back.”
He dropped his head, running a finger along the side of her jaw. “Nothing would make me happier,” he said. “But I can’t do that. I made a promise to that man and to his daughter. In all likelihood, they killed her. I can’t live with that on my conscience.”
Sally rested her head on his leg. It felt good. If there had been any doubt before, now it was all gone. He loved her. But he couldn’t run away with her. He had a job to do.
“I understand,” she said. “You have to kill him, the Sturgess here.”
“That’s right,” he said, a little surprised that she had pieced it together on her own.
She got up and sat back down in the chair. “But why would you have to go back? How would you even do that?”
“As for the why, I need to make sure I made things right,” Logan said. “As for the how, I have an idea. I’m not sure it’s going to work, but I have to try. You put the watch in a safe place?”
She nodded.
“Good. The watch is the key. But that’s for later, much later. Right now we need to figure out how we’re going to kill Sturgess.”
Sally stood up, a look on her face that he hadn’t seen before, one he couldn’t read. She looked strong. She looked determined. But there was something else there.
He had talked most of the way through the night, and before long the rooster might begin to crow. But for no
w it was still dark outside. The candle on the table had burned low, the warm yellow light lighting her from underneath.
Sally grabbed the bottom of her blouse with both hands and pulled it up and over her head, shaking her hair loose and tossing her top on the floor. She stood there, naked from the waist up, the light casting shadows under her breasts, bathing her flesh in deep orange and yellow.
“I’m going to help you kill Sturgess,” she said, her voice low. “But the planning can wait just a little while longer, don’t you think?”
Sally stepped forward, lifting her skirt as she did, so that she straddled his lap. Her breasts bobbed in front of his face. He looked up at her between them and she smiled wickedly.
“I reckon you’re right,” he said, running his hands under her skirt, up her thighs. He felt her shiver beneath his touch, and he was already stiff against his jeans.
He leaned in to kiss her right nipple, touching his tongue to the tip as his lips formed an O around it. Her nipple hardened under his tongue, and she let out a low sigh.
He slid his hands further up her thighs and was a little surprised, but delighted, to feel that she wore no undergarments. He moved his hands to her buttocks, soft to the touch, but still somehow firm.
She raked all her fingers through his hair, pulling his face in harder against her chest. He sucked at her taut nipple, tasting the saltiness of her. She grabbed the hair at the back of his head and shifted his face to her other nipple, which he licked greedily while he massaged her bare skin beneath the skirt.
This was finally happening, he thought. At first she had reminded him of Natalie, but he realized that comparison was flawed. Sally was different in so many ways. Natalie hadn’t been weak, but she hadn’t been this strong, either. Sally had a fierceness in her, a steeliness that defined her as her own woman. She was brazen, beautiful, but still vulnerable in her own way. And just then he wanted her more than anything in the world.
She leaned in, putting her lips against his ear. “Take me,” she whispered.
The Time-Traveling Outlaw Page 8