Journey to Yesterday (26 page)

The sun was setting in a riotous blaze of crimson and pink
when they reached Aurora. Shaye felt a growing sense of urgency as they
threaded their way through the noisy crowd on Main Street, dodging wagons and
carts and hundreds of people who were all in an itching hurry.

Hoffman pulled up in front of the nearest hotel. Shaye
stared at the building. She was weary right down to the bone yet certain she
would never sleep a wink.

She slid gratefully out of the saddle to stand on legs that
felt like overcooked spaghetti.

Hoffman reached down and took the reins from her hand. “Why
don’t you go get a room? I’ll look after the horses.”

“Thanks.” She lifted her backpack off the saddlehorn.

With a nod, Hoffman rode on down the street toward the
livery barn.

With a sigh, she stepped onto the boardwalk. She brushed off
her skirts, ran a hand through her hair, then opened the ornate front door and
entered the hotel. Crossing the carpeted lobby, she approached the front desk.

A short man with a balding pate and a handlebar mustache
greeted her with a smile and a friendly, “Hello, can I help you?”

“I’d like two rooms,” she replied. “And a bath.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’ll be five dollars. In advance.”

Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she pulled a
handful of crumpled greenbacks from her skirt pocket and placed five of them on
the countertop. Slipping the rest back into her pocket, she signed the register
for herself and Hoffman, picked up one of the keys.

Room 122 was small and square, with whitewashed walls,
gingham curtains, a single ladder-back chair, and a brass bed topped by a
wedding ring quilt. She dropped her pack on the floor, took off her shoes, then
fell back on the bed, legs hanging over the edge of the mattress, arms
stretched out at her sides, and immediately fell asleep.

She woke with a start, not knowing what had awakened her.
Sitting up, she glanced around the darkened room, her heart pounding wildly.
And then she heard it again. Alejandro’s voice, whispering her name.

“Rio?” She glanced around the room. “Rio?”

“Shaye.”

His voice again, filled with a yearning that reached into
her very soul.

“I’m coming!” Rising, she hurried toward the door, stumbling
in her haste.

A single lamp lit the hallway. Hoffman had the room across
from hers. She knocked on the door and when there was no answer, she knocked
again, harder.

A moment later the door swung open to reveal Jim Hoffman,
clad in a pair of faded red longjohns. Seeing her standing there chased the
sleepy look from his face.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“We have to leave.”

“Now?” He blinked owlishly. “Hell, girl, it’s not even
daylight yet.”

“We have to go. Get dressed. Hurry!”

He frowned at her. “What’s wrong? The hotel on fire?”

“Please, just get dressed. We have to go. Right now.”

“All right, all right.” He scratched his jaw and then his
chest. “Give me ten minutes.”

“Make it five,” she said, and hurrying back to her own room,
she splashed some water on her face, put on her shoes, grabbed her backpack.

When she stepped into the hallway again, Hoffman was waiting
for her. “Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on?” He shoved his
shirttail into his pants.

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it. You wouldn’t believe me
anyway. All I know is we have to get to Bodie right away.”

He looked at her as if he thought she’d lost her mind, and
maybe she had, but he didn’t argue.

Ten minutes later, they were riding out of town.

* * * * *

Alejandro took a deep breath as a clock chimed the
half-hour. It was nine-thirty. He hadn’t slept the night before; had done
nothing but pace the floor, or stare out into the darkness. How quickly the
last hours of his life had gone by! He had few regrets. He had lived his life
as he pleased, and if it had been less than perfect, he had no one to blame but
himself. He had ridden some lonely trails, seen some beautiful country, always
found work when he needed it, always had money in his pockets. But it was Shaye
who had made the deepest impression in his life. Shaye, with her beautiful
deep-green eyes and earth-brown hair. Shaye, with her sweet spirit. She had
shown him that there was more to life than whiskey and cards. She had shown him
what love was, made him realize that, until he met her, he hadn’t really been
living at all.

“Shaye.” He whispered her name, hugging it close,
remembering how easily she had fit into his life, how quickly she had become
important to him. He wished he could have held her one last time, told her how
much he loved her. His biggest regret was that they had had such a short time
together. Did she know how much he loved her?

He closed his eyes, his mind conjuring her image. She was
all woman, from the top of her head to the tips of her funny shoes. Would she
go back to her own time when he was dead? He wished he had asked her more about
the future. He was intrigued by the things she had told him about; vehicles
that moved without horses and, even more astonishing, vehicles that flew
through the air. Pictures that moved and talked. Indoor privies. Hot and cold
running water. Machines that washed and dried clothes.

But Shaye was the most amazing thing of all. It wasn’t only
iron bars that kept them apart, he mused, it was a hundred and twenty years.

Damn. He couldn’t believe she had been sent to him, only to
have it end like this.

The sound of Conner’s footsteps proved how wrong he was. The
sheriff regarded him a moment. “Do you want to see a priest?”

“No.”

“Cigarette?”

“No.”

“All right then, let’s go. The hangman’s waiting.”

* * * * *

“Empty? What do you mean, empty?” Shaye grabbed Hoffman’s
arm. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

Shaye stared at Hoffman. Was she too late? Where could he
be? He wasn’t dead, couldn’t be dead. She would know it, feel it, if he was.

On the edge of panic, she stepped out of her hiding place.
He was here, somewhere, and she would find him. She frowned as she watched a
bunch of men hurrying down the street, felt her heart drop when she overheard a
man telling his friend that if they didn’t hurry, they would miss the hanging.

With a cry of despair, Shaye followed them. Turning a
corner, she came to an abrupt halt. The top of the gallows rose above the
hundreds of men crowded around it. She pushed and shoved her way through the
throng, hardly daring to breathe. And then she saw him, standing on the
platform, his arms tied behind his back, his expression blank as he stared into
the distance. The sheriff stood on one side of him, the hangman waited on the
other.

Frozen by the horror of the moment, she watched the hangman
drop the noose over Alejandro’s head, saw him arrange the knot behind his ear,
take up the slack in the noose.

She had to do something, but what? Tears welled in her eyes,
blurring her vision. Her heart pounded frantically. It couldn’t end like his.
It couldn’t! She glanced at the people around her. It didn’t make sense. Why
had she been sent here, if not to save him?

She looked up at the platform again felt her heart skip a
beat when she met his gaze. He shook his head, and she knew he didn’t want her
to be there, didn’t want her to watch him die, but she couldn’t leave, not when
she would never see him again.

“I love you.” She mouthed the words, hoping he could read
her lips, hoping he knew the feelings of her heart and soul.

He smiled faintly, his eyes dark, smoldering, filled with a
thousand things unsaid between them. And then he mouthed the words she had
waited so long to hear.

“I love you.”

She filled her eyes with the look of him, imprinting his
image in her mind as he stood there, tall and straight, with the early morning
sun casting gold highlights in his black hair. He must have been terrified, she
thought, yet he looked calm, at peace.

The courthouse clock chimed the hour. It was time.

A man standing next to her shouted, “Get on with it, Conner,
some of us have got work to do!”

Shaye turned to look at him and found herself staring into
Dade McCrory’s cold blue eyes. “You!” she hissed. “It should be you up there.”

“Me? What the hell for? I didn’t kill her.”

Shaye stared at McCrory. He was telling the truth. She knew
it. But if not McCrory, and not Alejandro… “Then who did it?” she murmured.

“She killed herself.”

Shaye’s eyes widened. She had suspected Daisy committed
suicide, but there had been no proof, no note. “How do you know?”

Dade pulled a crumbled piece of paper from his pants pocket.
“She left a note.”

She looked up at the platform again, hope rising within her.
If Daisy left a note, they would have to free Alejandro. “You lied!” she
exclaimed.

McCrory laughed coldly, bitterly.

“If you’ve got any last words,” Conner said, “now’s the time
to say ‘em.”

Alejandro shook his head, his dark eyes fixed on Shaye’s
face. “Just get on with it.”

The sheriff took a step backward, one hand resting on the
butt of his gun, as the hangman slipped a hood over Alejandro’s head.

“Wait!” Shaye screamed the word, but no one paid her any
attention. She was Alejandro’s woman, after all.

The hangman reached for the wooden lever that would spring
the trap door and put an end to a man’s life.

“No! Wait! He didn’t do it! I can prove it!” She grabbed the
note from McCrory’s hand and raced toward the platform, but it was already too
late.

As if in slow motion, she saw the hangman’s hand reach for
the lever. She screamed as the trap door beneath Alejandro’s feet fell away.
There was a collective gasp from the crowd as his body plunged through the
opening.

“No, no.” Her hand fisted around the note. Too late, too
late.

It should have been over, but it wasn’t. He was still alive,
his legs twitching convulsively as the rope tightened around his neck.

A hush fell over the crowd as they watched the life being
slowly strangled from his body.

“No. No. No!” Hardly aware of what she was doing, Shaye ran
toward him, the note falling from her hand as she wrapped her arms around
Alejandro’s legs. Lifted upward to ease the awful tension on the rope. He was
heavy, so heavy.

Why didn’t someone help her? She couldn’t support him much
longer. The world began to spin out of focus, the faces of the crowd blurring,
fading. She staggered beneath his weight, tears of frustration running down her
cheeks. Why didn’t someone help her?

Bright lights exploded behind her eyes and she felt herself
spinning down, down, into a deep black void.

Feeling as though she were waking from a long sleep, Shaye
opened her eyes. The sun was high in the sky. And it was quiet, so quiet. A
glance to the left showed the Methodist Church. Had it all been a dream then,
she wondered. But it had all seemed so real, the people, the town. Alejandro…

She closed her eyes, and his image sprang to mind: Alejandro
striding toward her in the saloon, smiling at her across the table, teaching
her to play poker, dancing with her on the Fourth of July, making love to her,
swinging from the gallows.

Choking back a sob, she opened her eyes, banishing the last
gruesome image.

She looked away from the church that proved beyond a shadow
of a doubt that she was back in the present, and saw Alejandro lying on the
ground a short distance away, the ugly black hood still in place, his hands
tied behind his back, and she knew it had been all too real. She didn’t stop to
wonder what he was doing in her time, or how he had gotten there.

Scrambling to her hands and knees, she ripped the hood away,
then placed her hand over his chest, reassured by the steady beat of his heart.
He was here, alive, in the flesh. She fumbled with the rope binding his wrists
and tossed it aside, then sank back on her heels, weak with relief. The how and
the why of it didn’t matter, she thought. He was here.

She wondered what day it was, and how long she had been in
the past, and knew, if it weren’t for Alejandro lying there beside her, she
would have been certain she dreamed the whole thing.

She thought briefly of Clark McDonald, wondered what he
would say, what he would think, if she and Alejandro were to walk into the
museum. Perhaps she would write him later. Of all the people she knew, he was
the only one who was likely to believe what had happened. It would make a great
story, but of course, it was one she could never write, except as fiction. Who
would believe it? She could hardly believe it herself.

She glanced past Alejandro, surprised to see her backpack
and overnight bag, both of which had been left in the past, sitting a few feet
away. How had they gotten there?

He groaned softly, then jackknifed into a sitting position,
his hand going to his throat. “What happened?” he asked, his voice low and
raspy.

“I’m not sure, but somehow, we seem to have been zapped back
to my time.”

“Your time?” Alejandro’s gaze rested on Shaye’s face for a
moment, and then he glanced around, taking in his surroundings. Across the way
stood the Bodie Chop Shop. It had been a new building when last he saw it. Now,
the paint was gone, the roof was sagging, there were boards nailed across the
windows.

He stood up, his hand absently massaging his throat, then,
leaning down, he took Shaye’s hands and pulled her to her feet. Feeling a
little dazed, he began to walk down Green Street, past the morgue and the Boone
Store, past the Swazey Hotel, past the schoolhouse. So many buildings were
missing, he mused, with nothing left to show where most of them had stood. He
recalled Shaye telling him that fires had decimated much of the town.

It took some getting used to, this idea of being in the future.
He supposed it wasn’t any more impossible for him to be in Shaye’s time than it
had been for her to be in his, but, damn… He shook his head. It was downright
disconcerting to see the town the way it was now, to realize that the life he
had known no longer existed, that everyone he had ever known was dead. Lottie,
Sophie, Philo Richardson, Rojas, the men he had played cards with, Addy Mae and
Lily, the doves at the Queen, all gone. Dead and gone.

It was quiet, he thought, so quiet without the ever-present
thumping of the stamp mill, without the boisterous shouts of the teamsters, the
rumble of heavy-laden wagons and carts, the rowdy banter of the miners as they
swarmed over the hills. The stillness was oppressive. Nothing stirred save a
faint warm breeze. The town looked old, he thought, old and tired, as if a good
strong wind could blow it all down.

“Are you all right?”

He turned to see that Shaye had followed him down the
street. She was his reality now. Standing on the gallows, with a rope around
his neck and his future measured in heartbeats, he had realized that he loved
her but been too damn stupid to realize it until it was too late. It had been
his last thought when the hangman dropped the noose over his head, his last
thought as the trap was sprung. Why had he waited so long to admit it? Why
hadn’t he told her sooner?

“Shaye.” He drew her into his arms.

She looked up at him, her heart shining in her eyes.

“I love you, darlin’.”

“And I love you,” she replied tremulously. “More than
anything in this world or any other.”

And perhaps that was the magic that had brought him here, he
thought, the magic of their love, a love that was strong enough to defy death,
strong enough to bring him across time and space to the only woman he had ever
loved. Would ever love.

Her smile faded. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

“I know.” He gazed down at her, needing her in a way he
couldn’t quite explain.

“I want to make love to you here, one more time.” Everything
and everyone else he had known was gone, but Shaye remained, a link between his
past and his future.

“I wish we could.” She glanced around. The town seemed
deserted but, even so, there was no place where they could be alone.

The words were barely out of her mouth before Alejandro
swung her into his arms, striding purposefully toward one of the houses that
was located up a side street well away from all the others. The doors were
locked, but that slow him down. Going around to the back of the house, he broke
a window and they went inside. The interior was dark and quiet. There was a
mattress on the floor in the bedroom. Alejandro spread an old quilt over the
mattress, then took Shaye in his arms again, the need between them humming like
a live wire.

He kissed her gently, softly, tenderly, his hands moving
ever so slowly, ever so lightly, up and down her back before he pulled her up
close against him, letting her feel his desire. He deepened the kiss, and she
opened for him like a flower reaching for the sun, felt his heat flow into her
and through her. His desire fueled her own, and she clung to him, everything
else forgotten, but the wonder of his kiss, the magic of his hands moving over
her body. She didn’t remember undressing him, or being undressed, but somehow
they were lying on the quilt, arms and legs entwined, moving toward that moment
when two became one. His skin was fever hot beneath her fingertips.

He rose over her, his long black hair brushing against her
breasts, his dark eyes blazing with a need she knew was reflected in her own.

“Now,” she whispered urgently. “Now, now, now!”

She closed her eyes, a wordless cry of pleasure on her lips
as his body merged with hers, filling her with delicious heat, completing her.
She grabbed the moment, that one moment when there was no telling where she
ended and he began, that one moment when two hearts beat to the same wild
pulsing rhythm.

She heard his voice whisper that he loved her and knew, in
that single perfect moment in time, that the love they shared had forever
bridged the gap between her world and his.

It was near dark when they left the house. Alejandro glanced
from side to side as they made their way back down Green Street. It seemed
impossible, yet here he was, in the twenty-first century, walking through what
was now a ghost town, he mused with a wry grin. And soon even the ghost would
be gone.

He paused when they reached the Methodist church, which
hadn’t been built during his lifetime. His old lifetime.

When they reached the top of the hill, he glanced over his
shoulder one last time, bidding a last goodbye to everything he had ever known.

And then he swung Shaye into his arms and twirled her around
and around, eager to begin their new life together, to see for himself all the
wonders she had told him about, knowing in his heart and soul that nothing the
future held could be more wonderful than the woman in his arms.