by Bess McBride
“Sunrise Inn. Dot speaking.”
“Hi, Dot. This is Hilly Creighton. I just checked in?”
“Yes, Miss Creighton, how can I help you?”
“Well, I was wondering. You probably noticed the state of my clothing. It was pretty dusty. I really don’t want to put it back on. I was wondering if you could recommend a store that could deliver some clothing to me pretty quickly?” She really didn’t want to sit around in a wet towel all day.
“In Tombstone?” Hilly could almost see Dot shake her head. “I don’t think so. Why don’t you use the washer and dryer here right next door to the office?”
“Oh, you have a washer and dryer?” Hilly gave it a moment’s thought. “Well, the thing is...I’m just wearing a towel, so I don’t know how I’d manage to get down there without being seen.”
Hilly heard a patient sigh.
“I’ll pick up your clothes and throw them in the washer and dryer for you, Miss Creighton. I can see you’ve had a tough time of it. Did you call the police yet?”
“I’m just about to,” Hilly said. “I wouldn’t want to impose, Dot, but I would be so grateful if you could toss my stuff in the washer for me. I’d be willing to pay extra, of course.”
“No charge, Miss Creighton. It’s quiet here today. I’ll be over in a minute.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Hilly said. She hung up and waited for Dot to come over before calling her brother. Dot came by within five minutes and promised to have the clothing back in about an hour. Hilly considered herself lucky that she didn’t have to hand off skirts, petticoats, drawers and a corset. All she’d been wearing was her bra and panties, ankle socks, the thick canvas trousers and a loose plaid shirt.
She sat down on the edge of the bed again to call her brother. Clint’s pail caught her attention, and she picked it up and studied it, thinking she would have to wipe it down if she was going to keep it. She pulled at the hinge, but it stuck at first, and she had to exert pressure to force it open. The lid opened with a rusty creak, and Hilly peered inside, hoping she wasn’t about to find the petrified remains of a sandwich.
The only thing inside the pail was a folded piece of paper—aged and yellowed. Hilly’s heart pounded as she reached for it with a shaky hand. She recognized it as coming from the journal Clint had bought her—the one she had been writing on the day she disappeared.
The paper was dry and brittle, the creases lined with dirt. She opened it carefully. The ink was faded, and she took it over to the window to read.
Dear Hilly,
I promised you that if we became separated in time, I would leave you a note. I’m keeping my promise. If anyone finds this note, I know it will be you. I’m leaving the lunch pail here for you because I know you will look for me.
I miss you. I miss you so much I can hardly breathe sometimes. I love you, Hilly. I’m never going to love anyone as much as I love you. Never.
When you disappeared, I tried to get to you. I waited and waited to hear your voice calling out to me as you did the first time. But I couldn’t hear you. I couldn’t hear anything but the wind and the coyote. I wondered if the howling was you. Maybe it was me calling and calling for you. Grown men can’t cry, honey. Maybe the coyote was crying for me.
You’ve been gone for six months now. After you left—when I could finally hold my head up again—I returned to working the mine while I waited for you to come back to me, waited to hear your voice. I lied to you again even though I promised I wouldn’t. Grown men do cry. But in between the tears, I hacked away at this place.
Lucky me, I found the silver vein, the mother lode. So now I’m rich, but I don’t have you. If I could go back in time—a strange expression because I would rather go forward to be with you—I would have stopped worrying so much about making a living and spent all my time with you. Now, I have a living, but the person I wanted to share it with is gone.
I hope you made it back safe and sound, Hilly. I really hope you did. I know you did. And I know you will come looking for me. I’m always here. Even though the mine has played out, I still come here every day to listen for your voice.
You said once that our meeting was no accident. I don’t think it was either. Something about this cave brought me to you. I wish I could have stayed with you. I wish you could have stayed with me. What I really wish is that we had never come back to the cave at all, because you would still be with me.
And yet here I am—back at the cave. Writing on your paper, hoping to hear your voice.
I love you, Hilly Creighton. Don’t you ever forget that. If I don’t see you again in this life, then I know I will see you in the next. We were meant to be together.
Clint
Chapter Seventeen
Clint folded the note and stuck it inside the lunch pail. He rubbed his eyes to rid them of moisture and leaned back against the cave wall. The last few months had been a flurry of activity, but the mine was now quiet. The silver had been mined out, and he had all the money he would ever need or want. He didn’t want or need any of it now that Hilly was gone, but he wasn’t about to give it away either. And he wasn’t giving up his claim to the mine. This is where Hilly could come back to if she could.
Over the past six months, he’d very nearly given up hope of ever seeing Hilly again, but there was always just that little spark of hope that told him miracles really do happen. One happened the day Hilly had first called out to him, though he hadn’t realized it at the time. It could happen again.
If he could have understood how the time travel worked, he would have gone to Hilly as fast as he could. But he didn’t understand it, and there was nothing he could do but wait and hope.
He’d had to sidestep quite a few questions from Nan, telling her that Hilly had decided to return to the East. Marie hadn’t believed him and had been on the point of turning him in to the sheriff, Virgil Earp, for murdering Hilly. He’d had to tell her the truth about the time travel. She had called him crazy at first, but on reflecting had realized that Hilly’s strange use of English and mannerisms could have been from another time. She had commiserated with him, urged him to drown his sorrows at the saloon, but Clint had refused. In the months since Hilly had been gone, he’d wasted no spare time anywhere but at the mine—just in case.
“Well, darling, I’m writing you a note like I promised,” Clint said to the dimness of the cave. “I hope you get it. If you wake up in the cave, I’m sure you’ll see the pail. I could have written more, but my handwriting was getting kind of sloppy and I’m pretty sure I dropped a tear on the paper.” Clint chuckled hoarsely. He looked up at the cave entrance to see a clear blue sky overhead.
He almost thought he could see Hilly peering down at him, calling his name, calling out “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
He tilted his head and listened intently. A breeze had sprung up since he’d been in the cave. He could hear the whistling through the entrance.
“Hilly?” he called out, as he had done a thousand times before. “Hilly? Are you there?”
“Clint?” he thought he heard her voice, but it could have been the wind.
His heart pounded against his chest as he rose to his feet. He stepped onto the ladder, calling her name as he climbed up.
“Hilly? Hilly? Are you there?”
The wind whistled in the cave.
“Clint.” A sigh seemed to echo inside the shaft. It could have been the wind.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” A whisper.
“Hilly?”
Clint neared the top of the ladder, his hands shaking. Was it really Hilly’s voice? It sounded just like it had the first time he’d heard it. In his excitement, he missed a rung and his foot slipped. He lost his grip and fell backward into the cave.
****
Clint opened his eyes. His head pounded where he must have hit it. He lay flat on his back on the cave floor. The sky above was still blue, so he could not have been unconscious for long. He pushed himself to a standin
g position, noting a few aches from the fall.
The wind continued to blow across the cave entrance, but he couldn’t hear Hilly’s voice anymore. It had probably been his imagination anyway. Wishing and wanting so hard, he was hearing things.
He searched the cave floor for the lunch pail but couldn’t see it. He found his hat and stuffed it on his head, but where had the pail got off to? It didn’t just walk away. How long had he been out anyway? He doubted he’d accidentally knocked it into the tunnel, but he checked just in case. Nothing.
Frowning with growing frustration, he scanned the cave floor again. If someone had climbed down into the cave, why would they have taken a lousy lunch pail and left him out cold? He ran a hand along his hip. They hadn’t taken his gun or his holster either, and those were worth something. Didn’t make sense at all!
He climbed the ladder, taking it slow this time. There was no sense in throwing himself around the cave. He was more likely to kill himself than travel through time.
He reached the top of the cave entrance and heaved himself over the edge. A smarter fellow would have fortified the entrance to make it more stable, but the rim of the cave hadn’t given way again, and he stopped worrying about it, intent on hauling out as much silver as he could in a short amount of time.
Clint stood and stretched, trying to work the aching creaks out of his back from the fall. A glint of something nearby caught his eye, and he turned to locate the source. A flash of metal under the sun. A small silver car was pulled off the road—the paved highway—in the same spot where Hilly had once left her car. His heart began to race. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Hilly!” Clint shouted. He cupped his hands and roared for all he was worth. “Hilly!”
“Clint!”
He heard a shriek from behind him to the right, somewhere around the side of the hill. He turned and started to run, shouting out her name.
“Hilly!!”
“Clint! Clint!”
It was Hilly’s voice, not a whisper on the wind, but a real shrieking Hilly.
“I’m here! I’m here!” he shouted. He stopped abruptly when Hilly rounded the hill and came into view. If he died tomorrow, the sight of her running toward him with her red hair flying in the wind was the one memory he wanted to take with him.
He opened his arms wide, and Hilly ran into his embrace. She clung to him, choking the air from his lungs as she squeezed. Clint hugged her fiercely, unwilling to release her even to kiss her lips. He buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair.
“I heard your voice, I finally heard your voice,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’ve been trying to get back to you ever since you left.”
Warmth spread down the front of his shirt as Hilly’s tears flowed.
“I’ve been calling and calling for you. I never gave up trying. I was never going to.” Hilly sobbed into his neck, and he barely understood her words.
Clint did what he could only dream about for the past six months. He lowered his head to kiss Hilly’s lips—sweet tasting, salty from tears and warm from the desert sun.
He lifted his head and cupped her face with one hand while keeping her close with the other. He studied her face hungrily. She looked well, unchanged, beautiful.
“I have missed you so much. I thought I would never see you again.”
Hilly looked up at him, her nose red, her eyes misty with tears, her mouth trembling.
“I never gave up hope of finding you, but I was coming close. I kept calling and calling you. Every day.”
“You’ve been here every day for the last six months, Hilly? Oh, my love!” Clint muttered as he kissed her again. When he released her, she spoke again.
“Well, I was terrified I would call for you and then go away like I did last time, leaving you wandering around aimlessly.” A small smile played on her lips, and her eyes crinkled.
“I would pick up a telephone and call you this time,” Clint chuckled. He pulled her over to one of the rocks from the old campsite, surprisingly still there, and he lowered her to sit. He sat down next to her, and she clutched his hand and pressed against him.
“Tell me everything. What happened when you returned?” Clint asked.
“Well, if we can skip the part where I was devastated to find myself separated from you, I was picked up on the road by an old guy who must have replaced you in the gunfight show. He was the one who told me you’d struck it rich with the mine. You did find the silver by now, didn’t you?”
Clint nodded. “I did, and the money has been secured in a trust. I had to hire an accountant to take care of all that. I hoped that if I came forward in time, the money would still there. What else happened when you got back? I see you have another car. You were very unhappy to lose the first one.” He grinned.
“Another rental. As I knew he would, when I disappeared, my brother called the police, and they had been looking for me. I made up some lame story about falling into a cave,” Hilly smiled, “and losing my memory, to explain my absence. The police went for it, but Rob didn’t. I had to tell him everything. I’m not sure he believes me, but what else can he do?”
“I found myself in the same position with Marie. She didn’t believe that you’d gone back East and thought I had murdered you, so I had to tell her the truth. How long had you been gone?”
“Almost a month. I was gone for the same amount of time in both centuries, just like you. I can’t imagine Marie’s reaction. You didn’t have to tell Nan, did you?”
He shook his head. “No, she believed that you had returned East. I had told her I was going to join you as soon as the mine paid out.”
“And here you are! You did join me!” Hilly exclaimed. She reached up to kiss him.
“But what have you been doing here in Tombstone? You didn’t return home?”
Hilly shook her head. “Not a chance. I wasn’t leaving. I found a small place nearby, a manufactured home on some land, and I stayed here. I can write anywhere.”
“You mean one of those metal mobile homes?”
“Something like that, a little bit bigger.”
Clint wrapped his arm around her and pulled her as close as possible.
“I bought fifty acres down the road and deeded that to a trust,” he said. “Hopefully, it’s still in my name, and we can build a house on it. It’s beautiful land with a view of the valley between the Dragoon Mountains and the Huachuca Mountains. There are some hills on the land and some caves.”
“Caves!” Hilly said. “I always wanted to take up caving!” She leaned into him, and he relished the warm feeling of her body next to his. She stiffened suddenly and turned to stare at him.
“Wait! You bought land? Does this mean you’re staying here? Don’t you want to try to get back? I’ll go with you, you know I will!”
“Oh, no you don’t, my dear! Not only will I never chance traveling in time with you again, I will never enter that cave again—or any cave, for that matter. And I won’t chance your health again either. You almost died of dysentery. You are better off here. So am I.”
“But I missed the whole shootout at the O.K. Corral,” Hilly said in a mournful note. Her shining eyes gave lie to her words. “You didn’t tell me that was the day of the shootout. I could have seen it with my own eyes.”
“It happened, just as the books said it did. No one knows what started the actual gunfight or who said what. And no one knows who was right and who was wrong. You didn’t miss a thing.”
“I missed you,” Hilly sighed. “I missed you.”
Epilogue
Hilly perched her six-month-old daughter, Marie, on her hip as she opened the screen door and stepped out onto the porch.
“So, she’s awake?” Clint asked.
“She is,” Hilly said. She handed the baby to Clint who sat in one of the white rocking chairs watching the sunset over the valley, and she took the chair next to him. He had poured them some lemonade. The weather was unseasonably cool for July, and the late afternoon temperature com
fortable.
The Dragoon Mountains dazzled in the western sun, golden rock formations that captured the imagination. Hilly rocked in her chair and stared at the mountains as Clint bounced the baby on his knee.
“Do you ever wonder about what happened to everyone? Marie and Katherine, Nan and John, even the Apache family?”
“Yes, I do,” Clint said. “In fact, I have been meaning to tell you that I found a reference to Marie in the library at the college. I got tired of dry books on mine surveying and ventilating, and decided to do a little searching. Marie moved on to San Francisco after Tombstone’s heyday, and she bought a hotel. Seems it was a proper hotel too. No saloon, no other goin’s on.”
Hilly looked at him. “Really?” She smiled. “That’s good to know. I hope she lived a long life.” When it looked as if Clint would say something, she held up a hand. “No, I don’t want to know. I know she lived a good long life.”
“All I was going to say was that she married.”
“Awww,” Hilly said. “She deserved it. I’m so happy for her.”
“I imagine the Apache family ended up in Oklahoma or New Mexico on the reservations there. Either way, their future was dismal.”
“So sad,” Hilly murmured.
“I couldn’t find out anything about John and Nan other than that they owned the mercantile. I’m still struggling with the computer. I’ve got way too many fingers for that small keyboard thing. I don’t know how you do it.”
Hilly chuckled. He’d come a long way since he decided to stay in the twenty-first century. Getting him a birth certificate and identification had been a bit tricky, but the right amount of money bought anything. The process had felt underhanded and criminal, but what else could they do? Now, he was enrolled in an undergraduate program in mining engineering, which he could probably have taught. Clint hadn’t needed the money, but he enjoyed the education.
