by Amii Lorin
Well, that certainly clears that up, Laura thought, shaking her head and beginning to feel a definite empathy for Alice, who had also stumbled into a hole in the ground. The difference was, Jake Wilder was no engaging, fuzzy white rabbit.
The bread was gone. Laura unabashedly licked her fingers before draining the last of the water from the cup. The food and drink had revived her somewhat, and the weak-kneed, light-headed feeling had dissipated.
The call of nature, and sounds of activity from the other room, drew her to her feet. She stood still for a moment, testing her equilibrium. When the room didn’t spin and her body remained steady, she smiled confidently and followed in Jake’s path.
She took one step into the room and stopped dead, her confidence ebbing as she glanced around her.
The room, obviously the kitchen—of sorts—was small, but that wasn’t what had brought Laura to an abrupt halt. Her own kitchen in her townhouse in Philadelphia was even smaller, but compact loaded with every convenience. This kitchen was anything but compact, and didn’t possess a single convenience.
If the other room was rustic, this one was positively primitive. Feeling a renewed sense of disorientation, Laura gazed slowly around the room, beginning with her taciturn host.
Jake stood with his back to her at a wood-burning stove the likes of which Laura had seen only in museums. It was squat, pot-bellied, black, and ugly. Three lids, approximately six inches in diameter, were set into the flat stovetop. With a long-handled metal spoon, Jake stirred the contents of a large black iron frying pan that sat atop one of the lids. On another lid was a smaller pan, and the steam rising from it carried the aroma of cooking ham. A blue agate coffeepot on the third lid puffed the scent of coffee from its spout.
Laura’s stomach growled in anticipation.
“It’ll be ready in a few minutes,” Jake said, not bothering to turn to look at her.
“Thank you.” She made a face at his back in response to the embarrassment she felt at his hearing her body’s noisy demand for food. Then, feeling foolish for the childish reaction she glanced away from him.
The few other objects in the room looked as ancient as the stove. There was a metal sink with one spigot. One? Laura mused, frowning at the certainty that it was a cold-water tap. Primitive indeed.
From the sink her gaze drifted to the only pieces of furniture, a table and two chairs, both made of wood, and not too expertly at that. But it wasn’t the crude table and uncomfortable-looking chairs that caught Laura’s attention, or the tin plates and utensils set beside them. It was a well-worn broad leather belt, complete with a holster that sheathed a wood-handled, long-barreled pistol, lying on a folded newspaper at the end of the table nearest Jake.
In truth, it wasn’t the gun itself that surprised Laura; she knew that Westerners armed themselves with both rifles and handguns, especially those living and working in desolate areas. It was the type of gun. She could identify it even in its holster, because it was unique. An illustrated book about handguns in Laura’s library featured a picture of it—an experimental seven-shot open-top .44 and single action Army Peacemaker.
The strange thing was, the gun had been produced in the 1860s, and this particular weapon, though it had obviously been used, didn’t look over a hundred years old.
Laura was staring at the gun, pondering whether Jake had any idea of how valuable the pistol must be, when another, more immediate problem made itself felt.
“Uh... Jake, would you direct me to the bathroom, please?”
“Bathroom?” He turned, frowning.
“Yes, please. Nature calls, you know,” she said, smiling.
“Huh?”
She smothered a sigh. The man was so attractive; it was a pity he was proving rather dim,
“The facilities,” she said, ditching subtlety for bluntness. “I’ve got to go... and soon.”
“Oh.” His frown turned into an impatient scowl.
“Why didn’t you say so? It’s out back.” He cocked his head, indicating the back door.
Out back? Laura repeated to herself, making a beeline for the door. Why would anyone... Her thought splintered as she bolted through the door into the chill night air... and complete darkness. Damn, she fumed, she should have brought a—
“You might need this,” Jake drawled from behind her, one arm extended over her shoulder, a lantern handle dangling from his long fingers.
“But where is it?”
“Straight ahead, you can’t miss it.”
Grabbing the lantern, she strode forward. After a few yards she came to another abrupt stop, appalled at the sight of a narrow boxlike structure illuminated by the flickering lantern light. An air hole in the shape of a quarter moon was carved into the door.
Staring at the outhouse in disbelief, Laura felt her stomach tighten at the stench. At any other time, nothing could have compelled her to enter this offensive excuse for a bathroom. But this was not any other time, and unless she made use of it...
Gritting her teeth, she lifted the rusted metal latch and swung open the door.
Fortunately, by the time she reentered the kitchen, the roiling sensation in her stomach had mercifully ceased.
“Good timing.” Jake shot a half-smile at her. “Grub’s ready. Grab a seat.”
“I need to wash up first.”
“There’s the sink.” He motioned with his head. “Soap’s in the dish on the draining board.”
She crossed to the sink, turned the spigot handle, and thrust her hands into the trickling water. As she had suspected, it was cold.
“I suppose there’s no hot water,” she said, reaching for the soap.
“You suppose correctly, but if you want to wait, I’ll heat some for you.”
“Never mind.” She wondered why he hadn’t thought to heat the water while she was outside. “I’ll rough it with cold water this time.”
“Rough it?” He snorted. “At least there’s water running into the house. Most folks don’t have that.”
“Really?” Drying her hands on a coarse towel from the draining board, she turned to give him a startled look.
“Yeah, really,” he mocked her. “Fact is none of the shacks in town have it.”
“None of the shacks in what town?” she asked, puzzled as she watched him turn from the stove, the large frying pan in one hand, the long-handled spoon in the other.
“Sage Flats, o’ course,” he replied, spooning scrambled eggs and fried potatoes onto the tin plates. “Ain’t no other towns nearby.”
Laura felt an uneasy skittering down her spine. Ignoring it, she forced a laugh; it sounded phony, even to her own ears.
“You’re pulling my leg... right?”
He had crossed to dump the big pan into the sink, and was in the process of lifting the smaller pan from the stove lid. Her question made him pause, the pan suspended in mid-air as he stared at her in evident bafflement.
‘‘Why would I josh you about that?” he asked, his tone questioning her common sense.
“Because both you and I know that Sage Hats is nothing more than a ghost town,” she retorted, insulted by his tone and manner.
“Uh-huh.” He shook his head. “Sit down and dig in,” he said in a gentling tone, putting the ham on their plates. “You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten.”
She began to argue, but the combined smells of potatoes, ham, and eggs wiped all thoughts from her beleaguered mind. Without another murmur, she slipped onto the chair he indicated with a nod. Picking up a crudely made fork, she began to dig into the eggs, but hesitated when he shot a sharp, disapproving look at her.
“What?” she asked, shifting a puzzled glance from her plate to his stern expression.
“We didn’t say grace.”
Grace? She felt a surge of warmth for this seemingly hard, emotionless man. Jake Wilder, who, gun close at hand as he sat down at the table, insisted on saying grace over his meal. How utterly charming,
“Sorry,” she murmured, lowering h
er head to hide her smile as she laid the fork on the table and folded her hands above her plate.
“Thank you, Lord, for the abundance of your bounty,” he said. “Amen.”
“Amen,” she echoed demurely, then picked up her fork once more to attack her food.
Consuming his own meal, Jake watched Laura with open interest as she cleaned her plate down to the last smidgen of egg, ham, and potato. Finally, cradling her chipped crockery cup in her hands, she sat back to enjoy her coffee.
“Better?” he asked blandly.
“Much,” she admitted, sighing in satisfaction. “Thank you. You’re a pretty good cook.”
“Or else you were that hungry,” he drawled, moving his shoulders in one of those muscle-rippling, sense-stirring shrugs.
“Well, whichever, it tasted great.”
“Are you ready to talk now?”
“Sure, if you want to.” She frowned at the sudden tension in his expression. “What do you want to talk about?”
“You could begin with the truth.”
“The truth?” Her frown deepened. “What are you implying? I told you the truth.”
In a flicker, his expression changed from tense to skeptical. “Uh-huh.” One dark brow shot into a high arch. “You came here from back East with a red Cherokee, and just happened to stumble into that hole while trying to get to a wildflower. Have I got that right?”
“Exactly.”
“Bullshit.” The lightning change in his expression was frightening.
Laura felt hard pressed to keep from jumping from the chair and running back into the hills. The man looked positively lethal. Forcing herself to remain seated and calm, she drew a deep breath.
“Whether or not you choose to believe me, I have told you nothing but the absolute truth,” she said, somehow managing to keep her voice steady.
“And the reason you came out here from the East,” he said in a tone of patent disbelief, “was to collect plants?”
“Yes,” she said, then scrupulously qualified, “well, that and the fact that I’ve always felt an affinity for the Western mystique.”
“The Western mystique?” His expression went blank with incomprehension.
Where has this guy been? Laura wondered, then immediately answered her own question. He’s been out here, in the hills of Nevada, as wild as the plant life.
“You know,” she said, waving one hand vaguely. “The essence, the ambience of the place.”
Now he looked at her as if she were to be feared. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about, lady,” he said. “You’re gonna have to do better.”
Laura’s patience finally snapped. “I wanted to see the West, so I came out here!”
“With an Indian.”
“No!” she shouted. “A Cherokee, a red Jeep Cherokee!”
“A Cherokee Indian is red.”
“It’s not an Indian. It’s not human!” Her voice had grown so shrill from frustration that it startled her. Yet she continued, nearly screaming at him, “It’s a machine, an automobile ... with four-wheel drive.”
His expression questioned her sanity.
She was beginning to have doubts on that score herself. “Look, Jake, what’s the big deal, anyway?” she went on in a more reasonable tone. “So I fell into that hole ... so what? I meant no harm.”
“So you say,” he bit off. “I just don’t happen to believe you.” His stare drilled into her, giving Laura the uncomfortable sensation that he was trying to see into her soul. “I believe you were sent here, either to poke around on your own, or to distract me while whoever hired you searched those hills for the mine entrance.” His eyes slitted, and his expression was granite-like, shrewd. “I figured someone had grown suspicious when I picked up strange tracks at the base of that hill. Maybe I was followed once when I went to check on the mine, and didn’t know it.”
‘Tracks? Suspicious?” She shook her head, totally lost. “Suspicious of what?”
“You know damn well what.” Anger frayed his tone. “Suspicious of that hill,” he blurted out— unintentionally, she was sure. “And the big deal, as you call it, is that whoever it is is looking for gold.”
Laura’s eyes popped open so wide she could feel the strain.
“There’s gold there... ?”
“So you do know,” he stated, his expression one of utter self-disgust.
“But I don’t know,” she protested. “How could I? I only arrived today.” She frowned in concentration. “Besides, I understood that the little gold that was in these hills was exhausted by the miners who built that ghost town back there.”
“Dammit, woman, I told you there is no ghost town in these parts,” he barked. “Sage Flats is still full of those greedy, grubby castoffs and passel of outlaws, hanging around for the last of the pickin’s.” His full mouth curled into an unattractive sneer. “But I expect the filthy place will be a ghost town before too long, since the pickin’s have just about run out.”
Where in hell was the White Rabbit when a girl needed him? Laura thought, somewhat hysterically. For as normal as Jake Wilder looked, she feared she was dealing with a real nut case.
Mustering every ounce of fortitude she possessed, she managed to maintain a facade of composure, deciding to play along with him.
“So there are still miners living in Sage Flats, mining the surrounding hills?”
“You can quit the playactin’,” he grumbled. “You know as well as I do that there are.” A tiny, self-satisfied smile kicked up the corners of his tight lips. “That is, all except my hills, my mine. They don’t know about that.” His eyes narrowed and he gave her another piercing stare. “At least, up until a week or so ago, I thought they didn’t know about it.”
“I didn’t tell anyone! I swear I did not know about the mine.”
“Let’s start again,” he said, obviously not believing a word she said. “Why are you here?”
“I told you,” she said, her low tone conveying her weariness. “I’ve always been interested in the Old West, and I wanted to see if there was anything left of it.”
“The Old West?” The look he gave her said volumes, the pages of which Laura did not want to read.
“Yes, you know, the west of the 1800s,” she felt compelled to explain.
“Lady, I warned you about taking me for a fool,” he snapped. “This is the 1800s!” he shouted. “Eighteen-sixty, to be exact!”
Chapter 4
1860!
Laura stared in sheer astonishment at the man seated opposite her, the man whose mental stability she now seriously questioned.
Pity, she mused, feeling disappointment. The man appeared to embody every quality she had always admired in the Western man. He was taciturn, cool... and ruggedly good-looking to boot. Too bad he was also apparently insane.
But the expression in Jake’s dark eyes had more the look of sincerity than of madness. And that really scared her.
Wonderland indeed.
“Ah ... Mr. Wilder,” she began hesitantly, unsure how to proceed, “this time you really are amusing yourself at my expense ... Right?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Boredom from being alone too long?” she hazarded.
He shook his head. “I’m not bored. I’ll admit I’m getting a mite tired of this conversation, but I’m not bored. I’m never bored. I like being alone.”
“But you believe it’s 1860?” Somehow she managed to drag up a note of skepticism.
He was unimpressed by her derisive tone. Favoring her with a condescending look, he slid the newspaper from beneath the gunbelt and slapped it down on the table in front of her. “I know it’s I860,” he retorted, stabbing a long forefinger at the date printed on the paper.
Laura stared and stared at the date displayed beneath the newspaper’s banner, but no matter how hard she stared, the numbers didn’t change. Nor did the newspaper appear old or yellowed with time.
She drew a slow, calming breath; it didn’t work.
She felt anything but calm. Niggling doubts nagged at her. There were the odd bits and pieces to be considered: the too-rustic appearance of the place; the crude, ancient-looking furnishings; the excellent condition of Jake’s gun; the absence of electricity and the most basic refrigeration; and of course that awful privy.
Her breathing grew shallow. Her heart beat faster. And incipient panic now wrapped its choking hands around her throat.
“What year did you think it was?” he asked.
She tore her gaze from the newsprint to confront the mockery blazing in his eyes.
“Two thousand and fourteen.”
He laughed in her face. “I knew there was something strange about you, with your odd clothes and all your talk about red Cherokee Indians with four wheels instead of legs and—”
“Dammit!” she exclaimed. “I’ll prove it to you!” Shoving her chair back, she jumped up and looked around the kitchen. “Where’s my backpack?”
“In the other room,” he said, making no move to retrieve it for her.
“Thanks,” she snarled, and dashed through the doorway.
The pack lay just inside the front door, on the bare, rough-hewn floor. Why hadn’t she noticed the floor before? She wondered.
Scooping the pack from the floor, she turned and marched back into the kitchen to where Jake lounged in his chair. He certainly looked bored now.
“You’ll see, you’ll see,” she muttered.
“I can’t wait,” he drawled.
After opening the pack, she dug to the very bottom, grunting in satisfaction when her fingers curled around her wallet, the map, and the guidebook she had bound together with a rubber band.
She slipped the band from the packet and slapped the articles on the table in front of him.
“Official Nevada state map issued for the current year, 2014. A historical guidebook for Virginia City and environs—likewise for the current year, 2014.”
Jake’s bored expression became a puzzled frown, but she didn’t give him time to respond. Flipping open her wallet, she pointed to the plastic window displaying her driver’s license.
