Desperado's Gold

by Linda Jones

  “When you’re able you can take me to East Texas, just like you said this morning. I’ve never been there, except to drive through on the interstate once or twice. Grandma Lane had a sister in Georgia, and I drove her over for a visit. She hated to fly. Said it just wasn’t natural. And after the crash … well, there was no way she’d set foot in an airplane.” Catalina looked down at the rough wood floor beneath her feet, and at the low-burning lamp near Jackson’s head. Grandma Lane would be born in another fifteen years.

  She’d never understood her grandmother’s aversion to anything modern. Grandma Lane had never driven over forty miles an hour, and she hadn’t trusted microwave ovens any more than she’d trusted airplanes. Granny had nearly hyperventilated when she’d seen her only granddaughter’s first miniskirt. But she’d been born into this world, and now Catalina understood that skepticism. So many changes, so fast.

  “Maybe they will need a librarian in East Texas. And you, Jackson … what will you do?”

  Catalina reached forward and smoothed the hair away from his face. There it was, that widow’s peak, and that stark and narrow streak of white at one temple. His skin was cool, for now.

  “I wish I could take you back with me. In 1996 there is no Kid Creede. No one looking to beat a man with a reputation, no one looking for a hired gun to settle a land dispute. I’d love to show you everything that’s changed, take you to the movies and for a ride in my Mustang.”

  Catalina lowered her voice. “We put a man on the moon, Jackson. You can get from New York to California in a matter of hours, not days or weeks. You can cross the ocean in the air. Of course, you’re probably like Grandma Lane. I don’t suppose I could get you into an airplane.”

  She laid her hand over his heart. It was still beating, though not as strongly as it should be. “I’d give everything I owned for a ten-day supply of antibiotics, right now.”

  She began to tell him, in a hushed voice, all the wonders of the world. They hadn’t seemed wonders to her before, but now, to walk into a simple supermarket or a pharmacy she had taken for granted would be a blessing.

  She told him all about the library where she’d worked, and about her friend Kim, and growing up with her grandmother. Grandma Lane, she called her when she spoke of her. But she’d been Granny to Catalina all her life. Plain old Granny, she’d insisted, and even Catalina’s close friends had called her that.

  “Granny would have liked you,” Catalina divulged, “but she would have held you down and cut your hair, and she would have harangued you until you shaved off that beard.”

  She tried to imagine what Jackson would look like with short hair and no beard. She laid her hands over the lower half of his face, and then she slid her hands upward and smoothed his hair away from his face. Handsome still, but not so intimidating.

  “You should get some sleep,” Doc Booker suggested gruffly from his perch in the far corner of the room.

  Catalina twisted her head to look at the old man who had likely saved Jackson’s life. “I can’t.”

  “I’ll sit with him,” he offered reluctantly. “He won’t be left alone.”

  Still, Catalina shook her head. “I can’t leave him. I said I wouldn’t.”

  She turned back to Jackson, ignoring the grunts Doc Booker made as he rose to his feet and shuffled across the floor.

  “Is he an old friend?” Doc asked from directly behind her. “I heard that he brought you into town and left you at Alberta’s, and then, well … ”

  “Bid on me like I was a side of beef?” Catalina finished curtly.

  “Something like that,” Doc mumbled.

  Catalina sighed deeply. “I’ve known Jackson for less than a week.” It seemed like so much longer, as if she’d known him forever. “In that time he’s saved me from dying of thirst in the desert, saved me from Harold Goodman, saved my virtue.” She looked over her shoulder and up at the man who stared down at her with a frown creasing his forehead. “And I fell in love with him. Maybe because he’s saved me so often. Maybe … just because he’s the right man for me. Do you believe in love, Dr. Booker?”

  “Just Doc,” he barked. “I’m no doctor. No more.”

  “You are. I saw you take that bullet out of his thigh like a real pro. And you didn’t answer my question. Do you believe in love?”

  Doc hesitated. “Yes,” he said reluctantly.

  Catalina turned back to Jackson, willing him to move, to wake and speak to her. “A week ago I didn’t.”

  The fever came early in the morning. She had prepared herself, or had tried to, certain that it would come. The fever wasn’t terribly high, but Jackson’s skin was warm to her touch, and his breathing changed slightly. Doc Booker shook his head in resignation, seeing this as the beginning of the end, but Catalina took a different stand.

  “As long as his temperature doesn’t get too high, it’s okay. The fever is fighting the infection.”

  Doc Booker continued to shake his head, but Catalina was determined to ignore his pessimism.

  She cooled Jackson’s skin with a damp cloth, and had Doc Booker hold the patient’s head so she could spoon sugar water down his throat. It was while she was trying to force just one more spoonful into his mouth that he opened his eyes slightly and glared at her.

  “Go away,” he muttered in a low voice, staring straight at her.

  Catalina smiled and lifted the spoon to his lips again. “You are the most stubborn, wonderful man in the world, Jackson Cady.”

  He swallowed the sugar water and made a face. “Thunderation, what is this?”

  Catalina told him, and tried to spoon another bit into his mouth.

  Jackson shook his head. “I’m not takin’ that. Just leave me alone.”

  Catalina stood slowly, set the cup and spoon on the seat of her chair and gingerly climbed onto the bed. She didn’t look at Doc Booker, not even when the old man gasped as she straddled their uncooperative patient, one knee on either side of his waist. Then she lifted the cup and offered Jackson another spoonful.

  “It’s for your own good,” she said sensibly, spooning the sweet water over his tongue.

  Jackson swallowed, glaring up at her. “Who’s Granny?” he asked, a confused frown on his face.

  “My Grandma Lane,” Catalina said. “She raised me.”

  Jackson nodded. “I remember. You told me. I dreamed that she wanted to … cut my hair.”

  “And shave your beard,” Catalina added smugly.

  Jackson took another spoonful without protest. “How did you know?”

  Catalina shrugged her shoulders. “Lucky guess. One more spoonful.”

  He accepted it sullenly, tiredly, and Doc Booker lowered Jackson’s head to the pillow.

  Catalina eased off the bed, careful not to jar the bed or touch any of Jackson’s bandaged wounds. For the moment he was lucid, but she was afraid the fever was only the beginning. If she was right, the worst was yet to come.

  Jackson closed his eyes. “Now, go away.”

  She lowered herself into the chair by Jackson’s bed, smoothing her wrinkled skirt and pushing her hair away from her face.

  “Never,” she whispered.

  She was afraid to leave his side, even when Doc Booker volunteered — in his own grouchy way — to take her place. In her heart she knew no one would care for Jackson as she did.

  So she didn’t sleep. She was an intelligent woman who knew that her mere presence wouldn’t make Jackson any stronger, that her watchfulness wouldn’t keep him alive. Still, she couldn’t sleep. When she began to doze she forced her eyes open.

  She memorized every line in his face. Crow’s feet, lit by the lamp by his head. The furrow between his eyes. Jackson had frowned too much, in the past. She aimed to change that. For the most part he was perfect. There was a harshness about him that kept him from being truly beautiful, but he was close to flawless. That nose was just a bit too long, but it was straight and strong. She had never cared for men with little stubby noses, she told hers
elf as she leaned over Jackson once again.

  His face was close to perfect, but she knew all too well that his body was scarred. More now than before. He had been marked by his violent life, branded forever for the choices he’d made.

  He’d more than paid for the life he’d led until this point.

  “You need your sleep,” Doc said gruffly. Catalina nearly jumped out of her chair. She hadn’t even heard him rise from his pallet on the opposite side of the room and cross to the bed.

  “When Jackson wakes up,” she said. “That’s when I’ll sleep.”

  He started to argue with her, as he had often in the past days. She knew those arguments well, knew them logically, as well as Doc did. But her heart, her heart knew different.

  The dreams were vivid and real and filled with strange pictures he didn’t understand. People flying, arms outstretched, high in the air. Moving pictures the size of a barn he had to crane his head to see. Other images, too odd to decipher.

  The only constant in those dreams was Catalina, and when he woke she was always there. Washing his face, talking to him in whispered tones, spooning that awful sweet water into his mouth. What he really wanted was coffee, but when he’d managed to ask for it Catalina had refused to allow him even a single cup. Said the coffee would dehydrate him, or some such nonsense, and then she said something really strange. Aisle four, just around the corner, bottom shelf.

  He began to wish for the numbness that had followed the ambush. Every muscle ached, and he could feel the path each bullet had taken after striking his body. At least it seemed that he could.

  When he opened his eyes and saw Catalina clearly for the first time since all this had begun something inside him broke. He would’ve believed it to be his heart, if he’d had one.

  There were dark circles under her eyes, and for once she wasn’t smiling. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she wasn’t asleep. The mouth was too tense, and her hands were clasped tightly in her lap. The room was dark, but for the light of a single lamp near the bed, and he could hear Doc Booker breathing, the deep, rattling near-snore of a man asleep on the other side of the room.

  “Catalina,” he whispered, and her eyes flew open.

  “Jackson? What is it? What’s wrong?” She jumped up and held her palm against his forehead, and then she let out a long sigh. “The fever’s broken. Thank heavens. I’d begun to think … ” Her voice broke.

  “That I wouldn’t keep my promise?” he finished for her.

  She sagged down, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed. “For a while. You had me scared, Jackson.”

  It was still there, the fear in her eyes.

  “I don’t make many promises, but I do keep ‘em.”

  She tried to smile, a weak effort, and Jackson slid his hand across the top of the bed to hers. Her fingers were chilled, and they trembled slightly as they twined through his.

  “Lie down,” he whispered, shifting his body slowly and painfully against the wall, giving her room to lie beside him.

  Catalina shook her head. “I can’t. You need your rest, and I might fall asleep and bump into you and then … ”

  “How long since you slept?”

  Catalina looked down at their hands. “Four days. But I did doze in the chair a few times.”

  “Four days?”

  “I was afraid to fall asleep. Afraid you … afraid I’d wake up and you’d be gone. Especially the past couple of days. You wouldn’t wake up and talk to me, not even to ask for coffee or to tell me to go away.”

  “We’ll talk all day tomorrow, if you like,” he said, tugging on her hand. “But tonight, you sleep.”

  She stretched out beside him, staying on the edge of the bed and continuing to hold his hand. “I am rather tired.”

  “I can see that,” he whispered.

  “I’ll be very still,” Catalina promised, closing her eyes.

  Even if he could have easily reached the lamp, he wouldn’t have put it out. It cast soft light over Catalina’s face, and he was content just to watch her. She fell asleep almost immediately, her lips parting slightly and her grip on his hand relaxed.

  He forgot his pain, for a while, staring at her face, holding her soft and strong hand. He had told her to go away, but she’d stayed at his side, hadn’t given up on him. Had insisted that he recover. Had told him that she loved him.

  For the first time since Gus had died, Jackson could look to the future and see something bright. Bright because Catalina was there.

  Catalina opened her eyes reluctantly, expecting — for a split second — to see her digital clock and the clear telephone Kim had given her for Christmas by the bed. Instead, her fuzzy vision focused on the chair she’d spent the past four days sleeping in, waiting for Jackson to wake up, and she bolted straight up in the bed.

  Jackson was sleeping, peacefully it seemed, and she remembered that he had been lucid for a moment last night. She touched his forehead and found his skin normal. Not cold, not hot. Perfect.

  Jackson opened his eyes slowly and pinned that pale blue gaze on her face.

  “Good morning, gorgeous,” Catalina said sleepily, sliding her hand away from his face.

  Jackson said nothing, but stared at her steadily. He was still pale, but not deathly white.

  Catalina sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from Jackson. He was going to be fine. And now what? Doc Booker was already up and gone, and late-morning light poured through the windows. She’d needed that sleep, and she hadn’t even dreamed, or realized that she slept next to Jackson.

  She could feel and hear Jackson shifting his weight, moving slowly back to the center of the bed. For four days all she’d thought about was saving him. Nothing else.

  Now that it appeared she was successful, another thought occurred to her.

  She’d changed history. And she didn’t dare try to convince Jackson that her story about coming from the future was true. There was no way to convince him. No real proof. He’d only accuse her of being loco again.

  Could she take him with her through the doorway? And if she did, if it was possible for them to travel together, would they go forward or back? Through her blouse, she fingered the hard wulfenite she’d suspended from a leather thong she’d found in Victoria Booker’s bedroom. Together, would they change history again?

  “Maybe I didn’t.” Catalina stood, but still she didn’t turn to face Jackson.

  “Maybe you didn’t what?”

  What if she was wrong about what Jackson wanted? Maybe, deep down, he really was more Kid Creede than Jackson Cady. Maybe he didn’t want a new life. There was only one way to find out.

  She pivoted and looked down at the bed. The notorious Kid Creede was as helpless as a baby, bandaged and weak. “What if Jackson Cady survives, and Kid Creede doesn’t?”

  “We’re one and the same, darlin’,” Jackson said without hesitation.

  Catalina shook her head slightly. “They all saw you shot. No one expects you to survive. If Doc Booker tells them that you … that you didn’t make it … we could leave here and have a fresh start somewhere else.”

  “We, Catalina?”

  She couldn’t answer, so she nodded slowly.

  “It can’t be that simple.” Jackson stared at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze.

  “It is.” Catalina bit her bottom lip. “Even if you decide to leave here alone, it can be done. An empty grave with your name on it, an article in a few of the larger newspapers, and there is no more Kid Creede.”

  “It’s who I am.”

  “No. I don’t believe that. Maybe once that was true, but not now.” She wanted so desperately for him to agree, but she still wasn’t certain that he would.

  “Too many people know this face. Wanted posters. Even a dime novel with a fair likeness on the cover. Dropping the name Kid Creede isn’t going to change that.”

  Catalina smiled. “That’s true. But if we shave your beard and cut your hair short, and get rid of all that black clothing … no one will
recognize you.”

  Jackson closed his eyes and shook his head. “I wish it was possible, but it’s not. You can’t fool people like that. I’ll still be exactly who I’ve always been.”

  Catalina wanted to scream at him, or beg him, but she remained silent. Maybe he was right. Maybe she couldn’t pull it off. Maybe he didn’t want to leave Kid Creede behind. Maybe he simply didn’t want her.

  “Let me try,” she whispered. “You don’t have to take me with you, if you don’t want to. I can find my way home on my own, if I have to.”

  “Back to Indian Springs?” he whispered, as though it was impossible to say the words aloud.

  Catalina shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “Don’t go back there,” Jackson said quickly.

  Catalina didn’t breathe. She held her breath and wondered if she’d heard him right. If she could stay with Jackson, she didn’t want to go back. There was nothing to go back to.

  Jackson rolled onto his side and worked his way into a sitting position, his back against the wall. It was an obvious effort, and he ignored her weak protests and offers of help. The sheet fell to his waist. There was nothing on his chest and arms but white bandages and a sprinkling of crisp black hair. Black hair tipped with chestnut waved over his shoulders, and he glared at Catalina with those piercing blue eyes that had caught her attention the first time she’d seen them.

  “Stay with me,” he whispered, and for the first time since she’d met him there was trepidation in his voice. Did he think she would say no? Catalina wondered if he remembered that she’d told him she loved him. He’d been out of it, but he might have heard her.

  “I want to stay,” Catalina whispered. “With you.” She stood by the side of the bed with her hands clasped tightly. God, this was hard! The words stuck in her throat, and she felt like a little girl, afraid and uncertain. She looked at the hem of her calico skirt. “I love you,” she whispered.

  She didn’t look up, but she heard Jackson moving on the bed. Why didn’t he say something? Then his hand was grasping hers, and he tugged her gently toward him.

  “Come on, Catalina,” he said breathlessly. “You’re making this difficult.”