Return to Yesterday

by Abbie Williams

  Turnbull.

  Fuck!

  And just that fast Vole, alerted by the sound of the returning horses, turned my way; I watched shock flatten his broad, sunburned face. Without warning he swung his gun my direction, aiming at my spine – granting Malcolm the necessary distraction to lunge, grabbing Vole’s right wrist and dragging him straight to the ground. Vole’s horse whinnied and sidestepped, kicking its back legs as the men grappled almost beneath its hooves.

  I scrambled forward, clutching the pistol in a two-handed grip. It was long-barreled and heavy and somewhere in the tiny, non-panicking part of my mind I realized I had no idea how to fire it – there was more to it than a simple trigger pull, right?

  Isn’t there a hammer? Something needs to be cocked!

  Frantic thoughts, a whirlwind of desperate decisions and no time to consider any of them.

  Shit, shit, shit! Camille, do something!

  I flew to my feet in time to spy Malcolm roll atop Vole and straddle his waist to deliver rapid-fire punches, one fist after the other, directly to Vole’s head. Teeth bared, blood flowing from his forehead and grunting with the extremity of his effort to destroy, Malcolm was a far cry from the tender, passionate lover of last night; I understood at a deep, visceral level there were parts of this man I had no hope of fully understanding, depths I could sense but never touch. Only Cora Lawson was capable of meeting him equally, of filling the chasm in his heart.

  But Cora isn’t here. You are.

  And no matter what else happened, I refused to let violence claim my life as it had Cora’s and further destroy Malcolm. It was the least I could do for the man both she and I loved with the entirety of our souls.

  Vole bucked upward with a hard, vicious movement, throwing Malcolm sideways; I saw the gun still clenched in Vole’s right hand and there was nothing else to do but scream, “Freeze!”

  I aimed at Vole’s head with both arms outstretched, sweating and shaking but resolute with purpose.

  It happened in the flicker of an eyelid, the beat of a bird’s wing; the soft expulsion of a held breath – the last thing I expected in that instant.

  Vole twisted to the left and fired his gun at me.

  I saw the spark of fire in the barrel and the round passed so close to my head I heard its whine, felt the energy of a bullet that, had it flown another inch to the right, would have split my forehead.

  So fast it was almost a blur, Malcolm extracted a knife from his boot and sliced open Vole’s throat. Blood bloomed like an exotic flower, a bright scarlet waterfall of draining life. Vole’s limbs twitched and danced like a wooden puppet’s. I heard nothing but my own frantic breath, watching in a stupor as Malcolm grabbed Vole’s gun, leaped over his body, flew to my side and clenched my arm, hauling me backward with the force of a steam engine. He shouted something but I couldn’t hear – I could hardly will my legs to hold my weight. Malcolm dragged me with him, catching hold of Vole’s horse’s abandoned reins. The animal kicked, wild-eyed with distress at the chaos, but Malcolm held fast.

  He’s using the horse as cover, I realized.

  Oh God – because –

  Turnbull rode in hard, firing at us from horseback. Vole’s horse jerked and bucked, fighting Malcolm’s death-grip. Malcolm put his body in front of mine and leaned over the animal’s back, both clenching its halter and returning fire on Turnbull with Vole’s gun. Images loomed before my terrorized gaze – the ashy sky, now spitting small pellets of rain; the shiny brown hide of Vole’s horse; Vole’s gaping neck and wide, dead eyes. And Malcolm, protecting me with his life. He had taken stock of our situation, analyzed every possible angle, and utilized all available defenses, acting faster than I could even think. Turnbull doubled back, galloping momentarily out of range; he’d lost his grip on Aces High’s lead line and Malcolm whistled shrilly, calling the horse back to us.

  Aces cantered our way.

  Malcolm turned to face me, keeping hold of the horse’s halter, his panic under strictest control; his dark eyes burned as he commanded, “Turnbull’s riding out to reload that rifle. If anything happens to me, you ride hell-for-leather due east, back the way we’ve come. Do you hear me?”

  “What are you going to do?” Wild-eyed, scalded with fear and concern, I wasn’t about to leave his side.

  Aces reached us and Malcolm grabbed his lead line. “Thank God for you, boy, you damn good horse.” Not about to be disobeyed, he ordered harshly, “Camille!”

  “No! I’m not leaving you here!” Tears gushed, infuriating me.

  “We’ll run for those cottonwoods beyond the creek, there ain’t a second to spare. Keep close to me between the horses!” Malcolm latched a solid grip on the lead lines of both animals and yanked their heads forward, roaring, “Gidd-up!” and then we ran, using their heavy bodies as cover, angling for the creek and away from the threat of Turnbull’s long-distance rifle. Not five seconds later a deep, echoing boom split the air and I cried out; both sounds were muted in my ringing ear canals. We made it to the water before another shot shattered the stillness, splitting the slim trunk of a nearby willow. We splashed through the rocky creek, sending water cascading over our feet and calves.

  “Keep low!” Malcolm shouted.

  We cleared the opposite bank, dodging branches, and positioned behind a stand of towering cottonwoods. Breathing hard, Malcolm wasted no time slinging the horse’s lines around a tree branch and slipping his rifle from Aces High’s saddle.

  “Get down!” he ordered, cocking the weapon, and I dropped to a crouch against the middle tree’s massive trunk, gasping for breath, pressing my forehead to the rough bark as Malcolm stood to my left, his upper body exposed, to aim his rifle. He shot, cocked a second round, and shot again.

  Turnbull returned fire.

  Malcolm ducked to a crouch to slip two more bullets in his rifle; he was a foot away from me but in grave danger, with little protection between his body and the path of a flying bullet. Bleeding from two wounds, his lower lip split, he clenched his jaws and rose with a roar, taking aim and firing. I flinched, digging my nails in the bark. I could hear nothing but intense, high-pitched ringing.

  I finally realized Malcolm was speaking.

  I got him.

  Even in triumph he moved with caution and care, edging closer, his rifle trained on Turnbull – in whatever state the man now existed. I didn’t dare move from behind the trees, watching with hawk eyes as Malcolm crept forward, assessing the situation. And at last, he lowered the rifle.

  We resumed our course, aiming northwest toward Cole and Patricia’s last known destination, together again on Aces. Malcolm had untied Vole’s horse and let the animal run free.

  “I’m not about to be taken for a horse thief,” he’d explained.

  I did not break down until we’d ridden perhaps two miles; once we’d put distance between ourselves and the dead bodies of two vicious criminals, Malcolm reined Aces to a walk, then a complete halt. He dismounted and lifted me down; able at last to embrace full-length, we crushed each other close and clung. He cupped the back of my head, holding fast, letting me weep; I wrapped my arms around his torso, holding like I never meant to let go, sobbing out all the fear I’d restrained in the past terrifying hour.

  “I was so scared, Malcolm, oh my God. You’re hurt, they hurt you, and I couldn’t do anything but watch…” I hid my face against his chest, his shirt flecked with blood and wet with a mixture of rain and sweat.

  He rested his lips to my temple, scraping aside flyaway tangles of my hair. “You are a brave woman, Camille Carter. I can’t think about what might have happened back there or I’ll go crazy, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a damn brave woman.”

  I wanted to tell Malcolm I thought he was braver than anyone I’d ever known. In the span of an hour we’d been pursued and attacked; we’d been shot at and Malcolm had killed two men who intended to kill us first. But none of that seemed real; all I could consider just now was the fact that Malcolm bore injur
ies, one of which I was certain was a gunshot wound.

  I looked up at him, scalded anew with concern. “You’re hurt, Malcolm. You were shot in the arm, weren’t you…oh God…”

  “I been hurt plenty worse, sweetheart, I swear.” He drew away to show me his arm, which I inspected with the diligence of a field nurse – or someone deeply in love with him. Although bloody and raw-looking, the wound didn’t appear as dire as I’d imagined; the bullet had scored only a shallow path along the muscle and skin above his elbow.

  I ran my fingertips over his face, his forehead with a lumping purple bruise and the blood dried on his split lower lip. I stood on tiptoe to gently kiss both injuries. “I love you,” I whispered. “You saved us.”

  “My heart breaks with loving you,” he said in return, cradling my face between his hands. “And as much as I hate to admit it, we aren’t safe yet. Not ’til Fallon’s dead.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Windham, IA - June, 1882

  IT TOOK ANOTHER TWO HOURS OF HARD RIDING TO REACH the small settlement, a rainy twilight looming from the west in a wash of dark purple and gray clouds, the sky behind them a chilly violet blue. Thunder grumbled and lightning threatened as we rode into Windham; a hand-lettered wooden sign announced its unincorporated status.

  “They’ll have waited for us here. Patricia was ill and Cole will have found a place for them to spend the night.” Malcolm slowed Aces to a walk, rewrapping the rain blanket around my huddled, shivering form. I was a mess, physically and emotionally drained; any part of me not touching Malcolm’s warmth seemed coated in ice crystals. I needed a hot shower. I needed a heaping plate of fried fish and mashed potatoes, Shore Leave-style. I needed my twenty-first century life, my children and Mathias, and our cabin in the woods beyond White Oaks. I could hardly shift my head to nod in response to Malcolm’s words.

  “Hold on, love, it ain’t much longer now,” he murmured.

  Backlit by the gloom of fading dusk, the settlement appeared as little more than a handful of false-fronted structures. No streetlamps burning, no horses tethered along the street, the drizzle keeping all signs of life to a minimum. Only one set of windows shone with evidence of inner light and Malcolm headed straight for this place – a nondescript wooden building two stories high. Behind it loomed another, larger structure, ringed by a corral, in the second floor of which I spied a haymow as Malcolm helped me from Aces. I struggled to find my footing, overcome by a dizzy rush, but Malcolm kept an arm locked around my waist. He patted his horse’s neck, promising, “We’ll find you a dry place to spend the night, old friend, and get that saddle off.”

  The rain blanket bundled over my shoulders like a shawl, I rested my forehead on Aces High; his damp hide bristled against my skin and he made a soft, snorting sound, an acknowledgment of our affection. I whispered, “Thank you, boy. You’re such a good horse.”

  “He’s carried me through a fair amount of the worst times in my life,” Malcolm acknowledged quietly. “He’s the best horse I know. I love him as much as Sawyer loved Whistler in her day.”

  We climbed wooden steps and Malcolm knocked on the deep-set door. Moments later a man inquired sharply, “Who’s there?” The tone of the question suggested he was aiming a rifle in our direction.

  Malcolm’s shoulders slumped with relief as he muttered, “Thank you, Jesus.” And then, louder, “Cole, open up!”

  An hour later our physical circumstances had drastically improved. Clean and dry, I sat in a rocking chair near Patricia’s bed, snuggling a sleeping Monty to the rhythmic creak of our gentle motion. Patricia lay facing us, both hands tucked under her cheek, blue eyes tender with love and, by turns, tearful. Pale and much too thin, she appeared ill despite her insistence that she felt worlds better. The room was one of two in a boardinghouse belonging to the same couple who owned the adjacent general store and livery stable. They had promised help and, later, discretion when Cole appeared on their doorstep yesterday, begging for a place for his ailing wife and newborn son to rest.

  “We arrived here in the evening hours,” Patricia had explained. “We pushed hard once we parted ways from you and Malcolm and I was in a state of fatigue so pronounced I could not walk of my own accord. But we did not encounter Dredd or his father on our flight westward, nor did Fallon darken our path, and so I care little for my current physical state. Monty and I may have been Dredd’s prisoners at this time had you not found us, dear Camille.”

  Shortly after Malcolm and I left them to ride for Muscatine, the decision was made for Blythe to continue northward to Minnesota. Alone, he would not be a potential target for the Yancys; they had no idea who he was in relation to Cole and Patricia, and he was anxious to arrive at his father’s home, not only to set eyes upon him, but to deliver word of all that had transpired. Patricia said Blythe had been initially reluctant to leave them with one less person to offer protection, but Derrick was given a gun and Cole insisted there was no additional reason for Blythe to detour so far west when he was headed north.

  Derrick, without a horse, had been left with the choice of either walking alongside the wagon or riding with Cole on the wagon seat. The two men ended up taking turns driving the wagon, neither any too eager to chitchat; Patricia mentioned the mild animosity bubbling between them, almost beyond their control.

  “Perhaps I was fortunate to be in a state of immobile exhaustion. At least I was not required to participate in such awkward conversation as that which transpired between them. When they spoke at all, that is.” A wan smile lifted her lips as she related this detail.

  Derrick had gathered me in a tight, intense hug upon my appearance at the boardinghouse, pure relief overpowering his usual aloof arrogance; his first question was, “How soon can we return?”

  But I had no answer for him.

  Derrick was currently downstairs, along with Cole, Malcolm, and the proprietors, an elderly couple named Lund. Aces High was bedded for the night in the Lunds’ nearby barn. Not a moment too soon; the downpour let loose only minutes after our arrival. The scents of beef stew, bread, and coffee wafted up the narrow staircase, sending hunger pangs on the attack. The smell of a hearty dinner, not to mention the rich aroma of coffee, brought to mind Grandma and Aunt Ellen, and the cheerful home in which I’d lived as a pregnant teenager and new mother.

  Millie Jo spent the first few years of her life in their house, making pancakes and biscuits, pies and pan sauces along with her great-grandma and great-aunt in the bright, comfortably cluttered kitchen. Tears sprang to my eyes, accompanied by the sharp slice of homesickness; missing my children was a constant torture. I bent my face to Monty, kissing the silken wisps of hair covering his downy head, but not before Patricia observed my sadness.

  She lifted to one elbow, the quilt sliding to her waist. “How much you remind me of Ruthann. Not only are you similar in appearance, but your mannerisms are quite alike.” She sighed as I lifted my eyes to hers, holding my gaze with sympathy and sorrow. Thunder rumbled over the crying of the rain, followed seconds later by a burst of lightning; the window momentarily glowed bright blue. “I miss Ruthann every day. I pray, for all our sakes, that your actions have restored your future lives to that which you recall.”

  “She loves you very much,” I told Patricia. “For you, not just because you’re so much like our sister, Tish. And I pray the same, that what we’ve accomplished today will change things. But how will we know? I thought once that happened, Derrick and I would immediately be returned to the future.” A shiver clawed at my nape and I fought the urge to look over my shoulder, toward the shadows gathered in the corners of the room. “It must mean we have to finish things here, first.”

  “And by that, of course, you are referring to Fallon.” Patricia was equally frightened by his name, her eyes following a similar path along the dark edges around us. “Malcolm has dispatched two of Fallon’s associates this day, which shall infuriate him. He counted upon Vole, especially, to carry out his orders in this century. I am glad
to hear of their deaths. I wish only that they would have suffered, prior.” She shuddered, drawing the quilt back to her shoulders. “Filthy bastards. Turnbull attempted to rape Ruthann, the selfsame night she and I met. I am proud to say I struck his head with a stick of firewood. If only I had killed him then! And if not for Vole, Miles Rawley would be alive this very day.”

  “And Ruthie would be his wife,” I whispered, marveling at the strangeness of the thought. What would Marshall have done, had he arrived in the nineteenth century to find Ruthann married to another man? It was, of course, no stranger than the fact that I’d made love with a man other than my husband – but who was my husband, here in this place.

  A hard knot of longing grew in my heart, interrupting its continuous beat.

  Mathias. Oh God, I miss you. I know you’re here, in Malcolm, but I still miss you. I need you to be there when I get back home, the you I remember, the life we both remember. I have no place in the future, not without you.

  “Miles loved her with all his heart, that is true. I believe Ruthie would have been happy with him, had fate taken that particular path.” Patricia was perceptive and blunt; she was Tish, after all. She whispered, “Malcolm is quite desperately in love with you. He is your husband in this life, is he not?”

  I tried to swallow the massive lump in my throat so I could respond.

  Patricia saw I was beyond words, continuing softly, “Surely it is your resemblance and connection to Ruthann that inspires my trust. She spoke so often of you, and Tish, and the men with whom you share your lives. The love you share.” She paused, inhaling a short breath. “I love two men, Camille, and though I am ashamed to acknowledge it because it is far less than either deserve, it is no less true.”

  I looked up. Her eyes were like blue spears.

  “Axton,” she whispered, bringing her folded hands to her lips. “I love Axton Douglas, very deeply. And yet, I also love Cole. I have chosen to share my life with Cole, and sworn to myself I would forget Axton, but to do so I’ve suffered a cleaving. Here.” She rested a hand to her heart. “And I fear it will never fully heal. I would never dishonor Cole by confessing to my love for another man, and I trust you to keep my dreadful secret, as did Ruthann, but the fact remains.”