A Little Time in Texas

by Joan Johnston

  Dallas snorted in disbelief, but he didn’t turn the horse around.

  “I’d like that cold drink,” Angel said. “If the offer’s still open.”

  Dallas didn’t say anything, just headed Red down the berm of the asphalt road.

  Angel sighed in relief when the wood and stone buildings came into sight. This place didn’t look too much different from a dozen other one-horse towns she’d been through. However, there were differences that became apparent as soon as they rode up to the structures.

  She stepped down off Red, and Dallas threw his leg over Red’s neck and slid down to stand beside her.

  “Cola machine’s over here,” he said, heading for a tall, boxy-looking object with colored lights on it. He fed in a few coins and a can dropped into a hole at the bottom of the machine. Dallas pulled it out, popped something on the lid and handed it to Angel. Then he got one for himself.

  Angel watched him for a moment, then copied him and took a long drink from the hole in the top of the can. She nearly choked on the sweet, fizzy liquid that burned her throat going down. “What is this?” she demanded, sputtering.

  Dallas pounded her on the back until she could catch her breath. “Popular drink of the day,” he said by way of explanation.

  “It tastes awful!”

  Dallas laughed. “Maybe to you. But it’s plenty well liked nowadays.”

  “Where can I get a drink of water?”

  Dallas stepped over to the drinking fountain beside the cola machine.

  Angel stared agog as water spurted from the top of the fountain. “How did you do that?”

  He took his boot off the pedal and showed her how the fountain worked.

  “That’s a pure miracle!”

  “Nope. Just modern technology at work.”

  Angel took a drink and was astonished that the water was cold. “Where do they keep the ice?” She examined the fountain, looking for an opening where blocks of ice could be inserted.

  “No ice is used. There are cooling units in the fountain, run by electricity,” Dallas said.

  Angel shook her head in disbelief. It was a good thing she was going back to her own world. Things here were absolutely mystifying.

  “Come on into the store.” Dallas put a hand on the small of her back and urged her up the steps into the wooden building. “Maybe we can get you some odds and ends you need.”

  Angel didn’t ask him what he was talking about, just preceded him inside. The store had a somewhat familiar look about it. Wooden shelves lined the walls, and items for sale had been placed in and on glass-enclosed counters for display. While she recognized some objects, others had her completely stymied.

  Dallas decided on the spur of the moment to get Angel a couple of extra-large T-shirts to sleep in and some toiletries—toothbrush, toothpaste, comb and brush, shampoo, deodorant—just the basics, that could be carried on horseback. He hadn’t counted on Angel’s curiosity. Before he could get her out of the store he also had bought a penknife, a bag of potato chips, a package of Twinkies, a Mickey Mouse flashlight, a baseball cap and two pieces of bubble gum, which she insisted they chew right away.

  Angel hadn’t bought anything she didn’t think she would need on her journey—no sense Dallas getting stuck with things he couldn’t use. She hugged the bag to her, knowing at least she would have light in the cave, food and some slight protection—the penknife wasn’t much—if she should manage to get back to the past.

  They spent the entire trip back to Dallas’s ranch discussing the appearance of a teenage boy who had walked into the store barefoot and wearing nothing more than a pair of cutoff jeans.

  “That’s the way a lot of kids dress,” Dallas explained.

  “Girls too?”

  “A girl would be wearing a top of some kind,” Dallas conceded.

  “Would her limbs be bare from the knee down, the way his were?” Angel demanded incredulously.

  “Her legs—and probably her shoulders, back and midriff, too,” Dallas said.

  “Why that’s scandalous!”

  “Not these days,” Dallas said with a chuckle. “Women are liberated.”

  Angel gasped. “You mean they were all in prison at one time?”

  Dallas laughed. “Being liberated’ is just an expression. I suppose the prevailing social customs seemed as restrictive as being in prison—so women busted out. For the past twenty years or so they’ve been evening things up between the sexes.”

  “How?”

  “Women can take the same kinds of jobs as men—and get paid the same.”

  “That sounds fair. Can they own property? And vote?”

  “Of course they can!”

  Angel smiled. “I could get to like some of these new-fangled ideas.”

  When they got back to the stable, Angel offered to brush down Red. Dallas agreed so he could go ahead to the house and fix something for supper.

  “I’ll walk back to the house when I’m done,” Angel said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Once Dallas was gone, Angel made a point of locating the switch in the barn he had used to control the lights and making sure everything was set out so she could quickly saddle up Red when she returned in the middle of the night. She also spent some time petting Red and talking to him so she would be familiar to him when she returned without Dallas. Once everything was as ready as Angel could make it, she returned to the house.

  “I’m back,” she called as she pulled open the screen door.

  “In the kitchen,” he answered.

  When she found him, Dallas was checking some potatoes with a fork. “They’re almost done. Only a few more minutes.”

  Angel watched Dallas put the potatoes inside a box and punch some buttons. There was an odd chirping sound as bright blue-green numbers came up on a black surface. Then the box began to hum. “What is that?” she asked.

  “It’s a microwave oven.”

  Angel tentatively touched the sides of the box. “It isn’t hot,” she said. “How can it cook anything?”

  Dallas grinned wryly. “Well, there are these microwaves in the air inside the box and they get the molecules in the potato to moving real fast and—”

  “Stop!” Angel cried, covering her ears. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “Come on, then. You can help me set the table.”

  Angel was never sure what surprise Dallas was going to spring on her next. It was a relief to see that people still used knives, forks, spoons and plates. But sour cream in a plastic container? Butter wrapped in foil sticks? Bacon bits in a glass bottle? Bread crumbs in a cardboard box?

  Angel couldn’t have been more surprised when Dallas pulled lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers from his refrigerator. “I thought you said it’s spring,” she accused.

  “It is.”

  “Where did you get all these fresh vegetables that only grow in the summer?” she asked suspiciously.

  “These were probably shipped in from Florida or California, or maybe even some other country south of here.”

  Angel just shook her head and gritted her teeth. There was no sense letting the strangeness of it all get to her. She wasn’t going to be here much longer—if everything went as planned. She refused to contemplate what she had to face if she couldn’t find her way back to the past.

  Dallas saw the tension in Angel’s shoulders, the way her jaw worked as if she had her teeth clenched, the unhappy shadows in her blue eyes. Something had happened to rob her of her memory of all this. The least he could do was be patient with her. He was certain that at some point it would all come back to her.

  They sat down to a dinner of grilled steak, baked potatoes and a green salad. Angel laughed when Dallas turned out the electric lights in favor of a couple of candles on the table. “Why on earth would you turn out the lights and purposely make it so dark?”

  “It’s…” He didn’t want to say more romantic. He had no business romancing her. He settled for saying “So you’ll feel more at home
.”

  “Then you ought to have a beer at your elbow,” Angel said with a grin.

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Whiskey sometimes. Liquor dulls the senses,” Dallas said. “I like to know what I’m doing all the time.”

  Angel met his searing gaze, and her heart started thumping. Her grin faded. She stared at his hands, remembering the strength of them smoothing over Red’s hide, the gentleness of them cupping her breast.

  Dallas recognized Angel’s heavy-lidded look. He was no novice at seduction, even if she was. He had to be the one who used good sense here. So he said, “I figure you can take advantage of some courses at the junior college in Uvalde to help you catch up on things. Maybe some art and history and literature. What do you think?”

  His abrupt change of subject jolted Angel from the trance into which she had fallen. “College? I only got as far as the eighth grade.”

  “No problem,” Dallas said. “These are courses intended for people who aren’t particularly interested in getting a degree, but who want to broaden their knowledge of a subject. We need to be thinking about what career you might pursue.”

  “I can draw a little,” Angel admitted.

  Dallas frowned. “I don’t know how useful that’ll be.” Texas had its share of local artists, and he’d seen a lot of good work at the art festivals that were held in San Antonio. But “drawing a little” didn’t sound like much on which to build a future. To tell the honest truth, he was having trouble picturing Angel in any kind of job.

  When the meal was finished, Angel helped him stack the dishes in the dishwasher. She must have brushed against him a dozen times in the process. Every time she did his body tautened. The hell of it was, she seemed to have absolutely no idea what effect she was having on him. If he didn’t put some space between them, and soon, he wasn’t going to be responsible for the consequences.

  “We’d better get some shut-eye. We have a big day tomorrow.”

  Angel thought getting to bed early was definitely a good idea, especially since she couldn’t leave until Dallas was asleep. She meekly disappeared into the bedroom with the T-shirts he had bought for her. In order to put Dallas off guard, she had to convince him that she was reconciled to staying with him. She stripped down until all she had on was a soft cotton T-shirt, and slipped under the covers. Then she called to him.

  “Dallas?”

  He answered her from outside the bedroom door. “What is it, Angel?”

  “Uh…could you come in here a minute?”

  Dallas hesitated, but not for long. He paused a step inside the door. He had expected her to look alluring, but he wasn’t ready for the shock of seeing her looking like that in his bed. He reminded himself she was innocent and walked over to stand stiffly beside her. “What can I do for you?”

  “I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” Angel said.

  “Think nothing of it.”

  “No, I’m really grateful. I didn’t want to let that go unsaid.” In case I never see you again.

  “It’s been my pleasure,” Dallas said.

  At that moment he truly meant it. The T-shirt was so big it had slipped down off one shoulder. He could see the dark shadows of her nipples through the thin cotton. He scowled as his body reacted to the sight. He hadn’t been this hard and ready with so little provocation since he was a teenage kid, wet behind the ears. It irked him to think he had so little control around her.

  Seeing the ferocious look on his face, Angel asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he muttered. To save his sanity he pulled the blankets up to her neck and said, “Sleep tight,” then turned and left the room.

  Angel smiled and snuggled down under the covers. Dallas Masterson was a nice man. It was too bad she wasn’t going to be around to get to know him better.

  Dallas wasn’t worried when the light didn’t go off in Angel’s room. He figured she was sleeping with it on again. He hadn’t any intention of going in to check on her. Because he just plain didn’t trust himself. It wouldn’t take a tiny crook of her little finger and he would be in bed with her. The problem was if that happened he would end up being responsible for her. She had a whole different set of moral values than he was used to dealing with. Bed her and the next step was marriage. Dallas Masterson wasn’t a marrying man.

  He turned out the lights all over the house, checked the doors to make sure they were locked, then went into the guest bedroom and shut himself inside. He wasn’t coming out again until morning—no matter what the temptation. Dallas listened with a sharp ear as, creaking and groaning, the house settled for the night.

  Angel didn’t even have to guess at the time. The electric clock beside the bed told her it was 11:48. She had promised herself she would be out of Dallas’s hair before midnight. That didn’t leave her much time.

  She had long since packed everything she would need and a few odds and ends for good measure. She’d had to make do with what she had in the bedroom, because she was certain that rooting around in the dark house was liable to wake Dallas. That she couldn’t afford to do.

  As she silently closed the front door of the house behind her, Angel realized she was going to miss Dallas. She hadn’t much trusted anyone in her life—for good reason—but Dallas was different. Maybe it had something to do with reaching out to him in the darkness of the cave, but she felt a closeness to him that she had never felt with any other human being.

  Angel shivered when she thought about how angry Dallas was going to be when he discovered that not only had she run away, but she had stolen his horse. She consoled herself with the thought that she wouldn’t be around to deal with his wrath.

  “Goodbye, Dallas,” she whispered as she tiptoed across the porch and down the front steps. “Think of me sometime.”

  Then she was off and running for the world she had left behind.

  5

  Angel greeted the approaching cave entrance with a weary smile of relief. It was a starry night, so she hadn’t been forced to deal with total blackness, but there was something eerie about being in a time and place where one didn’t belong. Red started nervously dancing sideways, and she patted his neck to calm him down.

  “There’s nothing out there, boy. Nothing but hill country and you and me. Nothing to get spooked about. Take it easy now.” It was questionable which of the two of them she was trying more to convince. Red’s ears flicked forward and back, as though he was listening to her but distracted by something else.

  Was there something out there? Most likely a coyote, she thought. Or maybe a snake slithering away from Red’s hooves. “Don’t worry, boy,” she soothed the anxious horse. “They’re as afraid of us as we are of them.”

  As she stepped down off the gelding at the cave entrance she felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She patted the horse again but didn’t speak aloud. There was someone here. She felt sure of it. She let the reins trail on the ground, effectively ground-tying the animal, knowing any good cowhorse was trained to stay where he was left.

  She had the child’s Mickey Mouse flashlight Dallas had bought for her, which made a less-bright light than the flashlight he had used. But it was light. She didn’t have to stand there in the dark. Still, she felt reluctant to turn it on. What if there was somebody—some human—around here? She hadn’t forgotten the incident that had brought Dallas to her rescue. Angel fingered the penknife she was carrying in her pocket through the rough denim of Dallas’s jeans. She stood quietly, listening, but heard nothing. Things just didn’t feel right.

  Angel started talking to herself. “I have plenty of light. I have a knife. What else do I need? Quit spittin’ on the handle, Angel, and get to work!”

  She flicked on the flashlight and felt a lot better. The trail of light was easy to follow, sweeping away the dark as she went. Unfortunately the dark closed in behind her. The deeper she went into the cave, the greater her sense of foreboding.

&nbs
p; “Stop acting like a hen on a wet griddle,” she chastised herself. “There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.”

  But she was afraid. She tried to talk herself out of it. “Give yourself something else to think about, Angel, so you don’t spend so much time pondering on the dark. Now there you go again, making note of how black this pit of hell is. Think about something happy. Something wonderful. Like Dallas.

  “Now there’s a man God spent some time on. Whooee! He is one fine-looking fellow. Never thought you’d fall for a handsome face, Angel, but you sure did go for that Ranger! He—”

  Angel distinctly heard a voice. A male voice. And it was behind her. Dallas must have woken up and followed her!

  She wasn’t about to get caught before she had a chance to look for some sort of portal to the past. She moved faster, almost running. However, she couldn’t hold the light steady at that pace, so she missed seeing a dip in the cave floor and lost her balance. She reached out a hand to catch herself as she tumbled. By rolling into the fall, she saved herself hurt, but the flashlight flew out of her hand. The dark was deep and instantaneous as the face of the flashlight hit an outcropping on the rock wall and broke.

  “No!” Angel cried. But it was too late. She curled herself into a protective ball, shutting her eyes, as though to shut out the immensity of the dark that surrounded her.

  She was six again, and Miss Higgens of the Orphans’ Home in Galveston was terribly angry and yelling at her.

  “Whatever possessed you to do such a thing, Angela! We have little enough to go around. We can’t afford a thief in our midst!”

  “But I didn’t take anything!” Angel protested.

  “I found the biscuits under your pillow,” Miss Higgens said. “Are you saying someone else put them there?”

  “They must have!” Angel retorted. “My ma taught me better than that. I would never steal—”

  “No more than your mother did, I expect,” Miss Higgens said disdainfully. “And you see where it got her! In jail, young lady, where she belongs!”

  Angel was helpless to deny what Miss Higgens had said. Her mother had stolen—but only food, and only enough to keep them alive.