Would he have survived then?
Too shaken, I declined Birdie’s invitation to join everyone at the fire and retreated upstairs, curling up atop the blankets of my unmade bed, listening as Grant and several of his ranch hands made music for many long hours. A spectacularly full moon began a slow ascent; one elbow bent beneath my right temple, I watched it rise across my narrow window in a perfect diagonal pattern.
I kept thoughts of what had happened at the creek firmly from my mind, instead imagining Marshall and Axton in Howardsville. A new jailhouse and marshal’s quarters had been constructed since last summer, when Aemon Turnbull and the man called Vole burned down the original structures, and I pictured Marshall and Ax safely ensconced therein, laughing and talking over plates of biscuits and gravy from one of the nearby saloons.
He’ll be home tomorrow evening at the latest.
Hurry back to me, Marshall, I’m so scared, sweetheart.
In this era, until this evening I had not once experienced the sensation of displacement, of being literally yanked through time, and did not know what to make of today’s occurrence. Marshall and I had spent many hours near the creek in this century, to no avail. Nothing. Not so much as a glimmer, a breath, a hint, of our twenty-first century lives. And I was almost too scared to tell him the truth – that the door or the current, or whatever it was, still very much existed. If we returned to the creek together and I felt the same pull but Marshall did not –
I won’t chance it.
Hours ticked past. The hands on duty rode out for their night shift. Grant, Birdie, Celia, and the boys retired to bed, their muted voices drifting to my ears before quiet settled over the house. The moon vanished above the peak of the roof. I shifted from one side to the other probably a hundred times, hot and restive, utterly unable to sleep. At some point after midnight I could no longer deny the need to use the outhouse. Though there was a small porcelain bedpan tucked beneath the bed, I felt clumsy using it; maybe a brief walk through fresh air would do me some good.
I slipped through the sleeping household, tracing my fingers along the wooden banister, taking care to avoid the creaky step third from the top. I didn’t normally ghost about the house at this time of night and squelched a surge of painful remembrance; a year ago Miles had been shot and killed in the front yard. Earlier that same evening, despite qualms, I’d accepted his marriage proposal. My feet stalled on the last stair and I paused there, grimly studying the empty space where we’d stood when Miles kissed me for the last time. I wrapped both arms about my waist, suddenly uneasy to venture another step.
Forgive me, dear Miles, I thought, and swore for an instant he hovered close enough to touch. My eyes darted around the dimness of the large living space, seeking his reassuring presence; the bright moon had long since set, leaving the earth swathed in darkness. Despite my better judgment, I whispered, “Is that you? Can you hear me?”
I imagined Miles appearing at the foot of the stairs and taking my hand; just as swiftly, urgency filled the air. I swore I heard his voice.
Sweet Ruthann, how I have missed you.
Shivers erupted along my limbs.
Stop it, I reprimanded with my next exhalation. Go to the bathroom and get back to bed. You’re all right. It’s all right.
I crept outside, feeling the night’s immediate encroachment on my body. I knew my way and hadn’t bothered to tote along a lantern, having long since grown accustomed to the absence of artificial light; no streetlamps, no batteries or flashlights or electric bulbs connected to wires and transmitters. I’d come to regard the darkness as a natural, even friendly, presence and tried to scrounge up that particular feeling as I hurried to the closest outhouse. The enormous barn loomed to my right, the bunkhouses beyond; it was just my imagination that it seemed too quiet…
Stop it. It’s all right.
He moved without sound, catching me from behind just as my fingertips made contact with the rough wooden handle on the outhouse door. An inflexible palm covered my mouth, blocking any attempt to scream for help, and a body jammed up against my spine as I tried to buck the hold. He was wiry and strong, inevitable as death, and I knew a fraction of a second before he pressed his mouth to my ear to whisper, “Ruthann. I’ve missed you.”
I went limp in his grasp, strangled by shock and fear; the words were almost exactly the ones I’d just imagined Miles speaking.
Another word rotated on a slow axis through my mind, repeating until it became nonsensical.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Of course Fallon would reappear. He was always going to reappear. How could we have thought otherwise?
You can’t stop me, he’d once told me in a nightmare. No one can.
He walked backward at what seemed a leisurely pace, in this way keeping our gazes directed toward the main house where the Rawleys slept; he spoke into my left ear, narrating in a low, mocking whisper as together we made a slow, deliberate retreat.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come outside. I knew you would. It’s been quite a year, hasn’t it, dearest Ruthann? I meant to kill you the very moment I next laid eyes upon you, as you may know. You broke my forearm, after all, but something occurred to me while I was away. You see, death brings a certain measure of peace. No more chance for suffering once you’re dead, at least to my knowledge.” His sigh ruffled my loose hair. “I once told Boyd Carter the same thing.” He lowered his left hand – the one not locked over my mouth – and cupped my right breast.
A growl of vicious loathing rose from my throat and
