shallowz

Chapter Eight

Early morning, Scott's eyes opened and he rolled to his side, twisting in the too-soft sheets, listening. Already he was getting used to the sounds—the buzz of the clock, the crankiness of the car starting, the loudness of the ungodly television and radio. He didn't mind the constant hum of the house interrupting his sleep, just that he couldn't ignore it any longer. Couldn't keep telling himself the wrong would be righted. Because for the last five days he'd waited and Murdoch could already be on his way to dying.

He took two deep breaths and eased the door open, trying not to make any noise, and slipped through the darkened house.

Running his hand along desk's surface, fingers picking up unfamiliar dings, he knelt. The remains of a fire burned in the grate, which was a lucky thing since he didn't dare try the switch on the wall. Using its red glow for light, he keyed open the secret panel. One hand hovered, then yanked the leather pouch free. A small sound, like a scrape, came from the hallway, made him hesitate. He chanced a glance back into the gloom, worried that he might see Chris, or worse, William. Scott saw neither. They wouldn't understand, at least not in any way Scott could tell them. If it worked, if he did make it back to his time, things would be sorted out.

Back in the room, he thought he was wandering aimlessly, puttering as he was wont to do at times, but he wasn't, not really, because his mind was made up and all it required was a step out the door. He couldn't think about it too much; the outcome was too important.

When light first beckoned, Scott folded his new clothes into a tidy bundle on top of the bureau, put on his old. He turned to go, then remembered he had something for them, an apology of sorts. He tucked the folded piece of paper into a shirt pocket.

~o~o~o~

Scott snuffed in the wet morning air and murmured to the paint horse in the barn, watching as their breaths combined and whorled away.

A heavy squelch of boot heels stopped him. Chris, mussed from his bed or a late night, grunted out a hello. He was, as far as Scott could tell, not one for mornings.

"What brings you to the barn so early, Scott?" he yawned out.

He panicked a little, trying to demur yet feeling the stab of loneliness down to his toes. "I thought I'd do some riding."

"In the rain."

Scott lifted a shoulder as Chris's eyes caught the holstered gun tied to his thigh.

"Are you sure you want to go up to the site by horse? The car's heater works just fine. So do the wipers."

At Scott's look, he continued. "Not so difficult to puzzle out. You said as much last evening on the porch."

"Did I?"

"Want some company?"

Scott took a moment, flipped up his collar, blew into his hands. "If you feel up for a ride in the rain."

"Well, Abby said you're not an easy passenger yet, and her driving—she learned from her mother by the way—is enough to make anyone think twice about getting into another vehicle. So horses it is."

They led their mounts to the trail.

Scott cast his eyes about, following the line of the horizon where the purples, browns, and greens of spring met the bubbling gray of the sky. "Johnny would call this a "goin" rain."

"Goin'?"

"As in going to rain all day."

"Ah, I truly hope not.' Chris stifled a sigh. "I wish I could have met him."

"Johnny is many things, but a lover of a good long rain he's not." He thought so hard it was almost painful. "He's been a fine brother." He'd hate to lose that.

~o~o~o~

As they traveled, Scott couldn't help but notice the improvements made to the rolling hills. What was once wide spans of grasslands had been broken up into furrowed squares of hay, corn, and wheat.

"While we still run a few head of cattle, our main operation has shifted to crops. We try to be a no-till operation with the ground being the way it is, over tilling makes the soil nutrients leech out, but the corn demands it. Dedicated fruit trees are on the bottomland, courtesy of William and Abby—their idea. And seeing how the weather crunched in Florida this year, it seems to be a sound investment."

"You saw this through your television?"

"Yes, and the computer. When we get back I'll show you how to Google." He waggled his eyebrows. "It's not as lewd as it sounds."

Chris slowed his mount and frowned. "I found Dick Hudson's body over there in the weeds. Dick was a hobo, used to travel the back hills, just floating from one ranch to another. He must have been eighty-four, eighty-five, if he was a day."

"Hobo?"

"A rail rider, used to hop freights back in thirties. Um, nineteen-thirties. When they got to be too dangerous or too few and far between, he took to walking. The official report said he'd shot himself or ran into some poachers."

The tone was of frank disbelief.

"I knew him, talked with him. Hell, I even had him work on the ranch a few times. He wasn't into suicide."

"Poachers then?"

"Not likely. In addition to the bullet wound, he had another so deep the white plate of the shoulder showed through the opening in his shirt."

Scott twisted in the saddle. "A knife?"

"That's what it looked like to me. It happened around the time I hired Mech."

"Mech is a bully, but it seemed to me that he liked to use his mouth, not any kind of weapon."

"No, not him—he's just part of the larger whole."

"Adkins?"

"Uh-huh. I'd bet money it was his doing, probably on Thayer's orders."

"What about the law?"

"The sheriff is a friend, but he can only do so much. There was a lot of chatter about the death, but it was finally ruled a suicide. Funny thing, Thayer punted a whole lot of money into the county coroner's office for reelection this year."

Some things remained the same from one century to the next.

They arrived to the site at mid-morning, clouds scudding across the sky into the mountaintops, and pulled up their horses.

Chris nodded to the barren stretch of land across the property boundary. "You know that's Thayer land; they're likely to not want any trespassers. Which is an understatement." He sat back in the saddle and whistled low. "I'll be damned."

Scott followed his gaze and found a dark truck hidden beneath some low branches.

Rube tumbled out of the truck. "Been watching since sunup; a few men have arrived and they've started over at the very end as far as my binoculars can tell. Looks like things have ramped up. They've started dynamiting, just a few small charges so far."

"Nice camouflage."

He tipped up his hat. "You like it? Took all morning to get it just right. Beats letting Thayer and his bunch know we're here."

"Only thing is, I told you to never come up here alone."

"Well, I ain't exactly alone." He hitched his thumb behind his ear. They looked back and saw Mal coming out of the brush fumbling with his trouser buttons.

He walked up to them, beet red. "Too much coffee, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."

"Speaking of which, what are we supposed to do now? Watchin' them blow up a bunch of rock gets tiring after a while, even for me," Rube said.

Chris eyed Scott. "You and Mal head south and search the property limits, make sure nothing of Thayer's crosses over. Scott and I, we're gonna take a walk. If anyone does come close, give a signal."

"All right. We can do that."

What was left of the woods on the Lancer side smelled clean, of pine and early honeysuckle. The rain left the broken twigs under Scott's boots soft and pliable, a little slippery. A full rush of water coursed through the creek, sluicing along its banks. He didn't know if it was the sun that had cleared the sky or the westerly wind, but every detail was in sharp relief, the green brilliant, the earth deep black.

A façade, the kind of day that fooled you into thinking the hot, dry summer wasn't that far away before sending rain as hard as pellets down on your head. The clouds would return with rain, and soon. Almost a sure thing since thunder already sounded in the distance. "We're wasting time," he said, and instantly regretted the tone in his voice.

Chris kept silent, but Scott felt his eyes boring into his back as he continued to walk. When they stopped, Chris cleared his throat like something was wrong with it. "Well?"

Scott shook his head, stepped to the remnants of the oak, bent down. Eroded to knee height, the knobby wood was hard as stone under his palm. He took a breath. Felt the shift in air temperature, and smelled, above the tang of ozone and dust, a scent of home. The hair on the back of his neck prickled.

"Maybe you need a TARDIS or some such crap."

He didn't understand the words, but he was well-acquainted with the sentiment behind them. "There are no other options; this is the place. Either I get back to my time, or I don't. I have to try." He got up, went to his horse.

"Where are you going?"

Scott nodded across the stream.

"With those documents in your pocket?"

Caught red-handed—the scrape in the hallway. If he had to wager a guess, the only one up and roaming around would have been William. They were looking at each other, but Scott wasn't sure what he was seeing. Chris's eyebrows crooked together, like he was holding in or holding back. Anger was a hard emotion for Johnny, apparently another trait that dipped and threaded its way down the Lancer line.

He reined his horse in a slow walk through the rushing waters, dismounted, and led the animal up the shale-studded bank. There were lines of demarcation where the water used to run, stones worn smooth, almost glossy.

Scott shuddered. The same prickly feeling he had before. Was it noteworthy? Or merely the fact he was standing high in the mountains, wanting it so badly there was a taste in his mouth?

Chris came alongside, boots smacking hard against the loose rock. "You didn't answer me; what did you figure on doing with those documents?"

A long silence followed, and the obvious corollary to that statement was somehow already there: he was guilty. Scott stayed riveted, couldn't move for the sense of false betrayal.

"You should listen to me when I tell you an idea's stupid."

Scott's retort fell away at the screech of tires. A Thayer truck skidded to a stop in front of them at the same time as a car horn broke from the south. Rube's warning.

Chris rolled his shoulders. "We're trespassing. Like I said—stupid. Let's go."

Too late.

Not Thayer, he wasn't the type to sully his hands with the actual breaking of bones or shooting. It was Adkins, the hired help, a shotgun in his left hand. And he had company: Mech and another man.

They were in no mood to talk. By Scott's count, they would stand a decent chance, but he was unsure of any firepower Mech might have on him. They were looking for something to shoot. Under orders probably, but looking just the same.

"What the fuck are you doing on Thayer's property?" Adkins spat out the words. Scott edged a little to the left, hoped to draw them out, get into a better position.

"Checking our range is all. We didn't mean to go over the line," Chris answered, but he was on the move, too, shuffling to the right.

"He's the one, Adkins. He has the papers that I took a picture of and sent to Mr. Thayer." Ambitious bastard. A tendril of dread crept up Scott's spine, gave him a little shake.

Adkins cocked his head, looked at Scott in a way that could only be described as feral. "Fancy gun, mister. You out playing cowboy?"

He didn't look at Chris, but stared at Adkins. "Oh, this gun right there?" He exchanged the question for an extra few seconds as he shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet.

"Yeah, that one. Hand it over nice and easy. Papers, too, if you have' em. Mech, go look," Adkins said, and smiled. "Hey, Patterson, go to the truck and get me some rope, should be near the crates of fuses in the back."

He lowered his hands—and eyes—because Adkins had already recognized a murderous look and Scott didn't want to give him any extra warning. Leaning back, he hunched his shoulders a little, unbuckling the holster as he did every evening at Lancer, and swung it into Mech's face like it was a brick, breaking his nose with a fantastic crack.

He would have broken fingers on a punch like that, but the gun took it and then some. Chris launched himself at Adkins and Patterson, dodging under the shotgun.

Mech bent over, screaming, blood pouring between his fingers. Then Scott brought up his knee, the hard cap smashing into the man's face, sending him flying backwards.

The barrel of the gun tipped wildly in Adkins's grip, and when it lowered, Scott was on him. Instinctively, he raised his right hand, but a sharp whipcord of pain ran up his side so quickly that he found himself with his hand fisted in Adkins' shirt, not pushing away, just holding on, frantically trying to twist the big knife away. Adkins raised a ham-like fist and brought it down with such a force, Scott's vision wavered.

Everything slowed. Scott landed blows so hard he didn't feel the impact until his right hand flared with pain, then flattened to a peculiar numbness. Much like what had settled over him since coming to this time.

Chris was shouting for Mal and Rube, telling them to call the sheriff.

He heard Mech again, voice muffled from the broken nose, from what seemed like far away this time.

"Fire in the hole!"

Adkins reared back. "Not the dynamite, you fucking idiot!" and he shoved Scott into Patterson.

They tumbled together as they rolled, until he kicked away. From the back of the truck, Mech lobbed a lit charge.

Scott stumbled back towards the creek, boots slipping on loose twigs until a rush of hot air blew him forward, almost like a strong summer wind. And then more pain, so abrupt and biting, he gasped.

But before everything plunged into inky blackness, it was white, a stark white.

Chapter Nine