CHAPTER SEVEN
Tombstone, Arizona Territory
1881

It was mid-afternoon when Wyatt Earp let himself into the small but snug cottage occupying the corner across from Virgil's house. He was hungry, but the restaurants uptown all looked crowded, and the 'free lunch' platters saloons offered held nothing appealing. He'd find something kept warm for him on the cookstove at home, although he didn't relish yet another wrangle with Mattie. Lately she was grouchy as bear with a sore tail.

He'd picked up a cool $700 at the Faro table last night. Maybe his luck would hold and Mattie would be asleep.

Only a few more weeks, he reminded himself. She wanted to visit her sister in Denver for Thanksgiving. He'd escort her there and return to Tombstone. Alone.

His conscience gave him a pitchfork jab. Not abandon her, he asserted. He'd make sure she lived well until she found another man to look after her. But he was through. He and Josie would start life anew, in Frisco or maybe even New York City.

Mattie, however, was up and dressed. She wore her yellow dress, his favorite once, when those things mattered. Made fresh coffee, too. Something was in the wind. Wyatt was pretty sure he wouldn't like it.

…. …. …. ….

"You're sure of this?" he asked when Mattie finished speaking.

"As sure as I can be." Her fingers smoothed the yellow fabric over a definite swelling. "I thought you'd want to know before you…left for good."

Damn that sixth sense of hers, Wyatt thought. He drained his coffee mug and placed it on the table. A different time, a different place, a different woman and he would have rejoiced at the news. Now….

Now he must simply endure.

Mattie took a deep breath. "One thing," she said, sounding as determined as he'd ever heard her. "I won't have my child raised by a father who's never home. Who whores with other women."

Wyatt was about to remind her she was lucky to have a roof over her head, that she had no say-so over his coming and going, when he realized that now, she did. She owned him. Or rather, the son or daughter growing in her belly did.

"That will change," he said.

Mattie shoved back her chair and leaped to her feet. "I don't know if I even want you any more, you hear me? You've treated me like dirt ever since she came to town. Now you say you'll drop her - just like that?" She snapped her fingers. A tiny blue spark flared.

He hadn't exactly meant just like that, but it was probably for the best. "That's what I'm saying. You have my word."

…. …. …. ….

Mattie stared forlornly through the window at the passing teams and wagons. The cottage felt as empty as ever. After eating, Wyatt had gone back uptown. He'd given her his word. She would far rather he'd given her his love.


Not long after dark, Chance knocked on the door of the adobe cabin Mose Winston lived in on the far side of Chinatown. It opened instantly, silhouetting the big man standing on the threshold against the light of a kerosene lamp.

"Tell me what you know of Naomi," Winston said by way of greeting.

"I know she never stops searching for you," Chance said. "I don't know if you'll find each other. I don't know where she lives now, but she'll die in Philadelphia in 1899. If you want to look for her, that's where to start."

"That's crazy talk!" Winston's fists doubled. "You some kinda confidence man? You tryin' to sell me information? Do it look like I got me a gold mine hidden away so's I can pay for information that don't mean nothin'? Why don-chu haul your white ass on outta here before I lose my patience."

Once again Chance produced his forged papers. "I'm not selling anything, Mr. Winston. I work for the U.S. government - of the year 2011. Your great great nephew is my associate. I hoped I might persuade you to help me."

"Man, you truly is crazy. You makin' all this up. You think I never heard of H. G. Wells?"

H. G. Wells? The man was far from as ignorant as he liked to pretend. Or more likely, must pretend. It was 1881, after all. Not only that, he liked science fiction - or whatever it was called in this era.

"Good. Then you're not unfamiliar with the concept of time travel. Wells wasn't - isn't - too far off the mark with his stories. I'm not allowed to explain everything, but I can tell you this: I'm here to prevent a shooting that will cause very serious repercussions in the future that I come from. My actions, my very presence here, must be kept absolutely confidential. Your nephew believes you can be trusted." Chance removed a blow-up of the photograph Lavern Winston carried from his credentials. "He sent you this."

Mose Winston studied the photo for several moments. Then he said, "You best come inside and start from the beginning."

…. …. …. ...

Winston lifted the tin coffee pot from the cookstove, and flashed white teeth when Chance held his hand over the top of his cup. He'd matched the blacksmith cup for cup for the better part of an hour.

"That's enough for me. I'll be lucky to find my way back to the San Jose House." He raised the cup in salute, and downed the last of the potent brew, Arbuckle's Coffee laced with - to Chance's amazement - Bacardi rum. Even the label was almost the same as in his own time, the little black bat perhaps somewhat chubbier.

"Wish I could help you," Winston said as he reclaimed the chair on the opposite side of the table from Chance. "I can't shoot like that no more. But I know a man might be just what you're lookin' for. Goes by the handle Apache Pete."

"He's Indian?"

"Not by birth. Raiders killed his folks when he was about three, but took him to one-a their squaws to raise. He was thirteen when the army got him back. By then he was all Apache - or worse."

"How did you run across him?"

Winston grinned. "I'm the sol'jer who took his knife away before he planted it between my ribs, and swatted him half-way into next week for tryin'. When it turned out he didn't have no kin left alive, I seen him sent off to mission school for civilizin'. For all the good it did. Cost me a month's pay for his room an' board, and the first thing he done was run off. After takin' a butcher knife to one-a the older kids for stealin' the medicine bag his 'Pache mama made him."

"So you went after him?"

"Not then. Not him special. No sense throwin' good money after bad. When I mustered out, I drifted some back toward home, hopin' I might run across my little sister. Fetched up in Ft. Sill, broke and hungry. Judge Parker was lookin' for men to clean up the Western District of the Arkansas. He put out a call for the toughest, meanest hombres he could find, pinned tin stars on their chests and sent 'em out to bring in every bank robber, bushwhacker, and scalawag they could lay hands on - alive if they could, dead if they couldn't. I signed up."

Chance uttered a low whistle. "You were one of Parker's Men? Hanging Judge Parker?"

"They ain't but one."

Here came the goose bumps again. Of the many federal justices in those days, Gramps had once told him, Wyatt Earp admired Judge Isaac Parker most of all.

Presiding over the Federal District Court with jurisdiction over the Indian Territories that ultimately became Oklahoma, Hanging Judge Parker earned his sobriquet by building a gallows designed to execute a dozen condemned outlaws in a single "necktie party". His record was six. "Would've been eight," Gramps had said with a regretful sigh, "but one got commuted. The other got shot trying to escape."

"Judge Parker sent a dozen of us down to clean out Sam Starr's hide-out," Winston continued. "Place was a snake den of desperados. We rode in shooting, and damn near got cut to pieces our own selves. Someone on a hill 800 yards away was pickin' us off like flies."

Winston sipped his Arbuckle's.

"We got a man behind him with orders to take him alive. Guess who we found."

"Apache Pete?"

"One and the same. Some of the boys wanted to string him up right there, 'thout waitin' for Judge Parker's gavel. Killin' in a fair fight was one thing, but lynchin a man already captured wasn't what we was paid to do. We put him and a half-dozen others in the Black Maria* and headed for Ft. Sill.

"Wasn't 'til we camped for the night that me and Pete figgered out who each other was. We had us a confab…. Wasn't supposed to do that, but I guess I got to feelin' sorry for the little bastard. I tol' him if he gave me his word to ride on outta the Territories, stay the hell out, and find a way to earn an honest living, I'd find a way to keep him from danglin' at the end of a noose."

"He agreed? You trusted him?"

"He agreed. An Apache gives his word, you can stake your life on it, so I trusted him. Year or two later, I fetched up here. One-a the Earps brung me that racehoss you seen at my smithy for new shoes. Guess who was set to ride it."

"Apache Pete?"

"One and the same. 'Paches ain't the most carin' of hossflesh. They'll ride their ponies to death, and eat the carcasses for supper. But Pete spent some time with the Commanches. There ain't no better hossmen this side of them Russian Cossacks. And they take damn good care of their hosses."

"Cossacks?"

"Seen 'em oncet, riding in that Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Thing is, this little runt can still knock out a squirrel's eye at 500 yards with a Winchester. If you needs your man taken out quiet-like, he ain't forgot how to use a Bowie knife or a bow and arrow." Winston got up, refilled his cup. "What he knows about convincin' close-mouthed folk to talk would give Geronimo hisself the heebee-jeebees."

"His family name doesn't happen to be Caruso, does it?" he asked, recalling Guerrero's multi-great uncle he'd encountered in St. Paul.

"D'know. Don't reckon he does, either."

Chance placed his cup on the table and stood. "Where do I find him?"

"Don't rightly know where he holes up at night. Durin' the day, try the race track. I see him, I'll tell him to find you."

The anticipatory gleam in Winston's eye made Chance hope he found Apache Pete before Apache Pete found him.


Although early by 21st Century standards when Chance returned to his rooming house, he found the parlor empty but for the landlady busy with her knitting, and her cat, eying the yarn as if the twitching strand were alive.

Continuing down the hall, he concluded several boarders had turned in for the night. From the snores rumbling behind closed doors, they already slept soundly.

Passing a door marked LADIES' ABLUTIONS, he heard the sound of splashing. When he opened the door to their room, Julia wasn't there. Must be her in Ladies' Ablutions, he guessed. Gents had no ablutions. They were expected to shave in their rooms, or visit bath and barbering establishments. He cleaned up with water from the pitcher and bowl on the dresser.

The water's fresh-from-the-Arctic temperature did little to stop mental images of Julia in a huge cast iron bathtub from presenting a slide show in his imagination. Her frizzy red hair springing loose from the Psyche knot on top of her head. One shapely leg extended above the tub, then drawn back as she soaped her toes. The shimmer of water cascading from her as she stood and reached for a towel. Hell, he was getting hard just thinking about her. His hands kept wanting to close on her flesh. His mouth hungered to taste hers again. He wondered if she were thinking similar thoughts about him. Should he go back and tap on the door? Offer to scrub her back?

But no. She'd closed him out last night. She had every right to, he supposed, but that didn't make it sting any less.

He opened the carpetbag an earlier inspection told him held period clothing intended for him. He found spare trousers and shirts, fresh collars and cuffs, cotton drawers - thank God! The woolen union-suit he'd worn was warm, but the itchy fabric was maddening. He now knew a secret no old west historian had ever figured out: liquor didn't cause all those saloon brawls - intolerable underwear did. He'd sooner freeze than itch.

At the bottom he found a red and gray striped robe - more woo l- and a red flannel something-or-other he decided must be a night-shirt. He slipped it on. It was chilly enough the robe - dressing gown, some mental thesaurus prompted - would feel good and the flannel would provide a buffer between skin and wool. Between his body and Julia's.

He wished he'd bought a bottle of Old Overholt before returning to their room. Dress again? Go up to Allen Street, see Tombstone as it really was after dark? Naaah, too much trouble. He felt jet-lagged. Make that broom-lagged. He needed sleep.

He eyed the bed. Although a double, and quite generous for the times, it was way too small. With Julia curled up beside him in it, the last thing he'd want to do was sleep.

…. …. …. ...

Down the hall, Julia's thoughts as she soaked in the cast iron tub did in fact center on Christopher Chance, but were far from erotic imaginings.

True she was mulling over the necessity of sharing a bed with her sexy, macho bodyguard. The problem was, the idea terrified her.

After her ritual deflowering, the idea of having sex left her feeling cold. Gray. Shriveled. Except when she thought of making love with Christopher. Then she felt like a blossom opening its petals to the sun. Until she reminded herself how unskilled she was.

She'd read all the books telling how to please a man, how to make the most of making love. Not to mention countless steamy romance novels. But no amount of reading took the place of hands-on experience, and she had practically none. Christopher had probably slept with dozens of beautiful, sophisticated, highly skilled women besides Ilsa Pucci. When he saw how inexperienced she was, he'd think she was boring. Dull. Inept. And he'd be right.

…. …. …. ...

Grumbling under his breath, Chance carried one of the pillows from the bed and a spare blanket he found in the wardrobe over to the settee. As he finished arranging them, Julia came through the door, all pink and fragrant from her bath.

"What's all this" She gestured at the pillow and blanket.

"The bed's yours," Chance said, trying not to sound grumpy. "I…need more room."

"You'll be miserable on that settee."

He shrugged.

"I thought we were posing as a married couple. If we don't share the bed, the maid will wonder why."

"You're an invalid, remember? Too fragile for me to enjoy my husband's prerogatives. Or we had a fight."

Julia moved a few steps closer. "You're making me feel very undesirable."

Take a look below my waistline. You'll change your mind. "Julia…."

"Are you angry I wouldn't sleep with you last night?"

"No."

"Yes you are."

"No. I'm. Not."

"Then why don't you kiss me?"


*Author's note: a "Black Maria" is a horse-drawn prison wagon