Chapter Next: A Ray of Hope

"What good is it to camp here?" Jubilee asked again for the ninth or tenth time. "We could be in town in an hour." She looked off across the distance. "We'll never find him just sitting here."

"If it's all so hopeless why don't you just leave? We don't need a chaperone, no matter what your Miss Frost seems to think." Logan was worn and tired. He couldn't remember sleeping at all this week.

Jubilee was suddenly calm. "Okay, you want the truth?" She eyed Logan warily. "It's because we've been insane recently. You, your wife, and myself. I don't know if I trust any of our decisions."

She saw him cock his head to one side.

"I was freakishly out of my mind the last time Lucas and I spoke. I was gunning to kill him, trying my best. And he just kept talking and trying to reach me."

Logan felt a tug of emotional debt. This sounded familiar.

"Lucas is the calm little center of a world made up of insane and damaged people." She gestured to the world around her. "And that world needs its center. Or it's destined to come apart."

"That's why we're here." He had crossed his arms and was staring at her plainly.

"No." She said. "That's why we're in the past, but not here."

"Didn't Beast explain about impacting the timeline?" He asked her. "Or the social climate?"

She took a quick breath and then exhaled. "So then you go if you don't trust the town to handle my skin-color and slang." She spit the words, proving she had heard the appropriate lecture. "But Logan, please." She pleaded. "What if he's there? Right there?" She motioned to the distant lights of the small town. "And we sat here all night? Not knowing?"

And that he understood. Right there. He considered her. "What is it that you think of that makes you flinch like that when you talk about him?"

She stopped moving. "Did I flinch?"

"Yep. Did it again, just now." He pointed to her arm.

And she saw it again, in her mind, the ghostly image of a man, tumbling backward across the sky, outlined and illuminated in a cloud of glittering gold.

"Nothing." She grabbed her hand with the other and held it still.

"Tell me." He said softly. "And if you've got a better reason to be here than I do," he felt a flush of anger. "Or his mother does, then I'll go tonight, myself."

She raised her eyes to meet his. "You and I were close in my world. You know that?" She asked.

He shook his head and listened.

"And I could tell my Wolvie." She looked ready to cry. "But I don't know you." She bit back on her tears and closed her eyes.

"I saw him fall." She said in a voice unlike her own. More confident and more adult. "I made him fall."

Marie rose from around the fire, listening.

"I was signaling him." Her voice wavered. "And the station's defenses misunderstood, and targeted me."

She had begun to shake all over. "And he went out of the station, he was trying to. . ." She started to cry.

"And I saw him, his outline, lit in sparkles." She was gesturing and trying to wipe her eyes. "And when I thought I had killed . . ."

And suddenly, there was Marie. "Go now Logan." She smiled and lay a hand on his chest. "If you wont let her go on alone. We're well outta times way out here." And with that she turned to steer the girl back to the fire, wrapping her in a comforting arm.

When Jubilee looked up again, Logan was gone.

A Short Time Later:

Wolverine pushed the doors apart and stood, framed in the doorway.

The saloon was almost empty. A few regulars sat, or rather slumped, at their accustomed spots. A table of local ranchers were quietly discussing local politics among them selves. They stopped talking when they noticed Wolverine. They started again as he set his gaze on the bartender and began to cross the room.

The bartender was a big man. His mustache and dark eyes gave him a decidedly Mexican appearance, yet he was tall, near on to six feet, and fair skinned.

Wolverine sat down and fell easily in to the conversation. "What's the hardest thing you've got?" He asked, smiling just enough to be friendly.

The bartender pulled down a bottle and set it on the bar, but didn't let go. "Expensive." The bartender sized him up.

Wolverine leaned back and pulled a small leather pouch out of his gun-belt. He cupped the pouch in his hand and used his thumb to ease two small nuggets of gold out and on to the bar. He eyed the sack of gold. Leave it to Beast to think of everything.

"Two more." The bartender told him.

"For one bottle?" Wolverine growled, eyeing him.

The bartender looked hard at him for a moment before shrugging, grinning, and scooping up the gold. He slid the bottle across the bar.

"I'm looking for someone." Wolverine eyed a jar of cigars and turned out another nugget before gesturing to them.

"Common story." The bartender wiped his hands on his apron then gave up four cigars.

"My boy." Wolverine bit the end off the cigar and lit with a wooden match from on the bar.

"I know him." The bartender nodded twice. "You're kin to Luke Logan or I'm my grand-ma." He cast his eyes upward. "God rest her soul."

Logan raised his bottle to salute the bartender's words.

The bartender smiled.

"Luke told me once he didn't know his daddy." The bartender was cordial but suspicious.

"He don't." Wolverine swallowed a mighty quaff off the bottle. "Need to fix that." He nodded.

"Maybe he don't want it fixed." The bartender had stopped smiling. "I don't know that sort of thing about him."

Wolverine considered his words. "You're a good bartender." He said at last.

The man smiled again. "Luke's a good customer." He nodded. "Pays for his drinks and what he breaks. Even if he is always singin' them demon songs that ain't nobody ever heard before."

"Demon songs?" Logan cocked an eyebrow and halted in mid motion.

"That's what Reverend Craig calls 'em." He explained. "Although they don't all warrant that par-ticular title." He smiled slyly at a memory. "Luke can get a group powerful worked up when he's a lookin' to blow off some steam."

"Is that a fact?" Wolverine smiled. "I didn't know he sings."

"After he's had a few. And after a fashion."

"Not so good, hunh?" Wolverine smiled.

The bartender considered his words. "I think, he thinks, he's just fine." He smirked. "Who am I to argue?"

Wolverine took another pull on his bottle.

"So how is it you never met your boy?" The bartender leaned on the bar, resting on his elbows, and spoke privately.

"I was locked up." Wolverine confided, before adding the lie: "Down in Bolivia."

"Now where would that that be? Bolivia?"

"South. On the other side of Mexico." He took another drink.

"That's fer' sure south all right." The bartender picked up a glass and began idly cleaning it with a towel. "Sad thing. To be locked up, miss a boy growin' up." He raised a cautious eye. "You sure he wants to see you mister?"

Wolverine smiled a wide, intoxicated grin. "He's the one who got me out."

The bartender considered him again, more favorably this time.

"Luke don't live in town." He told him at last. "He lives north and to the west."

"What's up there?" Wolverine wondered out loud.

The bartender considered his words carefully. "Well, that would be the local Tribe." He wiped the bar slowly, trying to gauge Logan's reaction.

Logan considered this. "How far?"

"Half a days ride."

"Not so far." He shrugged.

"Trail's pretty clear by daylight." He motioned out the window. "Be too dark to find soon."

"Sure enough." Logan sloshed the remnants in the bottle.

"You got a place for tonight?"

"Little camp outside town." He swallowed the last of his whiskey.

"Travelin' alone?"

"Nope." Wolverine smiled. "We're planning a family reunion." He put the bottle down on the bar and stood up. "His sister stayed home." He shrugged. "She didn't want to stay put." He continued. "But I've spent some time with her since I got back. And you know, I wanted the same chance with my boy." He smiled a wavy grin. "We're going back that way afterward." He took a deep breath and hiked up his pants.

" Best not to tax a woman on the trails anyhow." The bartender nodded.

"Bub, you don't know the women in our family." He grinned. "They're headstrong, impulsive and tougher than most railroad men." He nodded. "Luke's mother is out at the camp right now." He smiled. "And this girl that Luke was a flirting with." He felt slightly drunk and he made a dismissive gesture. "Forget about it." The way he said it sounded vaguely Italian, causing him to vaguely wondered if he were at all Italian.

"I can't even imagine the type of woman that could keep up with Lucas. He lives his life like you drink the hard stuff."

"She had him on the run in their last tiff." He confided. "Tried him with both barrels too." He smiled warmly. "I think it's why he likes her." He said as though it had just occurred.

"Sounds about right." The bartender's head bobbed up and down. "Luke does like a challenge." He admitted.

Wolverine stuck out his hand. "Thank you much, . . ." He reached for a name.

"Ray." The bartender took the hand and shook it. "Mister. . ."

"It's just Logan." Wolverine smiled. "Thanks for the wet."

He considered Ray for a moment. "Maybe I could send Luke's girl here, to wait in case he turns up?" He eyed Ray. "Keep her off the trail until we make it back." He looked around. "She's a tough little Chinese thing. Think that would be all right?"

Ray shrugged. "Paying customers are always welcome." He nodded. "And, for Luke, I'd even run a tab."

Wolverine nodded. "Fair enough."

"Although I'm guessing you just turned a problem of yours in to a problem of mine." He wiped a glass absently on his apron. "Since the trail don't phase her none?" He concluded.

Wolverine flashed a giant, drunken and guilty smile. "See." He said respectfully "You are a good bartender Probably saw that coming a mile away." He tipped his hat, then took a deep breath, spun on his heal, and exhaled slowly as he walked out of the bar.

"Like most trouble." Ray said out loud. A few of the ranchers chuckled at him as he did.

Ray began to hum to himself as he wiped down the bar where Logan had been sitting, even though it wasn't really necessary. Oh Lord!, he wondered. What did I get myself in to now? The tune he was humming was 'Escape' also known as the Pina Colada Song.