Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel. I'm not making a profit, so don't set the lawman on me.

I know this chapter is very short. However, there is a reason for that. The next part jumps ahead a couple of months, so I didn't want to combine the two time-frames. This just wraps up the current section.

GOLD FEVER

PART 7

CHASING THE MOON

Once upon a time, before she found out about me being in love with that angel and kicked me out of her school, my teacher told me a story about a boy who fell in love with the moon. Myself, I don't know what that big, white, shiny circle in the sky has to offer, but she could bottle it, sell it and be a billionaire. Anyway, this boy had his mind set on taking her for his wife, so, for weeks and weeks, he brought her little offerings. The song of a mermaid in a seashell. A necklace of raindrops. A feather from the wings of a gryphon. You know, the typical, fairytale shit. But this moon was a difficult mistress to woo. No matter what he brought her, it just wasn't good enough for her. She sat up in the sky and laughed down at him.

At last, he asked her daddy, the sky, what he had to do to win her hand. Daddy evidently wanted to marry her off, so he said to this boy that his daughter bathed every night in a pool in the forest. If he wanted to get her, he should weave a net out of silver thread and throw it over her while she was swimming. If he could hold her until morning, she would be his wife.

 So the boy did what he said and spent all his money to buy a net of silver. The smith, of course, thought he was half-cracked. That night, he snuck down to the forest and caught the moon bathing in the pool as the sky had said. Being the sort of unnatural boy who didn't lose all good sense at the sight of a naked woman, he threw his net over her and drew the ends together. The moon struggled and screamed and swore, but she couldn't get free. When morning came, she told him that she gave up and that she would be his wife and obey him in everything, if he would only let her out. 

Feeling very pleased with himself, the boy opened the net and let the moon out of it. In her turn, she smiled at him and told him that she wanted to show herself to him in all her beauty and radiance if that was what he wanted. Being a man, he was thrilled. To my knowledge, there ain't a man alive who would turn down a prettier wife, even if they were married to the Belle of the South. So, she smiled and she became brighter and brighter until he couldn't stand to look at her. Boy went blind, and the moon escaped . . . The moral of the story is that you should be happy with what you got. Guess I never quite got it. Since then, I've been chasing the moon or the closest thing I can get to it in this world, because one moment of that glory's worth a lifetime of blindness.

A satisfied smirk on his face, Remy stepped over the bleeding body of a gambler lying unconscious in the doorway and out of the chaos that the saloon had become. A chair crashed into the wall behind him and a rough voice cursed him for a coward, but he paid the insult no attention. It would be a good few hours before the Wolverine recovered from the drug Kate had slipped him and was able to come after them, but he wanted to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Moonshine Creek in that time.

The sheriff hadn't gotten his reputation for hunting down any criminal and setting them swinging from the gallows' tree for nothing, and Remy himself was good enough to know it was probably best not to tangle with him.

Tipping his hat to the woman at the counter and grimacing sympathetically at her frightened expression, he made his way out of the hotel. If all went according to plan, Kate would be waiting for him at the hitching rail, their horses saddled and ready to ride. He was not sure exactly where they would go. It would probably be best to go to some no-name tent-town and lay low for a couple of months until the worst of the fuss blew over. No-one asked too many questions of you in a place like that; they just assumed that you had come in search of the same gold as them. And he was sure they could find something to do to occupy the long, boring months spent in hiding . . . .

"Ready to hit the road, girl?" he called as he rounded the corner to where the hitching rail stood, "I know I'm sick of Moon –"

The words died in his mouth. His horse was tied to the rail, stamping and whickering impatiently to be off. Its saddle lay in the dust beside it, along with the contents of its saddlebags. Shirts, pants and boots were strewn all over the ground, and his playing cards had been scattered to the winds. There was no sign of Kate or her horse, and he realised with a groan that she had double-crossed him . . . .

Stars streaming past her in the sky, long grass brushing against her legs, Kate rode low in her saddle through the prairie night. Her horse was breathing heavily and its coat was shiny with sweat, but she couldn't afford to stop and rest it. Even with having to saddle up his horse and pick up his clothes, Remy could not be more than half-an-hour behind her.

She did not know exactly when she had decided to double-cross him. She had left the saloon intending to saddle their horses and ride away with him, but the heaviness of the bag in her hands had soon got her thinking about the amount of money in it. A million had a far better sound to it than half-a-million. It was the sort of amount you read about in storybooks about pirates and robbers, and she had been holding it in her hands. Even though half of it would have been more than enough to make her a rich woman several times over, she had not been able to bear the thought of parting with even a cent of it.

Besides, she had reasoned, she had been the one to take the bigger risk, so she deserved to get the reward. No-one would think twice about the gentleman gambler who'd started the fight in the saloon, but the Wolverine would inevitably talk to the prissy barmaid and she'd soon point him in the direction of the whore with a white streak in her hair. If she was to be hunted by one man, she might as well be hunted by two. A million would buy her all the peace of mind she needed.

It was a shame in some ways, she thought. Remy was as beautiful as the sin you never had the nerve to commit, and it could have been fun having a tumble in the hay with him. However, half-a-million was too much to pay for a few fleeting moments of pleasure, and it would never have become anything more than that. He wasn't the marrying type, any more than she was. They were both like the skylarks that flew above the prairies, soaring higher and higher into the air until they disappeared against the sun, never coming down to ground again. If she couldn't have the freedom of the plains and the wide-open skies above them, she would be miserable.

Gripping tightly onto the reins with her hands, she glanced over her shoulder in order to check that the saddlebags with the money were still in place. If she rode through the night, she could be in River's Run by dawn. She could swop her horse for a fresh one, get a hot meal and change of clothes and be on the road again before Remy caught up with her.

A smile on her face, Kate touched her heels to the horse's side and flew through the night.

TO BE CONTINUED