The Cowboy from Christmas Past. Tina Leonard

it. Still, he sensed genuine curiosity not borne from meanness in Auburn’s question. “She died of pneumonia. I couldn’t get the doctor out to our ranch fast enough. Don’t know what he could have done, anyway. All those tinctures they give seem pretty useless to me. It started out as a cold, though I kept the house warm as toast. I never left her side.” He shuddered, remembering the fever that had swept through Polly. He’d kept her wrapped, made sure not a draft entered the house. Tried to feed her soup he made himself.

      Nothing had helped.

      “I’m so sorry,” Auburn said. “I can tell you miss her.”

      “I don’t miss her so much that I’m unhinged, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

      “I didn’t think that at all!”

      “Sure you did,” Dillinger said.

      Auburn’s eyes met his in the mirror, but he looked away before he could see the pity there. “She was an angel,” he said, “and now she’s with the angels. I really couldn’t have kept her long. I realize that now.”

      “But now you have Rose,” Auburn said.

      “But for how long?” Dillinger asked, gently touching the soft, fine hairs on the baby’s head. He was getting awfully attached to a child that wasn’t his. He didn’t even know why her mother had left her with him. No doubt the people of Christmas River would say he’d stolen her, the same way they’d accused him of murdering Polly.

      “I hope she’ll stay with me,” he said quietly. “She’s all I’ve got right now.”

      “Where would she go?” Auburn asked. “It’s not like she can walk away.”

      Dillinger shook his head. Auburn couldn’t possibly understand the demons that drove him, and why this little angel was his only connection to the world he knew.

      Chapter Five

      They got out of the car in Christy River just a few hours later. Dillinger shook his head. “This isn’t it.”

      Auburn was disappointed. “Are you sure?”

      “Yes.” Even if everything wasn’t much more modern, changed over and new, he would recognize his hometown. “The topography isn’t even the same.”

      She held Rose tucked to her chest, surveying the road where they’d stopped. He liked watching her care for the baby, but he couldn’t get over the astonishing sight of hundreds of cars flying along the highway. “We rode horses over land like this,” he murmured.

      She smiled at him. “You’re an old-fashioned guy.”

      “I think I’m fairly progressive.”

      “What made you become a gunslinger?” she asked softly, and he forced himself to consider the question and give her an honest answer, even if he really didn’t want to talk about a way of life he’d given up for Polly.

      “I met one man who didn’t believe in peaceful solutions,” he said. “After that, it seemed I was offered plenty of jobs the law couldn’t handle—or didn’t want to handle—on their own. And the pay was good.” He shrugged. “Let’s get one of those burger things, on my nickel. Being a new father is making me hungry. I want to eat like Rose does, every three hours.”

      “We can grab something at that McDonald’s,” Auburn suggested, getting in the car. “It’s pretty non-nutritious food, but I do love their French fries.”

      He got in the car, made sure Rose was secure in her seat.

      “Would you ever tell me about how you did your job?” Auburn asked as their eyes met over Rose’s carrier.

      “No,” he said quietly. “Some stories aren’t good in the retelling.”

      She didn’t believe he was from 1892. How could she understand anything about his life? Dillinger let Rose grab his finger, smiling when she held on to it with determination. “She’s a tough little girl,” he said. “A survivor.”

      Auburn started the car and pulled into traffic. He was surprised by how comfortable he was, letting her drive him around. Where he was from, the man usually handled the team of horses, drove the buckboard. He couldn’t remember Polly driving anything, although she’d been an excellent horsewoman. Polly had been more delicate than Auburn. It was strange how Auburn had changed since she’d left her employment at the theater; she was softer, more feminine. He wondered about her family, why they didn’t seem concerned about her being off on her own.

      A sudden shrill ringing startled him and Rose.

      “Sorry,” Auburn said, “I have to take this. It’s my sister, Cherie.”

      He watched, astonished, as she pulled a small black box from her purse and began talking into it. She listened, laughed, then talked some more. It was amazing. Everything one wanted to say could be done instantly, not in a letter or handwritten message.

      She put the object away. “She’s telling everyone I’ve gone to Florida to think things over.”

      “Can I look at that thing?”

      “This? It’s an iPhone,” she said, handing it to him. “Don’t you have a cell phone?”

      “No.” He stared at it, amazed by all the strange markings. “And you can talk to someone on this.”

      “Anywhere in the world.”

      He blinked. “Anywhere?”

      “Yes.”

      He handed it back to her. “How do you know how to reach someone?”

      “Usually you know their number and have it in your phone list. If not, you can look it up in a phone book or on the Internet. There are maps of everything, anything you want to know at all, right here.”

      He considered that. “So, if there was such a thing as Christmas River, that phone would show it.”

      “Right. And there’s nothing listed. I checked.”

      So the town name had changed. He was going to have to find out what the new name was, or be forever lost. “I have to know what happened to my town,” he told her.