OverTime 1 - Searching (Time Travel) Read Online Free

'd left a rolled blanket and the saddlebags sitting on the ground, but had kept the canteen. My mouth felt incredibly dry.
    He stared at me for a long moment, like I 'd said something really dumb. Then he untied the canteen strap and handed it down to me. "Best refill it, when you're done," he drawled, then rode up and out of our little campsite as easily as if he was glued to the saddle. I didn't think about his instruction at first and merely gulped more tinny, hot water. Only once I'd satisfied my thirst and taken a few deep, head-clearing breaths did I realize that he meant for me to refill the canteen in the creek .
    Where the water was cooler and not at all tinny. No wonder he 'd stared.
    Whoever I was—had been—this level of stupidity seemed a new and unpleasant sensation. How did I get so dumb? Other than the amnesia part, that is? I stared at the remaining six horses, who were loosely tied together and happily dining on too-tall grass, and I felt so lost, so displaced, that I almost started crying again. Why was I so sure I 'd never been this close to such large animals before? Why had I thought we would refill the canteen from some other, easier source than the creek?
    Even as exhausted tears began to well, I found and grasped some shreds of dignity. I felt dizzy, scared, hurt, unsure of everything—including myself. No wonder I wanted to sob!
    But it wouldn't help.
    When I limped over to the creek and let the cool water run over my feet and ankles before refilling the canteen, I started to feel marginally better.
    Best collect wood for a cook-fire, he'd said. Cook-fire meant something to cook, right? Food. Dinner.
    My stomach growled. I draped the canteen strap over my shoulder so that it crossed my chest—somehow that seemed safer—and valiantly limped off in search of firewood. I had to watch my step, and still gouged my bare feet on burrs and rocks, but I 'd collected a decent pile of wood from up and down our little creek before I heard the gunshot.
    The horses ' heads came up, ears perked, at the same time mine did, but they didn't look as stunned as I felt. That was a gunshot, wasn't it? Cowboy Garrison had taken several guns with him. It was probably him.
    Right?
    I tried not to worry as I collected the pile of wood in front of me, between the now-alert horses and the creek. Then I attempted to figure out how to start a fire with nothing in my borrowed pockets. Rub two sticks together, right? But knowing and doing were two different things—stick-rubbing did not come naturally to my hands, anymore than kneeling on rocks did to my poor, bare knees, and I soon gave up. Besides, I was worried.
    Suppose, just suppose, the shot had come from someone else's gun? A bad guy's gun? I hadn't heard any return fire, which would mean the bullet had found its mark. Suppose I was alone now, in the middle of an empty Kansas, with six horses I couldn't ride and a bunch of wood I couldn't make into a fire and nothing to cook anyway? Not to mention a murderer on the loose, and me wearing no more than an oversized, overlong man's jacket, knowing nothing except that something bad had happened ?
    Before I could reach full panic, several of the horses lifted their heads and nickered. A returning whinny sounded from over the knoll. What if it wasn 't—but it was my close-mouthed companion, rifle holstered and a dead bird hanging upside-down from the saddle. He pulled the horse to a stop near me, swung easily down, and took the dead bird off the saddle.
    I noticed that the dead bird had no head.
    He stared at my collection of wood in what, if he'd been the least bit expressive, might have been disappointment. "Pluck the turkey," he said, and before I knew it I had a horrible headless dead bird in my hands.
    He began to unsaddle Horse Number Three, and I stared at the fine-feathered corpse in rising dismay. My instincts screamed to drop it—but its ex-head was a raw, bloody wound, and I didn 't want to get it dirty. Not that