Joan Johnston - A Little Time In Texas

“There must be another way, another tunnel. I have to get back where I came from,” Angel said, her voice strained with the effort to remain calm. “There’s someone—”

“You said you don’t have any family,” Dallas interrupted.

“It’s not—You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me.”

Angel took one look at the implacable man sitting across from her and realized he wasn’t going anywhere until she talked. “All I can say is that I have business, unfinished personal business, that needs tending to in San Antonio. In the past.”

Dallas wondered whether her personal business involved another man. He felt a stab of jealousy at the thought. “Anything you can share?”

“Believe me, I’d tell you everything if I thought it would make a difference,” she said. “But there’s nothing you can do to help—except get me back to the past.”

Dallas scratched the dark beard on his jaw. He really ought to shave. With that thought came the memory of why he hadn’t shaved, why he had been in the cave in the first place. He realized that somehow his guilt over Cale’s death had eased. Angel had done that for him in the darkness of the cave. So maybe he owed her the chance to prove to him that she was from the past, and perhaps to help her find her way back to wherever she came from.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll go back to the cave. We’ll look for another exit. But if we don’t find it—”

“We’ll find it,” Angel said. “We have to.”

“And if we don’t?”

The air in Angel’s lungs hissed out, but she managed a tremulous smile. “Then I guess you’re stuck with me.”

Dallas liked that idea too much to spend time contemplating it.

They didn’t say anything more, just finished the food on their plates. Angel offered to wash the dishes before they left for the cave, but Dallas grinned and opened a door under the sink. “Automatic dishwasher. All you have to do is stack the dishes inside and the machine does the rest.”

“Now that’s something almost worth staying in the future to have,” Angel said. “Almost,” she repeated, when it looked like Dallas was going to suggest she do just that.

The drive back to the cave was no less harrowing in Angel’s eyes. She couldn’t get used to the speed of Dallas’s truck. Somehow everything in the future seemed geared to happen in a hurry. It was like landing on a bucking bronc. She wanted off. She wanted things to slow down, so she could breathe easily again.

“I lost most of my gear in the cave-in, so all I’ve got is a couple of flashlights,” Dallas said. “We’ll stay together. At least you won’t have to worry about the dark. There’s only one other tunnel I haven’t followed, and that’s because it starts wet and stays that way.”

“Wet?”

“An underground river runs through the tunnel. It’s shallow—what I’ve seen of it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t get deeper. Or end up going underground.”

Dallas didn’t believe they would come out of the cave in another century, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He carried all the usual cavers’ supplies—and brought along his gun. He carried the same .45 Colt revolver his father and his father’s father had carried, rather than the automatic weapon the department issued.

“Expecting trouble?” Angel asked as he slipped the gun into a holster at his side.

“Never hurts to be prepared,” he said.

The way back through the cave didn’t seem to take nearly so long with flashlights. Dallas took Angel directly to the spot where the cave had come crashing down behind them.

“There’s no going back that way,” he confirmed. “But over there—” he shifted his flashlight to expose another opening in the rock “—that’s the other tunnel I mentioned to you.”

Angel hadn’t noticed the sound of running water before, but it was clear to her now. “Do you have any suggestions how we do this?”

“I go first. You follow me. I decide whether we keep going or turn back.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

Dallas hadn’t expected her to agree so readily, but he was glad she hadn’t argued. He had enough bad feelings about doing this. He didn’t like the idea of heading into the dark in ankle-deep water with nothing more than a couple of flashlights to show the way.

The water was cold, but it stayed shallow for the first half hour. There was a slight current, but hardly enough to cause a ripple. Angel was nervous; the flashlights didn’t provide quite enough light to make her comfortable in the dark. She eased her fear by talking, asking Dallas questions.

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