Journey to Yesterday by Madeline Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

remember seeing this place before,
and she had walked through the town at least three times in the last couple of
days. The Queen of Bodie. Suddenly, the name rang a bell. Of course! It was one
of the saloons that Daisy had mentioned in her diary.
    Wondering how she had missed it on her earlier excursions, Shaye
stepped up on the wooden sidewalk, surprised that the swinging doors weren’t
locked. Only a few of the buildings were open to the public.
    She could hear voices now, a woman’s laughter. With a shrug,
Shaye pushed her way through the doors.
    The saloon was crowded with people, mostly men. Men dressed
in faded red shirts and tall black boots. Smoke hung over the room like a thick
gray shroud. She could hear the whir of a wheel of fortune, the click of dice,
the solid clink of gold and silver coins.
    A long bar stretched away from the door. There was a
restaurant across from the bar, every stool occupied. She frowned, thinking the
place looked vaguely familiar, and then shook it off.
    She stared at the scene before her, her mind racing. Her
first thought was that they were shooting a movie, but there were no lights, no
cameras, and then she realized it had to be some sort of Old West reenactment.
She wondered briefly why Clark hadn’t mentioned it to her, and why it was being
held on a day when she seemed to be the only tourist in the park.
    Still, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and she
decided to make the best of it while she was there. Tucking her overnight bag
under one arm, she worked her way through the crowd, wondering if it was okay
to take pictures. Several of the men stared at her legs as she passed by, but
she was used to that. She had nice legs.
    Voices rose over the din. Male voices. Angry voices.
    “You damned cheat!”
    There was a sudden silence, as if someone had turned off the
sound.
    The crowd before her parted, giving her a clear view of the
confrontation at the poker table in the back of the room.
    A miner pushed away from the table and stood up, his body
tense, as he glared at the man across from him. His face was almost as red as
his shirt as he shouted, “Damn you, Valverde, that card came off the bottom!”
    Shaye’s heart slammed against her rib cage. Valverde.
    The gambler stood up, his movements slow, graceful,
deliberate. He wore black trousers, a white shirt, a black broadcloth coat,
which he swept out of the way, revealing a black gunbelt and holster. “I don’t
have to cheat, Syler. You’re a piss-poor card player if I ever saw one.”
    The miner’s face turned even redder. His hand hovered over
the gun on his hip.
    Another man, also wearing a red shirt, laid a hand on
Syler’s arm.“Fred, don’t. He’ll kill you.”
    “I ain’t afraid of him,” Syler retorted, yet even as he
spoke, his hand fell away from his gun and he was backing away from the table.
    She stared at the scene before her. It was familiar somehow,
yet she knew she had never been there before. Slowly, afraid of what she might
see, she glanced to the left, her gaze drawn to the picture over the bar. A
shiver slid down her spine. She recognized the place and the buxom nude all too
well. It was the saloon from her dream.
    And the man at the table, the one slowly turning in her
direction, was a dead ringer for Alejandro Valverde.
    Her blood ran cold, then hot, then cold again as his gaze
met hers. She felt suddenly lightheaded. She closed her eyes a moment, and when
she opened them again, she seemed to see everything through a blue-gray haze. A
loud buzzing filled her ears, she felt herself falling, watched helplessly as
the floor rushed up to meet her, and then everything went black.

Chapter Five
     
    Alejandro darted forward and caught the woman just before
she hit the floor. Swinging her into his arms, he headed for the stairway.
“Rosa, bring her bag.”
    He took the stairs two at a time. In his room, he laid the
woman on his bed, then stood staring down at her.
    “I’ve never seen a woman