Chapter Two
Lucky
opened his eyes and then shut them immediately as the hot sun rained down on him, making
him parched and uncomfortable. He saw a pattern in the air, birds in a formation, vultures
circling. What did this mean? His injured leg and side instantly reminded him he was
mortally wounded. He moved a tentative hand to his side and then held it before his face,
blood dripping down, splattering his cheek and neck.
"Ahhhh!"
he shouted, rearing up and then sinking back to the ground, the world spinning hopelessly
around him. "Daaad," he moaned, on the verge of sobbing for the pain and
confusion. His father would make it better. He'd rescue him. He always did. Where was his
dad? A sharp pain split his side, and he screamed. "DAD!!!" He gulped between
sobs. Oh God, oh God. Help me.
"Son?"
he heard a deep, masculine voice question.
Lucky
opened his eyes as slits, not believing there was a darkly handsome man sitting astride a
horse, inspecting him from a distance. He blinked hard, but the man was still there with a
concerned look on his face. Something about his tone of voice was reassuring.
"Hurt," was all Lucky could speak before he succumbed to a sightless, gray place
that pulled him down and under.
***
Luke Spencer raced over to the shattered table and the well-muscled man who'd obliterated it. The heavy table was in pieces, now flattened to the floor, and Luke looked around with narrowed eyes, trying to find the man's enemy who must have started a raucous bar fight. Shocked patrons sat or stood with mouths open and drinks cooling in their hands.
"I SAID.
What the hell is going on here?" He hadn't heard a raised voice or the sound of
breaking glass, the usual harbingers of a night gone wrong.
Several men
formed a circle around the unconscious man, their curiosity getting the better of them.
"He's hurt," one man observed, pointing at the large, spreading bloodstain
soaking the man's rough work shirt. His arms were flung away from him, and his legs lay at
odd angles from his body. He appeared to have been dropped from outer space.
Luke frowned
and kicked at the downed man, not in the mood for a scene. "Get up," he ordered.
"Obviously,
he can't hear you," another man said sarcastically.
"Get out
of here," Luke said. He'd been preoccupied all evening with the disappearance of his
only son, and being a polite business owner wasn't high on his list right now. Luke turned
his back on the scene and walked to the bar, flinging a white cloth on top of its wooden
surface, polishing it and acting as if nothing were amiss.
"I'm
calling an ambulance," someone declared with a cell phone brandished in his hand.
"Anyone a doctor?" he called out to the rest of the bar crowd.
Luke turned up the music and made a face. No one volunteered their medical expertise, and when Heath moaned and twisted on top of the massive splinters of wood, he was indeed alone in his pain-filled world.
***
"What
have you done, twisted little man?" the older woman asked.
Faison turned
toward his latest boss, a woman he'd assumed was Satan's favorite mistress with her love
of evil and manipulation. "I have tested der machine," he answered. He'd be
damned if Helena Cassadine asserted her dominance over him. He was evil enough in his own
right, wasn't he? He didn't need her help.
Helena
Cassadine sniffed derisively through her narrow, aristocratic nose. "And what is
Lucky Spencer's condition?" Her cold, green eyes glared, feeling like shards of ice
pricking Faison's flesh.
He turned
towards her and shrugged. "He was still breathing when I sent him back to the 1870's.
Only he now has several holes in his body. They'll heal. Maybe." Faison couldn't help it A few chuckles escaped from
his twisted mouth, and he covered it discretely with a cupped hand.
"Blasted
imbecile!" Helena bellowed with a force that belied her long, lithe frame.
"You'll destroy the plan!"
Faison held a
hand over his heart and smirked. "It does me good to know how much Lucky Spencer must
be suffering." He breathed in noisily. "Inhale the blessed agony,
Mistress."
Helena's face
relaxed, and she smiled slowly, her lips spreading into a gentle grin. She stroked her
black cat's fur. "I do so love torture," she purred as her eyes glazed over in
glee. Shaking her head, she snapped out of her reverie. "But this must result in the
utter annihilation of a man. Luke Spencer must be wiped off the face of the earth."
Her eyes glinted as they searched the metallic surface of the time machine. "He quite
simply must never come into existence."
***
"Whissssky,"
Heath hissed in the first word he'd spoken since being shot by the evil Faison. His
eyelids fluttered weakly and then opened. He grimaced, rising up slightly to inspect the
damage. Veteran of gunshot wounds and other forms of human mischief, Heath knew this was
bad, real bad. His guts were burning hotter than a date with bad moonshine, and he
remembered the sharp retort of gunfire, flinging back in agony and then dropping to the
floor. He moved his shaking hand over his abdomen and cried out, "Whisky!" in a
loud, edgy voice when he saw that the man standing next to him was sipping a wheat-colored
beverage from a glass. He was no longer on the ranch, yet he was also far, far away from
the young boy in the strange prison.
The man knelt
down beside Heath and carefully lifted his head to prop up his neck so he could drink
without choking.
"No!"
Heath shook his head from side to side in refusal, pointing toward his midriff. "Pour
it. Right here."
"What?"
Heath sighed
in exasperation and dejectedly sank back to the floor. Not all men were versed in the
latest medical knowledge.
"Don't
move. We've sent for an ambulance. It's on its way."
"What?"
"Don't
talk. Preserve your energy."
Those were
fighting words to the young cowboy, so often injured and so frequently misunderstood.
Heath leapt to his feet the best he could, staggering to one side, sweat from his exertion
dripping from every pore.
The man beside
him looked shocked and held an arm over his nose for olfactory protection.
"Don't ya
tell me what ta do!" Heath swore. He was
barely standing and dripping in blood.
"No
problem," the man said, backing off with his hands held up.
Heath looked
around, his mind dipping and threatening to sink into oblivion. He was determined to live
through this and make his way back to the ranch and his brother Nick. What was that odd,
thumping, whiney music, and why were there flashing colored lights blinding him with their
gaudiness? Men and women were twisting and gyrating as if they had ants in their pants,
and Heath was sure the women must be prostitutes with their odd, tight clothing and
heavily made up faces. He'd heard women
sometimes dressed in men's clothing, but only in big cities like
"Are you
going to pay for this damage?" Luke Spencer insisted, slapping Heath's arm.
Heath frowned.
Finally, the words registered, and he patted his pockets. He found a bill and offered it
meekly. It was true he'd accidentally wrecked this man's establishment, but he was an
honorable man, always paying his debts or nearly dying in the process.
"You've
got to be kidding," Luke scoffed, waving the bill in Heath's face. "A
"General
Grant?" Heath wondered. The pain was escalating in his gut, and he sank to his knees
before his question could be answered. His last thought was of the young man he'd left
behind, the one who looked so similar to him it was uncanny. Heath's pained blue eyes
locked onto Luke's, and both men's hearts jumped at the resemblance to each another.
"Cowboy?"
Luke asked without meaning to, so strong was his pull toward the aura of his son's soulful
eyes reflected in the injured stranger's pain.
"Rancher,"
Heath proudly corrected before losing consciousness once again.
***
Word spread
quickly through the ER about the latest John Doe. Young nurses materialized out of
nowhere, eager to help strip and clean up the injured young man who was stretched out on a
gurney, waiting for x-rays and inevitable surgery. The stranger was young, blond, with
impossibly broad shoulders and a body a professional weight lifter would envy. One nursing
intern hopped up and down behind the crowd of white uniforms so she could glance over the
shoulders of the more privileged senior nurses. "No fair," she whined. "I
had to help with the eighty year old heart attack patient. You're taking all of the good
ones."
***
Dr. Alan
Quartermaine, hospital administrator slash chief surgeon slash recovering narcotics addict
emerged from the OR and strolled into the surgical waiting room, removing his face mask
and disregarding the liberal blood stains smeared over his surgical garb. Butcher or
surgeon? It was anyone's guess.
"We've
removed three bullets," he sighed, sitting down beside Luke Spencer, who recoiled
from the carnage covering the good doc's clothing. "He's stabilized, probably will
make a complete recovery."
"Just
tell the police," Luke stated. "I don’t want to be involved. I can't take
the heat of another man dying in my bar, you know?"
Alan nodded
with understanding. "Some of our best patients come from Luke's Place."
"Hey,"
Luke protested.
"He's a
John Doe," Alan added. "No ID on him anywhere. The nurses indicated that his
clothing seemed odd, like a costume from another century."
"Maybe
he's an actor, the handsome, rugged, western type."
"I
haven't heard of any westerns being filmed in Port Charles."
"Whatever!"
Luke spat out, jumping up from his chair and pacing. He was very nervous for some reason.
His brain was giving him warning signals that he'd best not ignore. What was this
stranger's connection to Lucky, to his missing Cowboy? And where had he seen that face?
He'd seen him before -- possibly in an old photograph. He was sure of it.