OverTime 1 - Searching (Time Travel) (17 page)

Fed up, I said, "
I'm
the one who asked the question first. Why are you answering him?"

Benj could hardly muffle his laughter at that one. Garrison
's turn back toward me was slow and incredulous, and every instinct I had screamed for me to look down, or away, anywhere but at the antagonism in his hard eyes.

I fought every instinct I had, and I guess I won, because he actually repeated it to me. "Romero knows better."

"Knows better than to dance with a white woman?" Now we came to the crux of the matter, didn't we? Maybe Seth didn't get reprimanded because the Boss was a bigot too. He'd fought in the Civil War, hadn't he? I seemed to know vague things about that war. With his accent and Texas roots, I doubted he'd fought for the North.

"
He
," clarified Garrison with unmistakable emphasis, "knows better'n to cause trouble."

And this time, he
was
accusing me. Maybe he was agreeing with Seth there, too. Maybe he didn't think I was a lady.

Considering how unwilling I was to drop this matter, I was beginning to question that myself.

"Well it would
help
," I whispered archly, including Benj in my glare, "if people would bother explaining the rules now and then. Especially when they're
stupid rules
endorsed by bad
management
!" And at that, while both men stared, I stood up, stalked to the front of the wagon, and climbed up and into my "room."

To my amazement, despite my deliberately poor manners, the Boss acknowledged my departure with another polite, if belated, "Ma
'am."

Through the canvas I heard Benj get control of his latest fit of laughter to hiss,  "Ain
't that somethin'! Jacob, maybe you found a European gal. They's got some progressive ways of thinkin' over there."

From closer to me, Garrison repeated it like a dirty word, "Progressive.
" For some reason, that hurt. I didn't want him to be a bigot too.

I said, "Yes,
progressive
," right back at him, from my bed on the feed sacks, inside.

Benj didn
't stop his sporadic chuckling until sometime after I fell sulkily asleep.

For the first time in my five-day memory, I did not dream.

In fact, I remembered nothing before hearing the trail-drive version of an alarm clock:  Garrison, saying, "Mornin', boys. If you can't get up, there are men in the next town who can."

Romero, at breakfast, had been beaten.

I saw his swollen
eye and the raw skin over his high cheekbones, and I felt ill.

He wouldn
't look at me. Very few of the men would—I caught Garrison's gaze on me a moment, but as soon as I did he looked back to his breakfast. The message was clear:  pretend nothing's wrong. But something was
very
wrong. Unlike certain nightmares, this
wasn't
a dream, and maybe it was time I learned to be more than a victim. So I demanded, "Who did that?"

Several heads popped up at my tone—clearly, I
'd played along for too long. My less-than-docile approach surprised them.

Romero held my gaze for a long moment with his one good eye, then squeezed out the words, "Horse kicked me.
"

He was
so
lying.

I looked at Seth, then at Lee. Both men continued to eat as if they couldn
't feel me boring holes in their bare heads...but I thought I detected veiled satisfaction in Seth's posture. Then I looked at Garrison.

He didn
't look away, this time. But he didn't say anything, either. In fact, he looked...curious.
Thanks for the intervention there, Boss.

I looked at Benj, knowing
he
wouldn't stay quiet.

He stunned me by saying, a little too cheerfully, "It
's been known to happen, darlin'. Rough work, trailing beeves."

Liar
!  I couldn't believe it. Benj had just
lied
to me!

Garrison put his breakfast plate down, stood, and headed for his horse. At that signal, half the men snatched their hats and scattered like roaches in the light. I left my own plate and went after the Boss. I reached him just as he mounted and accidentally startled his horse into a sideways hop that didn
't even faze its rider. Easily spooked animals, horses.

"Ho," he commanded, reining the horse in two tight circles until it calmed. He didn
't look particularly happy with me—and yet he
still
touched his damned hat brim in greeting. What
was
it with these cowboys and their hats?

"Why don
't you do something?" I asked, craning my neck to see some part of him other than his knee and his thick thigh.

He frowned—but at least he didn
't ask what I meant. "Says he got kicked."

"And you believe that?"

"Won't call him a liar." He touched his hat again. "Ma'am." And he rode off, none-too-slowly, to oversee the great exodus of the cattle.

So that was that? I stalked back to the campfire and stared down at it in frustration. It wasn
't fair.

"Finish breakfast," said Schmidty. It took me a moment to realize he
'd spoken. Schmidty generally volunteered conversation even less than Garrison did.

"It isn
't fair," I told him, willing him to understand. And maybe he did. He nodded, anyhow.

"Still hungry come noon, even in unfair world," he reminded me, sounding particularly German.

So I made myself swallow the rest of my breakfast and gulp some hot turbo-coffee, and I imagined all sorts of possible scenarios. Most of them had to do with convincing Romero to go to Garrison, and Garrison firing Seth. But... something about that plan didn't seem to fit this world.  This world encouraged something more like Garrison beating Seth to a pulp, instead. Or maybe... maybe
me
beating Seth to a pulp.

That seemed unlikely. Maybe Seth should be taken down by a longhorn cow or a gopher hole, instead.

As soon as I finished eating, I scrubbed the damned dishes with damned dirt and imagined how nice it would be to have access to water for more than just drinking, again. This afternoon, I reminded myself. By tonight, I would have returned to civilization, and I would belong again.

I hoped Amos and the calf cart would brighten my mood long enough to get me to Dodge without making any more scenes...but when I reached them, the Boss had gotten there before me.

In three mornings, the Boss had never approached the calf cart. Now I almost asked Lee, who was looking concerned with a speckled little red calf across his saddle, what was wrong. But then I remembered that Lee had backed Seth up last night, and I went to Amos instead. "What's going on?"

Garrison glanced up, noted my presence, then went back to the job he was doing, which was looking over the babies in the cart, touching their heads, checking their mouths.

"Too many calves last night, child. You best go back to the chuck wagon." Amos said it very seriously, as if something was wrong and the Boss wasn't going to handle it after all.

Part of me didn
't want to imagine anything Garrison couldn't handle. But after last night, I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of trusting anybody to
handle
things. That's what they
wanted
a woman to do, around here: silently, docilely trust them. "So what's going to happen?"

Amos said, "Shhh," and waited for word from on-high.

I suddenly wished I hadn't eaten my breakfast as quickly as I did. The only reason I didn't ask again what
exactly
was going on was, part of me already suspected the worst and didn't want it confirmed.

Finally the Boss said, "I reckon this one," and slanted his gaze toward Amos for a second opinion. His gloved hand rested on Patches
' head.

"Yessir," agreed Amos—the traitor. "He
's the runt of the two, and that leaves the bigger'n to keep the mama's milk flowin'. She'll leave easier for her live 'un, too. Lucky thing she calved twins."

Her live one? Lucky thing for whom?

The Boss reached into the cart and hoisted Patches into his arms. Patches stuck his pure white head out and wailed for his mother. Amos took the speckled little calf from Lee, and put it into the cart, in Patches' place. Lee turned his horse sharply and rode hastily away, as if he didn't want to be here anymore.

I caught Garrison noticing me, but he looked quickly away, hesitated, then started to carry Patches to his horse. In his arms, Patches bawled for his mother again. I wasn
't even a mama cow, and I ached to answer him.

"Best get up safe," said Amos to me, as if nothing of import had happened.

I didn't get up anywhere. "Where's he taking Patches?"

Amos put his hand on my shoulder. "Where you don
't have to watch, I s'pect."

That was horrible enough confirmation, and this time I
didn't hesitate for a second. I took off after the Boss as fast as my clodhopper feet could carry me. For a moment, it felt like one of my old, helpless dreams—I might run and run and run, and I would never get anywhere, would never reach him. But this
wasn't
a dream, and cowboys walk slow. I caught Garrison by the arm before he could mount.

He spun in surprise, nearly clobbering me with the calf he held; lucky for me he had good reflexes.

"You can't kill him!" It would have sounded more imperative if I weren't gasping for breath.

His expression tightened, and he nodded. "Yes, ma
'am. I can."

"Maybe one of the older ones can keep up on its own."

Garrison said, "No, ma'am."

"Then we can put him in the chuck wagon."

"Chuck wagon ain't for calves." He couldn't touch his hat, with his hands full, but he did nod before turning to his horse, leaving me powerless again. I would have to stand there, watch him ride off with Patches, hear the gunshot, know that I didn't do anything....

No matter what, I couldn
't be helpless.
Not again
! Without checking my thoughts, I ducked by the Boss and waved my arms and yelled at his horse, as loud as I could. Just as I'd hoped, his horse took one look at me and ran away...well, a good fifteen feet or so. Then, probably because of its dangling reins, it trotted to a stop. It glanced warily over its shoulder at the Boss and the crazy lady.

I turned to peek back at Garrison—and gulped. I felt suddenly lucky his hands were full of calf.

"Go. Back. To. The. Wagon." The words ground out of him.

Amos appeared beside me, taking my arm. "She
's just upset, Mister Garrison. I'll take care of her. Come with me, child. Don't make this no harder on the man than need be."

"Harder? Nothing
's hard for the Boss—is it?" My challenge turned from Amos to the calf-murderer. "Or if it is, you just damn well ignore it!"

"Won
't have that language in my camp," Garrison reminded me, his tone cold—and very sincere. Oh, kill calves, but by no means use foul language!

"Or what? You
'll shoot me like you're going to shoot Patches?" As if to second my protest, Patches bawled for his mother again.

Garrison stared at me in disbelief, then shifted that disbelief accusingly to Amos. "She named
'em."

"Yessir," admitted Amos, sounding ashamed. "Didn
't know 'til it was too late."

The Boss closed his eyes for a long moment. Then he opened them and, still deadly quiet, he told me, "Get back to the wagon."

Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry
. I stared at him and Patches, and I didn't cry. "No."

Then he put Patches down. For an absurdly joyful moment I thought he
'd changed his mind—but he held onto the calf by the scruff of its neck and didn't let go. Then he pulled his pistol from the holster on his hip and flipped it in his hand, so that he held it by the barrel, to use as a club. The message was clear. If I wouldn't let him go somewhere else, and I wouldn't go myself, he would just do it in front of me. "Now," he warned.

"Child,"
pleaded Amos, but I ignored Amos to step up to Garrison—and I wedged myself right between him, his gun, and Patches. Since the Boss was already bent over to keep hold of the calf, that put me so close to him I could smell the coffee on his breath and the horses on his clothes, could feel the pulse of his anger roiling off him like the summer heat.

"Git," he warned, with all his macho authority.

I said, "Fuck you."

In a flash, Garrison had me by both arms, half carrying and half dragging me back to the calf cart, where he shoved me firmly against one of the tall wheels. I caught a glimpse of almost-comical surprise on Amos's face before strong shoulders blocked my sight of him; my own expression could probably have outdone his.