OverTime 1 - Searching (Time Travel) (38 page)

"Folks," said Carrie Rath, pausing in her countless forays into and out of the kitchen to introduce me to the other boarders.  "This is Miss Elizabeth Rhinehart. She's engaged to marry a friend of my husband's."

Finally they spoke, offering names and
good-mornings and best wishes for my upcoming nuptials. Here was my chance to clear up Mrs. Rath's misinformation. Garrison had left that for me to do, after all....

So why did I just smile and thank them
, faking a southern accent of my own?

Clearly, I was not only an expensive date, but a liar by omission. Temporarily, at least.

I told myself as I made my way back to the City Drug Store—on my own two feet, thank you very much—that I was just waiting until I'd gathered all pertinent information before I did anything irreversible.

I mean, it
's not like I would default to marrying Garrison even if I got to the drug store to find Everett Heard dead from an overdose. Admiration for the man aside, the trail boss not the scum-pig, and despite the sex—

OMG, so
that
was sex!

—
I didn't love him. It would be sweet and romantic to think I did, but I hardly knew the man, and he sure as hell didn't know me. Not to mention, hello—
I was from a whole 'nother century!

A century with
computers, and woman's rights, and cell phones. A century where my Nana must be worried to death, where my pets  might be alone with nobody but my best friend to check on them. And what about the, whatchamacallit, the space-time continuum? For all I knew, I was screwing up the future, mine and countless others, with every word and deed.

No, I would find a way home, or die trying!

Garrison had to stay history. 

But until I succeeded, it
sure wouldn't hurt for people to think I still had some claim to respectability—even if that claim wasn't actually my own. Especially when I insisted on doing crazy things like walking down a dirt street, to the Drug Store, without an escort.

Seriously. I got a few
looks.

Faced with all that, I can
't tell you how relieved I felt when Dr. McCarty, on recognizing me, simply nodded and gestured toward the backroom. Apparently, my answer-man was alive and... well, alive.

I swept my long-skirted self between the high-piled shelves of the drug store and into Everett Heard
's sickroom to finally, finally learn the truth.

"
Despite your poor behavior yesterday," I lied primly as I entered, "I have word from your colleague. She—"

Oops. Not with the door half open behind me. Not around here.
"
He
wants more information."

  Then I plunked down a little pail of soup, compliments of Mrs. Rath—my respectable excuse for coming—and mouthed,
Talk
.

Everett the scum-pig blinked blearily at me, less-than quick on the uptake—and strangely fearful. 
"My colleague?"

I pointed to myself and widened my eyes.

He rolled his. "Oh for Chrissake!"

"Watch your language," I warned him. Oh God—I sounded like you-know-who. But I'd learned some valuable lessons about burning bridges, lately.  "I am not just risking my own reputation by being here, Mr. Heard. So until the situation we discussed has been resolved...."

"Just shut the door," he suggested peevishly, pushing himself back against the wall to sit up in bed. He claimed the little soup pail and peeked under the checkered cloth napkin draped over its mouth.

Sure,
just shut the door
. You might
think
it would be that easy. "I don't believe it's considered proper to be alone in a room with you with the door shut."

He found the spoon tied to the handle.
"You did it yesterday."

Yesterday, I thought I was a hooker
. "And by local standards, I was wrong."

"Well you're over a hundred years from being a local."

"Then tell me how—" I caught myself, "—how you and your
colleague
can get home." Please.
Please
.

"
Only if you take me with you," he challenged, between slurping spoonfuls of soup. The idea of bringing the poor, injured stranger some charity food had been a cover, nothing else. It hadn't occurred to me until this moment that he wasn't already eating just fine, here.

Trying not to let that bother me, I folded my arms.
"Why would I be going anywhere? Do you mean your colleague...?"

He rolled his eyes, but clearly understood he was in no position to dictate the rules we were playing by.
"Sorry about that,
ma'am
, it must be the medicine messing with my head again. Yeah, my colleague. I'm only talking if
my colleague
promises to take me with... him."

Why should I
?  The question hovered on the tip of my tongue, begging to be asked. If Everett hadn't flat-out groped me, then tried to blackmail the higher-ups at Closer Look to discount my sexual harassment claim, I wouldn't even be here! I didn't owe this man squat. And yet....

He was in bad shape. I could see it in his trembling hand, smell it in his sweat and dirty clothes, hear it in his ragged breathing. Probably he deserved it—but maybe this was extreme, even for him. God knew, I didn't like him. But through chance as much as anything, he was hurt and strung out on opiates, while I was healthy, well fed, and staying at a lovely boardinghouse.

One I hadn
't exactly paid for myself.

If a certain
responsible trail boss hadn't shown me kindness, I could be much worse off.

Besides, I didn
't have the luxury of likes and dislikes. I cocked my head and said, "I don't suppose one could rightly leave you here."

If my smile confused him, he didn
't admit it. "Promise?"

Like I
'd say—
no! Fake out!
I peeked out the open door, to make sure the doc was toward the front of the store, then turned back to Everett and said, low, "If it is in my power to get us both home, I promise I will do it. That's the only way I'll be able to sue your ass and the combined asses of A Closer Look for everything they're worth, isn't it?"

He smiled woozily at me.
"God, but you're sexy when you're litigious."

"If you don't want me to hurt you some more," I warned, very low now, "say nothing else except how to get home."

He sighed dramatically, then
admitted, "I don't know."

I stared at him—and I felt fury. Absolute, buzzing-in-the-head fury. If I
'd had a six-gun with me, I might have shot him right there. He didn't
know
?

I stepped to the bedside and yanked Carr
ie Rath's soup-pail away from him, spilling some of it on my precious skirt. "Then goodbye, you son-of-a—"

"Shh," Everett warned playfully, just in case Doc McCarty or a customer had returned to our end of the store. "Watch your language, little lady."

If he didn
't already smell so bad, he would be wearing that soup. That, and my slow realization that he didn't seem particularly depressed, kept me from doing something
very
unladylike. I sank onto the chair. "What do you know that I don't?"

He reached for the soup, but I held it out of his reach. Yeah, I guess I
could
be a bitch. Yay, me.

"
I don't technically know how my colleague and I can get home," he admitted. "But I know who does."

"Who?"

He shrugged.
"There's some scientists doing long-term field research. As of last week they were still in the 1870s. So if anybody can help us...."

"You're lying," I whispered weakly. But when he reached for the soup again, I gave it to him.

"Hey, Rhinehart, I'm the one who's known about this project for months, not you. The team leader is Dr. Mitch Haywood," he offered, to prove me wrong. "He's living somewhere near Julesburg, Colorado, with at least two other analysts. All we have to do is meet up with them."

"In Colorado," I repeated, testing the idea. This was not the
here's-the-time-machine
or
say-these-magic-words
kind of solution I'd hoped for. "How?"

He blinked.
"Huh?"

"First of all, you don't even know the scientists are still there! You say 'as of last week,' but you and your colleague were in a
very different place
, last week."

"It's a law of time travel," he said with a sigh, as if any second grader should know that. As if time travel was even real.

Then again, my button-hooked shoes made a pretty solid argument toward reality.

"We share personal timelines. Every day that passes while we're here, a day passes back home."

Nice to know—assuming I believed him.
"Even if they're there, we've got to factor travel time, costs for meals and transportation...." 

What we needed was someone who could take charge. So I took a deep breath—and did just that.

"I'll need to contact this Dr. Haywood, make sure he's still there and tell him you're coming." Without phones or email. "Then there's transportation, food, lodging." Without the Internet or a travel agent. "Can you manage
any
of that yourself?"

I also wanted to leave a refund for a certain trail
boss, for clothing, food, and lodging. It wasn't like I could send him a check from home. And you know what?

I was going to
do it all without endangering Garrison's reputation further than I already had. 

Everett shook his head, useless
, unlike other men of my recent acquaintance. So I collected my now-empty soup pail and turned to go. "Then just call me Boss," I told him.

"You promised," he called after me.

"Yep," I grumbled.  And with a nod toward the good doctor, I left the City Drug Store onto Dodge City's dirt Front Street and into what passed for fresh air.

A stench from the cattle pens
, not far outside town, made me smile. With my mouth closed, mind you, because they really did stink—we're talking tens of thousands of cows! But I'd found myself, and more. For the first time in days, I believed I could do anything.

Even this.

So I swept my long skirts out of the way of passing, dirty boots, and I squared my shoulders, and I set out to conquer the world in ways I'd never imagined.

Read more of the adventures of Elizabeth, Garrison, Cooper, and the cows in OVERTIME 2: TURNING, now available at Amazon.com.

NOTES and acknowledgements:


        
Although I took some poetic license, I tried to keep
Overtime
as historically accurate as possible. For example, Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson were indeed in the Dodge city area when Lillabit arrived.


        
Cowboys
were
pretty rough, but hardly any on a trail drive (beyond the Boss and cook) were over thirty. Still, the majority of them respected women more than they resented her presence spoiling their party. Lillabit can easily think they're all nice.


        
I've got a complete, annotated bibliography on my website (YvonneJocks.com), but in particular wanted to note just some of the works that proved invaluable in my research: Works by old time cowboys such as "Teddy Blue" Abbott (
We Pointed Them North
), Baylis John Fletcher (
Up the Trail in '79
), and Andy Adams (
Log of a Cowboy
). Studies about women in the Old West, especially
The Gentle Tamers
(Dee Brown),
Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery
(Anne M. Butler), and
The Cowgirls
(Joyce Gibson Roach).
Calico Chronicle
by Betty J. Mills. Excellent visual resources, from Time Life's
Old West
collection to Ken Burns'
The West
documentaries.


        
I also must thank the Kansas Historical Society, which has a brilliant website. That's where I learned, late in my writing, that the Raths weren't in Dodge City during the summer of 1878 – they left in '77 and returned in '79. Since they were so representative of the city, I kept them there.


        
Again, I owe a debt of gratitude to Cheryl, Toni, Kayli & Matt, Erin, Pam, Juliet, Paige, Deb, for reading Lillabit's adventures, proofreading, and/or loving Garrison like I do….


        
… and to Laura, for the wonderful cover.