by Dana Roquet
The shop held only one barber chair, bolted to the floor against the far wall and if I wasn’t mistaken, Bill the barber was seated in his barber chair with the Des Moines Register newspaper open before his face. He quickly closed the paper and folded it in half as he came to his feet.
“Hello. May I help you?” he asked with a friendly smile. He was in a crisp white jacket with a red embroidered emblem over the breast pocket that held a narrow black comb and an ink pen. The emblem provided his name in cursive writing and below his name was the slogan “Fremont Perfect Cut”. He had a head full of winter white hair, wire-rimmed glasses and my guess, if I had to make one, was that he was probably in his mid-seventies. He really didn’t look old enough to be the keeper of the wisdom of the town.
“Hi, my name is Torie Mills and I just moved to town a couple of months ago and I have it on good authority that you might just be the keeper of the knowledge about Fremont,” I said with a smile.
He tucked his newspaper under his arm as he reached out to shake my hand briefly.
“I seem to have gotten that reputation,” he said with a chuckle. “What might I help you with?” he asked and then paused, eyeing me speculatively.
“Mills,” he said. “You must be related to Herald and Linda?”
I nodded. “Yes, Herald is my cousin.”
“Your people were?” he asked and I understood immediately how he likely had acquired his knowledge because he was zeroed in on me and my story with absorption before I could even ask him a single question.
“My great-grandfather was Henry Mills, also related to the Wyman’s in the cemetery—Judson and Rose.”
“Ahhh—okay—yes. I see now,” he said absently with a nod as he seemed to be sifting through information in his head and making the connections. “And your grandfather was…?”
“Arlan Mills.”
“Oh, I see, I see, yes, I remember when Arlan was brought back for burial. That must have been,” he paused with his beetled white brows lowering as he frowned in concentration. “That must have been 1989.”
My mouth opened in surprise because he had it exactly right.
“That’s pretty impressive,” I marveled. “I think that you may be just the man to shed some light on the mysterious building across the street. It looks to have been some sort of a piano repair shop?”
“Oh sure, that was John Patterson’s place. He had a stroke and died back in about 1970, if I’m not mistaken and his widow closed up the shop and it has sat idle ever since then. He used to buy old pianos at auctions or from estates and then would refurbish them and sell them to collectors. He was a master craftsman and had a great eye for antique pianos. I think his son must own it by now,” he speculated and then shrugged. “Someone must because the property taxes get paid every year.”
“Oh,” I said with a sigh. “It just seems very mysterious when you peek through the window.”
“Yes but not as mysterious as it looks,” he said with a shake of his head. “It was a shame. John was a nice fella.”
“Well, I have another question for you,” I said, deciding to move on to my other mysteries. “I have an old family history that was written by my grandfather Arlan and it mentions an old schoolhouse east of town.”
“Olive Branch, yes. Northeast corner off East Main, just as you come off of the pavement onto the gravel,” he pointed a finger at me. “Actually it sets just east of your grandfather Henry’s ‘in town’ house, you know, at the fork of Main and Twenty-Three.”
I was absolutely amazed. Great-Grandfather Henry Mills had moved into town in about 1917 after he’d quit farming and had passed his farm down to his children. Henry has been dead since 1940 but the house still exists today and is right at the juncture of Main and Highway 23, exactly as Bill had just described. Bill continued as I gaped open-mouthed at him.
“The schoolhouse is just on the other side of the road and on the edge of Tom Marshall’s cornfield about a quarter mile out on the gravel. If you get to 110th Street, you’ve gone too far. I think that you can still see a pile of rubble there but it was small, probably a building of about twelve by sixteen feet.”
Bill gestured behind me and I noticed then that about four feet straight across from the barber chair, were two waiting room chairs, the backs pushed up against the picture window facing the street. I took a seat on one of these chairs while Bill took his seat again in his barber chair and I raised a finger indicating, ‘give me a second’ while I reached into my purse to grab a pen and notepad, quickly jotting down the information about the school as he repeated it for me once more.
Then with that—we were off—as he opened a floodgate and spilled forth tons of new information, almost faster than I could keep up, scribbling frantically and filling sheet after sheet of note paper. Not only was he able to answer some of my questions that had been plaguing me regarding some of the time travels I have experienced but also giving me a lot of completely new information, adding a huge amount to my total knowledge of the town of Fremont—information that I would have likely spent months researching on my own.
Two hours later, with a tablet full of names, dates and old stories, I bid barber Bill a fond farewell, promising to stop again and headed back to my farmhouse to grab my digital camera before going in search of the old one room school house named Olive Branch.
***
It was after a very short search, it would have been shorter but I at first drove too far as Bill had cautioned me against, which had required me to make a U turn in the middle of 110th street, before I finally found the remains of the schoolhouse, just as Bill had described. I parked along the gravel road and climbed down into the deep drainage ditch and up to the fence line at the edge of the corn field that was way more than the traditional knee high by the fourth of July. I carefully crawled between the strands of barbed wire and took several pictures of the site, which still had wood from the walls, some of the old split wood shingles and remnants of a field stone foundation.
At home, I have a photograph of my grandpa Arlan taken out in front of this very building. He had been six-years-old in the photo and was standing with his classmates, all of them clustered around the skirts of their young looking teacher; like a brood of little chicks. At the time the photograph had been taken, the school had been located on the far outskirts of town. The town has grown considerably since then because near great-grandpa Henry’s ‘in town’ house, is a new residential neighborhood and a mobile home park these days.
***
I arrived home to find a voicemail on my house phone from my sister Sarah who lives in Fountain, Colorado. She’d moved out west about fifteen years ago and had only returned to Iowa for two visits since then, one of which was to attend our mother’s funeral.
Sarah is a partner in a nonprofit organization called DreamCatchers Equine Rescue, and it takes all of her time and attention. She is on their board of directors, but she does much more than that. She helps with desperate and often media-worthy horse rescues, drives tractors, bales hay, feeds and waters horses daily, breaks and trains all new arrivals to the rescue, gives shots and assists with horse shoeing and floating teeth. In general, she is a real-life cowgirl and is living the life that we’d always dreamed about, during our growing-up years when we were both horse-crazy kids.
The rescue has three houses, and she and her husband Jerry live in one. Another small cottage near Sarah’s house is used for overnight volunteers on the weekends or visitors to the ranch. On the other side of the compound, the founders of the rescue, Paul and Julie DeMuesy and their family live in a large, rambling ranch house. The Double J Ranch is 850 acres of beautiful hay fields and lush pastureland, generously provided to the rescue as their home by a wealthy Colorado philanthropist.
“Torie, call me. You need to come out for a visit. We just had three rescues give birth so we got baby horses,” she crooned enticingly.
Sarah knows my weakness and I called her at once, making a spur of the moment plan while we
were on the phone together. I went online and booked myself a flight that would leave at 10:00 a.m. in the morning and I would return home on Thursday night.
Because I couldn’t afford to get stuck in a time warp and oversleep, I decided to pack my bag and make the drive into Des Moines to get a hotel room for the night near the airport where I could take the courtesy shuttle that would deliver me right to the front door of the terminal. I gave Derek a call and let him know my plans and that I would be back in time for his first official visit to my home in Fremont on Friday night.
Chapter 15
The Southwest Airlines jet touched down at the Colorado Springs airport at about 1:00 p.m. With no baggage other than my carry-on, I was able to breeze through the airport in minutes and I easily spotted Sarah and her husband Jerry waiting for me just beyond the security check point.
My beautiful thirty-eight-year-old sister Sarah is a few inches shorter than me and a tad slimmer than I but we both share our similarly long deep-auburn hair. She currently had hers pulled into a ponytail that hung down her back and beneath a cowboy hat that was sitting stylishly atop her head. She was dressed in a worn blue cotton work shirt and brown leather cowboy boots tucked under the cuffs of her boot-cut skinny jeans. She looked as if she had just stepped off of a horse, which she likely had right before coming out to get me.
Jerry was in a white wife-beater that clung to his lean hard body, low-slung jeans, and dusty cowboy boots. His dark blond hair with striking sun-kissed streaks of naturally occurring light-blond highlights, that many women pay salons a lot of money to emulate without succeeding nearly so well, hung almost to his shoulders. I’d decided long ago that he looks a lot like Josh Holloway who played Sawyer from Lost, you know, that TV show from a few years back; right down to the bad boy dark shadow of scruff on his face and some killer dimples. Jerry is a man who looks like trouble and oozes sexual magnetism but who seems totally oblivious to his effect on women. Even now I spotted a couple of ladies sneaking a peek in his direction as I approached, but he has eyes for no one but Sarah. He’s totally head over heels, crazy in love and devoted to her and has wholeheartedly embraced the life that she has chosen to live. He truly is her knight in shining armor.
“Hey,” I greeted them, reaching out to give each of them a brief but thorough hug. “You guys look great.”
“You too, sis, it’s been too long,” Sarah said giving me another squeeze as she put an arm around my shoulders while Jerry reached down to relieve me of my duffle and we headed out into the sun-drenched Colorado day.
***
Sarah had first come to Colorado with her high school graduating class for a senior snow skiing trip and at her very first glimpse of the majestic Rocky Mountains, had fallen hopelessly in love—but actually it had been even more than that. She had told me when she got back to Iowa that she had experienced an almost religious awakening. She said that from the first moment that she had stepped off of the bus and into the fresh clean mountain air that it was as if she had returned to a long-lost home although she had never set foot there before in her entire life. She was desperately homesick for the place, though, from then on and hell bent and determined that the Rockies would be her home one day. Within four years’ time, she had made that dream come true and she had never looked back. For me, Fremont and Grandma Rose’s house were the realization of my own dream—it had just taken me a little longer to find a place that made me feel like I was finally coming home.
***
After we turned off of the highway and passed beneath the roadway through a low and narrow underpass, we crossed a couple of sets of railroad tracks and then the official gate to the Double J ranch loomed ahead. The name of the ranch, spelled out in chunky wooden lettering, stretched across the gravel driveway entrance before us, a driveway that is literally, about a mile long. The hay fields out in the far distance on either side of us as we drove, were lush and green, sparkling like winking diamonds in the sunshine, the result of immense center pivot irrigation sprinklers that stretched out across the fields as far as the eye could see, adding a gentle shower of moisture to the thirsty grasses.
The near fields up against the drive were pasturelands full of horses that came running upon recognizing the sound of Jerry’s truck. They turned and ran beside our vehicle on both sides of the driveway, separated from us by fencing; galloping headlong in an unofficial race to be the first to arrive. They outdistanced us pretty quickly as Jerry had to maneuver carefully along the loose and rutted gravel road.
First stop after we dropped my things off at the little guest house, was the long red pole barn where I got my fix of some newborn baby horse time. The mares were all docile and willing to share their babies with me, two sorrel colts and one bay filly that were all about ten days old and already full of themselves and exuberant with the joy of life.
We led the mothers and their trailing babies to the inside arena and spent probably an hour just watching all of the little ones romp and play with each other. It was comical. They wanted to nibble at everything with velvety grasping lips and newly erupting baby teeth and without yet having learned any manners, they were more than eager to try out their kicking abilities. They bounced across the arena showing off their skills to each other, bucking, snorting, farting and occasionally stopping to investigate Sarah and me before taking off again. You could receive a pretty good thump if you didn’t, at all times, keep an eye on their rear ends and flailing hooves but although they acted so cocky and self-assured, none of them ever strayed too far from their ever watchful mommas.
***
That evening, the entire staff of the rescue joined us as we all had a barbecue with the DeMuesy’s at their home after all of the horses had been fed and the pigmy goats and the two sheep that they had recently acquired were brought into the barn for the night to protect them from the ever lurking predators just waiting for an opportunity to strike.
As we sat out on the deck drinking a few beers, talking and catching up, it was soothing and restful to have such stillness envelope the scene, being miles from any city or road noise. When the sun slipped closer to the horizon, we could hear the call of the coyote packs congregating along the river which was about a mile beyond the property’s boundary line, as they prepared for a night of hunting.
Our hosts for the evening, Julie DeMuesy and her husband Paul are gregarious and always warm and welcoming to all visitors at their ranch. Julie was also born and raised in Iowa and was transplanted to Colorado when she moved out west with her first husband who had been originally from Denver. After a few short years, the marriage had soured and as she liked to say now, “She dumped the husband but kept Colorado.”
Julie is petite, blonde, and lovely with bright-blue eyes and absolutely perfect bone structure in her face. Partly due to her good looks but more so because of her ability to articulate her position, along with her being an expert horsewoman and champion for all horses, Julie has become the regular ‘go to’ person for the Colorado media. Because of her passion for all things animal and her tireless fight for their welfare, Julie and usually Paul also, are always involved in high-profile and dramatic seize and rescue situations.
Paul DeMuesy is tall, dark, handsome and passionate about the horses but not nearly as passionate as he is about his wife Julie. If I had to guess I would say that the couple is likely in their late forties since they have several grown children between the two of them, a few of which joined us for dinner this night. It’s interesting to note that although I have come out to the ranch two other times in the last year, Derek has never met my sister; or any of these people and neither have I ever met his relatives because we always go alone on our excursions to visit with family and to be honest, I like keeping it this way.
***
The next morning, at 6:00 a.m., I was on my way out the door, still tucking in my tank top and pulling on my cotton work shirt as I waded through the scruffy weeds that separate Sarah’s residence from the guesthouse. When I stepped on
a hidden fresh pile of horse crap I was glad that I’d remembered to bring my well-worn cowboy boots that could stand up to cockle burs, tumble weeds, horse shit and various other hazards, better than the new pair that I’d recently bought that were ‘more for show’ than to actually do any kind of ranch related activities.
Sarah was waiting on the deck of her house with a carafe of fresh brewed coffee and a tray containing condiments as well as bagels and cream cheese. She poured me a cup and set it before me as I took a seat at the small table across from her.
“Ah, thanks, sis,” I said sighing gratefully while adding some sweetener and cream from the tray. After taking my first sip, I added. “Always tastes so much better at the ranch for some reason.”
Sarah lifted a cowboy hat from the chair next to her, stood up, and plopped it onto my head.
“Now you look like my Torie,” she said with a grin.
I removed the new tightly woven straw cowboy hat, admiring the flair of colored feathers in teals and black that decorated the front of the hat band.
“You shouldn’t have but I love it,” I squealed, adjusting my ponytail a little lower so as not to interfere with the set and putting the hat back squarely onto my head to find that it was a perfect fit.
It didn’t take long for our conversation to settle into the companionable ease that sisters or close family, in general, can flow back into as though no time has passed since their last meeting.
“How’s the new book coming along?” Sarah asked, smiling at me from over the rim of her coffee cup.
“Oh, it’s coming along—slowly,” I grimaced. “Not nearly fast enough to satisfy my agent or my editor. I’ve just been so busy with other things that attempting to immerse myself in a Civil War romance just doesn’t seem to fit my current frame of mind. The house has taken all of my attention lately.”
I shrugged while thinking silently that the book and the house are only the tip of the iceberg regarding the current state of my life and well down on the list of concerns behind the fact that I have been time traveling hundreds of years into the past every night in my dreams.