by Sable Hunter
“Sitting down? Why do I need to sit down? What’s wrong? Is he a Republican? Or a transsexual?”
“No. God. He’s…” Oh, she’s gonna die. “Never mind. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. So, I might as well not tell you.”
Sojourner Elise Stanton, if you don’t give me a name right now, I will come home immediately.”
“No, you can’t leave Uncle Myles. He might take a turn for the worse and I’d never forgive myself.” She gritted her teeth and stomped her feet. “If I tell you this, you’ve got to promise to not tell anyone.”
“Why? Is he a felon? A drug dealer? Is he from Oklahoma?”
“No.” Now, she started to giggle. “You have such strange ideas of what’s acceptable and what’s not. In this case, however, you don’t have to worry. This man is perfect. He’s sweet. He’s kind. He’s gorgeous. He’s everything I’ve always wanted.”
“Well, bless my soul. I never thought I’d see the day. I’d given up hope of you ever settling for anyone who wasn’t Reno Black.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I never thought I’d see the day. I’d given up hope of you ever settling for anyone who wasn’t Reno Black.
Journey just let that thought hang in the air for about thirty seconds.
“What? Journey? Why aren’t you saying anything? Who is this paragon of virtue?”
Another ten seconds passed by.
“Journey? What is his name?”
Finally, Journey took a deep breath and just went for it. “Reno Black.”
Now, it was Myra’s turn to be speechless.
“Aunt Myra, did you hear me?”
“I heard you. Is this a joke? If it is, it’s not funny.”
“It’s not a joke. But it is a miracle. I was running in the dark from those men and he…just rode up out of nowhere and saved me. It’s him. He looks identical to the tintype. He knows Saul and the rest of the children. He knows Kingston and Fancy. He had a pocketful of twenty-dollar gold pieces. And just like the story said, he led bad men away from the kids, and he just disappeared. Because he came here. In our time. To be with me.”
“Oh, Journey…”
Her Aunt Myra’s voice just faded to nothingness.
“What are you thinking? Don’t you believe me?”
“I don’t know. You’ve always been so obsessed with him, maybe you’ve just slipped around the bend.”
“I am not crazy. Lou’s been here. She’s seen him and talked to him. She believes me. In fact, she’s trying to figure out a way for him to go home.”
“Go home? Back in time? Why would he want to do that?”
“His brother will be executed if he doesn’t find the evidence needed to exonerate him – and get the evidence to the lawyer in time. There’s also an Indian war he needs to stop.” Wow, when she said all of that out loud, it was quite unbelievable.
“Well, I don’t know.” Myra sounded at a loss. “This is hard to swallow.”
At that moment, someone tapped Journey on the shoulder. She turned and found Reno holding out his hand. “Let me talk to her.”
Journey’s eyes widened. “Did you hear everything?” she whispered.
He nodded. “I did. Now, let me talk to her.”
“Aunt Myra someone wants to speak to you.”
“Who?”
She didn’t get a chance to answer her aunt, but Reno did. “Mrs. Weiss, this is Reno Black. I believe you’ve heard of me.”
Journey backed away and found a place to sit down. She couldn’t hear Myra’s side of the conversation, but hearing Reno was enough.
“Yes ma’am. Well, it was a shock to me too. I was in the past one minute and here the next. Coming here and finding Journey has been the wildest experience of my life.”
Journey was shaking. With everything that had been going on, she’d lost sight of what this information might do to Aunt Myra. “God, I hope she doesn’t have a heart attack.”
“No ma’am. I am completely in love with your great niece. I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ve always been connected to her in some way.” There was a pause. “Well, it was things my mother would say, and things Ela Blue would say. Yes ma’am. The Ela who’s related to Mr. Kota. Well, he didn’t tell you because he and I haven’t discussed that particular fact yet.” He looked at Journey and shrugged, saying with body language that he wasn’t so sure he was helping the situation.
“Hmmm, let me see. Let me think.”
“What does she want?” Journey whispered.
He covered the bottom end of the phone with his hand. “She wants me to tell her something that only I would know. Something she would recognize as being true.” He removed his hand, then waved it in the air. “No, Miz Myra, she’s not feeding me information.”
Journey rolled her eyes. “I don’t think there’s anything you could tell her that would satisfy her.”
“I think I’ve thought of something.” His eyes held Journey’s as he spoke. “Is your brother the oldest son in the family?” He nodded and winked at her. “Only son. Okay. Do you know or could you ask him if he was given an unusual bequest from his father?”
“Okay, so you know about the letter.” He bit his lower lip, giving Myra time to speak. “Oh, you just found out about its existence. All right. Yes, I’ll give you the details. The letter was written to a Mrs. Laura Bixby by President Lincoln on November 21, 1864.”
“All right.” He held out the phone. “She wants to talk to you.”
Journey winced but put the receiver to her ear. “Yes?”
“I’m not sure what kind of magic you’ve cooked up with those oils and herbs, but something very strange is going on. There’s no way a stranger could know anything about that letter. It’s been handed down through our family for generations. Myles thinks it may be worth seven figures.”
“Why hasn’t it been sold or given to a museum?”
“Because, it’s become part of the accepted truth. A rosy story with little basis in reality.” She sighed loudly. “Although, after talking to Reno Black, I’m beginning to question my own reality. Anyway, copies of the letter appeared in many newspapers at the time and both Lincoln and the woman he wrote the letter to were lauded. Heck, it’s still going on. Steven Spielberg used the Bixby letter in Saving Private Ryan. The experts are torn between saying if Lincoln wrote the letter or if his secretary did. Nevertheless, the crux is that the President was given erroneous information.”
“What kind of erroneous information?”
“The note Reno Black’s father attached to the letter states how he came by it and explained the real facts. Not to minimize the loss of two, but the woman didn’t lose five sons in the war as the President was led to believe. Two were discharged, one dishonorably. The fifth son was a deserter. To put icing on the cake, Mrs. Bixby ran a whorehouse and she was a Confederate sympathizer. She sold the letter to Silas Black for a few dollars.”
“Wow.” Journey didn’t tell Myra that Reno had already told her some of this information. “So, we’re protecting the legend and lore of Lincoln’s memory.” She didn’t think preserving a lie was worth giving up so much money. “Although, I guess if the truth were known, it might not be worth what they think.”
Myra pooh-poohed that idea. “I don’t think it would matter. Abraham Lincoln wrote the letter and that would be the only important thing to most people. The reason we’re still hanging onto it is pride. The men in our family would rather possess a piece of history than the money.
Journey didn’t really care. “What about Reno?”
Myra didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “I can’t say stranger things have happened…but I believe you. You were always hard-headed. Always did exactly what you set out to do whether it was good for you or not. I think you wanted this man so much that he didn’t have a choice but to come to you.”
“I think you’re giving me too much credit, Aunt Myra.”
“Well, tell him not to leave until I get there. I wouldn’t miss t
his for the world.”
“When do you think you’ll come?”
“I’m not sure. All depends on what the nurse says at his next check-up.”
“Okay. I love you. Bye.”
When she hung up the phone, Journey sank into Reno’s arms exhausted. “That was awkward.”
Reno laughed. “She had to know sooner or later. When we get ready to go back, you wouldn’t want to just leave her a note.”
“No, I guess not.” Journey giggled. “Wow, what were you doing before that fiasco?”
“Digging in my saddlebags. I found the lawyer’s calling card.”
Taking the rectangular paper from him, she read the inscription, “Kenneth Wallace, Esquire. Attorney at Law. Washington D.C.” Journey turned it over in her hand. “Looks almost new.” She grinned at his bored expression. “Ah, the joke’s getting old. Okay, let me see what I can find.”
They went to the sunroom where she’d left her laptop. While Journey surfed the internet in search of anything on Mr. Wallace or his descendants, Reno opened various essential oils to check their smell. “Huh. I like this one.” He sniffed again, then read the label. “Jasmine.”
Journey looked up briefly from the keyboard. “Oh, I’ve should’ve known. That’s an aphrodisiac.”
“Do tell.” He took another big whiff.
“Hey.” She gave his arm a playful whack. “Be careful. I don’t think you need too much inspiration.”
He penned her with this incredibly sexy smile. “You’re right. All the inspiration I need is you.”
She felt the blush rise on her cheeks. “Stop it. You’ll get me all worked up and I need to concentrate.” Journey tapped a few more keys, then whistled. “I think I found something.”
“What?” He abandoned the oil collection to roll his chair nearer to her. “Kenneth Wallace, Attorney at Law. The firm is Wallace, Rice, Fields, and Abercrombie. Serving the greater D. C. region since 1859.”
“What do you want to bet this Kenneth is a great-great-whatever of the original Kenneth?”
“Fingers-crossed.” He held up his hand with two fingers entwined. “Send him an email.”
“I am doing that…now.” She opened the box. “What do you want me to say.”
“Tell him about the journal and that you’re a descendant of Saul’s. Say that he’s mentioned in the journal as Cole Black’s attorney-of-record and that you have some questions about the trial.”
“Good.” She did as he asked. “If he’s the right guy, let’s hope they kept all their old files. What do you hope to find out? A clue about the drummer boy’s identity?”
“Yes. If I can find out the boy’s name and place of birth, I can have a head-start on locating him as soon as I go back. Also, I’d like to know if they uncovered any evidence I might could follow up on. Anything to help me prove Cole’s innocence.”
“All right.” She added a couple more lines. “Any available files on evidence that we could view.” She hit one more key. “Done! We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
“Great.” He stretched out his long legs to cross the cowboy boots he wore at the ankle. “What else can we do?”
“You tell me. Lou is working her magic, there’s not anything we can do in that area – unless you want to ride back to the canyon to see if anything will happen.”
Reno didn’t discount her suggestion. “I’d rather go when it’s dark. I guess because it was night when I came.”
“I understand, we’ll go a little later.” Journey reached in front of him to grab the roller bottles and blank labels that she’d left undone earlier. “All of those stories and statistics that Lou shared with us, they made me think. Undoubtedly if this happened to you, something similar happened to a few of those thousands of missing she was talking about.” She met his gaze with a questioning look on her face. “I just wonder where they went?”
“I don’t know. Hopefully when Lou comes back, she’ll have some answers and good news for us. Reno stood to move closer, watching her write on the labels in her version of calligraphy. “That looks nice.”
“Thanks.” She patted a box of her oils. “When we figure how this works, I want to take some of my oils with us. So many of them are antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral. I know medicine is hard to come by where you’re from, it’ll help to have something with me to fall back on.”
“Good idea.” He couldn’t help but look forward to taking her with him. “We’ll have a good time, Journey. I’ll make you happy, I promise.”
“I don’t doubt it for a moment,” she told him. “This will be a trip of a lifetime.”
…As the day wore on, they kept busy. Journey prepared some vegetables to go with the roast and tried her hand at a berry cobbler. Reno deemed it all to be culinary delights.
While she cleaned the kitchen and walked the dogs, he began the arduous process of going through the box of papers Apple had sent. Most of the items at the top were things like receipts, land records, and tax records. There were a couple of marriage certificates and Reno chuckled to see that his friends found happiness. The names didn’t mean anything to him, but he hoped they would one day. There were also some birth certificates of children to be born and there were a few letters he set aside to read later. So far, he’d found nothing earth-shattering.
“Reno?”
“In here, love,” he answered Journey’s call.
She appeared at the door. “Would you like to take a break? I’ve got an idea.”
“Do I need this?” he picked up the jasmine bottle.
“Maybe later.” She held up her bathing suit. “I thought we might go swimming at the Slab.”
At the mention of his old stomping ground, he was immediately ready to go. “Sure. What will I wear?”
“Grab your blue briefs. They look almost like swimming trunks. I don’t think anyone will be able to tell the difference.” As he headed to his room, she followed him down the hall. “I’m going to slip this on and wear a tunic cover-up.” When he joined her, she directed him to get a couple of the bigger towels from the linen closet. “The next time we go to town, we’ll buy you some nice trunks for the Hill Country Cowboy thing.”
“If we’re still here.”
“Right.” She didn’t feel the same pang as before at the thought of his leaving. Not when she was planning on going along. “I still don’t want to disappoint Apple and the others. Not if we don’t have to. The pageant is for a good cause.”
Reno made a face like the thought scared him a little. “I don’t mind dressing up, but I seriously have no talent.”
“I disagree.” Journey stated flatly. “You’re very talented.”
Sidling up to her as she tied the string at the neck of her cover-up, he whispered loudly, “Yes, I know, baby, but we can’t do that in public.”
“Oh, stop. I heard you singing to the radio. You’ve got a marvelous voice.”
“Huh.” He made a noise of disbelief. “I’ll think of something, I guess. If I have to.”
Digging through a drawer for sunscreen, she thought of something she’d intended to ask before. “Did you find anything in the box of papers and files?”
Reno shook his head. “Not really. There was so much stuff tightly packed into that box I didn’t get very far. We’ll have to look more later. I did see a couple of marriage certificates that surprised me. And a few birth certificates. I knew she was pregnant when I left, but Fancy and King have five kids in the next few years!”
Crack!
“What happened?” He rushed over to check on Journey.
She looked dazed. “I dropped a bottle of lotion. It was nearly empty but the bottle broke.”
He hurried to the kitchen to get a broom and a dustpan. “Don’t step in the broken glass.”
When he returned, he found her on her knees, picking up the larger pieces.
“Hey, I’ll get that. You’ll cut yourself.” She backed away to let him clean up, still having said nothing more. “W
hat’s wrong?” he asked. “Do you feel bad?”
“No.” She thought a second, then decided to share. “When you mentioned the birth certificates, it just hit me that we didn’t…take precautions.”
Now, it was Reno’s turn to drop something. The broom went careening to one side, but he caught it before it fell. “I’m so sorry.” Such things were a man’s responsibility. “I didn’t have any preventatives.” The new term ‘rubbers’ seemed to him to be a crass word.
“It’s not your fault.” She pushed her hair from her face. “I mean, yea, I was a virgin – but I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”
Her expression made him laugh, then he felt bad for laughing. “I should’ve thought. I lost my head.”
“So, did I,” she admitted. “I’m not on the pill or anything, but that’s no excuse. I’m a modern woman.”
“As opposed to your unmodern man. What about a pill?” he asked as he dumped the glass into a waste basket in the bathroom.
“Women have the luxury of taking a drug containing hormones that stops them from ovulating.” At his dazed expression she made a face. “The drug prevents pregnancy.”
“What will they think of next?” he mused, folding his arm over his chest. “Do you think you’re pregnant?”
Journey couldn’t tell by his tone whether he was happy at the prospect or not. “Let me think about my cycle.” She counted the days since her last period. Close. “Actually, I think we might be okay. We probably should pick up some condoms on our way home from the Slab.”
“What type of establishment can I purchase them from?”
“Any convenience store will have them.”
Reno was amused. “This store truly earns its name – convenient, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose.” Her mind was whirling with the possibility.
When he saw her worried expression, Reno just wouldn’t have it. “I don’t know what your plans were – aside from me. But if you’re worried about what I think? Don’t.” He came to take her in his arms. “Nothing would thrill me more than to see my child growing inside of you.”