Vestige of Legacy

by Sara Blackard

  Orlando scooped some soup into a mug and brought it to her. She inhaled the earthy, delicious smell, and she swore she became Pavlov’s dog and drooled. Her stomach rumbled loudly as she stirred the stew that had meat, herbs, and vegetables. She stared at the mug in wonder.

  “Where in the world did you get all this? Is there a Wal-Mart I’m not aware of close by? I’m pretty sure you didn’t have all this stuffed in those bags of yours.”

  “It was just some stuff I scrounged up this morning while you slept. The hare was easy to shoot. I found a bunch of onions springing up near the cave. God blessed us with the cattail find, though. I was able to use the entire plant from the roots to the tops to give the stew some heartiness,” Orlando explained as he grabbed her empty coffee mug and spooned himself some soup into it.

  Samara’s mouth hung open in an unattractive gape. She almost lost her spoon in the dirt when it started to slide out of her hand in shock. She looked at the stew again with new respect. She took a bite and moaned at the hearty flavor.

  “You made this delicious meal from things you ‘scrounged up?’ This is amazing!” she gushed as she took another big bite, savoring the dimensions she tasted.

  People would kill for food like this… or pay a killing. Samara contemplated that as she scarfed it down. If they opened a little cafe on the road to Steamboat or Trapper’s Lake, where tourists travelled but there weren’t a lot of facilities, they might make a decent living. Set it up with a super mountain-cozy vibe. Orlando could cook up uber-organic meals from things they cultivated, and she could play gigs different nights of the week or maybe organize a music festival that brought tourists in.

  Samara’s thoughts ground to a halt. The trip had scrambled her brains. As soon as she got back to civilization, she planned to blow this taco stand, not build one. No amount of gourmet food or ruggedly gorgeous men could prevent her from keeping herself safe and far away from that psycho Harry.

  Chapter 4

  “When can we get going?” Samara asked.

  Orlando peered at her. A moment before, excitement had lit her face. Then her expression shuttered closed, and with her emotionless mask firmly in place, she asked about moving on. He understood her desire to tell the marshals about the man who had attacked her. Shoot, he even understood if she desired to get off this mountain and hightail it for somewhere far away. That survival instinct ran deep in her. But he hungered to know what thoughts brought such enlivened expressions to her face mere moments before.

  “I have everything packed up and Loco saddled, so we just need to finish eating, check your cut to make sure it isn’t getting infected, and head out,” Orlando answered.

  His heart hammered and his stomach soured with the trepidation of telling her there were no authorities or even Harry to worry about anymore. He didn’t know how she’d take the news, but he imagined it wasn’t going to be good. He had prayed all night for wisdom and nothing had come besides the obvious of just tossing it out to the wind. The only plan he had was to have her on the horse, that way she could be a bit more contained and couldn’t run away, but would also be out in the open instead of stuck inside a cave that might make her feel trapped.

  Orlando spooned more stew in her mug, then turned and gave the rest of the small pot to Zeus. As the dog slopped up the remaining breakfast, Orlando checked her stitches. It looked like it would heal with a minimal scar. As he smoothed on a salve he made from plantain leaves, comfrey, calendula, and rosemary, she sucked in a breath.

  Orlando glanced up at her, and she shrugged. “It stings. No big deal. The authorities will want a picture of it, I bet.”

  To keep from slipping and ruining his not so well laid out plans to tell her about her little trip through time, he rushed around, cleaning the pot out and packing the last of the things. He picked Zeus up and took him outside, placing him on the ground by the cave entrance. Samara followed him from the cave and sat beside the dog. Orlando chuckled as the dog sighed in contentment and laid his head upon her lap. Lucky dog. He hustled back into the cave and doused the fire.

  As he emerged he laid out his plan. “Here’s how we are going to do this. I’ve set up a bed of sorts for Zeus to ride on the back behind the saddle. He’ll be able to balance better and won’t have to hang over Loco’s neck like a shot deer. You’ll sit in front of me. It won’t be the most comfortable, but it’ll get us there.”

  “Okay, let’s blast off then.”

  Orlando picked up Zeus and laid him on the makeshift platform. He whined a bit, but Orlando told him to stay and the dog settled. Orlando turned to Samara, who stood close behind him, and motioned her over. She stepped so near her heat radiated to him. She smelled amazing, like the salve he’d used and a fresh, citrusy scent that came from her hair.

  He breathed deeply, his words finding air before he could think. “You smell like sunshine and oranges.”

  He startled when she leaned her face into his neck and breathed deeply. “You smell like the woods and leather.”

  She sighed, the breath against his neck sending shivers of desire up and down his body. He stuffed those thoughts down. He better keep sharp. With what he had to tell her, she might knock him off the saddle and take off with his horse. Her riding off into the sunset did not fit in with his plans to keep her safe.

  Of course that resolution meant squat as he awkwardly swung up into the saddle after lifting her up and pulled her up to him. It didn’t help that he’d spent most of the night memorizing her delicate features. Her long, deep auburn hair curling around her face and down her shoulders had begged him to twirl his fingers through it. The smattering of freckles and perfect nose kept him dreaming of placing kisses on every single one before capturing her soft pink lips. Just perfect. Now his thoughts had circled right back where he didn’t want them, with the added agony of actually holding and smelling her rather than just wishing to from across the cave.

  He cleared his throat as they entered a tidy little meadow filled with spring wildflowers dancing in their glory. If he didn’t have this crazy conversation looming over him, he’d enjoy her gasps of surprise and drawing her attention to details she might miss. As it was, his stomach churned with dread like never before. He just needed to buck up and get it over with. This dillydallying around didn’t suit him. Besides, he could take her to explore the flowered mountain meadows another day. She’d be staying for a bit, if Hunter’s case proved the same with her, though she might just hate him for being the bearer of the news.

  Samara leaned back into Orlando’s chest a little farther. She knew she probably shouldn’t. She should sit up and keep some distance. But since smelling his soothing scent and having a sense of security wrapped in his arms, Samara decided she’d relish his support for the short time she had it. She wondered what he was thinking when she felt his heartbeat quicken against her back.

  Orlando cleared his throat a second time. “Samara, I have something to tell you. It’s gonna sound crazy, and you’ll probably be wanting to find the closest asylum to lock me in. However, what I’m about to tell you is the truth.”

  “Okay, you’ve got my attention, in a frightening, Kathy Bates in Misery type of way.”

  Orlando took a deep breath and blew it out. “I think the best way to describe what’s going on is to tell you about my brother-in-law. About a year and a half ago, my sisters found a man injured at the base of one of the mountains around here. He wore strange clothing and his gear was different than anything they’d ever seen. Once they got him back to the cabin and got to talking, they realized something extraordinary had happened. He’d somehow traveled back in time. God had brought him back. I didn’t think it would happen again, but when I found you and saw your case, I knew in an instant that you weren’t from now. That is, you weren’t from 1879.”

  Samara barked a harsh laugh. “Funny, and I thought you were the serious type. Not a good time to be joking, mister mountain man. You may enjoy hanging out here, dressing up in costume, and living out your dream
s of long ago on the weekends, but that doesn’t mean it’s a growing fad.”

  “I didn’t believe my family at first either, thought my father’s death had driven them insane. Then they showed me his pack, his j phone, his weapon, the money printed in 2017… I couldn’t not believe them. It’s true, Samara, you’ve gone back to 1879,” Orlando replied, his voice insistent.

  Samara felt the stew from breakfast start to rise in her throat. She swallowed it down and took three long, deep breaths. This guy was more off his rocker than she thought. But then she remembered his confused look when he saw her bra, his lack of a bottle of pain killers, and how he called the iPhone a jPhone. He had claimed Harry would never hurt her again, maybe because he lived more than a hundred years in the future? She shook her head and wondered if she was going to pass out. It just wasn’t possible. She had never been a fan of The Twilight Zone.

  Samara swung her leg over Loco’s head and turned so she sat sideways on the horse. Orlando’s hands tightened on her waist like he thought she’d jump or something. As tempting as it was, she didn’t want to spook the horse.

  She looked into Orlando’s face, searching for the lies. “Take me to this brother-in-law of yours. I want to talk to him.”

  Deep regret washed over Orlando’s face as he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. “I wish I could. Lord knows he’d make it much easier to explain all this and help you believe and adjust. Hunter and Viola left for the forts south of here to do some trading and stock up on supplies, plus Hunter was ready to do some exploring of what Colorado is like now. They might be stopping in Denver on the way back. We know they’ll be back before the snow falls. Beatrice is visiting friends of ours over the mountain a bit. The wife had a baby, so Beatrice offered to help out. I’m thinking she might be by here in the next two weeks or so on her way back to the other cabin, but again, not quite sure when.”

  “Isn’t that convenient?” Samara knew her tone was sarcastic. Her breathing quickened. “This is crazy. No, I’m sorry. You’re delusional. Time travel isn’t possible. The whole butterfly effect and all. It can’t happen without drastic effects to the future.”

  “Butterfly effect?”

  “It’s a theory, a story really, written by Ray Bradbury about how time travel is impossible. In the story, time travel becomes a reality, but they realize any changes made in the past drastically alter the future. A man goes back in time to hunt dinosaurs, freaks out, and steps on a butterfly, killing it. When they get back to the future, it’s a different political environment. Most scientists have agreed that would be true, and if you ever got off this stupid mountain and came into reality, you’d understand that.” Samara barely stifled the desire to call him a freak-job at the end of that statement.

  His head rocked back and a loud laugh she might find delicious at any other time burst out. “Honey, if God brought you here, then you’re supposed to be here. No stepping on a butterfly or anything will mess up the future. He’s got that under control.”

  Samara laughed bitterly. “One more thing He’s cursed me with, then. There is no evidence that even your God can do time travel. It’s impossible.”

  “There’s a record in Acts about Philip being transported in an instant to a village a good distance away. One minute he was baptizing an Ethiopian he met on the road, the next he’s in a village somewhere else. God stopped the sun from rising for Joshua and the Israelites. He’s the creator of time and space, if He wants you here for some reason, which He obviously does, you being here isn’t going to change the future in a drastic way. You were always meant to be here at this exact moment,” Orlando said with a thorough patience that made sense and irked her at the same time.

  God, if He even existed, seemed intent on making her life as miserable as possible. First her parents’ deaths, then her crappy childhood, and now, possibly throwing her back in time to an era she never had any desire to visit. If He wanted to send her back, why couldn’t He do her a solid and send her to medieval Scotland with a bare-chested, muscled-up highlander bent on protecting her with his claymore? Though, she supposed Orlando wasn’t some puny weakling with his corded muscles holding her in place. And he’d protected her against a pack of hungry wolves well enough. However, every time she had her life on course, God ripped it out from her and sent her tumbling again. She wished the so-called loving and caring God would just leave her alone.

  “So, what, I’m just supposed to take your word for it? Your supposed experts conveniently travelled away. All ways to verify what you’re saying are gone. And I’m, what, gonna let you take me to your cabin and live life out in this wilderness? That might be nice and all, but I have other plans for life, plans that involve people. I want you to take me to Glenwood Springs or Meeker, now.”

  Orlando sighed and looked off into the distance. He shook his head and adjusted his shoulders. Zeus whined behind him, as if sensing his discomfort. Samara felt a little sorry for the man, though she still thought him off his knocker.

  “Listen, I know this doesn’t seem possible, but it’s true. Hunter explained what convinced him was the lack of stripes in the air left by machines that fly there. I think he called them planes. Maybe if you take some time to observe what’s around, look honestly, maybe God will make it clear to you as well.”

  Samara shook her head. “No, Orlando. Listen very closely to the words that are coming out of my mouth.” When his eyes narrowed, she spoke slow and clear. “Take me to Glenwood Springs or Meeker… now.”

  Orlando looked thoughtful for a second, then nodded. “Alright, Samara, I’ll take you. Hunter told me the Yampah springs becomes this Glenwood Springs. It’s closer than where Meeker is. It’s going to take most of the day for us to get there, and while we travel, I’d like you to think about what I just said. Look around and see if you find the same evidence that Hunter did.”

  Samara nodded in consent, not really wanting to talk anymore anyways. She looked at the trees that edged the meadow they trekked through. They appeared green and healthy, devoid of any sign of spruce beetle kill that plagued the forests of Colorado. She shivered at the thought and focused on the sky above them. She stared for a good half an hour or more, waiting for the telltale sign that people flew to the corners of the world up there. Nothing appeared. In fact, the sky appeared bluer and clearer then she’d ever seen it. With not one single cloud in the sky, it seemed that if a God did exist, He wanted her to know without a doubt that there were no jet streams.

  “This brother-in-law of yours, what’s his name?” Samara muttered into the silence that had stretched between them.

  “Hunter Bennett.”

  Her vision tunneled. She leaned into Orlando’s shoulder. He pulled the horse to a stop and put his hands on the sides of her face, pushing his fingers into her hair.

  “Samara, what is it? You just went white as a ghost.” Orlando’s voice was filled with concern.

  “Hunter Bennett disappeared a year ago while hiking over by Steamboat. They never found any evidence, past his rental car, that he’d even been there. No body, no blood. Nothing. His brother has been searching for him,” Samara whispered as this horrible joke became reality.

  Could this all be a trafficking ring or something? Maybe Hunter stumbled upon it, and they made him disappear? She peered into Orlando’s face. His skin was pallid under his beard, his hands shaking where they softly held her face. She’d become a pretty good judge of character over the years. She’d had to in order to survive. None of her warning bells were going off with him. She’d stay on guard, but she also trusted her instincts that he was telling her the truth.

  Yet, how in the world could this be true? How was she supposed to live life now? She could not picture herself as a music teacher or governess. Teaching in a one room classroom was out of the question. All those kids trapped in four walls gave her hives just thinking about it. She definitely wouldn’t have to worry about Harry, since apparently she had been enrolled in the most extreme witness protection program possi
ble.

  Chapter 5

  “Hunter worried about that, about his brother and what he would do,” Orlando whispered, silently praising God that Samara seemed to understand he wasn’t crazy.

  “No, this is crazy!” She sat up quickly. “You must’ve read an article and that’s how you know Hunter’s name. This is just a no-fly zone or something. This area must not be in a flying pattern.”

  Orlando sighed and urged Loco forward. There went his hope she was accepting the situation. Maybe if he took a more clinical approach, she might believe what she already knew was true.

  “Okay, Samara, what do you see when you look around?”

  She leaned slightly back into him while still holding herself up. The way she sat certainly wasn’t the most conventional, with her legs off to one side and him having to hold her back with one arm to keep her from falling. He appreciated how he was able to watch her. He liked how her expressions marched their way across her face.

  “All right. Well, there’s the lack of jet streams you mentioned, not that I really pay attention to them. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t pointed it out. Normally the sky has at least one of them within the hour, often multiple.”

  “You mean there will be these machines in the sky at the same location?” Orlando interrupted, forgetting he wanted her to talk her theories through.

  “Well, yeah, jet streams crisscross all the time,” Samara answered.

  “How do they not crash?”

  “Well, it’s pretty technical. The airplanes have computers that monitor what’s around them and will tell them when another plane is heading their way or if there’s a mountain in front of them. That way they can fly in any weather, within reason. But they also fly at different altitudes. One might be flying at thirty thousand feet and the other thirty-five thousand, and it’d look like they were going to crash from down here, but they just fly past each other.”