Romance in Time: An Oregon Trail Time Travel Romance

by Susan Leigh Carlton

  “Indians… here?” her voice wavered as she spoke.

  “I’m afraid so,” Josiah answered.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “There’s nothing we can do in the dark. They won’t attack until light. We can’t go outside. I’m sure the hands heard it in the bunkhouse, so they’re ready. You have the gun Thomas gave you last night?”

  “It’s in the bedroom.”

  “It won’t do you any good in there. Better get dressed and keep it with you. Thomas, check it for her, please. When do you think it will start?” she asked Josiah. She handed the revolver to Thomas to check.

  He spun the cylinder and made sure there was a cartridge in front of the hammer. “It will be easier if you pull the hammer back first and then pull the trigger.” He handed it back to her.

  “They’ll come shortly after sunup, I expect,” Josiah answered her question. “They’ll come in from that direction,” he said, pointing east.

  “I want you and Abigail in the root cellar. When they’re gone, I’ll call out to you. I won’t open the door before. Shoot if someone tries to get in without calling. Sophie, don’t let them take you. Save the last one for yourself. Make sure Abigail does the same.”

  “We’d better eat while we can,” Sophie said.

  Abby followed her to the kitchen. “How can you be so calm, knowing we may be attacked and killed at any time?”

  “I trust Josiah and Thomas,” Sophie said. “And I trust in the Lord. If it’s my time, it’s my time.”

  Abby realized it was not the time for either of them. There had been diary entries after this. She had read them. She hadn’t read anything about Josiah and Thomas beyond this time. Would they make it? She didn’t know. Then she had an epiphany. Since she existed in the future, and was a Barnes, and since Josiah and Sophie had no other children, she and Thomas would have to be parents. Her future was pre-ordained. Her confidence restored, she said, “We’re going to be all right; now, I’m hungry.”

  * * *

  The sun had barely cleared the mountains in the east when they struck. Yipping, yelling and making any number of blood curdling sounds, they came, riding bareback. A few were carrying torches, intent on burning out the white people who had invaded their land.

  Abby and Sophie were in the dark root cellar with only a single, flickering candle for light. The door was barred with a four-by-four nestled in metal brackets on each side. It was almost impenetrable, but it was flammable.

  The ranch hands were ready, in the hayloft, on the roof of the house and barn, and behind the centuries old outcropping of stones on the edge of the yard. The cowboys concentrated their fire on the attackers carrying torches. Their aim was accurate, and the torch carriers soon went down.

  The only firearms the Indians had were those they had taken in their raids and were by no means marksmen. But there were lots of them. The lances and arrows did little damage to the hidden men, other than forcing them to keep their heads down.

  They had developed a strategy in their skirmishes with the Army, where they would draw the fire of the soldiers, and then while they reloaded their muskets, the Indians would attack with a vengeance, usually with great success. They put the strategy in play.

  Several months earlier, Josiah had purchased enough Spencer repeating rifles to arm his hands with them. After the initial round of fire from the settlers, the attack increased in intensity. The rifle fire from the eight men was deadly. The attackers had never encountered repeating rifles before, and paid the price for their ignorance.

  Where their strategy failed, their numbers made up for it. Ammunition was running low, and the men tried to make every shot count. From his spot behind one of the large rocks, Thomas saw two braves batter their way through the cellar door. One was rewarded with a bullet to the chest for his efforts. The other brave emerged from the cellar, dragging a kicking and screaming Abby by her long hair. He was grinning at the thought of the scalp of long dark hair that would soon decorate his lance.

  Thomas ran from his hide toward the struggling Abby and the Sioux brave. He launched himself at the brave, hitting him in the shoulder and driving him to the ground. She wriggled free. “Run, Abby, run,” Thomas shouted as he struggled with the brave. The Indian regained his feet, pulled a knife from his waistband and advanced toward Thomas, swinging the knife from side to side in wide sweeping swipes. One swing caught Thomas in the gut. When Thomas fell, the Indian grabbed his hair and prepared to count coup.

  As he moved to make the first cut, a shot rang out and he was driven backward. Abby stood there, the smoking gun in her hand. She dropped it to the ground and rushed to Thomas, who lay bleeding on the ground.

  “Let’s get him out of the middle of this,” Sophie said. Each took an arm and dragged him to the edge of the steps.

  One of the Sioux warriors dropped his lance and fell from his horse, a victim of a shot from the Cavalry riding to the sound of the gunfire. “This is just like a John Wayne movie.”

  “What did you say?” Sophie asked.

  “Nothing, I was just talking to myself,” Abbie responded.

  Chapter nineteen

  Wounded

  “Ma’am, would you like for the doctor to look at your son?”

  “Yes, thank you Captain,” Sophie said.

  “While he’s checking Thomas, I’ll go check on the men,” Josiah said.

  The doctor was wearing a smock that had been white at one time, but no longer. It was dirty, and had a myriad of stains of indeterminate origin. His hands were visibly dirty. And he reeked of whiskey. The good doctor was as drunk as a skunk.

  “Miss Sophie, make him wash his hands; it’s important.” Abby said.

  She looked at Abby, and then made up her mind. “Doctor, would you wash your hands please? We’ll get some hot water.” Sophie asked.

  “He’s bleeding now,” the doctor said.

  “Not until you wash your hands,” Sophie repeated.

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am. I am a doctor,” he slurred.

  “You don’t touch my son until you’ve washed your hands.”

  “Doctor, do you have carbolic acid?” Abby asked.

  “Some.”

  “May I have it please?”

  “I can’t do that, blongs to the Army.”

  “Doctor, I worked for Doctor Turner in the hospital in Fort Laramie,” Abby said. “After we started washing our hands, and putting carbolic acid on and in the wounds, the infection rate dropped significantly.”

  “Miss Sophie, if he refuses to wash his hands, I can take care of Thomas, and use whiskey to clean the wound, but carbolic acid would be better. After we clean it, I can sew it closed. I’ve done it before.”

  “How bad is the wound, Doctor?” the captain asked.

  “They won’t let me examine him.”

  “Why not?”

  Sophie spoke up. “Captain, the doctor has been drinking. His hands are not clean. We will get some hot water for him. Abigail worked in the hospital in Fort Laramie with Doctor…” She looked at Abby for help.

  “James Turner,” Abby provided.

  “We found cleaning our hands with soap and hot water reduced infections. So did carbolic acid. It kills the germs. If the good doctor can’t or won’t, then can you give us some of the disinfectant so we can take care of him?”

  “I have no authority in medical matters, so I can’t order him to do that. I can, and will report this to the commanding officer.

  “Good. Colonel Hays knows of the success we had with this procedure.”

  “You know the Colonel, ma’am?”

  “I do. In fact, I danced with him at the last Post Commander’s Ball. I lived with Doctor Turner and his wife, Miss Cora.”

  “Doctor, will you comply with this?” the captain asked.

  “Bring the hot water,” the doctor said. He scrubbed his hands.

  When he finished, Abby quietly did the same.

  “I’ll clean the wound for you,” Abby sa
id. After she finished, the doctor examined the cut. “It didn’t go deep enough to hurt anything important,” he said.

  “Do you think it needs to be sewn?” she asked.

  “Wouldn’t hurt none, I guess.”

  “Give me the catgut and carbolic acid and I’ll do that while you check the others. I’ve done this before.”

  He jumped at the chance to save face. “Go ahead, while I look at the others,” he said.

  “Don’t forget to wash your hands before each one,” she said. “Thank you Doctor.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Sophie said to Abby.

  “I am too,” Thomas said.

  “You might not be so glad when I start sewing you up. It’s going to hurt.”

  “I know you’ll be as easy as you can.”

  After the stitching was done, Abby called the doctor. “It’s closed, Doctor. Do you think it will be all right?”

  “You did a good job. I’ll speak to Doctor Turner about this handwashing thing when we get back to the fort.”

  “Please do, I think you will be surprised, and tell them I miss them.”

  “Sir, my men will remove the Indian casualties. I presume you will take care of your two?”

  “We’ll take care of them,” Josiah said, grimly.

  “Two of your employees were killed?” Abby asked.

  “Yes. One had been with us since we first started.”

  “Is this the first time this has happened?”

  “It’s the first time there’s been a raid this big. We’ve had some, where they were just after cattle for food.”

  “What were they after this time?”

  “Our scalps.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “There are eleven dead Indians counting the ones you and Sophie shot, and two of my ranch hands. I’d count that as pretty serious. I have to see about burying my men.”

  * * *

  “You left your protection to help me,” Abby said to Thomas.

  “Any one of us would have done it. I happened to see you first.”

  “Your father said they were going to burn the ranch and kill all of us.”

  “That’s likely. That officer told us they had raided and burned a ranch, and killed everyone on it. Including the children.”

  Her hand went to her mouth, shocked at the way Thomas had mentioned the massacre. Almost as if it was a way of life. “I guess it is,” she thought.

  “What makes them do things like that?”

  “What would you do if someone came in and took your land, and then made promises to you and even signed a treaty, with the promises in writing, and broke every promise?”

  “I suppose I’d be upset too.”

  “Upset? I’d fight, just like they’re doing.”

  “It isn’t going to stop. They’re still disadvantaged in my time.”

  “That’s something I wish you’d quit saying. This is now your time.”

  “It doesn’t keep me from hoping to get back to where I belong.”

  “If you feel that way, why did you come here? This isn’t where you landed. It seems to me, your way back, if there is one, would be from where you landed.”

  She saw the sadness in his eyes and realized her words had hurt. “I’m sorry. That makes me seem ungrateful. I’m not; I appreciate what you are doing. It’s just that…”

  “Don’t apologize for saying how you feel. It’s natural to want to be around your kin. It’s perfectly normal. I sort of hoped we might have something special. I was wrong.” He pushed his arms into a long sleeved shirt and began buttoning it.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m putting my shirt on, and then I’m going outside. I can’t just sit around.”

  “You’re going to break the stitches if you’re not careful, and you’ll start bleeding again.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and headed for the door and the barn.

  I shouldn’t have come. I should have stayed in Fort Laramie.

  Chapter twenty

  A Mistake

  “What’s the matter, dear? You look troubled,” Sophie asked.

  “I guess I am. Yesterday, I took the life of another human. Eleven Indians and two of your employees are dead. I’m not accustomed to such violence.”

  “If what you said about coming from the future is true, then surely you read about the uprisings, and Indian wars.”

  “I guess I didn’t pay much attention to them. My coming here was a mistake. I should have stayed in Fort Laramie, like Thomas said.”

  “He said that?”

  “When I said I’d like to be able to go back to my time, he said I would have had a better chance from there than here, because that’s where I landed in this time, and he’s right. He’s upset with me, but I can’t help it.”

  “I’ve come to believe you did what you said, and I have a question for you. Since you are here, then doesn’t what you do affect what is going to happen in the future?”

  “I guess so, but…”

  “Suppose, just suppose you were to marry Thomas and have children. Down the line, one of the results of the children would be your mother, and subsequently you. There couldn’t be two of you, one there and one here. Am I way off the track here?”

  “The thing is, I remember her, and my being there. It was a lot easier there than here.”

  “Was it? There were no disasters, no diseases, and no wars? You’re not describing the future, you’re describing heaven. The future will be made by what we do and our children and their children do. I dream of grandchildren. I want them to have an easier life than I have. Don’t misunderstand me. I love Josiah, Thomas, and you, but I just want a little more for them than what we have. It will happen too. When the railroad comes, we’ll have more things than we have now. There won’t be any need for them to spend six months walking over two thousand miles looking for a better life. It might only take a couple of weeks.”

  “Miss Sophie, you are a very wise and intelligent woman. A lot of what I am has passed down from you to me.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I can dream. The railroad will cross our land. Instead of having to drive cattle to Fort Laramie or Denver, all we will have to do is drive them to the railroad. That gives me two more weeks or so of enjoying them here instead of worrying about them out somewhere in all kinds of weather, sleeping on the ground.”

  Sophie and Thomas…

  “What did you tell Abigail?”

  “She said something about ‘in her time’. I told her I wished she would quit saying it, because this is her time. She said she’s still hoping to get back there. I asked her why she even came here if she feels that way. She apologized.”

  “Son, I love you dearly, but sometimes you don’t have as much sense as God promised a billy goat. What if you suddenly got plopped down in the middle of Timbuktu with none of the conveniences we have? Wouldn’t you want to get back to a familiar place?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but…”

  “But nothing. It’s likely she’s stuck here, and knows it. So what is she supposed to do now? She’s just shot someone that was trying to kill you, and here you tell her she should have stayed where she was instead of coming to get to know you and your family. You should have been comforting her, and telling her everything would be all right and what you wanted your life together to be.

  “You do know she’s planning to go back to Fort Laramie the next chance she gets? What’s there for her? Soldiers, and working in a hospital where she sees the same type of things she saw yesterday. It’s not what she wants. Do you have any idea what she does want? What would you want for her? And for you? You might want to fix this, or you may have lost the best chance you’ll ever have.”

  Thomas and Abby…

  “Take a walk with me?”

  “Is it safe?” she asked.

  “We won’t get out of sight of the house, and Pa doesn’t think they’ll be back, at least anytime soon.

  “I want to apologize
for what I said,” he told her.

  “You told me I shouldn’t apologize for saying what I feel.”

  “And you shouldn’t. But I don’t feel you should go back to Fort Laramie. I don’t want you to go back. There’s more for you here than at the fort.”

  “And what is there for me here?”

  “You’re not going to make this easy for me are you?”

  “You hurt me, and I don’t like to be hurt, so I tend to avoid things that cause me pain. That’s why I came to Laramie in the first place. I wanted to stay away from the possibility of meeting Brett.”

  “So you’re going to stay away from me because I hurt you with words? I shouldn’t have said?”

  “I’m sorry, Thomas. This is not what I wanted.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to be happy, with someone I love and who loves me back.”

  “Don’t you think I can be that person?”

  Her hands were clasped in her lap, her eyes moist. “I don’t know. The thing is…”

  “Is what?”

  “I still want to get back to my family. I believe you were right. If there is a way, it will be where I landed, not here. I have to go back to Fort Laramie.”

  “Is there anything I can say or do to change your mind?”

  “I don’t think so. I have to try. I’m sorry, Thomas.”

  “Can I at least write to you?” he asked.

  “I was hoping you would want to.”

  Later…

  “You’ve made up your mind?” Sophie asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. I have. I wish it hadn’t turned out this way.”

  “I do too. I do have a feeling that you’ll be back. We’ll be waiting. And hoping.”

  “I don’t know when we’ll be heading that direction,” Josiah told Abby. “We need a few things, especially cartridges, but I can get them in the tent city. I don’t want to go off and leave the ranch for four days and I don’t want to leave Sophie, especially since we’re shorthanded.”

  “I understand.”

  Two days later…

  “Abigail, I was talking to Zeke Edwards in tent city and he’s driving a herd to Fort Laramie next week. There will be two wagons and six or eight hands with him. The only thing is there’s no women folk. I know you want to go back. I’d rather you didn’t go under those circumstances. I just wouldn’t be comfortable with it.”