Rena's Cowboy

by Agnes Alexander

  She looked at him. “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s funny looking to me, but it might be that pack you keep mentioning.”

  Her eyes got big. “Really? Where is it?”

  He stood and picked up the lamp. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

  She followed him down the hall and paused when he headed into her room. “You’re not telling me this to get me in my bedroom, are you?” She wished after the words were out she hadn’t said them. He looked hurt.

  “Of course not.” He put the lamp on the dresser. She watched as he went to the wardrobe, pushed back his clothes and pulled out a bundle.

  “It is my backpack,” she exclaimed.

  “I thought it might be.” He held it toward her. “How do you carry it? The holders look strange.”

  “I’ll show you.” She looped her arms through the straps. “See. It’s very convenient.”

  “I see. It’s like some Indian women carry their babies.” He was interested. “It has a strange stiff feel. What’s the material?”

  “Some kind of nylon, I think. It’s strong, light weight and if treated, it’s water repellent. They invented nylon during the first half of the nineteenth century. The material was used to make parachutes, tires, women’s hosiery, things like that.” She looked at his puzzled face and added, “I’ll explain those items to you later. I might even have some of them in here.”

  “Gray Feather said there were things in there I wouldn’t understand. Even some dangerous ones. I haven’t told anyone about your pack or looked inside it myself.”

  “I’m surprised you weren’t curious.”

  “I am curious, but I take Indian warnings seriously.”

  “I’ll show you some of these things, Jake. I don’t want to frighten you with any of them, but I think there are some you might be interested in.” She glanced around the room for someplace to sit. There was only the chair—that and the bed. She bit her lip. “Maybe we should go into the kitchen.”

  “Okay.” He picked up the lamp and she followed him.

  They took seats at the table and Rena unzipped the pack. He watched in fascination. She smiled. “This is a zipper. It’s used as a closure in many things. I think it became widely used in the early part of the 1900s for the front of men’s pants instead of the buttons you have now. Zippers are used in women’s clothes, too, and even in some shoes.”

  She looked in the pack to decide what she’d show him. Some things would be too hard to explain. She pushed her pepper spray aside and chose a flashlight. It had the batteries, but she wasn’t sure it would work. She could tell his heart was beating a little faster when he took it.

  “Push that little button,” she explained.

  Jake did and a beam of light spread across the room. His eyes got big and he stared at her. “What makes it work?”

  “Batteries, but don’t ask me what makes them work.”

  Jake flicked the button again and again. He finally looked at Rena and smiled. “This would be good on the trail at night or when you have to get up at night and don’t want to light a lamp.”

  “Many people keep one beside their bed so they can have a light to get up at night.” She looked into the bag again. “Most of the things I’m showing you were invented in the coming hundred to hundred-and-twenty-five years, Jake. They’ve been improved since the first ones in use. The world has changed a lot.”

  She pulled out her police identification and badge. “When I’m arresting someone or questioning people, this proves to the public I’m who I say I am.”

  He looked at it, then at her. “You really are a lawman.”

  “We call them law officers or police officers now because many women serve on forces around the country.”

  She next took out her wallet and opened it. “This is something everyone has to have to operate a car.” She showed him her license. She started to show him a picture of Drew, but changed her mind. She’d show it to him later. She didn’t want to dredge up old memories now.

  She did show and explain the debit, credit and charge cards. He was amazed that people could buy with these things. She showed him the paper money—over six hundred dollars—which did her no good in his world.

  “You don’t use gold at all?”

  “No. The only gold the general public is supposed to have is jewelry, though a few collectors have gold pieces and nuggets. The government keeps the gold heavily guarded in a vault in Fort Knox, Kentucky. They print the paper money and the gold backs it up.” She decided she wouldn’t get into a more complicated explanation.

  Purposely she passed over the 9 MM Sig Sauer, handcuffs and some of her personal items, including the over the counter drugs and her prescription for penicillin which she was supposed to take for a finger she had thought was getting infected, but wasn’t. She would hold these medicines for emergencies. The next thing she pulled out was her digital camera. “This is going to be almost unbelievable to you, Jake, but it’ll show you some of my world.”

  “What is it?”

  “A camera.”

  “I saw a man in Phoenix once with a camera. It didn’t look like this.”

  “Did you have your picture taken?”

  “No. The thing looked strange to me.”

  “If the battery hasn’t run down, I can show you some pictures I took with my friends on this vacation. I may have some older ones, too.”

  The camera came on and Rena held it in front of him. “This is a picture of the Grand Canyon Skywalk. That’s my friend, Cassie.”

  Jake frowned. “She’s standing in the air.”

  “The bottom of the walk is Glass. It’s a tourist attraction where you can walk out and look down into the canyon.” She flipped through several pictures then held it to him.

  “This is me at the restaurant in our Las Vegas hotel.”

  Jake’s eyebrows shot up. He pulled the picture to him and then looked at her. “Is that the way women dress in your time?”

  “When they’re getting ready to go out to dinner. What do you think?”

  He chuckled. “If you were to dress like that now, people would swear you were a…uh…”

  “A whore?”

  “Of course, I know you’re not.” He was looking at the picture again. “You look pretty.”

  “Thank you, Jake.” Rena flipped the pictures again. She decided not to show him the one of her in the hotel swimming pool. She figured the bikini would be too much for him to handle.

  She showed him cars, buildings, houses, people on the streets of the cities they’d visited. She showed him the airport and the plane that flew them into the airport. When she got to the older pictures, she showed him some of the sights of Atlanta and of friends she had there.

  “Do you have a picture of your husband?”

  “Not on this camera. I bought it only a few months ago.”

  “Could I flip through it?”

  She started to refuse, but changed her mind when she saw how excited he was.

  Jake took his time going through the pictures. He’d stop at one occasionally and ask a question, but he mainly looked as if he was trying to absorb what he was seeing.

  Rena got up and got them both coffee because she knew he was going to be looking at the pictures for a while. She sipped hers slowly but he ignored his. He was too intent on looking.

  Rena was about to tell him that she needed to put the camera away when he shouted, “Damn, woman! Don’t you have any modesty?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This.” He pointed to the picture he was looking at. “Hell, I’ve never seen a woman with anything like that on.”

  She took the camera. He’d come across the picture of her in the black bikini. She shook her head and couldn’t stop a slight blush. “I was at the swimming pool.” She flipped the next picture which took in several people. “See, all swimmers dressed in this manner.”

  He looked at the picture with several women in bikinis and other swimw
ear. The men were dressed rather scantily, too. He looked at it a minute then said, “Put it back to the other one.”

  Rena frowned. “Why?”

  “I just want to see you dressed like that again.”

  Rena turned off the camera. “Jake Haywood, I think you’ve seen that picture enough. It’s time to put this all away. We’ll look at the other things later.”

  “But you said they wouldn’t last.”

  “What wouldn’t last?”

  He nodded toward the camera. “I want to see you one more time…”

  Rena tossed the camera in her bag. “Absolutely not. That’s enough for tonight.”

  “If you won’t let me look at you naked again…”

  “I wasn’t naked, Jake. I had on a bikini.”

  “A what?”

  “A bathing suit.” She zipped the backpack. “Now don’t you dare go into this bag when I’m not here. Your Indian friend was right. There are some dangerous things in there.”

  “I don’t think there could be anything more dangerous than you in that…whatever you called it.”

  She gave him a disgusted look. “I’m trying to show you things from the future. Things you should be interested in, but what do you concentrate on? Me in a bikini.”

  “But you looked so…so…” He grinned when she gave him a hard look. “I’d never seen anything like it. You’re a beautiful woman, Rena. Now I know how beautiful.”

  Rena wished she’d never showed him the camera. She stood. “I’m going to put this up and head to bed.”

  “Please don’t take offense about anything. It was a shock to see you in almost nothing and I’m man enough to say I liked it. I really was thrilled to see all the other things you showed me. I have enough to keep my mind busy for a while.” He gave her a small smile. “You come from an interesting time, Rena.”

  She relented and sat down again, but she didn’t open the bag. “I guess it really is.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  She thought a minute. “I miss my friends and the conveniences, but I don’t think I miss the rest of the world very much.”

  “What conveniences do you miss the most?”

  She thought a minute. “In this heat, I’d have to say air conditioning.”

  “Air conditioning?”

  “Yes. You set a thermostat in your house to the temperature you want it—I usually chose around seventy-five—and no matter how hot it gets outside, inside your home stays at that chosen temperature. Heat works the same way. You set how warm you want it and it’s maintained.”

  “So you never have to build a fire? How do you cook?”

  “People still build fires in fire places for many reasons. The looks and smells; the romantic atmosphere, but few use it for heat. As for cooking, it’s done by gas or electricity. We have stoves where we turn on buttons and the burners heat up and you place your pots and pans on them for cooking. The oven is heated by a button, too and the baking is done inside. It doesn’t fill the room with heat as this wood cook stove does.” She pointed to the big black iron range in the end of the room. “Electricity is used for many things. A switch on the wall turns on and off lights for us. We only use oil lamps when the power goes out, which can happen in a bad storm.”

  “I guess you don’t use candles either.”

  “Oh, yes. We use lots of candles. They come in handy when the power is off, but mostly they are used to enhance a dinner party or to set a romantic mood in a room.”

  “I could get used to the candles, but I don’t think I’d be able to live with all those things you mentioned. I bet there aren’t any cattle ranches or—”

  “Oh, yes there are,” she interrupted. “Huge cattle ranches produce most of the beef for the rest of the nation and some is shipped overseas. Some of the farms and ranches are still owned by individuals and some are owned by corporations. They’re mostly found in the western states, your Arizona being one of them. There are some in the east, but they’re mostly called cattle farms. There are also dairy farms which produce the milk, but there are beef farmers there, too. There are also chicken and hog farms that produce food for the cities. We have several cities in the United States now that have more than a million people living in them.”

  “Did Yellow Creek become a big city?”

  Rena didn’t want to tell him that his town died and became a tourist attraction. “I don’t think Yellow Creek grew very large, but Phoenix did. It’s a huge city. Tucson and Cheyenne became big cities too.”

  “Then I guess it’s worth what we do in this day and time.”

  “Of course it is. The people living now, in this time, are the ones who opened the west to be populated and grow to the wonderful states they are in 2011. In my time, your people are referred to as pioneers. These tough men and woman paved the way for everyone in this country to live under civilized laws, no matter where they’re located.”

  He looked at her for a long time, then said, “Thank you for giving me a look into the future, Rena.”

  “I’m happy to do it.” She smiled at him. “Maybe it would be best if we kept most of the things I told you between us.”

  “I think you’re right. It’d scare Adela and frustrate Silas. I think some of the inventions you say came about would drive him crazy trying to figure them out. I don’t think he believes you came from the future; he’s still trying to accept the fact that you were able to throw him to the floor.” He chuckled. “He asked me if I thought you were a witch, and if he saw you in that bikini, he’d know for sure you were.”

  She giggled. “What did you tell him when he asked if I was a witch?”

  “I told him I thought you were a fascinating woman who ended up here through some freak of nature, but I didn’t think you were a witch.” He glanced at her bag. “Now I wonder about your powers myself.” He stood. “I’ll carry the lamp back to your room for you.”

  After putting the backpack in the wardrobe, Jake turned and lit the lamp on the small table by her bed. “You have a good night and thank you again for sharing with me.”

  “You’re welcome, Jake. I’ll share more with you later.” She hoped he’d leave the room quickly. She knew if he didn’t, she might ask him to stay. Why did this man turn her on so?

  He picked up the lamp he’d brought with him and headed for the door, but must have changed his mind because he turned and faced her. Without a word, using his free hand, he reached for her and pulled her to him. He kissed her, long and hard.

  Just as she started to surrender, he let her go. He looked down into her eyes. “Are all women in your time as special as you are?”

  “I want to think they’re not,” she whispered.

  “I better get out of here, Rena. Thinking about you in that swimming outfit is almost more than my mind can absorb. I know I’m going to have good dreams tonight.” He kissed her again quickly and left, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Rena couldn’t help smiling at his remark. She discarded her robe, blew out the lamp, and climbed into bed. Her emotions were still reeling from the kiss. Lord what was she going to do? This cowboy was turning everything in her heart and mind upside down. She knew if she didn’t do something soon, it’d be too late. She was on the verge of falling in love with him, if she hadn’t already.

  Chapter 10

  Late the next afternoon Silas and Adela finally came in. When Finn came up to the wagon and told him about Curly, Silas asked him to help the women get the supplies into the kitchen pantry while he made for the bunkhouse.

  “That’s it, ladies,” Finn said when he brought in the last sack of flour. “The rest is feed for the barn. I’ll take the wagon down and unload it there.”

  “Thank you, Finn.” Adela closed the pantry door and looked at Rena. “I see you’ve already started supper.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d make it back so I put a roast in the oven and was cooking some vegetables to go with it. I hoped you’d get here in time to make the bread. You know I can’t bake bread
fit to eat.”

  “I’d be happy to make some biscuits.” Adela washed her hands and moved to the bowl of flour Rena put on the counter. She had a smile on her lips.

  “Okay, girl. What’s going on? You usually creep around here like a wounded mouse. Now you’re almost dancing. Did something happen on your trip to bring about this change?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Rena put her hands on her hips. “What do you mean, you’re not sure?”

  “I took your advice.”

  “What did I advise you to do?”

  Adela finished kneading the dough in the bowl and turned it out on the floured kitchen counter. “I confronted Silas.”

  Rena lifted an eyebrow. “Begin at the beginning.”

  Adela began pulling off wads of dough and shaping them into round biscuits with her hands. “Things went as usual in town. I did the shopping while Silas and Finn went to the Silver Slipper to get a drink. Finn came back first and I knew it was because Silas had decided to take one of the women upstairs.”

  “Is that the way they do it?”

  Adela nodded. “I could smell perfume on him when he came back. I didn’t like it, but what could I do? I didn’t say a thing. He’d finished buying the feed and the things they needed for the cattle drive.” She shook her head. “I don’t know if his conscience was hurting him or what, but he told me to pick out a couple of bolts of material to make you and me a dress. That’s the package I put on the divan.”

  She put the bread in the oven. “Everything was the same on the way back. He rode his horse and Finn drove the buckboard with me. Then the storm threatened. I could see Silas would rather be anywhere than on that side of the river with me, but he wasn’t about to come ahead and let Finn stay there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Cowboys have their code of ethics where women are concerned. There are the ones they visit in the saloons and there are the ones they marry. And once a cowboy has married, he may see another woman now and then, but he’ll kill any man who touches his wife.”