“Any word from the sheriff on that can of Mace and Cluney’s necklace?”
“Yep.” Sonny kept a keen eye on the winding road as he spoke. “The lab report just came in this morning. The blood’s a match, all right. They checked it against her records at the college infirmary.”
When he heard a sharp intake of breath from B.J., he quickly added, “But, look, that doesn’t mean something’s happened to her. She’ll turn up, you wait and see.”
“I wish you’d put that another way, Sonny. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of—that she’ll ‘turn up.’”
“Aw, heck, B.J.! You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know, Sonny, but I can’t help thinking about it. In fact, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while I was lying up there in the hospital.”
She paused and Sonny glanced her way. B.J. didn’t continue, though. She just sat there, looking out the window at the soft, smoky-green of the mountains and listening to the country music on the truck’s radio. Randy Travis was wailing away about “old bones.”
“Well?” Sonny said. “Are you going to tell me what you’ve been thinking or not?”
“You’ll figure I’m crazy.”
He chuckled. “I reckon I already suspected that. You’re not plumb crazy, though, just a little tetched.”
“Well, thanks, ol’ buddy!”
“Go on, B.J. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Okay. I guess I have to bounce my ideas off somebody. Sonny, do you know anything about time slips?”
“Sure,” he said, frowning, not making the connection. “I punch a time slip every day when I come to work or leave.”
“No, no,” B.J. said. “I’m talking paranormal phenomena here. A time slip is when someone travels back into the past and sees things that happened years ago as if they were happening right now, this very minute. From what I’ve read and heard, it usually lasts only minutes. But suppose Cluney has slipped back in time and can’t figure out a way to return?”
Even though they were approaching a treacherous bend in the steep road, Sonny turned and looked B.J. full in the face. “Go on with you! Where’d you ever hear such a thing?”
“Look out!” B.J. reached for the wheel as Sonny missed the curve and the truck’s right tires slipped off the pavement, bumping the vehicle crazily along the shoulder.
“I never heard of such,” Sonny mumbled once he had control of the truck again.
“Well, I’ve not only heard of it, I know someone it happened to. A friend of mine back home lived in this real old house. One day I was visiting her and we were just fooling around in the rec room—playing records, dancing, giggling like teenagers do. Jeanne decided to go to the kitchen to get us some soft drinks. She was gone a long time. When she finally came back, she was shaking all over and she’d forgotten all about our sodas. Once she could settle down enough to talk, she said that she’d heard a piano playing in the living room as soon as she left me. And they didn’t own a piano. So, Jeanne walked on through the house toward the sound. All the other rooms looked normal, but the minute she stepped into the living room everything was changed. The wallpaper was different, the furniture, the drapes, and there was a strange woman sitting at an old-fashioned piano, playing it. Jeanne said she could see out the window, and everything was different outside, too. A horse and buggy drove by in the dirt street. There was no house next door, just a wooded lot. When a man came into the room and started arguing with the woman, Jeanne got out of there fast. And she was plenty scared, I can tell you. She said she thought the man meant to kill the woman.”
“You’re puttin’ me on,” Sonny said.
“No! It’s true, cross my heart. They even found out later who the woman was. Her name was Martha Everett Olmstead. After what Jeanne saw that afternoon, her daddy checked some old records at the courthouse. He found out that Jeanne was right—if she hadn’t gotten out of there fast, she would have seen that man, Curtiss Olmstead, murder his wife. Eighty-year-old court records showed that they had a fight and he knocked her down and she hit her head on that piano. While she was out cold, he strangled her.”
Sonny gave a low whistle and glanced at B.J. “So, let me get this straight. You’re saying that you think Cluney Summerland slipped back into the past and is still there?” The serious-minded ranger was shaking his head with every word he spoke.
At Sonny’s incredulous tone, B.J. became defensive. “I’m just saying I think it’s possible. That’s all.”
He chuckled softly. “About as possible as those two ’coons you told me about being Wooter Crenshaw’s ma and pa.”
“All right,” B.J. said stiffly. “Then you explain to me how Hunter Breckinridge’s grave could be missing from that old burying ground.”
“I can’t,” Sonny admitted. “But I suppose you can?”
“I have an idea.”
“Well, for God’s sake, tell me! That’s been driving me batty.”
“Suppose I’m right about Cluney going through a time slip. And suppose she’s done something back then to keep Hunter alive. If he didn’t die at Cumberland Falls, then he wouldn’t be buried there, would he? And if she’s managed to change history in some way, then it would change some things in the present, too.”
“Now I’ve heard everything!” Sonny wheeled into the parking lot at the falls, switched off the ignition, and turned to stare at B.J. “You think your friend has gone and changed history? Give me a break, lady!”
B.J. arched an eyebrow at him. “You have a better explanation?”
“No, but … how do you figure she could change things?”
B.J. looked thoughtful for a minute, then said, “She’s had a bad cold and she’s been taking some pills for it. We haven’t found her purse, so she must have it and her medicine with her. Maybe she’ll give Hunter some of her antibiotics and save his life. Shoot, they didn’t even know enough back then to keep things clean around sick people. Cluney could save him just by making sure everything’s sterile. Or maybe just her being there will keep him from dying. I don’t know. But I do know that if that’s where Cluney is, she’ll do something—anything she can—to keep him alive. She’s in love with him, you know. She has been ever since she found his diary and read it.”
“In love with a guy who’s been dead for over a hundred years?” Sonny gave a short laugh and pounded the steering wheel with his fist. “Now, that beats all! What’d they do to you while you were in that hospital, girl? Scramble your brains?”
“I’m serious, Sonny. I told you about Cluney finding that journal he kept during the war. She fell for this guy just from reading what he’d written. Hunter Breckinridge was real to her—as alive as you and I are right this minute. Believe what you will,” B.J. said. “But I’m going to find out. If both Cluney and Wooter can find that time slip, then so can I. Next full moon, I’m going wherever they are.”
“Like hell!” Sonny boomed.
“You just wait and see,” B.J. assured him. “Besides, I think I’m needed back there. I’ve had this odd feeling ever since the other night. It’s almost like someone’s calling out to me from way off somewhere.”
“Who?” Sonny obviously figured B.J. had just gone around the bend.
B.J. shook her head. “I’m not sure. Could be Cluney, could be someone else. I’ll let you know when I find out.”
“Yeah, you do that!” Sonny answered. “You do that very thing!”
Free had been trying for days to catch Larissa by herself so he could ask her some questions. But it seemed like she and Major Breckinridge were spending every hour of the day and night together.
Finally, late one afternoon while the major was napping, Free saw her slip out of the bedroom. She headed through the house and into the yard. He followed.
When he went outside, she was standing at the edge of the gorge, just staring out at the falls. She made a pretty sight there, with the mist all around her and the late afternoon sun tu
rning it gold like an angel’s halo.
“Miz Larissa?” Free called from a distance away, not wanting to startle her.
For a moment, she seemed not to have heard him. Then, slowly, she turned and smiled.
“Free, aren’t the falls beautiful this afternoon? They look all golden in the sun.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered dutifully. “Miz Larissa, there’s something I got a hankering to ask you.”
“What is it, Free?’”
“It’s about my woman, Belle.” He tensed when he said the words, afraid she would tell him to be on his way.
Instead, she said, “You love her a lot, don’t you?”
“Oh, yessum, I do!” When he realized he’d looked Larissa straight in the eye as he answered, he quickly dropped his gaze, ashamed of his own forwardness.
“It’s all right, Free,” she said gently. “I understand what it means to love someone you can’t be with. I understand all too well. Now, what did you want to ask me?”
“That likeness of Belle you got. I know you said it wasn’t her and I’m not meaning to dispute your word, ma’am, but if I could just have another look at it.”
As always, Cluney had her bag and all its valuable contents slung across her shoulder. She fished into it and brought out the photo of B.J. With obvious uncertainty, she handed it to him.
He cradled the picture lovingly in his big hands. “Oh, my!” he breathed. “Oh, this got to be my Belle, ma’am. I couldn’t mistake the woman I love so much.”
“Where is Belle?” Cluney asked gently.
He shook his head. “I ain’t knowing at the moment, ma’am. Our master sold her off to someplace here in Kentucky. I ain’t seen nor heard of her since. Soon as I got my freedom, I come straight here, hoping I’d find her so we could marry. But looks like this war has just throwed ever’body every whichaway. Nobody’s where they belongs no more.”
Cluney mused silently on the truth of his words.
“Do you know the name of the person who bought Belle?”
He gave her a baleful look. “No, ma’am. I heard tell she’d gone to a place called Brodaker.”
“I don’t believe. I’ve ever heard of a place by that name in Kentucky.”
“But, ma’am, if you have her likeness, how come you can’t tell me where she is?” Free knew he sounded uppity, but he couldn’t help himself. He had to find Belle and Larissa was the only one who might help him.
“I explained to you, Free, that this can’t possibly be your Belle. The likeness is of a friend of mine. Her name is B.J. Jackson. She lives down in the valley.” She turned and pointed off toward the town that would not be there until long after the war.
His eyes lit up. “Then I’ll go down there and find her.”
Cluney shook her head. “It’s not that easy, Free. You won’t be able to find her there now. I can’t explain this to you. I wish I could, but I’m not sure I understand myself.”
“Then you won’t help me?” he said in a dejected tone.
“I can’t help you. Believe me, I would, if I could.”
After one last longing gaze, Free surrendered the photo to Larissa. She held it thoughtfully for a moment, then pressed it back into his hand.
“You keep this. If it looks so much like your Belle, you should have it.”
Free’s heart warmed at her generosity. He’d longed to beg her for the likeness, but knew he had no right. The major’s lady was indeed a fine person. With tears in his eyes, and B.J.’s picture clutched to his chest, he nodded and bowed.
“I thank you most kindly, ma’am. I do!”
“I hope you find your Belle,” Cluney whispered.
From that moment on, Free was never without the photo of B.J. He looked at it every chance he got. He thought of her during the day and dreamed of her at night. If she was out there somewhere, he meant to send her a message, from his heart to hers. Somehow, she would know that he was calling to her, begging her to come to him.
Cluney watched the big private amble back toward the lodge. He never took his eyes off B.J.’s picture all the way. She found his insistence that the photo was actually a likeness of his Belle unsettling. She wished she could explain to Free how she’d come from another time, but she had yet to find a logical way to explain that even to her own husband, so there was no way she could tell him.
Deep in thought, her gaze still focused on the falls, Cluney heard Mary Renfro call to her.
“Larissa? You out there? You best come quick. The major’s took a turn.”
Cluney hurried toward the house. Mary stood in the open door, beckoning to her. She wasn’t sure she understood what the woman meant, but one look at Mary’s grim face told her that the news was not good.
“Mary? What’s wrong?”
“It ain’t like this comes as a shock, but he’s seemed so much better these past days.”
“Mary!” Cluney felt like shaking the woman. “Tell me! What’s happened?”
“Your husband’s took with a fever, Larissa. He’s out of his head.”
“Oh, no!” Cluney cried, rushing past Mary and into the house. “But he was fine before he fell asleep.”
“Well, he ain’t fine now, I’m sorry to say. Looks like that wound in his shoulder’s gone septic. There ain’t a thing we can do for him now, but try to make him easy and pray.”
Cluney turned and stared at Mary. “Septic? You mean it’s an infection.”
“I reckon. Don’t matter what you call it, the end’ll come soon all the same. I’m sorry, Larissa. Mighty sorry!”
Cluney hurried into the bedroom. Her heart sank when she spied Hunter. His face was flushed. Although his eyes were still closed, his lips moved constandy, muttering wild, incoherent phrases. He tossed restlessly, tearing with his good hand at the bandage across his shoulder.
Quickly, Cluney dampened a cloth in the ironstone bowl beside the bed and began sponging him off.
“It ain’t time yet to bathe him,” Mary said in an amazed tone, obviously assuming that the dying man’s wife was preparing him for his burial.
“I have to cool him off, get his fever down.”
Cluney’s mind was groping for something she could do that would help. Her medical knowledge was sorely lacking. She tried to remember how her mother had tended her when she was ill. Of course! Ice! She needed ice. But the only ice on this mountain was in the cold fingers clutching her heart.
“Mary, is there any of Wooter’s medicine left?”
“A bit. I’ll run fetch it,” the woman said, hurrying off.
A short while later, after dribbling some of Wooter’s white lightning between Hunter’s parched lips, Cluney used more of it to try to disinfect the fiery-red wound. Then she carefully rewrapped his shoulder with clean linen that she herself had boiled earlier.
For hours, far into the night, Cluney sat with Hunter, trying to bring his fever down, praying that it would break. His skin felt so hot. She guessed his temperature must be well over a hundred degrees, maybe as high as a hundred and five. If only she hadn’t broken the thermometer she usually carried in her purse, she could find out for sure.
“My purse!” she gasped suddenly, joyously.
She always carried aspirin. And aspirin would bring his fever down. But that was only a temporary measure. She had bigger, better things on her mind. The college doctor had prescribed a form of penicillin for her cold. Surely, Hunter’s infection would respond to the twentieth-century miracle drug.
Hurriedly, Cluney dumped the entire contents of her purse on the bed, then scrambled her fingers through the mess, searching for the clear plastic pill bottle.
“It’s not here!” she cried, totally dismayed. “But I know I had it.”
With a sinking heart, she recalled the spill in her van. The round container of pills must have rolled under the seat. Wherever her van was at the moment, so, too, was her one chance to save Hunter’s life. She sank down on the bed and put
her face in her hands. All was lost!
Her surrender lasted only moments. “No, dammit! I will not let him die!”
Quickly, she found the aspirin and melted them in a little water in a tin cup. Drop by drop, she forced the precious liquid between Hunter’s lips. He grimaced at the bitter taste even though he was still out of his head with the fever.
“You’ll thank me later, darling,” she whispered.
By dawn Cluney could tell that Hunter’s fever was down a bit, but they still had a long way to go. She dissolved more aspirin and gave it to him.
Again, she went through everything in her purse, hoping against all hope that somehow she had overlooked the pill bottle before. She was sitting on the bed, staring miserably at the useless collection of junk she’d brought with her when she heard an odd sound outside. It was barely light yet, but someone was digging.
Cluney rose from the bed and went to the window. Holding aside the burlap curtain she stared out. What she saw sent a chill right through her. Free was out in the burying lot, digging a new grave. One of the other men must have died during the night.
While she was still at the window, the door opened softly and Mary looked in.
“How is he?” she asked.
Still mesmerized by Free’s grim labor, Cluney didn’t turn as she answered, “His fever is down a little.”
She thought Mary had left until she heard the woman’s voice again. “I was hoping you wouldn’t look out the window,” she said in an apologetic tone. “I know it’s right early for me to set Free to such a task, but I reckon we’re in for a hard freeze tonight. It’s feeling like snow, too, Larissa. I told Free to dig right next to that nice young Captain Van Dyke from New York since he and the major was friendly with one another. Larissa, you understand…”
Suddenly, Cluney did understand and she was mortified. She whirled on Mary. “How could you?”
“A body’s got to think ahead, child,” Mary answered gently.
“Well, fine! You just think ahead all you like. But think to when my husband is up and around again because I will not, by God, let him die!”
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