Thunder Mountain

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  As Bonnie said on one stop, they were a long ways and a lot of years away from a public restroom beside a road.

  At the campsite, Duster mostly set up camp, showing Madison and Dawn how to set their tents. Dawn doubted she was going to remember much of it.

  “Now that we’re down on the valley floor,” Duster had said, “We can take our time.”

  Both she and Madison and Bonnie all agreed that would be a very good idea.

  Even though Duster had a fire going, Dawn splashed some water on her face and arms, ate a cold dinner of jerky and a sandwich, went into her tent, took out an extra blanket, and pumped up her air mattress. Then she took all her clothes off and crawled into her cloth bag. She didn’t care that it wasn’t appropriate for a lady to sleep in the nude in 1902. She had to be out of those clothes for just a little while.

  She lay down, pulled the extra blanket up around her chin, and the next thing she remembered, there was light outside the tent and Madison was asking from outside if she was all right?

  “Breakfast is on,” he said.

  “It will take a few minutes,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse and her throat dry.

  She rolled over and took a drink from her canteen. She could feel the bite to the early-morning air on her exposed shoulder.

  She managed to find a clean pair of underwear in her saddlebag near her head and then she slipped into her pants.

  She had brought a number of sports bras because, as Bonnie had said, “Who was going to know.” Dawn slipped one of those on, then a white blouse over the top of that and then a suit coat and then a jacket.

  Then she carefully took her feet, washed them off with a little water from her canteen, applied some antiseptic to most of the bottoms and a few red spots on the sides, and put on a pair of her favorite socks, then pulled socks more suited for the period over them, and finally her riding boots.

  As she stood, every muscle in her body complained and she damned near ended up sitting down again.

  She carefully limped out into bright sunlight, feeling like her legs would never be the same and she would walk funny the rest of her life.

  Duster and Bonnie were sitting beside the campfire while Madison worked at something in a pan. Wow, not only was he the most attractive man she had ever seen, he could cook over a fire. More than likely just one of the many secrets she was going to find out about him on this trip.

  “Women’s restroom?” she asked, her voice still rough and dry.

  Bonnie pointed to a grove of trees about fifty feet away and along the side of the hill.

  “You need help getting there?” Bonnie asked.

  “I think I’ll make it, but if you don’t see me in a couple hours, send help,” Dawn said. “Riding a horse is something that should be done in small doses at first.”

  “I’ll second that,” Madison said, smiling at her.

  She limped back ten minutes later to the heavenly smell of whatever Madison was cooking. Some sort of bacon, but she didn’t remember them bringing any bacon along. More than likely it was from the supplies that Duster had ready for them.

  Not only did her joints ache, but she felt like she was covered in two layers of dirt and grime. And this was only after one day. It was a long way from Murphy, Idaho, to Roosevelt, Idaho.

  A very, very long way.

  And she was starting to wonder if she was up for this kind of journey.

  She must have moaned slightly as she sat down on a log beside Bonnie.

  Bonnie patted her knee. “We are still a ways up river from the ferry. There’s a hot spring about five miles from here. We’ll camp there for the second night and give us all a rest.”

  She couldn’t believe Bonnie said hot springs. “Oh, thank you,” Dawn said. “That sounds heavenly.”

  “Wait until you see it,” Bonnie said, smiling. “One of my favorite places. Very few people in this time period know about it, and it’s a perfect temperature.”

  Madison turned over something in the pan, then said, “If I would have known I was going to be riding horses this summer, I’d have practiced.”

  “You get used to it in a few days,” Duster said. “Sorry about that long first day, but we needed to get off that mountain in case a storm came in. It’s been known to snow up there in early May.”

  Dawn looked at Bonnie, then simply asked once again to make sure she had heard correctly, “Hot springs?”

  All she could think about was soaking in hot water, washing off the grime, and somehow getting closer to feeling human again.

  Bonnie and Duster both laughed.

  “Hot springs,” Bonnie said. “There are a bunch of them along the way to Roosevelt, but this first one is the best.”

  “Heaven,” Dawn said.

  And again Bonnie laughed and agreed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  MADISON HAD BEEN GLAD to see Dawn was as sore as he was when she came out of her tent. Riding that much on a horse without being in shape was just flat brutal. He felt like he could barely move or walk, for that matter.

  But even limping and clearly not awake, Dawn still looked fantastic. Stunning actually.

  There was no doubt that he was completely taken with her.

  He had offered to cook breakfast and moving around for a few minutes and getting loose was helping. Bonnie and Duster had let him, giving him a few tips as he got started. He managed to impress Dawn, and that made him happy, more than he wanted to admit.

  They all took their time, the feeling of rushing to get out of the mountains completely gone now that they were down on the Snake River.

  He was still having a hard time believing it was 1902. That would take more than a few days and a ton more evidence to sink in.

  The air was cold and the sky gray and overcast, but it didn’t feel to Madison that a storm was coming.

  They packed up camp with Duster and Bonnie adding in all sorts of tips to make the process shorter. Then when they were about to start off, Dawn looked at Duster and said, “Is it going to be possible to walk most of the way today?”

  “Planning on it,” Bonnie said.

  “Oh, thank you,” Madison said, completely relieved and Dawn laughed. He had not been looking forward to climbing back on that horse anytime soon. In fact, he wasn’t certain he could even do it, he was so sore.

  Duster had spared no expense both on horses and saddles, getting them the best that Madison knew existed in this time. But even the best saddles were tough at first.

  Duster took the two packhorses and started off riding ahead of them down the wagon trail they would be following, promising that he would have camp set up by the time they reached the hot springs.

  It was a very well-traveled wagon road and was full of deep ruts, clearly well-used. But so far they hadn’t run across anyone else. For the moment Madison was happy about that. He wanted to get his wits settled a little before having to deal with someone from 1902 directly.

  As they walked slowly, all three of them leading their horses, the morning slowly turned warmer.

  After about a mile Dawn took off her heavy coat and Bonnie did the same. Madison hadn’t started out with much of a coat on beside the light duster, so he left it on. He liked the feel of it, actually.

  Bonnie and Dawn walked ahead, side-by-side, talking and laughing at times. He walked behind them, catching glimpses of Dawn past the two horses. She seemed to be relaxing into the adventure. He hoped he would as well fairly soon.

  At about the two-mile point, as far as he could tell, a man and family in a wagon passed them. The man had on a work shirt, suspenders holding up jeans, and a cowboy hat. His wife wore a faded blue cotton dress and protective sun hat. The two kids sitting on the supplies looked to be in the four- to six-year-old range.

  Both Bonnie and Dawn nodded to the family as they passed and Madison tipped his hat to the man, not looking at the woman or children at all.

  The man nodded at them and the woman smiled while the kids waved.

  Ma
dison wondered who they were going to grow up to be.

  Dawn looked back at him after the wagon was a distance past and said, “Think we might know any of those kids’ great-great-grandkids?”

  Then she laughed and turned back to face forward and say something to Bonnie he couldn’t hear.

  It took him a moment, but he realized that she might be right. If those young kids had kids of their own in 1920, and those kids had kids in 1940, and those kids had kids in 1960, the great-great-great-grandkids would be about his age or a little older in 2014.

  Wow, that was a sobering thought.

  He did his best over the next mile to try to even grasp that thought.

  After about three hours he was starting to get hungry and thinking of digging into the jerky in his saddlebag when Bonnie pointed off the road and led them down through some cottonwood trees toward the edge of the river.

  From what Madison could tell, it looked like they were about a hundred feet above the river at this point on a bluff overlooking the fast-moving Snake River below them.

  Bonnie led them down a trail that was barely visible and clearly seldom used to a small meadow that looked out over the river. The meadow was covered only with dried scrub weeds and nothing else.

  Duster had all three of the tents set up and a fire going in a pile of stones to one side of the camp. He was happily working on some lunch. He had taken off his hat and duster and hung them on his tent. He looked completely at home and in his element.

  “Horses over there,” he said, pointing to where he had his horse and the packhorses tied up in a grove of trees about fifty paces from the camp. “Brush them down and settle them in. We’re here for the night.”

  Then he pointed in the other direction. “Shallow latrine dug over there about sixty paces. Paper and shovel next to it.”

  “Wow,” Bonnie said, smiling at her husband. “All the comforts of home.”

  By the time Madison got his horse settled and helped Dawn with her saddle, he also was starting to feel more at ease. He had spent his share of time camping. In fact, on a number of his research trips, he had spent almost a month camping near an old ghost town up in western Montana. He had actually enjoyed the trip and the camping.

  Now, on this trip, he was with a woman he wanted to get to know more than he would admit and with experienced guides. He really needed to relax and just enjoy the adventure.

  Thirty minutes later, they were all sitting around the small campfire on the cool afternoon in May 1902, talking about who that family might be that had passed them and eating a wonderful hot sandwich of fried beef with tomatoes that Bonnie had packed.

  Duster said he figured the older man was the son of a guy he had met in a few timelines who homesteaded up the river beyond the turn-off to Silver City.

  “So, with modern locators, where exactly are we?” Madison asked.

  “Well,” Duster said, “We’re on the Snake River about three miles north and a little east of the brand new town of Murphy. At this point, Murphy is only a few years old, founded around a rail head.”

  “We ate in Murphy, right?” Dawn asked and Duster nodded.

  “But we’re not going to see Murphy this trip,” Duster said. “It’s a ways from the river and we have to keep going downriver to a place called Warren’s Ferry to cross. That’s where the bridge will be built, but it’s not there yet.”

  “And that wagon trail out there?” Madison asked. “Will that turn into any part of Highway 78 that we came in on?”

  “Not this area of it, nope,” Duster said. “The highway will be built farther inland now that Murphy is there. This wagon trail will just vanish into history in a few years.”

  “You really must have to know your places and times in history,” Dawn said.

  “Actually,” Bonnie said, “when we go back, we just live in the moment and let the history develop around us instead of thinking about what will be in the future.”

  Duster nodded. “Makes it a lot easier and keeps you from making mistakes. But remember, it took us a number of trips to get to that way of thinking.”

  Bonnie nodded. “That it did.”

  To Madison, that made sense.

  Then Bonnie pointed at a path that led toward the river. “That leads over to a trail down about fifty feet to some hot springs on the bluff face.”

  She stood and held out her hand to her husband, who took it and smiled at her.

  “You guys get to do dishes,” Bonnie said, flipping a couple towels over her shoulder and picking up a change of clothes she had gotten from her bag earlier. “Then when we get back you two can have the springs. It’s only big enough for two at a time.”

  “Water, soap and dish towels there,” Duster said as Bonnie pulled her husband along the trail.

  Madison felt his stomach twisting as he thought about being in a hot springs with Dawn.

  He turned back and glanced at Dawn, who just smiled that wonderful smile of hers that melted him and made him want her more than he could think about.

  “An adventure, remember?” she asked.

  He laughed, his worry broken. “An adventure,” he said, nodding, “but the real question is who is washing and who is drying?”

  “Depends on what you are talking about washing,” she said, smiling at him, a twinkle in her eyes.

  He was fairly certain he turned bright red before he stuttered out, “Let’s start with the dishes.”

  She laughed and that wonderful sound carried through the trees as she turned to get the pot of water and soap.

  All he could do was stare at her.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DAWN WASHED THE DISHES and Madison dried, their hands touching at times as they passed the cookware between them. And each time that happened she got more and more excited about sitting in that hot springs with Madison.

  She wanted to just jump him right now, kiss him, drag him into a tent and make love to him now. And from his reaction, he wanted the exact same thing.

  If Bonnie and Duster didn’t get back pretty soon, neither she nor Madison would make it to the water. But Dawn really wanted to wash a layer of the last two days on the trail off her before Madison touched her for the first time.

  Somehow, they managed to keep talking, learning a little about each other with each question. With the dishes done, they both dug out clean clothes and towels.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Duster and Bonnie came back up the trail, looking pleased and flushed.

  “Water’s pretty warm,” Duster said.

  Bonnie shook her head and laughed. “It’s perfect, trust me. Time for a nap, now.”

  With that they ducked into their tent and closed the flap.

  “Clean?” Dawn asked, smiling at Madison.

  “That sounds heavenly,” he said, smiling back at her and letting that wonderful dimple of his come into full force.

  “I got the towels, you got the soap?” she asked.

  “Got it,” he said.

  Then he led the way down the trail.

  The day had warmed up to almost comfortable. It was still mostly overcast, but no threat of rain and the winds were light from the east. Perfect as far as she was concerned.

  She followed Madison, staring at his wonderful butt in those 1902 jeans. And the loosely tucked-in dress-shirt just made him look sexy. His brown hair was ruffled and he clearly hadn’t shaved. She had a hunch that if he grew a beard and moustache, she was going to like it on him.

  A couple places along the trail he paused and then helped her down a step or two on the rocks, his hand touching hers. But thankfully, the hot springs wasn’t far below the edge of the canyon and had a fantastic view out over the river that was running pretty high and fast from spring run-off.

  The hot springs itself was nothing more than a small pool formed among some rocks. About twenty feet up the hill, steam rose from where the water bubbled out of the ground and ran down over mossy rocks and into the pool. Then it went over the edge of rocks tha
t framed the pool and on down toward the river.

  It smelled like moss and wet dirt.

  There was a sort of flat area to the right of the pool with a couple of stones that looked like they could be used as seats. The ground in the flat area was still wet from Bonnie and Duster.

  “I wonder if this is still here in 2014,” Madison asked, looking around and out over the river. “It’s really amazing.”

  “More than likely it is,” Dawn said, “but I’d wager it’s on private property.”

  “Yeah, good point,” Madison said.

  She put the towels over a branch and then let her hair loose.

  Madison had stopped, turned back, and was staring at her. She smiled at him as she started to unbutton her blouse.

  “Anyone ever tell you how fantastically beautiful you are?” he asked.

  She actually could feel herself blush and she wasn’t sure what to say to that.

  Then Madison closed the two steps between them and kissed her.

  And kissed her like she had never been kissed before.

  They seemed to just fit together and she pushed back into his kiss and into his body.

  He felt wonderful.

  Oh, god, did he feel wonderful.

  Never, in all her life, did she remember a kiss like that one.

  After what seemed far too short a time and an eternity at the same moment, he broke the kiss.

  He smiled, letting the dimple come back strong as he said, “I’ve been wanting to do that since the first moment I saw you outside the car.”

  She kissed him again, this time slower.

  It was as wonderful, maybe better than the first time.

  Then breathless, she stopped and said, “Trust me, the feeling was mutual.”

  He kissed her again until finally she pushed him back about a foot. “Get undressed and get in the water. I need someone to scrub my back.”

  He laughed and said, “I thought you would never ask.”

  She watched him and he watched her as they undressed. Her hands were shaking and the unfamiliar buttons on the blouse slowed her down.