“2014?” Constable Liard looked up from his note taking to stare at Tom.
“Frank Slide? What Frank Slide? What kind of balderdash is this, young man?” The corporal was losing his temper.
Tom drew a deep breath. “I know it must sound nutty, but, believe me, there’s going to be a Slide, Corporal, a big one. In exactly a year, one year from today the top of that mountain outside, Turtle Mountain, is going to fall off and half bury this place. This whole valley will be covered in limestone boulders. That’s the movie we were watching when we were somehow transported here to 1902.”
The corporal and the constable were giving him a look that clearly indicated they had a looney on their hands. Tom glanced at Miss Ralston. She was frowning at him and shaking her head in warning.
Obviously she believed he was spinning a tale to make a fool of the corporal, and was afraid it would backfire on him.
Exasperated, Tom turned to his partner. “Jackson, you tell them what happened. I give up.”
Jackson leaned forward, speaking confidingly to Corporal Allan. “He gets like this sometimes sir. He’s my best buddy and he’s harmless, but he gets these spells. I sort of just humor him through them. The family thought travel might help, and so…it’s an old war injury. He took a bullet to the head in combat.”
Tom gaped at his partner, speechless at such duplicity, but Jackson wouldn’t even look at him.
The corporal and Constable Liard were both staring at Tom with a mixture of understanding and pity on their faces.
Tom sprang to his feet, intending to pop Jackson a good one in the ear for being a lying son of a bitch, but the door behind him opened and a quiet voice interrupted them.
“Afternoon.” A tall, middle-aged man came in the door, his body bone-thin but muscular, his shoulders stooped.
He removed his tweed cap, revealing a thinning head of hair a few shades darker than that of the woman in the cell. He glanced at Tom and Jackson and nodded in a friendly way before he turned his attention to the corporal.
“Understand you arrested my Zelda this morning.”
“Afternoon, Mr. Ralston.” Corporal Allan cleared his throat several times and got to his feet. “I see you received my message.”
The newcomer had diverted the corporal’s attention from Tom and Jackson, and Tom caught Jackson’s eye, gave him a dirty look, and made a threatening gesture with his fist. Jackson frowned and shook his head as if he actually had a plan.
“Mr. Ralston, I’m afraid I was forced to, ummm, incarcerate your daughter in one of my cells. She was being most obstreperous,” Corporal Allan was saying in a portentous tone. “It pains me to have to tell you this, but she, ummm, ahhhh, she assaulted me. Kicked me in the shin, and then, ahhh, used most objectionable language.”
Tom glanced at Miss Ralston. She had her finger pressed to her lips, urging that he be as silent as she was. To Tom’s amazement, she also gave him a wink. She had dark eyes. Tom thought they were brown.
“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that, Corporal Allan.” Ralston shook his head, a pained expression on his gaunt features. “I’ve tried to raise her to have respect, but a man alone with a lass…it’s not easy.” He shook his head and sighed. “You’ll not be keeping her in jail, surely? She’s sorely needed at home, what with me working and Eli still only a lad in school.”
Corporal Allan seemed to think it over for an inordinately long time, stroking his moustache as he deliberated. “Well, I’ll let her off again with a fine, sir,” he finally proclaimed. “But we can’t condone this type of behavior. This is the second time this month. If it happens again, I’ll be forced to take further action.”
“Thank you, Corporal. How much will it be?” He dug a wallet out of his pocket.
“Five dollars.”
Tom glanced at Zelda. Although the fine sounded ridiculously low to him, it was obvious that to her, five dollars was an exorbitant sum. She was biting her bottom lip, and there was no trace of humor now in her expression. Her face was flushed with anger.
“And,” Corporal Allan was saying, “she’s released in your custody. You’re responsible for her actions. Try and keep her under control, won’t you?”
Tom noticed that Ralston didn’t answer that. Instead, he took two worn bills out of his wallet, dug in his pocket for change, counted it all out carefully, and handed it over.
“Constable Liard, release the prisoner.”
Liard came to attention, retrieved the key, and unlocked the cell. Zelda Ralston strode out, her chin high, her eyes flashing dangerously.
“Dad, give me another dollar, please. If you have it.” She held out her hand imperiously, and Ralston again dug in his pocket and without a word, handed her a crumpled bill.
She plunked it down on the desk. “That’s for the breakfast these gentlemen ate at Gertie’s,” she spat. “As far as I can see, you’ve no further reason to hold them. Being mentally deranged isn’t a crime, is it, Corporal?” Her tone took on the saccharine sweetness Tom was beginning to recognize. “Because if it’s a crime to be mentally deranged, then you know as well as I that half the male population of Frank should be arrested.”
Allan’s face again turned a dangerous shade of magenta, but it was obvious now that he just wanted to be rid of all of them.
“See that your friend here is closely watched at all times,” he barked at Jackson. “It wouldn’t do for him to go spouting off his mad fantasies all over town.”
Tom felt his blood pressure rise, but he kept his mouth shut. There’d be time enough later to beat the stuffing out of Jackson, when they were safely out of here.
“Yes, sir, I’ll keep him under control. C’mon, old buddy,” Jackson said in a solicitous tone, taking hold of Tom’s arm with a grip like steel and propelling him toward the door.
It closed firmly behind them. The sun was warm. Birds were singing. The sky was intensely blue, the brook trickled nearby, and the fresh air smelled sweet as wine in Tom’s lungs. It was hard to stay furious at Jackson now that they were outside the police barracks, but he did his best.
They walked along the rutted road they’d followed earlier, and Tom waited until they’d gone a short distance before he spoke.
“You bloody traitor,” he gritted out between clenched teeth, keeping his voice low so that Zelda Ralston and her father wouldn’t hear.
Father and daughter were climbing into a buggy parked beneath some pine trees a short distance away from the barracks.
“You want to spend your time in that jail, you go back in there and try to tell them some more of the truth,” Jackson answered hotly. “Me, I’d lie and cheat and steal to stay out of there.”
“As well as make out I’m three pickles short of a jar!” Tom raged. “How could you do a thing like that? I swear, I’ll get you for that one, Zalco.”
“Would you gentlemen like a ride back to town?” The horse had overtaken them and Zelda Ralston was smiling down from the high seat of the buggy. Her straw hat was crooked, tilted at a zany angle over one ear. Her fiery hair poked out in all directions, and her huge brown eyes twinkled at him, as if the two of them shared a delightful secret.
He could see she had a dimple high on one cheek.
And Tom suddenly found himself smiling back at her.
A Distant Echo: Chapter Seven
“A ride? Yes, ma’am, we would like a ride.” Jackson said before Tom could answer. “I’ve had all the workout I need for one day.” He gave a courtly little bow to both Zelda and her father. “And we do thank you too, for payin’ off our debt back there, Mr. Ralston.”
“You gents got off cheap, compared to this gal of mine,” Virgil Ralston declared with a resigned shake of his head. “Tisn’t the first time and likely won’t be the last I’ll have to come and bail Zelda out.”
I’ve a good mind to visit the barrister and charge Corporal Allan with wrongful arrest,” she answered. “Perhaps we could get our money back if we sued him, Dad. He’s absolutely unreasonable. I was sim
ply conducting a peaceful demonstration in front of Hugo’s saloon when he arrived and began to harass me.”
“Ah, lass, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times that your notions about temperance don’t go over in a mining town. Miners are drinkers, and that’s that. You’ll not change them.”
Zelda didn’t answer, although it was plain from the stubborn set of her chin she didn’t agree.
“Call me Virgil,” the older man said to Tom and Jackson. “Climb up here. You’ll have to sit on the backboard, but it’s better‘n shank’s pony. Didn’t catch your names in there, either.”
Tom and Jackson introduced themselves and swung up on the backboard of the buggy. Virgil clucked to the horse and soon they were jouncing along.
“Using horses sure cuts down on exhaust fumes,” Jackson remarked. “Environmentally friendly, huh, Tom?”
Tom didn’t answer, but Zelda Ralston overheard and turned to give them both a long, speculative stare.
“Where are you two really from, Mr. Chapman?” she asked in a suspicious voice.
“Why don’t you explain it this time, Jackson?” Tom urged with more than a little venom in his voice. “You’re the sane one of us, remember?”
Jackson heaved a sigh. “What Tom said back there at the cop shop was the God’s honest truth, Miss Ralston,” he acknowledged. “But I figured if I agreed with him, we’d be cooling our heels in those cells for who knows how long. So I lied to save our skins and get us out of there fast. And you helped no end, ma’am. I figure if the corporal got back on the money situation, he’d have decided for certain we were counterfeiters and locked us up again.”
Jackson still hadn’t said exactly where they were from, Tom realized. He could be as slippery as ice when he wanted.
“And are you counterfeiters?” Virgil’s voice was filled with interest and amusement rather than alarm.
“Nope, we sure aren’t,” Jackson said firmly. “We’re law-abiding citizens of the U.S. of A., come here to Canada to research a project for our business. Like Tom said back at the police station, somethin’ went wrong and we ended up here through no fault of our own.”
“I didn’t hear your story, but it sounds like a good one,” Virgil said. “I’m a sucker for a good story. You two have someplace you have to go in town, or do you want to come home with us and have a bite of supper and talk awhile?”
Not only did they have nowhere to go, they had not one useable cent between them, Tom pondered. After forking out a dollar for them at the police barracks, Virgil knew that.
“Won’t be nothin’ fancy. It’s my turn to cook.” Virgil warned. “Zelda here don’t only have notions about liquor, she’s also got it in her head that Eli and me should share the cookin’. Now if Corporal Allan got wind of that notion, he’d think I was touched in the head, for sure, lettin’ the lass get away with it.”
Zelda laughed aloud, a musical infectious sound that brought an answering smile to Tom’s lips. “Corporal Allan has a lot to learn about modern women, Dad, and we’ll certainly never ask him to supper, so don’t fret over it. But you two gentlemen are welcome, if you care to come.”
“Thank you, we’d be honored,” Tom replied.
As they approached the village of Frank, Tom tilted his head up to look at Turtle Mountain, just south of the town and looming over it. In his mind, he compared the shape he saw with the much different configuration he remembered the mountain having after the Slide. He tried to detail in his mind exactly which part of the lowering giant would come tumbling down and cover this valley, and the knowledge was terrible.
Zelda noticed his intense study of the mountain.
“The Turtle’s magnificent, isn’t it, Mr. Chapman?” she remarked. “It’s also a drawback, however, because it puts the entire town in shade very early in the day. In the winter, the sun sets as early as half after one. We truly live in its shadow.”
Jackson gave him a warning nudge in the ribs, and Tom could only nod.
“Supplies us with a livin’, though. She’s rich with coal, the Turtle,” Virgil remarked.
“Are you a miner?” Tom was still looking up at the mountain.
“Aye, lad, that I am. Been underground so long, I got coal- dust in my blood,” Virgil said with a smile.
They trundled through town, and Zelda identified the major businesses as they passed them. “That’s the Hall. There’s a piano and a good stage where theatricals are performed. Dances are held twice a month, and every Sunday evening Pastor Ward holds church services there as well.”
They passed the Palm restaurant, Meals At All Hours, and Tom and Jackson exchanged glances, vividly remembering that morning and the series of events that had begun with them walking into the Palm and ordering breakfast from Gertie.
“That’s the newspaper office,” she said next. “The editor means well, but he can’t spell worth beans and he won’t print anything the least bit controversial.”
Virgil turned to the two men and winked broadly. “What she means is Harry won’t put his neck in a sling printing the hotheaded letters she writes. He’s a wise man, is Harry.”
“Each and every letter is about issues that badly need addressing,” Zelda declared, going on with the travelogue as they continued down the street.
“That building under construction over there is going to be the new CPR train station. That’s the Union Bank, of course, and there’s Mr. Leitch’s grocery and furniture store, and further along is the post office.”
Beside the post office was a small building fronted by a large sign that announced, “Beaseley’s Studio, Our Photographs Will Always Whisper, Come Again.”
Tom remembered what Zelda had said about being a photographer.
“Is that where you work, Miss Ralston?”
She turned and gave him a look of disdain. “Me, work for William Beaseley?” She sniffed, her chin tilted skyward. She snapped. “Certainly not! Mr. Beaseley and I have very different ideas about what constitutes good photography. Strange as it seems to most men, I happen to have my own studio and my own business, Mr. Chapman.”
She turned away and Jackson rolled his eyes at Tom. Zelda Ralston had both a temper and an attitude, that was obvious.
“Over there’s the tipple and the mine buildings,” Virgil indicated. “We live along here, on Alberta Avenue. That’s our street next.”
Tom had been envisioning the map he’d studied of the path of the Slide, and his heart sank. He was certain that all the houses along Alberta Avenue had been buried.
Today, however, they stood in a neat and tidy row. The Ralston’s lived in a white two-story frame house, identical to others set in a line only a short distance from the center of town, near the CPR tracks. In front of the house was a tasteful notice that said, “Ralston’s Photography Studio, Portraits a Specialty.”
Around the tiny front yard was a green painted picket fence, and in a flowerbed close to the house purple crocuses were already in full bloom. Next door, several ragged children waved and called a greeting, and Virgil and Zelda smiled and waved back at them.
Virgil guided the horse around the back and in through a gate, stopping to let them climb down. Then he steered the animal into a small barn painted the same green as the front fence. An outhouse at the far end of the yard also sported a coat of the same green paint, and a chicken-house with several white hens and a rooster scratching in the dirt was neatly surrounded by a wire fence. A water pump stood near the house, a bucket under its spout.
“Come on in,” Zelda invited Tom and Jackson, opening a door that led into a small, screened porch. A rocking chair with a worn, brown pillow indicated that someone often sat there. A second door led into a warm kitchen, a large, bright room with walls papered in a pattern of cheerful yellow daises.
“Take off your coats. There’s hooks behind the door,” Zelda instructed, slipping out of her own coat and reaching up to pull two long, lethal hatpins out of her straw boater. She lifted it off and hung it beside he
r coat, absently patting at her hair. Curling strands had come loose from the sloppy knot on the top of her head, and she tucked them up, only to have them fall back down, trailing over her ears and down her neck.
She was even thinner than she’d appeared with her coat on, but there was nothing gaunt or shapeless about her. She had delicate but definite curves. She wore a white cotton blouse with puffy sleeves, and a long, plain navy-blue skirt that came well past the tops of her sturdy black boots. Her waist was minuscule; Tom was sure he could span it with his two hands. She had nice ears, too, he noticed, delicate and pinned flat to her skull.
She saw him looking at her and color flooded her face as she spun away across the room. “I’ll just get this stove going so Dad can start supper.” She fiddled with a damper on the large iron cook-stove that dominated the room. She opened the stove lid with an iron lifter and expertly shoved in several lengths of wood.
When the flames burned high, she bent over the coal bucket, shoveling several scoops of coal on top of the wood. Oil smoke billowed out, and she waved it away, muttering under her breath. She replaced the stove lids with a bang, dusting off her hands.
Fascinated, Tom watched her and took in the details of the kitchen. A wooden table and four chairs were in the middle room, and a washstand with an enamel basin and a bucket of water was tucked into the corner near the back door. Another water bucket stood on the narrow counter, with a long-handled dipper hooked to its side. Above the counter, open-fronted cupboards held neatly stacked dishes. The bottom cupboards had no doors; instead, they were skirted in gathered, yellow-checked fabric. A lamp on a shelf attested to the fact that there was no electricity.
“I’ll make us some tea. You do drink tea?”
She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and peered into a large, black iron kettle, adding several dipperful’s of water from the bucket before replacing it on the stove. “I don’t think Dad would survive a single day without his tea.”
Tom and Jackson assured her they’d love some.
“My brother, Eli, isn’t home yet. He delivers groceries after school for Dypolt’s Store. He’s fifteen.” Her freckled face rosy from the stove, she beamed at them like a proud parent. “Eli’s very clever. He’s going to be a doctor or perhaps a lawyer. He’s going East to university in a year or two.”
Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle Page 68