Dan admitted that he hadn’t thought this through very carefully when he agreed to John Hasting’s terms. Maybe he could just tell him he hadn’t found the device, and that it would be impossible to ever recover. The man had always been a thorn in his side. Dan was convinced his applications for backcountry ranger were rejected every year because Hastings played a hand in the decision. And all because Dan had been outspoken against allowing a private concessioner into the park, which Hastings had wanted approval for. His management policies here in the park bordered on corrupt and illegal, but no one ever dared challenge his authority. Anyone who spoke up usually found himself or herself without a job for some obscure reason. A seasonal position was hard to come by. A permanent one, Dan’s dream, was virtually impossible.
Dan sighed, and set the leather pouch on the nightstand beside his bunk. He couldn’t face the rest of his life knowing that he had sold out Yellowstone National Park, a place so rich in his family’s history. His ancestors certainly wouldn’t approve. He cursed under his breath. In order to secure his own future, he was jeopardizing the future of the park.
He drew an odd comfort from the knowledge that an ancient spirit had apparently led Jana to the device. His meeting with her two months ago was more than mere coincidence, he realized with sudden clarity. Somebody wanted him to attain his goals here in the park, and without Jana and the time travel device, that might have been impossible. A plan slowly formed in his mind. He would do what he’d been asked to do, but the minute he returned from the past, he would undo it all, right after he sealed the deal to secure his future.
With one final glance at the pouch on his nightstand, Dan headed for the bathroom. He inhaled a deep breath, imagining smelling Jana’s subtle perfume. He needed a long, hot shower. Hell, maybe he needed a cold shower. Once this whole mess was dealt with, he’d be free to pursue Jana Evans. She felt the attraction, too. He was sure of it. The way she responded to his kiss . . . Somehow he’d chisel away at her ridiculous apprehension. Under no circumstances, however, could she know the reason he needed to go to the past. It wouldn’t be too difficult to keep it from her. She’d be too preoccupied with meeting up with Aimee again to pay any attention to his activities.
Dan stripped off his pants, and stepped into the shower. For now, he had to keep his desires under control. That kiss was a mistake. It only left him wanting more. He hadn’t realized what a distraction she would be to his objective. Jana had no idea how desirable she really was. Spending a week or more alone with her in the wilderness might be another big mistake.
*****
Jana sank onto her bed with a weary sigh. Tomorrow she would be traveling back in time. Her head spun at the very idea, but not nearly as much as with the memory of Dan’s kiss and their subsequent conversation earlier. He was right. She was being ridiculous. Maybe she should be more open-minded to the idea of a relationship with him. Her attraction to him was undeniable. She’d felt it the first time she met him. Aimee had told her the perfect man would come along some day, for both of them. Aimee had found her perfect match in the past. She couldn’t have known that she would be directly responsible for providing Jana with her ideal man. Why was she fighting what was right in front of her?
She rolled onto her side. In the morning she would tell Dan she was open to the idea of something more than a casual friendship. Obviously the attraction was there. They needed some time to get to know one another. Traveling back in time might just give them the time they needed.
Get some sleep, Jana. Tomorrow is a huge day. She made a mental list of the things she wanted to take with her. Obviously, she couldn’t bring her suitcase, and she hadn’t brought a backpack. When she’d packed to come to Yellowstone, she never imagined she would actually be going back in time.
Dan had said he’d already prepared a basic survival kit. Hopefully there was enough room in his pack to stash some spare clothes. Traveling light would be essential. Maybe they could avoid other people while they traveled through the wilderness to get to Madison. She wondered how far from their destination they would be once they arrived in the past.
According to Aimee’s accounts, and what Jana remembered Zach Osborne telling them, the device would take them in the general vicinity of where it had last been in 1810. With a jolt of adrenaline, she realized suddenly that they might end up in the canyon after touching that snake eye. Everything would be all right, she assured herself. She’d be with Dan. He was a skilled ranger, and she was a competent nurse. Anything that happened, they could deal with it. Comforted by that thought, she closed her eyes. Her lips began to tingle, and Jana drifted off to sleep with the memory of Dan’s kiss fresh in her mind.
****
Jana walked up to the front door of Dan’s barrack the next morning. Loud voices came from inside. After dropping her off at the lodge last night, Dan had told her to meet him at his place at eight. His roommates would already have gone to work by then.
She was a few minutes early. Someone was having a heated argument inside. Jana hesitated. Should she knock anyway, or wait outside? The door wasn’t closed completely, and Dan’s loud and angry voice reached her ears.
“You want me to do what? Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
Curious, Jana slowly pushed the door open further. She clutched the bundle of clothes she’d brought firmly under one arm.
“That was never part of the deal, Hastings.”
“I thought you might say that, Osborne, so I’ll make it easy on you,” another male voice said, his tone much calmer than Dan’s. “I’m relieving you of your obligation.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’ve changed my mind. I’ve had my doubts from the beginning that you would come through for me on this.”
“You son of a bitch,” Dan snarled.
Jana walked tentatively down the short and narrow hall toward Dan’s room. Perhaps she should intervene before these two men resorted to violence.
“Dan?” she called loudly, hoping her presence would calm the situation.
“Jana, don’t come in here,” Dan shouted. Her heart rate suddenly increased. Whatever was going on, it sounded more serious than she first thought.
“Hand it over, Hastings,” he demanded. Jana reached Dan’s room. An older man in full ranger uniform stood by Dan’s bed, holding something in each of his hands. Jana recognized the pouch that held the time travel device in one hand, and the snakehead in the other. He held the device up, inspecting it from all angles. No! How did this happen?
“Dan, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice almost frantic. She stepped quickly into the room. Dan’s back was turned to her, his attention focused on the other man. He wore dark green hiking khakis and a white t-shirt, his backpack slung over one shoulder. It appeared as if he was ready to leave, but had been interrupted by the other ranger. How had the man gotten hold of the device? Surely, he didn’t know what it was.
Jana reached out to touch Dan’s arm. At the same moment, Dan lunged for the ranger. His hand reached out to grab for the device. In the next instant, everything went black.
Jana blinked, trying to stave off the wave of dizziness that swept over her. She braced her hand against something wet and squishy. The bright sunlight overhead made it difficult to focus.
Once her eyes adjusted to the light, she was able to open them fully. She sat in a marshy meadow, and her heart nearly leapt up her throat. It had happened! They had time traveled. With the world still spinning around her, Jana slowly turned her head.
“Dan? Are you all right?”
There was no answer. Tentatively, she pushed herself off the ground, her pants soaked through with mud. The only sound was the loud chirping of crickets, and various other insects in the grasses.
“Dan?” she called again. Her voice sounded out of place in the eerie stillness. She listened for an answer. Water trickled nearby, the sound mingling with the rhythmic chirping and humming of insects. Jana pulled her feet f
rom the sloshy mud. The air was thick with mosquitos all of a sudden. Her heart pounded frantically, and she turned in all directions, her eyes trying to focus, desperately searching for Dan’s familiar figure. She ran several paces through the bog, her feet sinking into the heavy marsh.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head in utter disbelief. This couldn’t be. In a near panic, Jana realized she was all alone.
Chapter 8
How had this happened? Jana refused to give in to the thought that she had traveled back in time alone. With trembling hands, she reached for her bundle of spare clothes that lay a few feet from her. With any luck, most of them would be at least somewhat dry and clean from landing in the muck. She hugged the bundle to her chest, her heart beating wildly. How was it possible that she had been hurled back in time, but not Dan? The last thing she remembered was touching his arm, and he was trying to grab the time travel device from the other ranger’s grasp. He must have been successful in taking it from the man, and at the same time, touched the left eye of the snake.
What was she supposed to do now, stranded and alone in the wilderness? When you’re lost in the wilderness, your best chance of getting rescued is to stay where you are to make it easier for someone to find you. Jana gave a short laugh. No one knew where she was. Heck, she didn’t even know when she was. Another rule; don’t panic. She inhaled deep breaths to try and calm her nerves. Her heart pounded fiercely up into her throat. Her chest constricted, and breathing was almost painful. She wasn’t quite sure she could follow the don’t panic rule. She was on the verge of hysterics.
“Calm down, Jana,” she said out loud and in a firm voice, forcing deep breaths of the freshest air she’d ever inhaled into her lungs. “This won’t help you get out of here.” She had only one choice. Find her way to Madison. Find Aimee. Where was Dan? Perhaps he was nearby, and she was worrying over nothing. It simply didn’t make sense that she would be the only one to have time traveled. She knew from Aimee’s accounts that touching the snake’s left eye sent someone back in time, along with anyone touching that person.
You can’t worry about all this now, Jana. Her survival training began to kick in. Find shelter. That was her first priority. Then she could think about a course of action. A cold night spent in Yellowstone could be her death. Especially since her clothes were wet.
Jana finally ventured a closer look at her surroundings, and at the mountains looming all around her. Where was she? Nothing here looked familiar. One thing she was sure of. She was nowhere near the canyon area. At first she had thought she might be in the Hayden Valley area, but this landscape did not resemble those vast green rolling hills. She glanced at the sun overhead, trying to get a sense of direction. She definitely stood in a vast valley, and forested hills beckoned to her toward what she guessed had to be south. In the opposite direction, jagged snow-capped mountain peaks jutted toward the sky.
It was just her dumb luck that she had to land in a marshy puddle. Her waterproof boots offered some protection, and the mud wasn’t deep enough for her to sink further than a few inches, but it made the going difficult as the dense mud reluctantly released its claim on the soles of her boots. The back of her jeans was soaked, though, clinging to her skin and making her shiver.
“It could be worse, Jana,” she said. “You could have landed in a geyser basin.”
Cold fear trickled down her spine. She had nothing with her, except the clothes she wore, and the ones firmly clutched under her arm. This was possibly one of the worst survival scenarios she could think of. Several times, she called Dan’s name, only to be met with the complete absence of another human’s voice. Her calls managed to startle a few birds to take flight from the brush several feet in front of her. Their wings flapped wildly, and they screeched in protest. The insects continued their cadenced chirping, but the one sound she desperately wanted to hear did not come.
As she trudged on, the mud finally gave way to hardened soil. Countless animal prints were baked into the clay-like earth. The familiar oval shaped tracks of bison were everywhere. Taking a deep breath for strength, Jana inhaled the pungent odor of those massive beasts, and hoped she could avoid a bison encounter. The valley she was in wasn’t flat. The ground was uneven, marred by deep ruts and dips. Sagebrush and grasses covered the many rocks that jutted from the ground, adding to the difficulty of her walk. The brush was high enough in places to conceal even a wallowing bison.
The rushing sound of a large, fast-flowing body of water soon replaced the trickling sounds of a nearby stream. Jana headed toward the sound of the water, her direction taking her up a gently sloping incline. Once she reached the top, she stared into a gaping narrow canyon, where the water flowed fast over large boulders and rocks. She gazed toward what she assumed was south, judging by the flow of the water. The canyon appeared to widen into a valley further ahead. The rolling hills to her right were mostly carpeted with grass and sagebrush. Small groupings of pine trees, rows of cottonwoods and aspens made up the rest of the landscape. Her gaze lingered on the pine covered forests in the distance. They appeared to be further away than ever. She inhaled a deep breath for courage. Just keep moving forward.
Jana trudged on over the uneven terrain, following a safe distance along the rim of the canyon, until she reached the open valley. Spread out before her as far as the eye could see was a vast herd of bison, their grunts and bellows audible now against the rushing waters of the river. Their bodies in the distance looked like nothing more than brown dots spread out along the water’s edge.
Jana named off as many of the large rivers she could remember in Yellowstone. It would be helpful if she at least knew what river she was staring at. The water before her was moving swiftly in the direction she guessed was south, eliminating it as the Yellowstone River as one of her choices. The Yellowstone flowed in a northerly direction. This particular body of water moved in a parallel direction to the timberline that she’d chosen as her destination. Even without the presence of the bison, she would have to ford this river if she hoped to find shelter near the forest. It was too risky. The current looked fast and strong, and the water was no doubt frigid. Jana knew she had no alternative but to change her plans. All the survival classes she had taken with Aimee seemed tame in comparison to what she faced now. She’d sometimes been a reluctant accomplice when Aimee dragged her off to yet another wilderness course, but she was suddenly glad she’s paid attention.
From her vantage point up on the rise, she could see for miles. A short distance up ahead the river she’d been following joined with another. She chose to follow the wider river from a safe distance. Hours passed as she walked. There was still no end in sight to the bison herd, but an immense grove of aspen and cottonwood trees loomed ahead to her right. One of the places she recalled seeing aspens in any great number on her hikes through Yellowstone was in the Lamar Valley. With a jolt, she realized exactly where she was. She gaped at the river again. How could she not have recognized it before?
With certain clarity, Jana knew without a doubt she was staring at the Lamar River. How did she get transported here, to the northern most corner of the park? Her initial thought that she was nowhere near the canyon area had been correct. From where she stood now, it would take weeks to find her way to Madison. Without a map or at least a compass, it seemed an almost impossible feat.
Jana was familiar with the trails in her time. Navigating them with a compass was fairly easy. There were no trails here now. She couldn’t even get a good bearing on her location. An ominous feeling of dread consumed her. She sank to her knees amongst the shrubs of sage. Squatting, she held her head between her hands. Not even the fragrant scent of sage could offer her a small feeling of peace. Her confidence wavered. Her predicament was becoming more impossible by the minute. Even with a full pack of survival gear, how would she navigate her way to Madison on her own? Don’t give in to negative thoughts.
“Follow the river,” she whispered. “Just follow the river. It’ll take you to th
e Yellowstone.” Jana laughed even as tears trickled down her cheeks. Nothing in all her survival courses with Aimee could have ever prepared her for this. She stared out at the endless land. Wide and vast mountains and forests loomed ahead with no end in sight. Was it even worth thinking about the wild animals? With her shoulders slumped, Jana pulled her gaze away from her insurmountable obstacles, and stared at the ground. Her hands were caked with dried mud.
Go find shelter, and figure out what to do. Gritting her teeth, Jana stood to her trembling feet. You can’t give up so quickly. With a determined lift of her chin, she held tight to her bundle of clothes, and headed toward the aspen and cottonwood grove. A small spring gurgled out of the ground before her just as she reached her destination, and she dropped to her knees again. Rinsing the dirt from her hands, she splashed cool water on her face and took a long drink. Staying hydrated would not be a problem here. She could even go a day or two without food.
“You’d be surprised at what you might eat in a survival situation.” Dan’s words from a few days ago haunted her now. Her mouth began to water, thinking about the burgers and fries they had eaten that night. Her stomach growled loudly in response. His handsome face materialized in her mind, along with his dazzling smile. “I like you, Jana . . . a lot. I want to get to know you better.”
“I want to get to know you better, too. Dan, where are you?” she whispered. Before tears of despair threatened to overtake her again, she pushed on toward the aspen grove. To her delight, several large boulders jutted out of the ground among the trees, forming a small cave. Cautiously, Jana inched toward the opening. She picked up a thick branch off the ground, knowing that if a bear made its home in that little alcove, a piece of wood would hardly serve as an effective weapon. She had to take a chance. This could be the perfect shelter to get her through the night.
Yellowstone Deception (Yellowstone Romance Series Book 5) Page 6