The mine tailing looked a lot newer, not as worn. The old shack that had been about to fall down was standing proud and still had windows in it. And where Duster had parked the big Cadillac SUV in a stand of trees was now nothing more than bare hillside.
The sun was just coming up over one of the tall nearby mountains, and the sky was still slightly red with morning colors. It had been much later in the morning when they had gone into the mine. And warmer. Right now the air out here had a real bite to it.
None of this was possible. Sherri knew that, but she also knew what she was seeing.
“Take a look at this,” Dawn said, moving to the edge of the tailings and pointing down the slope.
Sherri did as instructed, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
Below her was the town of Silver City, Idaho. Not the ghost town, but the actual town.
“Are we really in 1902?” Sherri asked softly.
“We are,” Dawn said.
Behind them the shack door slammed shut.
Dawn and Sherri turned to see Bonnie shaking her head. Clearly there was no sign of Duster as she was expecting.
“Why don’t you two stay out here. I’m going to go pull the plug and find out what happened to that husband of mine.”
“Get our saddle bags from the table,” Dawn said.
Bonnie nodded and quickly scanned the area, then turned the top of an old key and the rock slid back.
Bonnie stepped inside and the rock slid closed. It was as if she had never been here. Creepy.
“So we have a minute or so left in this timeline,” Dawn said. “Any questions?”
“This is all real, isn’t it?” Sherri asked.
“It is,” Dawn said. “Bonnie and Duster are two of the greatest mathematical brains to ever live. And Duster’s relatives found this place and Bonnie and Duster have been working to understand time and energy and space since they graduated with more doctorate degrees in math than I want to think about. They have recruited a couple of other great young mathematicians and they allow a bunch of us historians to go back in time when we want for research.”
“So what is going to happen when Bonnie disconnects the wire from the machine?”
“We will end up back in the cavern two minutes and fifteen seconds after we left in 2016,” Dawn said.
“And Duster will be there as well?” Sherri asked.
“He will be,” Dawn said. “No matter what happened to him here in this timeline. That’s the reality of the math, Bonnie tells me.”
“That’s a lot to absorb,” Sherri said, shaking her head.
“For now just think about seeing that mansion you own in its 1902 glory,” Dawn said.
“That would be nice,” Sherri said. “If I don’t kill the guy who killed himself.”
Dawn laughed.
Suddenly, without any feeling or movement or any sound at all, she was standing between Dawn and Bonnie in the crystal cave, hand on the wooden box on the table. And Duster was there, blinking, clearly surprised.
“So what happened?” Bonnie asked her husband as they all stepped back.
“Must have gotten my fool self killed,” Duster said, shaking his head. “Last thing I remember, I was riding along the Snake River, making decent time, headed for the ferry. I had gotten a horse from the ranch down the valley from Silver City.
The morning was starting to get warm and I think my horse was spooked by a snake on the trail. Last thing I remember I was going backwards off the horse.”
“Broke your fool neck,” Bonnie said, shaking her head. She turned toward the open door into the supply cavern. “Let’s go have some lunch before we try this again.”
“What, I die and you don’t even give me a welcome back kiss?” Duster asked, laughing as he followed her.
“Happens too often,” Bonnie said.
Sherri just stood there, watching them go, not having any idea what to think.
She didn’t even have a snappy comment to make, that’s how shaken she was by this entire thing.
Around her the massive beauty of the crystal cavern just seemed to go on forever.
Finally Dawn said, “Come on. We’ll answer the thousand questions I’m sure you have while we eat lunch. I know I was almost too stunned to talk the first time I went back.”
“Yeah, feeling that,” Sherri said, walking with Dawn toward the door.
She had no doubt she was going to wake up at any moment from this very strange nightmare-like dream.
With luck, the nightmare hadn’t caused her to pee the bed, because she just hoped the cavern had a bathroom in it. The two cups of coffee at the diner needed to find a new home and quickly.
CHAPTER TEN
August 5, 1902
Idanha Hotel, Boise, Idaho
Carson enjoyed the ride into town just as the sun was cresting over the western mountains. The summer sky was a deep blue, with hints of reds shadowing high clouds. The air was still crisp and dry from the night, giving no hint of the warm day ahead.
He just let Sandy set her own pace and enjoyed the mile ride, watching the swallows swarm and dart along the river. Along the way he tipped his hat to neighbors and passing wagons. Boise in 1902 was a very, very civilized place.
And growing quickly. It was still only a small shadow of what it would be in 2017, but the bones of the larger city were now in place.
He loved the cool mornings and he actually enjoyed the hot days. In fact, he knew that every day until he left on September 20th would be hot. But since Boise was on the edge of the high desert and against mountains, the heat never held through the night.
He always remembered clearly these last two months. He was both anxious to get going with his research, while at the same time he really didn’t want to leave his beautiful mansion yet again.
This time was no different. And by this point, his life back in 2017 seemed like a distant memory. He planned, as usual, to spend the last two months going back over his notes for his intended research focus for the trip, to put the very reason for the trip into the past back into focus.
Every time he left, he promised himself that on a future trip into the past he would stay and just grow old and die in his mansion, but he had yet to do that. Instead, he had always faked his death and left early in the morning of the 20th of September.
He hadn’t played much poker these last few months, because he wasn’t sure if Duster was still in town. But now he needed supplies and just at sunrise, when it was still cool, was the time to go get them.
He gave Sandy to the stable behind the Idanha Hotel and went in for breakfast. When on a supply run, he always treated himself to breakfast and for the last two years of his stay in Boise, it was always in the Idanha dining room. They served the best breakfasts in town for those who could afford them.
He loved the big dining room with the tall windows and stone fireplace. It felt comfortable, yet had a formal atmosphere to it that he had come to enjoy. He had never been rich as a kid or in school, but now, because of Duster’s training and his trips into the past, he was far, far richer than he could have ever imagined. And in the past he liked what being a person of means got him.
This morning the hotel had the windows of the dining room slightly open letting in a cool breeze. Not enough to chill, but enough to make sure the room was as cool as it could be for the coming warm day.
Since the dining room had just opened at six, he was one of the first in and was seated at his normal table against the far wall. From there he could see everyone who came in as well as passersby on the wooden sidewalk outside the windows along Main Street.
He had just ordered his normal sliced ham, three eggs, and fried potatoes, taken a sip of his black coffee, and was about to open up the Idaho Statesman morning paper that he had picked up from the lobby when a woman about thirty entered the dinning room.
She wore a light-blue summer dress with a slightly plunging neckline and a blue sapphire necklace over smooth, perfect skin. She stoo
d no more than five-four if that and was clearly in great condition. Everything about her shouted she was a woman of means.
She carried a wide-brimmed light-blue hat in her hands and she had long black hair that was held up on the back of her head by an ivory comb. Her white skin seemed flushed, which told of either worry, or a few recent days in the sun.
He had never seen her around town before and found himself having trouble breathing. His heart was beating and suddenly the cool morning didn’t seem so cool. He seldom saw a woman of such stunning beauty in the past. At least not in Idaho.
And almost never a woman he was instantly attracted to.
But with this woman, all he wanted to do was go talk with her, get to know her, find out her name and where she was from.
It seemed that in each of his times back into the past, he had met a woman along the way, usually in Europe, but never once in the first twenty years here in Boise. In fact, no woman had ever set foot in his mansion while he owned it.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like companionship. He just hadn’t found anyone that attracted him enough to even approach here in Boise, let alone take back to his home with him.
Until now.
Wow, how was this even possible?
He felt like he had been caught off guard and not prepared and he didn’t much like that. He forced himself to take a deep breath and relax.
She had dark eyes and her gaze darted from one side of the room to the other, clearly expecting to see someone and being surprised they were not here.
Her wonderful hands twisted at her hat and she seemed instantly uncomfortable, as if she might panic and flee out of the dining room.
Her cheeks flushed pinkish even more.
Her actions seemed very odd, because a woman of clear means, as she was presenting herself, wouldn’t feel uncomfortable in this dining room at all. In fact, just the opposite.
And the more he looked at her wonderful face, the more he felt like he knew her from somewhere.
She stood there for a moment, clearly getting more and more worried as she kept glancing back at the doorway behind her and the staircase across the lobby.
A waiter approached her and said something that Carson couldn’t hear and she nodded and said something in return.
The waiter led her to a table directly across the large dining room from Carson and held the chair for her to be seated so that she had her back to the wall and was facing him.
She thanked the waiter and he nodded and turned away.
Carson felt he had seen her before, but he would have remembered if he had met her at any point in all the years he had spent in the past. She had a type of beauty he could never forget.
The exchange with the waiter did not seem to ease her tension. In fact, sitting there alone clearly bothered her even more. She didn’t know where to look or what to do with her hands. Her gaze stayed focused on the table and then the hat still in her hands.
He couldn’t believe he was so attracted to her. He really needed to stop gawking.
He unfolded his newspaper and watched her over the top of it so at least he didn’t seem too obvious. He had no doubt that if he went over to even try to calm her down, she would bolt. And that was the last thing he wanted.
Finally, he watched her take a deep breath and clearly calm down some. She clearly had good self-control, even though this situation really bothered her.
A moment later the waiter brought her a glass of water with real ice in it and she thanked him with a smile that took Carson’s breath away again.
Wow, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And that smile could melt a snowdrift in the middle of the winter.
This wasn’t really happening. He couldn’t really be falling for a woman at first sight.
He watched her take a sip of the water, then another deep breath.
She was clearly getting her nerves more and more under control.
He put the paper down as, for the first time, she started to actually focus on the people in the restaurant around her. He didn’t want to be hiding when she looked at him for the first time.
There were only four occupied tables total. An elderly couple sat against the back wall, and two businessmen sat at a table next to the front window.
She looked at both tables for a moment, then focused her gaze on him.
He kept staring back at her, smiling, as she froze.
Suddenly, she seemed very nervous again and her cheeks turned slightly pink once again.
He nodded to her and then looked down at his newspaper as the waiter brought his breakfast.
When he looked back up, she was smiling and looking very relieved as Bonnie and Duster Kendal came in to join her.
Oh, shit! Luckily he had yet to take a bite of his food, or he would have been coughing and causing a scene.
She was from the future as well.
He put the paper up in front of himself and pretended to read as he tried to eat and think.
This was clearly her first trip. No wonder she looked so scared.
And since Duster had not recognized him, she had also come back here before Carson had, before Bonnie and Duster had invited him to the big crystal cavern. But he was certain he had met all the others that Bonnie and Duster had invited before him at one point or another.
So why hadn’t he met this woman? He would have remembered her for sure.
A moment later another woman entered and joined Bonnie and Duster and the mystery woman. This new woman he recognized.
Dawn Edwards.
No relation at all to him, but she and her boyfriend Madison had been the first two Bonnie and Duster had invited to the crystal cavern. Both of them were famous historians and he had met Dawn numbers of times over the last few months of his life in 2017.
So before Bonnie and Duster had invited him to use the crystal cavern for his research of Europe and World War One, they had brought this mystery woman back with them. And he hadn’t heard about it for some reason.
Then suddenly, he remembered where he knew the mystery woman. He had seen her picture in the newspaper in 2017.
Her name was Sherri Edwards.
She was the historical architect that had bought his mansion and was refurbishing it.
Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit. They were here to see his home and meet him.
Now what was he going to do?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
August 5, 1902
Idanha Hotel, Boise, Idaho
After an hour having lunch in a kitchen area tucked back in an alcove in the big cavern, Sherri had been in, she was feeling slightly better. The kitchen and the two bathrooms to one side of it were as modern as any kitchen or bathroom in any home she had ever seen, including state-of-the-art appliances. She couldn’t imagine how they got all that in here.
Bonnie fixed them all great salads and ham sandwiches on fresh wheat bread.
Bonnie and Duster and Dawn tried their best to explain time travel and different timelines to her over lunch. But the harder they tried, the more confused Sherri felt. She never considered herself a dumb person. She had four different degrees, after all and had written three bestselling books on home renovation, but all this talk about time travel just seemed to make her mind feel like it didn’t work.
Yet she had experienced time travel.
That fact her mind would not allow her to discount.
So all she kept focusing on was getting the chance to see her wonderful mansion in its original glory. Now that she sort of understood that might actually be possible, she wanted to pack a camera and other things to take notes, but Bonnie and Duster said it would be too dangerous. She could go back in time as often as she wanted, since only two minutes and fifteen seconds passed in her time here. And she could take notes in regular notebooks, but they didn’t want her taking back modern equipment for fear it would fall into the wrong hands.
“Imagine if I had had cameras and other modern stuff with me when I fell off that horse and broke my
neck last time back?” Duster had said.
So she understood. They had to go and blend in completely. She figured that was going to be one of the tougher things, even though she knew a lot about the people and habits of the time period from her research on homes.
By the time they were packed again and back in the big crystal cavern, Sherri was just as terrified as before. But now the terror had a little excitement mixed with it.
This time though, Duster met them with horses and supplies as he had planned to do the first time.
From there, they had set out quickly and it had taken them two long, somewhat grueling days and one night to get from that mine to Boise. She had rode and walked, mostly walked, the first day, since it had been some time since she had done any riding. Sore didn’t begin to describe how she felt that first night.
By the time she managed to get into a hot bath in her wonderful sixth floor suite in the Idanha Hotel on the second night, she could barely feel parts of her body and her mind had completely shut off.
She was fairly certain she fell asleep in her bath because one moment the water was almost too hot, the next her skin was pruned, the water cold and dirty from all the grime of two days on horseback.
Somehow, after using cold water from the tap to rinse off, she had managed to get dressed in running shorts and a t-shirt and crawl into the most comfortable featherbed she had ever felt and snuggle down under a quilt that felt like a hug from a good friend.
The sun starting to clear the mountains woke her after what seemed like only a moment.
She splashed cold water on her face, combed her hair and put it up, and then got into the only dress that she had at the moment, including the somewhat painful woman’s underwear of the time. Bonnie and Dawn promised shopping later in the day, since they said they might want to spend a couple months in the past before heading back.
Now that she was awake, she actually took a few minutes to admire her wonderful suite.
The room was named Avalanche Creek and it consisted of three rooms. One was a large living room area in the corner of the building with a round corner portico extended out where the corner would have been. The ceilings were impossibly high at twelve feet for the entire suite and electrical lights in sconces were spaced along the wall.
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