At last Tish broke the silence; when I’d last been in my sister’s company, we’d lived in Jalesville and worked together at the law office on Main Street. We’d been so blissfully happy with Marshall and Case at our sides and I couldn’t bear her ravaged eyes, the mirror image of my own. It took effort to keep her voice steady. “Love brought you back to us, Ruthie, and love will bring you home again. To the home we all remember, I mean, the right one. We have to believe that. There’s nothing stronger than love, not through all of time.”
Conviction swelled in my soul, a tiny flicker of hope, repairing some of the damage inflicted therein. I reached across the table and her hand met mine halfway. Throat thick with tears, I managed, “You’re right. We can fix this, Tish, I know we can.”
“I wish I could go with you,” she whispered.
“Same here,” Clint added.
“Jesus, not me.” Robbie shuddered. “No offense. I’ll keep watch here.”
Derrick’s shoulders squared with a deep sigh. “Tell us again what must be done.”
As promised, we waited until morning for our initial attempt. The clouds had shredded apart at some point during the night hours and sun rimmed the eastern edge of Flickertail as I crept outside for a moment alone, clicking off the overhead lights in the cafe. I hadn’t begun to reacquaint myself with electricity and running water, flushing toilets, telephones, and refrigeration; modern conveniences I had learned to do without. I let my thoughts return to the place I’d left yesterday, when this land belonged to Sawyer and Lorie and their children. What must they think of what happened to me last night in the lake? Of course they would assume I had perished there. How long would they search for my body?
I shuddered, hating the thought of their suffering. Besides that, I may see them again later this same morning. If – when, I corrected – Derrick and I succeeded in arriving in the past, I believed we would arrive in this geographic location. I rested my hips against the porch railing, attempting to view the sunlight as a good sign. I hadn’t slept but felt replenished nonetheless, restored by the presence of my family; I’d been returned here by the force of their love, just as Tish said last night, and I let this certainty shatter the fearful what-ifs clamoring for attention at the back of my mind. I’d been pulled to the nineteenth century originally to save both Jacob Rawley and Patricia – both of them survived because I’d been there. Jacob would never have known his true family and Patricia would have been killed in her train car.
Fallon’s interference had thwarted what was meant to be; somehow he’d pinpointed the exact moments in time to strike for maximum damage. He had claimed twice that fate aided his efforts and if I considered events from Fallon’s perspective, as I must if we were to beat him, those words made a twisted sort of sense. Dredd’s ambush on the Iowa plains had resulted in Blythe Tilson’s death – which would not have occurred without Patricia – it was her presence which drew Dredd to pursue them. Five men, Malcolm had said, including Dredd’s father, Thomas Yancy. And Patricia, I further reasoned, had only been alive there on the prairie with her baby because I’d saved her from certain death the summer before.
It was enough to make a sane person crazy.
Blythe Tilson’s death effectively ended the Tilson family line, just as Jacob Rawley’s death in the fire created a gaping hole which should have been filled by the Rawleys in Montana, whose descendants would eventually become Marshall’s family. And Fallon had used this knowledge to his extreme advantage; he must have figured there was nothing I could do once those catastrophic actions had been put into play. We were placing all our bets on this presumption – and the fact that Derrick’s ability to jump through time was unknown to Fallon. Derrick’s help was immeasurable but not entirely altruistic; besides his obvious infatuation with Tish, there was surely a part of his soul still connected in some small way to Dredd. I prayed that Fallon had underestimated these men for the final time.
What if this doesn’t work?
Stop. It will. You survived.
And you’ve come too goddamn far to turn back now.
I let the first rays of morning sun rim my eyelids with gold dust; thousands of crystals spangled to life on the crunchy remains of snow across the yard, dazzling my vision. The screen door squeaked on its hinges behind me; seconds later Tish slipped her arms around my waist. She’d told me about her recent pregnancy and I understood more than anyone the ache of that loss.
“Oh God, Ruthie,” she whispered, anchoring her chin on my shoulder. I felt her trembling and lined my forearms over hers, pressing them more closely to my body.
“I know.”
“Case…”
“I know,” I repeated, squeezing harder. “He’s still out there, I swear to you.”
She shook with quiet sobs.
“They’re all still out there, everyone who was stolen from us.” I stared just to the side of the rising sun, greedy for its warmth and light. “I can feel them.”
“Yes,” she gulped, gaining partial control.
“Then we can’t give up.”
“I love you, Ruthie, you don’t know how much.”
“I do, because I love you the same.”
“Can you believe Derrick is helping us like this?”
“He has his own reasons.”
“I’m scared,” she admitted at last. “So scared. What if…”
The sun cleared the horizon and spilled red-gold fire over the last of the ice on Flickertail.
“No. No more what-ifs.”
Preparations took mere minutes but my impatience grew beyond reason. I wasn’t the least hungry but forced myself to choke down eggs and bacon in the cafe. Derrick and I dressed in warm clothing and snow boots, and packed our coat pockets with granola bars, raisin boxes, and matches.
“Shouldn’t we bring additional items? Weapons? Tents? Water?” Derrick roamed between tables with restless energy, unable to remain still.
“Only what’s touching our bodies will come with us. If we tried to carry anything in our arms, or bring a backpack, it wouldn’t cross through.”
Everyone gathered near and I almost couldn’t bear the collective expectant fear. I focused on Aunt Jilly, who appeared the most calm.
“How long do we allow for your return?” she asked quietly. Over a year had passed in the nineteenth century during my absence but only a matter of months here.
“Give us four weeks, to be safe. If we’re not back by then, you’ll have to pull us back.” We had discussed this possibility last night. We’d long since passed the point of no return, relying completely on faith at this point.
“Ruthie…” Mom cupped my face, tear-streaked but determined to get through this. “You are the bravest woman I know.”
“You are,” Tish agreed, and she, Mom, and Camille enclosed me in a four-way hug.
Shore Leave glowed with sun. I moved from one pair of arms to the next, gaining strength.
“Hurry back to us,” Aunt Jilly said.
“Keep safe.” Mathias held my shoulders, searching my eyes; he’d remained through the night, unwilling to leave Camille’s side, and none of us had slept. Malcolm’s soul inhabited the man before me and now that I’d known Malcolm, I could see him so clearly in Mathias – in his movements, his energy; the deep wells of feeling in his eyes. Just like Miles and Marshall; different men, but the same soul. The recognition was too strong to deny.
“I will,” I promised.
“No point delaying.” Derrick cleared his throat.
“Thank you for this, from the bottom of my heart.” Tish hugged him, hard and fast, and summoned a small piece of her usual attitude. “I never thought I would be saying this to you, Yancy, but take care of yourself. Please.”
Derrick echoed my words. “I will.”
My heartrate had increased, my palms were sweating. Derrick was right; there was nothing to be gained by dallying. Either this would work – or it wouldn’t.
“Should we stay here?” Mom asked, her voice a
ghost of its normal self. She and Aunt Jilly were all but leaning on one another for support.
“Yes. Please stay. I want everyone to concentrate on the past along with Derrick and me.” I held out my hands, acting on instinct, and Derrick grasped them, facing me a few feet away from everyone else. He was tall and fit, with sharp features that tended toward arrogant; he bore little resemblance to Fallon or Dredd, despite their shared ancestry. My heart stuttered at the flicker of true fear I witnessed in his eyes, which he quickly, admirably, submerged; I filled my lungs and held the breath.
“What happens now?” he whispered.
“Concentrate.” I squeezed his hands.
He returned the pressure and I closed my eyes, picturing the original homestead that had occupied this space. I envisioned Lorie and Sawyer and their children. I let the date we had chosen – June tenth, 1882 – emblazon itself across my mind. Bright red, flashing and glowing on the backs of my eyelids, I willed us toward that date.
Derrick’s hands began to lose substance. I felt it in the same exact moment, the void of soundless screaming, the passage from one time to another, like a door waiting to be opened by the correct key. Shore Leave, and my family within it, faded to gray static.
Concentrate!
My fingers closed around nothing – Derrick was no longer in the same space.
I felt the pull of time but something was wrong –
When I’d traveled before my body was submerged within seconds, swept beyond my own control into the powerful current that existed outside the usual flow of time. The past was there, close enough to inhale, just behind a layer so thin and gauzy light passed through its transparent sides to pierce my eye sockets – but I was forbidden. I knew without words. I already existed there and I could not exist twice in the same space. I went to my knees, certain I would snap in two but maintaining the connection all the same. I had to reach 1882.
A scream rose in my throat –
No – oh God, no –
I have to go! Let me go!
He needs me!
Screaming full-scale now, the force exerted on my body so intense I flopped like a hooked fish.
Let me go!
Someone rushed near, crying out my name.
And then, in a flicker of light, she disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Iowa Plains - June, 1882
I REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS FLAT ON MY BACK, STARING UP at a sky so bright I flung a shielding forearm over my eyes. Sense returned more slowly, in fits and starts; it took seconds for my mind to catch up with my body as I struggled to recall my last memory, the one just prior to this brilliant blue sky edged with a tall fringe of grass stalks.
Shore Leave.
Ruthie and Derrick.
They were trying to get back to the nineteenth century –
Oh God –
I sat up too fast, only to be blasted by a rush of dizziness; I hung my head until the blotchy colors receded from my vision, rolling next to all fours on the scratchy, uneven ground. I tried to grasp handfuls of grass to gain my footing but fell instead, as wobbly as a toddler.
This is not the time to freak out, Camille.
Think.
The last I knew I’d been standing in Shore Leave, thinking for all I was worth of Malcolm Carter, concentrating on his existence in June, 1882, picturing his face and his horse, and the prairie…and me at his side.
Oh, my God –
“Ruthie…” I cleared my throat, heart flapping, panic mounting like a storm surge, and tried again. “Ruthann! Derrick!”
“Over here,” came a faint reply and my shoulders sank with relief.
“Can you speak up? I don’t know which direction you’re in!” My voice echoed over what seemed an endless expanse of prairie. Flickertail Lake was not in sight; we were nowhere near Shore Leave, I knew that much. I inhaled for three counts and exhaled for six.
“You’re on my left,” Derrick called. “I think, anyway.”
“Are you all right? Do you see Ruthie?” Successful at my second attempt to stand, I hurried toward the sound of his voice, parting waist-high grass with both hands, keeping an eye out for snakes or other creatures. My back felt bruised, but that was the least of my worries. “Where in the hell are we?!”
“Iowa,” said someone only a few yards behind me. I hadn’t heard anyone approach and spun around so quickly I fell again, this time flat on my ass.
A man riding a horse sat watching me, a beautiful chestnut-brown horse, holding the reins in one hand while the other rested on the saddle horn. He wore a cowboy hat and dirty jeans and at the sight of me, his expression changed swiftly to one of abject disbelief – I felt the same thing happening to my face. My heart delivered a hard, hammering punch to my breastbone before taking abrupt wing, disappearing in the cloudless blue sky. Both hands flew to my lips as I stared, open-mouthed.
He dismounted with such effortless grace he was on the ground before I knew he’d moved. He would have crossed the meager distance between us with two strides except that I was already there to meet him.
“Malcolm,” I gasped, threading my arms about his neck, unable to restrain this elemental instinct. He was damp with sweat, exhaling in a rush against my loose hair and returning my exuberant embrace as I imbibed the physical reality of him, the immediacy of Malcolm Carter at long last close enough to touch. His hat fell off and I laughed with the pure delight of a child, running my fingers through his dark curls, over his eyebrows and cheekbones and lips. He was tall, bending forward in order to receive my touches upon his skin. His muscles curved like lean bands of steel; he might have been carved from warm hardwood. But his hands were gentle, fingers twining deep into my tangled curls, cradling my face.
Amazement radiated between us as we traced paths over one another, but no unease; our touching was the most natural thing in the world. Of course it was – his soul was the other half of mine. He was Mathias in another version of himself, my husband, my lover, the very essence of my true love.
“You’re here!” My smile was wider than the horizon, all agony, all fear, momentarily annihilated. “You’re actually here.”
“I know you.” He spoke the words slowly, bracketing my ribs with both hands. “You aren’t Cora, but I know you…”
By contrast, words flew from my lips. “Of course you do. I’m Camille, Ruthann’s sister! She told you all about me. And I’ve known about you for years. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” Before he could respond – or I could think twice – I drew his head closer and kissed his mouth, a soft, quick, elated stamp of possession, giddy with the bliss of finding him, of actually setting eyes and hands upon him, when for so long I’d had nothing but a cold, flat, black and white photograph. His lips were so very familiar; he smelled just like Mathias.
He grinned as I drew away, wide and warm. A grin to rival the sun, one I would have known anywhere. Betraying no lack of composure over the fact that I’d just kissed him, he murmured, “Holy God,” speaking the words as though praying, crushing me closer, resting his cheek to my hair while I buried my face against his chest, trembling and overcome; an intermingling of pain and joy unlike anything I’d ever known. We may have continued holding each other until time ran out if the sounds of Derrick’s clumsy approach through the tall grass had not reached our ears.
Malcolm shifted us at once, a fluid, effortless motion, positioning in front of me, gun drawn from a holster on his hip before I could blink.
“No, I know him, it’s all right. Derrick, freeze!” I yelled, darting forward. “I’ve found Malcolm!”
I recognized the need to gather my wits; there wasn’t time to speculate why I’d been pulled through time and Ruthann had not. I crashed through the grass and intercepted Derrick, who was puffing and sweating with exertion; he’d tied the arms of his heavy winter coat around his waist.
“Where’s Ruthann?” he asked. “What in the hell happened?”
“I don’t know. We’ll have to f
igure it out later.”
Malcolm was right behind me; he had holstered his gun, to my relief, but he demanded of Derrick, “Who are you?” His tone bristled with authority and threat; Derrick stepped back a pace, speechless, not removing his eyes from Malcolm.
I babbled, “He’s with me, it’s all right. I’ll explain everything, I promise.” Urgency reasserted itself, swarming like hornets. “Oh God, what day is it? Where are we? You said Iowa…how did we end up here instead of Minnesota?” I clutched Malcolm’s left arm. “Are you with Cole Spicer and Blythe Tilson?”
In short order Malcolm helped me atop his horse, whose full name, I was delighted to learn, was Aces High – nicknamed Aces, as Malcolm explained – but not before I hugged the beautiful animal’s solid neck and kissed the white blaze on his long nose.
“Hi, boy,” I murmured, bestowing another kiss, this time between the horse’s velvety nostrils. Aces issued a soft whooshing sound, watching me with his head cocked to the right, left eye fixed on me with intense curiosity. “You remember me, don’t you?”
Malcolm, explaining that he’d ridden ahead this morning in order to hunt, led Aces back to the slower-moving wagon in which Patricia and her son were contained. Cole Spicer and Blythe Tilson were also accounted for on this journey, according to Malcolm; he, Cole, Patricia, and the baby had parted ways from Ruthann, Marshall, and a man named Axton Douglas earlier this month. My relief over these facts, however, was quickly submerged – today’s date was June twenty-ninth, 1882, and we were most definitely not in Minnesota, but instead a day’s hard ride south of Iowa City. Derrick, walking alongside Aces, looked up at me, his expression communicating more clearly than any words that we were totally and completely fucked.
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