That night Duster pitched three tents, one for him, one for Bonnie, and one for Brice and Dixie.
They just slept together, not making love, but just holding each other.
And that was all Brice needed. It was going to have to last him, he knew, for some time to come.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
October 7th, 1901
Dixie’s Timeline
THEY HAD REACHED Silver City just before dusk and checked into the Silver City Hotel, even though they had no plans on staying in the rooms.
Silver City was still a going concern and Dixie could hear the music echoing from the saloons. The hotel was a two-story wooden structure that looked worn and tired and dusty.
Compared to the wonderful suite in the Idanha Hotel in Boise, this room felt more like a closet. It had a small bed in a metal frame, a scarred-up dresser with a bowl and pitcher of water, and peeling wallpaper. It smelled like mold. Clearly a place that had seen much, much better days and Dixie was very glad she wasn’t spending the night in the room.
They all had their saddlebags and the money and their clothes. They all had gone to their rooms to rest and wash down a little from the grime from the ride.
Duster sold the horses to the ranch just a mile below the town and mentioned he might be back at some point to buy them back, for a profit of course.
Dixie was surprised that the air in the high mountain mining town had a sharp, cold bite to it and smelled of wood campfires and fireplaces.
As the sun set, the looming peaks around the city seemed to close in.
Duster had warned her and Brice that they would be climbing after dark back up to the mine, to make sure they weren’t followed. So they needed to dress warm.
In her room, Dixie washed her face and arms, then put on another layer of clothing over her riding clothes and took out a pair of riding gloves she had bought in Boise but never used.
Then she stretched out on the bed fully dressed, trying to let herself rest.
There was a very good chance in just a few hours she was never going to see the Brice she loved again.
And there was a good chance the Brice in her timeline would want nothing to do with her.
Even though she knew the math of all of this, her heart was confused beyond belief. She didn’t want to lose Brice, but to really have a life with Brice, she had to take this chance.
She knew he was taking the same exact chance in his timeline. And she knew he was as scared as she was. He wasn’t trying to hide it, which she admired.
Thirty minutes later when the knock came at the door, she took a deep breath, stood and grabbed her saddlebag. It was time.
It was Bonnie at the door. “Leave nothing.”
Dixie nodded and looked back to make sure she hadn’t left something. Then she pulled the door closed behind her and followed Bonnie down the narrow hallway toward the exit at the end of the building.
They went down a staircase on the end wall and to a back street behind the hotel, then turned to the north up a dark, rough dirt street between a number of buildings that looked like they were boarded up.
More than likely those buildings were owned by people who left for the winter.
They saw no one along the way at all.
Duster had been right in a comment about Silver City in 1901. This town really was dying. Especially right before the first snowfall of the winter. It had the feeling of a town ready to drop into hibernation.
At the edge of town they waited in dark shadows near one boarded-up building and a few minutes later Duster and Brice strode up the dark street toward them.
Both of them were wearing their long oilcloth coats and cowboy hats. To Dixie, Brice was the most handsome man she had ever seen.
“This way,” Duster said as he got close to them, his voice hushed.
Dixie took Brice’s hand and followed Duster up the street while Bonnie followed behind them.
When the trail got too narrow, Brice dropped back and Dixie moved up right behind Duster, following in his footsteps, watching her every step in the dark on the trail.
Just about one hour later, Dixie was winded, but standing beside Brice on the flat top of the mine tailings. She was both freezing and sweating from the climb at the same time.
Below them the few remaining lights of Silver City sparkled in the cold night air.
Duster and Bonnie both checked around the mine and inside the shack to make sure no one was close, then Duster used his key to open the big rock beside the mine entrance.
They all four crowded in and the rock slid closed and a moment later Dixie stepped into the mine as the lights came up.
Part of her had almost wanted to believe over the last two wonderful months that this place had all been a dream. But now it was very, very real again.
They all headed to the big room and right on through to the big crystal cavern.
Dixie had her saddlebag on her shoulder and almost dropped it at the fantastic sight of the crystal room.
“Do you ever get tired of seeing this place?” Brice asked Bonnie and Duster as he stopped beside Dixie.
“Never,” Bonnie said.
“I’ll never get tired of it,” Dixie said.
She looked at the man she loved. “Do you have your journal?”
He quickly dug into his saddlebag and held it up for her to see.
“Do you?” he asked, stuffing his journal back into the saddlebag.
She pulled her journal out and held it up for him to see.
He nodded. “We’ll make this work.”
“I know,” Dixie said.
Then she pulled his head down to her height and kissed him as hard as she could kiss him.
He kissed her back.
Finally they broke and she said, “I love you, Brice Lincoln. Make the me in your timeline love you as well.”
“I love you as well,” he said to her, smiling. “But I have a hunch that making you do anything you don’t want to do might not be a good idea.”
“Then make it my idea to love you,” she said, laughing.
Damn she was going to miss this man. More than she wanted to think about right now.
With that they kissed once more and moved over to where Bonnie and Duster stood near the machine.
Brice put his hand on the machine and looked at Dixie.
Dixie put her hand on the machine beside his and looked into his eyes.
She loved this man more than she could imagine, yet she was leaving him.
She was leaving him for a chance to be with him again.
A moment later Bonnie and Duster touched the wooden box as well and then Duster unhooked the wire.
And Duster and Brice vanished.
She had been looking in Brice’s wonderful green eyes and he had just disappeared, as if he had never been.
Dixie stepped back from the wooden box and watched as Bonnie carefully undid the wires and then carefully marked the crystal on the wall.
Dixie needed to know that crystal. She needed to make sure that one world, that one timeline inside that one crystal did not get lost because that might be the only one where she would know Brice was for certain.
It was in that timeline they had made plans to meet again if their plans in 2016 failed.
The Brice she loved wasn’t in that crystal anymore either. But it was her gateway to him.
How could he be gone?
What had she done?
Bonnie finished marking the crystal and moved over toward Dixie.
“Are you all right?” Bonnie asked, her voice soft.
Dixie didn’t dare speak. She just shook her head.
Bonnie put her arm around Dixie and turned her gently toward the door.
Dixie had promised herself she wouldn’t cry.
She failed that promise.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
July 8th, 2016
Brice’s Timeline
BRICE WATCHED CAREFULLY as Duster marked the crystal on the wall where he had
spent those two wonderful months with Dixie. He needed that carefully marked and Duster did exactly that.
Duster then indicated that Brice should follow him out of the crystal room and back to the kitchen.
But instead Brice just stood there, remembering how he had been looking into the large brown eyes of Dixie and she had just vanished.
The woman he loved was living in one of the crystals around him, and he knew he was in one as well.
He knew the math of how they had met in that one timeline, and more than likely an almost infinite number of other timelines as well, but knowing she was in those crystals in that cave made him not want to leave it.
“She lives in this timeline as well,” Duster said, coming back in to stand with Brice. “As well as all of those.”
“I know,” Brice said.
“Now,” Duster said, “as time tends to do, we move forward and find her.”
Brice nodded.
“But first,” Duster said, “we have to try to explain all this to Bonnie.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be interesting,” Brice said.
Duster just laughed at that.
They went out and dropped their saddlebags on the big empty table near the racks of clothing and Brice grabbed his journal and followed Duster toward the big kitchen area in the back of the cavern.
“Didn’t quite get the dishes done,” Bonnie said, smiling as they joined her, not sitting down.
Brice was having a very hard time realizing that for Bonnie, this Bonnie, only just over two minutes had gone by.
“You two want some dinner?” Bonnie asked.
Brice suddenly realized that he was hungry. They hadn’t bothered to eat in Silver City while there.
“We would love some,” Duster said. “That damn climb never seems to get any easier.”
“So what did you think of your first extended time in the past,” Bonnie asked Brice, moving toward the fridge.
“Interesting,” Brice said.
Duster broke out laughing like Brice had told the world’s funniest joke.
Bonnie frowned and looked puzzled.
“We’re taking showers first,” Duster said, managing to stop laughing, “and changing back into our modern clothes. Then we’ll explain it all.”
Brice nodded. “Very interesting. Very long story.”
“You were only gone two months,” Bonnie said, frowning. “Right?”
“Yup, just two months,” Duster said, chuckling. “Just as we planned.”
He walked over to Bonnie and kissed her and then said, “Showers, we need showers.”
He turned and headed toward the bathrooms in the back of the big cavern. “You get the women’s shower,” Duster said to Brice, indicating that Brice should follow. “They use funny soap.”
Twenty minutes later Brice felt almost human again. The first shower in over two months was something to treasure.
He got back into his tee shirt and jeans and running shoes and looked at himself in the mirror.
He now looked nothing like the man in the suit and vest and cowboy hat of 1901.
He went out and sat at the big kitchen table, putting his journal on the table in front of him. The place smelled wonderful of sizzling steaks on a grill.
Bonnie gave him a glass of iced tea and some apple slices to hold him until the steaks she was cooking finished up. Then she went back to mixing a salad.
A minute later Duster came out looking clean and refreshed as well.
She gave him a glass of iced tea as well and Brice slid the apple slices toward him.
“All right, you two,” she said. “What exactly happened?”
Duster just shook his head and looked at the slice of apple he had taken.
“I met a woman on my fifth day in the hotel after Duster left,” Brice said.
Bonnie smiled. “Wonderful. Was she beautiful?”
“Very beautiful,” Brice said, smiling and nodding. “I was working on some math in my journal about what would happen if I spent time with her in the past for a few different timelines.”
Bonnie nodded. “We did that math and you’ve reviewed it already.”
“I know,” Brice said. “But I wanted to make sure, so I was doing it again when she came up to the lunch table where I was working and saw my journal.”
“Oh, oh,” Bonnie said, smiling. “I bet that was hard to explain.”
“Well, sort of,” Brice said.
Duster snorted and started laughing.
“What the hell is so damn funny?” Bonnie asked, again looking puzzled.
“The woman knew what I was working on,” Brice said. “She recognized it. Her name is Dixie Smith.”
“How could a woman in 1901 recognize higher math?” Bonnie asked.
Then she stopped, frozen, the only sound in the cavern was the sizzling steaks.
“Dixie Smith?” Bonnie asked. “Short cute redhead?”
Duster laughed even harder.
Brice nodded. “She was there waiting for you to return, just as I was waiting for Duster to return.”
“Oh, shit,” Bonnie said, her face white.
“I get that a lot,” Brice said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
July 8th, 2016
Dixie’s Timeline
BONNIE WALKED DIXIE back into the big cavern and they put their saddlebags on the empty table near the racks of clothing, then Bonnie walked her toward the kitchen.
Dixie carried her journal in her hand. There was no chance she was going to let it out of her sight at any point. She might even sleep with it under her pillow when she got home, just to have Brice close.
As they entered the kitchen area, Duster turned around and saw that Dixie was trying to not cry.
“She met someone,” Bonnie said to Duster. “She’ll be fine after a shower. But we need something to eat. Maybe a salad and some bread?”
Bonnie pointed Dixie toward the men’s restroom and shower area and Dixie stumbled into it, mad at herself for crying. She wasn’t the crying type, but seeing Brice just vanish into another timeline in front of her had been hard.
Really, really hard.
Impossibly hard.
Dixie had to admit, the shower did help a lot. This was the first shower in two months. She had enjoyed the baths, especially the ones with Brice, but she had missed a good hot shower.
After getting dressed again in her modern clothes and slipping on her tennis shoes, she went back out to the kitchen, her journal solidly in one hand.
Bonnie wasn’t there yet and Duster asked her if she wanted some iced tea as Dixie sat down at the big kitchen table.
“I would love some,” she said. “And don’t worry, I’ll be all right. I’ll tell you all about it when Bonnie gets out.”
Less than a minute later Bonnie joined them and touched Dixie’s shoulder before going over and kissing Duster long and hard.
“What was that for?” he asked, smiling at her.
“Been wanting to do that for a few days now,” she said, smiling and winking at Dixie.
Dixie laughed and that made her feel better as well.
“Need some help with a dinner for us hungry travelers?”
“Bread’s warming in the over and I’ve tossed together a salad,” Duster said. “Anything else?”
“That sounds wonderful,” Bonnie said and kissed him again with some passion.
Duster looked puzzled. “Guess I’m going to have to fix salads more often.”
Dixie laughed, as did Bonnie.
“So you want to tell him who you met?” Bonnie said.
Dixie nodded. “Two days after Bonnie left I got up enough courage to go down to the dining room in the hotel for lunch. This handsome man was sitting there by himself working in a journal.”
“You didn’t forget you were in 1901 and go introduce yourself or something?” Duster asked.
Dixie laughed and with each laugh she was feeling better and better. “No chance of that. I saw him every day for f
ive days at both breakfast and lunch. We made eye contact and smiled at each other, but nothing else.”
“Okay?” Duster asked, taking the wonderful-smelling bread from the stove.
“So the next morning at breakfast I decided to go introduce myself. He was a perfect gentleman and asked me to join him for breakfast and I did.”
Dixie didn’t want to tell Duster she had wanted a lot more at that point, but had acted the perfect woman for the time.
Duster brushed some butter on the top of the hot bread and put them in a basket and slid them onto the table, then went back for plates and napkins.
“But as I walked up to join him for lunch,” Dixie said, “I saw what he was working on in his journal. It was the same math I had been working on in my journal.”
Duster put plates in front of them. “Not possible.”
Bonnie was now smiling, enjoying this moment a great deal clearly.
“I know that,” Dixie said. “He had told me he planned on being in the hotel for at least a month waiting for a friend to come back. So after seeing the math, I asked him the name of his friend. He was waiting for you.”
Duster just stood there, his mouth open. Finally he said, “Again, not possible.”
“Very possible,” Dixie said as Bonnie started to laugh. “His name is Brice Lincoln.”
“The guy we almost hired instead of you?” Duster asked, looking panicked at Bonnie, who just nodded.
“So not only did I fall in love with a man in the past,” Dixie said. “He’s also from another timeline.”
“Oh, shit,” Duster said.
“That’s exactly what I said when he told me he was waiting for you,” Dixie said.
Laughing, Bonnie got up and patted Duster on the shoulder. “Sit down, I’ll finish the salad. Wait until she shows you the really amazing equations the two of them worked out on our problem with the lodge, and on how it was mathematically possible for them to meet in the first place, and also a few other nifty things they came up with.”
“The two of you worked together on the math?” Duster said, dropping into a chair at the table.
“We did,” Dixie said. “For over a month.”
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