One overstuffed plaid chair filled the remaining corner of the small room and in a number of places the crosshatched wallpaper was coming loose showing boards under them.
Ryan tossed the saddlebags on the bed and his long coat and hat on top of them and poured some of the cold water into the bowl. He then washed off his face and hands and using the towel, wet it and wiped the dirt off the back of his neck and up his arms under his shirt.
Surprisingly, it made him feel a lot better.
He had just put his hat and coat back on when Duster knocked on the door.
Duster wasn’t wearing his hat or coat, just the jeans and plaid shirt he had on under that, held up by suspenders. His sleeves on the shirt were rolled up to his elbows.
Ryan nodded and tossed his hat and coat back on the bed, then locked up as they went out.
Dinner was in a small dining room off the hotel lobby that at one point in time had pretended to be formal, but now just felt more like a diner with faded curtains.
The waitress, a heavy-set woman with dark, thin hair and a stained apron, recognized Duster and showed him to a table in the back corner just far enough away from the big metal stove to not overheat them, but keep them comfortable at the same time. Ryan soon found out her name was Francine, the one Duster had asked about, and she was also the cook.
There was no one else in the dining room, but the woman didn’t talk much and Duster didn’t either, so Ryan just focused on the great food as well.
Venison steak, cooked perfectly, with golden potatoes and some slices of fresh apples and warm bread. After the two days of hard riding he had had from Roosevelt Summit to Boise and then the push to get here, every bite tasted like heaven. This was his first real meal in all that time.
Finally, when Francine asked after serving them both a slice of fresh apple pie, why Duster was in town, he said, “Got some family that want me to take a look at an old mine up on War Eagle. Thought I’d do it before the snow flies.”
“Nothing up there worth looking at,” she said, shaking her head.
“Told them that myself,” Duster said. “But they’re paying, so we’re looking.”
She shrugged and moved off.
Ryan knew exactly what Duster was doing. The mine with the crystal cave was up on Florida Mountain. If anyone went looking for them, they would look on War Eagle now. And if he and Duster vanished and didn’t come back for the horses, everyone would assume it was more than likely that a cave-in got them.
Very smart.
“Grab your coat and hat and saddlebags,” Duster said as they finished eating and went back upstairs to their rooms.
Outside it was getting dark.
They went out of the hotel through the front door and down the street. About a hundred paces below the edge of town, Duster had them turn up on a trail headed up onto Florida Mountain.
It was getting dark, so Ryan stayed close to Duster, who seemed to know the trail even though he couldn’t see most of it.
They climbed for a ways, Ryan wishing now he hadn’t eaten so much.
Finally Duster stopped and pointed back down.
“We’re down the valley from the town, but this rock formation here marks the level on the hillside that the mine is at.”
Ryan nodded and looked at the pile of large boulders.
Duster then started across the hill, going back up the valley.
After a few minutes a shape in the dim light seemed to come into form for Ryan.
“Cars will be here?” Ryan asked.
Duster glanced back. “Yup, right here. Good eye, architect.”
They went across the hill and onto the top of the mine tailings. The last part it had almost gotten too dark to see anything, but Ryan knew they also didn’t want to light anything up here where anyone happening to be looking up the hillside might question.
“Got your key?” Duster asked.
Ryan slipped his finger into the lining of his coat and pulled out one of the two keys Duster had given him. There had been a couple nights after rough days up on the summit that Ryan had pulled out a key and looked at it to try to remind himself he really was in the past.
“Looks clear,” Duster said after checking around the old shack and staring back off the way they had come.
Ryan nodded and twisted the key head to the right.
In the dark he could barely see where the big rock slid back.
He and Duster both slipped inside and Duster pushed the close button. After a moment of total darkness, the inside door opened and the lights came up.
And Ryan was once again in the mine.
He took a deep breath, relieved. “A part of me was starting to doubt this was here.”
Duster laughed. “I get that way myself after forty or fifty years in the past.”
As they went down the tunnel, Duster showed Ryan how to turn off the alarms.
They went right on through the big cavern as the lights came up to the crystal cave.
Duster walked over first to the wall and studied the connector and Ryan tried to catch his breath from the fantastic beauty of the place.
“Is it all right?” Ryan finally asked.
“Looks very secure,” Duster said, nodding. “We’ll see in the future how it looks.”
Duster then moved over to the machine and put on a glove.
“You ready?”
“I am,” Ryan nodded, watching from about ten feet away.
“Let’s hope all the women are out of the bath,” Duster said, smiling.
Ryan laughed. “Oh, where’s the fun in that?”
“Good point,” Duster said, smiling.
And then he disconnected one wire.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
July 20, 2015
APRIL WAS SITTING in the dark in the kitchen at the large table with Bonnie and Janice and Dawn and Madison. The Boise house was completely closed up and everything turned off. All the fires had been put out and the entire electrical system disconnected.
The only sound was the slight creaking of the building from a gentle wind outside.
All five of them had been sitting at the big table now for almost an hour, just waiting, since the sun had gone down. Bonnie had told her that Duster wouldn’t risk the climb up to the mine until dark.
So they had sat and waited at the table from sunset on.
It felt very weird to April, as if they were waiting for a ride, but they wouldn’t know when the ride would suddenly pick them up.
Bonnie had a person coming by in the morning to live on the second floor of the stables and take care of the horses each day. If they didn’t end up returning to this timeline, the horses would not starve in there and eventually someone would take over the house.
But for now, from the outside, it looked like the house was empty, the residents off on a trip.
April had been worried about Ryan and was having a difficult time believing that Ryan and Duster could make the ride to Silver City as fast as Bonnie thought they could. But Bonnie had assured her that it was possible, and knowing Duster, she said they would make it in time for dinner before going up to the mine.
Janice was getting more and more worried about Steven by the moment. And April understood that. Steven had been in the house in Roosevelt, injured and by himself, for days.
Then, as Dawn was reassuring Janice that Steven would be fine, April found herself standing with her hand on the machine in the bright crystal cave.
All eight of them were touching the machine and all eight of them stepped back almost at the same time.
It had actually happened.
April just flat couldn’t believe it.
She was back in the summer of 2015 and only two minutes and fifteen seconds had gone by. Even though she remembered every detail of her summer travels in 1900.
April hugged Ryan and kissed him hard, not really believing she was with him again.
Beside her, Janice and Steven kissed and hugged each other as well. From what April co
uld tell when she surfaced from the long and heavenly kiss with Ryan, Steven was just fine. He flexed his wrist a few times and then just smiled at Janice.
Bonnie kissed Duster lightly and smiled. “Great job, mister. Florence cooking?”
“Steak and apple pie,” Duster said, smiling. “Doesn’t get better.”
Bonnie glanced at April and just smiled, while April shook her head. Bonnie had been right and Duster and Ryan had stopped in the hotel for dinner before coming up to the mine after dark.
Steven and Madison went over to the wall with Duster and inspected the connection from the machine to the crystal there while April watched, her arm tucked into Ryan’s arm. She had spent almost no time with him this summer and she had missed him more than she even wanted to admit to herself.
“Sure looks solid,” Madison said.
“It does,” Duster said.
April sure hoped that meant they could follow Ryan and Janice’s plan and go right back.
Duster than turned around to look at his wife. “Shall we try this crazy idea?”
“I don’t see why not?” she said. “If it doesn’t work, we just start over on the lodge.”
“Sorry about that,” Steven said.
Janice kissed him and Duster and Bonnie just waved his comment off.
“Let’s take some showers,” Duster said, “restock supplies to take with us and get ready to go again.”
“Food?” Steven asked, smiling as they headed toward the supply cave. “All I had was water and jerky the last three days.”
“I’ll get you something now,” Madison said, smiling at Steven, “but dinner in two hours after we get ready to go.”
“Good idea,” Dawn said. “We can get caught up and plan out the rest of this lodge construction and what everyone is doing after that gets done.”
“How long until we head back?” Ryan asked.
“Four or five hours,” Duster said, going down the tunnel from the crystal cave into the big supply cavern.
April squeezed Ryan’s arm. “Excited?”
He just laughed. “Completely.”
“Me too,” she said as they followed the rest into the big cavern. “Me too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
July 20, 2015
DUSTER GOT TO THE SHOWER FIRST, so April and Ryan headed out of the mine with Bonnie to see for themselves that they really were back in 2015. On the way out, all three of them quickly changed clothes into modern clothes and April found them almost odd-feeling. More comfortable, but still odd.
She had gotten used to the dresses and travel attire of a woman in 1900. How strange that seemed to her.
Outside the summer heat hit them hard. It wrapped around her like a smothering cloth. Ryan moved over to the edge of the mine tailings, sat down, and just stared down at what was left of the ghost town below.
“It’s starting to sink in,” he said.
“What exactly?” April asked as Bonnie stretched and sat down in the sun, her back against a rock, clearly enjoying the heat of the afternoon.
April sat down next to the man she was falling in love with, looking down over the old ghost town below them.
Ryan pointed down the hill. “In 1900, in another timeline, our horses are down there, waiting for me to come back. I only left them an hour or so ago. I’m still full from the meal I ate in that hotel in 1900.”
“It will take more time than one trip to get used to all this,” Bonnie said. “Sometimes, when I spend decades in the past, three or four trips in a row, I can’t remember how to even drive when I get back here.”
“And modern clothes feel weird?” April asked.
“Very weird,” Bonnie said, smiling.
Ryan just shook his head.
“Amazing anyone can grasp this is possible.”
April reached over and took his hand. “I wouldn’t have met you if this wasn’t.”
“That’s true,” Ryan said, smiling and leaning over and kissing her. Then he stood and helped her to her feet. “I need a shower and then we can talk about the plans on the lodge with everyone before heading back.”
“Good idea,” April said. “Bonnie and I have more shopping to do next summer.”
“That was fun, wasn’t it?” Bonnie said, pushing herself to her feet.
April could only agree. The summer traveling with Bonnie in 1900 had been far more than fun. It had been amazing. From San Francisco to Denver to Chicago and then back to Boise. She had it all recorded in her journal. Every detail, every stick of furniture and fixtures she saw along the way.
Back inside, after Ryan came out of the shower looking refreshed, but still tired, Duster asked them both to come with him. “Got some things to show you.”
He walked them over to a wall of the big supply cavern. Then he said, “You have your key on you?”
Ryan nodded and pulled it out of his pocket. “The other one is in my coat lining.”
“Insert it right here,” Duster said, pointing to a small natural-looking opening in the rock “and turn to the right.”
April watched closely as Ryan did as he was told.
Something made a soft click sound and the wall slid to one side.
The light came up in a very large storage room behind the wall that was carved out of the rock. It was about the size of a large bedroom in a modern home. Heavy metal shelves lined three walls and down the middle, making two wide aisles.
It took a moment for April to understand what she was seeing. Then as Ryan gasped, she saw it.
Every shelf and along the floor was stacked high with coins.
Gold coins.
Millions of them.
“Every time you go back,” Duster said, “you take more than enough money with you. All of this is dated, so make sure you get the right dates for the time period you are jumping to.”
Ryan shook his head and turned to look at Duster as April just stood staring at the vast amount of money in front of her.
“I don’t understand,” Ryan said.
“The eight of us are all in this together,” Duster said. “This is the working fund, just as the clothes in here and the food is supplies. If you end up in the past for numbers of years and make a lot of money, bring some back and replenish the funds here. But bring it back in gold coins.”
April was doing her best to grasp what she was seeing and what Duster was saying, but nothing was going in.
“So I’m a little confused,” April said. “How exactly do you end up this rich in the past?”
“Knowing history,” Duster said, smiling. “I know what banks are going to fail and when. I know what mines are going to boom and when. I know what companies are going to boom and when. It doesn’t take long with that advantage of knowing the future to get more than enough money to be rich in the past.”
“So you take money back from here and invest,” Ryan said, nodding. “And then cash out and bring more back with you.”
Duster nodded and said, “Exactly.”
Now April was starting to understand. Duster couldn’t go back and buy stock in a modern company because that would be stock from another timeline, but he could invest while there and cash out and bring money back for future trips.
“Remember,” Duster said, “every timeline we go into is only very, very slightly different than this timeline. Major history remains the same in all of them.”
“And you don’t mind us using some of this as we get started?” April asked.
Duster laughed. “Same question they all asked,” he said, gesturing toward the kitchen area where the rest were. “But they have all brought more gold back than they have taken out by a long, long ways. This keeps up and we might have to enlarge this storage room.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Ryan said, shaking his head.
April was feeling exactly the same way.
“Just don’t leave here to go back again without saddlebags and coats lined in gold coins,” Duster said. “Understand? Being poor in the past is
almost as bad as dying back there.”
April and Ryan both nodded.
“We’ll stock up when we get ready to go,” Duster said, “and I’ll show you how to take what you need, and how much you will need. I’m already pretty rich back there this time around, but just in case this plan doesn’t work, we’ll take enough to start over again. Now, turn the key back the other direction.”
Ryan did as Duster told him to do and the rock wall slid back into place over the fantastic room and any sign of anything being inside the rocks vanished.
Duster turned and walked away toward the kitchen, leaving Ryan and April standing there in silence in the big cavern.
“This really is a gold mine,” she said softly, shaking her head and trying her best to grasp what she had just seen. It was no wonder Duster could build them an office in Boise and buy her old company and give it to her and build a lodge in the past and furnish it and build a mansion in Boise.
From now on, she would never have to worry about money at all. After spending an entire summer in the past, the thought of where the money came from to buy all the furniture for the lodge had never crossed her mind. She had just been an employee of a rich client.
But now that she thought about it, she could be as rich as well. And would be given enough time. Which it seemed she now had.
Duster had just given them equal footing with everyone else.
He and Bonnie were really trusting her and Ryan with everything. Amazing.
She was going to make damned sure she lived up to that trust.
She looked up at Ryan’s stunned face. Finally he smiled and kissed her.
“What do you say we make it a goal,” he said, “to put more back in that room than we take out.”
She laughed and kissed him again. “I like the part about us doing it together.”
He smiled. “Never occurred to me to do it any other way.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
September 25, 1900
RYAN HAD ENJOYED the two great hours they had all spent over one of Madison’s wonderful dinners to confirm their plans. All eight of them would go back again on the same connection. And they would all stay until the spring of 1910, the year the mudslide damned up Monumental Creek and destroyed the town of Roosevelt.
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