by Romilly West
Man, was this voice in her mind lame, or what? Whoever would think such thoughts must have crawled out from under a rock. She sang louder, hoping to drown out the kooky thoughts. But as she finished up the chorus, she realized she couldn't pull her gaze away from the overhead lights, yellow, green, blue, red, pink, purple. As she watched, the separate lights fused together into one big, silvery light, which became the round disc of the moon.
And dance by the light of the moon.
Before she even knew what she was doing, Janie played a lead guitar riff on the tune of the old song she kept hearing in her head, then she sang, in a ringing voice quite unlike her own, “Buffalo Gals, won't you come out tonight and dance by the light of the moon.”
The audience laughed and clapped, assuming she was just being silly, goofing around onstage, which was perfectly normal for Janie in between songs. She loved to ham it up for audiences. But it was anything but normal now, and Janie had never felt sillier in her life.
Get out of my head, she thought fiercely, and then the weird swimmy-headed feeling left her, as though it had never been there in the first place.
Yeah, she must have been just bone-marrow tired and a little bit out of it there for a while. Whatever. Shit happened. She was better now.
###
The moon eclipsed Lucy's vision with milky white, and when a fragile cloud drifted across its silvery orb, she blinked and looked around. She was still perched on the edge of her bed, her guitar in her lap. What she'd just experienced was impossible, but somehow, after being in Janie Park's mind, she knew that the strange experience had been real. Or, more accurately, it would be real. Many years in the future.
Ma had always tried to teach her that life didn't offer much freedom for a woman, that a woman had her proper sphere, that it was simply the way things were, and that Lucy must accept it. But Lucy had never been interested in accepting anything she didn't want to accept.
What a marvelous time Janie Parks lived in, a time when women enjoyed such power, influence, and the freedom to share their talents however they chose! It was the kind of thing Lucy had dreamed of all her life. She didn't know how it had happened, but she'd been given a great gift. This tiny glimpse into another time, one in which women had much more freedom to author their futures, had given her a tremendous amount of inspiration.
From her experience with Janie Parks' mind, Lucy felt sure that Janie had never had to explain or justify her interests or life choices to other people. Whatever a lead guitarist might be, nobody had ever told Janie she couldn't follow that path because she happened to be a woman. It looked like in the next one-hundred thirty-five years, things would change significantly in that regard, considerably for the better.
Lucy wished she could live in 2015 and be a lead guitarist, too, even though Janie certainly wasn't playing on any riverboat. But she'd only been allowed a short visit. It was okay. She loved the idea of traveling up and down the Mississippi River, sharing her musical abilities and making a living from them, bringing happiness and entertainment to other people.
Tomorrow morning, she'd run away to pursue her dream.
###
The next morning, Lucy rose with the sun. In her reticule, she had money for a ticket on the stagecoach to St. Louis. From there, she'd find her way onto a riverboat. She dressed up in her prettiest dress and hat, then packed away a few other items into a suitcase. The only other thing she needed to bring was her guitar and a blanket to cushion it for the ride. She hoped her guitar wouldn't get too terribly jostled around on the stagecoach, but she simply had to bring it. She had no other way to carry it, though, except in her hand, and it wasn't a small instrument and would require a lot of room. Maybe the stage wouldn't have too many other passengers, or otherwise, someone might be able to tie it to the top of the stagecoach with her suitcase.
The important thing was that she was headed for the Mississippi River and for freedom. Quietly, holding her suitcase in one hand and her guitar in the other, Lucy stole out of the house. She hoped she looked pretty enough, and she gave the pig pen and the roaming chickens a wide berth so their barnyard smells wouldn't waft over to her and stick on her pretty dress. It wasn't a long walk to the heart of town, where the stagecoach depot was located. She ought to make it there just fine, getting just a minimum of dust on her dress.
Again, she called to mind what it had felt like to be in Janie Parks' mind. What a revelation! She'd carry the experience in her mind and her heart as long as she lived.
Amazeballs.
What a comical word. She'd have to remember that, too.
She went into the stagecoach depot and bought a ticket to St. Louis. She was the first person to arrive this early in the morning, besides the ticket master, of course, so she sat down in a chair in the office to wait. The stagecoach wouldn't be leaving for another half-hour or so. Holding her guitar on her lap, she wondered who her fellow passengers might be. She hoped they'd be nice enough to pass the time with on the ride. She was far too excited to sleep.
Sitting and waiting, Lucy was tempted to play her guitar and sing, but that wouldn't be such a good idea, sitting here at the depot. She was getting mighty restless, though, so she stood up, stretched a little—sitting around a lot certainly made a body stiff—and laid her guitar on the chair where she'd been sitting. She walked toward the door of the depot, to move around for a few minutes and work off some of her nervous excitement. As she headed out, she nearly bumped into a tall, blond-haired young man who was coming in. She looked closer at him, her eyes widening. Here was the last person she would have expected to see at the stage depot this morning, carrying a suitcase and looking like he had somewhere to run, too.
Jonathan Parks.
She hadn't thought of the young woman guitarist's last name as being the same as Jonathan's, but there it was: Janie Parks.
Lucy figured hornswaggled described her pretty well right now.
She stared up at Jonathan, her cheeks warming with surprise and a little bit of embarrassment, too. Surely, Janie having the surname Parks had to be a coincidence. Unless Janie was somehow a far future descendant of hers—and Jonathan's. She flushed hotly at the thought. Jonathan looked down at her, seeming plenty surprised and embarrassed himself, his expression a mirror of hers.
“What are you doing here?” they asked each other at the same time.
Then they both laughed a little.
“You first,” Jonathan said.
“Well...” She wouldn't beat around the bush. “I'm going to St. Louis, Jonathan. I'm sorry, but I just can't stay here in St. Sebastian anymore. I've never talked to you about this because I figured it would shock you, but since you're here, I guess you really need to know. I don't want to settle here and work as a school teacher. The thought of it bores me to death, makes me feel like I'm in a great big trap. I want to get a job on a Mississippi riverboat, singing and playing guitar.”
To her amazement, Jonathan began to chuckle. Then his chuckles became belly laughs that just kept coming and coming, as though they were erupting from an infinite source of mirth. From time to time, she'd tried to imagine what his reaction would be if she told him about her dream. She would've guessed he'd be a little shocked, then get kind of sad and ask her if she could please change her mind and stay. Never, ever would she have dreamed he'd react like this.
“Oh, Lucy,” he said, when he was finally able to get a breath. “This is rich. This is really, really rich.”
“What?” she said, completely flummoxed now.
“I'm going to St. Louis, too,” he said. “To work on a riverboat. Everyone wants me to be a preacher, and I've tried to go along, but for years now, I've wanted nothing more than to get a job on a Mississippi riverboat as a gambler, and I finally decided I just had to make the break and take the stage out of this town, because I might not ever have the chance again.” He gave her a huge grin. “So it looks like we'll both be working on riverboats. Dare I hope we wind up on the same one?”
She stared up at him, delight poking radiant fingers through her surprise and amazement. She never would have dreamed something like this, never in a million years. Jonathan, with a secret dream to work on a riverboat as a gambler. Here she'd thought he was just as boring as everyone else wanted to make him out to be. And he'd thought she was as boring as everyone else had wanted to make her out to be.
Turned out, they'd both been wrong. Completely wrong.
What a magnificent turn of events!
A few more people turned up at the stage depot, and the stage itself arrived on time, at eight o'clock on the dot. Lucy wrapped her guitar in a blanket she'd brought from home, then Jonathan helped her up into the stage after the driver stowed their luggage and her guitar on top. She settled herself into the seat, and then he made himself comfortable beside her.
They looked into each other's eyes and started to laugh again. It seemed they might never stop laughing. Lucy figured they'd be doing a lot of laughing together in the years to come. Maybe some crying, too. Every life held sorrow as well as joy. But what a pair they would make.
“Yes indeed,” she said. “This is mighty rich.”
“And you look mighty beautiful,” he said.
In the warmth of Jonathan's eyes, she saw the spark that would give rise, in years to come, to a long line of descendants, including, just perhaps in the year 2015, a fierce, commanding lead guitarist named Janie Parks.
###
About Romilly
Romilly is in love with good stories. Ever since childhood, she has read voraciously across multiple genres, and she likes to write across multiple genres, too, from the romantic to the edgy to the strange, often a combination of them all. She loves music, poetry, peace, laughter, and mountains, and she lives in Tennessee with a close circle of family.
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Time Travel Western Romance Series from Romilly
Romilly has released the Horseshoe Romance Series, and the first three novels in the series, Falling for the Marshal, A Wife for the Marshal, and Time for the Marshal, are available now. Subscribe to Romilly’s Newsletter for news and release dates for future books. When you subscribe, you’ll get access to a FREE short story.
Falling for the Marshal (Horseshoe Romance Book One)
Singer-songwriter Laura Clark is a thoroughly modern woman with an abiding fascination for the Old West. Growing up in Wyoming, Laura has always found one hero particularly intriguing: Tom Russell, the legendary marshal of Horseshoe, Wyoming. After losing her father to cancer and breaking up with her immature, self-absorbed boyfriend, Laura visits her father’s Old West museum and discovers a photograph of Tom Russell that not only captures her heart but also catapults her back in time to 1877 – the marshal’s heyday. Will the real-life man live up to his legend and, more importantly, to the image the starry-eyed Laura has built for him?
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A Wife for the Marshal (Horseshoe Romance Book Two)
Singer-songwriter Laura Clark, a thoroughly modern woman with a fascination for the Old West, has traveled back in time to 1877 and into the arms of the marshal she’s dreamed of all her life, Tom Russell. Those dreams come true when Tom begins to court her, but even though she loves the gentlemanly way Tom treats her, Laura is confused, and a little annoyed, by his old fashioned sensibilities. For his part, Tom finds it hard to wrap his mind around Laura’s modern – and to his mind scandalous – views. Can an Old West marshal and a 21st century woman find a way past their own biases and discover true love?
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Time for the Marshal (Horseshoe Romance Book Three)
Singer-songwriter Laura Clark, a thoroughly modern woman with a fascination for the Old West, has traveled back in time to 1877 and into the arms of the marshal she’s dreamed of all her life, Tom Russell. When her marshal is grievously wounded by an outlaw gunning for revenge, Laura takes him to her time, 2015, hoping modern medicine can save his life. Since the Old West has proven harrowing and dangerous for them both, Laura hopes that if her beloved Tom survives, he will adjust to life in the relative safety of the 21st century. Will Tom make the transformation to a modern lawman, or will the pressures of adapting to a new world destroy the love Tom and Laura have built?
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