by Sarah Dreher
“Is it usual to keep these in a barn?”
“Nobody in their right mind would do that,” Billy said.
“So,” Stoner said. She set the can to one side. “We know this was arson.”
“Excuse me,” Billy said, “but we already knew that.”
“But the arsonist was careless. Chances are he or she left other clues.” She began picking through the rubble.
“Stoner,” Billy said. “Do we know what we’re looking for?”
“Not really,” she admitted.
Billy shrugged. “Well, whatever you say. But it seems like a funny way to spend your time.”
“What we need to understand,” Stoner said as she turned over a half-charred board and searched the ground beneath, “is the motive. Why would someone want to burn these people out?”
“I don’t know.” Billy squatted down and scowled at the ground. “Most folks liked them. Far as I know, they didn’t owe any money, and they went to church regularly.”
“No enemies?”
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“What about the others?” She saw something—a bit of hard material, she thought—sticking out from under a rock, and wiggled it gently.
“Some were liked, some not.”
“No pattern?” The piece of material came free in her hand. She turned it over. It looked like part of a bridle.
“I haven’t thought about it much, but...” Billy shook her head. “Those folks didn’t have much in common other than they lived here.”
“Do you know of anyone who might be trying to destroy Tabor?” She tossed the bridle back into the ashes and went on searching.
Billy stirred the dirt. “Seems to me, if you didn’t like it here, you’d just move away.”
“You’re being blamed for some of these fires. Is there anyone who’d want to get rid of you?”
“It’d be easy enough to chase me off. You wouldn’t have to burn down the town.” Billy took out her gun and checked the cylinder.
“Dot thinks you have an unhealthy attachment to that thing,” Stoner said.
“I know.”
“Do you really need it?”
“Feels like I do.” She gave the cylinder a twirl. “I keep thinking something terrible’s going to happen any day, and I want to be ready.”
“With a gun?”
Billy looked up at her. Her eyes were deep with fear. “What if they do decide I set these fires? What if the law comes after me? I have to protect myself.”
Stoner felt a huge, warm rush of sympathy for her. Billy wasn’t a runner. She could sense that. And she wanted to belong, so much so she stayed around Tabor despite the danger, despite the way she was treated. Maybe, if they really could solve these burnings—if Billy could solve them, maybe she’d be accepted. Maybe the town would rally around her and protect her. Maybe...
It seemed like a pretty far-fetched wish.
But Aunt Hermione believed in the powers of will and visualization.
She promised herself she’d hop up to the Causal Plane and try to make it happen. Every chance she got.
And meanwhile try to accomplish something on this Plane.
For now, she wanted to take Billy in her arms and hold her. Just hold her.
Billy bent down and came up with something that sparkled in the sunlight. “What do you make of this?”
It was a knife. A regular, bone-handled knife, but rather small and delicate. Almost like a fillet knife.
Stoner took it, ran her thumb carefully along the blade. Sharp as a razor. She held it up. “How common are knives like this?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.”
“Aha.”
“Aha?”
“We’d better keep it. It could be important.”
Billy tossed the knife into the wagon.
“Careful!” Stoner said. “Don’t smudge the fingerprints.”
“Why not?”
“They can be useful. If the arsonist has a record, his or her prints will be on file with the FBI. If we can lift one off the knife and match it...” She broke off, remembering where she was, feeling foolish.
“What’s the FBI?”
“A Federal law enforcement agency.”
Billy went back to studying the ground. “Really? What do they do?”
“Probably nothing, yet.”
“That’s another one of those things, huh?”
“What things?”
“Things from wherever you’re from.”
“Right.” She went back to poking in the soil, but her heart wasn’t in it.
“Listen,” Billy said, “there’s something I have to tell you.”
Stoner looked up.
Billy sat back on her heels. “That day, when we went looking for your machine, remember?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Remember how I kissed you that day?”
Stoner nodded.
“I guess it was okay with you because you didn’t slap my face or anything.”
“It was okay.”
Billy stared at her boldly. “I know you thought I was a boy, and that made it okay. So now you know I’m not and maybe it’s not all right any more, but...”
“It’s...”
Billy cut her off. “Please, let me say what I have to say. It’s not easy, but I’ve been working on it for a long time and I have to say it.” She took a deep breath. “A lot of folks would think what I did was a nasty thing on account of we’re both females. And if you think it’s nasty, I’m sorry. But I’m not ashamed, because I meant it and the feeling behind it was a good feeling. I loved you a little that day, and I love you a lot now. There’s nothing nasty about loving someone, and I won’t let you or anybody else tell me there is.” She dared her with her eyes. “And that’s all.”
Stoner went to her and touched her face. “I don’t think it’s nasty. I think it’s one of the loveliest things I’ve ever heard.”
Billy shrugged. “I’m not real good with words.”
“Yes, you are.” She took Billy’s hand, knowing she had to say something but not knowing what to say. How to explain. About Time, and Gwen. “It’s so complicated.”
Billy extricated her hand from Stoners’ and turned to the wagon. “Let’s go to Dot’s,” she said lightly and quickly. “We can eat on the way.”
“If you want to.”
“Well, I don’t want to stand around here feeling all awkward and funny.”
The sun had passed noon. Already the breeze was turning colder.
“Don’t you want to talk...”
“No. I said what I had to say, and that’s all there is to say about it.” She picked up the reins. “For cryin’ out loud, do you want to freeze to death, or what?”
Stoner took one last look around. They weren’t going to find anything else here. She climbed into the wagon.
Love, she thought.
Here she was, lost in time and space, which was enough to cause anyone serious First-Run nightmares. And now this woman was in love with her. And, to tell the truth, she was a little bit in love with this woman.
If I let myself, I could love her greatly.
But if I let myself love her and I get whisked back to the Twentieth Century the way I got whisked into this one...
Or wake up in a hospital bed and find out this was all caused by a cerebral hemorrhage or mental illness or something...
...My heart will break.
And what about Gwen? I love Gwen. Part of what I love about Billy is the way she reminds me of Gwen.
Which isn’t fair to Billy.
But, if Blue Mary and Aunt Hermione are right, if we really do keep going around, lifetime after lifetime with the same spirits in different bodies, then Aunt Hermione is Blue Mary, and Blue Mary is Aunt Hermione, and Billy is Gwen, and Gwen is Billy, and a rose is a rose is...
So if I let myself love Billy, I’m really loving Gwen.
As the I Ching says, no blame.
But it’s my 198
9 self loving her 1871 self. What are the ethics in that?
Not that there’s anything wrong with loving Billy. Love is a blessing, and there’s plenty to go around.
It’s acting on that love that could be problematic.
The complications were multiplying geometrically.
Chapter Nine
“If what I told you is going to make you so quiet,” Billy said as the town came into sight, “I’m going to regret having said it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Billy shot her a tentative smile. “What is, is, and what isn’t, isn’t.”
Stoner returned her smile. “Well, that’s profound.”
“I don’t want to lose your friendship. That’s what matters the most.”
Recognizing the truth in that, she felt herself relax. “Yes, it does.”
But she wondered if it was really that easy?
They rode in silence for a little while. “You’re a hard woman, Stoner,” Billy said at last.
“What do you mean?”
“I offer to take you for a drive. We spend half the day picking around in old burnt-up fire ashes, and now you won’t let us eat.”
Stoner laughed and reached for the picnic basket. “Did you put this up?”
“Me? Shoot, I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I’ve had your stew. It was fine.”
“Yeah, but that’s all I can make—stew.”
She peeked under the napkin, praying it wasn’t one of Lolly’s lunches. Yesterday’s treats had met her rich-food needs for a month.
Cheese and bread, a bottle of water, and a hunk of summer sausage. “Oh, thank God,” she said.
“Dot did it.” She glanced over. “Worried?”
“A little.”
“I thought about asking Cherry to make us a picnic, but I didn’t want to spend all winter getting teased.”
“It seemed to me,” Stoner said, “Lolly was putting the pressure on Cherry pretty hard.”
“Yeah, she gets her to come through about once a month.”
“She might have used me as an excuse today.”
Billy chuckled. “Honey,” she said in a perfect imitation of Cherry’s voice, “it worked once, but you are not all that exciting.”
“Thanks for the compliment.” She took the bread from the basket, rummaged until she found a carving knife, and made Billy a sandwich and one for herself.
“It’s nice, their friendship.”
Billy nodded, chewing thoughtfully on her sandwich.
“It reminds me of me and Marylou, kind of.”
“Marylou?”
“My business partner. She bullies me, just the way they do each other.” She took a sip of water. “Come to think of it, it’s her fault I’m here.”
Billy looked at her. “It is?”
“I was making a mess of things back at the Agency. Sometimes I think I’m not cut out for that kind of work.”
“Don’t look to me for advice,” Billy said. “I don’t even understand that kind of work.”
They were going downhill now, coming close to town. Billy pulled back lightly on the brake. “This old mule’s so doggone lazy,” she said, “the wagon’d catch up with him and run him down if we weren’t careful.” She laughed. “Any mule’s lazy, but when you get yourself a lazy one...”
Just looking at her, strong against the sky, made Stoner’s skin hum. She wanted to ride like this all day.
“Billy.”
“Um?”
“Take your hat off, would you?”
She stuffed it under the wagon seat and ran her hands through her hair, loosening it.
Stoner reached over. “You really have lovely hair.”
“Thanks,” Billy said gruffly, and blushed a little. “Looks kinda choppy since I cut it.”
“I don’t think so. Back home, you’d probably start a trend.”
“Goodness,” Billy said. She was silent for a moment. “You know the worst thing about these plains?”
Stoner shook her head.
“There’s nowhere to go that you can’t be seen for a hundred miles.”
“I know.”
“I’d like to just hold you. Nothing to scare you or make you go all funny, nothing like that. I just want to remember what it’s like to hold you. I haven’t done that since you were sick.”
“And I missed it.” She remembered something Gwen had once called them, before they were lovers. Romantic friends. She liked that. “I want to hold you, too.”
A few more moments went by.
“Folks out here wouldn’t take kindly to that,” Billy said.
“Well,” Stoner said, “that hasn’t changed much in a hundred years.”
Her mind was racing. They could go to Blue Mary’s, but Blue Mary was probably there. There was no privacy at Dot’s Gulch. Billy’s dugout was impossible—the rains that had melted the freak snow had pretty much done it in. Billy had been staying in the storeroom at Dot’s ever since, and the traffic in and out of there was endless, especially at this time of day. And out here, the sky so wide, where you could be seen for miles... it felt too exposed, too raw.
“What are you thinking?” Billy asked.
“Not much.”
A wave of sadness swept over her. They wanted to hold each other, that was all. Just hold each other. And they couldn’t even do that. That simple, tender gesture that wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not even that.
Just like at home.
Billy took her hand. “It’s an ungiving world, Stoner.”
Stoner nodded and let herself feel Billy’s hand tucked around hers.
It would have to do.
≈ ≈ ≈
“Son!”
She glanced over to her right. The crudely-built, whitewashed, pine-slab church building stood like a fort on a hilltop. Its spire stabbed the water-color sky. The doors were open. A middle-aged man in black wool pants, rolled-up shirt-sleeves, and a faded paisley vest ran down the path toward them.
“Rats,” Billy muttered under her breath. “It’s the Old Booger.” She rammed her hat on her head and lifted the reins to give the mule a hurry-up nudge.
Stoner put a hand on her arm. “Hold it.”
“What?”
“You don’t want to alienate everyone in this town, do you? Not without provocation.”
“I have provocation. I’ve been provoked on and off ever since I set foot in Tabor.”
“Well, just in case things work out so you can settle down here—though God knows why you want to—try to keep a lid on your temper, okay?”
Billy sighed heavily.
The preacher reached the wagon just as Billy brought it to a halt. “Afternoon, son,” he said. “My good wife told me what happened to you at the Emporium last week. I’m so terribly sorry.”
Willing enough to pass it along, but she didn’t do anything to stop it., Stoner thought. She forced herself to hold her tongue.
Billy slouched down in the seat and eyed the preacher warily.
“I’ve had a talk with Mr. Hayes. It won’t happen again.”
“Well,” Billy said awkwardly, “thanks.”
“It’s a hard life we have here,” the preacher explained, and smiled in Stoner’s direction. “Sometimes people forget the niceties.”
Niceties? Simple human decency is a “nicety”? “I see,” she said.
The man turned back to Billy. “Son, I haven’t met your friend.”
Billy pulled her hat lower. “Stoner McTavish,” she mumbled. “From back east.”
“Scotsman?”
“Mostly.”
“Welcome to Tabor.” He made a little bow. “Henry Parnell, at your service.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Stoner reached down to shake hands, and realized too late that ladies probably didn’t do that sort of thing out here.
Parnell hesitated, shot her the “what’s-a-woman-doing-in-men’s-clothes?” look she was rapidly becoming accustomed to, then grasped her fingertips and gave them a brief
waggle. It was sort of like picking up an earthworm.
She reminded herself that this man had intervened on Billy’s behalf on more than one occasion, and tried to choke down her feeling of distaste.
“I hope you’re enjoying your stay with us,” he said.
No, I am not enjoying my stay. I don’t want to be here, I don’t know how I got here, I want to go home, and I think your town is a thoroughly unpleasant place that I don’t care if I never see again in this life or any other. “Yes,” she said. “Very much.”
Billy snorted through her nose. Stoner surreptitiously stepped on her foot.
“It would give us the greatest pleasure,” Parnell said, “if you would join us for Sunday services.”
“Thank you,” Stoner said, having no intention of taking him up on it. “I may do that.”
“I notice you’ve been out the Allen's’ direction.” He shook his head sadly. “Terrible situation. Just terrible.”
“It looked pretty bad,” Stoner said.
The preacher straightened his vest. “I sent for the Marshall quite a while ago. I wonder if they even plan to send one.”
“Surely they would,” Stoner said.
He sighed. “This is a big territory, and U.S. Marshals are few and far between.” Parnell smiled, showing his teeth. “Forgive me. It’s much too nice a day to be gloomy. But I do worry about my flock.”
158
Billy uttered a grunt of impatience.
“William,” Parnell said, “I need a small favor from you.”
Billy glanced up.
“There’s a stack of lumber out behind the church. Could you take it out to my good wife?”
“Dunno,” Billy said. “This ain’t my wagon.”
“We’d be glad to,” Stoner cut in.
Parnell expressed an oily smile. “Bless you both.” He backed away from the wagon and turned to go. “We’ll be looking forward to seeing you Sunday, Miss McTavish.”
≈ ≈ ≈
The red-haired girl hadn’t minded that Cullum was a bounty hunter. Most folks looked down on that way of life, though they were willing enough to pay him to do their dirty work. Hell, way he figured, he was like the buzzards and vultures and carrion crows. Ugly as sin, but the world surely would be a stinking place if they didn’t do what they were made to do.