OverTime 1 - Searching (Time Travel) (7 page)

As I made for the door I noticed Garrison take a subtle step, staying between me and them. "She cain
't cook no how," he offered, as if to console them. "Leastwise not poultry. Best go mount."

That last sentence was, I realized, directed at me. I hesitated only a moment; were they going to actually fight over me? I should try to stop it—I knew that, sensed it deep down inside me where I
'd once been a real person. But no words came to me to neutralize the situation, no brilliant plan of action. Whoever I'd once been wasn't offering any suggestions. All I had were orders from Cowboy Garrison.

That, and a serious need to not stay here.

Chapter 4 – The Herd

I felt disoriented as I hurried out into the heat. Whoever I was, I couldn
't be from someplace like this! The little farm with its garden-plot fields and its dirt house had taken on an ominous, foreign air. Even the rope-o-horses seemed....

What?
The horses stood idly by, facing off against the yard pigs and flicking away flies. What could be so strange about them? Valley Boy tossed his head at me in badly needed welcome, and I barely held my bolt toward him to a nervous stride, not wanting to "spook" him.
Something awful had happened
. And considering my recent proposal of marriage, something awful might happen yet unless I got my butt on this horse and got the hell out of....

...out of where?  I hesitated as a familiar name tickled the tip of my tongue.
Get the hell out of....

But the thought vanished. And there hung the stirrup, waist high to me. So much for a fast getaway.

Trapped by my own incompetence, I leaned my forehead against the sun-warmed leather of the saddle and closed my eyes in frustration. Had I always been this useless? I had food and clothing only because of Garrison, and now the Peaveses. Truth be told, all three of them scared me, although for different reasons. But I, unable to even mount my own rent-a-horse alone, scared myself most of all.

Who was I? I knocked my forehead gently against the saddle, and the wall of horsiness beneath, to jiggle the information loose. It had to be in my head somewhere; it
had
to. 
Who was I
? If I only tried hard enough....

Something bumped my shoulder, distracting me from that less-than-stellar technique of memory recovery, and I turned my head in that direction. Valley Boy swung his big, brown, whiskery nose—and mouth—at me again, and I stepped quickly back with a squeak. Do horses bite?

He tossed his head in a way that made me think of laughter. Now even the animals were mocking me.
Do horses bite?
Oh puh-leeze! But it made me laugh a weak, snoggy laugh at myself. I really
was
the complaining-est gal, wasn't I? Well no more! At least, not until I'd escaped the threat of becoming Mrs. Martha Peaves II and found some freaking civilization, with doctors and restaurants and communication, where someone would give a rat's ass about my situation. I stepped back to Valley Boy's side, grasped the high saddle horn with my left hand and used my right to haul my booted foot up, up, up. My oversized toe touched leather and then—yes! I had achieved stirrup! Now I grabbed the back of the saddle with my freed right hand and not only hopped but, on the third hop,
hauled
—

And I successfully flopped across the saddle on my stomach. Victory!

From there it took only minor effort to swing my right leg over Valley Boy's butt, to wriggle myself into sitting position and find the other stirrup with my right foot. I patted him on the neck, immensely pleased with myself. I was not only fully clothed but I'd gotten on a horse, all by myself. Wait 'til Garrison saw!

One worry, though. During the duration of my horseback ballet, Garrison hadn
't made it out.

It was hard to imagine the cowboy being bested, even two-to-one by men who outsized him
and
had the home-field advantage. But with the animosity that had hung between farmer and cowman from the start, it didn't take much to remember the big pistol on Garrison's hip, and the really big rifle with which Sherman Peaves had first greeted us. What if the argument escalated? Would I hear anything, through those stacked dirt walls?

I could easily picture some kind of dramatic showdown, spurs ringing on a dusty street, hands hovering in readiness to draw, undertaker standing eagerly by.
Too easily
. We didn't have dusty streets or undertakers here, and Garrison was the only one who'd worn spurs, but that's still what I envisioned and with startling clarity. Was it a memory? Twisting in Valley Boy's saddle to check, I saw with mixed relief that our rifle was still holstered out here.

With me.

Whoever I was, did I know how to use a rifle? I extended a tentative hand, gingerly touched the worn wooden end that stuck out of its leather scabbard—

—and jumped guiltily at footsteps from the house.

I felt greater relief at Garrison's appearance
before
he narrowed his eyes at me and the rifle. He didn't say anything, though. He just walked past me, now wearing his vest and old-fashioned coat, and proceeded to wordlessly show Wendell Peaves one of our horses. Sherman disappeared around the back of the cabin, which made me nervous. Was he going for reinforcements? Planning an ambush? Garrison seemed unconcerned, which in turn made me feel confused and over-reactive. What had happened?

I ended up venting my frustration by combing snarls out of my hair with my fingers. We weren
't at the table anymore.

The horse Garrison and Peaves examined was a scruffy black one with white feet. The two men silently noted the horse
's teeth, its eyes, its shoulders and legs, its four whole feet. I could empathize. When Sherman appeared again, it was with a very large cloth sack full of something lumpy. Garrison nodded toward me. Sherman blushed and headed in my direction. My heartbeat sped into double-time.

Surely he didn
't
trade
for me—did he?

As Sherman drew closer, I reached oh-so-subtly behind me, let my fingers brush the rifle again. I didn
't know if I could shoot him, if I could shoot anyone, but maybe if I pointed it at him they would at least let me go... somewhere.

Anywhere other than here.

Then Sherman gingerly took a coil of rope from the saddle, by my knee and used it to tie the sack onto another of our horses. He was blushing.

Oh. I moved my hand away from the rifle before anybody could notice it and wished, again, that things made sense.

The Peaveses got the black horse. We got the big sack and the clothes I wore. Garrison said, "Obliged," and swung easily onto his horse before reclaiming the rope attached to the rest of our remuda. He glanced expectantly at me, then at the Peaveses.

Thinking I
'd change my mind? I could barely look at them, the peg-legged father doubting my future without their protection against Texas cowboys, the son still eyeing me like I was all he wanted for Christmas. But when I turned back to Garrison, the distaste in his expression—distaste aimed dead at
me
—made me even more uncomfortable than either Peaves had. So I didn't look at anybody. I busied myself with securing my hair up under little drowned Eb's hat and gathering Valley Boy's reins the way I'd been shown.

Finally, too slowly for a self-respecting getaway, we escaped the farm—and at least a little of the disorientation.

Only after fields and hut had faded into the rolling golden background did I summon up the courage to ride more or less abreast of Garrison and ask, "So what happened in there?"

His glance in my direction had the gall to look irate and, moreso, confused. But I
'd seen that brief, coiled anger in him, fierce and capable of... of things better left unimagined. I'd seen it, as sure as I knew my own—well, as sure as I knew my own gender, anyway. Something
could
have happened.

"In the, uh, house," I clarified. "Why did they let me go so easily?"

He widened his eyes, as if to ask why they wouldn't.

"You saw how determined they were—they thought I
'd marry them!" I shuddered at the thought.

"You
'd be a prize," he drawled, looking forward.

"As if what I wanted didn
't even—what did you say?" But he didn't repeat himself. I had to urge Valley Boy farther forward, several times, to duck my head and get a decent look at Jacob Garrison's bearded face. Distaste again tightened his mouth. "Excuse me, but was that sarcasm I just heard?"

His cool eyes sliced in my direction before returning to the fascination of sheer nothingness—grass and sky, yay—that spread around us. That expression, I decided, must be cowboy for
Duh
.

"You don
't know any more about me than I do," I defended, surprisingly hurt by his low opinion—and after I'd climbed onto my horse alone and everything! "I could be a wonderful person. There might be someone marvelous somewhere, looking for me right now!"

He spoke as if to a two-year-old. "Ain
't somewhere, it's Kansas. Hard land. No insult to offer shelter."

"They offered
marriage.
"

"Only way proper."

Excuse me? "I didn't ask to stay," I pointed out. Then, a few beats too late for the right effect, "I'm proper!" In fact, I let go of the saddle horn to examine my soft right hand. "I might even be a lady."

He shook his head.
"Weren't nothin' shameful 'bout 'em," he drawled, stubborn. "Aside from bein' nesters. Hard workin'."

Had I rejected them for being lazy? Heck, had I even rejected them for living in a dirt house?  Well... maybe
partly
because of the house. But more because of the lack of boundaries and, hey here's a thought, maybe because I didn't know them, much less love them, much less
belong with them
.

I returned to my first question. "So you didn
't have to threaten them, then? Pull your six shooter? Slug it out? Warn them that this gal wasn't big enough for the both of you? What convinced them to let me head out with a drover?"

Garrison squinted a bit as if I was crazy. But I
was
crazy, wasn't I?
Touched in the head.
"Told 'em to."

"That
's all?" On second thought, a direct order from this man might be more than enough for the weak of heart.

"Been better from you," chided Miss Manners.

I didn't even bother to wonder where that term,
Miss Manners
, came from. "I said no! 'No' means 'no!'" And where had I heard
that
before?

"
'D'ruther not,'" he corrected, his drawl mocking my earlier equivocation.

"
'I'd rather not' means 'no,' too! It's just more... diplomatic."

He didn
't deign to comment. In the meantime, I was beginning to give more credence to Wendell Peaves' warnings. "I
will
be okay at this cow-camp of yours, won't I?"

"If
'n you refrain from your toiletries afore them lonely boys," he warned.

From my
what? Toiletries?
Luckily I figured out what he meant before I could make a more obvious stupid assumption. "You mean my
hair?
I should hide away somewhere to comb my hair?"

Curt nod.

"Why?"

"
'Tain't modest," he clarified, with only an implied
you ignorant slut
.

"So cowboys like modest women," I pursued, and he startled me by pulling up on his reins, so that his horse stopped, and catching Boy
's bridle so that mine did too. The other four horses started to wander past us, like boats in a light current, until they reached the end of their...well, rope.

"Ain
't supposed to like you," he explained with a finality that brooked no argument. "Supposed to leave you be."

So I didn
't argue. Not exactly. "Well that shouldn't be a problem—I hear I'm no prize!"

He closed his eyes, as if he hoped I wouldn
't be there when he opened them. Of course, I was. This didn't seem to make him happy. He let go of Boy's bridle, clucked his horses into motion again, and ignored me.

"Why didn
't you just leave me there?"

Nothing.

I reminded myself that whether I liked it or not, I owed him. For the moment, that pissed me off. So I reminded myself that I was next to helpless without him. And he
was
better than the Peaveses... I hoped.

I also hoped that Sherman Peaves was right and I was a lady. I hoped I could pay Garrison for his help once we reached civilization, add a nice tip for the oh-so-charming company, and that would be that. Even-steven.