Thoroughly Kissed (27 page)

The town they were in was small—she could see the end of it as they finished turning the corner—but it felt like heaven to her. She hadn't realized how unnerved she had been by the emptiness. There was a gas station with a convenience store at the far edge of town. Michael pulled in.

The cowboy was no longer anywhere to be seen.

Emma got out and stretched her legs. Darnell watched from the backseat. This time, he seemed to have no desire to get out of the car. Michael got out too, and proceeded to fill up the tank. Emma smiled. He had done that all along on the trip, just as if it were part of his job. Now she was beginning to understand why twenty-first-century women kept men around.

She went inside the store.

It smelled of wrapped plastic and cleaners, like most convenience stores did. Some dangerous looking burritos sat beside an ancient microwave, and beneath them were some cold corn dogs, along with a sign inviting her to heat them up and pay for them. She doubted that heat would make them any more palatable. She wandered the aisle, looking for something that could satisfy her sweet tooth, and finally settled on another package of Ding Dongs. Not only had Michael gotten her hooked, but she now understood the practicality of the things. If the stock in this store hadn't turned in fifty years, the Ding Dongs would still be edible.

“Lemme guess,” a voice said behind her. “Shortcut.”

She turned and saw a burly man behind the counter. He had a friendly face with a sunburn obviously left over from the year before. He wore a button-down shirt and jeans. His convenience store smock hung over a chair behind the cash register. Clearly he didn't worry much about being caught dressed improperly by the franchise owners.

“Was it that obvious?”

“Whenever I see a face I don't recognize, I know you succumbed to the temptation on the map.”

“Did we make a mistake?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” he said. “You're cutting some time off. It's just most people can't handle the deserted road. Most of them are raving for company by the time they get here.”

“I have company,” she said. “He's filling up the tank.”

The man nodded. “Good thing. This ain't a woman-alone shortcut.”

“Why?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Just don't like it when people take chances. You break down here, nobody'll know for a day, maybe more. Sometimes cell phones don't even work in this country. Interference from the hills, I think.”

“Like the radio.”

“Yep.”

“Don't you get lonely out here?” she asked.

“Gotta be a special kinda person to live here,” he said. “Me, I'm considered the sociable man in town. That's why I'm workin' here. Most folks from the area go days without talking to anyone but family.”

“Sounds like you do too.”

“Naw. We get regulars in here. Just not shortcut takers.”

“People don't repeat this trip?”

“I never seen one. And believe me, I would.”

“You'd remember, too, I suppose.”

“Oh, yeah, missy. I don't forget a face. Especially one as pretty as yours.”

She blushed like she always did, and Michael took that moment to walk in the door.

“Everything all right?” he asked, and she liked the protective sound in his voice.

“I was just complimenting your lady. I think she's probably the prettiest woman I ever seen.”

“She would be,” Michael said as he wandered toward the refrigerator units. “She's the prototype for Sleeping Beauty.”

“Michael!”

“Ain't he a rude one?” the man said. Emma wondered if he'd heard Michael's comment as an insult, and if so, exactly what kind of insult. She couldn't even venture a guess.

“I think the strain of the road's getting to him.”

“Well, if you don't want him, you're welcome to stay here.”

She smiled. “What's the attraction?”

“Spaces so wide open even jackrabbits have to carry their own lunch.” The man leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “Sometimes a person just likes to be alone.”

“That's true,” Emma said. “But I've done that. I'm ready for company.”

Michael looked at her over the row of snack-sized Doritos. She carefully did not meet his gaze.

“Well,” the man said, “you'll see more traffic once you hit the reservations, but not a lot. You'll hook back up with ninety around the battlefield. You ever been to the battlefield?”

“I've never been to a battlefield in my life,” she said, confused. “At least that I know of.”

Michael, who was still watching her, flinched. Then he opened one of the cooler's doors and took out some more bottled water.

“The Custer Memorial Battlefield. Only they politically corrected the name. I think it's the Little Bighorn Battlefield now. Either way, it's one of the more interesting places to go in these parts. I don't think it looks all that different from a hundred-odd years ago. The past really lives there.”

She opened her mouth to ask who Custer was, when Michael said, “So you recommend stopping?”

“If you got any interest in history, I sure do,” the man said. “All the land around here's filled with history. The Indian wars, white settlers, soldiers. Then there's all the stuff we don't know, from before the white man even showed up. That's the stuff I wonder about. I been thinking I should research it, but mostly I don't. I stay here, read the paper, and watch for occasional tourists.”

“Do we count as tourists?” Michael asked, bringing the water to the counter.

“I don't know how you can be anything else. You're not from here.”

Emma set her Ding Dongs beside Michael's water. He looked at her, amusement glinting in his eyes. Then he said to the man, “I thought tourists had to stay a while to count.”

“Well,” the man said, “you're staying about as long as most folks do here. So I gotta count you as something.”

“Fair enough,” Michael said, as he paid for their treats and the gas. “Thanks for your time.”

“Don't mention it,” the man said. “It's a rare treat to see a new face, especially one as pretty as yours.”

“I don't think he meant me,” Michael said when they got outside.

“Why did you tell him I was the prototype for Sleeping Beauty?” Emma asked. There was more of an edge to her voice than she had expected.

“What's he going to do, believe me?” Michael asked. “And even if he did, who would he tell? A jackrabbit?”

“We forgot to ask him what that cowboy was doing,” Emma said.

“I think that's fairly obvious,” Michael said.

“Not to me.” She opened the passenger door and slid inside. Michael went to the driver's side. That was when she realized that it was her turn to drive. She was getting less possessive about it. He would probably think that a good thing.

“I forget,” he said as he closed the door. “You're the person who has no idea who Custer is.”

Darnell yowled and stretched, as if asking what they had brought him to eat. Emma reached over the seat and scratched his ears. That didn't seem to satisfy him.

“I think I've heard of this Custer,” Emma said. “But I can't remember everything that's happened in every country in the last thousand years.”

Michael chuckled. He pulled out of the parking lot and headed west. The empty road loomed. Emma glanced back at the town. She would actually miss it, brief as her stay was. She should have asked the clerk how long it would take to get to I-90.

Best laid plans.

“George Armstrong Custer,” Michael said, “fought in the Civil War for the Union. Then he came out West to fight the ‘Injuns.' He was not a talented officer, and he made a lot of mistakes during the war, most of them covered by his superiors. Only out here, as you can tell, there's no room for mistakes.”

He rested one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the space between them.

“At Little Big Horn, he fought the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, and lost. It was his arrogance that brought him here. He was outmatched, outmaneuvered, and outgeneraled by people he considered savages. The irony was that he didn't live to see what his actions had wrought. The sadness is that he brought down a lot of good people with him.”

Emma settled back into her chair. She had underestimated Michael too. He was a good history professor. He knew the value of storytelling. His students probably loved to hear him talk about things in that professorly voice of his.

She knew she did.

“I sense there's a lot to this battle.”

“Oh, only the whole history of the West, I think. It was the last big victory for Native Americans. It's got everything from greed to valor.” Then he grinned at her. “I take it you want to hear about it?”

“You know I do.”

So Michael told her the history of the land they were driving through, and surprisingly, the trip went rather quickly.

***

There was about an hour of daylight left when they reached the Little Big Horn Memorial Battlefield. The Visitor's Center was closed, and the parking lot was empty.

“We have sixty-five miles to Billings,” Michael said, “and I doubt we'll be able to eat near here. Let's just go on.”

“After all this?” Emma said. “Let's stop for just a few minutes.”

Michael pulled into a parking space. Above him was a well-marked trail that led to a series of grass-covered hills. Some were covered with markers, and one had a monument on it. There were signs everywhere.

To the left, there was digging going on. Emma got out of the car, and walked toward it. A sign read that this was the beginning of the Indian Memorial.

“What's this?” she asked Michael as he approached.

“This is a U.S. historical site,” he said, “even though it's on Crow reservation land. If it's like any of the others out here, it'll be slanted toward the white perspective.”

“But the whites were wrong,” Emma said.

He put his arm over her shoulder. “You clearly missed centuries of manifest destiny.”

“Now that's a phrase I do remember.”

“Well remember this. It was the British who tried to conquer the world for the white man—at least they tried it first.”

She slipped her arm around his waist. “See why I don't want you to teach my medieval history classes? You forget the Vikings.”

He let out a small sigh.

“I think there's an argument to be made that it was the Norse blood, running through English veins, that led them to try to conquer the world.”

“Do me a favor,” he said. “Don't write that as your next book.”

“I promise,” she said. “Maybe I'll just write
Memoirs of Sleeping Beauty
.”

“Strangely enough,” he said, “I think that'll sell.”

“A book about sleeping? Don't hold your breath.”

They walked up the paved trail toward the hills. The man from that town had been right; Emma could feel the history here. Although she wondered if it might be because she had just heard the entire tale from Michael. Or perhaps there were restless ghosts here, ghosts that were still fighting a battle from long ago.

“Do all battlefields feel like this?” she asked.

“Recent ones,” he said. “The battlefields from the World Wars have this feeling. But I went to the site of the Battle of Hastings where—”

“It's my specialty,” Emma said. “Even the worst medieval history professor knows that battle. Without it, William wouldn't have Conquered.”

“Just testing,” Michael said with a grin. “Anyway, I didn't feel anything there. It was as if the ghosts had finally been laid to rest.”

“You think it was just time? Or do you think that different battles did it?”

“Time,” he said. “I've been to a lot of ancient battle sites in England, and they don't have the resonance of these more modern ones.”

“Ancient battle sites,” Emma said. “It's still hard for me to hear about something that happened nearly a lifetime after I was born being called ‘ancient.'”

“Sorry,” Michael said. “I never think of you that way.”

“As ancient?” She turned to him, trying to look stern. “You want to try that again?”

“As someone born so long ago,” he said.

“You mean someone old?”

“Emma…”

She laughed. “Oh, this could be fun.”

“Hasn't anyone else ever teased you about your age?”

“The mortals who know about it know Aethelstan, and he's older than I am. Besides, my age was kind of a touchy topic around them.”

Michael nodded. He opened the small gate that led to Custer Hill. A big monument stood to one side. Emma looked out over the surrounding countryside. Tall brown grass as far as the eye could see. There were some trees near the river, a touch of green on a brown ocean.

There was so little here. It was hard to understand why anyone would fight over this land, and yet they had. Fighting for land had been important throughout human history. She simply hadn't understood why until she owned her own house.

She hoped she would be able to go back to it someday.

“You seem down,” Michael said.

“No,” she said. “Just thinking of home.”

He nodded. She had no idea if he understood what she meant, and she wasn't going to clarify, not at the moment.

Michael was right; the notices and the histories were written from a decidedly pro-white perspective. It seemed like some changes were tacked onto the bottom of signs, but everything felt uncomfortably skewed to her.

Instead she wandered over the path. A wind had come up, and clouds were blowing in. Toward the west, one of the clouds had become fuzzy. It was raining out there.

Here, the sun was going down, and its brilliant light was painting the clouds red and gold. The land wasn't much, but the sky was spectacular. The reds and golds against the vivid blue made her breath catch.