Riding Shotgun (36 page)

The sound of a telephone ringing down at the reception room, such a familiar sound yet now so alien, irritated her even more than the electric light.

Her right shoulder ached so she rolled on her stomach to avoid pressing her back against the bed. That didn’t feel much better. She was restless and out of sorts.

The split second she had laid eyes on Hunter and Laura carried her through the raw misery gnawing at her entrails. She knew Fitz was dead despite her prayers. Not just because it was 1995 and he’d been dead for almost three hundred years. The cry of pain she’d heard behind her in the fog was the last sound he made.

“So this was the trade-off of the gods? In exchange for seeing my children again they get the man I love.” A flash of bitterness opened her eyes again.

To never see Fitz’s strong sensuous mouth, hear his lilting Irish voice—the visceral reality of him overwhelmed her. Gone, as were Margaret’s kindness and Tom’s ready laugh. Lionel DeVries’s imposing presence had vanished before the Revolutionary War. Unless Abraham Boothrod lived to an advanced old age that sweet young man had aged and died before the colonies became independent as well. Time could be measured in nanoseconds, yet this was an exercise in futility for Chronos always won.

We will die. Time remains eternal
.

Hot tears splashed on her pillow. She could hear the lap of the James on the riverbank and John MacKinder’s deep baritone as he sang out, pushing into the current.

The door opened a crack. She wiped her eyes on the pillow lifting her head. As she was looking behind her, over her shoulder, she couldn’t really see so she sat up.

“You’re awake.”

“Yes. How long have you been here?”

“I rode in the ambulance with you.” Grace walked over and pulled up the small, uncomfortable chair by the night stand. She sat down and snapped on the bedside lamp. “You were out cold for over an hour. We thought you had a concussion but you didn’t. That cut on your back is nasty. I’d sure as hell like to find whoever pulled that stunt.” Her voice vibrated.

“We’ll never find them,” Cig matter-of-factly stated.

“What makes you say that?” Grace reached for Cig’s hand. Cig pulled it away.

“Whoever cut me up has disappeared in the fog.”

“That was weird wasn’t it, that fog?” Grace was troubled by Cig’s withdrawal.

“It’s funny though. Sometimes you need the fog to see clearly. We trust our eyes too much and our instincts too little.”

“Well, I’m not ready for Philosophy 101 at four in the morning, but I am glad you’re all right. Bill Dominquez says you can go home Monday. The doctor on duty down in the E.R. said it looks like you were shot with some kind of arrow.”

“Stone head?”

Grace’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

“A guess.”

“Well, that’s what Dr. Sonneshine said—a steel-tipped arrow would have made a more uniform trench. Sorry—” She wished she hadn’t used that word
trench
.

“It’s all right.”

“Bet it hurts like hell.”

“Starting to.” Cig asked, “How are Hunter and Laura?”

“Fine now that they know you’re okay. They drove the rig home, along with Harleyetta and Roberta, and took care of the horses, so don’t worry about that. Then the kids brought some clothes for you. They stayed until eleven when I made them go home. Bill Dominquez and Dr. Sonneshine assured them that you were none the worse for wear, you just needed to sleep and so did they. After a ceremonial tussle they finally left.”

“Thanks.” Cig lapsed back on her pillow, a mistake. She winced then sat up again and plumped the pillow behind the small of her back.

“Here, let me help.” Grace took the other pillow and put it under Cig’s knees. “Always makes me feel better. Can’t do anything about your back but I can make you more comfortable in other places.

“Will came by while you were asleep. He said he’d drop by out at the farm later in the week.”

“That was good of him.”

“It was,” Grace agreed.

Cig studied the perfect face before her, a slant of bright light across the porcelain skin, a flash of those big blue eyes. She had forgiven her at Margaret’s bidding. But back here she would have to forgive her all over again. It was one thing to recall betrayal. Quite another to have the betrayer in your face. “Grace, do you love me?”

“Cig—of course I love you. You’re my sister.”

“Lots of sisters hate each other.”

“I do love you. I’d love you even if you weren’t my sister.”

Cig turned the light a bit more toward Grace. “Did you think Blackie and I were well suited?”

“Now how many times over the years have we talked about that?” A hint of impatience crept into the modulated voice. “No. You two weren’t the right two people. Maybe he wasn’t the right person. I don’t know.”

Cig switched the subject.

“I’d like to pick up the Deyhle papers, the ones you have, on my way home.”

“You can borrow whatever you want.” Grace wondered about Cig’s mental state. She had never been interested in such things before, and it was an abrupt request for a woman sitting up
in
a hospital bed.

“I’m acting weird? You’re looking at me as if I’m weird.”

“Someone near killed you. That would make me a little weird myself.”

“Do me a favor.” Cig felt exhausted. “Go home and
gather up the Deyhle papers. I’ll stop by and pick them up. And if I’m strange or spacey—don’t worry about it.”

Worried, Grace said, “All right.”

Cig fell asleep. Grace put her hand on her sister’s forehead. She felt feverish. Grace checked her watch then reported to the nurse on duty that she thought Cig’s temperature was too high. The nurse came in, felt her forehead and said not to worry. She didn’t think it could be more than a degree above normal. Let her sleep.

Harleyetta came to work at seven A.M., popped her head in the room and saw Grace, fully clothed, stretched out in the bed next to Cig. She threw a blanket over Grace then quietly shut the door as she left the room.

“Mom, are you sure you’re okay?” Hunter anxiously asked as he kept his eyes on the road. The old Toyota truck rattled and bumped. He’d cut school to pick his mother up at the hospital, the only time she ever countenanced such behavior. He made Laura go to school though, and she vowed never to forgive or forget. Hunter figured she would forgive him fast enough if he double-dated with her and Parry Tetrick.

“A little shaky, honey.” She stared out the window, trying to get some perspective.

“Does your back hurt?”

“Stings.”

“Mom, I’ll find out who did this. I’1I kill the bastard.” His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

“Revenge is a waste of time. You won’t find them. Sometimes people literally get away with murder. What’s important is that I’m back. I mean I’m here, I’m healthy, and I’d just as soon forget the entire incident.”

“I don’t know if I could,” he said honestly.

“You’ll be amazed at what you can do in this life.” She
turned and smiled at him and thought she’d never seen a young man more beautiful than her son. “And I’m here to see you do it.”

He swiveled to catch her eye for a second then looked back to the road. “Mom, are you keeping something from me? I mean are you sick or something?”

“Just at heart. I’m as healthy as Full Throttle.”

“What do you mean at heart? Dad?”

Her hand fluttered then returned to the Jesus strap over the passenger window. They always called it the Jesus strap because you usually said “Jesus” if you had to use it to hang on. “Yes and no. I think I’m having my midlife crisis. It’s like being an adolescent in reverse.”

“Buy a Porsche like Uncle Will.”

“If I had Uncle Will’s money I just might.” She inhaled. “If I’m a little out there these next few days or even weeks, cut me some slack, huh?”

“Yeah.” He pulled into Grace’s perfectly manicured driveway, stopping in front of the dark green door with a fan window above it and glass side panels as well. “You stay here, Mom, I’ll go in and get the papers.”

“Those old bound books are heavy as horseshoes. I’ll help.”

“No, Mom. You aren’t lifting anything. I’ll only be a minute.” He slid out, shutting the door behind him, then asked through the window, “Think Aunt Grace will be awake?”

“Tiptoe in, just in case.”

Hunter opened the front door. Grace had stacked the Deyhle papers in bankers’ boxes each marked with the dates. He carried four boxes, stacking two on the floor of the little truck. Cig had to put her feet up on them. One box sat between them and she held one on her lap.

“You doing research?”

“I need to know where I’ve been, or we’ve been, before I know where I’m going. Make sense?”

“Kinda.”

“Where’d you get that cool knife?” Hunter noticed the Indian knife in the small pile of Cig’s riding gear. “And I don’t remember a silk stock tie.”

“Long story. I’ll save it for a rainy day.”

When Hunter drove up to the house and Woodrow and Peachpaws scampered out, Cig threw open the door, hopped out juggling the box, putting it back on the seat, and scooped up the rotund kitty, hugging the dog as she knelt down. “Woodrow, oh, Woodrow, you don’t know how happy I am to see you.”

Hunter laughed. “Mom, you’d think you’d been gone for years.”

“Feels like it,” she said simply, hugging the violently purring animal. She thought of Smudge, Nell Gwyn, and Highness, Margaret’s cats. She thought of Margaret with a sadness so profound she thought she would perish from the pain. Margaret was dust.

She walked into the kitchen followed by her brood. Hunter toted in the bankers’ boxes. A pink stack of phone messages festered on her hole-in-the-wall desk. Papers spilled out of the fax machine. Hunter placed the books on the table and picked up the fax papers.

Cig threw them back on the floor to her son’s surprise. “I doubt there’s one damn thing of significance.”

“Guess not.” He opened the refrigerator, taking out a Coke.

“Oh God.” She leaped for the refrigerator grabbing a cold can. “You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted one of these.”

“No Coke in the hospital?”

“Pepsi.” It was a white lie but how do you tell your son you’ve been on a jaunt of nearly three hundred years?

“I’m going to the stable.”

“I’ll come with you. I can pick stalls. I’m not helpless.”

“No, no, you rest. You had a shock, Mom. It won’t kill you to take it easy for one day.”

“I’m not an invalid.”

“Only mentally,” he teased.

“All right, smartass.” She sat down in the kitchen chair, marveling at how familiar yet miraculous the place seemed. Electric lights, a big oil-burning furnace to keep every room, well, almost every room, cozy. A refrigerator and a gas
stove, the flame pulsating like a blue daisy when she got up to turn it on for the pleasure of seeing it.

She glanced out the window. Hunter headed for the barn. His shoulders had doubled in width, it seemed. His step was light and quick, energy dancing off his young body. Tears filled her eyes as she gave thanks for her son and daughter.

She returned her attention to the blue flame, filling the whistling teapot from the tap and putting it on the stove.

“It’s magic,” she said out loud.

Woodrow circled the table, changed direction for a moment, and then settled down on the table for a nap.

“Woodrow, is there such a creature as a twentieth-century cat or are cats eternal in a way I’m not?”

He blinked his deep green eyes as if to say, “Only a human would ask such a question.”

“Think about it, Woodrow. Your ancestors, whom I met, had to worry about horses and cattle just as you do but they didn’t have to hurry out of the way of trucks and cars. They certainly didn’t watch television, which you do, and I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your assaulting the screen during football games. Most unseemly.” Cig laughed and then suddenly grew somber. “Woodrow, I’m afraid my mind is slipping like a faulty jack under a car.”

She joined him at the table to drink her tea. Returning here was easier than being cast backward into 1699 but she supposed it would naturally be easier to return to one’s own time. If Fitz, Tom, and Margaret could join her they’d have a hell of an adjustment.

Fitz. She opened the bankers’ boxes. She grabbed a red moroccan-bound book. 1800-1860. That was yesterday. With trembling hands she opened each volume to check the dates. She finally found the right one, which had been rebound at least once. The handwritten note in the cover, her great-grandmother’s handwriting, said that the deeds and letters had been bound to preserve them.

The bulk of the letters were from Ruppert Deyhle to his mother. A thirty-year-old man in the Continental Army, he
described Cornwallis’s depradations from North Carolina to Virginia.

A Bill of lading for one desk of the latest fashion, 1711, to Margaret deVries jolted her.

One other letter, with bits of the old wax seal still clinging to the envelope, was from Charles Deyhle to Ernest Shackelford, another lawyer, describing the disposition of his estate in the event of his death. Dated July 17, 1695, it bequeathed four thousand acres and all his personal effects to his wife for the duration of her life. Upon Elizabeth’s death or in the event that she predeceased him, the property would pass to the twins, Thomas and Pryor, born 1671.