Nine

  Rain leaned on his saddle horn and studied the two spirits. It must be great to soar through the air—fly like the birds. Lots of times he stretched out on a hilltop to watch an eagle skim along the wind drafts or a falcon float lazily overhead, then drop like a stone to grab a field mouse or rabbit.

  He wondered what their names were. The man spirit didn't look much different than other men on earth. He would have to ask Grandfather about that. The legends always seemed to indicate that warriors returned to their prime in the spirit world.

  This spirit had a slight potbelly, and Rain could tell his age must be close to Grandfather's. He still had an almost full head of brown hair, with a few gray streaks, like the ones in Grandfather's black hair. And, like most older white men, Rain noticed a bald spot on the back of his head. He wondered why Indian men never seemed to lose their hair.

  Of course, this spirit man wasn't Indian. Could there be two different spirit worlds for whites and Indians? He sure wished Grandfather would show up, so they could discuss how to talk to these spirits.

  And that lady spirit! At first, when you looked at her, she seemed sort of plain. But there was something about her that quickly made a person realize just how beautiful she was. Once he and Grandfather had discussed how a person's true beauty came from within—from a person's unselfishness and caring about friends and family.

  She was slender—almost skinny. She had the prettiest blond hair, which she tried to keep pinned on her head in a bun. But it kept slipping loose and falling over her shoulders, the curls tumbling around her face, softening her features. Those blue eyes were such a deep color—as clear as the sky above them.

  Their gowns looked as frothy as Pa's shaving cream, and as light and airy. He guessed maybe the lightness helped them float freely. That gown looked sort of silly on the man, though, and Rain had seen the man stumble more than once on the hem. Heck, Rain knew how he felt. He wriggled out of his own nightshirt and tossed it on the floor after he crawled into bed each evening.

  He guessed their being here had something to do with Tess. They never followed when he and Pa left to check on the cattle and, after all, they had arrived with her.

  "Rain! Come on!" his father yelled from the edge of the yard, where he waited on his horse. "We've got to get that hole we found in the fence yesterday fixed!"

  The lady spirit wiggled her fingers at him, and Rain raised his hand in return, then lifted Smoky's reins and urged him across the yard. When Stone still sat frowning after he stopped beside him, instead of turning and heading for the far range, Rain cast his father a quizzical look.

  "Thought you were ready to go, Pa."

  "Who were you waving at?"

  "Sorry, Pa," he said. "I can't tell you that. Maybe after I talk to Grandfather I can, but not now."

  "Is there something going on around here that I ought to know about, son? Other than how our mysterious Tess got here, I mean."

  He shrugged his shoulders and glanced back at the cabin. The man spirit winked at him, shaking his head slightly.

  "There's nothing wrong, really. I promise you, I'd let you know if I could. It's just that I have to talk to Grandfather first."

  "All right. Rain. I'll trust you on this, since I never want to interfere with your Indian heritage. But I've got a feeling all the strange things happening around here have to do with Tess. When we get back this afternoon, I think it's time I had a talk with her."

  "I don't think she knows either, Pa."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "We'll have to ask Grandfather."

  This was stupid. Those were her belongings and she had a right to them.

  "Flower," she called. "Have you got a minute?"

  "Sure, Tess." Flower came into the room, wiping her hands on a towel. "Do you need something?"

  "Yes. Do you remember the pack I had with me?"

  "It's in the barn, where Pa left it. Gee, I'm sorry. I should've thought to bring it in to you sooner. I'll go get it, if you need it."

  "I do. Thanks, Flower. By the way, where did your father and Rain go? You usually have lessons in the mornings."

  "They found a broken place in the fence late yesterday. Pa didn't have any extra wire with him, so they're going out this morning to fix it and round up any of the cattle that got out. We'll probably have lessons this afternoon. Pa doesn't usually let us miss a whole day."

  Good. Stone would be gone for a while. She would have time to make use of a few of the other things in the pack, she thought, as Flower left the room.

  Oh, for a good hot bath! That would be impossible, since she wasn't about to ask Flower to haul in that much water from that stupid well. Besides, the cast would make it too awkward.

  She could at least request a teakettle of hot water and a slightly bigger basin, so she could wash a little more than just her hands and face. Then some skin lotion. Lordy, the dry air here made moisturizer a necessity.

  And deodorant and perfume. Heavenly!

  She didn't suppose she dared slap on even a speck of mascara, which she always carried with her just in case she ran across a cute park ranger. Stone would probably notice and think her a harlot. Seemed like he noticed every little thing about her.

  Something told her the confrontation between them loomed close. And she sure couldn't face that unless she looked the best she could—and had on some clothes.

  "Can I stay and talk to you while you get cleaned up, Tess?" Flower asked as she reentered the room. "I can help you, if you need it."

  "Uh... well, gee, Flower, I..."

  Oh, what the heck. They were going to find out sooner or later. Maybe letting the young girl in on it just a little might make things go easier with Stone. Children were a lot more accepting than adults.

  "I'd like that, Flower," she said in a firm voice. "First thing we'll need, though, is some bathwater. Do you have a bigger basin than the one we usually use in the mornings?"

  "How about the dishpan? Ill scrub it out real good."

  "That will be fine."

  As soon as Flower left the room, Tess unsnapped the backpack and pulled out a few items. She closed it firmly again over the remaining things—things that would take a lot more explaining than she was prepared to give right now. She laid her plaid shirt over the pile on the bed, then quickly dry-swallowed a pill before she tucked the package back into an outside pocket on the backpack.

  "Here we go, Tess." Flower set the dishpan on the bedside table and poured in steaming water from the teakettle. Pulling a towel and washcloth from beneath her arm, she handed them to Tess. "Just let me get a little cold water to cool this off. I'll be right back."

  Tess leaned her face over the steam and felt the tightness of her dry skin loosening. Recalling some of the pictures she had seen of prairie women in her history books, she gave a contented sigh. Thank goodness she had brought full bottles of both face and body lotion with her.

  She frowned and straightened up. Even the full bottles wouldn't last forever. And forever stretched out before her like... well, like forever.

  She couldn't stay here forever. Could she? All the bits and pieces of knowledge she had picked up over the years about research into time travel indicated that she had to return to the spot where she had initially passed through the time warp in order to get back to her own time. She had to admit, though, that all the thoughts on time travel were only theory. As far as she knew, no one had ever proven it possible. Yet theory was all she had to go on—along with her remembered flight through that dark tunnel, which appeared to support the reality of there actually being warps in time.

  She couldn't get back to the hillside on her own right now—thanks to her broken ankle. As soon as she could, though, she had to go back up there and search for that opening.

  The only other problem she faced was how fond she was becoming of these people taking care of her. Even though she'd only known them a short while, she would miss them after she left.

  She hadn't seen much of Rain, but his tender concern for her on the hillside still touched her heart. Flower and she were becoming awfully close, since they shared not only the same gender but were with each other day in and out. The young girl would mature into a woman, and Tess felt an almost motherly pull to see her safely through the hazards of her teens, as Granny had done for her.

  Stone... well, he really wasn't her type at all. Though she admitted to finding him ruggedly handsome and was truthful enough with herself about being attracted to him, her broken heart over Robert hadn't healed yet. She knew all about rebound romances. She'd be darned if she would get caught up in that, especially when she knew full well beforehand that nothing would keep her from returning to the nineties.

  She had come too far. Sure, she had liked visiting Granny in her youth and hadn't minded the discomforts of mountain living for the short summer periods. But she had made sure her New York apartment had every snazzy new appliance. And a Jacuzzi, along with that wonderful, expensive stereo system, with all the latest compact discs.

  Okay, so at least half of her collection was country music—and bluegrass, with the old mountain songs that Robert had scorned.

  Not that she ever really got much time to listen to the stereo herself. She worked long hours at the law firm, determined that one day she would attain that partnership, dangled like a carrot beneath her nose.

  That was another reason to get back to the hillside—even if she had to crawl on her hands and knees. She'd worked too hard to let that plum of a career-making case fall to another attorney, even if it was tempting to let Robert suffer the consequences of his foolish actions.

  Robert, huh. The only reason her firm had become involved in handling his case was due to the chance meeting between her and Robert on the bridle path. Robert's horse had carelessly pounded around a bend in the trail, spooking Sateen and causing Tess a frightening moment until she regained control of the mare. She'd thought it only right that Robert pay for breaking the rules of the path by buying her an expensive dinner, which he had offered.

  The case must have been bothering Robert—as well it should have, Tess had agreed when he brought it up over dinner as soon as he found out she was a lawyer. And she had tentatively offered the services of her firm, since Robert was decidedly dissatisfied with the efforts of the firm his family had used for so many years.

  Too, as well as giving her a plus in the eyes of the older firm attorneys for solving a seemingly unsolvable legal problem for a client, there was the possibility that Robert's family would move their legal business to Tess's firm. That hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars-a-year account, along with her brilliant legal reasoning and research, would assure her future with the firm.

  "Sorry, Tess," Flower apologized as she lugged the wooden water bucket through the door. "Pa forgot to let the cow out this morning, and I had to take care of her. He's getting awfully absentminded lately. Isn't he too young to start getting forgetful?"

  "Much too young," she agreed solemnly. She'd forgotten how ancient anyone over twenty looked to a teenager—or near teen, as Flower was. But she well recalled how she had hated being laughed at in those tender years. "Maybe he's just got a lot on his mind."

  "He's always so busy." Flower tipped some water into the basin. "The only time he ever sits down is when we have our lessons or meals. I worry about how hard he works."

  "It's a man's way," Tess explained. "They all seem to want to build a legacy to leave behind someday. Sometimes they forget their family is their legacy, too. We women have to make them stop and think about that sometimes."

  Women, too, she realized. Or at least most of the women she knew in New York, who seemed to have substituted clawing their way up in their careers for their yearnings for a family. She had buried her own desires, assuring herself that she had learned a lesson from her poor mother's lot in life. Yet she resolutely walked blocks out of her way to avoid encountering the park near her apartment, where young mothers or nannies lovingly kept watch on the babies and toddlers in their charge.

  Flower thought for a second, then nodded. "Let's plan something for Sunday, Tess. You should be able to get around by then, after the doctor comes back. How about a picnic? There's a lake about an hour's ride from here that we can get to in the wagon. I'll fry chicken—and Pa loves to fish. It's far enough away that he can't come back here to check on things real easy. He'll have to relax and enjoy himself."

  "Sounds great to me. But you have to agree to let me help cook. I'm so darned bored, I can't stand it. And I make a mean angel-food cake, even from scratch."

  "From scratch? What's that?"

  Tess took a deep breath. Now was as good a time as any.

  "Where I come from," she said, "most women just buy a packaged cake mix at a grocery store and dump in eggs and milk. Then they beat it up and stick it in the oven."

  "Gee, that sounds like a flat cake."

  "It isn't. It has all of the cake's ingredients already measured and mixed in. And there's even a special oven that can cook that cake in a flash, if you want to. I don't care much for those cakes myself, though. My grandmother and I always made our cakes like you do—all fresh ingredients and eggs straight from beneath the chickens."

  Tess reached for the washcloth and dunked it into the water. "Do you understand what I'm trying to say, Flower?" She pulled a bar of scented soap from under her plaid shirt and opened the plastic wrapping.

  "I guess. Pa says they have a lot of fancy stuff back East that we can only read about in books or newspapers here. I don't understand how an oven could cook any faster than mine, though. If it's too hot, everything burns. What's that clear stuff on your soap? And, gee, it smells good."

  "The clear stuff's plastic. It hasn't even been invented yet."

  "Oh, that's silly. How can you have it if it's not invented yet?"

  Tess took a deep breath. "I came here from the future—from a time that hasn't even happened yet."

  Flower's eyes rounded in awe. "Oh. Oh, Tess. You can't mean..."

  "I'm afraid I do," she admitted. "Just a few days ago, I was living in 1994."

  "How? Rain said you talked about 1994 when you first appeared, and we've been trying to figure out... oh, you're over a hundred years old! You sure don't look that old."

  "I'm not," she grumbled. "At least, I don't think so. Besides, I went backward in time, not forward."

  "Then... then... you're not even born yet! How...?"

  "I can't really explain it. It should be impossible, but it happened. Damn... uh... darn, it sure did happen to me."

  Flower dragged the ladder-back chair closer and sat down.

  "Tell me more," she said eagerly. "What else is there in the future? Golly, I probably won't even live long enough to see the things you've seen. I'd have to live a hundred and thirteen years!"

  "Flower," she said tentatively, "you seem to believe me awfully easily. What makes you think I'm not just telling you a story?"

  "Oh, I knew the first time I saw you there was something special about you. I even had a feeling you were coming, though I didn't know at first who you would be. Grandfather always told Rain and me to stay open to things around us. He says people miss lots by trying to explain everything. And, like I said, Rain and I've been talking. Rain swore you appeared in front of him out of nowhere. Please, Tess, tell me more."

  "First, I want you to answer a few questions for me, all right?"

  "All right. But hurry."

  Tess finished her bath and moisturizing while Flower explained that Tess was in Oklahoma Territory, about a hundred miles north of the Texas border. Once the land had belonged to the Indians, Flower said—Cherokee, her own people, who mostly lived to the north and east—and the other tribes, now all on reservations.

  "People have always come up here from Texas and settled," Flower said. "At least, that's what the history books say. Anyway, a few years ago the government started having what they called land rushes. They made deals with the different tribes to buy some of the land from them, then let the white settlers come in from Kansas and stake claims to the land. Pa got his land a little differently, though. When he took us to raise, Grandfather somehow gave Pa this land, so he'd have a home for us."

  "It's a beautiful area," she said. "I'd always thought of Oklahoma as dry and windy."

  "I think it is, farther west. But here we've got hills and lakes, and even the Ouachita Mountains over in the land the Five Nations owns. That's still all Indian land to the east of us."

  "Oklahoma's not even a state yet, then."

  "No, but Pa says it won't be long before it is. He says that someday all the land between the oceans will be different states that are part of the United States."

  "Fifty of them eventually," Tess said, "including Alaska and Hawaii."

  "Really? Oh, we have to tell Pa that he was right."

  "Uh... not yet, Flower. Promise me you'll let me pick my own time to tell Stone about this. I have to approach it just right."

  "But why? I believed you."

  "It's a little different with adults, Flower. We sort of... well, I guess you could say we get sort of hardheaded about stuff as we get older. There are a few people who never seem to lose their belief in the wonders of the world, and this is what your grandfather wants you to do. However, most people limit any belief they have in the supernatural to a hope that there's life after death. Everything else, they look at skeptically."

  "All right. But now it's your turn. You tell me some things."

  "Hey, anybody home?"

  "Darn," Flower grumbled. "It's the doctor to look at your ankle."

  Tess quickly shoved her toilet articles under the sheet and raised a warning finger to her lips. "Not a word to him, agreed?"

  "Agreed. In here, Doc," she called toward the open bedroom door.

  "Knocked, but no one answered," Doc Calder said as he came into the bedroom. "How's my patient today? Itching to get up out of bed?"

  "Itching at more than that." Tess laughed. "This darn cast feels like it's got ants crawling around under it."