A DISTANT ECHO, PART FIVE: WESTERN TIME TRAVEL ROMANCE Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  OTHER BOOKS BY BOBBY HUTCHINSON

  SAMPLE, YESTERDAY'S GOLD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A DISTANT ECHO

  PART FIVE

  BOBBY HUTCHINSON

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I, Jackson, take thee, Leona Marie, to be my wedded wife…”

  Jackson and Leona were married Saturday, November 1st, 1902, and it snowed.

  Zelda stood behind them, excruciatingly conscious of Tom close beside her in the crowded room, and she tried with all her heart not to envy Leona, but she failed miserably.

  At their insistence, the wedding was taking place in the Ralstons’ parlor, with the banquet to be served buffet style in the kitchen afterwards. Frank had no church as yet, and the hall where church services were normally held was large and drafty.

  “In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer….”

  Zelda was an emancipated woman who’d countless times rejoiced at her good fortune in being single. Yet at this moment she’d have given almost anything to be saying the words Leona was repeating.

  “…as long as we both shall live.”

  Her gaze slid to the side, and her eyes encountered Tom’s. He was looking at her instead of the bridal pair, his blue eyes troubled and unreadable.

  “By the power invested in me by the church, I now pronounce you man and wife.”

  The irony of the situation suddenly struck Zelda, and she smiled at him, a small bitter smile.

  There was Jackson, one of the most dedicated bachelors she’d ever laid eyes on, marrying Leona, a woman as fervently independent as Zelda was herself, and it wasn’t just because of the baby.

  Jackson’s love for his bride seemed to pour from him like sunlight, with every glance, every touch. Zelda was close enough to hear him whisper, “I love you, Leona,” as he slid the ring on her finger.

  The words scalded Zelda’s very soul, because Tom had never said them to her. She tried her best to smile through the haze of tears, and concentrate on the guests instead of herself.

  Most of those present had a role in the proceedings.

  Bill Miner, still masquerading as George Edwards, stood at Zelda’s elbow. He’d given the bride away.

  Zelda knew all about him now. Tom had given her the facts, and later, Leona had filled in the sentiment.

  Her best friend’s connection with a convicted bank robber bothered Zelda not at all. Her first impression of Miner had been that he was a fine gentleman, and if anything, his conduct had enhanced that impression. As for Leona’s involvement in a robbery, Zelda was downright envious. She’d relish the opportunity to participate, as long as no one was injured, of course.

  The ceremony ended, and Virgil played the wedding march on his harmonica. Zelda left Tom’s side and hurried off to take photographs.

  Eli ran a finger under his celluloid collar and wondered how much longer it would be until he could take the tortuous contraption off and get out in the snow.

  During the past week, he’d been put in charge of all the jobs no one else wanted to do, which always happened when you were a kid. He’d had to keep the stoves and the buckets stoked with coal; polish everyone’s best shoes, clear away the snow from the walkways. Today he had to bring in extra chairs for Isabella and Lars, and make sure Pearl and Eddy were quiet during the ceremony, as if anybody could manage that particular chore.

  He shot a glance at his sister. She was bawling, and so were all the other women, including the bride, for Pete’s sake.

  He fervently hoped when this was all over, Zel would be in a better mood, but with the sobbing going on, maybe that was too much to hope for. At least he’d have his bedroom back, he consoled himself.

  That had been the last straw, in his estimation, using his room as a dressing room before the ceremony. Zelda had declared that her tiny room in the eaves was too small and too cold to accommodate the bride.

  “But I thought she was getting dressed over at the hotel,” he groaned early that morning, when Zelda came to wake him with the latest mandate. “If she’s already all dressed, what does she need to come up to my room for anyhow?” He yawned and buried his head in his pillow. It was barely six in the morning.

  “Don’t argue with me, Eli.” Zelda looked around the room and made a disgusted sound in her throat. “This place is a sty. Get up and get to work. I’ll be up to inspect before breakfast.”

  Eli slumped on his bed trying to figure out where to hide his tin of tobacco when Tom stuck his head in the door. “I heard. Why don’t you bring your clothes and things into my room? We can both hide out there.” He glanced at the tobacco tin. “Better put that under my bed right now, sport, before your sister sees it.”

  “Why is she so riled up over this wedding, Tom? She’s actin’ downright crazy.” Zelda had ordered them all around and been increasingly short-tempered and unreasonable as the wedding day neared. She’d even snapped at Virgil, which was unusual. As for Tom, Eli’d heard her nearly take his head off late last night over something or other.

  “I guess the excitement of it all is getting to her, and she feels responsible for making the wedding a success,” Tom said.

  “Well, I hope I’m not around if Zel decides to get married herself,” Eli declared, “if this is how she gets over somebody else’s wedding.”

  Somebody else’s wedding. Tom knew that was the crux of the problem, but there was more to it than that. Much more.

  He figured Zelda would marry him if he asked, but he never had.

  Zelda would bear his baby, if she was pregnant. But she wasn’t, and Tom couldn’t help the feeling of relief that knowledge gave him. He couldn’t have accepted the idea of fatherhood with the equanimity Jackson was displaying.

  Jackson had told Tom he wanted this marriage, that even if Leona weren’t pregnant, he’d have gotten around to marrying her anyway, that nothing would change the plans he and Tom had made. Hell, they were still partners, he’d just take Leona along when they made their attempt to get back to the nineties, and if that attempt failed, they’d all take off together and find a way to make some money.

  He’d been so complacent, so optimistic, that Tom had wanted to pop him one, because he knew it wasn’t going to be that way at all.

  He knew that Jackson’s marriage meant the end of their old, easy partnership. Those times were gone forever. They’d started slipping away when Jackson had taken the job at the hotel, and Tom had gone into the mine.

  He knew he could manage without Jackson, although he’d miss him.

  The question burning in Tom’s mind today was, could he manage without Zelda?

  CHAPTER TWO

  The realization that he loved her came to Tom with all the force of a hammer blow to his skull.

  There was no way he could go and leave her behind. How had he even ever considered it? He was in love with Zelda. He’d gone out of his way to avoid recognizing it, but now, at this simple little wedding, surrounded by people he was close to, he at last acknowledged his feelings for what they were.

  Somehow he had to convince her to go with him when the time came. He tried to imagine how it would be, up on that hillside in the early morning hours, on that fateful day next April.

  Would the cataclysm of the rock falling do what Jackson and he were hoping, open a tunnel in time that they could pass through?
Or, as Tom dreaded, would they simply have a bird’s-eye view of the tragedy of Frank and be forced to resume their lives there, however disrupted, knowing that they were fated to live their years out in the first part of the century instead of the last? No one could say; they could only try.

  And if by some miracle it worked for him and Jackson, would it work for the others, for Leona, say---or Zelda? If Zelda was there, Tom knew that Virgil and Eli would be as well. He’d never ask her to leave her family behind, and, of course, she’d never agree to do so. Was there a limit to the number of people who could pass through, assuming the route was there?

  All they could do was try. And Tom had to convince Zelda to try along with him.

  He asked her on a cold December morning, after they’d made greedy, impatient love once, and slower, gentler love once again.

  Virgil was on the day shift, Tom on nights, which meant that as soon as Eli left for school, there was blessed privacy for lovemaking, a rare occurrence now that winder made trips to their cave impossible.

  They were in Tom’s bed, languorous and lazy from lovemaking. The room was icy, but they lay wrapped in each other’s arms, snug under layers of quilts. The sun shone through the frost on the tiny window, and outside they could hear an occasional team and wagon go jingling past the house. It had snowed again in the night, and sounds were muted and faraway.

  “We’ve got to get up, Tom.” Her whisper tickled his ear. “The fires downstairs will be out if we don’t stoke them soon, and I hate having to start them all over again. And you’ve got to go to the general store for me. We’re out of sugar and flour, and I need to make bread. Tom?”

  He was listening. He was trying out words and phrases in his head, but none of them sounded just right. He tightened his arms around her and drew a breath. Why was it so hard to say?

  “Zelda, I’ve been thinking. I want you to try and come with me when I go. Will you?” His voice was strained. “In April, the night of the Slide.” He drew another deep, shaky breath and added in a rush, “I love you. I want you with me.”

  He felt her stiffen in his embrace. She was curled against his chest, and he couldn’t see her face.

  “I couldn’t leave Dad and Eli.” Her husky voice was thin, and she sounded breathless. “And you’ve never told them the whole story, Tom.”

  “I know that, I thought of that. I’ll talk to them. I’ve already told your dad some of it. I’ll explain the whole thing. I’ll convince them to come along, too. If it works at all, I don’t see why it won’t work for all of us as long as we’re in the right place at the right time.”

  He wanted so much to believe that.

  She squirmed away from him so she could see his face.

  “Have you thought what it would mean, being back in your own time with all of us? Have you considered the responsibility, Tom? We’d be dependent on you, at least at first. Not just me, but Eli and Dad as well.”

  He’d thought about it. In his entire adult life, he’d never even had a pet relying on him, and now he’d have an entire family.

  “I’ll take good care of all of you, Zel,” he promised with quiet assurance. He’d figured it out in detail. “I have plenty of money. If you don’t like any of the apartments or a house I own, we’ll build one to suit you. In New Mexico if you like it there. If you don’t, then somewhere else.” His words tumbled out, spelling out the dreams he’d woven in the past weeks. “You can take classes in photography at any college. You’ll be so amazed and excited at the new techniques, Zel, the modern cameras. We’ll enroll Eli in a good school and get the best doctors in the country to treat Virgil. He’ll be better in no time, what with the sunshine and the best of medical advice.” He hoped that was true, although he wasn’t certain.

  “And what happens if it doesn’t work the way you plan? What happens if we stand up there and watch the mountain slide and then have to go on here with the lives we already have?”

  He was quiet for a moment. This was the part he didn’t dare let himself contemplate. “Then we’ll have to make the best of it, but I know it won’t happen that way, Zelda. That one night, in that special place, up on the mountain where the Interpretive Center was, we’ll get back. You wait and see.” There was passion and excitement in his tone, and he scooped her close and kissed her hard. “You’ll come with me then?”

  She hesitated, and her nod was reluctant, but he chose not to notice. “Talk to Dad and Eli. If they agree, yes, I’ll come. Because I love you, Tom.”

  Virgil shook his head. “No, lad, I can’t do that.” His blue eyes were troubled, his refusal definite and final sounding. “Thank you, son. But, no.”

  Tom looked at the older man, and his frustration made it difficult to hold his temper. “Why the hell not, Virgil? I don’t get it. It’s a chance for a better life for all of you, for Eli, for Zelda, for yourself.”

  “The young’uns can go. I’m not stoppin’ them, I never would. But me, I’m too old, too set in my ways.” He grimaced and sucked on his pipe. “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, my own daddy used to say. This place you talk of sounds mighty strange to me, what with them cars and planes and talkin’ pictures in a man’s parlor, and all.” He coughed, the deep, harsh sound that was beginning to punctuate every hour of his days. It seemed to go on and on, and when it subsided, his eyes were red and streaming and it was difficult for him to breathe. “Anyways,” he wheezed, “seems it’s a young person’s world, this time you tell about. Old folks get stored away, so to speak, in those rest houses you told of, don’t they?”

  Tom cursed himself for ever mentioning them, but he couldn’t deny that what Virgil said was true. When he thought of it, the future did seem centered more around the young, with the old often relegated to special areas where they weren’t too visible.

  Evelyn Lawrence was suddenly as clear to Tom as if she was present, and he felt a stab of shame. He remembered flipping the coin with Jackson, dreading the visit to the old people’s residence, begrudging the few hours she asked of his time.

  “Me, I wouldn’t do too good in one of those there places, Tom,” Virgil was saying. “They likely wouldn’t let me have my pipe or my tea when I wanted them. I’d as soon take my chances here, where things is familiar, when I get old.”

  “But you’d be with us, Virgil, with family. We’d never put you in a retirement home.” Tom knew he sounded desperate. Damn it all, he was desperate. “You know Zelda will never agree to come along without you.” Tom hadn’t planned to blackmail the older man, but he wanted this too much to give up easily.

  Virgil nodded, and a sadness came over his usually cheerful features. “I figgered that, Tom, lad. I’m getting’ weaker every day. I won’t be around much longer, and it’s time for some straight talk between you and that girl of mine. I figger it ain’t my place.”

  Tom felt color rise in his face, but he looked Virgil straight in the eye. “I love Zelda, and I’ll take good care of her.”

  Virgil nodded and sighed. “No doubt you would, son. Yer a fine man. But Zelda’s my girl, the best daughter a man could have. I’d like nothin’ better than to see her settled before I go. She loves you, a blind man could see that, and when you look her way, I know the feelin’s mutual. But it’s come to me you just cain’t give up on wantin’ to go back to your own territory, no matter yer feelin’s fer Zelda, no matter if she goes or stays. Am I right?”

  Tom looked into Virgil’s weary eyes and wished with all his heart he could answer differently. The words pained him.

  “Yeah, you’re right, Virgil.” He held the older man’s gaze steadily with his own. “I love Zelda,” he said. “I want to spend my life with her, but I can’t live here, as a miner, and be content. I want more. I have---I had---more, back there. I want to enjoy what I worked hard to get, if going back’s possible. I want Zelda to enjoy it with me, and you and Eli, too.”

  “But whether we come or not, you’ll still go up that hill next April’s end?”

  There it was. Virgil w
as far too wise to miss the flaw in Tom’s proposal. “Yes, I will.” The words nearly choked him, but there was no alternative to the brutal truth. “It’s what I have to do.”

  Virgil nodded. “I ain’t blamin’ you, son. But there’s the thing that rubs me, y’see. To my mind, you ain’t puttin’ my Zelda first. You ain’t sayin’ you care enough to choose ta live here in her world.”

  Tom didn’t answer, because he saw clearly that Virgil was right.

  He took his jacket off the hook and went out into the frigid December day. He made his way to the woodshed, found a huge sawn round and lifted the axe, bringing it down with such monumental force it took him moments to work the blade free.

  He chopped steadily, until the stack of kindling and firewood was higher by far than the pile of uncut rounds. His shoulders and arms felt as if he’d fought a giant and lost.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It seemed to Zelda that the wedding was no sooner over than Christmas was upon her, and she was determined to make it a memorable one.

  She’d resigned herself to the fact that it would be the only one she ever spent with Tom, and she told herself she wouldn’t allow bitter thoughts or regrets to spoil it.

  Virgil had told her of his decision and urged her to make her own, regardless of him. He wouldn’t explain, even though she’d wept and argued and pleaded with him. He’ been unyielding.

  So there was really no decision for her to make, because, of course, she’d never leave her father, sick as he was.

  It felt as if she had a stone inside her chest as she threw herself feverishly into preparations for Christmas.

  The Ralstons had spent the previous Christmas in Frank, and it had been lonely. They hadn’t known many people, and money had been in short supply. They’d gone to a singsong at McIntyre Hall on Christmas Eve, but they’d spent Christmas Day alone, just the three of them, eating the chicken she’d roasted.