A DISTANT ECHO, PART FIVE: WESTERN TIME TRAVEL ROMANCE Page 6

Not mind? Hannah was enraged, but if she told Daisy how she really felt, her mother would tremble and then start to cry, and Hannah would feel like a bully.

  Unlike Hannah, Daisy was a woman who cried easily and effectively, never getting redfaced and swollen and stuffy-nosed the way Hannah did on those rare occasions when she broke down. It was just one more example of the enormous gap between them.

  Why was it so easy, Hannah wondered, for her to suggest what her patients should do in similar situations? Just say no, quietly and firmly, she'd advise them. Get in touch with your own feelings and stick with them. Why was it impossible for her to apply her good, strong, sensible advice to situations in her own life? Hannah's shoulders slumped in defeat, and her anger subsided abruptly.

  She felt as inept as she always felt around her mother. Part of it had to do with her size. At five ten, she'd inherited her father's height and his strong bone structure. She'd towered over her tiny mother since she was twelve. The only genetic advantages she'd gotten from Daisy were her thick, wavy flaxen hair and her leaf-shaped, brownish-black eyes.

  Daisy said the eyes came from a bedouin forefather, although how a bedouin ever got tangled up with Daisy's family was never explained.

  Actually, when she wasn't around her mother, being tall didn't really bother Hannah. In fact, she found her height gave her a distinct advantage at times, when she faced down some patient's bullying husband, for instance, or when she had to stand up to a doctor who wasn't paying enough attention to a patient's emotional needs. But around her mother, she just felt big and clumsy.

  "Mom?" Hannah knew she sounded stern. “Why did you invite her without talking it over with me first?”

  Daisy didn't quite meet Hannah's eyes. She fiddled with the top buttons on her frilly blouse, her thin, fingers flitting here and there like the small birds hopping around in the poplar tree outside her kitchen window. "Elvira's almost like part of the family, and you know how she and Gordon get on one another's nerves. It'll be good for her to have a couple of days away from him. I thought you liked her, Hannah."

  There was a defensive quaver in Daisy's voice, and Hannah noted with alarm how much her mother seemed to have shrunk in the past months. She looked as if she was wearing a much larger woman's clothing.

  "I do like her; she's been like an aunt to me. That isn't the point." Heaving a sigh, Hannah flopped down into a nearby chair, trying to figure out what the point really was. "I just get tired of hearing her complain about Gordon all the time. He's a really nice guy. And she still treats me like some stupid little kid who needs to be told what to do.”

  "Well, she doesn't mean anything by it, Hannah. Elvira's a nurse, and it's made her bossy."

  "You ask me, she was born that way.”

  Elvira Taylor believed she had the solution to every one of the world's problems, which irked Hannah because it seemed to her that Elvira should begin solving her own first, at home.

  "It's not only that she's bossy, either. She's a terrible backseat driver. Don't you remember the day I took you both to that tea in Ladysmith?” The memory still made Hannah shudder. "And does she still have that problem with her bladder?"

  Daisy hesitated. "She's been to the doctor. He gave her exercises to do.”

  Hannah groaned and shut her eyes. "Lordie. We'll be stopping every five miles so she can pee. It'll take all four days just to get halfway there, never mind up and back again. I'll probably be late for my own wedding just because of Elvira's leaky bladder.”

  "Oh, don't be silly.” Daisy waved a hand in the air, airily dismissing Hannah's concern. "Klaus has to go quite often, too, so it won't make any real difference, will it? Stopping for one, you might as well stop for two.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. A trip with Daisy, Elvira, and her mother's dog would be nothing short of a nightmare. She couldn't do it. She wouldn't do it. A wave of absolute rebellion rose in her, along with a mental vision of all the things in her life that didn't seem to be working out as well as she'd hoped.

  For an intoxicating moment, Hannah seriously considered telling her mother she'd changed her mind about making the trip. And she wouldn't tell Brad either, she plotted. She could go somewhere all by herself for the weekend, sort of a last private holiday before marriage.

  The idea was so appealing that Hannah opened her mouth to tell her mother Barkerville was off and that was that, but Daisy spoke before she could say a word.

  “I've made us a huge lunch for the trip, those vegetable samosas you like so much, Hannah, and oatmeal cookies and some date squares to take along. And I thought maybe that pasta salad, the one with olives and feta cheese. It would travel well, don't you think?"

  For the first time in months, Daisy had been cooking. Cooking had always been her passion, but since Michael's death, she'd seemed to live on toast and tea and canned soup.

  It was the food and that touch of animation in her mother's voice that made Hannah cave in. What the heck. It was only four days out of her life. How bad could it be?

  “Sounds wonderful, Mom.” She got to her feet. "I'll pick you up at seven tomorrow morning.”

  "I'll call Elvira right now. We'll try to be ready on time, dear."

  But Hannah already knew it would be closer to nine before they got away. Elvira was prompt, but Daisy was chronically late, unable ever to meet a deadline of any sort.

  Damn. It was going to be a memorable weekend, all right, in the very worst sense of the word.

  By six the next evening, Hannah fully understood and sympathized with Lizzie Borden and the forty whacks she'd purportedly given her mother. If there'd been an ax handy, the temptation to use it on all three of her traveling companions might have been overwhelming.

  “Hannah, I hate to say it again, but the draft from that window is going to bring on one of my sinus attacks. It's blowing my hair all over, too, and it's chilly back here. I swear that rain is turning to sleet,” Elvira complained for the twentieth time in the same number of minutes.

  “Can't help it. I can't stand the smell in here," Hannah growled, crouching over the wheel and scowling through the windshield at the steady downpour. She'd turned off onto this narrow two-lane highway a short time ago. It represented the final lap on a journey that felt as if it had lasted years instead of a single day.

  The interior of the van stank because Klaus had been sick repeatedly, and even worse than the pungent odor of dog vomit was the sickly sweet smell of the air freshener Daisy sprayed around each time Klaus heaved.

  “Poor wee doggie, this long drive is too much for him, isn't it, Klausie?" Daisy crooned and patted the animal sprawled across her lap. “I still think we should have stopped at a motel in that last town, Hannah," she said in a plaintive voice. "We could have made the rest of the trip in the morning and arrived feeling refreshed. This way, we're all going to be exhausted by the time we get there."

  "My sentiments exactly," Elvira immediately chimed in. "The man back at that gas station told me there were plenty of nice motels in Quesnel.”

  "He also said the drive to Barkerville would only take us one more hour. One ... measly ... hour,” Hannah pointed out through gritted teeth. "I want to get where we're going and settle in without having to get up and drive again in the morning. We're booked into the Wells Hotel tonight, and that's where we're going.”

  Barkerville was a ghost town without accommodation. The small community of Wells, eight kilometers this side of Barkerville, apparently had several restaurants as well as the hotel.

  “No need to be snappish, Hannah. Your mother and I were only making a suggestion," Elvira said in an aggrieved tone. “You're certainly not in the best of moods, are you?” She sniffed several times and blew her nose noisily before she lapsed into injured silence.

  Hannah prayed that it would last for the remainder of this damnable drive. Just as she'd feared, the day had been a nightmare from beginning to end. She'd been prepared for Elvira's constant backseat driving, her litany of complaints about Gordon, and her bladd
er problems, but she hadn't anticipated Klaus's newfound and voracious appetite for samosas.

  The piggish little animal had devoured four of the spicy concoctions, and then vomited up what seemed like seven. Then he'd whined incessantly, feeling sorry for himself.

  Even the weather had conspired against her. It had been drizzling when they left Victoria at eight-thirty that morning, and the rain had turned to a downpour as the day progressed.

  In spite of it, Daisy and Elvira had insisted on stopping at every single tourist attraction their guide books mentioned, and, of course, every rest stop. Fast food outlets also became a point of contention as the hours passed.

  In spite of the huge basket of food Daisy had packed, the women insisted they needed fresh coffee or more juice at regular intervals, which of course meant even more frequent stops at bathrooms.

  Hannah's temper had shortened as the miles crawled by, and now she was near exploding. Her head ached in earnest, and it seemed it was growing more difficult by the moment to see where she was going. The road had been quite decent until now, winding up and down the mountainous terrain, but in the past two kilometers it had narrowed into a tortuous path snaking its way along the bottom of a rocky canyon. A fast-flowing river bordered the highway.

  “Look, Daisy. I'm sure this gorge we're going through is the place my guidebook calls Robber's Roost,” Elvira trumpeted from the backseat.

  Hannah glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Elvira's thin blond hair barely covered her pink scalp, and her sharp features were dwarfed by the large glasses she wore. Undaunted by the growing darkness, she was using a small flashlight to illuminate her guidebook.

  “It says here this was a popular place for hold-ups back in the 1860s," she continued. "The stagecoaches had to slow down to get through here because the road was twisty, and there was a bridge over this river to our right. That's where the ambush usually took place, it says. Of course the bridge is gone now. They put a culvert in when the road was improved . .."

  But the guidebook was wrong. Hannah rounded a corner at that moment, and the headlights illuminated a narrow, flat wooden bridge, peculiarly unsuited to the paved highway they'd been driving along.

  It had grown darker these last few moments, and the rain had turned to hail, pelting the van with huge, frozen globs of white that the headlights couldn't seem to penetrate.

  Hannah squinted through the windshield. The hail and what looked like a thick mist obscured the other end of the bridge, and it suddenly felt as if she were driving into oblivion.

  She stepped hard on the brakes, slowing the van. A chill crept up her spine, and she quickly rolled up the window beside her. Her heart began to beat a little faster, and she gripped the steering wheel with both hands as the front wheels bumped hard onto the wooden surface.

  Something didn't feel right about this bridge. The double row of planks that formed a track for the wheels of vehicles looked strangely rickety and extraordinarily narrow. And why on earth had the road crew used only logs as a surface, with no side railings?

  Daisy sat up straight and peered out, giving a little squeak of fear. “Oh, be careful, Hannah, it's so narrow-"

  "Steady on, steady on.” Elvira leaned forward, her head almost on Hannah's shoulder, her stale coffee breath wafting to Hannah's nostrils. "This doesn't look very sturdy, does it?” Her loud voice was higher than usual. “The rain must have washed out the culvert and they've put up this temporary crossing. Just look at the fog up there. Be sure your wheels are straight on, now...”

  The warning trailed off as Hannah braked again, concentrating on keeping the wheels of the van on the planks. When it seemed the rickety structure was able to support them, she stepped a little harder on the gas, wanting desperately to get safely across this barrier.

  But the wheels spun on the slick surface and the van skidded.

  Daisy squealed, a series of short, sharp bursts of sound which sent Klaus into a barking fit.

  Elvira babbled directly into her ear, "Easy, Hannah, take it easy, there's no guard rails, we could-”

  Hannah, fighting to get the van back under control, heard the chaotic, frightened noises that her companions made, but they seemed to come from far away.

  The bridge, which she'd thought to be short, barely more than two van lengths, had inexplicably extended until it seemed as if it had no end. The van shuddered and steadied, and she pressed harder on the gas, and still harder.

  This simply couldn't be. The van was rocketing ahead, and still they were on this confounded bridge.

  Hannah had the uncanny feeling that she'd become trapped in a nightmare, that whatever was happening couldn't be real.

  In a panic now, she depressed the gas pedal even further and with white-knuckled hands gripped the wheel, willing the van ahead. If only she could see....

  Obligingly, the enveloping white cloud parted for just an instant, and Hannah's mouth opened wide in a soundless scream.

  There was a horse on the bridge, trotting straight towards her. She was about to hit it full-on.

  The animal's terrified eyes flashed in the headlights' gleam, and as Hannah applied every ounce of her strength to the brake pedal, she saw the horse rear. Only then did she realize it was hitched to an open wagon.

  In the chaotic instant before she turned the wheel and steered off the side of the bridge, she saw the man sitting on the wagon. He wore a brimmed hat and a dark coat. His mouth was open wide in a scream, and on his whiskered face was an expression of abject terror.

  The van went over the edge with a thunk, and then there was an endless, silent instant when they were airborne. They landed, right side up, with a thud that jaired every bone in Hannah's body.

  The jolt sent her lurching forward, and her head connected hard with the steering wheel. There was a magnificent explosion of unbelievable color inside her brain, and she lost consciousness.

  YESTERDAY'S GOLD, COMPLETE SERIES

  About the Author

  Bobby Hutchinson was born in Sparwood, a small town in interior British Columbia. Her father was an underground coalminer, her mother, a housewife, and both were storytellers. Learning to read was the most significant event in her early life.

  Bobby married young and had three sons; the middle child was deaf, and he taught her patience. After twelve years, she divorced and worked at various odd jobs, directing traffic around construction sites; day caring challenged children; and selling fabric, by the pound, at a remnant store.

  Following this, she mortgaged her house and bought the remnant store. Accompanied by her sewing machine, she began to sew one dress a day. The dresses sold, the fabric didn't, so she hired four seamstresses and turned the old remnant store into a boutique.

  After twelve successful years, Bobby sold the business and decided to run a marathon. Training was a huge bore, so she made up a story about Pheiddipedes, the first marathoner, as she ran. She copied it down and sent it to Chatelaine Magazine's short story contest, won first prize, and became a writer.

  Bobby remarried and divorced again, writing all the while. Today, she has dozens of published books on Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo and I Tunes and currently is working on three or four more. She has six enchanting grandchildren and lives alone.

  Bobby walks a lot, does yoga, meditates, reads endlessly, takes advice from her grandchildren, and likes this quote by Dolly Parton:

  "Decide who you are, and then do it on purpose."

  Visit Bobby's Website

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  Email Bobby Anytime! bobbyhut@telus.net

 

 

 
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