“Will you be safe, Ruthie?” Concern furrowed Clint’s brow.
“I’ll be as safe as I can,” I assured my cousin, submerging all guilt over omitting certain events I’d lived through in the 1880s. My own safety was lower on my list of priorities than I would ever admit. “And there are plenty of people to help me once I get back to 1882. Our own family, for one, the Davises.”
“Besides, how safe are any of us? Jesus, it gives me the fucking heebiejeebies to think of Fallon just appearing here, right this minute. What’s to stop that insane motherfucker from killing all of us like he killed Case?” Robbie shot a belated apologetic look toward Tish, wrapping an arm around her slumped shoulders before muttering to Derrick, “Sorry, I know he’s your brother.”
“He’s no brother of mine,” Derrick said, with quiet sincerity. “He is insane. And I’m tired of fearing him.” And then he surprised me, resting his fingertips lightly on my forearm. “I’ll protect you, Ruthann, to the best of my abilities. I feel responsible for much of what has happened. I’ve known for years that Fallon should be stopped, and I’ve done nothing.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I hesitated for only a second. “I think you should know I intend to kill him.” I kept my gaze steady on Derrick’s as I made this vow.
There was a beat of silence before Derrick made a steeple of his fingertips and then nodded. “I intend the same.”
The air felt expectant and fragile, as if a wrong word or thought could shatter its integrity to jagged pieces, and I fought a wave of seizure-like shivers. What if I’d succeeded in drowning myself in Flickertail in 1882? What would have become of my family here in 2014? They would have been doomed to a life in this altered world, a place without Grandma and Aunt Ellen, Mom and Blythe, Aunt Jilly and Uncle Justin, without my sisters and their men. Without Marshall. No nieces or nephews or little brothers. In this timeline Case was dead and the Rawleys vanished. It was hell on Earth as we knew it and I had almost condemned them to this reality. I brought a fist to my lips and pressed against my teeth.
At last Tish broke the silence; when I’d last been in my sister’s company, we’d lived in Jalesville and worked together at the law office on Main Street. We’d been so blissfully happy with Marshall and Case at our sides and I couldn’t bear her ravaged eyes, the mirror image of my own. It took effort to keep her voice steady. “Love brought you back to us, Ruthie, and love will bring you home again. To the home we all remember, I mean, the right one. We have to believe that. There’s nothing stronger than love, not through all of time.”
Conviction swelled in my soul, a tiny flicker of hope, repairing some of the damage inflicted therein. I reached across the table and her hand met mine halfway. Throat thick with tears, I managed, “You’re right. We can fix this, Tish, I know we can.”
“I wish I could go with you,” she whispered.
“Same here,” Clint added.
“Jesus, not me.” Robbie shuddered. “No offense. I’ll keep watch here.”
Derrick’s shoulders squared with a deep sigh. “Tell us again what must be done.”
As promised, we waited until morning for our initial attempt. The clouds had shredded apart at some point during the night hours and sun rimmed the eastern edge of Flickertail as I crept outside for a moment alone, clicking off the overhead lights in the cafe. I hadn’t begun to reacquaint myself with electricity and running water, flushing toilets, telephones, and refrigeration; modern conveniences I had learned to do without. I let my thoughts return to the place I’d left yesterday, when this land belonged to Sawyer and Lorie and their children. What must they think of what happened to me last night in the lake? Of course they would assume I had perished there. How long would they search for my body?
I shuddered, hating the thought of their suffering. Besides that, I may see them again later this same morning. If – when, I corrected – Derrick and I succeeded in arriving in the past, I believed we would arrive in this geographic location. I rested my hips against the porch railing, attempting to view the sunlight as a good sign. I hadn’t slept but felt replenished nonetheless, restored by the presence of my family; I’d been returned here by the force of their love, just as Tish said last night, and I let this certainty shatter the fearful what-ifs clamoring for attention at the back of my mind. I’d been pulled to the nineteenth century originally to save both Jacob Rawley and Patricia – both of them survived because I’d been there. Jacob would never have known his true family and Patricia would have been killed in her train car.
Fallon’s interference had thwarted what was meant to be; somehow he’d pinpointed the exact moments in time to strike for maximum damage. He had claimed twice that fate aided his efforts and if I considered events from Fallon’s perspective, as I must if we were to beat him, those words made a twisted sort of sense. Dredd’s ambush on the Iowa plains had resulted in Blythe Tilson’s death – which would not have occurred without Patricia – it was her presence which drew Dredd to pursue them. Five men, Malcolm had said, including Dredd’s father, Thomas Yancy. And Patricia, I further reasoned, had only been alive there on the prairie with her baby because I’d saved her from certain death the summer before.
It was enough to make a sane person crazy.
Blythe Tilson’s death effectively ended the Tilson family line, just as Jacob Rawley’s death in the fire created a gaping hole which should have been filled by the Rawleys in Montana, whose descendants would eventually become Marshall’s family. And Fallon had used this knowledge to
