“Around dinnertime, last night,” Darnell said. “From Muscatine, Iowa.”
“Oh, my God…” I couldn’t think fast enough to make sense of what this meant. Camille was here in 1882? In Iowa? And she had found Malcolm. Reeling, I clung to Marshall, seeking a single point of orientation upon which to focus. How had she known when and where to come? For that matter, how had she arrived in the nineteenth century in the first place?
“Yancy.” Grant spoke the name like a curse. “It’s time to finish this, once and for all. Time to send that bastard straight to hell.” He looked to his ranch hands. “Fellas, we got a situation here. Shit, we have to spread the word quick, it’s nearly tomorrow already.”
The hows and whys would have to come later; Grant was right – it was time to finish this.
A fair morning bloomed on the eastern horizon; June thirtieth, the last day of the month. Marsh and Axton were due in Howardsville later this day to greet the new marshal, a man sent to Montana Territory to replace Marshall’s post, but Malcolm’s telegram ordered to stay put and we were not about to question the warning, let alone disobey it. Word had been spread to Grant’s men of the approaching danger; they were armed at all times but most rode in at some point to gather additional rifles, bullets, and pistols. Morning passed in a tense haze, bright sun shining down as a benign, windless day unfolded outside.
Despite my anger over it, Marshall rode Blade to the summit of the ridge opposite the house, along with Axton and Grant, who toted along a telescoping brass spyglass. From the ridgeline, the spyglass allowed observation of the foothills for dozens of miles. I stalked the front window, feeling like an animal in a too-small cage, not removing my gaze from the specks of their mounted figures up on the distant ridge.
“Men. They ain’t no better than little boys when they get a notion in their damn heads,” Celia said as she joined me. “And the Rawleys are about the worst, stubborn as hell, the entire lot of them.” She rubbed a comforting hand between my shoulder blades, muttering, “Don’t we know?”
I cupped the roundness of my lower belly, where Marshall’s son grew daily; Celia knew just how to coax a smile, albeit a grim one. I muttered, “Damn right. Don’t they know it’s dangerous to be out there, exposed like that?”
Birdie, who alleviated her worry best by keeping busy, looked over her shoulder at us. She stood at the table, a smooth, perfect oval of pale dough rolled out before her. Using a small water glass, she cut biscuits with the deft movements of an action completed thousands of times before. “Grant said he won’t be kept like a rabbit in a cage in his own house.” She sighed. “Danger and excitement tend to blend together in their man-minds.”
I smiled at Birdie’s words, which reminded me of something my sisters would say. I’d spent so much of the day imagining Camille somewhere in Iowa, both of us existing in the same century for the first time in over a year. It killed me that I couldn’t make contact; riddled with questions I had no hope of answering short of a conversation with her, the foremost of which being how. How in God’s name had she known, with such specific timing, where Fallon would appear? How had she reached 1882 and found Malcolm Carter? I was dying to know. And I wanted so badly to tell her my news. I wanted so much for the womenfolk to know I was pregnant.
Celia snorted at Birdie’s words; Celia knew her own sense of humor was far more ribald, winking at her dear friend as she muttered, “Most every man’s got but two things on his man-mind, himself and his pecker.”
“And his pecker’s likely higher on the list,” Birdie said, giggling, the three of us craving a little relief from the tension.
“In my experience, that’s God’s truth.” Celia grinned, that wide, knowing Rawley smile I’d seen so many times on the faces of her many descendants. Love for her swelled in my chest. Nodding toward the ridge, Celia murmured, “Aw, them fellers are good men, as men go. Even if they are stubborn creatures the Rawleys know how to treat a lady, and Axton is as sweet as a man can be. Sweet to the bone, that one.” She clucked her tongue. “It’s a shame he’s so dead-set on a woman he can’t ever have. I hate to see it.”
“Me too,” I whispered. “I worry about him so much. And I miss Patricia all the time, not a night goes by when I don’t think about her. I can’t imagine what Ax is feeling. I pray she’s safe with Cole, like Malcolm said.” Even as I spoke, I kept my eyes fixed on Marshall and Blade, the two of them no larger than the top joint of my index finger at such a distance, Blade’s gorgeous hide catching the sun like a silver coin – and making a clear target for anyone looking, damn him.
Birdie balled up and then kneaded the remaining dough, flour dusting her nose, fingers, and wrists. She spoke with quiet reassurance. “Cole can handle himself. We have to trust in that. I wonder where they are as we speak. Are they still so far south, in Muscatine along with Malcolm? They’d have backtracked in that case, because we know they reached Fannie and Charley’s homestead weeks ago, which is much closer to Iowa City.”
I sifted again through the limited information available to me, imagining circumstances that would culminate in Camille appearing in the nineteenth century. ‘Arrived this morning’ the telegram stated, meaning she had been here for at least twenty-four hours. Had she arrived from 2014? Was she alone? As close as I could figure, her passage backward through time was probably inadvertent, just as mine had
