“Do you think they’ve reached Minnesota?” Ax had asked me earlier, shortly after we had arrived at the ranch. “They should be there by now, Ruthie.”
I couldn’t lie to Ax any more than I could hide my fears. “I hope so. It scares me so much to think that –” I stopped before speaking aloud Fallon Yancy’s name, as if to do so would conjure him.
The expression in Axton’s eyes was almost unbearable. I knew it destroyed him to admit, but he acknowledged in a low, gruff growl, “Spicer will keep her safe.” Immediately he muttered, “Or I’ll kill him.”
I hated to see Axton this way – maintaining a stubborn, futile hope that somehow Patricia would one day be with him – when it could serve to do nothing but crush him in the end. Marshall’s suggestion that we try our best to find the right woman for Ax before we left the past seemed fruitless; I knew Ax well enough to realize he would hold fast to his love for Patricia if it killed him. I would never give voice to the thought but it tortured me, nonetheless.
At last I whispered, “You’re right, Cole will keep her safe.”
And though I’d fought it, I was unable to prevent an image of Fallon from assaulting my mind, his hollow eyes seeking mine from somewhere out there; I’d been in his company over the course of an hour while a prisoner in his train car en route to Chicago last year. I would never fully erase the memory of that encounter, no matter how hard I tried. Fallon was not just a criminal, he was more dangerous than any of us could have guessed, gifted with the ability to leap through time. His control was much stronger than either Marshall’s or mine; Fallon had leaped to the twentieth century many dozens of times.
For all we knew, he could be there at this moment. Or was Fallon here just now, in the nineteenth century, tailing Malcolm, Cole, and Patricia on their journey to escape him? At least Cole or Malcolm would kill him on sight, recognizing the threat he presented; our families in the future had no idea. Further, it was not apparent just how much of the truth about Patricia and her illegitimate son Cole’s parents knew; Una and Henry had both spoken excitedly of their expectations of Cole returning west to Montana Territory next spring, but if they anticipated him returning with Patricia and the baby in tow they made no mention, leading me to conclude they had no idea.
I wished, for the countless time, I’d been allowed the chance for a final private conversation with Patricia before we’d parted ways on the Cedar River in Iowa. Maybe it was an unfair assumption, but I understood her better than I knew Cole ever would; the darkest of her secrets was her love for Axton.
It’s not as though she could have made any choice but the one she did; the baby is Cole’s. There was no longer another choice from the moment she realized she was pregnant.
Henry Spicer eventually produced the family fiddle and I could not tear my gaze from it; I knew that fiddle, had watched Case play it a hundred times at The Spoke, or around the outdoor fire pit at Clark’s; the gathering spot I remembered so well would someday be located in a different part of the Rawleys’ sprawling yard. Cold shivers climbed my spine and I rubbed my upper arms.
To my surprise, Henry offered the instrument to Marshall. “We’ve missed your music, young fellow.”
Marshall accepted both fiddle and bow, nodding agreement. Grant positioned his own fiddle beneath his chin and as they tuned the instruments with easy laughter and banter, an onrushing sense of déjà vu pelted my senses; was I at the fire with Garth and Marshall in 2014, or Grant and Miles in 1882? I knew Miles was gone but it seemed he was here anyway, playing through Marshall’s hands and appearing in his expression.
Exhausted and overwhelmed by all that had occurred in the past few weeks, I relinquished Jacob to Celia and skirted the fire to settle beside Axton; he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and planted a kiss on my temple. Birdie’s little boys and the cook’s small son shared the blanket with us, curling up like three warm puppies; one of them rested his head on my lap and I feathered his soft hair.
“I miss Uncle Branch,” Axton confided.
“I miss him too,” I whispered, thinking of the kindhearted man who’d found me on a riverbank outside Howardsville well over a year ago. Branch and Axton had been my first friends in the nineteenth century; in those early days I’d had no memory of who I was, or where I might have appeared from, and remained eternally thankful that two such kind and honorable men took me under their wing.
“Birdie said you visited Miles’s grave earlier,” Axton murmured. I knew he understood, better than almost anyone, my sorrow over Miles.
I nodded, my gaze fixed on Marshall; he stood beside Grant, the two of them bowing out the notes to “Red River Valley,” an old favorite of the Rawleys. I supposed the tune wasn’t so very old in this place. Marshall played with his eyes closed and I marveled again, He’s here. Marshall was here in 1882, when I thought I may never see him again. It had been such a wretched year without him – the pain of our separation remained raw in my soul, not easy to set aside, let alone forget. I settled one hand low on my belly.
Listen, baby, to your daddy making music. Music flows in your blood, little one.
“It does my heart good to see Miles’s son here, safe and healthy,” Axton said.
“Same here,”
