Redtail
8 Hunting Treasure
JUST BECAUSE I live out west doesn’t mean everything is cowboys and Indians. I was a pretty normal kid, even if I did have more access to horses and had an hour of chores before school each morning. You get a lot of opportunity to play pretend things when you live miles away from everything else. I pretended pirates, explorers, and army, just like most kids.
I guess “pirates” was my favorite. And of course, where there are pirates, there’s buried treasure.
I remember the day I dug a hole in the paddock, looking for buried treasure. Dad explained—with his belt—how dangerous it was to dig holes just anyplace I felt like. To make sure I’d learned my lesson, after I filled in the hole and tamped it down so the ground was solid, Dad made me go into the barn and apologize to each horse for creating a danger to them. Lastly, Dad brought me to a stall with a new horse in it. Once I’d apologized to the horse, who stood looking me in the eye the entire time, he made me promise to care for her and keep her safe.
That was my introduction to Buttercup.
It was also my ticket to greater freedom. I couldn’t lift a saddle high enough to saddle her by myself, though she’d take the bit from me with no trouble. Then Dad introduced me to the joys of the bareback pad. An inch-thick cloth pad with a cinch. I could toss it onto Buttercup if I was standing on a stool and it didn’t have to be cinched as tight as a saddle. I had freedom of the ranch.
Buttercup was about the same age as me and much better trained. I made the mistake one day while riding in the paddock of turning her tightly around at the fence and giving her a nudge with my heels. She took off like a bat outa hell—or a cutting horse after a calf—and left me sitting on my ass on the ground by the fence. It took her about three steps to realize she no longer had a rider and slide to a stiff-legged halt. Then she looked back at me as if she was trying to figure out where the calf was I’d roped and hog-tied.
Well, I learned and Buttercup taught me. She added a new dimension to my treasure hunts. We explored all over the mountain, looking for caves where Spaniards had hidden their gold. Never mind that Spaniards never got to Wyoming.
I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I’d stumbled on Kyle’s treasure cave when I was eight or nine years old. What would I have found? I reckon this would have been a different story.
Gold Watch
We all got home from the Alexander’s and Mom went on to bed. The three of us went to the office and Mary Beth placed the cigar box on the desk.
“Now, tell us what is so important about this watch,” she demanded.
“Before I say anything else, I’ve been puzzled about something. School started at UW yesterday. I’m on leave for a year. Ashley, when do you have to be back?”
“I’m going to be forward, Cole. I understand waiting till Christmas to marry so our families can all be together if you insist. But I’d rather do it now. In lieu of that, I want to live with you and Mary Beth. I don’t think I could bear to be apart from you two anymore. I arranged my classes so they are all on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. You know I’m a year ahead of you and it wasn’t difficult to get the classes I wanted last spring. I guess I was planning ahead. I’ve missed a couple days of classes, but I can make it up. Can I live with you, baby? Will you two take me to bed with you every night and love me like we’ve been loving all summer?” My grin liked to bust my face. I couldn’t get to her before Mary Beth had her wrapped in a hug. When she got free a little, I kissed her right to the tip of her toes. “I guess that means yes?” she asked.
“It sure does, Ash. I’m worried about you commuting every day, though. Even if it is just three days a week.”
“If I need to, I can stay in the sorority house those two nights a week and only commute in on Tuesday and home on Thursday.”
“That might be good. I just don’t want any more accidents and what we’re about to do is going to make somebody really mad.”
“Oh my God!” Mary Beth said. I looked at her. “I didn’t even ask you if I could move in with you. Ashley, you are so cool. I just assumed that I was by-God going to live here and only thought about how to tell our parents. I never thought to ask you two if it was okay.”
“Do you remember the size of my bed, hon?” I asked. “I think Ash and I would get lonely with just the two of us. What do you think, Ashley? Is she in?”
“Damn straight she is.” We hugged again and all sat back down on the leather sofa in Dad’s—my—our—office.
“Here’s the story. I’m not the only one who has been time traveling.” I went on to tell how I’d first discovered that someone was traveling back and taking over Cal Despain. He was sending Kyle out to get the treasures and hide them where he could get at them. Then I told about my encounter with the old prospector and that he was a time traveler and warned me about Joe. “I never did figure out who the prospector was, but just before he died he gave me—or Kyle—this watch. When Kat and Kyle first got together he gave her the watch as his pledge because he didn’t have a ring. She promised it would be passed down from generation to generation.”
“So just before you became my great-great-granddaddy, you gave my great-great-granny this watch. But what are you supposed to do with it now that you found it?” Mary Beth asked.
“I don’t know. Joe Teini was after the prospector’s treasure. Joe told Kyle to only bring the map the first time we went out. I think that sometime in the past year or so Joe went to get the old man’s hoard of treasure and found nothing there. It’s the old Schrödinger’s Cat thing. Once he opened the box, the cat was either dead or alive. In this instance, it was dead. The treasure he expected was gone. So, the next time he came back, he sent Kyle out to get it and store it with the others. He didn’t expect Kyle to walk in and toss a sack of gold and jewels on Cal’s desk when Joe wasn’t in control. I don’t think Cal was ever supposed to know the extent of the treasure Kyle was stacking up for Joe.”
“So, without Joe there to control him, Cal went to see the treasure and found Kyle stealing it?” Ashley asked.
“Pretty much.”
“So, where did all the treasure go?”
“Laramie followed Kyle’s instructions on where and how to hide it. She probably took some to survive the depression in ’96 and the range wars. I’m guessing the rest is still there waiting for us, but until we open the box we won’t know for sure if the cat is dead or alive.”
“And back to the watch.” Mary Beth prompted.
“I think in some way or another it is the map to the old prospector’s real treasure. He wanted me to have everything I needed to fight Joe Teini. Let’s take a look.” I unwrapped the watch. It was more than 100 years old, I knew. I didn’t know how long the old man had had it before he gave it to me. It was a plain gold watch on a leather fob. I suppose that even if someone had seen it on the prospector’s body they would have simply pocketed it and still said “Nothing of value.” I opened it. It wasn’t running, but it was clean. There was engraving on the inside of the case.
“I need a magnifying glass and better light to see this,” I said. I turned on the desk lamp and grabbed Dad’s magnifying glass. “Phile. Morgan, Esq. Salem, Oregon.” I looked some more. “I don’t see anything else.”
“What about taking off the back. They do that to clean them and replace the crystal,” Ashley said.
“The case is solid. I don’t see how to open it and get at the works. Maybe we’ll have to take it to a jeweler.”
“There should be a ring that twists inside the frame that will release the crystal. Try turning the crystal.” I did and a ring popped out. So did the crystal, which I barely caught. When I turned over the watch, the face and works fell into my hand. We all looked at the inside, but there were no further messages.
“I guess that’s it. Now we have a pocket watch in pieces.”
“My hands are smaller. Let me try to put it back together again.” Ashley took the pieces from me and deftly replaced them. “All better.” The watch was actually running.
“But we still don’t have a clue,” Mary Beth said. We all sat there and finally wrapped the watch up and decided to go to bed. I looked at the stack of mail on the desk that I hadn’t dealt with yet. One piece caught my eye. A statement from American Gold and Silver Exchange regarding the account Dad opened last year. I smiled. The address was in Salem, Oregon.
ASHLEY AND MARY BETH were lying naked on my bed when I walked into the room. They were holding each other, not particularly sexily but like two best friends who just loved to be in contact. They looked askance at me, still fully dressed.
“It seems I’m overdressed for this party,” I said.
“Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I called directory assistance on a whim,” I said. “Morgan, Morgan, and Morgan is the oldest law firm in the city. Founded in 1872 by Philemon Morgan, Esq.”
“Philemon Morgan?” Mary Beth said.
“The apparent original owner of your watch. I’m going to go to Salem Monday. I think you should come with me, Mary Beth. It is your watch, after all. I’m sorry, Ashley. I know you have to be in school on Tuesday.”
“No. You’re right. But with both of you gone, that’s going to leave a hole in ranch management. I will come back here each night next week. We’d better let George and Harold know what’s going on so they know they can come to me and keep me informed.”
“I love you,” I said. I stripped off my clothes and crawled over Ashley to lie between her and Mary Beth where they made room for me. My lovers came to me and our lips came together. I think a kiss is the most sensual thing in the universe. I’ve kissed a few women. Certainly, Laramie learned kissing quickly and loved it. Kat was an enthusiastic kisser. Geneive and Izzy were frantic and insatiable kissers—all tongue and open mouths. But encountering the combined lips of Ashley and Mary Beth—all of us touching and freezing, not knowing what to do, but unwilling to let the electric tingle through our senses dissipate—was the most sensual encounter I’d ever experienced. We were truly one being and when a tongue tentatively passed across my lips, I was lost in wonderment. We joined in the kiss together, unwilling to move any other part of our bodies, lest the magic of that first touch be lost. We each explored the other two—touching, tasting, receiving. And as we breathed the same air, there was moisture on each of our cheeks. The love we three had together was greater than that of any two of us. I was flooded and overflowing with affection.
I was twenty years old, a college drop-out, co-owner and manager of over six thousand acres. I had a fiancée, a cousin girlfriend, a widowed mom, and panicked Uncle. Out there someplace there was a greedy bastard who was trying to drive all the ranchers in the county into bankruptcy. And more and more, people were looking to me to save them.
We always used to say you tell a pioneer by the arrows in his back. Yeah, I know that’s racist and I only bring it up because you can tell a savior by the nails in his hands. I wasn’t looking forward to the kind of pressure that was building.
Joe Teini had the advantage. He had a four-year head-start on owning the county—and my former girlfriend. He had public office and had shut down the investigation into my Dad’s death before he was dead. He’d already acquired a huge spread in the north county and was running thousands of cattle. For all he spoke up at the co-op meeting complaining about feed supplies, the rumors said the shortage was because he’d bought everything that came into the county. All ranchers had was the hay they raised on their own lands.
Every Friday we saw a drop in the price of beef on the hoof as a thousand to five thousand head were put on the market for a nickel less than the previous price. You might think a nickel isn’t much, but every time a thousand head went on the market, it represented a loss of another $50,000. I had no proof, but it seemed that if no other rancher stepped up to sell undervalued beef, Joe Teini did.
People were another problem. I had good loyal ranch hands, my cousin-lover, and my fiancée. Joe had the entire Albany County Sheriff’s Department, at least fifty ranch hands and an office full of bean-counters and lawyers. I couldn’t see how we could match that and just hoped the old prospector, or whoever it was that time traveled back to him, had a plan and that I’d find out in Salem. We were going to need a lot more than the gold in that trunk to fight what was happening.
Monday morning, I secured the trunk of gold in the back of Dad’s Explorer and Mary Beth and I headed for Oregon. I remember clearly taking this trip in 1891 with a mule and a horse, crossing through mountains that were already filling with snow. This time we hit I-80 west to I-84 and northwest to I-5 then south to Salem. It was eleven hundred miles at seventy to eighty miles an hour. We made the trip in two days and booked into a hotel in Salem so we’d be ready for tomorrow. I decided I really wanted to get rid of the gold as quickly as possible, so we set up an appointment at the Exchange at nine in the morning.
Dad set up the original account with me as a joint owner with right of survivorship, so all I had to do was show my I.D. and Dad’s death certificate and the account was mine. There was about $25,000 dollars left in it from the bail-out last winter. Mr. Jenkins, the broker, looked at the gold bars and was very pleased.
“Are these from the same manufacture as the last batch your father brought in?” he asked.
“The same period of time, but there may be differences in the composition. I assume you will do an assay?” I asked.
“Yes, of course, but based on what we have here, I’m sure we can transfer at least 50% of the estimated value into your account immediately. It will take several days to assay all one hundred bars. We will mark the price as of right now.” He turned to his computer. “The price at this mark is $1,770.40 per troy ounce. There are 14.5833 troy ounces per pound and the scale shows a generous 2925 troy ounces. A little more than 200 pounds. That is $5,178,420. Less our commission of 15%, your projected net is $4,401,657.00. It is likely that like the previous batch your father brought us, this will not assay at 99.999 fine. Nonetheless, why don’t we advance $1.5 million into your account for immediate use and the balance after the assay is completed?”
“That will be fine, Mr. Jenkins. Do I need to transfer funds to my local bank in order to use the money or can I make purchases directly from my American Exchange account?” I asked.
“We are not a bank, per se, so you cannot write checks on this account. However, if you are making a purchase of more than $250,000, we can make a wire transfer directly to the party.”
“That’s good to know. There is one other question. How much gold can you handle?”
“My God! You have more?”
“It seems my great-great-grandfather was a bit of a miser.” I thought Mary Beth would choke.
“We have a market capitalization of $8.4 billion. There is always a market for gold. Transportation of significant quantities is always of concern. I would suggest you hire an armored truck for the purpose rather than carrying more in your suitcase.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jenkins.” I took the receipt that he filled out along with the account balances. I added Mary Beth as a signer on the account. Joint tenants with right of survivorship just as Dad had originally set up the account with me. I didn’t want the account going through probate or to be held in limbo if anything should happen to one of us. We would get Ashley’s signature added to the account on the next trip through.
We left the building and turned up the street. I’d made an appointment to see the youngest of the partners at Morgan, Morgan, and Morgan. I’d said merely that I wanted to discuss a matter regarding a historic watch engraved with Philemon Morgan’s name. I had thought about making all kinds of excuses to see someone at the law firm, but it seemed best to come right to the point.
When I announced my presence to the receptionist, I expected to be kept waiting an hour or two. I was surprised when she picked up her phone, said, “Mr. Morgan your eleven o’clock is here,” and then stood to escort us directly to a large office where a man about twice my age by my guess hurried around his desk to greet me.
“Welcome, Mr. Bell, Ms. Alexander. I’m Phil Morgan. No, we ran out of numbers at ‘the third’ and my name is Phillip, not Philemon.” He was a pleasant man with a balding head but not too wrinkled. Instead of sitting behind his desk, he led us to a conference table where a soft cloth and a jeweler’s loupe were laid out. “I understand you have a watch that may have historical value,” he said. “May I see it?” He wasn’t big on small talk. That’s okay. I wasn’t either. Mary Beth handed over the cigar box. He opened it and unwrapped the watch, fastening the loupe in his eye and examining the case. He opened the cover and read the inscription. We just waited. When it looked like he’d examined as much as we had, he looked up at us. “How did you come to have this watch Miss Alexander?”
“It has been passed down through my family from my great-great- grandfather. Several things have happened lately that made my father decide to pass it on to me now rather than will it to me when he dies.” Nicely put. I was getting the feeling, though that Mr. Morgan really didn’t know all that much about it.
“And you, Mr. Bell? What is your interest in this bit of history?”
“That’s rather complicated, Mr. Morgan. Perhaps we should go now, unless there is actually someone here who knows about this watch.” Phil Morgan stood up and for a moment I thought we were being dismissed. He went to a side door in his office and opened it.
“Grandpa? I think this is what you wanted to see. It’s real.” An old man, using a cane but walking erect and proud entered the room. He dismissed his grandson who left through the same door.
“Well, you’ve finally made it. I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” the old man said. “Miss Alexander? May I ask you precisely who gave this watch to your family as a family inheritance?” He apparently had been listening in on our conversation. Mary Beth glanced at me and I nodded. I’d already recognized the old man.
“My great-great-grandmother, Kat Tangeman, gave it to her son, Arthur Alexander Junior. Kat received it from Arthur Junior’s real father, her lover Kyle Wardlaw.”
“It’s nice to see you again, Kyle,” he said turning to me.
“In this life, it’s Cole, sir. It’s nice to see you, too.”
“Phile,” he answered. “The third. And how did you happen to find Miss Alexander?”
“We’re first cousins and next-door neighbors. It turns out that Kyle is both of our great-great-grandfathers, in two lines.”
“You were busy back then, weren’t you?” We all laughed.
“Kyle was kind of a randy kid, especially when I wasn’t around.”
“And how goes the challenge of this guy Joe? Are you in the fight now? I never learned his last name and I withheld mine just like I did with you. It was a real shock to die, though, and then come back to life sitting in my office.”
“How long ago was that, if I may ask?”
“Sure. It’s been close to twenty years now.”
“Hmm. For me it was just last summer. I’ve figured out who Joe is. He seems to have unlimited wealth and is trying to buy out or drive out all the ranchers in our county.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t think he’s figured out who I am yet specifically, but in general he knows Kyle cheated him.”
“Certainly not that sack of gold I sent him after!”
“No sir. I decided that Joe Teini shouldn’t really have all the wealth he’d amassed out in his secret cave. So, I went and stole it and hid it where I could find it in this life on my property.”
“You did that? And is it there?”
“I haven’t opened that box yet, sir. But I’m pretty sure Joe thinks the treasure is somewhere in western Albany County. He’s just trying to acquire all the land so no one can claim he took something of theirs.”
“He was always looking for treasure. He thought getting it was the point. When I realized what he was doing, I came back here to Salem as Bill Campbell and set things up with the man who would become my grandfather, Philemon Morgan. You see the big problem has never been accumulating wealth. There was so much gold and jewels being mislaid in the 1800s that it would have made the entire country wealthy. And yes, I acquired far more than that bag of double-eagles I left for him. The problem has always been how to transfer the wealth from one time period to another. Have you done any of that?”
“I’ve moved some gold bullion into cash using the company that is here in town. Oh. And I’d guess that Joe never got the bag of coins and jewels you left for him. Kyle dumped it on Cal’s desk when Joe wasn’t in control. Cal had it in his saddlebags when he came out to see the rest of the treasure and killed Kyle. And got killed. Laramie tossed his saddlebags into the wagon with the rest of the treasure.”
“Very good. It is much harder to move coins. Oh, it’s easy if you just have a few. But if you have a thousand or ten thousand or a hundred thousand, it is almost impossible to do. So, as I was saying, as Bill Campbell, an old prospector, I went to my grandfather, Philemon Morgan, Esquire. I presented a memorial watch to my grandfather inscribed with his name. This one.” Phile pulled a gold watch from his pocket that looked exactly like the one on the table. He opened it and laid them side by side. They were identical. “I told him that I’d made one myself and I wanted him to keep my wealth and pass it on to my heir who would walk in the door with the match to this watch. My grandfather thought the request was a little foolhardy but he was an honest man. When I told him that if the money and gold and jewels I left with him had not been claimed by the time of his grandson’s death, then it was to be converted to a philanthropic foundation. There was already a good example of that with Carnegie building libraries. I knew already that I would own the watch and that we would be managing a great deal of money. I simply didn’t know where it came from.”
“So why didn’t you just use the money yourself? You didn’t need to fix it so that I could come for it,” I said.
“Oh, we’ve certainly used some of the money for philanthropy, but after meeting Joe, my objective was always to save the bulk for the battle to come. Besides which, I already knew that in this life I was as well-off and as happy as a man had any right to be. And I could set up the foundation the way I wanted to before I died. But when I met Joe and saw what kind of man he was, I determined that the wealth I had gained would be used to stop him. Is that what you intend to do, Cole?”
“Yessir, it is.”
“Then we have the resources to help you.”
The old man went to a safe in the wall behind his desk. He opened it and extracted a large envelope. He emptied the contents on the table. It was mostly pages of account numbers in the name of Gold Watch Corporation. This corporation had vast holdings. I recognized accounts at the same gold exchange where I had mine, but also bank accounts in the U.S. and around the world. There were keys and deeds to a dozen properties from Washington to Florida.
“Gold Watch Corporation is managed by a blind trust on behalf of its anonymous owner. The reality is that the owner can be named the trustee. Not only that; the actual resources of the trust are not public knowledge. Therefore, as soon as I file the papers naming you as the trustee, you will have all these resources at your fingertips. You will need to be cautious as to how you handle it, but you should have enough to save every ranch in your county and make sure it is safe for the future. You can transfer your own wealth, even your ranch into the trust and not be exposed for the fortune you have.”
“I don’t know what to say. I’m overwhelmed. What about taxes?”
“The corporation pays capital gains taxes on investments in the United States. Since the corporation owns it all and you are merely the trustee, you have only the direct income that you wish to draw for your personal expenses. I think that, like me, you are not the kind of man that will need millions for your personal benefit. You will direct the Corporation in its good works.”
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t just do this all yourself?” I asked. “With the extra time you’ve had building this fortune, you could have put a stop to it all before Joe Teini got a handle on it.”
“It’s the limits of time travel,” Mr. Morgan said. “I had a first name, but when Bill died and I stopped traveling, I didn’t even know when this Joe lived. You might not believe this, but that was nearly twenty years ago. You were just a toddler and this Joe Teini had never been heard of. By interacting with the two of you, I was getting a glimpse of the future, but it was incomplete. I couldn’t directly manipulate it. I really didn’t know who or where or when it was. It was a gamble on my part to assume you’d get here before I died, but I thought you were probably a contemporary of mine. I had no idea I was dealing with the future. But you want to do good with this money. I could see that when I looked into your eyes back in 1891.”
“Yessir, that I will. I’m starting by ordering winter feed for 100,000 head of cattle and supporting the price of beef on the hoof through the winter. In the spring, we’ll see if Joe Teini can still make a grab for the Albany County land.”
“Just be careful, Cole. Have Phil make the arrangements through the trust. No one will know you are behind it. Phil is a good attorney and I’ve taught him as well as I can to be trustful for this event. This Joe Teini has already shown himself to be ruthless. Don’t let him catch you unawares.”
The paperwork took most of the afternoon. Phile called Phil back in and gave him instructions on what was to be done then wished us luck and left.
“I’m eighty-nine years old,” Phile said. “I think it’s time I retired.”
Phil proved easy to work with. Mary Beth and I spent the entire afternoon with him explaining what we wanted to do. We set up the new board of directors and officers of the corporation as Mary Beth, Ashley, and me. I had to call Ashley to get her Social Security number, but it didn’t require a signature. Phil would continue to act as administrator, administering the funds according to our directions. I had the impression that Phile III had been training Phil for this job from the time he was born. He knew the purpose of the trust and the corporation and he intended to administer it according to the way his grandfather wanted. We sent orders to Omaha, Chicago and Spokane for winter feed and hay to be delivered at a critical time. Even Billings had hay we could ship in. Phil would send in a team to negotiate with the ranchers quietly. There would be no trainload of feed dumping at the co-op nor a caravan of trucks carting hay. It would come in a little at a time from different directions. I would be kept out of all the transactions and it would look like I was taking deals the same as any other rancher in the county. I liked doing business this way.
On Thursday, Mary Beth and I headed back toward Wyoming. We got an early start, but even switching off drivers every couple of hours, six hundred miles a day is a lot of ground to cover. We were southeast of Boise, figuring we could make Twin Falls before we had to pull over for the night. It had been a beautiful late-fall day and we rolled down the windows to let the air flow in and keep us alert. That creates a hell of a wind at eighty miles an hour, but we were happy about the prospects. We’d been talking all day about what else we could do with the money we had access to after the current crisis was resolved.
Over the whistling air currents, with my hands still on the wheel, I heard Redtail’s call.
Traveling: The Bridge
I knew what was happening, but it was an odd feeling. Always before when I’d made this transfer, it was into the living body of Kyle Wardlaw. This time there were no eyes, no ears, and no cock plunging into my lover. I kind of missed that. Instead, I was in a disembodied state in which I could feel what was happening around me, but I couldn’t actually hear or see anything. I’d learned something the last time I was here when Kyle died, though. I could use my meditative state to visualize what was going on around me. If I relaxed myself enough, it all became a real world and I could see in my mind’s eye exactly what was going on.
Hearing was different. It was like listening to that little voice in your head. If you are asking yourself, ‘what little voice?’ that’s it. I’ve never known anyone who didn’t talk to himself in his head. Listening to what was going on around me was like that.
“Kyle?” Laramie’s head came up and she looked around the room. Her heart was beating faster. She’d heard the hawk and knew… just knew that I was there. I didn’t know how to communicate with her, so I just kept thinking in my mind over and over, “I’m here. I love you.” Laramie relaxed and I could feel her smile. I extended my awareness and found my daughter, Kaylene. My God! She was fourteen years old and what a beauty! I just wrapped my love around her and repeated again, “I’m here. I love you.”
“Papa?” How could she know? She was three years old when I was killed. The last time she’d seen me alive was the first time she ran to me and said “Papa.” My last memory was of her standing over my grave crying. All I could think was, “I’m here. I love you.” Kaylene beamed her joy and I stretched myself to feel what had called me to them at this time.
“Redtail? Is that you?” Theresa’s ragged voice spoke. I found her and settled my love around her. “Have you come to show me the way?”
“I’m here, great-great-great grandmother. I’m here and I love you.”
“So that’s where you came from. Show me, grandson. Show me what it will be like in that long time.”
I thought about everything I could. My life, our ranch, my beautiful cousin who looks so much like Laramie. My fiancée who looks like the neighbor, Kat Tangeman Alexander. I didn’t hold back and told her of the death of my Dad and all the problems we were having. And then I told her how we were fixing them. We rode in cars and even on an airplane, but I showed her how I still loved to be on a horse. When I’d shown her everything I could, I whispered, “I love you, grandma. I’m here and I love you.”
When I finished, she sighed. “It will be all right,” she whispered. “The story, grandson, is all in the Bible. Finish the story so we all rest in peace.”
“Mama?” Laramie said. She moved to Theresa’s bedside.
“It will all be just fine,” Theresa said. “You are doing good, Laramie. Kaylene, you’re doing good. It will all be fine. I’ve seen it, and I’m happy.” She sighed again and her soul slipped from her body. For an instant, I was standing in front of my mother-in-law/great-great-great-grandmother. She was young and beautiful like an eighteen-year-old princess. A hand reached out and White Horse guided her on. Then she was gone. In my mind, there was a whisper. “Marry her, grandson. Marry the girl soon.”
I was a little surprised that the hawk didn’t call me back that moment. Laramie and Kaylene bent over Theresa’s body, both of them shedding a few tears, though they’d known for some time that this illness would take her from them. I thought of myself wrapping my arms around them and just telling them again, “I’m here. I love you.”
“Thank you, Kyle. Tell mama we love her,” Laramie whispered.
“I love you, Papa. I love you, Grandma,” Kaylene said. They set to work preparing Theresa’s body for the burial they would have tomorrow. Kaylene left the room to tell the hands that Theresa had passed and to send word to the neighbors.
The house was quiet. House. I realized this wasn’t the cabin Kyle built a dozen years ago. This was a frame farmhouse. I was pleased. Laramie and Theresa had done well and after the five years on their homestead had expired, they had a house built down nearer the lush pastures and bottomland. It was the same house I’d grown up in though it had only one floor.
I hovered near my wife and daughter the rest of the evening. They ate a quiet meal. Occasionally they would look at each other and smile. They’d had an exhausting couple of days, though and soon Kaylene said she was ready for bed.
“Good night, daughter,” Laramie said as Kaylene headed to bed.
“Good night, Mama,” she said then whispered, “Good night, Papa.”
“Good night little love,” I whispered in my head. “Sweet dreams.”
Laramie sat at the table for a while longer, just letting me hold her in my mind. She was sleeping peacefully in my arms in my mind. Was this all just imagination, run away with me? Would I awaken the next time in a hospital where they put people who spoke gibberish? I didn’t care. I was back with my love. She might be my great-great-grandmother, but she was still my love. I nudged her and suggested she go to bed. She nodded sleepily and went toward the back of the house to her own bedroom.
Once finished in the bathroom—she still marveled at her indoor plumbing—she stood for a moment at the foot of her bed. It was not large—certainly not by my standards. Slowly, my wife deliberately undressed. She wore the conventional clothes of a ranch woman instead of the buckskins she’d grown up in. She’d complained once about all the underwear women had to wear. But she removed each article of clothing and folded it carefully before laying it aside. All the time she kept looking at the bed. When she was fully naked she faced the bed and just stood there.
“Do you still love me, husband?” she whispered. “Do you still like my naked body? Would you still touch my skin and my secret places? Would you kiss my lips?” She approached the bed. She was beautiful. Still a woman of only thirty years, she was kept thin by the work she did. No other babies had suckled her breast nor stretched her womb. No other hands had touched her body. I met her before she reached the bed and caressed her lips with my own. I remembered so well the taste of those lips. She held me in her arms and we fell to the bed, holding, kissing her naked body.
I held the picture of her in my mind as I caressed her beautiful breasts and sucked my lips against her nipples. I thought of her earthy rich scent when we made love in the wilderness, or in the roofless cabin with the stars above. The sound of her breathing as her arousal sped it up and the thud of her heartbeat against my cheek. Her body so hard from life in the wilderness, but her skin so soft beneath my fingers. And then as I reached her center, the gasp of pleasure as I touched her sex. I listened to her as she rose to her peak and shrieked her climax to the sky.
And then there were tears as she continued to shudder through aftershocks and I held her in my arms and thought how much I love this amazing woman.
“I try, Kyle. I try so hard to do the right things. But with you gone and with Mama gone, how will I survive? Kaylene still needs me. But, my love, not a day goes by that I don’t want to crawl into the dirt beside you. Help me, Kyle. Help me be the mother I should be, like my mother was. Help me be strong and run the ranch the way we wanted to together. I love you. Every night I lie awake and call your name. Do you hear me, Kyle? Do you ever hear me calling?”
“Laramie,” I thought to that voice in my mind. “My love for all times, I think about you every day. I come to the place where you will lie beside me and I still weep. You are strong, my love and I will always hear you when you call. Even when I cannot answer, know that I am near you and I will help you.”
It was the best I could do. She slept, her skin still tingling from the sensations of my touch.
The first to arrive to help in the morning was Kat Alexander. She still looked so much like Ashley that it threw me, though since I only had the feel of her and not an actual visual, I could have been superimposing Ashley on her. She just looked a little older and more mature. She’d had a daughter with Arthur who was just three years old and hanging onto her mother’s skirt. Her son, eleven-year-old Arthur junior had driven the wagon and was outside “with the hands.”
I wanted to go to her and hold her, but I hadn’t been Kyle Redtail when I was with her. I’d been Kyle Wardlaw. I wasn’t sure if it would be the same, though I could feel the warmth of Kyle’s memories mixed with my own and with my feelings for Ashley. I brushed her cheek and she looked around, lifting her hand to her face curiously. More women arrived and set about the task of preparing a large meal. Theresa had become a fixture of the rural community and was well-known in the town of Centennial. The preacher arrived just before noon and the rest of the men-folk followed soon thereafter. The hands had constructed a simple casket and Theresa’s body had been moved into the sitting room where the service was held and the men carried the casket up the hill to the open grave. It was at my head, just where I knew it was when I buried Dad.
The graveside service was blessedly brief after the sermon the reverend preached in the sitting room. The men were hungry and anxious to get back to work. The women would sit with the family for a while after dinner. Laramie and Kaylene were escorted back to the house after she whispered, “I’ll be back.” Kat held her son by the hand, preventing him from joining the others.
“Mother…”
“In a minute, Artie.” When the others were out of range, Kat continued. “You see these two stones? That one on the left is just a marker for the baby that Aunt Laramie lost when we were living in the same boarding house. This other one, though… There’s a man buried there. He was a good man who loved with his whole heart. And he died long before his time. If things had been different, Artie, he would have been your daddy and he would have been so proud of what a fine young man you are. And I believe he’s happy that Art Senior is your father. But there’s something that he would have wanted you to have and I’m going to give it to you. This isn’t to carry around with you or to show to your friends. You take this and keep it for your son or daughter that takes over the ranch from you like you will from your father.” She pulled the gold watch out of her handkerchief. “I wanted to give this to you here, but I’ll keep it safe for you so you can go join the menfolk for dinner. When you think of this watch, Artie, think of the man that lies beneath this stone.”
“What was his name, Mama?”
“That don’t really make a difference now, does it? He’ll know if you think of him.”
I wrapped myself around the two of them in my mind. I had no idea if this would work, but Artie was as much my son as Kaylene was my daughter. I just stretched my mind around the two of them and thought, “I’m here and I love you. And I’m very proud of you.” I repeated myself until I was exhausted, though it seemed to only take a moment.
“What was that, Mama?” Artie asked. Kat had tears streaming down her cheeks.
“That was a wonderful message, Artie. Hold it in your heart for as long as you live. I will.”
I knew it was coming. I wanted so much to spend just one more night with Laramie in my arms. Oh, please don’t call me now! That hawk screeched and all I could do was whisper again, “I love you.”
Proposal
I snapped into myself with the Explorer idling beside the highway. Mary Beth was sprawled half over me with her hands on the steering wheel and her foot on the brake. She had her hand between her legs and it took me a minute to realize she was shifting into Park. I shook my head a little to clear the call of the hawk out of my ears.
“Mary Beth. Darling, I’m here.”
“Oh God! Cole, you scared me. One minute we were talking and the next you just weren’t there. I thought you weren’t going back there anymore.” Mary Beth started crying and beating on my chest with one hand while she hugged me with the other. I patted her back to comfort her, but there was no time to explain. Flashing lights were pulling in behind me. Mary Beth pulled herself into her own seat, and I got my license and registration out. The windows were open, so the officer came to the passenger side. It was dusk and he shone a flashlight quickly through the window as he approached. As soon as he reached the window, I held out my license and registration with my other hand on the steering wheel.
“Thank you. Are you folks okay? I saw you swerve to the shoulder and stop. Ma’am, are you in danger?” He hadn’t taken my license and I realized he had one hand on his gun.
“I’m fine officer. We just had a scare. Did you see that deer?”
“Deer, ma’am? No. I reckon I was too far back to see that. Is that why you jerked to the side?”
“Yes, officer,” I said. “It came out of nowhere and I thought we were going to hit it. We just missed.”
“Well, you are lucky. You have insurance?”
“Yessir. May I reach to the glovebox?” He agreed and kept the flashlight trained on my hand as I opened the glovebox and pulled out the insurance card. Dad was always meticulous about keeping every vehicle updated and the cards where they belonged. I should have pulled that out when I got the registration, but I’d forgotten. He looked at the registration, insurance card, and my license.
“This vehicle is registered to Earl Bell. Your license says Cole Bell.”
“Yessir. It’s my dad’s car. He passed away this week and I haven’t had time to re-register it.”
“Would you step out of the car, son? Come to the back so I can talk to you.”
I got out of the car and walked around the back with my hands held out at my side. I didn’t want him to have any chance to think I was armed. When we met, he shone the light directly into my eyes. I flinched a little, but I knew he was looking for signs of drugs.
“There wasn’t any deer back there, was there, son?”
“No sir,” I said meekly. “I fell asleep at the wheel. We’ve been driving all day to get back home.”
“Well you aren’t going farther tonight. Your girlfriend drive?”
“Yessir.”
“Put her behind the wheel. There’s a cheap motel at the next exit. Get off the freeway and go to sleep. I know what kind of stress a death in the family puts on people. Don’t make it two. Do you understand me?”
“Yessir.” He handed me back my license and papers and motioned me to the passenger side. I opened the door and Mary Beth went around to drive while the officer watched the exchange.
I breathed deeply and leaned back in the seat as Mary Beth signaled and we got back underway. We took the next exit and found the cheap motel. At least it was a national brand and had clean towels. If we’d made it into Twin Falls, I might have sprung for a place that was a little nicer. Mary Beth and I fell into each other’s arms and flopped on the bed.
“Don’t scare me like that again,” Mary Beth said after she’d kissed me soundly. “Now get Ashley on the phone and tell us what happened this time.”
I called Ashley, but it took a while before we got around to my trip back in time.
“Someone has been following me,” she said as soon as I had her on the line. “Cole, I’m scared.
“Where are you now?” I asked. I was ready to get back in the car and get to her yet tonight.
“I’m home. Uh… your place. Our place. There was this creepy guy on campus that seemed to be near me a dozen times today. I reported him to campus security because he didn’t look like he was a student. Apparently, half a dozen other girls have noticed him, too. Campus has all kinds of security alerts out and the frat guys are escorting any woman who is out after dark. I had an escort from your AGR take me to my car after class this afternoon. But I noticed a car following me as I pulled out onto 130. I thought I’d seen it behind me a few times but he followed me right through Centennial and out toward the ranch. When I turned into the drive he cut a donut in the middle of the road and sped back toward town.”
“Did you get a license number or description of the car?”
“It was a dark sedan. I couldn’t see the make or license. Should I call the sheriff?”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “We know what he’d say. Probably something like you shouldn’t dress so provocatively.”
“I’m wearing jeans and a work shirt!”
“‘See, that’s what I mean,’ says Sheriff Teini,” I said. That got us to loosen up a little. “Sugar, how soon can you get your parents to Laramie so we can get married?” I asked. “Or do you want me and Mary Beth to fly to Glenwood Springs so you can have a bigger wedding?”
“Married! When are we getting married?” she squeaked. Mary Beth was looking at me with her eyes wide open.
“As soon as you say yes and set a date. I’m free starting tomorrow night when I get home.”
“Then I’m buying a wedding dress and calling Mom. We’ll have the ceremony right here at the house where I plan to live with my husband and my… wife. And Mary Beth, you better fuck him good tonight because tomorrow night I’m going to wear him down to a stub!”
That lightened all our moods a little and Mary Beth told Ashley about my episode on the highway and why we were in a no-tell motel in Mountain Home.
“So, what was the trip?” Ashley asked.
I told them about the whole experience and being able to be there like it was all in my mind but I wasn’t really seeing or hearing anything. I didn’t go into detail about making love to Laramie, but I figured that wasn’t as important to them as my seeing Kat give the watch to her son.
“The strange thing is that just as Theresa was leaving her body, I saw White Horse taking her hand to lead her away. That was so peaceful and comforting. But I heard this voice as clear as it could be saying, ‘Marry her, grandson. Marry the girl soon.’ There’s only one girl that could apply to.”
“So, you want to marry me just because your grandma said to?” Ashley asked. I could hear the pout over the phone.
“No, sweetheart. I want to marry you because I love you. I want to marry you soon because grandma said to. At least sooner than what we kind of planned.”
“You know you haven’t really even asked me.”
“And I’m not going to over the phone. You set the date and get your parents here. I’ll take care of the rest when I see you.” We had a fair amount of kissy noises and I love yous before we finally said goodbye. By then, Mary Beth and I were naked and I was betting Ashley was, too. When we finally disconnected, MB did her best to make sure there was nothing but a stub left when we got home to Ashley.
I hadn’t expected to ever go back again, but now that I had, I was pissed. It had been almost twelve years on their timeline, even though for me it was only a week. I felt so crappy Laramie had been waiting for me all that time and I’d just shown up in time for her mother to die. And Kaylene was fourteen! I hadn’t been there for any of it. My son, Artie, had just turned eleven. I’d gone from visiting every few months to years between visits and that just plain depressed me.
I guess that’s about when I started dreaming again like I had a couple summers ago. First, let me tell you that I know the difference between what I’d experienced and a dream. Dreams are a little bizarre. You skip from one thing to another and sometimes repeat them. Sometimes you can identify bits or pieces as triggered by specific memories. And people get transposed in dreams. I could be dreaming about Laramie one second and she’d turn into Mary Beth the next second. Dreams are like that. They don’t have a continuous storyline or timeline. At least mine don’t. This was like what they call lucid dreaming. Every detail was crystal clear and I remembered it all, even when it was disjointed.
There were moments when I actually felt like I was in Laramie’s arms and I could feel her breath on my cheek. Sometimes I’d wake up and still feel the warmth of that breath and realize that it was Mary Beth or Ashley snuggled up to me. And once or twice when I woke up, I was sure I heard her whisper, “Kyle,” as she lay asleep on my shoulder. The result was that even though I was feeling rested when I got up in the morning, I was spending more time with Laramie, Kaylene, and even Kat in my sleep than ever before.
Do you call that wish-fulfillment? Was I just assuaging my guilt for not being there by pretending that I was?
Damn! It drives me crazy.
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