Smith's Monthly #27

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  Very, very clear death.

  TWENTY-NINE

  May 24th, 1887

  Central Idaho Mountains

  WADE DIDN’T FEEL like he was in a hurry and before they risked their lives, he wanted to stop and think. So they took a break, pulling out a map of the Grapevine Springs valley.

  They had both studied the map many times before, and both of them knew this was the only way in and out of this valley. When the town got started, a wagon road was built into the town along this stream. And even though the town was remote, very few were ever killed trying to get to the town once that wagon road was dug out.

  The mountains were so steep on both sides of the valley around the town that they made some of the best downhill skiing in the world. And the valley ended just above the town site in a rock cliff.

  On the map he could see exactly where they were located.

  “So say we get across this going in,” Sophie said. “We have to cross it coming out as well.”

  Wade nodded. He had been thinking the same thing.

  He went back to the edge of the slope and studied the area above them. If anything, it got steeper and snow still clung to the massive cliff that fed this scree slope. Nothing about it looked stable.

  “We have no good options here,” he said.

  Sophie nodded. “And even if we do get across twice, we have to come back in here in a month or so with even more supplies.”

  Wade nodded to that.

  “So we stop and build the trail now?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “We build it now or on the way out or on the way in. One way or another, we have to build it.”

  He agreed. “Let’s see if we can find a decent camp close by.”

  They found one just about twenty yards to the side of the talus slope. It had an area that was flat enough for their tent and a place in the brush to tie up the horses and feed them.

  “Know anything about building a trail?” Wade asked her, smiling.

  “I know we start first thing in the morning,” she said, kissing him.

  Wade liked that idea more than he could imagine. After just a few hours on this game trail in this valley, he felt exhausted. And what did it matter that they were late getting back to Boise for a week or so. Duster would wait for them.

  They spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the brief time the sun was hitting the camp and then eating a light dinner.

  As the sun still hit the rock cliff above them, they fed the horses and got ready to call it a night. The air already had a chill to it and they had both put on their coats again.

  Suddenly, the horses seemed very restless.

  Wade instantly looked around for a snake nearby as Sophie worked to calm one of them.

  But it did no good.

  Then, over the sound of the water below them came a rumbling that sounded more like a massive piece of equipment moving.

  The horses bolted, knocking Sophie to the ground.

  Wade went to her and pulled her to her feet as the ground around them shook.

  What was happening?

  He had no idea.

  “Slide!” Sophie shouted over the intense noise.

  He instantly realized she was right.

  And a moment later a twenty-foot wave of rock hit them.

  Neither of them even felt a thing.

  They were both dead instantly.

  PART FIVE

  The Brutal West

  THIRTY

  July 8th, 1887

  Central Idaho Mountains

  AFTER SIX WEEKS, Duster had a hunch something had gone horribly wrong. He had expected Sophie and Wade to maybe take five weeks, since they were new and would go slowly. But six weeks worried him.

  Bonnie and Dawn had gone to San Francisco and he doubted he would see them again in this timeline. What those two found interesting about San Francisco was beyond him. He liked the more rugged, growing towns.

  And, of course, the great poker games in Denver. He planned on heading that way once he had Sophie and Wade settled in for the summer in Grapevine Springs.

  He checked the institute’s weather records for the next few days for the central Idaho mountains just to make sure that this year there wouldn’t be a freak summer storm up there.

  Nothing.

  So he packed up and headed out, following the trail that he knew they would take coming back, just in case.

  The days were warm and he kept drinking and chewing on jerky as he climbed up into the mountains, a habit that he had gotten used to over the many years.

  Making far better time alone, two nights later he camped at the same place that he had left Sophie and Wade over six weeks before.

  The next morning he got an early start up the game trail along the stream, looking for anything unusual.

  Shannon Creek was now nothing more than a regular creek, nothing like the raging torrent it had been six weeks before.

  It was an hour into his ride that he saw the remains of one of the packhorses. No saddlebags were attached and wildlife had chewed at it, leaving mostly only a skeleton and a head, half-in the water.

  He kept going, spotting two more horse carcasses along the way, but no sign of Sophie or Wade.

  After three hours he reached the talus slope. He had warned them that this would be their first really dangerous place along the trail in.

  Another horse carcass was tangled up in the rock along the edge of the talus slope just above the river and he could see the remains of a tent and some camping gear twisted in the rocks as well.

  Skirting along the side of the loose talus rock, he went down toward the stream until he finally spotted what he now knew he would find. Sophie’s body, half-buried under rock, right at the edge of the slope.

  Below her, just above the water line he could see a part of Wade’s hand. He didn’t need to get any closer.

  He turned and studied the slope above him. They must have camped very near the edge of the slope, more than likely to build a trail, and a slide had caught them in the middle of the night.

  He shook his head.

  He had learned early on to camp back away from talus slopes because of the regular nature of slides.

  He climbed back up the slope to his horse and turned and headed back down the trail to Boise.

  It looked like he was going to find out if the institute had picked well with Sophie and Wade a little sooner than expected.

  There was just no way of telling how a person would handle and recover from sudden death.

  THIRTY-ONE

  May 23rd, 1902

  Boise, Idaho

  SOPHIE FOUND HERSELF standing beside Wade in the narrow rock crystal room, touching one of the wooden boxes. They were both dressed as they had been on the way into Grapevine Springs.

  Then Sophie remembered the terror.

  There had been a rockslide.

  They had been hit by a rockslide.

  “What just happened?” Wade asked, glancing around.

  “You died,” Duster said behind them.

  Both of them spun around to look at Duster as he came up and unhooked one wire from the box.

  He had been touching another box to go back into the timeline just ahead of them.

  “They did what?” Bonnie and Dawn both asked at the same exact moment from another box behind Duster.

  “What time are we?” Sophie asked. “This still 1902?”

  “It is,” Duster said, “because this is where we all jumped from originally to 1887. Let’s go out into the main room and talk about what we all did in those last two minutes.”

  Dawn giggled.

  Bonnie said, “Hush.”

  Dawn giggled again.

  Sophie was still trying to understand the terror of one moment knowing they were going to get hit with a rockslide and the next moment standing here in the cavern.

  “You all right?” Wade asked her, taking her into his arms and holding her.

  “Physically I feel fine,” she said. “But
very confused.”

  “Yeah,” Wade said.

  He kissed her and she kissed him back. That helped her more than she wanted to admit.

  They were both here. That was what mattered.

  Her mind was not wrapping around any of this, even though she had understood the concept of being established in another time and being able to die or live a long time and not have more than two minutes go by.

  She just hadn’t expected to have to test the idea that quickly.

  Especially with the death part.

  Beside her, Wade looked as shocked as she felt as they turned and followed Duster out of the narrow crystal room and went across the large supply room.

  In the main living room area, the kitchen looked like it belonged in 1902 as did the furniture, but Sophie knew that there was ice water and a good supply of food stored in hidden rooms behind the kitchen area. And running hot water in the bathrooms.

  “I’m headed for the shower first,” Duster said. He looked at Sophie and Wade. “Get something to drink and then take a shower and we’ll explain more shortly. Then maybe head into the hotel for a late lunch there.”

  Sophie nodded as Duster walked off.

  “So what happened?” Dawn asked Sophie as Bonnie also headed behind the kitchen to take a shower.

  “Rock slide,” Wade said.

  Dawn nodded. “Talus slope in the spring melt, right?”

  “I think it killed us both instantly,” Sophie said, glancing at Wade, who just slowly nodded.

  “Yeah, got injured real bad in a slide like that myself,” Dawn said, moving to get them something cold to drink as both Sophie and Wade sat at the wooden-topped counter. “Killed Madison and all but one of our horses. Took me ten more days to die from internal bleeding as I tried to make it back to the big cavern. That was before we built the institute here.”

  Sophie watched as Dawn shook her head. “I didn’t make it.”

  “So how long were you and Bonnie in the past this time?” Wade asked.

  “About forty years,” Bonnie said, not even blinking. “We both love San Francisco.”

  “Oh,” was all Sophie managed to say.

  She and Wade had only made it less than a week, clearly Duster had waited for them and then went and found their bodies, more than likely taking many weeks, and Bonnie and Dawn had been gone forty years. All of them had arrived back here at the same point.

  She leaned against Wade and he put his arm around her, giving her strength.

  They needed to face that talus slope again. It had killed her once. It would not a second time.

  She would learn how to be as tough as the women she studied.

  A second time she would win.

  THIRTY-TWO

  May 24th, 1887

  Central Idaho Mountains

  WADE AND SOPHIE had gotten back to the talus slope above Shannon Creek one day ahead of the slide. This time they had camped back in the trees after Duster explained to them that often the reason there were no trees close to a talus slope was because of rock slides like the one that had killed them the first time.

  They both had on their heavy coats and had the four horses tied securely a distance back in the trees to make sure they didn’t bolt with the rumbling.

  Duster also taught them a few tricks to building a decent trail across the slope once the slide passed. Wade was scared to death to face that slope again, but these kinds of slopes were normal in the steep mountains of the west, so he and Sophie both decided they needed to just get past their fear and get through it.

  Now, they were standing off to one side, in the tree line, with a decent vantage spot for the coming slide. By Wade’s best guess, it would happen at any moment.

  Once again the sun was on the rock face above them, but the valley around them was in shade. Under the trees the air had a thick dampness to it and below them the raging waters of Shannon Creek filled the valley with a loud rumbling all its own.

  “You find this sort of creepy?” Sophie asked, squeezing Wade’s hand as they both stared up at the rock face.

  “What?” Wade said. “Watching a landslide that killed us in another timeline happen? Nah, nothing creepy about that.”

  She laughed.

  He let go of her hand and put his arm around her, pulling her close to him.

  At that moment, on the rock face far up the hill, a large section seemed to just break away and fall, almost in slow motion.

  He held Sophie tight as they watched the massive slide of rock gain speed, coming down the thousand feet faster and faster.

  The sound just kept growing and growing until they could no longer hear Shannon Creek below them.

  The force of it going past them almost knocked them off their feet as the ground shook and the wind felt more like standing in a hurricane.

  Wade had never felt anything like that before.

  Ever.

  Nature was amazingly powerful.

  Dust filled the air, swirling clouds and they both turned away to protect their faces as the clouds washed over them.

  Then, after only what seemed like a few seconds, it was over.

  The sound of Shannon Creek below seemed to stop, and only the sounds of an occasional bouncing rock echoed through the valley.

  Through the settling dust, they could see that the landslide had filled in across the creek and water was quickly backing up behind it. And as they watched, the intense pressure of the water pushed through, carving a channel without seeming to even stop.

  The sound of Shannon Creek returned with the added sound of rocks being tumbled along with the water.

  Before the slide, there had been maybe a hundred paces of brush between the tree line and the main talus slope. Now most of that brush was gone, wiped out or stripped of all leaves and branches.

  “Tomorrow we start the trail,” Wade said, hugging Sophie.

  “So what are we supposed to do between now and then?” Sophie asked, looking up at him.

  He smiled at her. “Warm tent, warm blankets, two warm bodies. Both very much alive. I have a few ideas.”

  She laughed and moved around in front of him and kissed him.

  Then she stopped and looked at him directly, her dark eyes trying to be serious but he knew she wasn’t.

  “So getting killed makes you hot?”

  “No,” Wade said, trying to keep a straight face while looking into her wonderful dark eyes. “Not getting killed makes me hot. That and your wonderful brain and fantastic body.”

  “Well, Doctor,” she said, smiling. “You know all the right things to say to make a girl feel better.”

  “Wait until we get to the tent,” he said, smiling at her. “I’ll show you feeling better.”

  She laughed and then took his hand and started back into the trees toward their camp.

  They were both alive and for the moment, they were going to celebrate that.

  THIRTY-THREE

  May 28th, 1887

  Central Idaho Mountains

  IT HAD TAKEN them three days to build the trail across the talus slope, as Duster had told them, “One rock at a time.”

  Sophie had been terrified the entire time, but Wade had insisted that they rope themselves together and also tie the rope to a large rock near the edge of the slope. That had helped the fear some.

  And they had built the trail to last until professionals got in and built a real wagon road.

  She had worn heavy gloves to pick up the sharp-edged stones, but after two days her hands were bruised and hurting and she had really smashed one thumb which caused her to use swear words Wade said he had never heard before or imagined.

  He had looked at it and said it wasn’t broken, just badly bruised. He had her ice it in cold stream water for an hour before he would let her think of going back to work.

  By the time they finished the trail to the other side right before sundown on the third day, all she wanted to do was soak both her hands and then sleep.

  Back in the camp they
had both done just that and both had slept soundly.

  By the time the sun was hitting the tops of the snow above them the next morning, they had crossed the slope. But her hands were so sore, she could barely hold onto the horse’s reins.

  In all of her studies about the women in the past, she had never run across a mention of sore and aching hands. Anywhere. It seemed that there was a lot of stuff about the women of the early west that hadn’t been written about and she had a hunch she was just starting to discover them.

  They took breaks every hour, continuing to follow game trails along the creek, often finding themselves a couple hundred feet above the water and often having to walk and lead their horses up tough spots.

  There were two smaller talus slopes they had to cross, but both were so narrow, they figured out another way to cross them without spending the time to build a trail.

  Wade roped himself to a tree, then went across first leading his horse. Then he came back and did the same thing again, this time leading his packhorse, and then a third time leading Sophie’s pack horse.

  She had objected that she could lead her own packhorse and he shook his head and reached out to take her hands. When he touched them, she jerked in pain.

  “I can hold the reins better,” he said. “We’re a team, remember? This isn’t me being macho, trust me, this is me being a team member.”

  She kissed him and let him take her packhorse across and then come back and take her horse across.

  Then Wade tied his end of the rope to another tree on the other side and Sophie tied herself to the rope and went across as Wade took up the slack. That method worked for both small slopes and they both felt as safe as possible considering.

  They found a nice rock shelf in the trees above the creek to make camp for the night on the other side of the last talus slope. They were just a few hours ride from Grapevine Springs future town site, but they both wanted to ride into the valley with the sun overhead instead of the dim of the evening.