“Looks like this is our last winter here at the moment,” he said, smiling and moving over to kiss her.
He didn’t realize at the time just how accurate that statement would be.
On April 7th, Talia went out into a slight snowstorm to get some firewood. Ryan was studying some sound wave recordings of the valley they had recorded two days before and didn’t realize for a good fifteen minutes that she hadn’t come back in.
He found her, in her light coat, blood oozing from a gash in her head where she had fallen and hit her head on the edge of some cut firewood. She was covered in snow and almost blue.
Her breathing was shallow and she wasn’t awake.
He got her back inside in front of the fire and out of the wet clothes and wrapped in a blanket.
In all his years alive, he had never, ever felt so panicked and alone.
He got the gash in her head cleaned out and bandaged.
He got her body temperature back up to normal and sat with her for the next day on the couch, wanting to be there when she woke up.
Two days later she had a fever and still hadn’t come to. He gave her more antibiotics that seemed to help for only a short time. Her wound was healing but something inside was clearly wrong.
Six days later, on April 16th, 1916, she died in his arms.
And he became the last person living in the Roosevelt area.
CHAPTER FORTY
December 24th, 2020
Boise, Idaho
THE SILENCE IN the bar seemed like a big thick weight as Stout pulled out his earplugs.
Stout glanced at Richard who was shaking his head. He clearly had no idea what had just gone wrong.
“Looks like I wore out that memory,” David said, looking sad as he moved back to his spot at the bar. Sandy touched his shoulder.
Stout understood completely. That memory allowed David at a safe point to go back and see his wife Elaine. She had died of cancer a few years before and they all missed her. He looked forward every year to seeing her again for even the length of a song.
Carl stood and said, “Let me see if it’s just you or if this thing is broken.”
Everyone scrambled, at Richard’s insistence, to get the earplugs back in as Carl dropped a quarter into the jukebox and punched a selection.
Then he turned to face everyone as the record loaded and started to play.
Nothing.
Just nothing. He shrugged as well and headed back to his spot at the bar.
Stout pulled out his earplugs, as did David. Stout had a clear memory of the first time he heard that song on Christmas Eve a long time ago.
But he didn’t jump to the memory.
“Looks like we have a regular old jukebox now,” Carl said, finishing off his drink. “Can’t say that I’m sorry.”
Everyone took out the earplugs before the song ended and no one vanished from the bar.
Richard silently picked up the earplugs and put them back in the drawer, then he quickly refilled everyone’s drink, including Stout’s eggnog.
Finally, it was David who raised his glass.
“A toast to the jukebox,” he said. “It saved my life, my wife’s life, and gave me two wonderful daughters.”
“And it gave me Jenny again,” Stout said, raising his glass as well.
“It allowed me to live,” Carl said. “Really live.”
“And it gave me good friends,” Fred said.
“I’ll drink to that,” Billy said.
“To the jukebox,” David said.
And everyone drank.
Then, as Stout set his glass down, he asked, “I wonder what happened?”
Richard just shook his head and moved around the end of the bar to unplug the machine. The bright lights and colors went dark and Richard quickly covered it with a special cover that Stout had had made years before.
“It’s a machine,” Carl said. “Machines wear out.”
And with that, Stout could only agree.
After a few more minutes, they were back enjoying each other’s company and the jukebox was forgotten for now.
And even without someone jumping back in time from the bar, Stout’s first Christmas Eve back in the bar since he sold it was a wonderful time.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
About one hundred and four years earlier…
April 30th, 1916
Roosevelt, Idaho
RYAN SOMEHOW MANAGED to chip away at the frozen ground for three days after Talia died, working to dig her a grave on the ridge above the frozen waters of the lake. He moved like a sleepwalker, stumbling around and not realizing sometimes how he managed to get from one place to another.
He couldn’t make himself sleep in their bed, so just stayed on the couch in front of the fireplace.
He had to believe she would be standing beside him when he pulled the wire on the crystal at the Institute, but believing that mathematically and actually having her die in his arms were two different things.
So he kept repeating over and over that she would be there as he worked to dig her grave.
And he kept visualizing her smiling face and those wonderful green eyes.
They had talked some about what they would do if one of them died here. But he honestly hadn’t given it that much thought. Not having her beside him never seemed to be any reality he wanted to think about.
They had lived together for eleven years in this cabin, and up until the end, he had loved every minute of it.
But now he had to bury Talia and figure out what to do with the cabin and everything and somehow get out of this valley and back to the Institute.
Up the valley, on the clear days, he could see the huge Monumental Lodge. He knew that Dawn and Madison, two other travelers from the Institute and their kids were living there through the winter, but it might as well have been light years away for all the good it did him now. The trail up the side of that mountain would be snow-covered and impassable.
By April 18th, he had Talia buried. He left her fully dressed and wrapped in her favorite blanket. Her grave was right beside the trail leading away from the cabin, a place he knew she would have approved of.
After he finished getting her covered in the frozen dirt, he went back inside and drank himself to sleep in front of the fire.
The next morning broke clear and he was hung over, but ready to get to work. Talia would be standing beside him when they unhooked the crystal for this timeline. Bonnie and Duster and Dawn had said they had died many, many times in the past. The key now was to get back to the Institute.
And he had to figure out what to do with a cabin with far too many things in it that were far, far ahead of the time period. If someone else stumbled on this cabin, and found some of its secrets that had allowed he and Talia to live in almost modern comfort, there might be problems.
And, at the same time, he had to try to get all their notebooks back to the future with him.
For the next twelve days he worked at packing saddlebags for the two horses they had in the stable, trying to get anything into the saddlebags that might be taken out of time if found.
Then he slowly and carefully destroyed all the remaining equipment, pulled down all the recording devices, and buried all the remaining parts in the ground in the back of the stable that was dug into the hill.
Duster had given him a pretty accurate valley weather forecast for every day of every winter. They had the records in the Monumental Summit Lodge after many, many timelines of staying through the same time. Ryan knew that April 30th would be the first possible day he could get over the trail leading out past the Dewey Mine and down onto the Middle Fork of the Salmon.
That trail wouldn’t take him up to the lodge, but instead out of this valley and eventually south to Boise. The lodge trail would be just too dangerous until late May or early June. And he didn’t want to stay here without Talia for another month.
He wasn’t sure he could, actually.
So on the crisp, cold morning of April 30
th, he loaded up the two horses and led them down the trail a short distance away from the house and stables as to not spook them.
He tied them up right near Talia’s grave.
Then he turned and went back to the house he and Talia had both loved.
The mountains were showing the first rays of sunrise reflecting off the bright white snow, and the lake below the house was starting to show cracks in the ice, but was a few weeks from thawing yet.
The snow around the house now was only a couple feet deep and melting fast. Spring and summer were on their way.
He stood for a moment looking out over the valley that had held ten thousand people at one point in the not too distant past. He was the last person living in the valley full time.
He glanced up at the Monumental Lodge and waved. He was sure they would see what he was about to do and understand.
He took a deep breath and went in the front door of the house he had come to love. He had piled blankets in various places near walls and a lot of straw covered many areas to work as extra fuel.
He walked through the place once, making sure he had missed nothing. Under his coat, he had strapped a vest with Talia’s main notebooks and his main notebooks.
For the last week he had slept with that vest in his hand. He wanted to make sure the math they had done ended up back in the future with him if he died on the way out. He was sure that he and Talia could recreate it, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
The home was full of wonderful memories. It was hard seeing it ready to be burnt to the ground.
He might suggest to Talia at some point that they build it again and live here again in another timeline. They both had loved the peace and the quiet and the time together.
He took a deep breath and then moved quickly around the house, setting fire to each pile of material, making sure it was going full.
Then he went out the back door and to the stable.
In the back of the stable he had what dynamite they had bought in the general store when they first arrived. He had set it in two places to bring down the mountainside on the stable. He would have the fire he was going to set ignite the explosives.
He checked everything quickly, then lit all the piles of feed and straw he had stacked earlier and moved out into the cold morning air.
The house was already fully engulfed and the flames were crackling and shooting into the clear morning sky, filling the air in the valley with a black smoke.
He paused just long enough to make sure the fires in the stable were going, then headed quickly along the trail, got the horses and mounted up, then with one last look at Talia’s grave, he moved along the trail leading the one packhorse.
Three minutes later an explosion rumbled through the valley.
He didn’t look back.
There was no reason to look back.
His future, the woman he loved, would be waiting for him in Boise in 2020.
He had to believe that.
And he had to get there safely with their work.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
October 17th, 2020
Boise, Idaho
TALIA WAS SURPRISED to find herself standing with her hand on the wooden box in the cavern under the Institute.
Bonnie and Duster and Ryan were standing beside her, also touching the box. She was wearing her normal clothes and had a blanket wrapped around her.
And she was so cold, she was shivering.
Duster had the wire in his hand from where he had unhooked it and brought them all from the past back to 2020.
Ryan dropped the packs he had been carrying and hugged her so hard, she almost couldn’t breathe.
Then he kissed her and Bonnie and Duster laughed and moved toward the entrance to the long, thin cavern that held timeline crystals.
The last thing she remembered was in the spring of 1916 going out for firewood. It had been snowing slightly, but not that bad.
She pushed Ryan back and looked into his eyes. She could see he was so upset that he was almost in tears, while at the same time smiling the largest smile she had seen him smile since they figured out the sound-wave math.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice shaking from being so cold.
He hugged her, then kissed her again, then picked up the packs he had been carrying and turned her toward the door where Bonnie was waiting. “Come on, we need to get you warmed up some.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked Ryan, feeling slightly annoyed.
“You died,” Bonnie said.
That froze Talia in her tracks. Ryan put his arm around her and hugged her, then got her started again toward the door.
“We’ll explain it all and what happened since the day you died,” Bonnie said. “But we need to all take showers and get in fresh clothes and get you warmed up and some food in you.”
Talia was shaking and shivering from the cold and her mind was swirling.
Died?
How could she have died? What had happened?
It took them only a few minutes to get back to the main area and Bonnie helped her into the showers in the women’s locker room area. After a few minutes of standing under the warm water, Talia was starting to slowly feel better.
She put on fresh modern clothes from her locker that felt strange to her after eleven years of living in the past, and combed her more modern haircut. Over the eleven years in the valley, she had let her hair grow long, but it was now back the way she had it when she left.
And she looked younger as well.
Of course, eleven years younger.
Only two minutes and fifteen seconds here had passed in those eleven years. Amazing, just amazing.
And she had supposedly died in the past in that timeline. But she had no memory of how.
Oh, no, poor Ryan.
Bonnie was already finished with her shower and was working on cooking them all some lunch with warm chicken noodle soup and sandwiches. The soup smelled wonderful and made her realize just how hungry she really was.
The large cavern area felt warm and nice, almost like being home again. She sat on a stool at the counter that divided the main kitchen area from the rest of the massive space and looked at Bonnie.
Bonnie looked away from the soup she was stirring and smiled. “Feeling warmer?”
“Much,” Talia said.
At that point, Ryan came out of the men’s locker room looking younger and smiling like the world was the best place ever.
He came over to her and kissed her hard, then sat down at the counter beside her, putting his hand over hers.
Bonnie smiled at both of them. “When Duster gets here, we’ll tell you the entire story.”
“I’m here,” Duster said, coming out of the locker room with his hair wet and a western plaid shirt and fresh jeans.
“So what happened?” Talia asked, turning to Ryan.
He took a deep breath and for a moment his eyes looked haunted. “On April 7th you went out to get firewood from the stack near the back porch.”
“I remember,” Talia said, surprised that she did. “It was snowing lightly. It’s my last memory until I found myself touching the box.”
Ryan nodded. “You slipped and must have hit your head on a piece of the firewood stacked there.”
“Oh, my,” she said, looking at Ryan. “I am so sorry.”
Ryan nodded. “We talked about something like that happening, remember?”
“Talking and having it happen are two different things,” Talia said, squeezing Ryan’s hand.
“Very different,” Bonnie said.
Duster only nodded from his position standing next to Bonnie near the stove.
“I got your wound cleaned out and kept any infection down,” Ryan said, “but you must have had internal bleeding on your brain. You died on April 16th, 1916.”
“Oh,” Talia said, holding Ryan’s hand. Hearing her own death date was just damned hard and creepy and a bunch of things Talia didn’t have time to even t
hink about yet.
“You are here now and that’s all that matters,” Ryan said. He kissed her and she kissed him back.
“So go on with the story,” Bonnie said after a moment as she moved Duster over to work on sandwiches.
“I dug a grave for you in the frozen ground and buried you, then started working on getting out of there.”
“In April?” Talia asked. “How?”
“The weather reports that Duster had given us showed a few clear days at the end of the month. And since it was 1916, I knew that there were ranches and such on the Middle Fork of the Salmon.”
“Good thinking,” Talia said. Over their years in the valley, they had traveled all three of the routes in and out of the valley during the summer. The Middle Fork route was by far the easiest and the one that would clear the soonest every spring.
“I packed the saddlebags with everything I could get from our modern equipment, strapped your journals and mine to my body, then destroyed the rest of our equipment and put all the pieces in the back of the stable, in the cellar there that was dug so deep under the mountain.”
Duster and Bonnie both nodded. Talia was sure they had heard parts of this already.
“Then I set the house on fire and blew up the stable and set it on fire as well, burying any evidence at all that we were there.”
That jolted Talia to know the home she had come to love had been destroyed. But of course she knew it had been, since when they stood on Melody Ridge four months ago in this time, there had been nothing remaining there.
“I’m sure Dawn and Madison went down from the lodge to make sure nothing was left after the trail opened,” Bonnie said.
“We sure did,” Dawn said as she and Madison came walking from the back room toward the main room. They were both carrying packs and both looked like they were dressed in clothes from the 1930s or so.
“Get the kids all grown safe and sound again?” Duster asked.
“We did,” Dawn said. “They are a good brood. We got them off to college before mom and pop were supposedly lost at sea.”
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