The House Near the River

by Barbara Bartholomew

  John told Angie that Salina and his grandson were spending the evening with her intended’s family. She sensed that he felt a little lonely and encouraged him to linger with them.

  He took a particular liking to Shirley Kay. He said she reminded him of his daughter at that age. “Always up to mischief,” he told the little girl and her dimples twinkled as she smiled at him.

  Later that evening after the kids were in bed and Tobe and Matthew sat in the living room smoking, she caught Clemmie pouring what was left of the wine down the drain in the sink.

  It had been a good Christmas, but after she went to bed she lay thinking about Dad and David and wondering if they missed her as much as she missed them.

  Only now and then as she said goodbye to Matthew’s family and went back to watching the days move into the new year, did she allow herself to remember that this was not the happily ever after, not yet.

  Medicine Woman had left her with one last task to accomplish.

  And when her breasts began to grow tender and her stomach unsettled, she knew they had reached another milestone. Clemmie had said she was expecting a baby when she vanished.

  She put off telling Matthew, knowing that once he got word to Clemmie, they would have crossed the line and whatever happened next, could happen.

  But he’d grown up on a farm and worked with animals all his life. He found her puking in the morning and guessed right away.

  He was ecstatic about the baby in his own quiet way, almost as happy as on their wedding day and insisted he take her immediately in to see a doctor in McKinney where she was pronounced as ‘fit as a fiddle’ by the old doctor, who said she was definitely expecting.

  Matthew went to John’s house that evening to call Clemmie with the news. When he came back, after he’d told her what everybody had said, she announced that now it was time to tell her family. She was homesick for Dad and David and meant to go visit them.

  He stared at her in shock. “You mean to go deliberately into time again? You would risk everything by doing that!”

  She hadn’t been really sure until she’d said it right out loud like that. Clemmie had said they had—separately—disappeared. First her, then Matthew. A split that might never be resolved.

  Somehow Matthew’s opposition raised her own determination. He got to see his family but she couldn’t see hers!

  Suddenly for the first time in their married life, they were in the midst of a serious quarrel.

  “You would risk everything we have, our life together, on this whim? Ange Harper, I forbid you to ever go travel in time again.”

  Incredulous, she stared at him. “You forbid me?” Never had she used such a tone to her beloved Matthew.

  “I won’t have it,” he snapped.

  “Not your choice,” she snapped back.

  “I’m your husband.”

  “And I’m the oldest. Remember, I was born in 1868.”

  “You don’t look a day older than twenty eight.” This time, relaxing a little, he grinned.

  Somehow she was more enraged by his humor than she had been by his anger.

  This time she deliberately reached out, seeking a way to her father and David. It didn’t happen the way she intended.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  She was living on two levels, seeing the world around her twice was like having double vision on a seriously deep level. She was conscious that something was very wrong.

  The first stars were beginning to peer out as she drove up the narrow, winding dirt trail that led to the tall, weather-grayed old house. “If I ever believed in haunts,” she said aloud, merely because the sound of her own voice was somehow comforting, “this would be the night.”

  She’d been here before. This was happening again.

  Her thoughts continued to roll even as the car moved slowly ahead.

  She hadn’t planned it this way. As she’d listened to the country music that came in from nearby radio stations, feeling that it was the thing to set the stage for this particular outing, she’d thought she’d get here long before dark. She had visualized the meeting with this cousin she only rarely seen since she was a little girl. She and Amanda would stroll through the rooms of the old house, empty now for a long time, but full of memories of the days when they’d been best friends, close to the same age, and a day at Grandma’s house was to be treasured.

  She’d pictured this as happening in bright sunlight in the middle of the afternoon, but her Volvo had decided to indulge in a flat in the middle of isolated western Oklahoma farm country, the kind of flat where the tire was ruined beyond repair and needed to be replaced immediately. Only she hadn’t been able to loosen it from the wheel no matter how hard she’d tried and she was admittedly not very accustomed to even the simplest auto care. Back at home in Dallas, all she ever did was call her roadside service and they put things right.

  But this was lonely western Oklahoma and service for her phone was spotty and tended to drop off before she could complete a message. Against all her teachings, she’d accepted a pickup ride from a friendly farm woman who didn’t have a cell phone, but took her into the nearest small town where she was able to have assistance sent to her stranded vehicle. All of this took a considerable amount of time, as did replacing the tire once she got to a town big enough to have a tire store.

  With decent cellular service once again available, she’d tried to call Amanda to inform her of the delay, but had to be contented with leaving a message and though she’d been tempted to look for the nearest motel—and they were few and far between—she hadn’t wanted to stand up her cousin, so she’d kept going.

  Now as she pulled up to the edge of the weedy yard, conscious of the shadows of sagging sheds not far from the house, she wished she hadn’t been so thoughtful. No other car was parked out here so she had to suppose Amanda hadn’t gotten her message about the hour she expected to arrive.

  This wasn’t right. She’d been here before. This was when she’d found David.

  Had she missed something last time, forgotten to learn some lesson? Why had Medicine Woman sent her back here?

  She studied the old house. Now she could see Dad and David anytime she wished. She was back in their time. All had to do was turn her car around and drive to Texas.

  But I just came from there. She had that memory and she also knew that minutes before she had stood at her husband’s side, making plans for their expected child.

  Her head whirled and she thought she would pass out. This was the first time this had happened, that she’d gone back to where she’d been before. The duality of it was more than her mind could accept. This time she was sure, not that she was insane, but that if this went on, she was headed there. She was caught in some sort of loop.

  She stepped from the car and in doing so knew she diverted from the past action. Back then she’d taken time to determine that her battery had gone dead, that her phone wasn’t working. She bypassed those steps to stand by the car, listening to the coyotes howl.

  Theirs was a familiar sound now. They didn’t frighten her anymore.

  Now a great opening fringed by lightning and dark within rushed toward her, not waiting for her to walk through, but gulping her down. And she was watching as Clemmie wept silently over the bedside of a child, who tossed restlessly, his face blushed red with fever and his eyes wild with delusion. Danny! Danny was dying.

  When she glanced back at the other image, Matthew was gone and only the gray sky of an October afternoon backed up the crumbling house. She willed herself to sustain the continuing vision of the sick child and flung herself into it, stepping into the front bedroom of Grandma’s house to where the scent of fever and illness was in the air.

  Clemmie cried out wordlessly at the sight of her, then grasped her in a fierce hug. “Oh, Ange, if you only knew how I prayed for you to come.”

  Once again she
stepped into moments already lived. She’d made a difference the first time because she’d found David, lost to them for so many years.

  This time it was her task to identify Danny’s illness and get medical treatment in time to save his life.

  What else? What next?

  The portal swept out of the wall and took her so that once again she stood in the snows of Belgium and lived again that shocking fifteen minutes.

  She felt she couldn’t bear it as she was caught up again.

  She stood looking down on a valley with a town to her left and thousands of yards away the sounds and smells of battle. She heard men cry out and saw the lumbering of tanks, leaving snow and mud in their tracks as they battled each other. Further on one of the tanks was on fire and she saw a man run toward it, yelling for his friends.

  Belgium. The tank fire. Matthew down there in danger. Was she destined to live this horror over and over again even as Matthew dreamed his nightmares and probably would for the rest of his life?

  Once again she slipped away, not under her own guidance, but that of someone else. She found herself once more on the edge of the Cheyenne village.

  But this was different. It was not a replay of the other visit with her living through a scene she had already been through.

  For one thing, it was not night as it had been when she and Matthew came here, but a snowy, graying twilight with people gathered around campfires. Two young men stood up and started toward her, obviously recognizing her as an intruder.

  No wonder, she thought. They probably not only knew every face here, but they also would think her 1940s dress, shoes and hairstyle a little odd in this place and time. Even if she were a pioneer woman she was dressed wrong, and from what she remembered of this time, Native Americans were resident in what would become Oklahoma.

  Before they could get to her a woman stepped in their way, said something in a word or two to them, and they went back to their campfire. The others either quit looking at her or pretended to do so.

  They looked cold and tired and she supposed they were more concerned with their meal than anything else. From what she could see, the rations looked rather skimpy.

  Having sent the young men about their business, Medicine Woman approached her.

  She was older than Angie had first thought, but resolutely beautiful with her strong, experience etched face. “You decided to come back?”

  Angie didn’t know if Medicine Woman spoke and understood English or if somehow the Cheyenne tongue was understandable to her under these circumstances. All that mattered was that they understood each other.

  “I didn’t exactly come by my own choice.”

  The Cheyenne woman regarded her with solemnity underlined with a trace of humor. “You are wrong, my granddaughter. You are the seeker and each action has been by your choice.”

  Angie wanted to argue. That couldn’t be true. She’d been so certain that Medicine Woman had sent her on this latest trip in time.

  “Your mind is trying to understand, trying to figure out what is happening.” She smiled only slightly. “From my own experience, I would suppose you may spend the rest of your life increasing that knowledge. For myself, I have found more questions than answers.”

  Angie was puzzled. “Then what’s the sense of keeping on trying?”

  “What is the sense of living, my granddaughter? We serve the people. We help those we love. Those are not small things to accomplish during one’s years.”

  Angie nodded. “I had to come back because . . .well, because . . .”

  Medicine Woman waited, giving her time to organize the thought.

  Angie drew in a deep breath of the scents of the encampment: cooking food, the nearby horses, the icy cold of the wind. “Every other visit I made, something changed because I was there. But here I accomplished nothing, and I can’t think that’s right.”

  “I will summon you here,” the Cheyenne woman responded, “to give you my last message. I don’t know for certain what happens tomorrow. All I know is that we should leave tonight and that no one will heed my warning.”

  “You could go ahead in time and find out about tomorrow.”

  “No, my granddaughter, it would not be best.”

  “So that was what it was about, coming here so you could tell me I’m at least part Cheyenne and that I’m a time walker like you.”

  “That is a great deal.”

  Angie noticed that she didn’t say that was all, that the purpose of the visit was completed. “Who was my father?” she asked, then stumbled mentally at the thought. “My dad is Clarence Ward. My adoptive parents are my real parents.”

  A slight nod in response to this, then Medicine Woman said, “Did I not choose them?”

  “Why didn’t you give me to a Cheyenne family?”

  “Ah, but this is not a good time to be Cheyenne. Though the real reason is that it was your mother’s choice. She would not tell me who your father was, but she said this way that connection would be made. You would not be among total strangers.”

  “And so far into the future?”

  “All of time is yours, Angela.”

  Angela. It was her name, but nobody ever called her that.

  “Why did you come back?” There was sudden urgency in her tone and Angie looked around to see that an old man was beckoning to her companion. She guessed that the critical moment of decision was approaching when Medicine Woman would make her plea for an immediate departure.

  Angie tried to think why she’d come back. “I barely saw the village and looked closely at no other person was here except you. If I’m half Cheyenne, if my people lie in danger tonight, I want to at least look in their faces and carry something of them into the future with me.”

  Medicine Woman’s face relaxed. It was as though Angie had passed some sort of test. She dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement. “Walk the camp,” she said, “look into those faces and remember forever that you are a time walker, born to serve your people.”

  Medicine Woman left her then to attend to urgent business, but as night began to fall Angie strolled through the encampment. The dwellings made by the tribe, the beadwork on their clothing, the way they cooked their food were all of interest, but she knew time was short.

  She wanted to begin acquainting herself with the people.

  Nobody stopped her. Apparently the fact that she’d been seen with the wife of the chief was enough to give her freedom of the camp. They let her move as though she were a ghost haunting their village, glancing up at her now and then when they thought she wouldn’t see, but looking away quickly before their eyes could meet.

  For the rest of her life she would see those faces: old men and women, small girls, little boys, teens who in spite of their terrible peril were more concerned with the other boys and girls than anyone or anything else. Babies slept in their mother’s arms or in handmade cradles carried on their mother’s backs.

  She peered into one teepee where a very young woman, probably nowhere near her twentieth year, labored to deliver her child. The mother she would never know, she supposed.

  She imprinted that girl’s face on her mind and heart, as she did each face she saw that night, taking them with her when she said a silent goodbye to the doomed village.

  EPILOGUE

  The streets of Oklahoma City were busy on this day after the Pearl Harbor attack and the crowds seemed both jubilant and apprehensive. After years of hearing about Germany moving on its European neighbors and a good part of the nation wanting to stay out of this war, a clear path was marked.

  American ships had been attacked. American troops had been killed. Angie heard whispered speculation about the possibility of a strike on the mainland. Strangers talked to strangers on the street.

  “Won’t ever get tous here,” a grandmotherly looking woman told the man buying a copy of yesterday’s
Oklahoman from a newsboy. Angie could see the enormous black headlines.

  He shook his head. “Got family in California. Went out there to work. Reckon that’d be the first target.”

  She heard talk of the president’s speech to the joint sessions of congress. She didn’t know if it had happened yet or still was to happen, but she did know that war would be declared.

  Somewhere nearby Matthew had spent the morning lining up with all the other Oklahoma farm boys to join the army and fight for the United States. Today was a day of rage that anyone would dare attack their country and optimism that America would show the world what it meant to go after their ships and their men.

  Today those farm boys had little idea of the horrors of war. They didn’t know yet the full extent of the damage in Hawaii or that the ship named in their honor, the USS Oklahoma had taken terrible losses and gone down in the blue waters.

  Even Matthew couldn’t know that one of his neighbor boys that he’d gone to school with had died at the beginning of the attack. But it was something he would learn and remember so harshly that he would tell her about it in those early months of their marriage.

  Angie felt grimy from the long night, her eyes gritty from loss of sleep, her shoes just beginning to dry out from the snowfall she’d walked in near Cheyenne. Her heart ached for those family members who had faced death and loss so long ago.

  It was one thing to read about your ancestors in ancient records, to see their names in census records. It was quite another to meet them face-to-face.

  She tried to focus on this day, telling herself that not every woman knows she is approaching the moment when she is to meet the love of her life.

  She reminded herself that it was not a script she was acting out. It was real life and even though she had plenty of clues from what Matthew had told her of that first meeting, there had to have been so many other details.

  There it was! The little cafe Matthew had mentioned where he had stopped for lunch after signing up.