Mac nodded. “He told him to run.”
“But everybody says Jerry is a common name. He could have been talking about any Jerry,” Sylvie said in a common sense kind of voice. “Hey! What’s the likelihood that Jerry in the future and your husband in the past ran into each other?”
“They fool around with some strange things in that business of Zan’s,” Mrs. Myers said, calmly ignoring Sylvie’s comments. “Probably with time.”
Anyplace else this would have sounded like so much nonsense, Mac thought, but here in Lavender it seemed rather normal.
“First of all, we have to find Jerry. We can still save him.”
Mac waited.
“And secondly, I need to know what happened to Herman. My whole life has been about him being gone. I turned out to be who I am because he was missing. I want the truth.”
“You turned out great,” Sylvie said almost angrily.
Mrs. Myers smiled at her. “We won’t find the answers in town. I don’t think Jerry is here. Somebody would notice. Somebody would know.”
“I’ve been looking,” Mac said quietly.
The older woman nodded. “We all know that, honey, but even with a little place like ours, there’s lots of places out in the country where they could have hidden him. And when we find him, we’ll learn more about why Herman called to him as he lay dying.”
Her eyes remained dry, her features calm, but Mac had a feeling that a whole lot was going on under the surface. “How do we begin?”
“The surrey,” she said. “I’m sure your father won’t mind if we borrow it.”
Sylvie nodded, crawling off the bed and going over to her wardrobe to bring out a straw hat. She handed it to Mac. “You’ll need this,” she said, “to keep from getting a sun burn.” For herself she drew out a pretty little sun bonnet that matched her pale blue flower-pattered print dress. “I’ll meet you out front.”
When he came out on plowed ground and saw an isolated farm house in the distance, Jerry swore softly with relief. Finally. He could get somebody to go with him to rescue Myers.
Evening darkened around him and the lighted windows of the well-built little house, backed up by a good sized barn seemed almost like civilization to him. If he hadn’t already been convinced that he could not possibly be in Lavender, the glow of candlelight from that home would not have persuaded him otherwise. Country homes in Lavender also depended on primitive lighting. He was aware of the familiar sound of a horse neighing nearby and with sudden sharpness was reminded of his home on the ranch in Oklahoma.
Weary and starving as he was, he knocked with loud impatience at the door and stamped from one foot to the other as he heard the sound of someone moving through the house in his direction.
Well over six feet tall, he found himself looking down at a little old man with a white beard that made him look like a cross between Santa Claus and Rumpelstiltskin. Measuring barely over five feet and appearing almost as wide as he was tall, he nevertheless looked quite formidable considering the long barrel of a shot gun he was pointing straight at Jerry’s middle.
Slowly Jerry raised his hands. “I’m looking for help,” he shouted. “And you’re standing there holding a gun on me.”
The man turned his head to spit tobacco. “Don’t know you. Stranger prowling around my place at night trying to steal my horses.”
“I have horses of my own. I wouldn’t steal yours. Mine are safe on my parents’ place in . . .” He nearly said Oklahoma, but guessing when he was, figured his home state didn’t even have a name yet. “Up near the territory.”
The old man’s face puckered with thought. “Rough country. Lots of outlaws up there.”
Jerry wasn’t about to argue what was to him history. “I’m here because of your neighbor, Mr. Meyers. He’s been beaten and is being held captive by outlaws.” True enough, he decided, though in the modern world they had other titles.
“Young Herman? Well, dad-burned, why didn’t you say so?” Still he didn’t lower the gun, though he turned back toward the open doorway. “Just let me load this gun and we’ll be off to see about him. You go down to the barn and saddle us some horseflesh.”
Jerry couldn’t help inner laughter as he went in the direction indicated to find within the neatly kept barn that smelled of horses and hay, three horses drowsing over their food, but coming alert watchfully at the approach of a stranger.
He’d gotten one ready to go and was about to start on another when the little man stomped in after him, putting down his gun to see that his horses were being treated right.
Jerry couldn’t help being amazed his host had so quickly accepted his request for help, but noticed that the gun lay on a bale of hay on the other side where it could be easily reached.
He grunted as Jerry put the second saddle in place, then said, “Guess you do know your way around horses,” he said, “but so would a horse thief.”
“Suppose so.” Jerry watched as the gun was put in place and then, in spite of his short legs and advanced age, the little man virtually leapt into the saddle. He swung up into his own.
Chapter Thirteen
After riding in the closed-in buggy, the open surrey that moved more quickly out of town and into the country was a revelation to Mac. Late morning moved toward what was bound to be a heated afternoon, but a cooling breeze blew across them, scented with the deep scents of summer as they clip-clopped behind the team of snowy horses, moving past farms where families working in the fields waved to them as they passed by.
At Betsy and Caleb’s place, Ben shouted to see them and tried for a bit to follow on his short little pony while Emilee’s excited shrieks reached over the noise of the road. Like her neighbors, Betsy smiled and waved from her own front porch, where she sat sewing as she watched the children at play.
The road beginning to be familiar, Mac made it her job to mark it even more clearly in her mind, noting the small adobe house at the farm next after Betsy’s, the rambling cabin that appeared to have been added on to over the years where it seemed a crowd of stair-step children lived and worked, the abandoned homestead where nobody lived anymore. There were no more than half a dozen homes along the way, the farms seemed to spread out and occupy most of the land, producing the food and fiber that supplied the community that was in a way an island unto itself.
“What’s it like?” she asked suddenly. “Living closed in all your life?”
“Don’t know that I will,” Sylvie said, her gaze on the narrow road ahead, “but so far it’s been good.”
“And I was in my late twenties when I came here with my girls. After everything that had happened, Herman going missing and the suspicion in so many eyes that I’d done something to him . . .” She paused, seeming to gather her thoughts. “At first I kept thinking. Fifty miles away, a long distance, but any day somebody from Korn might show up and bring it all back. I was glad when the old doctor got everybody to vote to close our borders. Then I felt safe.”
The story now known to Mac, if not fully accepted, that Dr. Evan’s eccentric father had done something, nobody seemed to know exactly what, that had moved the community into isolation to keep from spreading deadly influenza, setting it on a different, much slower moving course in time.
Well, for now she would just accept what these others believed and move forward.
But Mrs. Myers hadn’t finished what she had to say. “Mostly the youngsters as they begin to grow up feel differently. They imagine a world more exciting, long for adventure or glamor and less hard work. But Betsy provides a way to release steam. She offers a trip out to anyone who sincerely convinces her that’s what they want and if they want to stay, they can. Most come back.”
“Eddie left to be with Zan,” Sylvie pointed out.” “And Warne went away so he could be with Violet. It’s so romantic, giving up everything to be with your true love.”
“Now, Sylvie,” Mrs. Myers snapped. “You can just focus on finding your true love within Lavender. There’s lots of nice
young men right here.”
Sylvie sighed dramatically. “Mom-Myers, nice isn’t exactly what I’m looking for.”
Mac couldn’t help laughing.
“The creek is our usual picnicking spot,” Mrs. Myers said, “but I think we’ll try a new location today.” Her glance at the sparkling little creek seemed a little sad and Mac guessed she was thinking of the scene she had not witnessed when others had found her long-lost husband dying there.
Nothing was said as they drove past and for the first time Mac found herself following a pattern most of Lavender’s more adventurous residents knew well enough. Without Betsy to lead them across the border, they moved in a wide circle, edging toward the southeast. From here, you could not travel straight east, the time barrier prevented that from happening.
The land lay rough ahead with more hills and trees and less tillable land. Spots near the river turned into bad lands, marred with wind and water cut erosion that exposed the bare bones of scoured rock and land. To Mac’s eyes there was a special beauty in these locations and in the deep river that lay beyond, cutting a path through the community. A path that like the roadway led eventually to a dead end. She wondered if, like the migratory birds, even running water was contained and could go so far and no further.
She listened to the chat between Mrs. Myers and Sylvie and felt herself grow lazy and almost content as the surrey, moving slow and careful over the road that had dwindled into something that could be more properly called a trail.
“Betsy and Caleb used to live out here,” Sylvie told her. “Caleb got the land right after the war and built a cabin.”
The war? Mac realized they were talking about the civil war when north fought south and the United States came close to being irretrievably broken.
Mrs. Myers had grown quiet and Mac saw that her eyes were watching closely as though hoping to see some sign of Jerry Caldecott out here in the wilderness. “Not many come out here anymore,” she suddenly said. “Land’s not much good for farming and better trees for building out to the west.” She leaned toward Sylvie. “We’ll stop here and eat our lunch,” she said, pointing to where the river ran close to the roadside.
Obediently Sylvie drew the team to a halt, climbed down and began to loosen them from their harness, leaving them free to graze on the thicker grass by the riverside and to drink from the running water.
Mrs. Myers got laboriously down from the surrey, handing the picnic basket down to Sylvie, but once she stood on the ground, taking it back into her care. Leading the way to the shade of a big cottonwood, she put the basket down to take out a small red and white checked cloth, spreading it as a place to put out their food.
They feasted on fried chicken and baked sweet potatoes, drinking cool sweet tea poured from a jar into tall glasses, and finishing up with honey sweetened cookies and red apples.
Even Mac, who had been so anxious the last few days that she could barely eat, enjoyed the food and the peace of the spot with the two horses cropping at grass nearby and a long-legged bird standing in the shallows on the edge of the river fishing for his own meal.
Somehow her spirits had lifted and she felt a new confidence that somewhere out here they would find Jerry.
The house where he’d been held prisoner lay abandoned, its front door broken and open to the wild creatures and, hard as they searched, going through the barn and other out-buildings and stepping off each foot of land in the darkness and then again when the morning light began to shine, but finding no sign of either Herman Myers or his oppressors.
The only signs that the story he told was true were the cut ropes lying in the middle of the floor in the front room of the farmhouse and, discovered by his companion, the dried blood that spotted that same floor.
He studied it thoughtfully, his old face bleak, then looked up. “Name’s Henderson,” he said. “Friends call me Bud.”
Mesmerized by the blood, it took Jerry a long moment to realize it was an introduction. He nodded. “Jerry Caldecott,” he said, vaguely aware that perhaps he’d already given his own name. “What do you think has happened to him?”
Henderson shook his head, his full beard swaying with the motion. “No way this feels right. Herman was a good man, a good neighbor.” He took a pinch of tobacco and put it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Hard to see why anybody would harm him and it don’t look like it was for gain. His horses, his cows, even his chickens are still here going about their business.
Jerry watched helplessly as a well-fed looking gray tabby cat peered around a corner into the house moving soundlessly inside as though expecting to be chased off.
“Even Laura and Ruth’s cat,” Henderson added.
This remark jarred Jerry to remembrance. “He was terribly worried about his wife and daughter. Afraid they would be harmed.”
Henderson shook his head. “They wouldn’t be back yet. Still over to Austin with Esther’s grandmother.”
Jerry looked questioningly at the other man. “They had a little falling out, Esther and Herman. He was wont to be easy-going, but the same could not be said for Esther. She heard he was kind of flirting with another gal and took off with the girls. But it wasn’t the first time and she’ll be back.’ He shook his head again. “Wist I could say the same for Herman. Got a real bad feeling ‘bout this.”
He was still pitching hay from the barn loft to the horses and while Henderson milked the family cow when they heard the sound of a coming up outside.
Jerry leapt down the ladder from the loft while Henderson stood from where he had hunkered down next to the cow who had needed milking badly rose with surprising quickness for a man of his age and heft. Deliberately he retrieved the weapon he’d left once again on a bale of hay and nodded to jerry. “Let’s see.”
Jerry followed, a pitchfork in his hands, but hoping, perhaps unreasonably, that the new arrival would prove to be Herman Myers.
“Howdy,” the greeting came from up near the house and Jerry couldn’t help thinking the country greeting came oddly in the elite accent of the man just sliding down from his horse. A young man with strangely white hair and strongly designed features, dressed in cowboy clothes of jeans and leather vest and chaps along with barely worn western boots, a gun belted at his side walked slowly toward them, his smile exposing impossibly white teeth.
He looked familiar. Jerry had to consider only briefly, his dazed memories bringing back this face as one of those who had overseen his capture and drug-induced torture.
He raised the pitchfork slightly and tightened his grip. “Get him in your site, Bud,” he said in a low, but carrying voice.
He heard a click from Henderson’s gun, but the intruder continued to come forward, a slight smile on his patrician face. “Mr. Caldecott,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“Don’t suppose you have anything to say that I’d want to hear. Not unless you can tell me what’s happened to Herman Myers.”
The smile died and the face took on a serious look. “We need to discuss the fate of Mr. Myers.”
Henderson stepped forward to thrust his shotgun angled upward into the man’s face. Jerry, a modern man who had little to do with guns and abhorred violence of any kind, didn’t feel like immediately intervening.
He didn’t much care if he shot the smirking devil who had coldly held him captive and filled him full of drugs that made him betray every secret he’d ever had. Worse than that, he was responsible for what had happened to Herman Myers.
Chapter Fourteen
It was only as she ate a cookie at the end of the meal that Mac began to feel her contentment fade. The feeling that they were about to do something about Jerry’s absence had buoyed her for a while, but now it was time to face reality.
Where did they begin? She looked to Mrs. Myers who had eaten little and now seemed lost in thought as she stared past the grazing horses to the river.
“Mom Myers?” Sylvie questioned, seeming disconcerted by that vacant look on the face of her foster grandmot
her. “Are you okay?”
It was funny, Mac thought irrelevantly, how Sylvie and her sisters combined elements of old fashioned and modern language in their conversation. She wondered if they even realized how influenced they were by that future time. In a way they straddled the years with their visits and their little gifts brought back to Lavender. They opened a hole in time that left their community vulnerable.
“Mom?” Sylvie asked more urgently.
Mrs. Myers jumped. “Oh, sorry, I was wool-gathering.” She looked past Sylvie to Mac. “I’m afraid we’ve made a mistake.”
Mac waited for an explanation.
“It seems to me that it’s unlikely that Jerry’s in Lavender. And I can’t begin to guess how Herman got here from where he started.”
Confused, Sylvie shook her head.
“But he was here. He died here.”
“He was in Korn. We had a fight, me and him, and I took our daughters and went to visit family in Austin. Had to figure things out and when I came back, he was gone. I never saw him alive again.”
She got to her feet and began collecting the remains of their picnic while both young women remained seated on the ground, watching her. “He died back then and was dumped here, shoved through time to Lavender, bringing two great birds that didn’t belong here with him. This was our future back then, Mac. It has to be about time. He opened a crack and came through.”
This was too much for Mac to take in. She hadn’t even been able so far to assimilate the fact that she was back in 1913. “But, Mrs. Myers . . .”
“Call me Esther. It’ll be easier if we’re to work with each other.” Uncharacteristically she stuffed the table cloth into the top of the basket, not taking time to fold it neatly. “Harness the horses, Sylvie. We’ve got to head back and get Betsy to help us.”
“Why Betsy?” Mac questioned, not able to make sense of any of it.
Missing in Lavender: A Time Travel Romance (Lavender, Texas series Book 6) Page 9
