Lathering the washcloth with some of her carefully hoarded lavender soap, Zelda scrubbed herself thoroughly, top to bottom. She emptied the basin in the slop bucket and refilled it from the kettle and rinsed. Then she rubbed herself dry on a rough towel that smelled sweet from the clothesline.
Powder, a touch of rose perfume on her throat, behind her ears, at her wrists… The next part was difficult, but very necessary.
Her heart was hammering and her hands trembled as she retrieved the tiny box she’d kept hidden for over a year in her underwear drawer. She withdrew one of the small sponges with its attached string and doused it with vinegar. She’d read the instructions so many times she had them memorized, but she’d never attempted to insert it before.
She’d never had reason to. One didn’t need birth control when virginity seemed a terminal condition.
She squatted, feeling awkward and a trifle hysterical as she lectured herself about false modesty., female emancipation, and experiencing life to the fullest when opportunity presented itself. With trembling fingers, she did her clumsy best to position the device properly.
Zelda had discovered the little cave the autumn before, when she was climbing up Turtle Mountain to photograph the village. It wasn’t far up the hillside, just high enough to allow a view of the valley below. It was small, only about four feet high and the same deep, little more than a hollow on the side of the mountain. But it was private, dry and comfortable, its floor a soft drift of autumn leaves. She’d gone there several times just to be alone, to sit and dream.
As she walked with Tom that afternoon she remembered exactly where it was, and she deliberately steered them in that direction.
The pathway led first through poplar trees and then into heavier evergreen growth at the base of the mountain and up the slope. The earth was musky in places, still thawing from the winter’s frost.
“How did you get interested in photography?” He’d taken the strapped canvas bag she’d sewn for her camera and slung it over his shoulder. As soon as the village was behind them, he’d reached for her hand as well. Every so often he’d rub his thumb across her palm, sending delicious shivers racing through her.
“Back East. I worked as a governess, caring for three children. The mines were slack and when Dad decided we were coming here, my employer gave me a box camera as a parting gift. I struggled to learn how to use it and even more to learn to develop my own photographs. I’d always been interested in art, but I’m afraid I lacked talent with a brush. Then I found a book detailing a photographer named Julia Margaret Cameron. Have you ever heard of her?”
“Nope, but I’m not up on photography at all. Ansel Adams, that’s about it. What kind of pictures did this Cameron woman take?”
She’d never heard of anyone named Ansel Adams.
“Julia Margaret Cameron was a portrait photographer, but she also transformed real people into scenes from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. She was wonderfully creative, and looking at reproductions of her work, I began to realize the potential of the camera. During our journey from the East, I photographed many scenes that I found interesting, and I managed to sell some of them to the newspapers. That small amount of success went straight to my head and I decided to make photography my career. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Frank, Beaseley had just opened his studio, so mine wasn’t the novelty I’d hoped it might be.”
“Still, there ought to be enough work for both of you. Lars was telling me how many immigrants just like him there are in Frank. You’d think most of them would want photos made to send to their families back home.”
“One would think so,” she said, hiking her skirt up to her knees to navigate a marshy section of the path, fully aware of Tom’s eyes on her stockinged legs. “I don’t attract any of their business, although from what I understand, Mr. Beaseley is overwhelmed with work. Of course Dad says it’s because I’m to vocal in my beliefs about emancipation for women, and the need for unions in the coal mines. The residents of Frank are disturbed at a woman speaking out on such issues.” She stopped and looked around. The cave was just over there, behind the bush. He’d see it in a moment, and then she’d suggest they sit there and rest, and then…then…
“Virgil’s probably right about you scaring them off.” He turned his head and grinned down at her, the crooked, engaging grin that tugged at her heartstrings. “You’re ahead of your time Zelda. You’d fit right in where I come from. In my time, it’s taken for granted that women are equal to men, and as for unions, they’ve become so powerful they control the companies.”
Zelda frowned and shook her head at him. She deliberately extricated her hand from his and turned her back, moving ahead of him toward the cave, disappointed that he was spoiling things this way. She hated hearing him lapse into his fantasy world again, for she’d hoped he’d forgotten all about it. It troubled here more than ever now that she’d made up her mind to commit her body to him.
She gasped and nearly lost her footing when suddenly his hands grasped her shoulders and swung her roughly around to face him.
“You just don’t want to hear the truth about me, do you Zelda?” His voice was quiet, but his fingers dug painfully into her shoulders, and the expression on his face made her swallow hard.
He was furious, and it frightened her.
A Distant Echo: Chapter Fourteen
She’d never seen him really angry.
Even when she’d berated him for drinking, there’d been that wicked gleam of humor lurking in his eyes, the suggestion of a smile on his lips. There was none of that now. His blue gaze was cold and contemptuous, his jaw set.
“You think if you refuse to listen to me, it’ll all go away, Zelda? You want to go on pretending that I’m not quite right upstairs, the way Jackson told that Mountie? Well, that’s bull, lady, and somewhere in that fine mind of yours you realize that.”
“You let me go this instant, Tom Chapman.” She struggled, shocked at how strong he was, how easily and effortlessly he trapped her within his grasp. She jerked away, trying to get loose, furious at being held captive. “Let me go, I say. How dare you?”
He grinned, but it wasn’t the friendly grin she was used to. Now there was something primitive about him. “Sorry, Zelda. That tone probably works real well on Virgil and Eli. Makes ‘em snap right into line, but it doesn’t cut ice with me.” He looked around, never letting up for one instant on the iron grip he had on her arms.
“We’re going to find a nice place to sit down. Then you’re going to listen to what I have to say without interrupting or walking away or giving me that superior glare you’re so good at.”
He gave her a shake. “Damn it, Zelda, I’m sick of having you look at me as if you think I’m half nuts every time I mention who I really am and where I come from.”
She wanted either to weep or else to smack him a good one. Confound him, he was ruining all her plans. She hadn’t brought him here to listen to far-fetched fabrications about some imagined life he’d led. She wanted him to hold her, not with anger like this, but with passion. She didn’t want conversation, especially not this particular conversation.
Just then he saw the little cave. He released her shoulders and took a firm grasp on her elbows, steering her toward it, checking inside carefully to be certain it was empty.
“Here, this place is as good as any.” He sank down and, none too gently, pulled her down beside him on the leaves. “Now, Zelda Ralston, for once in your life, shut right up and listen to me, okay?”
She shot him an outraged look. She huffed and moved several feet away from him, rearranging her skirts and straightening her spine, making certain he knew how affronted she was by his behavior. Tears of utter disappointment welled and threatened to spill over, but she held her eyes wide open and willed the tears away, not wanting him to see such weakness.
He was quiet for so long she finally sneaked a sideways glance at him. He didn’t notice. He was staring out over the valley, lost in thought.
When he did spea
k, his words took her by surprise.
“When were you born, Zelda? What year?”
She looked at him, puzzled and intrigued by his question, but still put out with him. Her voice was huffy. “In 1868, of course. I’m presently twenty-eight years of age.”
He nodded, but when his eyes met hers, they were troubled. “I was born in the late seventies, Zelda. The nineteen seventies. Technically, I’m more than a hundred years older than you are.” He held her gaze, and his expression softened into a rueful smile. “It’s one hell of an age difference, huh?”
The hair on her arms stood on end. Whatever else he was going to tell her, she didn’t want to hear. Something about all this terrified here. She started to get to her feet, but his hand closed around her arm and brought her down again with a thump.
“Sit down, Zelda, please, and listen. I want you to know about my world. It’s important to me that you do.” He shifted his body and dug in the pocket of his trousers, withdrawing his wallet. Flipping it open, he withdrew several pieces of what looked to her to be celluloid and held them out.
“This is called a photo ID. It’s my driver’s license. This one is a charge card.”
Unwillingly, she took them. Curious in spite of her misgivings, she looked at them. The card with the photograph shocked and thrilled her, and she couldn’t stop staring at it. It was a tiny portrait of Tom, excellent portrait, but it was in color. She’d never imagined a photo could be as clear and vivid, or that the actual shades of his hair, eyes, and skin tone could be reproduced so accurately. And how had it been imposed on the tiny card? It was encased in some sort of protective covering, not glass, malleable when she bent it slightly. There were no seams, no indication of how the photo got inside the covering. There were numbers, Tom’s name, an address in New Mexico. She ran her finger across the shiny surface and swallowed hard. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a technique or a material she’d ever heard of. Photography of this sort wasn’t possible, she knew that.
Fingers trembling now, she examined the other card. It, too, was encased in the same strange substance. “MasterCard,” this one read, and again, Tom’s name beneath a string of numbers. On the right hand side was the image of an eagle, and when Zelda tilted the card in the sunlight, the bird seemed to move. Startled, she dropped it and shrieked, and again Tom smiled, but there was no real humor in it.
“In my world, this card will buy almost anything. We use it the same way we use money,” he explained, picking it up and sticking it back in his wallet. “’MasterCard, don’t leave home without it,’” he shook his head, muttering, “I’m gonna call their head office and tell them a thing or two, if I ever get back.” He turned to her, taking her hand in his again, resting it on his thigh, so she was aware of the corded muscle, the lithe strength of his legs.
“Zelda, it’s so hard to know where to start, or what to say to make you understand things like television, and microwaves, and airplanes.” He reached out and touched the bulky canvas bag that held her camera. “Photography, for instance. Almost everybody in my time owns a camera. We have these tiny telephones, and they have cameras built into them. Most of them are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Or you can buy an instant camera, a cardboard thing that shoots a roll of film, then gets thrown away. Color film is used far more than black and white, and there’s different speeds of film, so you can take pictures in the dark, or stop a bird in flight. Most people have camcorders…”
On and on he went, and Zelda listened, drawn into the magic world he described in such intimate detail. Astounded and still skeptical, but slowly, against her will, she became convinced he was telling the truth.
He wasn’t mad. He wasn’t suffering from delusions. He was exactly what he claimed to be, a man from another time, stranded, incredibly, in her era.
Perhaps a part of her had known from the very beginning, in the jail when he’d first tried to explain about his strange money. She’d seen his watch every day, and refused to acknowledge what it indicated. She’d told herself it was European, because she hadn’t wanted to believe him, any more than she wanted to now.
“We were searching for lost gold, Jackson and I.” Detail by detail, he went over the incredible events that had brought him to Frank, to 1902, and from there, to here. He explained again about the Slide, and her blood ran cold. He was talking about the mountain they were sitting on, about the town below them, about the people she knew. He knew the exact date, the hour, and minute when the disaster would occur, and she couldn’t disbelieve him any longer.
“We ended up on that small hillside northwest of the town.” He made her stand up, and he pointed it out to her. He described how he and Jackson had made their puzzled way down to Frank, into the café, and how they’d ended up in jail.
At last there was no more to tell, and he sighed and fell silent.
“What can we do, Tom?” The images he’d drawn in her imagination were vivid and horrible, of the peaceful town below them half-covered by boulders, of bodies strewn across the rocks. She felt sick. “How can we warn everyone without having them think we’re lunatics?”
He gave her a tired, knowing smile, and she felt ashamed. That was exactly what she’d almost believed about him, that he was a lunatic.
“I didn’t, you know,” she said earnestly, touching his arm with her hand. “I didn’t believe, Tom, ever, that you were truly demented.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Demented,” he repeated softly.
“I was frightened,” she explained. “You must admit it’s a difficult thing to accept, this---this time travel idea.” He’d told her so many things her brain felt close to bursting. “Do you think you’ll find a way to go back, Tom?” It was the question she’d wanted to ask during his entire monologue. Her chest felt tight with foreboding as he frowned, staring past her at the doomed town that lay at their feet.
“I don’t know.” He sighed, and there was such a wealth of sadness in his tone that she felt like crying.
“I don’t know if there is a way to go back. I’ve thought about it.” He laughed, a harsh, unhappy sound. “Those first days here, it was almost all I thought about. I’ve talked it over with Jackson, and we think our only chance might be on the night of the Slide. Something happened when we were watching that movie that depicted the actual event. Maybe when it really happens next April, some doorway might open and we’ll make it back again. It’s the only plan either of us can come up with, and it’s probably one hell of a long shot.”
She swallowed hard, trying to clear the thickness from her throat, trying to sound interested instead of desolate. “Is it so much better then, that---that future world of yours? I mean,” she went on hastily, “I understand that everything here must seem strange and---and---old-fashioned, as you said. But -but don’t you think that perhaps as time goes by, you’ll get used to it, Tom?”
She fought the quaver that threatened to reveal her vulnerability. “Don’t you think that maybe this place, not Frank, necessarily, but somewhere else, in this era, might become home to you?”
He didn’t even wait until she finished speaking before he began to shake his head. “Zelda, I’m flat broke.” His voice was harsh and passionate. He dug in his pocket, pulled out his wallet again, and shook out a dollar bill and two dimes. “That’s it. That’s every cent I have access to here. I detest being poor.” There was fury in his voice and passion.
“I hate it more than anything else in the world. I grew up penniless, not even having enough to eat at times, and I’ve struggled and planned and saved my entire adult life to amass enough money so I’d never be poor again.” He smashed his fist down on his own leg, startling her.
“Damn it, back in my own time, I’ve got bank accounts, investments, real estate. I studied economics. I hired a man to teach me about money markets just so I’d know how to go about investing the money I made. I was fast approaching a time when I’d be free of all financial worries, a time when I could go live in Hawaii, or Palm Be
ach, or New Zealand, anywhere I wanted. I could work if and when I chose.”
His deep blue eyes burned with an almost fanatical light, and the lines in his face deepened. “If I stay here, Zelda, that’s all gone. I’d have to start all over again, and from what I can see about this time in history, this place, it’s tough even to earn a decent living, never mind amass the kind of money I have.” He shook his head. “Had.”
There was bitterness and infinite despair in his voice. “Zelda, I’m almost forty. I don’t know if I’d even have the energy to start all over again. It takes money to make money, and I’m not even earning enough to take you out for a decent dinner.”
She looked at him, and she realized he wasn’t the man she’d thought she knew at all. With each new revelation, Tom became a stranger all over again. The person she’d wanted to believe was prone to spells of fantasy was instead a man out of his time, from a world far in the future, a world even her rich imagination couldn’t begin to grasp. She’d believed him to be as penniless as she was, and instead he’d been wealthy. Their differences were too great for her even to absorb their full import.
Most disturbing of all, he was committed to leaving…not just Frank, or these North West Territories, or even Canada. If he could find a way---and it was obvious he would try his level best to find one---Tom would leave her and her entire world behind, entirely and forever, without a moment’s hesitation. And he was set on going where she could never follow, even if she wanted to, into the distant and unimaginable future.
She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them with her arms. Trembling, she tried to absorb everything he’d said, to fit it into the context of her life, her reality, the silly dreams she’d dreamed this past week in spite of her common sense.
“I see,” she finally said in a flat tone. “So it’s actually about money.”
He frowned at her, but he nodded. “Yeah, it is, pretty much. I could live without computers and airplanes. I used them but I never liked them much. I could live without my vintage motorcycles, even though I miss them. But money, Zelda. Money’s absolutely essential.”
Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle Page 76
