And also buy the land for the lodge and test some construction crews as well.
“There are eight of us this time,” Duster said. “Anyone comes back here and pulls the plug, everyone returns. Remember that.”
“But only take the wire off the machine,” Steven said, “if you have to pull the plug on this trip. Leave it on the crystal. That way we can go back to what we have built or got done.”
Duster nodded at that and April just looked at Ryan, the panic back in her stomach.
“Everyone gather around and take a spot with one hand on the machine,” Bonnie said.
All eight of them did as she said.
To April, the machine felt like a piece of metal and nothing more, a little cool from being in a cave, but nothing special. It was about the size of a large desktop computer without the screen. There was more than enough room for all of them to touch it.
“When the time comes,” Bonnie said, “the five of us need to touch the machine at the same moment.” She looked first at April, then at Ryan.
They both nodded.
Bonnie turned and kissed Duster. “Behave yourself until I get there.”
He laughed and moved over and then, with gloves on, put the clamps on one crystal about shoulder high on the wall and about twenty feet away from the table.
He made sure the wires to it were secure, then came back.
He set a date on the machine, hooked up one wire, then with a wink at Bonnie, he hooked up the other wire, took off the glove and with a bare hand he touched the machine.
And vanished.
April wanted to sprint for the opening of the cavern, but she stayed close to Ryan and said nothing.
Terrified only began to describe how she was feeling.
Madison, also with a glove on, quickly stepped up to the machine and changed the date. Then he took the glove off and said, “One, two, three.”
On the count of three, he and Dawn both touched the machine where Bonnie had told them to with their bare hands.
And vanished.
Bonnie quickly put the glove on and April saw she switched the date to May 1900.
Oh, my, this was really going to happen.
April now knew she was going to go back into the past with Ryan and build a lodge.
She made herself take a deep breath so she wouldn’t pass out.
Bonnie took the glove off and looked at everyone.
“On the count of three, touch the machine.”
April tried to nod, but she didn’t think she did.
“Adventure,” Ryan said, looking at her and trying to smile.
At that she managed to nod.
Bonnie had everyone step up close.
“One, two, three,” she said.
All five of them touched the machine at the same time.
Nothing exploded.
April felt nothing.
Not a damn thing happened.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
May 5, 1900
BESIDE APRIL, Bonnie stepped back. So did Janice and Steven.
April and Ryan both slowly took their hands off the machine. Ryan looked as puzzled as she felt.
“Let’s go see who’s here to meet us,” Bonnie said.
April just stood there, trying to breathe normally, looking at Ryan.
He glanced at the machine hooked up to a crystal on the wall, then at April, grinning. “I think we’re in 1900.”
Even though nothing had really happened when they had gone back to Silver City in 1887, she thought this time would be different. But it hadn’t been.
Stepping from timeline to timeline, year to year, seemed to be something that happened without a bang or even a slight feeling of travel. Almost disappointing, especially after feeling as nervous as she had been about it.
They had simply walked into this fantastic crystal cave, touched something, and turned around and left.
April again forced herself to take a deep breath. Then, her hand in Ryan’s, they walked toward the tunnel out of the crystal room and into the big cavern.
“Adventure,” he said again.
“Adventure,” she repeated.
Duster was there, looking slightly older and rougher, and his hair was longer. He was kissing Bonnie when they walked in.
“Where’s Madison and Dawn?” Steven asked.
“They stayed in Boise, getting things ready,” Duster said.
“What day is it?” Bonnie asked, holding onto her husband’s hand. Actually, from what April could tell, he was holding hers.
“May 5th, 1900,” Duster said, smiling at April and Ryan. “About noon.”
“Pretty close to our target,” Bonnie said, nodding. “How long have you been here?”
“Since the twenty-second of April. I have horses and gear in a camp outside.”
“Weather?” Steven asked.
April understood exactly where that question was coming from. She had a hunch getting off this hill in a snowstorm was not something any of them wanted to try. She always paid extreme attention to weather when making any hike.
“It’s been a warm spring,” Duster said. “In fact, we can get out of here without a problem this afternoon and, if we are lucky, we can be up on Monumental Summit by the 20th.”
“Did you get the land?” Ryan asked.
Duster smiled and April saw clearly that the smile reached his eyes. He was very excited.
“I got it all,” he said. “And acres on the Stibnite side for lumber and out-buildings.”
With that Bonnie kissed Duster again. “Wonderful!”
“The trail in?” Steven asked. “Dewey doesn’t start building that road up to the summit until next summer.”
“A little bit of money convinced him to start a year early,” Duster said, laughing. “Madison really knows the man and his weaknesses.”
April couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It sounded like they were really going to build the lodge.
Beside her Ryan just smiled like a kid staring at the front gate of Disneyland. She liked that look on his face.
His long coat and cowboy hat did amazing things for him. Made him even more attractive to her, if that was possible.
The next thing she knew, they were headed outside.
The air on the top of the mine tailings had a hard bite to it and she put on the heavy coat and her gloves. Then from a hidden pocket in the coat she pulled out a brown stocking cap almost the color of her hair and put that on over her ears. Then she put a 1900s bonnet over that to hide the stocking cap.
If she let her ears get cold, she knew she would be cold all day. And she didn’t want that.
The sun was shining and the sky a bright blue. Drifts of snow still filled most areas around the hillside and the old mining shack had a large snowdrift up against it.
She and Ryan spent a minute or so staring down at Silver City below them. Now she didn’t need to see that town to know she was in the past.
She knew it.
And slowly, the fear she had been feeling was getting replaced by excitement.
A few minutes later, she was introduced to her horse, a black mare she immediately called “Trusty.”
“As in Trusty Steed?” Ryan asked, smiling as she was shown by Duster how to get the 1900 saddle on the horse and secured.
“Exactly,” she said, smiling at Ryan.
He and Duster both just laughed and then Ryan got his horse ready to go as well.
She had spent time on horses on different pack trips into the mountains. And she had ridden a lot as a girl. But she didn’t plan on riding this horse off this hill, no matter how trusty the horse was. She wasn’t good enough by a long ways to ride a horse down a steep slope.
The saddle looked very dated compared to modern ones, yet April knew it would be the top of the line for this time period because that was the way that Duster did things.
Also on the saddle was a rifle in a sling. She knew how to fire a rifle and wasn’t afraid of guns, but she was surprise
d to see it there on her saddle. She had a hunch there were a lot of details like that she hadn’t thought through.
She mentioned that to Bonnie and she just shrugged. “This is the West. Duster believes we all should be armed. Especially since we are headed up to a gold rush camp. Be careful with it, though. Knowing Duster, it’s loaded.”
April could think of nothing more to say to that.
At one point, Duster walked over to her and Ryan. First he handed each of them two antique-looking keys to get into the mine and showed them how to use them and where a key was hidden up on the hill in case they needed to get in and had lost theirs.
“Got a question,” he said after that. “It’s safer in the West for a couple to travel together. You two all right with one tent?”
April smiled and looked over at Ryan. If they hadn’t had last night, she more than likely would have said that two were better.
Ryan looked at her and smiled. “Easier?”
She nodded and smiled at Duster. “One tent.”
He just nodded. “Hide those keys well.” Then he walked away.
Ryan smiled at April and then kissed her.
“I hope you don’t snore,” he said.
“Who said we would be sleeping?”
He just laughed and went back to work on getting his horse ready.
When they were all ready and the camp had been broken, Duster looked at everyone. “Janice, you and Steven will ride out ahead with me. We’ll take the long way around with the two packhorses. Bonnie, you and April and Ryan go directly down and over the hill. Take your time and walk a lot of it and we’ll meet you at the first camp.”
Bonnie nodded. “Dinner?”
“I’ll have it on the fire and waiting,” Steven said, smiling.
Duster and Janice and Steven headed off the mine tailings, walking their horses along the trail past where, in the future, in another timeline, the Cadillac would be parked.
“Why are we breaking up?” Ryan asked Bonnie right before April could.
“Six people up here like this would cause too much attention,” she said. “And besides, they are going to be mostly riding. We’re going to do a lot of walking to get you used to riding and the saddles over the next few days.”
“Oh, thank you,” April said.
“Yes, thanks,” Ryan said.
Bonnie laughed. “Don’t mention it. I have to do a lot of walking as well on the first trip back every spring.”
Five minutes later they started off across the same trail. Bonnie in the lead, April in the center, Ryan behind her.
The adventure had begun.
And April was doing exactly what she loved to do more than anything else. She was hiking in the mountains.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
May 5, 1900
RYAN WAS EXHAUSTED by the time the three of them reached camp. The sun was barely lighting the sky and the air had warmed a little as they got down out of the Owyhee Mountains and into the Treasure Valley. There was no snow on the ground anymore and trees were starting to gain their leaves and the grass was green. The Snake River was running close by their first night’s camp. He could hear it in the background.
This camp in 1900 was a very long ways from waking up naked this morning beside April in her apartment in Boise in 2015.
A very long ways.
Sometimes he understood that, sometimes he found it almost impossible to believe.
By the time they rode into the camp tucked down in a small meadow inside a grove of cottonwood trees, Duster and Janice and Steven already had the tents up and the camp set. A fire was going and a wonderful smell of something beef cooking made Ryan’s stomach rumble.
He and Bonnie and April all spent the first half hour brushing down their horses, getting them some food and getting them settled for the night with the other horses. By the time they were done, the sky had gone almost completely dark and only the campfire lit up the meadow with orange flickering light.
They had only ridden in half-hour sections, and then walked for a half hour, but even with that, Ryan felt saddle sore. It was going to take him a few more days to really get used to riding, if not longer.
After finishing with the horses and washing up from a bucket brought up from the river, Steven had served them a seemingly fresh stew that Duster had made and brought with him from the mine. The campfire was crackling and the night air was cooling quickly.
Janice had already gone off to her tent to sleep.
From the looks of it, Duster wasn’t going to be far behind in his retirement to a tent.
Ryan loved camping like this and he made a point to sit next to April on a wide log as they ate.
Steven made sure they had enough food, then took the remaining stew off the fire, covered the pot, and attached it to a rope and pulled it up high into a nearby cottonwood tree to cool.
Then he pointed to another bucket of water and two towels and smiled at April and Ryan. “You guys get to wash the dishes.”
“Glad to,” April said.
After fifteen more minutes, only the two of them remained outside a tent, talking quietly as they washed the dishes.
Then making sure the fire was contained, mostly out, and had no chance of spreading, they headed for their tent.
The tent was large, canvas, and looked like a tent from 1900, with walls and two sides, held up by wooden poles and the top held up by two large poles on either side.
A large mattress about the size of a queen bed filled the center of the tent covered by a quilt. He and April had put their saddlebags in the tent earlier, hers on one side, his on another.
The only light in the tent was from the remains of the fire outside coming through the canvas.
“This would be uncomfortable,” she said, starting to peal off her clothes, “if I weren’t so tired.”
Ryan worked to take off his clothes as well, finally getting down to just his underwear. Then he turned to look at her.
She was struggling with a button on the side of her pants and he came over and helped her undo it.
In a moment she was also down to her underwear.
Then she pulled off her sports bra and then her underwear, putting both on top of her clothes on her saddlebags.
Even in the dim light, her naked body damn near took his breath away.
“We’re only cuddling,” she whispered, kissing him. “Last thing we need on our first night is to keep the camp awake.”
He kissed her back, then slid out of his underwear.
As they sat down on the bed, he was surprised. Inside what was clearly an antique-looking pad was an air mattress.
“Nice,” she whispered, “I was expecting to sleep on hard ground. Duster thinks of everything.”
“He’s been doing this a while,” Ryan whispered as he crawled in under the quilt and snuggled up against her wonderful back.
She pushed against him. He knew she could feel his hardness against her.
“I am sensing some thoughts on that tired brain, mister,” she whispered. “Feels wonderful.”
“So do you,” he whispered back.
Then he moved slightly away from her with his crotch and whispered, “Sleep. We have years ahead of us to enjoy that.”
“Promise?” she asked softly.
“Promise,” he said, his arms around her, holding her.
The next thing he remembered, the sun was up outside, the smell of eggs and bacon filled the tent, and April was standing over him, straddling him, smiling.
And she was completely naked.
“That’s a fantastic view to wake up to,” he said softly, looking up at her wonderful body.
“So is that,” she said, pointing at his hardness.
She stood there for a moment longer letting him stare at her as she stared at him.
Then she laughed and moved to start dressing.
“This just might be the best camping trip ever,” he said softly.
She leaned over and kissed him. “It’s just
starting.”
He liked the sound of that a great deal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
May 7, 1900
IT TOOK THEM two more days to get into Boise. The weather had held nice the entire time, letting them ride in comfort, which April felt very lucky about. She had done her share of riding in cold rain and it wasn’t much fun.
All along the way the sounds of farming and the smells of cooking kept hitting her. Plus the smells of fresh spring growth in the grass made the trip amazing.
Her horse, Trusty, turned out to be wonderful and very gentle, not fighting her in any way. And by the third day, April felt pretty comfortable riding most of the way.
Janice and Steven had left them as they reached Caldwell on the second day. Since they were going to run the general store again in Roosevelt to help in getting supplies in there for the lodge, they headed directly north toward Central Idaho to buy the land they needed and secure the land to build two nice homes down in Roosevelt as well. One for Janice and Steven and one for the rest of them when they were there for different reasons.
Duster said he would have a crew in there building them as soon as they made the summit.
April understood wanting the houses down in the valley. At times, it was going to just be best to stay in the valley instead of trying to make the distance up to the lodge. It made perfect sense.
The four of them finally reached the main part of the Treasure Valley around three in the afternoon. April was stunned as they rode into the outskirts of the capitol of the state, coming in on a wide road along the Boise River. It felt like she was riding right into books in her profession.
She used a lot of old pictures to find different forms of furnishings and designs from this exact time period, and now it was as if those photos had just come alive around her.
And Ryan was looking at everything as well, his head turning from one side to another.
There were some pretty nice homes tucked back on large estates along the river as they rode in what would end up being State Street and toward the downtown area.
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