She stopped the truck at the place where the little cabin had been, her play house. The large oak tree was the only thing still remaining so Lori could even know where the old place used to be. Somehow it seemed like a lifetime ago. She remembered coming out here and playing house like in some of the old western movies that her father loved to watch on television. She smiled, remembering how she was a wife of one of the men in the movies and all this was their land. If only she had someone else to play with. She would stay here for hours and it was usually Bo who came to bring her home. Sometimes she would ride her own horse home and sometimes Bo would tie her horse to his and go fast on his horse and she would laugh.
She put the truck into gear and moved slowly on. She had forgotten how beautiful it was out here with the grass so green this time of year. She might talk to Bo about building the little cabin back, maybe buy a log cabin kit. It would be nice to see a small cabin back next to the big oak tree. She used to wonder how the tree even came to be there. Did someone plant it? Maybe it just grew. She used to pretend she had planted it when she was playing western. She had asked her father and Bo one time but both had said they didn’t know. Her father had told her the tree was there when he was a little boy. Lori drove slowly around the ranch. She would rather be here on the ranch than anywhere else because she had always felt safe here. Maybe because her father had always told her this was the best and safest place she could be in. She stopped at a stream and got out of the truck to look at herself in the water. Her blond hair was bleached even lighter from the sun and her natural curls clung to her head. She always kept her hair short since her father had died and she had taken over the ranch. She didn’t have time to care for it anymore. She remembered the time when she was taking college classes on-line and had met this nice boy. She had fallen for him right away but her father hadn’t liked him at all. He told her there was something he didn’t trust about the boy. Lori had found out for herself when she found him with her best friend Sami, which of course had ended her friendship with Sami also. She shook her head.
“That was then and this is now,” she said aloud as she bent to put her hands in the cool water.
The weather was already reaching the eighty degree mark, the reading in her truck had said before she got out. She put some of the cool water on her face. It felt good. She stood and looked around, suddenly spotting a movement to her right. “What is that,” she thought. Climbing back into the truck, she drove slowly to where she had seen the movement. She spotted something on the ground and stopped the truck again. Jumping out of the truck, she walked over to where she saw the movement.
“Oh no,” she said aloud. “What has happened to you?” There on the ground was one of the new calves. “Where is your mother,” she said as if the calf was going to answer her. She touched the baby cow gently and felt its skin quiver under her hand. Something was wrong, bad wrong. Standing up she ran back to the truck and grabbed her cell phone. She hit the number on speed dial and held the phone to her ear.
“Bo,” she said as the older man answered the phone. “You need to get down here right away. Something is wrong with one of the new calves. I’m out here in the north side and I’ll stay here until you get here.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in a few.”
“Thanks.”
Lori sat down on the ground beside the calf talking to it softly as if it was understanding every word. It did seem to calm the animal down a little. Lori remembered when she was little and her mother had taken her to the barn to see a calf born. It was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. She had rubbed the calf, speaking softly to it. As she rubbed the calf once more, she remembered when Trey came to the ranch only a few months ago.
The first time Lori saw him, he had been driving up the road from town and his old car had stalled. Lori and Adam had stopped to help. Adam was Bo’s best ranch hand and Lori thought if anything ever happened to Bo, Adam would take his place. Trey’s car had blown up and he had no money or job. He was down on his luck much as Bo had been when he first came to the ranch. They had his car towed to the ranch and found out the car wasn’t worth fixing. Bo gave him a job to pay for towing the car. He put him at the house helping the women with the lifting. Lori had been attracted to him from the start. After what happened before and losing her best friend’s friendship, she was afraid to get involved with another man. She remembered the day she was cleaning out the basement and Trey was helping. He was brushing up against her knowing the attraction she felt for him. Coming up behind her, he placed his hands lightly around her waist and then kissed her neck gently and pulled her back against him.
She had wanted so badly to turn and kiss him on the lips, but remembering the hurt of her college days, she pulled away from him and ran from the room. Running up to her room, she told the house keeper she was sick and hadn’t come out until later that day.
Every time after that, Trey made it a point to get close to her because he knew he got to her. She tried to stay away but he always found a way. Then one night she was walking across the yard and in the dark she had fallen and twisted her ankle. Trey had been the one to lift her into his arms and carry her to her bedroom. That had been the first time he had spent the night with her. She smiled a little remembering the great times they had spent together. He had told her she was beautiful and he hadn’t wanted their time together to end. After about a month she had walked into one of the empty bedrooms looking for some extra sheets and found Trey and Molly, the new house maid, making love on the bed. Lori had run from the room but then Trey and Molly had found her and told her they were in love and getting married. He never told Lori he was sorry.
Lori was hurt, but after she talked to Bo, they both decided Trey and the girl had to leave the ranch. Bo fired them both telling them it would be hard to have a relationship with another working on the ranch. Lori hadn’t told Bo about herself and Trey. She hadn’t told anyone. After Trey had been fired, she had cried for hours. Even now when she thought about it she wanted to cry. She had loved Trey and hadn’t understood why he had wanted to have sex with her and run off with someone else. “Just a guy thing, “ she thought. Somehow she had thought he had been as attracted to her as she was to him, but maybe guys didn’t feel attraction the same as a woman does. Trey had flirted with her and followed her until she fell in love with him and said he would always be there for her. That was when she let him make love to her. It had been wonderful and she thought he had felt it too, but she knew now that he had not.
She felt the calf move under her hand and said softly. “It’s okay girl, help is on the way. Bo will be here soon and then you will be okay.”
As if in answer, she heard Bo’s truck coming through the field and soon he and Adam had pulled up beside her. Bo jumped from the truck.
“What happened?”
“Don’t know. I just found her down like this. I think she is in pain.”
Bo slid down beside her and touched the calf. “Yeah, she’s in pain alright, could be she’s been poisoned.”
“I thought of that, but who and why would someone want to poison one of the baby calves?”
“Maybe Trey,” Bo said.
“Maybe,” Lori said thoughtfully.
“Come on Adam, let’s get this little thing back to the barn and see what can be done for her. We may have to call the vet, Miss Lori.”
“Fine,” Lori said. “Whatever you have to do. If she’s been poisoned, I want to know.”
“You got it. See you in a while. If you need me again, call.”
“Thanks Bo,” Lori said as she stood and kissed the older man on the cheek.
Lori watched as Bo and Adam got the calf onto the back of the truck and Adam climbed in beside it. Bo got into the driver’s side and waved at Lori as he began to drive slowly back the way they came. The grass was turning green and the trees were already budded. It was April after all. She checked the fence as she drove but it seemed to be intact. She came to a spot where the creek ran over some r
ocks and Lori thought it was the strangest place in the creek. She stopped the truck once again and stepped to the ground. She walked slowly toward a large tree and noticed an old horse standing close by. The horse was sweating as if it had been running for a while and breathing hard. As she came closer, she realized the horse was indeed a much older horse. She came around the tree and was about to touch the horse but something caused her to stop. Running back to the truck she picked up her shot gun from behind the seat. This time she came ‘round the other side of the tree. There, sitting under the tree, was one of the strangest sights she had ever seen. A young man sat asleep under the tree with the reins of the horse in his hands. His hat and clothes looked like they had come from one of the westerns she used to play and her father used to watch. She must have stepped on something because the young man jumped up and pointed his gun at her.
* * * * * * * *
Jessie stood, gun in hand, to see the woman standing in front of him holding a shotgun. His mouth dropped open and he dropped his gun. The woman had on faded blue britches only they had been cut off way above her knees. She must have worn them this way for a long time because her long legs were summer brown all the way up. She must have lost her dress as well because her petticoat was torn off above the waist of the britches.
“You need some clothes on,” Jessie said and moved to get one of his coats but stopped when he heard the cock of the shotgun.
“Stop,” the woman said. “Don’t move.”
“I was going to throw you my coat to cover with.”
She laughed. “It’s eighty out here. I don’t want a coat, I’m hot in this.”
“You don’t care if someone sees you like that?”
“Of course not, I wear less than this when I get into the pool. Enough of this, who are you? What’s your name? Where did you come from? How did you get on my land?”
Jessie’s mind was racing. The woman had said she wore less in the pool. Did she have to bath in the puddles in the road when it rained? He was confused. Maybe the Indians had taken her but she had gotten away. They must have tried to cut off her clothes and scalp her also. It was the only explanation he could come up with. Her voice brought him back to the present.
“Hey, did you hear me? Who are you?”
“My name is Jessie James McCoy and this is or at least I think this is my land, my farm. Only how can it be twenty degrees and snowing then just a few minutes later, the grass is green and it’s eighty degrees?”
“You must be nuts,” the woman said. “How did you get here?”
“Look Miss….. What’s your name?”
“I am Lori Patterson and this is The Lazy Cross Ranch.” Lori never moved the gun she was holding.
“Miss Lori, I know this is The Lazy Cross. I named it that when I bought it two years ago.”
“Look Mr. McCoy. This ranch has been in my family for two generations. It was The Lazy Cross even then. We don’t know how it got its name, but we like it. How did you get here?”
“I live here.” He wasn’t about to tell her that he didn’t know which way it was back to the cabin.
“You, sir, have lost your mind. Are you lost?”
Jessie decided not to get her any more upset than she already was. After all, she was holding a gun and had probably had a hard time, what with the Indians all but killing her. “It won’t be a lie,” he thought to himself. Aloud he said,
“Yes, I am lost.”
“Well, you can’t stay out here. Come on. You can go back to the ranch with me and get cleaned up.” Lori came closer to him as she spoke. “Oh, god, you reek. You are not riding in my truck with me, you can follow on your horse.” She lowered the shot gun and waved her hand across her nose and walked around them.
Jessie caught his horse’s reins and climbed up. He got down again realizing his gun was still on the ground. He picked up the gun and placed it in its holster, climbed back on the horse, and rode around the large tree. He didn’t see her at first but then he heard a loud noise. Turning his head to the left, he almost fell out of the saddle.
Something, a wagon with no horses, was making the noise and Lori was inside it. It was something like a stage coach only bigger and there were no horses and what was the noise?
“Follow me,” Lori yelled from inside. She turned the round thing inside and the coach turned. Slowly Jessie followed the coach. He looked at it puzzled. It was gray all over, closed in around the front, open like a buckboard in the back- only this wasn’t made of wood. Jessie couldn’t figure what it was made of and the wheels were a lot smaller than a wagon and they were black. They weren’t wooden either. But the strangest thing was that there were no horses. How was it moving? It moved so fast. In some places he had to run his horse to keep up with it. How fast could this stage coach travel anyway? After they had traveled for about half a mile, they came in sight of a ranch.
From his horse, Jessie looked around. He could see lots of horses in a large fenced in space. It was more horses than Jessie had ever seen in one place. There were so many different breeds also. Up the hill from the horses, he could see cows roaming everywhere. There seemed to be maybe four hundred head. A little further up was a barn bigger than any Jessie had ever seen. It was sort of a pale red color, only it looked like the color of wood. He shook his head, a funny color he thought. The people who lived here on this side of his land must have a lot of money. The barn had two large doors spread almost all the way across the front of the barn. At one end on the other side, there was a small regular size door. Across from the barn was what appeared to be a bunk house, only there were doors all the way across the long building. There must be at least fifteen or twenty doors. The long building was painted brown and each door was a lighter brown. What a strange looking place this was and why had these people built all this on his land? Why had he not noticed it before? He rode over his land at least once a week and last week there had been nothing. But then again, this didn’t look like his land either. There had been a lot more trees here last week. The only thing he could think of was that he was no longer on his land. That had to be it, but if that was it, where was he? Riding past the buildings, he looked down at the road and noticed it had something black and hard on it. It wasn’t dirt or mud and there were no wagon tracks or any tracks on it. Then he saw the large metal poles like a gate. It ran up and over the path they were on. He caught his breath sharply as he saw the wooden sign hanging down in the middle of the long metal pole. The words read THE LAZY CROSS RANCH. It was the first time Jessie had seen the name of his ranch written on anything and he felt a little proud.
As they traveled on, he soon saw the biggest house he had ever seen in his life. It had to be a rich man’s house. It was painted white and had windows everywhere. It was beautiful. There was a porch all across the front of the house and there were rocking chairs on one end and a hanging swing on the other. The walk way going up to the house had flowers on each side. There wasn’t a hitching post anywhere for Jessie to tie up his horse.
The big carriage stopped and Lori jumped out. An older man came from the barn and Lori waved him over.
“Take his horse and feed and water it and get someone to rub him down.”
Jessie climbed off his horse as the man from the barn took the reins.
“Wow son,” the older man said. “Boy, do you need a bath.”
Jessie was puzzled. What were these people saying? He had taken a bath four days ago. His week wasn’t up yet.
“Take Jessie here to the bunk house and get him a room. Then try to get him a bath run and then bring him up to the house,” Lori told the man.
“Sure thing Miss Lori, back in a few.” The man turned to Jessie and smiled.
“Call me Bo. I’m Lori’s foreman here on The Lazy Cross, and you are?”
Jessie smiled back at the man.
“I’m Jessie McCoy. Jessie James McCoy.”
“Good to meet you Jessie. Come on. Let’s go get you a nice hot bath and I’ll find you a room in th
e bunk house. Lord, it must have been days since your last bath. You smell strong. Here we are.” Bo opened a door to one of the rooms in the long building with all the doors. “You can have this room and here is your bathroom.”
Jessie walked into the room. There was a half bed against the wall on one side and a black box about forty Inches square hung on the wall across from the bed. Bo saw Jessie looking at it and laughed.
“Television. Lori had them put in all the rooms so the men can relax at night. Turn it on if you want.”
“Television, what was that? You look at a square box and it makes you feel better?” Jessie didn’t understand this at all. Bo brought him back from his thought.
“In here is your bathroom.”
“Where do I carry the water from? Do you have a spring close by or a pump,” Jessie asked.
Bo laughed. “Boy, you are a hoot, where do we carry water from. I haven’t carried water since I was a boy at home. Come on, I’ll turn on the water for you.” Bo walked into the smaller room.
Jessie entered the small room and looked around. The tub was on four legs and looked like the tubs of rich folks. But what was that other white thing? He moved closer to have a better look. What was the world coming to with an inside Johnny house and in the same room with the tub? How did they get water to these things? He looked up as he heard water running. Strange. The tub looked like any other except for the two metal knobs and a spout. How did they get the water pumped in here? He didn’t see a pump. Then he had another thought. Did this man want him to take a bath in cold water? It may be hot but he wasn’t about to take a cold bath even if it was eighty outside.
Portals of Time Page 5
