I heard Kate scream behind me and it scared me, really scared me, but my hands were pretty full at the moment.
As the guy went down into the bushes, I went down on top of him, one knee in his groin, the other hand on his throat.
“We’re gonna kill you and take your horse and your woman,” he growled from underneath my hand that was still squeezing his throat. I saw his eyes bulge as I squeezed harder and harder on his throat. His hands came up, but I was too damned mad to be stopped. I swatted his hands away like a pesky fly and squeezed ever harder on his throat. I held on to his throat until his bulging eyes closed and he stopped flailing, I didn’t know if he’d passed out or if I had killed him and, at the moment, I didn’t care.
I ran back through the bushes to help Kate, grabbing the unconscious man’s rifle as I went. Before I could make it through the undergrowth, the man called out to me.
“Come on out,” he yelled to me. “We just want your horse. And maybe I’ll have my way with this pretty little thing here.” He was smiling an evil smile as I stepped into the clearing, his teeth brown and crooked. He was standing across the fire from me, holding Kate in front of him. The greasy guy was behind her, one arm around her waist, the other holding a knife to her throat. It was a huge, shiny knife with a thick blade curving down to a sharp point. Like the old-time Bowie knives, I thought. My heart was pounding so loud, I swear I could hear it.
“Put the gun on the ground,” he yelled at me.
I looked into Kate’s eyes, they were wide with terror and desperation. I bent slowly, setting the rifle gently on the ground in front of me, never taking my eyes off the two of them.
“Now, lead that horse over here,” the greaseball commanded. I moved slowly left, toward the horse, watching Kate’s eyes.
The man’s eyes followed me; I could see him from my peripheral vision as I watched Kate. I saw her move quickly, thrusting her elbow back into the man’s gut, and then, as his arm came up, she stooped out from under the knife. She grabbed the coffee pot from the fire and hurled it backward toward the man. Good job, little girl, I was thinking as I moved.
I was already running as the scene was playing out in front of me. I was leaping across the fire as the coffee pot was bouncing off the guy’s head, spilling boiling hot coffee across his forehead and face. He let out a howl of pain and took a step back, his knife in one hand, his other going to his face.
I hit him full tilt while he was off balance and we both crashed to the ground, me astride his chest. I grabbed his wrist as I felt more than saw the knife coming toward me. We were suspended for seconds that felt like hours in an arm wrestling match as we fought for the knife. I brought my other hand around and, using both my hands, smashed the hand with the knife to the ground again and again, until I felt his grip loosen on it. As the knife fell from his grip, he heaved me off him and we both scrambled for the weapon. I had landed on my back when he shoved me and I half turned as we both grabbed for the knife. It was in my hand and I was bringing it up as the guy jumped on top of me with his full weight. Between his momentum and my own, I felt the knife slide into the man damn near to the hilt.
He went still and looked down at himself and I threw him off me and scrambled to my feet. The knife was sticking out of his belly just below his breastbone. I felt my blood run cold as I looked at the big wooden hilt sticking out of his chest. Almost in slow motion, he dropped onto his back on the ground, his face grey as the blood drained from his body into the sand, staining the ground around him.
“I didn’t mean to,” I told Kate. “He jumped on the knife.” I could hear my voice rising, panic creeping in.
“It’s okay, John, he would have killed you and raped me. He had to be stopped.” Her voice had a note of hysteria in it, too. But she seemed to be a lot calmer than I felt.
“Yes.” I was beginning to regain control of my senses as the adrenalin was returning to normal.
“You alright?” I took her chin, tilting her head to look at her throat where the man had held the knife, then I realized my own arm was covered in the guy’s blood. My stomach lurched as I dropped my arm and quickly looked away. It wasn’t the sight of blood so much as what I had done, even if by accident.
“I’m fine, John.” She seemed much more composed than me. My emotions were racing between relief that we were both safe and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach from knowing I had killed a man. Even though he had jumped on the knife, it was in my hand and what I had done was almost inconceivable.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.
She began repacking our noon dishes onto the horse, while I went to look at the man in the bushes. He was still on his back where I’d left him. I felt his neck for a pulse, but I didn’t find one. I stood looking down at his lifeless body, feeling my stomach churn even more as I realized I’d killed two men.
“I’m just going to go wash my hands,” I told Kate as I walked quickly past her. I hurried down to the river and scrubbed the blood from my hands, then I stood up quickly and threw up into the bushes. I stood there for a minute, leaning my weight against a tree, my head hanging, until my stomach began to settle. Then I went back to the river and kneeled down, washing the acrid flavor of death from my mouth. So much for that lunch. I shook my head sheepishly as I made my way back to Kate. She seemed so cool and composed, I sure wasn’t going to tell her I had been tossing my lunch in the bushes.
She had picked up the man’s rifle and tied it on her horse and, as I walked closer, I saw her brace her tiny foot against the greasy man’s chest, wrench the big knife free and wipe the blood off it onto his shirt. She almost looked like a serial killer in a movie. Like she dealt with this kind of thing all the time and it was no big deal. I felt a little dizzy as I watched her and my stomach churned again, the acrid taste returning. Good thing I already lost that lunch, I thought grimly as I looked away.
Chapter 9
Kate was determined not to show how scared she had been. She could still feel the cold blade of the big knife against her neck. She could feel John’s eyes on her as she pulled the knife from the man’s chest and wiped the blood off it onto his shirt. Her hand trembled as she did it, but she didn’t think John noticed. He seemed too busy dealing with his own emotions. She realized, probably better than he did, how close they had both come to death by the hands of those two ruffians. She knew for certain they would have killed John and, after raping her brutally, they would have killed her, to keep her silence. Her stomach felt weak and ill as she thought about it. She hadn’t been expecting John to react as quickly as he had. And the way he’d leaped on those men, fighting to the death for both their lives. His valor in the face of grave danger caused her to perceive him a little differently now. She sensed that in his time, fighting off bandits was a little more rare than in her own time. Even back in Ohio, things had been a lot more civilized than these untamed western territories. At least traveling with a wagon train, there had been many armed men to protect from marauding Indians and lawless bandits. She realized now how truly alone and defenseless they were out here. Thank God she had John with her and he’d come charging through the underbrush to her rescue.
“You did good back there,” I told her when we were back on the trail.
“You did well too, John Baker. You saved both our lives.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” That made me feel some better, but my stomach still churned at the thought of what I had just done. I had never killed a person before. Hell, I hadn’t even been in a fistfight since high school. I had never been in the military, I hadn’t worked for the government, killing people with my bare hands. No, I was just a truck driver, and this brutal world she lived in was going to take some getting used to.
We walked along solemnly for a bit, each lost in our own thoughts. I couldn’t get the two lifeless bodies out of my head. And the sight of that guy’s blood across my arms, it would probably haunt my dreams.
“Tell me more about your world,” Kate
said after we’d walked in silence for a bit, both of us kind of in a state of shock. She probably just wanted to get our minds off the bloody battle we’d been through and truthfully, that was fine by me.
“My world is ruled by the clock,” I told her. “Get up at a certain time, go to work at a certain time. Take a break at a certain time. I never realized it before, but our day to day lives in my time are completely organized and ruled by a clock. I think I like this way better. It’s either daylight or dark.”
“Tell me more about your machines.”
“Do you know what a telephone is?” I couldn’t remember when it had been invented. Like I said, history was never my best subject. Recess now, I had aced that one. Even got a degree in hiding behind the gym, smoking cigarettes.
“No. What is it?” She had a curious look on her face as we walked along.
“You can talk to people on the other side of the country, or even the other side of the world.”
“We can do that now, silly. It’s called the Post. I mailed a letter to my aunt Rose when we stopped at Fort Laramie.”
“Not quite the same, Kate. Imagine if you could pick up a handset and speak to your aunt right now, the same as you’re talking to me?”
“Really?” There it was, the childlike wonder was back on her face, her big blue eyes stretched wide.
“Really. Nowadays, we even have a video phone, so that you can see the person you’re talking to, and we have cell phones so that you have it with you everywhere you go.”
“I really, really wish to visit your world, John Baker. There’s not much for me here, anyway.”
“If it were possible, I would take you there, but I just don’t know. I’m not even sure how or why I ended up here.”
“I told you, John. Providence brought you to me.”
I stopped walking and pulled her close, kissing her long and deep.
“I believe you,” I whispered, holding her tight. I didn’t know if it was the talk of destiny or if I was just happy we were both alive after that harrowing experience, but I felt a strange contentment as I held her, the horror of what I’d been through fading quickly in her tiny arms.
We walked in silence for a bit, then I tried explaining computers to her.
“It’s called the world wide web,” I told her. You can type a message to anyone in the world and they receive it instantly; you can order products and have them delivered to your door instead of going out shopping, plus there’s much, much more that computers do. They run our whole world in the future.”
Great, now I’m thinking of my own time as the future. I wonder if I’ll ever see it again. Then another thought struck me, what if my describing the future to her could somehow alter events, like stuff I’d seen in movies? Maybe I shouldn’t be telling her this stuff. I changed the subject then, asking her questions about the Oregon Trail.
We camped that night on a rise overlooking the river. There were tall, brown grasses covering the hills and we had to clear a place to build a fire. We used up the rest of Kate’s coffee and there was very little sugar left. She did, however, still have potatoes and flour. She showed me how to roll the dough and make biscuits in a frying pan.
“Delicious,” I lied as I munched a biscuit. It’s not that they were bad, they just weren’t very good.
“We should be at the mission soon,” she said, as if she was reading my thoughts. “Hopefully, we can get a good meal and sleep indoors. It’s getting too cold at night.”
“It is that, and we’re running out of food.”
We had looked for Jeremiah’s cabin as we followed the river, but we never saw it. We had been hoping for a night inside. This camping out had been quite an experience and I’d really enjoyed sharing it with her, but I sure was looking forward to a warm, dry bed and a roof over my head. And to think, she had been living like this for six months and had walked most of the way across the country! Most people I knew would never have made it. Then I thought about her parents and the people from the wagon train they had buried along the way. I guess a lot of people didn’t make it.
I unwrapped the cloth from Nip’s feet after dinner and turned him loose to graze.
“I think he’ll be alright now without wrapping his feet,” I told Kate as I watched the horse graze. “He’s moving a lot better.”
“Yes, I think you’re right. A break from that heavy wagon has been good for him.”
“Yep, he’s even putting on a little weight,” I said.
Kate’s face softened as she watched the horse graze. I could see her affection for him and I was happy I’d been able to help. At least I hadn’t been completely useless on this strange, mystical journey.
After our sparse dinner, Kate brought a pot of warm water she’d heated on the fire and set it down in front of me, then began rummaging around in her pack.
“What’s that for?” I pointed at her pot of water.
“I thought you might like a shave.” She pulled a straight razor and a small hand mirror out of the pack.
“Yeah, my face has been really itchy,” I ran my hand across the stubble. It hadn’t even grown in like a full beard, just a patchy, itchy stubble.
I sat on a fallen tree and gave the straight razor a try while Kate held the mirror for me. My hand damn near trembled, I was that scared of the thing. I hadn’t even seen a straight razor since I was a kid and I sure hadn’t ever tried to shave with one. Kate finally reached over and took it from my hand.
“I can do it,” she said. “I’ve watched my father shave with it many times.”
I sat very still, afraid she would cut my throat, but she was surprisingly gentle and adept as she shaved my face. It was kind of erotic really; she stood behind me and pulled my head back into her stomach while she shaved my neck. It was scary, sure—she was in a perfect position to slit my throat—but it felt nice as she ran the razor across my face.
“There,” she said when she finished, holding the mirror up for me. I couldn’t see much by the firelight, but I ran my hand across my cheek and it was baby soft and smooth again.
“Thank you,” I said, wrapping my hand around her head and pulling her to me for a kiss.
“Aah, that’s much better,” she whispered, rubbing her face against mine. It was an intimate moment and I stood still, enjoying the closeness of her and her fresh autumn scent.
We finally sat down by the fire and I leaned back on my elbows and crossed my legs at the ankle. She leaned back into my shoulder and put her head on my chest. We stayed that way, quietly enjoying the beautiful night and each other, until the fire died down and the cold air drove us into our blankets. It was cold and cloudy and the cold dampness of the ground seeped through my body, but yet it was such a simple contentedness, as I held Kate close to my body and stared into the dying embers of our fire. It was such a far cry from my old life; racing through traffic from one city to the next. If not for missing my family, I would’ve been perfectly content to stay right here with Kate forever.
Chapter 10
We got our first look at the Whitman Station the next morning. It was about midmorning when we topped a hill, looking over what seemed almost like a small village. There was a huge white house with a fence of upright logs around it. I thought I remembered reading somewhere they were called ‘palisades.’ On past it was another, smaller house and corral fences stretched between the two. The corral fence was built out of upright slabs of wood. The white house was much bigger than I had expected. From books and movies, it always seemed like everyone lived in small log cabins. This house was big and very pretty. We could see a mill and a mill pond past the houses and an irrigation ditch ran across in front of the whole property. I could see the autumn remains of a garden between the mill and the houses and dried-up flowers from what must have been a very pretty flower garden. There were white people and Indians moving about the property and there were fat beef cattle and horses grazing across the hills.
“We made it,” Kate said.
“I’m
impressed, I didn’t think it would be this nice.”
“Let’s go.” She started down the hill happily, leading her horse behind her.
I followed along behind, staring at this busy village before me. It’s almost like watching history happening in front of me, I thought. It was kind of awe inspiring. I figured now I had the child-like wonder on my face.
We wandered up to the big house leading Kate’s tired horse behind us. A tall man stepped from the door just as we arrived. “Welcome,” he said to us. “I’m Joseph Kimball.” He stepped forward and shook my hand.
“I’m John Baker and this is Kate Donovan.”
He gave a slight nod in her direction. “My apologies for the lady of the house. Mrs. Whitman is upstairs, tending the sick. The immigrant house is yon.” He pointed to the second, smaller house. “You are welcome to turn your horse into the corral or set him free to graze. There was a field past the mill where I could see several eastern-type horses and a bunch of fat Cayuse ponies grazing together.
“Thank you sir,” I told him. I think we’ll let him graze after we unpack.”
We made our way over to the immigrant house, where I stripped the packsaddle from Nip and turned him loose. We watched him make his way across to the other horses, then I picked up the packs and we entered the house, eager to sleep in a warm bed for a change.
As we entered the house, we quickly saw that a warm bed was out of the question. It was a good size house, but it was filled with people. Entire families had pallets made out of their blankets along the walls. At least it’s warm, I thought as we looked for a place to stow our gear.
A short, round lady left the big pot she was stirring in the fireplace and introduced herself. “I’m Mrs. Danbury,” she said as she held out her hand. I shook her hand and was surprised at how warm it was. Must be the heat from the fire, I thought. Her cheeks had a rosy, warm glow about them, too. She took Kate’s hand too, and held onto it as she led us to another room. “There’s more room in the back bedroom,” she said. We followed her to a bedroom, where we found more families lying about. I noticed that a lot of the children and some of the adults were coughing and sniffling. There was a bed in the room with a lady and two children in it. All three looked pretty sick to me as we passed by them. They were pale, their hair pasted to their heads as if they’d been sweating. I vaguely remembered Jeremiah, the guy we’d met on the trail, mentioning sick immigrants. Was it cholera, the same that had killed Kate’s parents? And what the hell was cholera anyway? I only knew it as a word from history books, but they sure didn’t say what it actually was.
Dream Of Echoes Page 5
