Return to Yesterday

by Abbie Williams

  “Tell me, Ruthie.” He spoke quietly but the words were a clear demand, and I thought suddenly of the night I’d first met Ax, the hesitant, boyish fellow he’d been, so unsure of himself. And despite the fact that he remained inherently sweet and kind he’d lost his hesitance, had become much more man than boy. In that moment he reminded me more of Case than ever before.

  In order to understand, Axton required the necessary background story. I drew a deep breath, keeping my voice low. “Patricia and Dredd did not…make love. Their wedding night was the first and last time he touched her. Dredd wasn’t unkind to her, I saw with my own eyes last year when we were in his company, but he wanted little to do with Patricia. She felt rejected. Worse than that, she felt undesirable. When Cole proposed to her that afternoon last fall, she was swept up in the moment of it.” I all but gritted my teeth at the expression on Axton’s face. “Up to that point, they’d never even kissed. She’d only kissed you. But Cole’s very persuasive…and she wanted to know what it meant to make love with someone who loved and wanted her.”

  “That was…the only time?” Had a fist been clutching his windpipe Axton could not have sounded more strangled.

  I nodded. “Once is all it takes, sometimes. It wasn’t until late last November that Patricia and I began to suspect she was pregnant. And then we had to think fast, to come up with a story Dredd would swallow. Thank God it was only him we needed to convince.” I restrained a shudder.

  Axton studied the leaping flames; he traced his thumb over my arm as he spoke, almost meditatively. “I came to know Cole this past winter. I wanted to hate him, Ruthie, but I don’t. At least, not for the man he is.” He closed his eyes. “But if he ever hurts her, I’ll run him to ground.”

  I wisely bit my tongue; I feared for what the future held for the three of them.

  But you won’t even be here, I thought next, my mind pinwheeling. You and Marshall will be home in the future and you’ll have to leave everyone here behind. You can’t let yourself care this much about people you will never see again in this life.

  And it was devastating to admit that the thought of leaving the past behind was almost as painful as the ache of missing our families in the twenty-first century.

  Chapter Four

  Montana Territory -June, 1882

  MARSHALL AND I WERE GIVEN THE LOFT-SIZED ROOM with low, slanting walls which I’d shared with Patricia last summer and where Marshall had slept alone all winter; we stripped to the skin and curled together beneath the covers of the luxurious feather bed. Marshall rested his nose in my curls, our hands joined atop my belly. I threaded one of my legs between both of his and whispered, “It’s so strange being here. I never thought I’d see this place again in this century.”

  “It’s strange as hell. I keep expecting to see Dad and my brothers coming around the corner of the barn,” Marshall acknowledged. Neither of us mentioned we could not stay here at the homestead for long. It was too dangerous. As much as I wished it otherwise, Fallon Yancy would appear someday, looking for us.

  “I know. It’s so fucking weird, honey. Is the future we remember happening right now, like in another dimension…what?”

  Marshall was laughing, low and soft. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. It’s just that you said ‘fucking’ and you never used to swear.”

  “I used to swear,” I argued, and Marshall snorted.

  “No, you did not,” he countered. “We’ve both changed since living in Jalesville.”

  “But…” I struggled to articulate what I wanted to say, overtired and yet oddly alert at the same time, senses sharpened by the late hour; it seemed Marshall and I couldn’t talk enough to satisfy the urge to simply tell each other everything, to make up for lost time. I finally said, “But I wouldn’t change this last year, even if I could. It made me realize how strong I can be when I have to, that I can do what needs doing. I would never have known.”

  I felt him nod against the back of my head. “So few people have the opportunity to test their mettle. Though, I wouldn’t wish the agony I felt when you were gone on anyone. I’ve been so empty, like a fucking chasm of despair took the place of my heart…”

  “Marshall Augustus,” I murmured, rolling to face him. “Even when I couldn’t remember who I was, I longed for you. You were always there, safe in my heart. I don’t know how I existed so long without seeing you.”

  He kissed my lips, lingering there, with a sense of possession. He murmured, “Now that we’re here and not forced to move fast on the trail, I can think more clearly. I feel like we can plan now, for whatever the future holds. We haven’t had much of a chance to talk about how we’ll get back.” He paused and inhaled before admitting, “It scares me, Ruthie, to think about one of us just disappearing…”

  I gritted my teeth; the same thoughts plagued me, the razor-edged fear of being without him again, of the helplessness in the face of our vulnerability. What if he was dragged into the future but I was not? What if one of us remained trapped here, unable to return? And then horror struck an additional killing blow. I choked, “Marsh, what if the baby…”

  “Shhhh,” he said at once. “No. Our baby will come with us, no matter what.”

  “We have to go before he’s born,” I understood, knowing Marshall could feel the agitated clanking of my heart. “Even if we haven’t discovered everything we’re supposed to, here.”

  “But what if we can’t return home until we’ve accomplished those things, whatever the hell they are? I keep waiting to feel that…force field pulling at me, especially now that we’re here at the homestead. Remember the night we rode Arrow out this way, near this place, I mean…”

  “I do. I haven’t felt it yet, either,” I whispered. “And will we feel it at the same time? There are so many variables, Marsh, I hate this. Like the fact that we left Jalesville, and 2014, only a day apart, but you ended up in 1881 months after me. How do you figure?”

  “It makes me wonder how the future – the present, I mean, back in Jalesville – is moving while we’re here. It seems like it would be moving at the same rate, but maybe not. Maybe no time has passed there at all.”

  “Do you think…” I couldn’t make myself finish.

  “That we’re destined to stay in the past?” He knew exactly what I meant. “As long as you’re in my arms, angel, I don’t care where we are.” Marshall kissed my eyelids, one after the other, and the scent of his breath was comforting and familiar, serving to calm my rapid pulse.

  “We can get by here, if we have to,” he went on. “Technically I have the marshal position until the replacement gets here later this month, Grant was saying. It seems like no one was jumping at the chance to take the territory way out here.”

  “Because it’s nothing but dangerous.” I rolled to an elbow, further agitated. “I want you to give it up as fast as you can.” I knew Marshall was a fast learner and a good shot with a firearm, but I would not allow him to risk himself for a stupid marshal position, not if I could prevent it. I’d always hated how being a lawman continually put Miles in the path of potential harm, made him an unwitting target and took him away so often. His territory had been vast.

  “I will, I promise. But there are perks to the job while we’re here in 1882. For instance, I could shoot Fallon Yancy dead without any provocation and it would be completely justifiable.”

  “It would be justifiable anyway. He would kill us as soon as look at us. And we both know he’ll come looking, sooner or later. We can’t stay here.”

  “I know. And I’ll think about that first thing tomorrow, I swear.” Marshall uttered a soft groan, knuckling his eyes. “No matter what, I’d shoot the bastard without a second thought. But it doesn’t hurt that way out here there’s no one looking over my shoulder. Shit, I was sworn in by a judge passing through the Territory late last autumn. No background check, just Grant’s recommendation. All I had to do this past winter was ride into Howardsville once every few weeks and check in with the deputy sherif
f. I could have lived in that little cabin behind the jail, but I would have gone crazy there.”

  “I’m so glad you didn’t have to be alone,” I whispered, nuzzling his chest hair, which smelled pleasantly musky; I stroked my fingers through the soft, thick mass because it was an intimacy I particularly loved and because I’d gone so many nights without being able.

  Marshall cupped my face, letting his fingertips play over my chin and jawline. The room around us was shaded as though by strokes of a charcoal pencil, a study in variations of gray, from ash to pewter. His long nose cast a shadow on the right side of his face; his breath held a trace of whiskey as he whispered, “I was more alone than I’d ever been, without you.”

  I rested both palms on his chest. “When I saw you riding across the prairie…”

  “Holy God, I was dying that day. We knew Ax was in the convent as the gardener’s replacement, and that you and Patricia were there, but not that he’d spoken with you. I wanted to storm the walls of that place so fucking bad Malcolm nearly tied me to a fencepost. But I knew if I saw you, if we saw each other, there’d be no way we could control ourselves. I knew it would blow the cover we’d worked so damn hard to establish. But I was dying, angel, knowing you were so close to me after all that time.”

  “If I’d known you were out there…Ax was right not to let me know…”

  “Seeing you running toward me was the happiest moment of my life, to that point. And every day since has been the newest happiest moment. Especially this morning.” His teeth flashed in a grin, his long hair falling around his neck and inviting my touch. “Can you believe we’re having a baby?”

  I slowly shook my head. “We shouldn’t be surprised! I’m ashamed to admit it didn’t even occur to me we should be using protection. I’ve just been so happy to be with you, it’s overwhelmed everything else in my mind. If only…” I didn’t finish the sentence; were too many if onlys in our future right now, too many what ifs. I’d been about to say, If only we were safely home. If only we were secure in the knowledge that we would remain stationary in time – either here or in the future – from this point onward. But, as in all of life, there were no guarantees.

  “If only you had your ring,” Marshall supplied, attempting to elicit a smile, I knew. He lifted my left hand and kissed the spot where he’d once placed the lovely engagement band custom-made for me, an heirloom diamond from his mother’s side of the family, set with garnets, my birthstone. “I miss seeing it on your hand, angel. What do you suppose happened to it?”

  I rubbed my thumb across the base of my third finger; it felt unduly bare without the familiar presence of the ring and all it represented, the promise of our future as husband and wife. I whispered, “I don’t know. I didn’t take it off the night I left Jalesville. I would have been wearing it when I arrived in 1881.” Stolen right off my finger, maybe? But when? I had no memory of any such event.

  “I’ll get you a new ring, angel, don’t you worry. And there’s a preacher on circuit, Grant was telling me.” Marshall shifted position, bringing my palm to his cheek. “I would love for us to have a church service but I have to say I already feel married to you, in every way that counts. You have my heart, my soul, my baby inside of you. I cherish your every breath. I think of you as mine, Ruthie, in every possible way. And I am just as completely yours.”

  Tears wet my face and I entwined our fingers. “I keep thinking of the night when we ate at that little diner off the interstate, remember?”

  “Of course I remember, sweetheart.”

  “It was the first time I actually stumbled onto the fact that you liked me.”

  Marshall snorted, shaking his head. “You had no idea? Not even a little? And here I figured I was about as subtle as a strobe light. Which, by the way, really sucks when you’re onstage. One time at the Coyote’s Den they had one and it just about blinded us out.” He laughed at the memory; our conversations always shifted between present and future.

  “I figured you were just teasing me because I got so flustered,” I admitted, gliding my palms over his lean belly. “But that evening, sitting there talking to you with the sunset so pretty out the window, it finally hit me.”

  “I didn’t just like you, you realize. I was already head over heels over heart in love with you, woman. Being around you that week only cemented the fact. Just the sight of your sweet face sent me right over the moon…and trying not to stare at your lips whenever you spoke or let my gaze rove south on your luscious body, don’t even get me started…”

  “Marsh…” I muffled my laughter against his neck.

  “You think I’m kidding, angel? Jesus, come here, let me touch you…” He caught my ass in a firm grasp. “God, yes, that’s better…”

  “Much better,” I agreed, rocking against him, letting the juncture of my thighs brush the increasing swelling between his. Before I lost all focus, I said, “But later that night, Tish and Case got married in the hospital room.”

  Marshall studied my eyes. A beat of deep awareness passed between us. “We could get married right here, right now.”

  Yes, I said without words, tears filming my vision. Marshall understood; he knew me.

  With extreme and tender care, he resituated us to sitting positions, the covers billowing around our knees. He gathered my hands, kissed each, and then brought our joined hands to his heart; he spoke with a husky, formal tone. “I, Marshall Augustus Rawley, take you, Ruthann Marie Gordon, to be my lawfully wedded wife, to love and to cherish, to hold and kiss and keep safe and make passionate, unending love with. In sickness and health, for richer or poorer, for all time that exists, I will be yours.”

  My throat ached at the beauty of his words; I mustered my voice. “I, Ruthann Marie Gordon, take you, Marshall Augustus Rawley, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to love and to cherish, to make happy and bear your children, and to see our dreams fulfilled. In sickness and health, for richer or poorer, for all the days between now and forever, I am yours.”

  The air seemed to sigh around our bodies as he whispered tenderly, “That was perfect. I now pronounce us husband and wife.”

  I invited, “You may kiss the bride,” and Marshall rolled atop me for a warm, open-mouthed one.

  Later, snuggled together, he whispered, “We have to warn them.”

  Lulled almost to sleep, it took me seconds to realize what he meant. “You mean about Fallon. How can we make them hear us, from here?”

  I could tell he was collecting his exhausted thoughts; it was very late. “We have to leave them a message, one that won’t get destroyed in the intervening decades. Something we could…bury.”

  “You’re right. And it has to be here, near this homestead. Case and Tish know the foundation is here, and what’s more, they know it’s where you first felt the past pulling at you, that night we rode Arrow. If they’re going to look anywhere, it’s here.”

  “Good point. It’s our best shot.”

  “Fallon scares me so much. They don’t know him and they wouldn’t know who to look for. Tish doesn’t even know that Fallon and Franklin are the same person. What if he’s been there all this time, hurting them… oh God…”

  “It doesn’t seem like he’s able to stay in the twenty-first century for long periods of time,” Marshall quickly reminded me. “But all the same, I’ll feel better thinking they have something to go on. We can bury something tomorrow.”

  “What if they don’t find it…”

  “We have to trust them,” Marshall said, infusing his voice with confidence, for my sake. “If anyone can find it, it’s Case and Tish.”

  Chapter Five

  Jalesville, MT - March, 2014

  “THEY SHOULD BE HERE ANY MINUTE,” I TOLD AL, SETTING aside my pen. A small but potent rush of anticipation momentarily overrode my otherwise low mood; an hour ago Camille had texted they were ninety miles east of Jalesville. “The whole family is coming. The kids are on spring break.”

  “I’d also allege your sister knows yo
u need her,” Al responded from his desk, pausing in his work to study me over the top of his bifocals, a pair he’d only just acquired. A recent dusting of late-winter snow bleached the outside light filtering through our front windows, a cloudy-bright day easing now toward its demise. Quiet music on the local radio station and the faint ticking of the old wall clock were the only other sounds in the small space we shared this late Friday afternoon.

  Since arriving home from Robbie Benson’s funeral in Chicago I’d returned to work at Spicer and Howe, Attorneys at Law. The daily familiarity of working with Al Howe, of mundane paperwork and the smell of law books and ink and old carpet, soothed my nerves like a sort of balm. Al had hired a new part-time receptionist, one of the Nelson family’s daughters, and her cheerful chatter allowed me the ability to lay eyes upon the desk where Ruthann had worked, without falling to shattered bits.

  Case kept our music shop open, located a few doors down from the law office; he continued to give guitar lessons and even occasionally played at The Spoke, sometimes with Garth’s accompaniment. We ate dinner at Clark’s every Friday, the entire Rawley family reliably in attendance, all of us working hard to contend with the dual storm clouds hovering on our collective horizon – that of Marsh and Ruthie’s continued failure to return, and the Yancys’ lawsuit, currently pending. Our first appearance as defendants before a judge was scheduled for next Wednesday, March nineteenth, a meeting I dreaded. Despite our adherence to as regular a routine as possible, the formidable tension holding all of us in a state of inertia was at times unbearable.

  At each work day’s end I hurried home to Case, who usually arrived first and had supper waiting in our cramped doublewide; after eating, we spent most evenings designing our new cabin. Both of us wanted to say ‘fuck it’ and get the foundation dug and the building process rolling, but we realized that if the Yancys prevailed – as I increasingly feared they would – and were awarded the deed to our acreage, we would lose even more to them. Case kept me sane; Charles Shea Spicer, my husband and love of many lifetimes. We’d been together before this life, we knew – but had not been able (allowed? I often wondered) to find each other in every subsequent life, for reasons beyond either of us. This knowledge, as strange and improbable as it might seem to anyone with a grain of skepticism, only served to increase our awareness of the gift of having found each other in this life.