Bone & Loraine

by Ken Farmer

  “Say, Mister photographer, how about taking another one with all these famous law officers along with my family here? May not ever have them all together again,” said Bone.

  Everyone muttered their approval and started lining up. In the front row was Loraine, Lucy and Mary Lou. Behind them was Texas Ranger Bodie Hickman, Deputy US Marshal Jack McGann, Deputy US Marshal Selden Lindsey, Deputy US Marshal Loss Hart, Cooke County Sheriff Walt Durbin, Deputy Gomer Platt and Shaman Anompoli Lawa. The back row was Bone, Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves, Deputy US Marshal Fiona Miller Flynn, and Jack County Sheriff Mason Flynn.

  The photographer went through the same procedure and took the picture. “I think we got it.”

  “Might be worth something one day,” said Bone with a grin. “Never can tell.”

  The lyrical strains of the William Tell Overture wafted across Faye’s backyard at the same time the air shimmered like a heat wave for a couple of seconds.

  Mason looked at Bone. “That comin’ from your butt?”

  “Uh…Yeah…Huh?” Bone reached to the back pocket of his suit pants and pulled out his smart phone that Lucy had given him in 2014.

  “Bone,” he answered with a questioning look on his face.

  “Damn you, Bone! Where the hell are you?” yelled the Chief of Police of Gainesville PD, Captain St. John, from the speaker.

  “Hey, Cap’n…You wouldn’t believe…Hell, not sure I believe it myself. We’re…” Bone’s voice blared from St. John’s speaker, and then abruptly stopped.

  “What happened?” asked Corporal Stella Johnson, a gorgeous twenty-five year old blond investigator, in plain clothes, in the Gainesville PD sitting across the desk from the 5’8”, stocky black Captain in 2018. “Lose the connection?”

  “Bone!…Bone, dammit.” He looked at the face of his Galaxy. “Gone…Shit.”

  “He said ‘we’…Loraine must be with him,” said Stella.

  “Yeah, but where?” St. John looked at Stella.

  Patrolman Juan Gomez knocked on the door jam of the Chief’s office.

  “Come,” said St. John.

  The tall, slender Gomez stepped in the open doorway and laid a folder on St. John’s desk. “Found Bone’s Thing.”

  “Beg your pardon?” the chief asked.

  “His Thing…that 1971 Volkswagen Thing he was restoring.”

  “Oh, right…right. Misunderstood what you were sayin’.”

  Stella tried to hide a giggle.

  St. John opened the folder and scanned it. “What in hell?” He looked up at Juan.

  “Sheriff deputy from Palo Pinto County found it up at Possum Kingdom Lake…apparently abandoned…Had water in it from a couple of rains…Think they went fishin’ an’ drowned?”

  “Not in this lifetime. Bone was a Force Recon Marine…about the same thing as a SEAL. Believe me, I know, I was in the Corps with him…His CO, actually,” said St. John. “Never saw him in a situation he couldn’t handle.”

  “Oh…Didn’t know. Just makin’ an observation…Sir.”

  “They tow it in to the county pound?” asked Stella.

  “Yep. Said they’d throw a tarp on it an’ hold it till Bone or somebody comes and gets it,” said Gomez.

  Bone looked at his screen. “Nothing. Huh…Had one bar for a few seconds, what the…”

  “And the Captain called?…How?” asked Loraine.

  Bone shook his head. “Damn if I know, hon.”

  Lucy looked up at the big man. “What’s that instrument you have there, Bone? “Looks like a communicating device.”

  “It’s a, what we call…uh, a smart phone…uh from our time. Has a lot of features besides just talking with someone. Can even do a video call…Hey, you actually gave me this one after you were rescued in 2014, Lucy…You added some stuff.”

  “Bone, keep your voice down. Not everyone here knows about where we came from,” said Loraine, glancing around to see if anyone was listening.

  “Oh…right, Pard.” He turned back to Lucy and spoke sotto voce, “You put an app on it and some other stuff so we could communicate with you out in space at the 2nd Lagrangian point where you were, or will be, stationed as a Watcher…There was a tiny image of you in your formfitting gray space suit with the big black almond-shaped lenses for your eyes here on the screen as the icon…but, the app disappeared when we were transported back to 1898 in that cave.”

  “How could we get a call back in this time, Bone?” whispered Loraine.

  “I think I can answer that,” said Lucy softly. “The electromagnetic vortex wave that sent you here exists in numerous places all over your world and no one knows exactly how they’re activated or where they all are…But, other than during the occurrence of the blue moon that Anompoli Lawa mentioned, we know they flux in and out for occasional short spurts and in various wave strengths…”

  “So, Gainesville must be located at another one of those points like the cave we entered down on the Brazos?” Loraine said, interrupting the small pixie-haired alien woman.

  Lucy nodded and continued, “…and apparently it just activated, weakly, for about nine seconds.”

  “This whole thing keeps getting weirder and weirder. Next thing you know, Cap’n St. John will appear out of thin air and start steady chewing on our asses, Pard.”

  “Nothing would surprise me anymore, baby,” replied Loraine. “Don’t know how anything could top you and I finding out we were in love.” She linked her arm through his and leaned over to him. “I would have given that one chance in hell…Maybe not even that.”

  “Know what you mean, Pard, but I’m not complaining.”

  She stood on her tip toes and gave him a peck. “Me neither.”

  GAINESVILLE PD

  2018

  “Stella, you and Peach scoot down to Palo Pinto and go over Bone’s Thing with a fine tooth comb…Uh, let’s just say his Volkswagen from now on, shall we?”

  Stella blushed and grinned. “Yes, sir.”

  “Anyway, ya’ll go over there and check it out, and then go out to the lake where they found it…do the same out there…I want some answers. Somethin’ very odd’s goin’ on here.”

  “Aye, aye, Cap’n…As you wish, Cap’n,” she said getting to her feet.

  “Don’t push it, Corporal or you’ll be back on patrol duty,” St. John said.

  Stella grinned again, picked up the folder and headed out of his office down to the forensics lab.

  She stopped by the lounge and got two cups of coffee on the way.

  Stella opened the door of the forensics lab and saw Peach Presley in a white lab coat, bent over, looking through a 40X-2000X High Power Trinocular Compound Microscope.

  “Hey, Peach,” Stella said.

  The tall, attractive brunette, from Georgia, looked over at the door. “Hey, Stella, just give me a minute, honey.”

  “No prob…Brought you a cup of shellac.”

  “How old is it?” she asked, without looking up from the microscope.

  “Yesterday…I think.”

  “Umm, should be just about right, then.” She looked up and massaged the bridge of her nose. “I swear, my eyes feel like two burnt holes in a blanket,” Peach said in her heavy Georgia accent.

  Stella handed her the white porcelain cup with a Colt .45 semiautomatic and a Lone Star Shooting Supply logo on the side.

  “Bless your heart, Stella.” Peach blew across the top and took a sip, shook and closed one eye. “This may put hair on your chest,” she wheezed.

  “Pass,” answered Stella, grinning. “We gotta make a trip and do some work.”

  “Oh, my goodness, now what?”

  “As you know, Bone and Loraine are missin’, but the captain got him on his cell just a little bit ago for about eight or nine seconds, so we know he’s all right and that Loraine is with him on account he said, ‘we’.”

  “Bless their hearts.”

  “Any chance you can trace the Captain’s call an’ find out where Bone and Loraine are?” asked
Stella.

  Peach grinned and shook her head. “That’s only on NCIS, besides if there is that type of equipment, we couldn’t afford it anyways…Wish I had what’s in Abby’s lab.”

  “Yeah, heard that…If wishes and wants were feathers and wings, a frog wouldn’t bump his ass every time he hops…We’re lucky to get new squad cars every five years from the county.”

  “Uh-huh…Now, we gotta do what?”

  “The Palo Pinto Sheriff’s Department found his Thing…”

  Peach inhaled sharply. “Bone lost his thing? Bless his heart.”

  “No, no, his Volkswagen Thing.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.” She fanned her face with her right hand. “Bone’s too hot to lose his thing.”

  Stella shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment, and then looked back up at Peach. She was 5’2” and Peach was 5’10”. The rest of the department called them Mutt and Jeff II…Bone and Loraine were Mutt and Jeff I, with his 6’8” and her 5’3”.

  “The captain wants us to go to Palo Pinto and give it a good going over, and then go up to Possum Kingdom where they found it and look around.”

  “You mean from rear-ends to elbows?”

  “Somethin’ like that. When can you be ready to go?” asked Stella.

  “Oh, honey, what time is it.”

  “Eleven thirty-two.”

  “You waitin’ on me you’re backin’ up, girl.”

  “Grab your gear, then…Meet you in the parkin’ lot…we’ll take the black plain wrapper.” Stella turned and headed down to her office.

  SKEANS BOARDING HOUSE

  1898

  Bone and Loraine, along with Mason and Fiona sat in the parlor of Faye’s boarding house having afternoon coffee. Everyone else had already headed back home except for the ones that lived in Gainesville.

  Bodie and Annabel walked in from the stairway, through the foyer, each carrying one of the twins. They set them down on the floor as soon as they entered.

  Faye came through the large dining room from the kitchen with two more cups of coffee. “Heard ya’ll comin’ down the stairs.” She handed each a steaming cup.

  “Thanks, Faye, you make the best coffee…”

  Annabel elbowed Bodie in the ribs.

  “Oh…Uh, next to yours, sweetheart,” he stammered.

  “It’s a good thing you caught yourself, Bodie,” she said, and then turned and winked at Faye.

  She winked back. “I’ll bring some of Loraine and Bone’s lemon wedding cake in just a moment,” Faye said as she turned around and headed back to the kitchen.

  “Cain’t believe ya’ll are sittin’ in the parlor instead of up in your room on the day of your weddin’,” commented the ranger.

  “Bodie Hickman!”

  “Well…”

  “It’s all right, Annabel, we were trying to figure out where we could stay down in San Antonio,” said Loraine.

  “Well, I was stationed there before the Rangers sent me up here an’ I would recommend the Villa de la Vega. It’s down close to the river and about two blocks from the Alamo. It’s a lot like Faye’s here…Lots of good places to eat down there, too” replied Bodie. “I know the proprietor, Sophia de la Vega…the widow of Don Felipe Diego de la Vega…I stayed there.”

  “Don Felipe Diego de la Vega?” questioned Loraine, sitting up quickly. “My great great great grandfather was a Don Felipe Diego de la Vega in San Antonio…My, my.”

  “Small world,” said Bone.

  “He was married twice. His first wife, my third great grandmother, died of cholera in 1860…then he married a twenty year old Castilian, Sophia Garza, in ‘65…That has to be her.”

  “When did he pass away?” asked Fiona.

  “In ’90 at the age of seventy-five…heart failure, my grandmother said.”

  “More and more reasons why we were sent back to this time. That makes her your third great step grandmother,” said Bone. “I say that sounds like a good place to me.”

  “There is one thing,” said Bodie.

  “That would be?” asked Mason.

  “There have been six suicides there since Sophia turned it into a rooming house.”

  “Say, what if maybe the villa is even haunted…Mua-ha-ha-ha-ha.” Bone laughed in his worst imitation of Bela Lugosi.

  “Damn you, Bone, that’s not funny,” commented Loraine.

  “Don’t throw it, this is Faye’s good china we’re drinking coffee from.” He grinned and winked at her.

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Well, I’ve got three suggestions, darlin’, and the first two don’t count.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  She blushed. “We’ll see…If you play your cards right, mister.”

  “You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when…”

  “Please don’t ruin that song, Bone, it’s one of my favorites of Kenny Rogers,” said Loraine.

  “Yes, dear.”

  §§§

  CHAPTER THREE

  VILLA DE LA VEGA

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  An ornate sign in the rock and cactus front yard read:

  VILLA de la VEGA Rooming House.

  Vernon Wyland and Clayton Armstrong were playing chess on one side of a shaded arbor in the open center garden of the large, two story, square stucco adobe Spanish style hacienda with a red tile roof. There was a six foot wide balcony that ran around the outside of the hacienda at the second floor, as well as around on the inside, overlooking the interior garden.

  The chess set was carved from solid white and black onyx with a matching white and a black onyx chess board that was owned by Don Flipe Deigo de la Vega, who had it carved for him in Mexico.

  The present owner of Villa de la Vega, his widow, Sophia de la Vega, of Castilian Spanish heritage, sat off to the side in a rocking chair, watching the two men and enjoying a glass of ice tea.

  It was believed that onyx, especially black, absorbed and transformed negative energy. Black onyx is said to aid the development of emotional and physical strength as well as stamina.

  “There you go Clayton…Check.”

  “Hell, Vernon, don’t think it will make any difference.” Clayton grinned and moved his knight. “Checkmate.”

  “Well, I’ll be dipped…That’s four straight games you’ve won, Clay. Thought I had you that time.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that Vern. You’re a pretty good chess player, but I guess I should have told you…I’m a Master. I apologize…Damn, but, I don’t know when I’ve had more fun.”

  Vernon finished off his iced tea. “Glad you’ve enjoyed yourself.”

  Clayton picked up his empty tea glass and looked at it. “Think I’m gonna go upstairs and take a little nap before Anita gets back from shopping.” He got up, glass in his hand and started toward one of the doors from the garden that led inside.

  “You can just leave the glass, Mister Armstrong, I’m headed to the kitchen anyway.”

  “Thank you, Sophia,” Clayton said.

  “If you need anything, just give the bell pull a yank. Remember, your room is three pulls,” replied Sophia.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” He opened the door and went inside.

  Vernon, a weathered forty-five year old veteran cavalry soldier of the Indian wars, got to his feet also and followed Clayton. “Guess I’ll go ahead and fill the lamps in the upstairs hall, Ma’am.”

  “Thank you, Vernon.”

  She also got up walked over to the chess table, picked up Clayton and Vernon’s tea glasses and headed to the door.

  Sophia entered the kitchen carrying the empty glasses. She dumped the remaining ice from the glasses into the wet sink, washed the glasses and put them on a towel upside down on the cabinet top to dry.

  She walked over to the wood-burning cook stove to stir a big pot of marinara sauce with a wooden spoon.

  Vernon walked into the kitchen, stepped over to the ice box and took out a fried chicken leg and had a big bite.

  “Don’t ru
in your supper, Vernon.”

  He sniffed of the marinara sauce on the stove and a big grin spread across his face. “Not much chance of that, Miz de la Vega.”

  The bell in the rack over against the far interior wall from Clayton Armstrong’s room, rang once and stuck in the sideways position. Sophia and Vernon looked over at the bell.

  “Oh, I thought I told you to fix that, Vernon.”

  “Did, Ma’am…Brand new rope inside the velvet sheath.” He walked over to the bell and tried to return it to its down position, but it was stuck.

  “Go on up and see if Mister Armstrong needs anything.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” He exited the door to the hall.

  Vernon climbed the light red varnished adobe brick tile covered stairway with the hand-carved railing and walked down the hallway to the Armstrong’s room and knocked.

  There was no response. He knocked again. Nothing.

  “Mister Armstrong, you in there?”

  Vernon tried the brass door lever. It was locked. He knelt down to try to look in the keyhole. There was a key inserted in the lock from the other side. He knocked once more.

  “Mister Armstrong?”

  Sophia had heard Vernon trying to raise Clayton Armstrong from downstairs, topped the stairway and approached Vernon.

  Is there a problem?”

  He frowned. “Don’t know, Ma’am. He doesn’t answer and the door’s locked from the inside.”

  Push the key out and use your master skeleton key.

  Vernon took out a long thin screwdriver from his tool pouch, knelt down again and pushed the key out the other side. There was a clink as the brass key hit the hardwood floor. He inserted his master skeleton key and unlocked the door. Vernon turned the lever, pushed the door open and looked inside.

  He dropped to his knees as he stared in the room and made a moaning cry from deep in his throat.

  Sophia stepped closer and put her hand on his shoulder. “What is it, Vernon?”

  He could only point inside the Armstrong room.

  Sophia looked inside the partially open solid walnut carved door.

  Clayton Armstrong was hanging by his neck from the bell pull against the back wall next to the bed. His feet were twelve inches from the floor and tied together with a dark green window drapery sash. There was a piano stool next to his dangling feet. Clayton Armstrong was dead.