by Lisa Norato
She breathed a sigh and her whole expression relaxed. Her eyes sparkled and danced as though a great weight had suddenly been lifted from her mind.
Ruckert took her hand, but before he could slip the ring onto her finger, she pulled away.
“Wait,” she said nervously, “I need to warn you about something first.”
The look in her eyes made his heart drop into his stomach. He could not manage more than a nod in contemplation of what news she might deliver next.
“In the interest of being totally up front and honest with each other,” she said, “this isn’t my real hair color.”
“Huh?”
“It’s been color-enhanced, from its golden blond highlights to its cinnamon sunset lowlights, which means absolutely nothing to you, I know, but without a visit every six weeks to my colorist, eventually my hair will grow out to a perfectly ordinary light golden brown.” She then muttered, “Give or take a strand or two of premature gray.”
Every muscle in his body sagged with relief.
He reached up to rub a lock of her apricot hair between his thumb and forefinger. “I do admire this sun-sh-shiny color, but I reckon I will enjoy light golden bbbb-b-brown just as well.” Dropping his hand, he addressed her square in the eye. “Now, quit monkeying around. Will you wear my ring or not?”
She giggled like a schoolgirl. “Yes! Okay, I’m ready now,” she said holding out her hand. “Let’s do this. Let’s get engaged.”
It slipped perfectly onto her ring finger.
“Why am I not surprised it f-fits?” Ruckert declared aloud, though he was talking to himself.
They looked into each other’s eyes and laughed together.
Shelby admired the ring on her finger, then smiled up at him. “It’s lovely.”
“It once belonged to Grandmother M-M-Mary.”
Ruckert thought then, he’d never felt happier.
“Oh, but seriously, Ruckert, there really is something I need to warn you about.”
He locked a stern glare on her. “I suppose you’re going to tell me now your eyes aren’t really b-blue.”
She didn’t so much as smile, but grabbed hold of his hand and held it in her lap. “This is important. I know a little something about Wyoming history, and I’m telling you that this coming winter will be recorded as Wyoming’s worst ever. It’ll prove a disaster for the cattle industry. Come November, it will start to snow and it won’t let up for a month. Temperatures will thaw mid-December, but a freeze will turn the slush to ice. January will be nothing but bitter cold, and before it’s all over, a blizzard will blow across the plains and continue for seventy-two hours. By spring, thousands of cattle will have frozen to death on the open range, and many prosperous ranches, including some of the biggest operations, will have gone bankrupt. It’s going to be awful. We’ll have to prepare if we want to save the Flying Eagle.”
It scrambled his mind that Shelby knew these things.
“It is no surprise to hear the future of the cattle business is d-d-doomed. We figured it was coming. Because of an over-production of beef, p-prices this past year have fallen. Homesteaders are putting up barbed wire fences all the time. They cut off water supplies by settling along the best streams. The railroad is expanding. Sheep farmers keep on pouring into the territory. The open range will soon be a thing of the past. Yet none of us were expecting such a great calamity as what you describe.”
“So, you believe me?” she asked anxiously.
He raised the hand that clasped his own, flipping it over to kiss her knuckles. “I give you m-my word, the Flying Eagle will survive. We’re a smaller operation and that’s an advantage. If we sell off most of the herd after the fall roundup, even at reduced ppp-p-prices, and not hold on to the cattle, then manage our finances, we can use the profits to begin another herd the following spring. What cattle remain, we’ll confine to fenced-in pastures where they can be f-f-fed. Already, I have started improvement on those pastures for the growing of hay and alfalfa, in readiness of that horse operation I told you about. Those crops will be harvested for feed and used to carry our smaller herds through the w-winter. There’s time yet to prepare.”
She gave him an embracing smile, and this time it was Shelby who spoke words of comfort. “Yes, I know for a fact the Flying Eagle does survive. Over one hundred years from now, my sister will be living here.”
He smiled at that, then to steer her thoughts from so serious a matter on the evening of their engagement, announced, “I have been doing some thinking, and I’ve decided to let you try some of them v-voice exercises on m-me.”
She mulled it over a moment, pouting. “I’ve been doing some thinking, too, and I’ve decided against it.”
“Pardon?”
“No.”
“N-No?”
“Yes, the answer is no,” she remarked plainly, and before Ruckert could ask her to explain, she threw herself at him and hugged his neck.
“I don’t care about the stutter,” she stated softly, kissing his ear. “I love you exactly the way you are.”
Ruckert turned his face to hers, hoping she’d share some of those kisses with his lips, but she pushed him off with a nudge.
“Right now, I need you to push over, because I have a gift for you, too, and I have to give it to you before I lose my nerve.”
As Ruckert made room for her at the keyboard, she took her position at the piano and explained, “This is a song I wrote for you called ‘Love is Where We Are.’ ”
And as her fingers played, Shelby McCoy, the woman he loved, sang these words to him:
I know
There were nights you felt you did not belong
So alone
I’ve known them too
Stare up at the stars while they shine down on you
Silent and blue
I know
This is hard for you
I need
To hear ‘bout all the tears you’ve ever cried
The secrets you’ve kept locked inside
‘Coz where I am is where I want to be
With you, is like a dream that has come true
Everything I’ve ever wanted
Here, with you
Love is where we are. . . .
Love is where we are. . . .
Please know
This is hard for me
I need
To share all the tears I’ve ever cried
The secrets I’ve kept locked inside
‘Coz where I am is where I want to be
With you, is like a dream that has come true
Everything I’ve ever wanted
Here, with you
Love is where we are. . . .
Love is where we are. . . .
There are mornings I wake
And ask myself how did we end up here
Together
It seems so impossible
It seems so impossible
‘Coz where I am is where I want to be
With you, is like a dream that has come true
Everything I’ve ever wanted
Here, with you
Love is where we are. . . .
Love is where we are. . . .
Chapter Twenty-One
The following week found Shelby riding down the county road on Cameo, escorted by Ruckert on Chongo, with Jorge tucked inside his buttoned vest.
They weren’t going to wait. Tomorrow, they were getting married.
Tomorrow, Shelby would become Mrs. Ruckert St. Cloud.
The plan was to ride into Laramie City today, check into a hotel, then after a leisurely afternoon of shopping, enjoy a quiet supper before retiring to separate rooms. The last night they’d ever spend apart.
Come morning, they were to be joined by Ruckert’s family for a private ceremony, Shelby wearing the dress Rose had sewn for her, followed by dinner at the hotel. From there, Shelby would travel with her new husband to Cheyenne for their honeymoon, during which they’d celebrate the Fourth of Jul
y and visit her ancestors.
What sort of reception she could expect remained questionable, but Shelby was emotionally charged at the prospect of meeting her great-great-great grandmother. As far as she could tell, Nana Tinkler was now her closest living relative and the only person on earth who could possibly shed some light on her mysterious arrival in the nineteenth century.
But whatever discoveries awaited her in this Cheyenne of the golden west, Shelby joyfully anticipated her return to the Flying Eagle and her new life as a St. Cloud.
This morning, before leaving the ranch, Rose had cried, Holden had given her a kiss for luck and Wylie had brought her flowers. She was going to have a beautiful, adventurous, uncomplicated life with a wonderful family and a loving husband.
And it all began today, right here, right now, traveling down the county road.
Shelby gazed up at the big Wyoming sky and sighed contentedly.
“What’s on your mind?” Ruckert asked.
“Oh . . . lots of things.”
“I have got all d-d-day.”
With all those blissful thoughts of her future, there remained one blemish to this perfect day, one bittersweet facet to her happiness, and Shelby was grateful for the invitation to unburden herself.
“I can’t help thinking of my family and friends, of my colleagues at school and my students. They’ve probably assumed the worse. What else can they think? My deserted car would have been discovered on the highway. A search would have found nothing. I have no way of letting them know I’m alive and okay. Better than okay, I’m ecstatically happy and getting married! I feel guilty for being this happy, when I can only imagine the agony and confusion everyone back home must be going through.”
She’d never see them again. Shelby accepted that.
In his quiet, wise and solemn way, Ruckert nodded and reached out to her from across the space of their horses.
He gave her hand an affectionate squeeze, warmth and strength flowing from his fingers. “It is regrettable that none of your f-fff-folks will be here for you on our w-wedding day. But you’ve got to believe that whatever power brought you here is also taking care of them and giving them comfort.”
“Beautifully said.”
Shelby gave him a smile, this mate to her soul. He was everything she could’ve ever hoped for, in a package she had never expected. This handsome hunk of manhood, eleven years her junior and still an old-fashioned gentleman. Her perfect match.
Who’da thunk it? She never could have imagined she’d find a man she loved this much.
He was almost too good to be true.
“I didn’t mean to dump that on you,” she apologized. “I don’t want to ruin our day by talking about circumstances that can’t be helped, but I do find it tragic that none of them will ever know the wonderful man I married.”
Then, as Shelby gazed into Ruckert’s grey-green eyes and realized yet again that tomorrow she would be married to this man she loved, her smile blossomed. Her heart exploded with joy.
They rode hand in hand. With each step further down the trail they traveled, Shelby grew more reassured in the rightness of her being here with Ruckert. Her concerns drifted out behind them until they dissipated with the dust.
Up ahead, the long, winding trail cut across a vast tableland of tall grasses, giving way to the timbered foothills below the Medicine Bow Mountains. Snow shone crystalline from their peaks as it glistened and reflected in the daylight. Cloud formations floated across a perfect blue bowl of a sky.
Peace had settled over the land.
And Shelby was staring at her Toyota SUV.
Her heart took a violent leap into her throat. Immediately, her mind rejected the image as impossible, and she closed her eyes, tightening her hold of Ruckert’s hand.
He slowed the horses and drew them to a halt.
“Wh-wh-wh-hat is it?” His powerful bass voice shook with the freakishness of someone who’d just come in contact with a ghost.
Shelby opened her eyes. She wasn’t hallucinating. Ruckert saw it, too. It was her white RAV4, less than a quarter of a mile up ahead, parked on the shoulder of the road.
Jorge growled, sensing the tension. Only his foxy black head was visible, poking out of Ruckert’s vest, as he stared in the same direction they all stared with disbelief and awe.
Shelby’s heart pounded in her chest. What did it mean?
Ruckert’s hand relaxed around hers. She felt his unease drain, as he released her and turned with a look of new respect. “Heavens, a sh-sh-shiny white metal carriage. It’s yours, isn’t it?”
Shelby heard it in his voice. She saw it in his expression. Already, the shock was wearing off, to be replaced by excitement and fascination.
“Well, for gosh sakes, you were telling the truth all along.”
“Of course I was telling the truth,” she spat defensively. “You said you believed me.”
“I believed the only way I could. I believed with my heart, though my head had cause to wonder. Yet now, here I am, seeing with my own eyes. A horseless carriage of the future, you bet!” He prodded Chongo forward, and together with Jorge, they approached the vehicle at a fast trot.
“You think this is fun? This is not fun,” Shelby hollered after him. “It’s not a toy, you know.” Fear sent adrenalin rushing through her system, her voice rising to a frantic screech. She put her heels to Cameo’s sides and followed.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” she admitted. “I think we should turn around right now and go back the way we came.”
Ruckert didn’t pause for so much as a backwards glance, but cantered up to the driver’s side of her SUV, reached inside his vest for Jorge and dismounted.
Shelby dismounted behind him. She rushed at him with barely a chance to catch her breath before Ruckert pressed her fluff-ball of a Pomeranian into her arms and turned towards the vehicle.
“Wait!” she screamed, horror-stricken to see him lay the flat of his hand on the cool, white surface of her driver’s door.
“How is it possible to make such a machine as this?” Ruckert said thoughtfully, skimming his fingers along the sleek metal exterior. His gaze bounced over the SUV as though he couldn’t decide what to inspect first. Then he noticed the alloy wheels. “Well, look, there’s your broke t-t-tire.” He spoke in a voice full of wonder and discovery, like a tourist pointing out an attraction in a theme park.
Shelby relaxed enough to actually draw breath. The earth hadn’t stopped turning. Neither of them had been transported to another dimension. The sun still shone in the sky. Nothing had happened. Nothing at all.
Ruckert circled her SUV, and Shelby watched as he re-approached the driver’s door and peered through the window. He glanced into the outside rearview mirror, then tried the door handle.
“It’s locked,” she informed him.
Tipping his hat back off his forehead, he turned to her with a look.
Shelby knew that look. “Forget it,” she said. “No way I’m giving you the keys.”
The look turned into a stare, which grew stern with the narrowing of his eyes. He raised a brow, inviting . . . no, more like insisting she explain.
And with a sigh, she did. “Aren’t you even a little suspicious as to why my car has made this disturbing appearance, suddenly and out of nowhere, after three weeks of going missing? Don’t you find that odd? I do! And considering what happened the last time I drove that thing, I am not about to let you inside and risk another impromptu trek through time.”
With an impatient huff, she shifted Jorge in her arms. “Who knows what other voodoo that spooked machine is capable of. So, please, Ruckert. Can’t we just forget all about it and get out of here?”
He frowned, staring at her thoughtfully for a moment before answering. “It’s a conundrum, that’s a f-f-fact. How a machine as big as this’n cannot exist one minute, then whiz-bang, appear in the next. There’s no figuring it. This horseless c-c-carriage is a dangerous invention of the f-future, and it’s got n
o business out on the county road for anyone to come upon. I could not think much of myself if I didn’t see to it no one else gets themselves into trouble.”
Stepping forward, he took her firmly by the shoulders, looked her in the eye and said, “I’m asking you to do the right thing here and fetch me them keys. I intend to have a look inside, so I can commence to figure out how I’m going to f-f-fix that broke tire.”
Shelby sulked a moment, totally unconvinced doing “the right thing” would serve their best interest in this instance. Granted, Ruckert made an excellent point. Abandoning a Toyota RAV4 on a well-traveled, nineteenth-century highway for any unsuspecting citizen to find was comparable to the present-day discovery of a space ship in a Midwestern corn field. Even so, she suspected his logic was colored by an insatiable desire to get behind the wheel.
“Flat tire,” she corrected. “It’s called a flat tire, and if we do fix it, then what?”
Releasing her, Ruckert glanced back at the SUV. “First, we’ll drive it to the ranch. We can hide it in the barn, I suppose. For a while, at least, till I can think up a better solution. ‘Course, we’ll have to tell my family the t-t-t-truth. I don’t see any other way.”
This was ruining their elopement-day plans. Shelby gave it one final shot. “I say we just leave it and hope it disappears again.”
Ruckert didn’t argue, merely grinned in a patronizing yet good-natured manner, as he stepped to the rear of her SUV.
With a jerk of his head, he gestured inside. “I could not help but notice this big suitcase here. Yours, I reckon. I’ve a hunch it’s got a heap of your modern-day ladies’ effects packed inside. The sort of things you’d never find in Laramie City. And considering where they come from, anywhere else in the t-t-territory. I’m thinking maybe you’ve got more of them tight denim pants and loose shirts in there. And maybe some of your scandalous corsets? Or that red paint for your toenails. Any of those items something you might care t-to have?”
