by Julianne Lee
Ruth cried, “No!,” and swung on him with only her fist. Harper turned, startled, and Shelby wrenched free. Without the slightest thought, she swooped to the fireplace and snatched the poker from the bricks, and in the same motion came back around to swing on Harper. She whacked his gun hand, and the weapon fired harmlessly into the floor before he dropped it. He erupted with a bellow of pain. In the confusion she heard the click of a misfiring chamber, but in nearly the same instant someone else got off a shot. The two reports, Harper’s and the other’s, were like an echo. Everyone was shouting, warnings and threats and pleas to God, and the guns in hand were pointed every which ways.
Shelby hauled back with the poker for another swing and clouted Harper on the head with it, then while he staggered she dropped the fire tool and picked up his revolver from the floor. In an instant she turned, hauled the long pistol level with both hands, and shot the other shooter. The high caliber recoil slammed into her hands and rattled the joints in her arms, and nearly sent her reeling. It was all she could do to keep hold of the gun. The bullet went high, for she’d never fired a weapon before, and struck the man’s forehead. The back of his head blew out and sprayed red across the white walls of the sitting room before he collapsed in a heap on the floor.
“Holy Moses!” The man with the misfiring pistol and the unarmed one backed out of the room. One ran from the house straight away, and the other hung around, peeking through the door to see what would happen. Shelby turned the gun on Harper, gripped in both hands like a twenty-first century cop. “Get out.”
His hand pressed the back of his head, and blood trickled through his fingers. “Jesus, lady!” He was frowning at her, puzzled, as if she’d punched him for trying to kiss her.
She lifted the barrel to aim at his forehead. “Get. Out. Now. I will kill you.” Her heart was hammering in her chest, and her finger twitched to pull the trigger. Great gasps of breath made her light-headed, and she prayed he would listen to her and just get the hell out. “Get out, and if you come back I’ll shoot you before you come anywhere near the house.”
He raised both hands in surrender. “All right. I’m a-going. But first, can I have my gun back?”
“Get out!”
With a deep flinch, he hurried toward the door.
Shelby followed, and stood on the porch to watch them leave. They climbed onto their horses, took the reins of the riderless mount, and galloped away down the railroad tracks.
Behind her, Ruth screamed. Matthew. Shelby sickened once more, and she hurried back into the sitting room. But Matthew was fine, sitting wide-eyed in his basket and spattered with blood. None of it was his, for he’d been rained on by the dead man. And his aunt.
Martha slumped in the rocker, the front of her dress a wide, red stain. It crept along the fabric as she continued to seep blood, and soon the entire dress would be soaked. She was dead, not even trying to breathe.
“Oh, God.” Shelby’s knees suddenly didn’t want to hold her up. A sob shook her. “Oh, Martha.”
Ruth was weeping, kneeling next to the rocker. Shelby sank to the floor, no longer able to stand. She looked over at the body of the man who had killed Martha, and even knowing he was dead didn’t help her. The stink of blood in the room, of waste and death, turned her stomach. She pressed a palm to her mouth and cried.
Chapter 16
December 2004
“No.” A laugh burbled from Jason, and he stood. “No, Shelby, you’re taking this too far. I know you love this house, but let’s take a reality break here.”
“My name isn’t Shelby.” The woman folded her hands in her lap. “You’ll call me Mary Beth, or you’ll not refer to me at all.”
He turned on his heel and headed for the foyer, then turned again to face her. “Mary Beth...” he searched his mind for a coherent reply, but came up with nothing. “Mary Beth, I’m going to get dressed.”
“I’m grateful.” Her voice was cold. His eyes narrowed at her, then he turned to do as he’d promised.
Once dressed in jeans and a blue flannel shirt, he descended again in freshly shod feet to find “Mary Beth” nosing through the stuff in his living room. Shelby had been here more than once, but had never been so rude as to snoop. Leastways, she’d never been rude enough to let herself be caught at it. But now she was reaching inside his mother’s curio cabinet hung on the wall. He cleared his throat, and she jumped.
“Find anything you like?”
She picked up the silver scissors she’d been reaching for, and held them up. “You inherited these?”
“They were my grandmother’s.”
“I have a pair identical to them. Imported from England.”
“Do you?” His tone was hard. He was buying this less and less.
Without further word, she restored the scissors to their resting place and closed the door of the glass case. Then she indicated the framed photographs standing on the end table by the sofa. “This is your father?”
“Both my parents. Just before they were married.”
“The tinting is excellent. Very skilled.”
“It’s a color photograph, and faded, so the color is actually pretty bad.”
She sighed and looked around. “Lights without fire. Color photographs. Bright colors everywhere. There have been improvements in the past century.”
He snorted and grinned. “You ain’t seen nothing.” Then he caught himself, alarmed he’d lapsed and started thinking of her as an actual time traveler.
Her tone became hard, like an old lady whose patience with the idiocy around her is strained. “I haven’t seen anything.”
“Right. It’s an expression.”
She nodded, then gestured to the photo again. “Your father doesn’t look any more like a Brosnahan than you do. Are there any photographs of your grandfather?”
He folded his arms and raised his chin. “Sorry to disappoint you, but what you see before you is exactly what a Brosnahan does look like, ’cause I am one. And, yeah, there are photos of my grandfather.” There were boxes of things—about a ton of paper, it seemed—that had been handed down over the years and had ended up with him. He’d not seen all of it, not having nearly enough spare time nor real interest to paw through all that dusty junk, and what he had seen he’d only glimpsed briefly when he was a kid. It had been carefully packed away, and as the current caretaker of the musty, crusty, irrelevant legacy, he’d been admonished to not handle the materials too much. He was happy to oblige, and had never taken any of it out for a look. None of it had seen the light of day since the death of his grandfather.
He continued, “I’m not sure where they are, though. I’d have to dig through a lot of stuff to find them.”
She nodded again, and continued to look around the room. Not at his things now, but at the house itself. Behind the furniture, the flooring, the fireplace and molding overhead, the closet doors to either side of the fireplace.
“You’re not my great-great-great-grandmother.” The idea gave him the creeps, and not just because he’d once harbored a hope of a romantic relationship with the woman before him. Ancestors were supposed to be old people. He couldn’t even imagine his mother as a young, attractive woman, never mind a woman who had...would give birth to his great-great-grandfather.
“I could hardly be anything but. If Lucas Robert marries at all, he’ll marry me. Father’s heart is set on it. And so is Lucas’s, for that matter. He’s made it quite clear he’ll have no one else, and all the Brosnahans are exceedingly stubborn men.”
That struck a chord. Jason’s father and grandfather both had been known for their hard-headedness, and he wasn’t far behind them on that account. But he said, “That was almost a century and a half ago. Lucas Robert Brosnahan fought in the Civil War.”
She turned to face him, and her eyes darkened. “There was a war, then?”
“Big one. Nearly a million people died. Whole states were burnt beyond recognition.”
Now she paled, and her voice thinned t
o a whisper. “And Lucas Robert?”
Jason shrugged. “Not a clue. He might have died, he might have survived. He did leave a son, though. At least one, ’cause otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
“And the outcome of the war?”
He shrugged, uncaring, for it had been so long ago and it all seemed to have shaken out as well as it could have. “The North won. The slaves were freed, followed by a century of ugliness that still isn’t quite behind us. The United States is now the most powerful and most hated country on earth. Next to Iraq, I suppose, which isn’t one of my personal favorites.”
Mary Beth only stood, gaping, and it was plain he could have been speaking Greek for all she knew about Iraq. If Shelby was having him on, she was doing an excellent job of it.
“A lot has happened since then.”
“Tell me what has transpired since this war between the states.”
He sighed and looked out the windows at a car driving by on the road, in search of a quick answer to this one. A hundred and forty years of U.S. history. This could take a while. But then an idea struck. He crooked his finger at her. “Here, check this out.” He went to turn on the TV. Mary Beth’s eyes went wide at the moving picture, and her jaw dropped.
“Oh, my! A moving photograph!”
“Yeah. In color, even.” One hand on her arm, he guided her to a seat on the sofa and sat next to her.
“What are they doing?” Excitement rose in her voice, quite a change from the fear she’d exhibited earlier.
“Those are cops. They’re busting...I mean, arresting this guy for dealing drugs. Dealing in drugs, I mean.”
“Medicine is illegal to sell?”
“Medicine is controlled. Some drugs make people sick because folks become dependent on them. Particularly opiates. Opium. Heroin, morphine, that sort of stuff. And because they’re pain killers, people like to take them when they don’t need to. They pay a lot of money to get the stuff illegally. So the police put the dealers in jail.”
“Demon rum.”
Jason shrugged. “Yeah, well, alcohol doesn’t always cause addiction, but opiates always do. And they tried prohibiting alcohol for a while but nobody obeyed that law.”
Her brow knotted in concentration, and she nodded that she understood. It amused him she was taking this so seriously. “What are they doing now? What’s that...why are there no horses? You’ve done away with all the horses?”
For hours Jason sat with her, watching television and explaining to her the things she was seeing. At times it was frustrating to have to put into words things he’d always taken for granted. Having to explain cars was difficult enough, but she wanted to know how ballpoint pens worked, and what a zipper was, and how electricity could make light without fire. He spoke continuously it seemed. Surfing channels, he avoided anything that looked like science fiction for he wasn’t quite ready to explain the sometimes murky line between the space shuttle Enterprise and the Starship Enterprise.
Every once in a while he would glance over at her as she watched, astonished at the change in Shelby. She’d been so self-assured before. So calm and even forceful at times. Now she was delicate in her posture and the way she held her hands and feet. Though she wore jeans, she kept her knees together as if wearing a dress. Her hands never left her personal space, nearly always in the vicinity of her lap. It wasn’t act, either. It was as natural as laying his arm across the back of the sofa was to himself. Her voice was different, as well. Softer. Her accent more melodic. He found it pleasant, and wished she wasn’t scaring him so bad with this craziness. Her curiosity about the world was cute, but unsettling.
“Tell me, don’t you remember going out with me these past weeks?”
“I never knew you until today.” Her gaze remained on the television as she followed the story of the President of the United States readying to bomb a third-world country. “That is the current President?”
“Uh, that’s Michael Douglas. He’s an actor, and this is fiction. And you did, too, know me. We went to that place down on Second Street. You said you liked it. I thought you had fun.”
“Second Street?”
“Nashville.”
She sat up and peered at him. “The streets in Nashville aren’t numbered.”
“Sure, they are. First Street parallels the river, and Second Street is one block up. The restaurant is near Second and Demonbreun.”
She blinked, flustered as if she were embarrassed. “You’re not serious. Those streets are Front and Market, and that area is where the Cyprians ply their trade.”
“Huh?”
“Cyprians. Soiled doves.”
He blinked, and guessed, “Whores?”
A deep blush crept over her face. “Not to speak too crudely, but yes. You can’t have taken me there, for I would be mortified to be anywhere near the area. And you should be, also, to admit it.”
“I expect it’s changed some in the past century and a half. It’s not the prettiest place I’ve ever been, but I think they cleared out most of the hookers...I mean, the Cyprians a long time ago. They’re up on Dickerson Pike now.”
She peered at him. “The voice of experience.”
“Everyone knows it. No secret.”
“I’ve been to Nashville no more than three times in my life. The trip is too long, and my father doesn’t care for me to stay in the city. He says it’s not a fit place for a proper lady, and I’ve only been to visit folks in the West End.” She actually gave a visible shudder, then added, “Certainly not near the river.”
The trip too long? Jason frowned at that one for a moment, sorting out what she meant, and realized she was talking about a trip that in the previous century would have taken all day one way. “I commute to Nashville nearly every day.”
She peered at him, then nodded and gestured toward the TV. “Yes, I can see these cars go awfully fast. How long does it take you to get there in one of them?”
“About half an hour.”
That brought a smile. “Only half an hour! What a marvel!” Then she returned her attention to the tube, her eyes wide and her enthusiasm real.
“So, you don’t remember anything about me?”
“I assure you, I never knew you before today.” An edge crept into her voice, sounding like she was tired of repeating herself.
“You really think you’re my great-great-great-grandmother, then.”
“I must be, if Lucas Robert is your great-great-great-grandfather. He would have me, or he would have nobody, I’m sure of it.”
“Not too arrogant.”
She turned to him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Awfully sure of yourself, I think. What if he met someone while he was in the army?”
She shook her head. “Not Lucas Robert. The poor fellow was besotted. I feel terrible for him. I’m afraid I won’t be the wife he was hoping for, and he deserves someone who will love him.”
“You sound as if you think you’re going back.”
Shelby paled, and the terror returned to the whites of her eyes. “I would pray to go back.”
Once again Jason realized he’d slipped into the delusion, and he shook it off. “Wait a minute. I think you need to show me something better than just a supposed ignorance of modern technology and Nashville street names if you want me to believe you’re not Shelby.”
She thought a moment, then said, “I know this place. This land was a horse farm. They raised and raced Thoroughbreds.”
“Yeah. One branch of the family sold off most of the land, and took the horses to Kentucky when gambling was outlawed in Tennessee during the early twentieth century. That left only the house and a few acres to come down my branch. Anyone with a clue about the area knows that.”
With a sigh, she sat back. Her head rested on his arm at the back cushion for a moment, but she leaned forward again for him to remove it. When he rigged in his arm and set his hands in his lap, she sat back again, thinking. A deep crease cut her brow, another un-Shelby-like expression. T
hen she sat up again. “The table. You have the Brosnahans’ dining table.”
“Yeah. Been here forever, just like the house. But you could tell by looking at it the thing is an antique, so knowing it’s an heirloom is no big deal.”
She shook her head. “Not the table itself. Under it. By one of the legs. Lucas Robert carved his initials in the wood.”
“Your precious Lucas wrecked my table?”
“He was no more than seven years old at the time. He showed it to me when he was thirteen and I was ten.”
“So there are initials under my table I’ve never in my life seen, then?”
“Do you crawl under that table often? Do you move it from room to room? I don’t expect that great, heavy table has been budged from its spot in the entire time it’s been in this house, and it was brought here by Lucas’s grandfather.”
It felt weird for her to speak with such authority about the house he’d lived in all his life, but she was right. He’d never seen that table leave the dining room. Ever. Jason shifted forward in his seat, ready to rise. “Okay, I’m going to look. You realize, if I look and it’s not there, the jig is up. I’ll know you’re either lying or nuts.”
“Look and see. If you don’t find it, then I’ll know I’m either insane or dead and gone to hell.”
That made him blink. After a statement like that, he almost didn’t want to get up to look. But he had to, and went to the dining room. His pulse picked up, skipping lightly across his shallow breathing as he knelt beside the heavy oak table. He looked at one leg, and found nothing. The second corner he checked, though, had an irregularity he could feel with his fingers. His heart began to pound in his chest as he lifted the hanging edge of the table cloth to give him some light. He felt the indentations in the wood. They were there. Small and crooked, they were well curlicued letters: L, R and B.
The woman was standing beside him, and her voice startled him. “He said he’d done it the very day he’d learned his initials. He hadn’t yet learned to write his name.”
