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“And how did you learn about that, I wonder?” I asked suspiciously.
“I overheard you and Mike talking last night,” he admitted with a wince.
I arched a brow at him. “You were supposed to be asleep, young man.”
“Are you? Going to leave us?”
I sighed and shook my head. “Not yet. I’ll have to return to my own time at some point, but there’s no reason that it has to be now.”
And every reason to stay. The main one being to save Bryant’s life.
“I’m glad, truly,” Henry said with relief.
“Me, too. Now get to the village, and mind your manners. Tell Bryant when you see him that I’ll be back at the cabin before dark tomorrow night.”
“I will. Have a care in town, Callista.”
We reached the fork in the wooded path where we parted company, me for town and Henry for the village where Bryant was awaiting the elders’ final decision on the matter of allowing future outsiders to come in under the guise of providing their children with modern education.
For the first time since deciding to stay in the old west, I fully relaxed and enjoyed the leisurely ride down the mountainside for Silver Falls. The trees in bright autumn colors were beginning to lose their golden and scarlet leaves to the brisk wind, giving hint to the white winter to come.
Next month would be Thanksgiving, an American holiday celebrated even in this century. Alice had already gone into queen bee mode and was bustling about with plans to orchestrate the town into a community potluck dinner in the new town square. It warmed me to know that I would be a part of it now, sitting at a long plank table next to Bryant with Alice and Henry and many of my new friends.
Then came Christmas and New Year’s Day with its snow drifts and romantic sleigh rides and tree decorations and gift exchanges. After the gatherings, a frost-covered Bryant would come home loaded with the game he had been out hunting to a hot meal I had prepared for us, ending in a passionate round of lovemaking in front of the crackling fireplace.
Then would come spring with its green buds and colorful wildflowers blossoming the fields.
Yeah, I could get used to this life a while longer.
A year then. Just to help Bryant avoid whatever catastrophe that would try and claim his life. One year of bliss together. That wasn’t asking too much of the fates, was it?
Still, what if the event that would take Bryant happened later? A year, maybe two.
Hilly said that Bryant would be killed soon after the attack on an Indian village, but even she wasn’t certain about it.
A what if it had nothing to do with Dove-caller’s village? What if this attack was with another tribe altogether? Ten years from now?
Either way, I refused to worry over it for the moment. I would take one month and year at a time. Even if I ended up staying here in the past permanently with Bryant...
“Let it go already, McEwan,” I grumbled to myself, shaking the buzzing worries from my brain. “Let’s just get through this weekend.”
Riding over the bridge past the town limit sign, I greeted a farmer driving a buckboard beside me. With the colorful banners and harvest decorations for the festival taken down, the town had turned back to its normal rustic self.
As usual I rode around to the rear of the general store and stabled Patty with a load of fresh hay and an affectionate pat on her neck, then unloaded my bundles and headed through the storage room door.
“Hey, Alice,” I called heading into the store proper. “I brought those beads from Dove-caller that you wanted. I’ll show you how they weave them inside their fabrics...What the Sam Hill are you doing?”
She was frantically bustling around, covering everything with cloth lengths and hammering down barrel lids as if the world was on fire.
“Protecting my stock from all the mischief-makers—”
A loud popping bang cut off her words and made us both jump and yelp.
Firecrackers.
Immediately followed by dark snickers and pounding feet.
“Lord, Almighty!” Alice gasped, clutching her throat.
