So. I promised to explain the time-slipping process that I'd recently rejected in favor of marital... of marriage.
As I understand it, the difference between time travel and time slipping is that time travel uses a powerful vehicle--like, say... a souped up DeLorean, or a blue police box. In contrast, time slipping uses the power of the mind, like Dorothy wishing herself home from Oz to Kansas.
The ruby slippers didn't go with her, remember?
Mind you, I'm not an expert, not in any of this. Working as a client relations facilitator, I'd honestly thought the company that employed me, A Closer Look, was all about immersive multi-media, once called virtual reality. I never would have discovered their top-secret, paradigm-shifting research if I hadn't targeted one of their higher-ups, Everett Heard, with a sexual harassment suit for creating a hostile work environment. Rather than risk exposing someone who could do so much damage to them--Everett and, through Everett, me--the company had used both of us as temporal guinea pigs.
Even then, my brain had taken a week of 1878 to catch up to what had happened to me. Once I found him in Dodge City, Everett had filled me in on the basics, including the presence of other time travelers. Later, after his murder, I pretended to leave Dodge to go back east. Instead, I'd traveled by cattle drive to the others' field office in Julesburg, in the aforementioned Colorado hunting lodge.
It was in Julesburg that the real experts--Maddie, Mitch, and Ted--had tried to explain temporal inertia, determinism, self-consistency, and Einstein. I hadn't understood half of it. But I'd gotten the gist:
One? You can't change the past, so don't sweat the whole butterfly effect business. Apparently, time was more like a rushing river than a still pond, when it comes to analogies about throwing pebbles.
Two? We'd thought ourselves back in time... just with an assist.
We called ourselves "castaways" after an old TV show. Because being in the past was similar to being on a deserted island. But I was the only one among us, besides the late Everett, who'd been literally cast away.
My colleagues had trained and practiced to eventually slip willingly into the past, to set up their field office and observe for a year. They'd used grassy aromatherapy, virtual-reality visors programmed with 1878 photographs, and surround-sound recordings of nature to manifest their destination. Even with all that technological help, only three of the six who'd tried had either made it or managed to anchor here more than few hours once they arrived. Apparently, it's very easy to slip right back home, because home is so real to us. The old West? Not so much.
Like jetlag on steroids.
In order to anchor, they'd had to meditate and visualize like new-age workaholics until the 1870s became real too. And that, they told me, was how we would "slip" back home when the time came: meditation and visualization.
Also, mantras. We had some pretty good mantras to chant.
By this reasoning, what had happened to me and Everett shouldn't have worked. To manage something as enormous as willing oneself through time, one needed to at least want it, right?
Turns out being chained to a metal table, drugged, and denied food and water and God knows what else? It can make one want anything else very, very much. That's how Jacob had found me, naked and robbed of my memory by the trauma. I'd gone a week thinking I must belong here. By the time I'd learned differently, I was pregnant. And only after finding my own people, the other castaways, had I come to realize I wanted to stay. Here. Forever.
Goodbye to sitting in half-lotus position, practicing my breathing and repeating that I was safely back home. Goodbye to guided visualizations, in which we all contributed details to an average afternoon at, say, a movie theater or a shopping village. Goodbye to deliberately dressing and eating and talking like a millennial, to emphasize the reality of our destination.
That is how, for the most part, to time slip. And it shouldn't have mattered anymore.
Yesterday morning, when I'd left Maddie, Mitch, and Ted in Julesburg, I'd also left all intention of ever time-slipping again. Yesterday afternoon, I'd married the father of my child. From now on, I got to be a Pioneer Lillabit, a rancher's wife. Done deal, right?
It hadn't occurred to me that, as far as the castaways knew, no time traveler had ever stayed indefinitely outside their own time.
It hadn't crossed my mind that maybe I couldn't help going home!
Dreaming of the future so clearly couldn't be a good thing. Could my thoughts about any reality beyond, say, the Clinton administration drag me home against my will?!
I shook my head in silent protest. I was overreacting. Something as huge as time travel had to be more complicated than that. Didn't it?
The other castaways had said it was--and then confused me with a lot of talk about determinism, personal timelines, and trees falling in the forest.
If I had a telephone, I could simply call--or text, or email--Julesburg and ask them. But this part of Nebraska wouldn't get reception for over a century!
Oh no. I suddenly felt even sicker. Could I dare think about telephones, or did even that count as visualizing the future? I had to be Pioneer Lillabit, not Time-Travel Elizabeth! Wilderness woman! Rancher's wife! Except... wife was a position one filled, rather than a thing one was, wasn't it?
What was I, exactly? Other than beginning to panic?
I focused on the problem at hand. The best 1878 offered, for my call for help, was telegrams.
I didn't have access to a telegraph office unless we turned around and rode back to Ogallala.
Jacob corked the canteens, returned to me and, since I was sitting up, he reclaimed the saddle I'd been using as my pillow. I saw that he'd already saddled his mare. Now he moved to saddle Valley Boy. "'Bout ready? Herd ain't too long off."
Luckily, his suspendered back was to me while I gathered my wits.
I know we spent all day getting this far, but would you mind turning back? I forgot to send a telegram. Oh, and I'll need to wait for a reply.
I took a few deep, slow breaths to calm myself. I was overreacting. If accidentally slipping home--I mean, to modern times, no longer home--was at all possible, Maddie and the others would have warned me, right?
In the meantime, this was my rancher husband's third day in a row away from his precious herd, the cattle he'd sunk every bit of his savings and reputation into. If we returned to Ogallala (assuming I could even convince him), we would have to spend the night there (assuming we could get a hotel room again), and he'd be gone a fourth day. Also, that would triple the amount of time I spent on horseback which, despite Dr. Maddie's reassurances and my own comfort in the saddle, might be pushing things, baby-wise.
When Jacob glanced back over his shoulder, curious that I hadn't answered--or wasn't talking in general--I asked, "Is there any way to mail a letter? Now that we're away from town, I mean?"
"Where to?" He was doing that thing where his squint just made him seem to be scowling, right? Because he had no reason to scowl.
"Julesburg?" I prompted. I only knew people in Dodge City, Julesburg, and on the cattle trail. Who else did he think...?
He looked down, considering. Then he took his own bracing breath and said, "Likely I'll meet someone southbound." He finished cinching down my sidesaddle, running a soothing hand over Valley Boy's flank. "Pass Fort Laramie within the fortnight."
"What's a fortnight?"
He blinked at my ignorance. "Two weeks."
If Fort Laramie was, as the name suggested, an Army post, they probably even had a Telegraph. Cabling my fellow time travelers would be far more efficient than writing a letter. I'd been loitering around 1878 for months by now. Surely I could last another two weeks.
I just had to make it as far as Fort Laramie.
It was a temporary fix, to be sure -- but it was what I needed. When Jacob came back to me, I lifted my arms like a worshiper to a god. He drew me to my feet with admirable ease, and I stole another hug, just for the reassurance.
Look at our progress. He was already learning to return hugs.
"The men at the outfit sure are going to be surprised to see me, huh?" I asked as he stepped back. "To see us married, I mean?"
"Reckon," said Jacob. He lifted me onto Boy's back and held my stirrup for me while I readjusted my legs and skirt around the curved horns of the sidesaddle.
He didn't sound especially happy, though. Cattle drives prefer monotony. Monotony means everything's going well. Most surprises are things like stampedes, storms, grassfires, and renegades. Unpleasant things.
I wondered where that would put me?
* * *
I am safe and happy in 1878.
I am safe and happy in 1878.
Here I am, in 1878, safe and happy.
At first, I tried whispering the mantra as I rode along beside my husband. When I noticed him noticing, I smiled wanly and tried to just think the words really hard, instead.
That, and to appreciate all the details of the big, Old-Westy world around me, from the hoofbeats and the leather smell to the weight of all my petticoats, much as I would try to visualize them if I were aiming to arrive here in the first place.
It made for a quieter ride than before, but whatever it took to stay, right?
We'd passed one herd that morning already--at least, the dust of it, in the distance to the north. A few hours after lunch, we saw another thunderhead of dust ahead, well south of the river we followed.
"Is that one the Trail G?" I asked--my version of are we there yet? "Trail G" was what we called our road brand, just a G, for Garrison, but burned onto the side of the longhorns instead of on their hip. There's a whole crazy code to branding.
Jacob said, "Right size." He circled us so that we could approach from upwind of what indeed resolved itself into a large, long trail of cattle. Even after two months, the sight of all those longhorns, even strung out over more than a mile, still impressed me. Dust billowed from their hooves in a high cloud, like an approaching sandstorm, almost as alive as the cattle that produced it. You couldn't mistake either the stench or the growing volume of slow, lowing cows and whistling, yipping cowboys.
Damn, but that was some hard work, being cowboys.
Some of the cowboys, recognizing the return of their Boss, waved. More seemed to just stare. One--Murphy, I think--almost fell off his horse.
No, they sure hadn't expected me.
We overtook the remuda, which means the band of spare horses, and aimed for the four-mule chuck wagon. By this time of day, it drove well ahead of the cattle. See, I knew this routine, and the stench of livestock, and the sting of dust. This could be my home, too.
In my absence, nobody had bothered to put the wagon's cover up. Its bows resembled skeletal ribs, and I noticed how much more worn it looked just since Kansas. Some of that had to do with hard riding. It's not like they had roads, so the whole thing bobbed and weaved and tipped and bounced.
Already, a few hands were breaking away from the long string of "beeves" to gallop toward us at an intercept course. I recognized Murphy for sure by his round, blank face. Big-eared Shorty and hawk-nosed Juan who, around my age, were some of the older cowboys on the drive.
And some college-age guy I'd never seen before, riding a paint pony.
Jacob neither sped up nor slowed down, just rode steadily on as if he didn't even notice them, but of course he did. I urged Boy alongside him, suddenly aware that our little oasis of private time was coming to an end for another month or more.
Murphy and Juan reached us first. With their similarly faded and dusty outfits and their fat, droopy moustaches, they could have been related--except that Juan was darker brown and sharper featured. "Welcome back, Boss. Ma'am," called Murphy earnestly, despite his obvious confusion.
Juan nodded and said, "Miss Lillabit. Boss."
As I mentioned, Lillabit was the nickname they'd given me, when I still had amnesia and thought "Little Bit" sounded somehow familiar. Elizabeth. Lillabit. Maybe you had to be there.
I smiled hello at them. They didn't smile back, though they nodded with shy manners. Maybe by now my surprise appearances were getting old. Or maybe it was just my girl cooties.
Without looking at them Jacob said, "Best gather the hands," kind of regretful-like, and they galloped off again.
Another horse loped toward us from far ahead of the herd. I recognized Benj Cooper's high hat, his slim build, his saddle. I stood in my stirrup to better sit up and wave at him--my good friend, my husband's business partner, the only 1878 person who both knew and believed my origin story.
Schmidty, the stocky cook and driver of the chuck wagon, must have noticed all the unusual activity. He stopped the wagon, set the brake, and climbed down to watch our approach. Benj reined in his own mount when he reached the wagon, so that the two of them presented a sort of united front against us.
Schmidty had known about my pregnancy as soon as I did. He'd helped me with my midday morning sickness, given me extra healthy rations, and kept my secret--on the agreement that I'd be leaving them for good in Colorado. So, okay. His expression of disapproval, as we rode close enough to read it, didn't really surprise me.
Benj's did.
"Now I would not have believed this without seein' it with my own two eyes," Benj Cooper said, as soon as we got within hearing range. The partners made for an interesting pair, Benj taller and slimmer, darker-haired and cleaner-shaven than Jacob. Benj was a charmer, a conversationalist, even worldly, three things my new husband definitely was not. He had a gentler drawl than most of the Texas cowboys, despite his deliberately mangled grammar, and a more aristocratic stance from his youth on a Mississippi plantation.
Not that Benj liked to spread that part around amidst his blue-collar companions.
"Believe it," said Jacob. He reined in his horse near the back of the chuck wagon and dismounted, coming around to help me down.
I savored his hands on my waist while I could, but felt no caress in the touch. I briefly touched his sleeve, wishing him luck, wishing myself the same. He paused under my touch, nodded awkward acknowledgement. But then he turned away and started unloading the supplies off our horses and into the already stuffed wagon, which had restocked in Ogallala.
It's hard for Jacob to stand still without working. In fact, I noticed him eyeing the herd, despite his usual focus on matters at hand.
I stepped out of his way, took off my riding gloves, tucked them into my belt and wiped my sweaty hands on my dusty skirt--probably the only skirt for some miles this side of Ogallala.
Other than, you know, the ones I'd packed.
So. Here we were. Back again, this time for good.
Cowboys began to arrive, dusty and silent and every one of them on horseback, answering their leader's summons. Partly to avoid their curious stares, I went to where Benj had just dismounted. "Howdy, stranger," I said softly.
To my relief, he let some of his seriousness soften when he turned to me. He even offered a smile, though at lower wattage than usual. Something that looked suspiciously like anger lurked behind his bright blue eyes. But the anger must not be aimed at me, because he made the effort anyway.
"Sweet Lillabit, as I live and breathe," he greeted in that lilting way of his. He'd personally coined the nickname. "When I left you with them fine scientist friends of your'n, can't say as I anticipated restin' my sunburnt eyes on your pretty face so soon as this."
"You aren't sorry to, are you?" I challenged.
He held out his hands for mine, so I gave them. "Now I would be a poor excuse for a friend if I was to--"
He stopped in mid-compliment, staring at my left hand with its shiny new band of gold.
Then he looked sharply up to where Jacob continued unloading the horses, stoically not watching us.
For once, Benj's handsome face seemed as unreadable as his partner's. He stood so still that for a moment that he looked like someone had hit a pause button on him. When he finally moved, he turned back to me, still stunned.
I nodded and grinned. Yes--him! And me!
I could feel my grin falter, though, as he continued to stare. Why did he look so serious? This was me, his friend. Staying. In 1878.
"Well I'll be goddamned," he whispered. I couldn't tell if that was good or not. Luckily, Jacob didn't seem to hear the profanity.
In the meantime, more cowhands were arriving, leaving the cattle to wander. They pulled off their hats in deference to my femininity and stared. A few of them, like the elderly, dark-skinned Amos and freckle-faced Clayton, smiled a welcome directly to me... as it turns out, ladies make most cowboys nervous, but surely this bunch had gotten used to me. More of them just looked surprised and unsure--including the big stranger on the painted pony. He looked only a little younger than me, his hair an almost white blond and his eyes pale as the sky.
Who was that?
Jacob finished stowing the luggage, then turned to survey his employees. Even with him on foot, and them mounted, he somehow looked bigger than everyone else.
"Married in Ogallala," he announced clearly, his voice less raspy with volume. "Wife will ride with us to Wyoming."
And that was that. If ever there was a candidate for Toastmasters... he wasn't it.
The hands looked--stunned. I'm not exaggerating. A few eyes went wide in their dusty faces. Two mouths dropped open. Otherwise, not a single bushy moustache twitched.
And dirty, overworked young cowboys don't stun easy, either.
As if he didn't even notice, Jacob started unsaddling our horses. "Fetch me that tall bay," he told our wrangler, a pretty Latin boy named Tomas, then glanced at the others as if surprised to find them still sitting there. "Ain't payin' y'all to loaf."
Despite the warning in his tone, the crowd--sixteen of us total, between my arrival and the new guy--didn't disperse immediately. This was too big a moment.
Young Tomas broke the silence first. "Congratulations, Boss. And Miss Lilla--that is, Mrs. Garrison."
Wow, that sounded weird from him, as if Jacob's and my private endearment had gone public. Tomas's liquid dark eyes flicked from me to my husband and back, while his horse tossed its head and backed up a step. But he'd managed to say it.
Since Jacob didn't respond with more than a sharp nod, I said, "Thank you, Tomas," before he rode off to the remuda, to rope and bring the Boss's replacement mount.
At that, the others began to add their own felicitations, most from horseback. "Congratulations, Boss." "Best wishes, Mrs. Garrison." "Welcome back, ma'am." A few even dismounted to shake Jacob's hand and then, if they were white men, to touch mine. And cowboys don't like to dismount.
My husband didn't seem to know what to do with the attention. I don't think he liked it. I thanked each cowboy by name--Jorge, Murphy, Milton, Shorty, Juan--each with a smile and sometimes a squeeze of our joined hands or a friendly comment. "I'll be happy to write another letter home to your sister for you, Murphy. I bet you have a lot to tell her about Ogallala." And, "You put that hat right back on, Clayton! I don't want you leaving your head unprotected."
Murphy, who had never learned to read or write, nodded and thanked me before heading back to the herd and his manly doings. Clayton, a young teen who'd been knocked out by a hailstone the previous month, blushed and laughed and escaped my husband's glower as quickly as possible.
And then there was Lee.
I'd forgotten that redheaded Lee would be back. Lee, a friend to a cowboy who'd attacked me, had left the herd a day before I had, to get what was left of Seth safely to a town.
Seeing Lee again brought back a quick flash of Seth and that awful afternoon. I needed all my composure not to recoil from him, and was glad he didn't reach down from his horse like some of the others. He just said, "Well congratulations, Mrs. Garrison," in a way that made my hackles rise. But Jacob didn't seem to notice anything amiss -- meaning, his scowl didn't intensify unduly -- and Lee rode back to work.
Neither Schmidty nor Benj said a thing.
The big, blond cowboy whom I didn't recognize lingered the longest. He eyed me, his pale blue eyes stark in his tanned face, but looked quickly away when I caught him at it. He did not dismount. Instead, he dragged his wrist across his nose. "Didn't know there'd be a lady on the drive, Boss. Some think it's bad luck."
"Make a difference?" challenged Jacob, slipping his bridle onto the tall bay mare that Tomas had brought during all the social niceties.
The new man shrugged one broad shoulder. "Reckon not. But you coulda said so when you hired me."
Back then, he hadn't known either.
Jacob stopped what he was doing long enough to stare the newbie down. Finally, the stranger just shook his head, put his hat back on, touched the brim at me--"ma'am"--and rode away on his pinto pony.
Okay, enough of just wondering. "Who was that?" I asked.
It was Benj who answered. "That there's Swede Jansen, Lillabit. Fine roper. We hired him out of Ogallala to replace Seth."
"Workin' out?" asked Jacob, while in the distance Jansen took up a swing position. Swing, which rode near the front, indicated this wasn't his first cattle drive.
Benj said, "As a matter of fact, he is." But he said it sharply. I looked from him to my husband and back. Something wasn't right, and not just how long Jacob took inspecting the bay's back, then the saddle blanket, before he gently lay the latter on the former.
He always did that, checking for burrs and such, because the horse's comfort was paramount. He never hurried around them. So what was setting off my internal alarms? "Any trouble?" he asked.
Benj said, "Other than that I worked too durned hard in your absence?" Jacob said nothing, so Benj admitted, "I guess we had some trouble keepin' the beeves from strayin' to the river, second night out."
"Bedded 'em too close to water." Now Jacob lifted his saddle up and onto the bay, checked how it lay. The mare pawed at the ground, then took a step backward, but when my husband murmured to her, before starting to buckle the cinches, she settled down.
Benj said, "I figured that much out on my own."
"You watched their hooves, in the mornin? Don't want 'em gettin' soft feet, goin' lame."
Now Benj sounded downright annoyed. "Not a single precious longhorn touched toe to trail 'til the dew was dry. But you know, Jacob, that ain't what I'm ripe to talk to you about at this moment."
At least they were looking at each other, gaze against gaze. "Ain't it," challenged my husband, from where he bent by the horse.
"No," said Benj. "It ain't."
Before he could tell us what he did want to talk about--three guesses, right?--Schmidty interrupted. What's weird is how he did it. While I stood there on the sidelines by a big, metal-rimmed wagon wheel, the cook reactivated my presence by tapping me on the shoulder.
I turned to him, surprised.
"You," he said. "Boss Lady. Tell husband, I am done."
And he pivoted away, hauled his stocky butt back up to the high-set plank driver's seat of the chuck wagon, and gathered up the reins to his mule team.
I stared after him, my mouth opening. Boss Lady? Done?! Meaning what? I wasn't the only one surprised. Benj actually stopped talking.
Jacob mounted the new mare with a creaking of leather and sat her easily as she backed up, feinted forward, then turned in a few circles. Then Jacob rode to Schmidty and the wagon. "Done what?" he demanded up at the cook.
"Done workin' with you."
"You cain't quit." Great persuasive tactic there, Jacob.
"Not quit. Finish to Wyoming. Then--done with you." Schmidty clucked the mules into motion.
Jacob spotted him on the bay. "We'll starve come winter!"
"Let wife cook." Wow, he was mad, wasn't he?
"She don't cook!" At least he didn't say, can't.
Schmidty said something that sounded rude, but it was in German. What surprised me was, Jacob snapped something in German right back.
Benj glanced at me, somehow bemused in the face of this upset, and offered his arm. So we followed after the rattling wagon on foot, leading Benj's horse--which, by the way, just seems proportionally wrong, like taking Clifford the Big Red Dog for walkies.
It didn't take long. Schmidty slapped the mules into a canter for a good ten, fifteen yards. It was an obvious brush-off, since generally they aren't supposed to haul at a run, not something as big and heavy as a trail wagon on uneven ground. A pot fell off the back as it bounced along.
Jacob wisely reined his own mount in and just watched the cook go. But he yelled, "Best not lame them mules, ain't like we got more!"
Schmidty yelled something in German that was definitely rude and, point made, let the mules walk.
Uh oh. This was so not good. And I was the one who'd insisted on coming along. I'd all but blackmailed Jacob into it, telling him that, baby or no baby, I wouldn't marry him unless we stayed together. But I'd had to do that! If I wasn't with him, why even stay in 1878? The future, my old modern future, was bound to look increasingly tempting, the more pregnant and lonely I got.
Seven months to change your mind, my friends had reminded me. And if there was even the chance of me slipping home against my will....
Jacob picked up the lost pot--from horseback, with a really impressive lean--while Benj and I strolled closer. Only as we reached him did he dismount. He glanced briefly at me, but I couldn't tell if he actually saw me or not. If he did, my presence did nothing to soften his expression.
Instead, he glared at Benj, "Any ideas?"
"'Bout Schmidty?" asked Benj.
"'Bout the Queen of England," challenged Jacob, pausing for a sarcastic glare. No, he wasn't happy at all. No surprise there.
"Seems a fine woman, though none too handsome," drawled Benj, and Jacob's frustration was not a pleasant thing to see. I hovered between the urge to grab his hand and the urge to sidle carefully back from the war zone.
Jacob used a strap of leather to hang the lost pot from his saddle horn--which the bay did not appreciate--but nothing else happened.
Someone had to say something so, with my arms wrapped tightly around my now queasy tummy, I did. "I'm sorry."
"Ain't yer fault," drawled Jacob and Benj in unison--and exchanged startled glances.
Then Benj had to go and add, "It's this old jackass's fault for bringin' you here."
Jacob muttered to his saddle, "Figured you of all folks'd be pleased to see her." Like he suspected more to our friendship than there was? Or like he figured there'd be other people who wouldn't be pleased?
But... the cowboys loved me, didn't they? I mean, except evil Seth, but he was long gone. Oh, and Seth's friend Lee. And Schmidty. And now, Swede Jansen.
Well, crap.
"I am always glad for the lady's company, but no, I am not pleased to see her." What I'd seen lurking behind Benj's smile, that had looked kind of like anger? It was, in fact, anger. "The gal was happy there! You had to of seen it. Are you such a miserable sonovabitch that you cain't even recognize happiness when you see it with yer own two eyes?"
Jacob scowled, but said nothing to defend himself--or my delicate ears, from the bad language.
"I'm happy here too, Benj!" I insisted. "I'm happy with him. I was so glad when he came to Julesberg, and... and I was glad to marry him."
"Jest like that," challenged Benj, and looked back at Jacob, armed with a new curiosity. "There's another thing. Since when did you turn back into a marryin' man?"
Either out of politeness or simply because he didn't run from fights, Jacob didn't remount. "Since her," he said simply.
Which could have sounded romantic, if he'd even looked at me when he said it. But I knew he didn't really mean, since I'd stolen his heart away. He meant, since I'd accidentally seduced him and gotten pregnant.
"Not that I fully believe that--which I don't--" challenged Benj, "But it seems to me an odd way to show yer affection, stealin' her away from the comforts she done found with her own people, and from any chance of her goin' home. You ain't got no idea what she went through. Now you take her out on the open trail as her weddin' tour? Was a time, you knew what betrothals were for. That's where you make sure you got a home to bring the lady, make sure her feelin's are true, then you hitch up with her."
Which is exactly what Jacob had wanted to do. In his favor, he didn't once say he agreed, or throw an I-told-you-so at me. Then again, I guess it wouldn't look manly for him to explain that I'd made him take me along, would it?
Or maybe he was too angry to speak. He was glaring enough to be.
Benj added, "Is poor, dead Lisle so long ago, you plumb forgot?"
I said, "Stop it, Benj."
Our friend turned back to me--and the pinched anger between his eyebrows softened slightly. "I apologize for distressin' you, Lillabit. Truly I do. I reckon you'd like to think he came after you from true love, and as a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind thinkin' the same thing. Might do somethin' to improve the ol' bear's personality. But it just ain't like him, ain't like him at all. Neither is it like him to ignore what's best for someone in his keepin', and that's what he done by bringin' you here."
"He is doing what's best for me!"
Jacob said, "Elizabeth." He said it low and quiet, but it was a warning. He didn't need me fighting his fights.
But damn it, he hadn't needed to fight at all, until I came along. First Schmidty. Now Benj?
"And my feelings are true," I added. "You knew about them before he did, remember?"
But Benj didn't answer me. "Anyone coulda seen the gal belonged with them scientist folks she found in Colorado."
Singing rock songs and drinking root beer? No! I stepped to my husband's side, where I really belonged, and put my hand on his hard arm. And I don't mean "hard" like "buff and manly," though that too. Jacob was a rock, shoulders set and feet planted.
It took me a few tugs before he finally glanced down at me, then allowed me to draw him back from Benj and the horses. "We've got to tell him," I said softly.
He scowled down at me, flinty-eyed. "Ain't. His. Business."
"But I'm his business. Sort of," I added quickly, when my husband's eyes went even flintier. "He's got an emotional investment in me too, don't you think?"
"'Emotional investment,'" he repeated slowly. Even when he understood my psychobabble, he generally didn't appreciate it.
I glanced over my shoulder to where Benj was watching us both, still looking angry... and just a little intrigued, too. Maybe because we really were talking, for once. Then I looked back up at Jacob. "I mean--he's going to figure it out sooner or later, isn't he? Wouldn't it be better coming from us?"
"Nope." But after he'd stared down into my pleading eyes a moment longer, Jacob shrugged a stiff shoulder in defeat. "You want to tell him," he drawled, like a dare, "you go ahead."
"By myself?" My voice squeaked.
The Boss's silence was challenge enough. He wasn't the one who wanted to share our private business with Benj; I was. He wouldn't forbid it, but it was my job to do the actual sharing. Okay. That was fair, right? So I took a deep breath, turned back to Benj.
At least I had my husband, firm and protective, at my back--and the privacy of wide open spaces around us, the cows being off to our south and the chuck wagon well ahead.
"We had to get married now," I announced.
"And just why," started Benj... then, halfway through his challenge, he stumbled to a halt, completely still, his expression carefully blank. Pale, actually, despite his tan. Apparently "had to get married" meant the same thing now that it did in my time.
"I'm going to have a baby, Benj," I confirmed.
Benj took a deep, steadying breath through gritted teeth. Then another one. Then he hissed a single, murderous word. "Seth."
The cowboy who'd attacked me?
"No!" I protested. "Seth didn't--I mean, he--" I looked back at my unhelpful husband, whose expression remained stonily unreadable, then back to Benj. "And even if he did, that was barely two weeks ago! How could I even be sure anything had come of it? Seth?" I shuddered. "Gross."
"One of them Closer Look bastards who abducted you," Benj guessed angrily. And it's true that the upper management of my former employer had cared nothing for my well-being when they sent me back in time. But they weren't all men, and they'd had concerns other than sex.
"No! It happened in Dodge. But Benj--"
"One of them goddamned soldiers!" He turned on Jacob. "No wonder you took such good care of her after Fort Dodge--got a hell of a lot to make up for, after leavin' her defenseless against them blue coats, ain't you?"
"No!" I protested yet again, conscious that I didn't know what to do with my hands. "I wasn't forced by anybody! It wasn't anything like that. Calm down, please. It's okay. This is a good thing, Benj! It's a good baby."
Benj continued to scowl, though more at the world than at me. He was going to be a hard sell on this, I could tell. I looked back at Jacob, desperate, and I guess he realized that this part would probably sound better coming from him alone. Either that, or he saw what a truly lousy job I was doing.
He put a hand on my shoulder, which anchored me immediately. Blessedly capable and in-charge, he said, "Child's mine."
Benj said, "I reckon you'll be a fine father to it, Jacob, and I ain't wholly surprised by you takin' on that responsibility. But fer the moment, I'm trying to find out who to shoot fer mistreatin' our Lillabit."
"That'd be me." Jacob held him with his gaze and repeated it. But he slid his hand off my shoulder as he did. "Child's mine."
If the moment hadn't been so tense, it might have been funny to watch the slow realization dawning on Benj's face. Because it really seemed to take forever. I became aware of the distant cow sounds and cowboys yipping, again, while he fully comprehended.
"Yours," he finally repeated, hoarse.
Jacob said, "Yep."
"From Dodge City," clarified Benj.
Jacob said, "Yep."
Benj shook his head in wonder, then turned to examine me a moment. "Step over here where I can see you better, Darlin'," he said more gently, putting his hands on my shoulders to ease me away from my husband's shadow, to look me up and down. Not that I was showing, of course, but he looked me carefully over anyway.
Then he turned back to Jacob--and punched him in the stomach.