Smith's Monthly #27 Read online

  Or if Duster was even in Boise at this point. He didn’t expect them back for a month, so he might have headed off somewhere for the month.

  So after cleaning up, putting on clean clothes appropriate for a woman of the age who was riding, and finishing a beef sandwich, she headed upstairs into the secret room behind the main room where she had first seen Wade.

  No one was in the main room from what she could tell through the peephole, so she went out and made sure the secret panel shut behind her.

  The living room hadn’t changed in the slightest. Same furniture, heavy curtains open to let in the warm spring light, but no fire in the fireplace. The day was going to be too warm for that.

  She went to the stairs and climbed them, making sure she made enough noise to let someone know she was coming.

  As she reached the top of the stairs, Director Parks stuck his head out of a door and frowned.

  Then Sophie could tell he realized who she was.

  He came to her and hugged her.

  And she hugged him back, feeling the immense relief that now she was no longer alone.

  “I sent a rider for Duster yesterday,” the director said, turning her toward a hidden door that would take them back to the cavern. “He’s up in Idaho City playing poker. He should be back shortly.”

  Sophie looked up at the director, trying to keep her composure from the relief of not being alone.

  “How did you know?”

  “You told me the story in 2018,” he said. “You had to wait around for Duster for almost twenty days. I figured I could help with that.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “If I waited the first time, how can you change that?”

  “Just ran some longer cables to the same crystal you and Wade are hooked into,” the director said. “Bonnie and Duster and I had wanted to test that and we figured this would be the perfect time to do just that.”

  Sophie was so tired, she wasn’t completely sure she understood, but she was very glad she hadn’t had to wait for Duster.

  They had just gotten to the long counter and Director Parks was working on fixing them both a milkshake when Duster strode in from the entrance to the stable.

  So after she hugged him, she told Duster what had happened, with Director Parks nodding.

  And then the director told Duster what he was doing there.

  Duster just shook his head and laughed, then he turned to Sophie.

  “Well done getting yourself and those horses out of there. It’s turning out that valley is very, very dangerous.”

  Sophie nodded, then she looked at Duster and said, “I think we have it tamed.”

  “It would seem so,” Duster said, smiling.

  “So can we now go retrieve Wade and tell him what happened as well?” Sophie asked. “I kind of miss him.”

  Both Duster and Director Parks laughed, but both of them went with her.

  Back to 1902.

  Wade appeared next to her, then grabbed her and hugged her and apologized for being so clumsy before kissing her in a way she would never forget.

  In love with Wade didn’t begin to explain how she felt.

  She now knew, without a doubt, she wanted to spend lifetimes with Wade.

  Lifetimes.

  He was worth every hardship she had to face, of that she had no doubt.

  THIRTY-NINE

  June 8th, 1887

  Boise, Idaho

  THE THIRD TRY into the valley really did turn out to be the charm. Wade and Sophie went slowly and started a week later to allow the landslide to already have happened and the water level to drop where they needed to cross.

  Wade felt even more challenged, since this valley had cost him his life twice already. And yet, he felt as if the valley no longer threatened him.

  And Sophie seemed almost completely at ease with it. She had managed, on her own, to get herself, her horse, and three packhorses out alive. As she had laughed about later, “No one from 2018 New Jersey would recognize me now.”

  The two of them seemed to not want to let the other out of their sight. And Wade didn’t mind that at all. They worked so well as a team, he wanted her with him.

  They slept in each other’s arms every night, something he could never imagine doing with any person before Sophie.

  Finally, on June 8th, they made it across the stream and then up and into the wide valley that would be the site for the mining town of Grapevine Springs. It was as beautiful as it looked as a ski resort in the future, only very, very peaceful.

  Wade loved it instantly. And he could tell Sophie did as well.

  He felt like he was home. A very strange feeling he had never experienced before in his life.

  They set up camp, found a perfect spot to build a home at some point, and then worked at panning gold. Both of them hated the process, but they needed to get enough gold to file the claims they needed back in Boise. So they panned until their hands went numb, warmed them up and put lotion on them, then went back at it.

  Using that system, they managed three hours a day and found more gold than Wade could imagine them finding.

  After just over three weeks of wonderful trout dinners and chapped hands, they reluctantly stored a lot of their equipment and headed back down the valley.

  Wade was surprised how much he didn’t want to leave the valley.

  And Sophie said the same thing.

  Back in Boise six days later, they filed the claims and got Duster to help them with filing the plats for the town site.

  That took two weeks. Then with Duster and others with them, they headed back in.

  Duster had a foreman who rounded up a crew in the Grangeville area to build the wagon road into the valley and another crew to come in and start building a general store and other structures along the main street, including the town’s first saloon, The Daisy.

  It took them just under two months to build the road in, including the bridge over the creek.

  As the summer wore on and more and more miners came in and filed claims, the sounds of construction filled the once peaceful mountain valley.

  Also, in August, the first piano arrived for The Daisy and from that point forward the valley was filled with music.

  The plan they followed was taken directly from their research, and at some point Wade decided he would need to ask Duster what came first, the plan, the research, or what? It just gave Wade a headache trying to puzzle that out.

  The summer seemed to flash past as more and more supplies arrived for their general store and more and more miners needed the supplies.

  And from everything Wade heard, the gold being taken from the placer claims was high grade and a dozen tunnel claims had been filed and would be starting next spring as soon as the snow cleared.

  He and Sophie had hired two men to work their claim for a very high percentage. Neither Wade nor Sophie had any desire to stick their hands back in that freezing cold water.

  Wade was surprised how much he loved their store. He never expected to love working a general store, but he sure did. He loved talking with the people, learning a little about their lives and what they loved and didn’t love.

  And he helped out with the medical emergencies as well around the valley.

  It was the best summer he could have ever imagined. And that was because Sophie was beside him the entire time.

  FORTY

  September 19th, 1887

  Grapevine Springs, Idaho

  SOPHIE COULDN’T REMEMBER being so happy for a summer before. She worked until her legs and back and hands hurt, then spent one hour each night detailing out the events of the day in her research journal.

  By the end of the first two months, three women besides her were living in the valley and from her and Wade’s best guess, a good two hundred miners and support people were also there. Tents dotted the landscape as far as they could see now.

  The weather during the summer held nice and even a few days of rain seemed welcome.

  In late A
ugust, Duster and another crew of men arrived to build her and Wade a home. Duster had laid out the plan for them and it looked wonderful, but the day Duster showed them the house plan had been one of those days where people were lined up in the store and Wade was needed in an emergency a half-mile above the town site.

  So as their home went up very quickly, they both tried to pay attention, but they just knew it looked beautiful, tucked onto a flat shelf about forty feet above the valley floor.

  It wasn’t until Bonnie and Dawn arrived with two wagons full of furniture that Sophie actually made herself stop work and go look.

  She and Wade left a friend in charge of the store and went to their new home.

  It was only a ten-minute walk from the store up the valley, but as she took the walk, holding Wade’s hand, she got more and more excited seeing the beautiful log home sitting there majestically.

  All of the furniture, including a massive feather bed, had been unloaded from the wagons by the time they arrived and the wagons and horses were headed back toward the stables.

  Bonnie, Duster, and Dawn stood in front of the house, smiling, waiting for them to arrive.

  The house was made of logs, tightly fitted, with shakes on the roof. A large porch wrapped around the front, looking out over the valley, and a large window was cut into the front wall.

  She had no idea how that glass window had made it up here, but it had.

  She walked along the porch with Wade, listening to the sounds of the valley and the piano from the downtown area. She could easily imagine herself sitting out here in the evenings.

  It was wonderful.

  As they entered through the front door, a large living room with furniture and a large couch was on the right in front of a large stone fireplace.

  On the left was a wonderful kitchen with a wood stove, a sink, and what looked like an icebox. And on one side of the kitchen was a large wooden table.

  She had no doubt she and Wade would spend a lot of time at that table.

  “The kitchen can easily add in running water,” Duster said, “but a little early for that in time at the moment. Same with the bathroom plumbing.”

  Down a center hallway was a room on the right and two smaller rooms on the left. The large room on the right was a huge master bedroom with the large feather bed and a bathroom off of it with a huge tub and washbasin.

  The other two rooms had desks in them and lots of shelves, at the moment all empty.

  Sophie loved the place. Just loved it.

  Wade hugged her. He was smiling as wide as she must have been.

  “I think we have a home,” Wade said.

  “I know we do,” Sophie said, hugging him back. “This is heaven.”

  “Got some special features,” Duster said, indicating that they should follow him to the end of the hall and out back. There was a covered area out back that was for firewood to stay out of the rain and snow on the left and an outhouse tucked against the right and built like it was part of the building.

  Directly across from the back on a wood walkway was a large door that went into what looked like a building dug into the hillside.

  Duster pointed off to the right. “We brought you in water to a pool there from upstream. But until you can dig a well, make sure you boil the water.”

  Sophie nodded. That pool would be a lot easier to get water from than buckets down at the stream. And in the winter they could use snow melt just fine.

  “This would be a standard meat and fruit cellar,” Bonnie said, opening the door that went into the building dug into the hill.

  Sophie was impressed. There was more than enough shelving to hold supplies for a very long time.

  Duster moved over and clicked a hidden latch on one shelf and it swung inward, showing another room behind the shelf.

  “Anything from the future you bring in needs to be kept back here,” he said. “The two rooms on the left have no windows and have some pretty secure locks, and a generator could be set up in here to charge batteries for laptops and such to work on in those two rooms.”

  “Wow, just wow,” Sophie said.

  Wade shook Duster’s hand and Sophie hugged first Bonnie, then Dawn.

  “How can we ever thank you,” Sophie asked.

  “We built it for you in this timeline,” Duster said. “In other timelines, it will be up to you.”

  Sophie loved the sound of that.

  Other timelines, other lifetimes.

  That sounded wonderful, just wonderful.

  So that evening, she and Dawn cooked the five of them a wonderful venison steak dinner with grilled potatoes and fresh corn brought in from a Grangeville area farm.

  And the next morning Bonnie, Duster, and Dawn headed down the valley. Duster had left them weather data for the next ten years and in three days the first snow would hit.

  And in a week that wagon trail into Grapevine Springs would be rough going.

  Sophie and Wade were about to live their first winter in their new home town.

  In their new home.

  And Sophie was excited.

  As long as she could do it with Wade at her side, that was all that mattered. They would face the future together.

  Face all of the futures, actually.

  EPILOGUE

  August 12th, 1892

  Grapevine Springs, Idaho

  DUSTER AND BONNIE and Dawn and Madison had decided on the fifth summer of Grapevine Springs existence, to go visit Sophie and Wade and see how Grapevine Springs was doing.

  Duster had spent the last five years in Denver, playing cards, and then helping out a small town in Northern Nevada with some law issues.

  Bonnie and Dawn had been in San Francisco for the five years, and Madison had spent his time in a mining town in Montana doing research for his next book.

  Duster was impressed at Grapevine Springs from the moment they crossed the main bridge on the road in. It now had three saloons and law offices and two large stables. The main street of town had boarded sidewalks on both sides and a good half-dozen bridges that he could see spanned the creek up the valley.

  Many, many log homes dotted the edge of the hills, with very few tents left in evidence. Sophie and Wade’s home looked huge sitting above the hill and it clearly had been added on to in the last five years.

  The feeling of the town as they left their horses in the stable and moved up the walkway was of energy, but controlled energy.

  And when the four of them went into the front door of the general store, Duster was even more shocked. The place was fully stocked and smelled like fresh cookies. It was, without a doubt, one of the nicest general stores he had ever been in.

  Sophie was behind the counter and looked up and beamed.

  She shouted for Wade in the back room and when she came around the counter to hug them, Duster got an even larger shock.

  Sophie was pregnant.

  Very pregnant.

  Like any day pregnant.

  And when Wade came out of the back room, he was walking a two-year-old boy.

  Duster just stood there, staring.

  Dawn and Madison instantly shouted for joy and went to them. Dawn and Madison had raised many families in the past in the Monumental Lodge that they wouldn’t even build yet in this timeline for another ten years, so they instantly understood.

  Bonnie came over and hugged Duster, then whispered in his ear. “Your kids need to grow up. Don’t be shocked when they do.”

  Duster just laughed at that. He wasn’t certain why he was so shocked. It just wasn’t what he had expected. But since Wade was an MD, they clearly knew what they were doing.

  No wonder their home on the hill looked like it had additions added.

  Duster learned later that Sophie and Wade had gone back to 2018, in the summer of 1888, leaving the timelines plugged in, gotten computer and other supplies they would need for their research, including many medical supplies, and come back to 1888 just one day after they left.

  They did that
every summer since, being gone from their store for less than a week. Wade had gone alone this summer since Sophie was pregnant and the summer when she was pregnant with their son.

  Sophie and Wade got some help to run the store and watch their son for them for the day and then gave Duster, Bonnie, Dawn, and Madison a tour of their town.

  Duster was impressed. The town had no marshal but seemed to run itself. The lawyer by the name of Bryce was the mayor and major decisions about the town were dealt with by a committee of business owners.

  In all his travels around the west, Duster had never seen a town so well run and calm, especially a mining town.

  Later that day, they were out in front of the general store, standing in the warm sun, talking about how the town had developed and who was here for the summer, when Duster glanced around just in time to see a man take their picture.

  He started laughing and got them all to look around as the man waved and smiled at them.

  “He just took the picture of us, didn’t he?” Wade asked. “That’s Bryce, our resident lawyer, mayor, and photographer.”

  “That’s the picture you found the day we told you about timeline travel,” Duster said. “Don’t you just love this traveling in timelines?”

  “I do,” Wade said. “Everything goes around and comes around.”

  “So do I,” Sophie said, hugging Wade as best she could with her large stomach. “I’m just glad I had my back to the camera when he took that shot. Imagine if I had been pregnant in that photo?”

  “You were pregnant in that photo,” Duster said, smiling. “You just couldn’t tell.”

  “Told you that you looked good,” Wade said, smiling at Sophie.

  “Don’t even try,” Madison said. “I gave up trying to tell Dawn she looked good pregnant about forty kids ago.”

  “I still appreciated it,” Dawn said, kissing her husband.

  With that, Duster followed the others up the street and then along the wagon road to the large house on the side of the hill.

  Around them, Grapevine Springs hummed along, the sounds of construction filling the air mixing with the music from the pianos in the saloons.