Linda Miller - Here and Then

“Well, I never!” avowed the leader of the pack.

Rue’s mouth twitched. “Never what?” she inquired sweetly.

Farley rolled his eyes, but offered no comment. It was plain that, although he wasn’t really intimidated by these women, he wasn’t anxious to cross them, either.

“Are you a saloon woman?” demanded the leader of the moral invasion. The moment the words were out of her mouth, she drew her lips into a tight line and retreated a step, no doubt concerned that sin might prove contagious.

Rue smiled. “No, Miss—What was your name, please?”

“My name is Mrs. Gifford,” that good lady snapped.

Holding one hand out through the bars, Rue smiled again, winningly. “I’m very glad to meet you, Mrs. Gifford. My name is Rue Claridge, and I’m definitely not a ‘saloon woman.’” She dropped her voice to a confidential whisper. “Just between you and me, I think I’m probably overqualified for that kind of work.”

Mrs. Gifford turned away and gathered her bombazine-clad troops into a huddle. While the conference went on, Rue stood biting her lower lip and wondering whether or not Farley would turn her over to these people. She thought she’d rather take her chances with a lynch mob, if given the choice.

Farley scratched the back of his neck and sighed. Judging from his body language, Rue was pretty sure he wanted to let her go and get on with the daily business of being a living, breathing antique.

Finally, Mrs. Gifford approached the cell again. “There will be no more prancing up and down the street in trousers and no more poker playing,” she decreed firmly.

Under any other circumstances, Rue would have defended her right to dress and gamble as she liked, but she wasn’t about to risk getting herself into still more trouble. For all she knew, Mr. Gifford was a judge with the power to lock her away in some grim prison.

“No more poker playing,” Rue conceded in a purposely meek voice. “As for the—trousers, I promise I won’t wear them any farther than the general store. I mean to go straight over there and buy a dress as soon as the marshal here lets me out of the pokey.”

The delegation put their heads together for another consultation. After several minutes, Mrs. Gifford announced, “Rowena will walk down to the mercantile and purchase the dress,” she said, indicating one of the other women.

“Great,” Rue responded, shifting her gaze to the marshal. “Will you give Rowena fifty cents from my winnings so I can get out of here?” If the Society tried to make her go with them, she’d make a break for it.

Rowena, who was painfully thin, her mousy brown hair pulled back tightly enough to tilt her eyes, swallowed visibly and backed up when Farley held out the money.

“Poker winnings,” she said in horror. “My hands will never touch filthy lucre!”

Now it was Rue who rolled her eyes.

“I’ll get the dress,” Farley bit out furiously, grabbing his hat from its peg and putting on his long canvas duster. A moment later, the door slammed behind him.

The church women stared at Rue, as though expecting her to turn into a raven and fly out through the barred window.

Thank God I didn’t land in seventeenth-century Salem, Rue thought wryly. I’d surely be in the stocks by now, or dangling at the end of a rope.

Basically a gregarious type, Rue couldn’t resist another attempt at conversation, even though she knew the effort was probably futile. “So,” she said, smiling the way she did when she wanted to put an interviewee at ease, “what do you do with yourselves every day, besides cooking and cleaning and tracking down sinners?”

When Farley returned from his mission to the general store, looking tight jawed and grim, he opened the cell door and handed a wrapped bundle to Rue.

Rue’s fiery, defiant gaze swept over Mrs. Gifford and her cronies, as well as the marshal, as she accepted the package. “If you people think I’m going to change clothes with the four of you standing there gawking at me, you’re mistaken,” she said crisply.

Farley seemed only too happy to leave, although the Society hesitated a few moments before trooping out after him.

If she hadn’t been so frazzled, Rue would have laughed out loud at the sheer ugliness of that red-and-white gingham dress. As it happened, she just buttoned herself into the thing, tied the sash at the back and tried with all her might to hold on to her sense of humor.

When the others returned, Farley slid his turquoise gaze over Rue in an assessing fashion, and she thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch. The ladies, however, were plainly not amused.

“Just let me out of here before I go crazy!” Rue muttered.

Farley unlocked the cell again and stepped back, holding the door wide. In that moment, an odd thought struck Rue: she would miss being in close contact with the marshal.

Their hands brushed as he extended the rest of her poker winnings, and Rue felt as though she’d just thrust a hairpin into a light socket.

“I’ll try to stay out of trouble,” she said. All of a sudden, her throat felt tight, and she had to force the words past her vocal cords.

Farley grinned, showing those movie-cowboy teeth of his. “You do that,” he replied.

Rue swallowed and went around him, shaken. She’d been in an earthquake once, in South America, and the inner sensation had been much like what she was feeling now. It was weird, but then, so was everything else that had happened to her after she crossed that threshold and left the familiar world on the other side.

The Society allowed her to leave the jailhouse without interference, but the looks the women gave her were as cool and disapproving as before. It was plain they expected Rue to go forth in sin.

Once she was outside, under a pastel blue sky laced with white clouds, Rue felt a little stronger and more confident. The air was fresh and bracing, though tinged with the scent of manure from the road. Rue’s naturally buoyant spirits rose.

She set out for the house in the country, determined to take another crack at returning to her own time. Not by any stretch of the imagination had she given up on finding Elisabeth and hearing her cousin tell her face-to-face that she was truly happy, but Rue needed time to regroup.

She figured a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza with black olives and extra cheese, followed by a long, hot bath, wouldn’t hurt her thinking processes, either.

Soon Rue had left the screeching of the mill saw and the tinny music and raucous laughter of the saloons behind. Every step made her more painfully conscious of the growing distance between her and Farley, and that puzzled her. The lawman definitely wasn’t her type, and besides…talk about a generation gap!

When Rue finally reached Aunt Verity’s house, she stood at the white picket fence for a few moments, gazing up at the structure.

Even with its fire-scarred side, the place looked innocent, just sitting there in the bright October sunshine. No one would have guessed, by casual observation, that this unassuming Victorian house was enchanted or bewitched or whatever it was.

Rue drew a deep breath, let it out in a rush and opened the gate. With her other hand, she touched the necklace at her throat and fervently wished to be home.

The gate creaked as she closed it behind her. Rue proceeded boldly up the front walk and knocked at the door.

When the crabby housekeeper didn’t answer, Rue simply turned the knob and stepped inside. Remarkable, she thought, shaking her head. Bethie and her new husband were off in California and the maid had probably left for the day, and yet the place was unlocked.

“Hello?” Rue inquired with a pleasantry that was at least partially feigned. She didn’t like Ellen and would prefer not to encounter her.

There was no answer, no sound except for the loud ticking of a clock somewhere nearby.

Rue raised her voice a little. “Hello! Anybody here?”

Again, no answer.

Rue hoisted the skirts of her horrible gingham dress so she wouldn’t break her neck and bounded up the front stairway. In the upper hall, she stood facing the burned door for a moment, then pushed it open and climbed awkwardly out onto a charred beam, praying it would hold her weight.

The antique necklace seemed to burn where it rested against her skin. Clutching the blackened doorjamb in both hands and closing her eyes, Rue whispered, “Let me go home. Please, let me go home.”

A moment later, she summoned all her courage and thrust herself over the threshold and into the house.

When she felt modern carpeting beneath her fingers, jubilation rushed through Rue’s spirit, though there was a thin brushstroke of sorrow, too. She might never see her cousin Elisabeth again.

Or Farley.

Rue scrambled to her feet and gave a shout of delight because she was back in the land of indoor plumbing, fast food and credit cards. Looking down at the red-and-white dress, with its long skirts and puffy sleeves, she realized the gown was tangible proof that she actually had been to 1892. No one else would be convinced, but Rue didn’t care about that; it was enough that she knew she wasn’t losing her mind.

After phoning the one restaurant in Pine River that not only sold but delivered pizza, Rue stripped off the dress, took a luxurious bath and put on khaki slacks and a white sweater. She was blow-drying her hair when the doorbell rang.

Snatching some money off the top of her bureau, Rue hurried downstairs to answer.

The pizza delivery person, a young man with an outstandingly good complexion, was standing on the porch, looking uneasy. Rue smiled, wondering what stories he’d heard about the house.

“Thanks,” she said, holding out a bill.

The boy surrendered the pizza, but looked at the money in confusion. “What country is this from?” he asked.

Rue could smell the delicious aromas rising through the box, and she was impatient to be alone with her food. “This one,” she replied a little abruptly.

Then Rue’s eyes fell on the bill and she realized she’d tried to pay for the pizza with some of her 1892 poker winnings. The mistake had been a natural one; just the other day, she’d left some money on her dresser. Apparently, she’d automatically done the same with these bills.

“I’m a collector,” she said, snatching back the bill. “Just a second and I’ll get you something a little more…current.”

With that, Rue reluctantly left the pizza on the hall table and hurried upstairs. When she returned, she paid the delivery boy with modern currency and a smile.

The young man thanked her and hurried back down the walk and through the front gate to his economy car. He kept glancing back over one shoulder, as though he expected to find that the house had moved a foot closer to the road while he wasn’t looking.

Rue smiled and closed the door.

In the kitchen, she consumed two slices of pizza and put the rest into the refrigerator for later—or earlier. In this house, time had a way of getting turned around.

On one level, Rue felt grindingly tired, as though she could crawl into bed and sleep for two weeks without so much as a quiver of her eyelids. On another, however, she was restless and frustrated.

As a newswoman, Rue especially hated not knowing the whole story. She wanted to find her cousin, and she wanted to uncover the secret of this house. If there was one thing Rue was sure of, it was that the human race lived in a cause-and-effect universe and there was some concrete, measurable reason for the phenomenon she and Elisabeth had experienced.