Chapter 8
Murphy’s Laws of Combat # 31:
“The easy way is always mined.”
Rig fought the pain-induced impatience filling him. What was wrong with her? He’d tried to tolerate her ‘I’ve never seen this before’ act over the past hours but he didn’t have the energy left. Was she panicking or going through a psychotic episode? She still couldn’t be deep in a re-enactor script.
It could be the blow to her head talking now. Her questions about the dinner weren’t at all what he’d expected. Her response to his driver’s license was ridiculous. He picked it up and put it away.
“Mel, calm down. I was born March 28th, 1980. Okay?”
She didn’t reply. She just stared at him, her one hand gripping and releasing her blanket skirt. Finally, she took a breath and stood away from the hearth.
With quiet control, she said, “Captain, I was born August 4th, 1786.”
“What? 1986?” She shook her head. Rig squinted at her, trying to clear his head. Had he heard her right? He’d expected any number of responses but not that. Elbow on the table, he rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. I’m too tired to navigate my way through this nonsense, and I hurt too much to deal with a madwoman.
“Mel, look—”
“This is the evening of December 29th, 1808.”
His gut knotted up as he studied her in the firelight. Anger, muscle by muscle, began to tighten at the incomprehensible situation. She was talking nonsense. Meeting her intent gaze, he felt queasy, scared for her. It would be a travesty if she really were insane.
“Mel, stop it. Whatever happened today, you—” Her evident anxiety and the sincerity in her expression stopped him. He gazed at his blanket bed on the floor, wishing it weren’t so far away. “We need sleep. Things will look different in the morning. We’ll go to Benavente, find your British friends,and get you some help.”
“Nae, not if the French are in the town on the morrow.”
He must have looked both disbelieving and infuriated because Mel glared at him. In a tone that sounded patronizing even to him, he said, “Mel, you said the British were there.”
She waved her hand in exasperation. “The British were and could still be. The army will surely march on the morn if not tonight, for Astorga where they plan to make a stand.”
Rig could feel the black panic rising again, strange and fluttering, stealing his breath, beating at the door of his sanity, daring him to open it. He didn’t have the strength. She couldn’t believe he’d . . . “Why are you saying this?”
She came over and sat down across from him, leaning in. “Because, Captain, it is true. Ye have come from the future times.” Her expression was an odd mixture of surety and hesitation.
Stunned by the bald statement, Rig couldn’t think for a moment, and then thoughts of the day flew fast and furiously, out of control, as though he was practicing for a coming delirium. “Mel, Miss Graham, please tell me you’re joking?”
“Nae, I’m in earnest.”
He barked a laugh. “Do you have any idea what you’re saying?” The fluttering in his gut went into overdrive.
“I do. This is the year 1808.”
“Stop it!” Rig sliced down with a hand. “Enough of the act. Who in the hell are you? Some extra in a movie?”
She started at his vehemence. “Captain?
“Captain, nothing.” He leaned forward, fighting the crazy idea that she was right. “Who are you?”
Her mouth worked for a moment, but she finally said, “I told ye.” She gave him a sympathetic look, as though she understood his reactions.
Her expression deflating his anger, he leaned back in the chair with a disgusted grunt. Fear, cold and insistent pain coursed through his body, threatening any rational thought. He closed his eyes, forcing the emotions to the side, forcing his body to relax. “All right, tell me how I traveled in time. How does it work?” He knew his words sounded harsh.
“I dinnae ken.” Her mouth pressed in a stubborn twist. “I dinnae know. It is my nana’s amulet.” She pulled the disc and chain out of the coat pocket and held it out to him.
“Right.” Please, God, let it be an act.
“Ye doubt my name? My word? Ye think I’m a finagling actress playing a part? Ye great goat.” She huffed and hugged her arm.
Rig waited, but she still glared at him, her arms tightening the thin linen shirt across her breasts. He looked away, balling his fists. “Okay, then don’t tell me.”
“Ye hae no mense atall, ye-ye . . .” Words failed her, and she stared into the fire for a time, her hand trembling as she held her injured arm. She finally turned and laid the medallion and chain on the table in front of him.
Rig clenched his teeth against the urge to yell at her or break the chairs. The impossible reared up black and enormous, a universe away from the soup sandwich he thought he faced killing Frenchmen. He didn’t want to be angry with her, but her claims were outrageous.
“Why can’t ye believe me? How can ye explain alt that has occurred?” Frustration heated the room as they eyed each other.
“I can’t, but no one travels in time, not two days, not two centuries. It can’t be done on purpose or by accident—certainly not with a family trinket.”
Rig couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. He rubbed his temples, his head beginning to throb in time with his heart. He didn’t know what to make of her or what she said. He needed to do something.
He slowly eased himself down onto the French army blankets and cavalry capes he’d laid out on the floor, and laboriously pulled on socks he’d dried by the fire. Melissa watched him without saying more.
“The sleeping bag is for you.” He pointed to it on the inflated sleeping pad ten feet away. “Use the blanket you’re wearing for a pillow after you get in.”
“Pardon?”
“The bag will keep you warmer without it. Besides, the blanket would make it pretty cramped in there.”
“Ye have traveled in time. Cannae ye see it?”
He massaged his thigh around the bandage. It would be too easy to accept, however outlandish. So much better than dealing with the preposterous questions pounding in his head. He didn’t want to think of her as crazy—but he was a soldier. He never came to conclusions simply because they were easy. You don’t survive that way.
“Mel, have you ever heard of anyone traveling in time?”
“Nae.” She scowled at him. “Miss Graham, please.”
He gave her a chiding look.
“I have not but you have come from the year 2000, all the same.”
He shook his head at her insistence. “Actually, it’s 2010. I’ve been in the 75th for ten years.”
She threw more wood on the fire and sat down by the sleeping bag, studying it.
“Okay, Miss Graham, so how did I get here today?” He gestured to the table. “How does your miraculous doohickey work?”
With angry motions, she stood and swept up the medallion and held it out. “Me auld-mither gae . . .”
She closed her eyes and began again. “My nana gave this to me when I left with Uncle Thomas for Sweden last year. She claimed it would protect me on my travels and bring good luck.” Melissa opened her eyes and looked hard at him. “She said, if ever I was in need of help, I was to remove the amulet, and aid would come.”
Melissa glanced away, brushing stray curls off her face. “I thought it a silly clan fable or ancient myth, so I listened only a little, but I wore it for her. Then, when that French gomeril tore it from me—”
“Mel,” he interrupted, holding a hand up to stop her. “Miss Graham, we’re both exhausted and hurting. This can wait until tomorrow.” Jeez, anything to get her to just stop talking about it! He’d asked about time travel, not her nana’s jewelry. Continuing this debate threatened to completely drain him. He’d rather go out and try running a fitness course in the snow right now.
With narrowed eyes, she said, “Nae, it cannae.”
Rig eyed her with the last of his energy, leaning up against the packs stacked behind him, and waved a hand at the bronze amulet she held up. “What the fu . . . What does this jewelry have to do with traveling in time?”
“I’m trying ta tell ye, ye glaikitmon.” They glared at each other, the crackling fire the only sound in the room. Rig shrugged and waved her on.
“Och, no sooner had that frog devil tore off nana’s amulet than there was a shot and ye came charging out of the smoky mists, like some great giant of auld.” The last words were spoken with awe and a half-smile, which seemed to embarrass her, but she recovered and knelt beside him. “Cannae ye see? You were called from the time to come—as a rescue for me.”
Rig sat with no words left. It can’t be real. Yet, so close, her pale green eyes caught his, pleading with him to believe. So near, he could sense the warmth of her, smell the cherry cobbler on her breath. The vibrations of her voice caressed him, tugging at his senses. He wanted to . . . He closed his eyes to banish the sight of her. “Honestly, it isn’t—”
“How else can ye explain it?” She set down amulet on the table and picked up his knife and, squatting in front of him, held it up as though it was evidence. “Ye are a rare soldier with incredible weapons from centuries in the times to come. No one else could have done what ye have.”
Oh, good, Rig groaned. Now he was an enchanted knight to the rescue.
“How do you explain the French today?”
“I can’t explain it.” He looked at her with a scowl. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to start believing in fairy tales.” He lay back and grimaced when he tried to put both hands behind his head. He settled for one hand. He was too worn-out to unravel her craziness.
He caught the concern shining bright in her eyes as she knelt before him. He suddenly wanted to reassure her, tell her everything would be all right. He shook off the urge, and instead, sat up and put his hands lightly on her shoulders. She didn’t flinch. “I’m glad I was able to help you, but we’re in deep kimchee here.”
He leaned in, almost touching her forehead with his. “Tomorrow morning we’re going to have to find your British, the Spanish authorities, the Guardia Civil—somebody—and tell them what happened.”
“Early.” She pulled away from him and sat on her heels with a stubborn frown. “For a surety, ye will be finding naught but the French army in Benavente by midmorning.”
Sighing, Rig gave her an exhausted glance and threw the blankets over himself again. He’d tried. “Get some sleep, Miss Graham.”
~ ~ ~
Melissas was honest enough with herself to admit that she still desperately needed his help if she were to ever reach the army and her uncle. Ashamed of her fearful selfishness, she sighed, and heaving herself upright, picked up the amulet. Kneeling beside the sleeping poke, she studied the narrow opening of the bag.
“How can I squeeze through that wee gap?”
“For Christ— The zipper.”
“The what?”
He threw the blankets aside and labored to stand upright. Grabbing up the bag, he leaned over, near her face, and pulled a tab. With a hissing sound, the cloth parted, and the bag yawned wide open. Her anger with his horrid mien evaporated as he moved the metal tab up and down, the bag untying and tying with extraordinary ease. She took it from him, and for a time opened and closed the ‘zipper’ mechanism in the firelight, while he threw more wood on the fire and lurched to his bed.
“Tis a wonder. And it’s called a zipper?” she said, grinning. “It does make that sound.”
“Mel?”
“Aye?”
“Go to sleep.”
Casting him a speaking glance, she scooted into the downy bag and pulled off her blanket-skirt when she was covered.
“Captain, please address me as Miss Graham.” There was a rude noise from under his blankets.
She made a snicking sound with her teeth. “So, that’s how the wind blows in that corner,” she said to herself. She folded the blanket into a pillow and then with a flourish, she zipped the bag shut and lay down on her good side. Jaw set, shoulder aching like blazes, she stared at the flickering firelight.
She remained frightened for them both. What could she say to make him understand before his disbelief led to their capture or deaths in Benavente?
His being here was such a monstrous, fierce thing to fathom. Aye, but what if he did believe? What would the captain do if convinced he’d been torn from his life in a future world with all its astonishing inventions simply because of her need and Nana’s amulet?
She fingered the zipper, moving it up and down its track. She was truly warm for the first time today. In his ‘sleeping poke’ Melissa waited, but he simply lay across the room, his pistol by his side. He insisted on going to Benavente. She bit her lip to keep from yelling at him. Of all the bottle-brained . . .
Studying the amulet in the firelight, she could see the clasp wasn’t broken after being yanked off her neck. Strange. She felt a bruise on her neck from it. She considered the wisdom and the fairness involved returning the amulet and chain to its place around her neck. If she understood her nana’s explanation aright, he might disappear to whence he came.