Chapter 44
CHAPTER 44
The next day, as early in the morning as was polite, Cally, along with Max, Melody, Zeb, and Uncle Bob, took the Hendersons’ ‘SUV’ to the Sky Top Ranch, Max’s security folks—and his friend Nelson—following behind. Decoy vehicles that supposedly held Prince Max had been sent to the Denver airport the day before, the paparazzi and news organizations trailing behind.
Wearing modern clothing like the others—a pretty dark-brown riding skirt, a stretchy pink blouse with a small ruffle down the buttoned front, and a dark-brown cowgirl hat and boots that Melody had had delivered for her yesterday from town, seeing as how Uncle Bob had said their tour of the current-day Sky Top would likely include a horse ride—Cally sat in the back seat with Max, her hand holding his tightly. Would her home be much changed? Would the echoes of the past— her past, her ma and Bart and Livie—be too much to bear?
The smooth, paved road—not the rutted wagon trail she was used to—came over the crest of Eagle Hill at the south end of the ranch, and there down below was the Long Meadow, miles of rolling buffalo grass. At the far end, the low bluff the ranch house had been built on sat solid and bright in the hot sun.
Her breath caught at the sight, the meadow as green and lush and vibrant as in her time, and she took it all in as the SUV wound its way down the steep hillside, the valley nearly unchanged, her heart swelling with joy. The road, when they reached the foot of the hill, crossed the meadow in the same path as the wagon trail, and she pressed the tiny lever on the door beside her and lowered its window, marveling anew at the contraptions of this time as she breathed in the scent of the grass and the wildflowers, of the adjacent hills, of her land .
At the other end of the meadow, the SUV climbed the switchbacked road up the side of the bluff. At the top, where the bluff flattened out east and west, the pillars her pa had erected when he and her ma had first come to this land straddled the road, the carved wood sign hanging between the tops of the pillars still welcoming folks to the Sky Top Ranch, just like she remembered, though the pillars look newer than the hundred and twenty-some years that had passed since she’d last seen them.
Tears filled her eyes.
They drove beneath the sign, and Cally leaned forward for a better view as they traveled the last quarter mile to the house, her heart beating fast at the presence of the cottonwood trees growing tall and lush on each side of the road like always. The Sky Top Mountains rose to her left, tall and snow peaked, the same as they had just yesterday in her own century.
The barn was in the same place, but—she gave a hitch of breath—the building was painted white, not red, and had a metal roof.
At the end of the drive, the house was different, too, brick now instead of made of logs, sending a pang through her chest. But the cottonwoods still grew on the side of the house along the river, and the pine grew on the other side, and the Summer River still glittered along the same path, its rushing sound coming through the open window, along with the scent of pine.
And her heart was full.
A great many folks were waiting for her as she let Max hand her out of the SUV, folks filling the large paved sweep in front of the house, folks filling the whitewashed front porch. She’d been so intent on the land, that she hadn’t noticed at first the big bright-yellow banner strung across the porch railing that said ‘Welcome Home, Cally!’ in large block letters.
It seemed the current family elders had decided to tell the rest of the family that she was a long-lost descendant, whose whereabouts had recently been found, the elders needing to explain her presence somehow.
They all gathered around, Cally blinking through more tears as Uncle Bob introduced her and Max to each of them: Bart and Livie’s great-grandchildren, the elders of the family now, descended from Bart and Livie’s three offspring, including their first baby, who Cally had seen growing in Livie’s belly; Kit’s great-grandchildren, more family elders, descended from his and Sally’s four daughters and sons; and all the elders’ own children and grandchildren, all down through the family line, including a young woman with a look of Livie, an even younger man with the look of Bart, and a motherly woman Cally’s ma’s age, who looked in a certain light just like Cally’s ma.
Cally found it hard to breathe. What a wonder it all was.
Trevor James, Bart’s seventy-year-old great-grandson, the unofficial head of the family whose own grandson lived at the ranch, and Trevor’s wife Deborah, invited her and the others into the house for lemonade and lemon cake, Flora’s recipe for the cake having been handed down through the Zandt family, who still worked at the Sky Top. On the front porch as they passed to go inside, a checkerboard—the one Cally’s pa had taught her on, the board still a deeply polished wood, its painted black squares alternating with the wood grain—sat with its box of checkers on a long wood table, with a letter addressed to her from Ma and Bart on top, and another hitch of breath rose in Cally’s chest, more tears to her eyes, and overwhelmed for a moment, she turned to Max and buried her face in his blue cotton shirt.
Everyone went on inside, leavin’ the two of them on the porch.
“Too much?” Max asked in a quiet voice when she lifted her tear-wet face.
She shook her head. “I feel like I’m home,” she told him. “I feel like I’m home.”
The house may have looked new to her on the outside, but its layout inside was so close to the home she’d grown up in that she could practically hear the voices of the family she’d left behind, Ma calling for Cally to come and wash her hands, Bart teasing Livie.
Much of the furnishings in the house had changed, not something she wondered at. After all, a hundred and twenty-two years had passed since the day she’d left her century, the very idea of it still making her dizzy. But the room where Bart’s office had stood was the same, same desk, same gun cabinet.
Cally stepped closer. Same rifles and six-shooters.
“Yep, those belonged to you and your family,” Trevor said in a quiet voice, having followed her and Max into the office, everyone else out in the great room talkin’ and eatin’. “Bart left it special in his will, that we’d keep them here, ready for Calliope Victoria James, in the year 2019. He told my two brothers and me when we were youngsters all about you, how you’d traveled through time, and how we had to be on the lookout for you, in case you arrived here in our lifetimes. He’d even made sure when the house was rebuilt after the Summer River flood back in 1949 that its layout matched as closely as it could to the house you’d grown up in. We were never sure he was making it all up, telling us tall tales. Until Uncle Bob contacted us yesterday.”
A large, framed sepia-toned photograph stood on the big oak desk—a family portrait of Cally, her ma, Bart, Kit, Sally, and Livie, a photograph Cally’s ma had had taken before they’d traveled to Denver that summer to find Cally a husband. Trevor handed it to Cally. “I reckon this is yours, now, too,” he said.
There’d been long conversations into the night yesterday at the Bar-H, about Ma’s will, which had left a third of the Sky Top to Cally and her descendants. Cally hadn’t wanted to think about wills, not Ma’s, not Bart’s, not Livie’s. But Uncle Bob had said she was the primary shareholder these days in the Sky Top, seeing as how Bart and Kit’s shares had been spread out among their descendants as each generation had passed on, everything held these days in a trust. There’d even been the news that Cally could choose to live in the ranch house, if she wanted, a condition of Bart’s will.
She looked around Bart’s office, then out at the many family members who had greeted her so warmly. It wouldn’t be the same living in this house without him and Livie and Ma.
She glanced at Max, thinking of the wealth her ma had left her, financial wealth that had grown leaps and bounds over the hundred and twenty-some years under Bart and Livie’s and their descendants’ stewardship, making her wealthy, beyond her ownership of the land. Living in this house wouldn’t be the same, but she could always build her own here at the Sky Top.
When the refreshments were running low, and the excited talk among the family began to slow down, Trevor had one more surprise for Cally. He led her and Max, Melody and Zeb, and Uncle Bob to the modern barn, Cally’s feet in their new cowgirl boots knowing every inch of ground she trod, every sound of the river, every birdcall, every scent of flower and pine that filtered through the sun-heated air.
Home. It was a part of her. She was a part of it.
Trevor had them stop outside the big, open doors of the barn.
A moment later, he led a black stallion from inside. A beautiful, powerful, black stallion, prancing with vitality and energy.
Apollo, her heart whispered.
But it couldn’t be. She’d left him firmly tied among the trees at the top of the hill in Elkhorn Valley before she’d confronted Prince Hugo, before she’d traveled through time.
“This is Thunderbolt,” Trevor said, a big smile on his weathered face. “Descended from your horse Apollo. Great-grandpa Bart nurtured each generation, breeding the horses that were most like Apollo, and made me promise to continue the tradition until you arrived.” He handed her the reins. “He sure hoped you would arrive. He and Great-grandma Livia loved you to pieces. Said it was the saddest day of their lives when you left, and the happiest, too, that you were with the man you loved.”
Cally stepped closer to the stallion, her eyes full of tears, her heart overwhelmed with loss, with gratitude.
With love.
“He’s real fast,” Trevor said. “I don’t know if he’ll match up to Apollo, but he’s the finest horseflesh around.”
She gently stroked the horse’s cheek.
Trevor smiled. “I thought you and Max might like to take him and his brother out for a ride.”
The sun shone hot and bright on the Sky Top Mountains, filtering through the dense pine and occasional patch of aspen that lined the steep trail to Sky Lake, Max quiet as Cally led the way, Max just being a presence as she adjusted to where she was, and when she was. Nelson and the security team had been left back down by the house, not without a bit of argument, but Max knew Cally needed some quiet time, away from strangers.
Yellow birds chirped here and there over the otherwise silent landscape, the scent of pine strong in the heated air, the scent of horse sweat and saddle leather, all of it so reminiscent of the nineteenth-century he’d been in just the day before that he felt he was still there. Was that how Cally felt, here at her family’s ranch? Did it comfort her heart for the family she’d left behind?
Did it make her grieve even more, for their loss?
When the modest-sized mountain lake came into view through the trees, Max broke the long silence. “Are you okay?” he asked in a low tone, Cally having told him when they’d started out that the lake was a favorite place for her and her mother to have long talks, or to just enjoy each other’s company.
“I reckon so,” she said, turning in her saddle to give him a teary smile. “My insides are all confused, what with expectin’ to see Livie and Ma and Bart in the house, around the outbuildings, and knowin’ they’re long gone in this time. But our land is still here, Max, thriving and beautiful, the meadows green, and the mountains unchanged.” She nodded at the wooded lake still several hundred yards away, glimpses of its blue-gray surface showing it to be undisturbed and mirrorlike, reflecting the one or two small puffy clouds that dared linger in the bright blue sky. “Even that’s the same. It’s as if a hundred years have passed in a blink, and made no dent on anything.”
Turning forward, she steered Thunderbolt off the main trail to a dirt path that led toward the pebbly shoreline. “Folks are being right welcoming,” she said in a quiet voice after a long pause.
Max hadn’t been sure Bart and Kit’s descendants would welcome someone who suddenly owned a great deal of the prosperous Sky Top Ranch. He’d been relieved to see genuine friendliness among the extended twenty-first-century James family, much, it seemed, due to Bart and Livia and Kit’s efforts. Even so, to hear Bart discussed as Great-grandpa had been a shock. “How’s your horse?” he asked, following her along the narrow path, a trickling sound of water coming on the hot air as they neared the lake.
“He’s a bit taller than Apollo,” Cally said, her quiet voice filling with a burst of enthusiasm. “But he’s just as strong. I’ll have to race him across the Long Meadow tomorrow to see how fast he is. Max ,” she said over her lovely shoulder, “Bart bred him special for me.”
Indeed, he had, according to Trevor, taking great care to ensure Apollo’s bloodline continued, in the hope that one day Cally would have a remembrance of the horse she loved so dearly. “He’s a good brother,” Max said. Even he was feeling the loss of Cally’s family, of the way June, Bart, and Livia had welcomed him into their home, into their lives. “I spoke to my parents last night,” he said, hoping his own family would be as welcoming to Cally. “I told them I’d traveled through time.”
Cally slowed Thunderbolt as they came to a small clearing alongside the sun-struck shore. “What did they say?” she asked, giving Max a concerned face.
“It took some convincing. I’m not sure they actually believe me. But the whole family is traveling here to ensure I have not lost my mind. And to meet you, as well.” He hadn’t been sure it was good timing. He wasn’t sure how long it would take Cally to adjust to the future.
He wasn’t sure whether, now that she was here, she wouldn’t prefer to be back in her own century.
He thought of the letter June had sent to him, one Uncle Bob had handed to him in private, one which Max hadn’t shared yet with Cally. It told him how Livia and Doc had worked feverishly to save Hugo, knowing it was the only way to save Max. It told him how June and Livia had watched the flood wash Max and Cally away, and June prayed Cally was with him, and she knew that if Cally was, that Max would be a good husband to her.
He felt a bit dazed, being back in the future. He found it too loud now, as did Cally. He found the pace of life too fast. He knew he’d spend a great deal of time at the Crown with her from now on, enjoying the peace and a slower way of life.
If she’d have him.
It had been one thing to think of marriage when they both knew he would be leaving her behind in the past. It was another to be face to face with it in the future, when the likelihood of them actually being able to stay together was high.
But despite her occasional tears, which he would have expected—the absence of tears at such a change in centuries, at such a loss of her family in the past, would have concerned him—she was taking to the future like a duck to water. Soaked it in as if she were a sponge. Already, she’d made a list of all the contraptions she’d like to experience, and places she’d like to visit. Including Zalgravia.
What if she decided she didn’t want to be tied down?
She stopped in the center of the clearing, and he helped her from her horse, not because she needed help, but because he wanted to hold her close, the first truly alone moment they’d had since coming to the future. Pine needles crunched quietly beneath their boots as he drew her closer. Her rose scent filled his breaths, her lovely body firm and supple in her riding clothes against his jeans and long-sleeved shirt.
Tipping back her cowgirl hat, he cupped her face with gentle hands. “My heart is yours,” he told her in a quiet voice, the silence and peace of the clearing and lakeside like a protective cocoon, keeping out the rest of the world, his love in every syllable he spoke. “I know this century is new to you. I want you to know I will always be here for anything you need.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
Unsure whether they were happy or unhappy tears—he was so unused to her crying—he went on. “I love you, Cally, no matter what year we’re in. No matter what happens now that we’re here in the future.”
She gazed at him with her beautiful blue eyes, a womanly wisdom in her youthful gaze. “You’re worried I might regret coming here.”
The thought had tormented him last night as he’d tried to sleep. “I am.”
“You’re worried I might not want to hitch myself to a feller from the future.”
“I…”
She cupped his face, echoing his own gesture, her fingers soft against his skin. “I love you, Max. Why do you reckon I made sure to hold onto you as tight as I could when the flash flood hit?”
He laughed then, relief rushing through him. Went down on one knee among the fragrant pine needles. “Calliope Victoria James, of the House of Sky Top,” he said with all his heart and took her hand, “will you marry me?”
Those blue eyes, so full of vitality, grinned. Sitting on his knee, she put her arms around his neck. “I wish Ma could hear you ask me that,” she said, her breath soft against his face, the scent of lemon cake coming with the words, the firmness of her grip reminding him of how she’d grasped him an instant before the flash flood had hit, reminding him of how she’d hung on tight, as if her life depended on it. “Marryin’ me off has been her aim this last year.”
Max held her closer. “I might have mentioned to her my desire to be your husband.”
Cally grinned. “You asked her for my hand in marriage, prince?”
“More or less. I told her—and Bart—of my intentions toward you.”
“She say yes?”
“She gave me permission to court you,” he said, thinking of the final quest June had tasked him with in a postscript to her letter: to stay by Cally’s side always, and never be parted by time.
That bright, intelligent face looked more deeply into his. “I reckon she said more than that.”
“I don’t want to influence you.”
“There’s nothin’ in the world you could say, prince, that could change my mind.”
Max smiled, heartened by the conviction in her voice. “She told me I was just the kind of man she’d always hoped for you.”
Cally nodded. “Ma has always been a wise woman.”
Max laughed, his hopes soaring. “Does that mean you’ll marry me, Miss Calliope Victoria James?”
“Why, yes, Prince Maximilian Alphonse Frederick George of the House of Balmont. I will.”