OverTime 1 - Searching (Time Travel) (16 page)

Then, as I belatedly tied the apron on, avoiding him and my own confusion about him in the simple task, he nearly prompted his own stampede by drawling, "Now don't you boys insult the lady by makin' her a wallflower."

I danced with Lee. I danced with sixteen-year-old Clayton, one dance before he had to head out to the remuda and take over for Tomas as nighthawk. Nobody danced as well as Benj—a couple of the men could hardly even keep time—but part of the fun was how little that mattered
. We had a ball anyway, so to speak. Seth, the rangy cowboy with the ponytail, had a smooth step and a sure hand on my waist. Like several of the others, Murphy made do holding my shoulder instead, and stepped on my feet once or twice.

"With these clodhoppers I
'm wearing, you'd have to stomp harder than that to hurt me," I assured him with a smile when he apologized.

From the sidelines Benj called, "Darlin
', you would float with rocks tied to your feet."

"And you could flatter a deaf woman, Benjamin Cooper," I called back, guiding Murphy into a slow turn and trying to make it look like he was guiding me. High on all the attention, I had to catch my breath after that . . . and in that brief stillness I couldn
't help noticing the mounted silhouette, still watching from beyond the reach of the firelight. The night air was beautifully clear, the stars bright and innumerable above our little party. I wondered if Garrison felt left out.

I wondered if he danced.

Lee stepped up to me again as my breathing slowed, but I shook my head with an apologetic smile. "Everyone hasn't gotten a turn yet!" And then I turned to Schmidty.

Schmidty tried to look gruff.

I tried to look hurt, and smoothed down the apron, oddly comforted by its simple touch of femininity. "Not one dance?"

And to my amazement, he pushed to his feet and took my hands. Milton fiddled the best polka he could manage, and by time we
'd finished, Schmidty was beaming and I think he'd even forgiven me the sourdough. Who would have thought being heifer-branded could be such fun?

I spun next to Amos, my old mentor. "Dance with me, Amos?"

He looked surprised, flattered and...something else. Something I couldn't quite read and quickly dismissed when he laughed and several of the others joined his amusement, like I'd made a joke. "Oh no, Miss Lillabit! I couldn't do that!"

I might
've asked why, had I not already concluded he had arthritis; he seemed too good a cowhand to be relegated to the calf cart for reasons other than health. Not wanting to embarrass him, I turned to encourage an invitation from the other hands, and Romero—Maria Francesco Fernando Romero, if I remembered right—stepped boldly forward.

"I would be honored, Senorita, if you would dance with me," he said and extended his hand almost in challenge, head high, for all the world like a noble hidalgo.

I smiled and put my paler hand in his—and wondered what Jorge, who was older, opened his mouth to say but then abandoned. I would ask Jorge next, I decided, as Milton's fiddle belatedly stuttered into a more awkward waltz.

Romero was a marvelous dancer, fluid and controlled—such a good dancer, in fact, that I wondered why I hadn
't noticed him more before now. Probably because he was in his very early twenties, which I suspected made him a little younger than me. Still, he had classic Latin features and coloring, and a proud intensity about him that held my attention so firmly that I barely noticed—and only belatedly placed—the warning signs.

I briefly observed that the other men weren
't cheering or clapping, despite the fact that we were very good.

I caught a glimpse of Jorge
's pained expression, over Romero's shoulder, and wondered what was worrying him.

I fleetingly noticed that the Boss had found his loose stirrup and was riding a little closer, but I only thought with a fluttering mixture of hope and alarm that maybe he would dance after all.

And then, as Romero twirled me smoothly beneath his arched arm, I bumped into Seth. Seth had stepped way too close to us—and I saw hatred in his face.

Real, raw hatred, aimed at Romero.

That's when the realization hit, as sudden and unexpected as the stampede Amos described to me in warning.

Trouble.
Real
trouble.

Because of me.

Chapter 8 - Trouble

"Get your filthy hands
off
her, you greasy dog!" That Seth snarled the words while I was still off-balance against him made them even worse. I never wanted to be so close to words like that again.

I pushed away from him
. "What's
wrong
with you?" Then I saw the equally poisonous look in Romero's narrowed eyes and backed—thud—right up against the chuck wagon. I understood the gist if not the words of Romero's Spanish reply. Jorge's older face showed fear as he tried to grab the younger man's arm.

"What did you just call him?" demanded Lee—sweet little Lee, not looking at all sweet, moving to Seth
's side. Young Tomas pushed to Romero's elbow, dark eyes bright. This time, the racial boundaries in each group didn't escape me—was
that
what was wrong?

Benj pushed between both factions, a firm-but-friendly intermediary. "Now
ladies, that is more than enough for one night."

It didn
't work.

"I called him," Romero translated with a growl, "a pasty-faced son of a who—"

But a shrill whistle sliced across all of us, cutting off that last word. As one, we winced up at the Boss, still on horseback but now mere feet away, one gloved hand holding a coil of rope.

He was on a very large horse.

There was something particularly threatening about the sudden silence and that rope both. There was something even more threatening about the steely gleam in the eyes of the man who wielded them. But all Garrison said was: "Best not finish that sentence."

Romero didn
't finish it. At least, not the translation.

"Sure enough," Benj
agreed easily, with his special gift of smoothing things over. "Don't let's forget there's a lady present."

Some of the crew looked down, ashamed, but Seth spat at the ground. "Lady! She ain
't nothin' but a—"

"Any more and you just quit.
" That was Garrison again, steadily handling things while I tried to wrap my mind around the accusation. Seth thought I
wasn't
a lady? Because I'd danced with a Mexican? How crazy
was
Seth?

But from the way some of the other men eyed me, I feared Seth wasn
't alone in his diminished opinion. Garrison and Murphy weren't looking at me at all, nor were Milton and Amos. Only Benj and Schmidty dared meet my confused gaze with something close to sympathy.

But it wasn
't fair!

That neither Seth nor Romero uttered a single "Yes, but" told me something significant about the Boss
's power. They turned away, each one's glare indicating that this wasn't over. But it was over for now, and I found myself breathing again.

With a single nod, Garrison hooked the coil of rope back onto his
saddle horn. He hadn't been going to
hang
someone, had he? I wished I could be sure. For now, casual as can be, he drawled, "Time you boys bedded down."

"Yessir," said Milton, putting his fiddle away. Schmidty climbed into the chuck wagon and pulled back a flap of canvas to throw down bedrolls, which the cowboys caught with practiced ease. Murphy poured himself some more coffee. To judge by the routine, nothing had happened.

But that was a lie. I could hear tension in the lack of conversation between the hands. I could see it in the hatred that even now hardened Seth's expression. I could watch it in the way Benj and Garrison exchanged a long, wordless look that seemed to speak volumes—accusation on the part of the Boss; shrugged apology on the part of Benj. Only moments ago we'd been dancing, laughing, partying—we'd all been friends. And now....

I escaped to my only privacy, over a rise of shadowed prairie, and only as I separated myself far enough from the camp did I start to shake. I hugged myself in an attempt not to, but it didn
't work. Was I upset because I'd messed up again, because I'd lived down to Garrison's expectations? I'd nearly caused a fight in a crew of cowhands who had otherwise gotten along like one big family. Trouble, and it was my fault, my fault, my fault.

Except....

Except, from somewhere deep inside me, a beautiful, calming voice asked:
why?
I clung to that question the way my eyes were clinging to the tenuous light of the three-quarter moon, not letting the idea vanish like the other minutiae of my previous life always did. What a good question—the kind of question an independent, in-control woman would ask!
Why
was it my fault?

I had been playing the role of brave little trooper for five days now. If I wasn
't measuring up, maybe the problem was with the measurements, and not just me. So I couldn't sew—at least I'd tried!
I'd
ruined the biscuits, but
Schmidt
y
hadn't bothered to tell me not to use all the starter. The
cowboys
were the ones who let the cows get past us, when I brought them their lunches—was I supposed to not even say "hi" to them, or maybe to smear mud over my face so they wouldn't find me so distracting? Was I not supposed to be a woman?

Suddenly, so tardily that I wondered if maybe I
was
touched in the head, I realized that this was
just
why Garrison had worried.
I was a woman
. Well, that wasn't
my
fault. In fact, it shouldn't be a fault at all! And it certainly didn't justify what Seth had said!

This cow camp
was filled with discrimination, and not just about race. Well, I would rather be a woman who didn't treat Romero differently as a Mexican, or Amos differently as a black man, than be some under-educated, testosterone-ridden, narrow-minded
bigot
who used phrases like "greasy dog" any day of the week!

I no longer felt either lost or guilty. I felt
angry
, mostly at Seth but also at Lee for encouraging him, and at Schmidty for making me feel useless instead of showing me how to be useful, and at Garrison for that same crime threefold. As long as I was at it, I wasn't very fond of this world they moved in either. And maybe I
didn't like cows!

The anger felt good. Especially since I was leaving tomorrow.

By the time I hiked back to the chuck wagon, carrying the "heifer brand" apron I'd worn, I felt stronger than I had in days. Since nobody had bothered to give me a shred of direction around here, then I damned well didn't own the responsibility for this last bit of trouble.

But there were some who did.

Some of the men were already asleep, or pretending to be—that's how long it had taken me to work through all this. Garrison sat against a wagon wheel, smoking a cigarette and keeping silent watch. Benj had stretched out on top of his bedroll, reading a small book by the firelight, and at my emergence he bestowed one of his Prince Charming,
there-there-now
grins on me.

I threw the apron at his head, which caught both men by surprise—Garrison
's expression still hadn't recovered when I plopped down onto the ground beside him, and that surprised him even more. Wary, he almost forgot to touch his hat brim.

"Seth is a bigot," I told him, soft enough to hopefully not wake anyone who was actually asleep. If they were eavesdropping, then so be it. I kind of hoped Seth in particular
was
.

Garrison just waited—and even had the gall to look confused, as if he were fairly sure I was going somewhere with this, but uncertain of where that might be.

"You're the boss," I clarified. "They follow your example. You shouldn't have let Seth get away with racial slurs. It creates a... a hostile working environment. You should have said something."

Ah. Understanding settled in his gray eyes, with a touch of annoyance. Could he be unaccustomed to being told what he should and shouldn
't do? "Weren't Seth started it," he pointed out. His voice sounded scratchier, when he spoke this low.

So he was blaming me too? But no, he glanced toward Romero.

"All Romero did was dance with me!
Seth
is the one who overreacted. How can you blame Romero?"

Benj didn
't help by adding a whispered, "Do tell, Jacob. How
can
you blame that poor, innocent boy?" He'd taken the apron off his head, to better watch us, clearly intrigued by the new me.

The Boss glared at him and said, "He knows better."