OverTime 1 - Searching (Time Travel) (9 page)

Chapter 5  - Benj

To go from hours of wide-open spaces with an almost silent companion to the activity of numerous horses, cowboys, wagons, and more cows than I'd ever imagined was bewildering to say the least, even from the outskirts of all that activity. That had to be why I kept glancing toward the herd, seeing if I could spot a familiar gray horse, a rider with a familiar black hat. There had to be
some
explanation for my distraction, because Benj Cooper was a lot more companionable than Jacob Garrison had been.

Useful, too. With his help, I finally began to learn who I was—or at least, who I might have been.

Riding comfortably beside me, rather than ahead of me, Benj had no qualms about looking me over closely and drawing me out. He declared me past my teens but no older than my early twenties, "and well-preserved if so." My hands, he noted, proved me unused to physical labor, so much so that Boy's reins had rubbed a blister onto my left hand. Benj tsk-ed at that and gave me his leather gloves, soft and worn and way too large for me, to help protect it. My assumption of telephones, he explained, indicated that I might be recently from a city in the northeast, likely Boston or New York, though my indeterminate accent held a mysterious touch of the foreign, rather than "pure Yankee." Not British. Not Scottish. Just… unusual.

He asked me to "figure some ciphers"—addition, subtraction—which I did. He asked me to spell some words, which I did. He said hello to me in French and, startled to hear the language out of a cowpoke
's mouth, I still said hello back. But my foreign conversational skills faltered after that. I didn't catch his Latin at all, other than recognizing it as Latin.

"Just as I suspected," Benj concluded, knuckling his hat further back on his head. "You
've had yerself some education."

"So have you," I countered, intrigued.

He leaned easily off his horse toward me, so that it seemed our shoulders almost brushed, and glanced both ways with mock furtiveness. "Let's jest keep that between us two."

My grin seemed to gratify him. He sat back as if to better see me and shook his head. "Seems we could find somethin
' better to call you than 'that purdy l'il thing what the Boss brought in.'  Anything in particular you'd fancy bein' called, leastwise 'til we find your proper title?"

I said, "Not Martha."

"Fair enough," Benj agreed, not missing a beat. "And we'll avoid Gertrude and Hortense for good measure; how's that?"

"And… Winifred.
" But my eyes searched out the distant herd yet again. They were a patchwork of different colors, with horns—a sea of long, curvy horns that made me glad I still hadn't seen them up close. The cowboys rode dangerously close to them though, paralleling the slow parade, sometimes urging an escapee cow back to its friends. I didn't recognize any of their horses.

"And Sophronia," teased Benj, recapturing my attention. "I never could warm up to a Sophronia."

I made myself stop watching the cattle drive for familiarity, once and for all. Why bother? I clearly didn't know cows, and I had better company right here, right? "And Snooki."

That surprised him. From his expression I could see he
'd never heard the name. I closed my eyes and hung onto my saddle horn as everything became so unreal I felt dizzy, as if—were I not careful—I could disintegrate into nothingness at any moment. Disintegrating seemed a bad idea. Benj's hand on my elbow brought me back to what
was
reality, though—cows, horses, a wagon, a dead boy's set of clothes, and real, live men. Cowmen.

Something was so wrong
.

"I
'm sorry," I whispered. "You're really helping, but I wish I could remember more myself! It's been like this since he found me—I say things that don't make sense, and then I feel so stupid...."

"Jacob Garrison tends to have that effect on folks," he assured me dryly, releasing my arm for a friendly pat on my shoulder. "Little bit of sunshine like you—I
'm surprised that ol' judge didn't scare you clear into Colorado."

There it was again—the whisper of familiarity. "Little bit...."

He waited, and I shook my head. "It's silly, but that almost sounds like a name."

"Ain
't so strange at that." He considered. "Littlebit. How's
Lillabit
sound?"

It sounded... nice. Oh, it still wasn
't my name—not quite —but it was more identity than I'd had in two days. I was Lillabit, an educated young woman from the east!

Well, I could be. I beamed my thanks.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Lillabit," said Benj with a return grin, bowing toward me from his horse. "Now, Miss Lillabit, jest how long has it been since you had yourself some vittles?"

Very
useful company, this man.

So we caught up to the chuck
wagon, which looked like a covered wagon minus the cover. I mean, it had hoops for a cover arching over it, like empty ribs, maybe so that they could put the top up in bad weather? But it currently sat open to the elements, riding higher on its wood and metal wheels than seemed natural and piled higher yet with what looked like sleeping bags—
bedrolls
, I reminded myself.  On the outside of its wooden bed hung barrels and boxes and pots, rattling and clattering, and the back end was built up with what looked like a chest of drawers. Four lanky, long-eared horses with funny-looking noses pulled it, and a dour man with pale hair drove it.

Benj introduced that one as Schmidty, the burly old cook, and raised the sack he
'd been nursing as we rode. "Jacob done brought you some treats."

Schmidty just eyed me with suspicion.

Benj balanced the bag on his saddle in front of him, untied the strings, and opened it. "Hoo-whee!" he exclaimed happily. "Lookee here! Carrots, and squash, and what looks to be a passel of green beans. Onions...there's plenty onions. The Boss done brought a whole garden with him!"

"He traded a horse for
vegetables
?" I thought better of mentioning the clothes, but even with clothes thrown into the deal, it didn't sound like the smartest business decision.

"Yep.
" Benj lifted out a couple of carrots by their feathery green stalks and handed me one. I rubbed it clean on my pants leg and bit into it—mmm! Okay, so personally, a carrot was worth a lot at this moment. But a
horse?

"Good," said Schmidty, like a German would: 
Goot
. The German accent mixed oddly with his drawl. "Now put away."

Returning from that particular task, Benj brought a can, which he opened with a jackknife. I
'd finished my carrot, but my mouth began to water when I caught the tangy smell emanating from the can. I swallowed. Several times. Then he handed me the can, and I looked at the pulpy red interior and paused. "What is it?"

"Tomatoes," Benj announced. "Eat
'em up afore any of the boys sees 'em and gets greedy—ain't Sunday."

I must
've still been smarting from Garrison's earlier attack on my manners. I managed to form the words, "I should share," as if I weren't drooling.

"Th
'others nooned almost two hours afore now," Benj countered, which was enough for me. Despite my sense of lingering unbalance astride Valley Boy, I used my leather-clad reins hand to hold the can. Careful not to cut my fingers, I delicately pulled out a soggy hunk of tomato pulp, then popped it into my mouth. I couldn't imagine having eaten one like this before, but I don't know why not. It was juicy and delicious. I chewed happily, then swallowed, then sighed.

It seemed I should be more closely watching where my horse was going, though. "So it
's about two p.m. now?"

Benj glanced at the sun. "Nigh on.
" He seemed content just to watch me eat, so I obliged him, apparently with such enthusiasm that he said, "You're plumb near starved! Should've guessed Jacob wouldn't know how to treat his women any better than he'd know how to dance the can-can."

"
His
women?" I protested between bites. "You make it sound like he owns people."

"No, he don
't own folk—never did, neither," he added significantly. Then he flashed that con-man grin of his again. "But he surely thinks he does, of an occasion."

"He hasn
't eaten either," I thought to mention, after slurping the last of the juice from the now-empty can.

Benj took the can from me and handed over a second carrot. "Oh, he won
't stop for anythin' so inconsequential as feedin' himself—we're moving double-time, so's we can get to the Arkansas afore them beasts decide to turn back to the Cimarron."

"What
's in Arkansas?" I asked, between bites. Eating had made me downright cheery. Everything seemed more real, now. That made me cheery, too.

"
The
Arkansas," he corrected. "Water, darlin'. Water."

Unlike
some
cowboys, Benj turned out to be a font of information. Apparently there used to be better trails across Kansas to the railroad, first to Abilene, and then Wichita, then Ellsworth, then Newton... okay, so maybe he was a font of a little too much information. But the farmers—aka clod hoppers, sodbusters, and/or nesters—had spent the last ten years putting up fences and establishing anti-cow quarantines that pushed the Texas drives farther and farther west until now they could only travel the western-most, driest edge of the state to the notorious Dodge City. Well,
that
clarified significant undercurrents from our visit to the Peaveses' farm.

"What
's so special about the Kansas railroad?" I asked. It seemed like an awful lot of trouble to be choosy about trains.

Benj laughed as if I were the wittiest woman on earth—and don
't think I didn't appreciate it! "Darlin', you shoulda seen the difficulty Texians had tryin' to herd beeves through the swamp to New Orleans, afore the war."

Surely he was joking.

In any case, our friend Garrison had seen the writing on the wall, especially with the railroad that had just come through Fort Worth. His livelihood, contracting to drive other people's herds to market, might not last much longer. So Garrison sold almost everything he owned—"'cept his son, his saddle, and his soul"—to go in with Benj and put together this herd.  They weren't stopping at Dodge, but would continue north to "Wyoming Territory," to start their own ranch.

No wonder Garrison was so serious about this—he really
was
in charge of one hell of an endeavor. And Benj was....

"What do
you
do around here?" I asked. I'd noticed distant cowboys riding back and forth, occasionally yelling at cattle, waving coiled ropes or swinging uncoiled ones, for what had to be a good hour while we chatted.

But the voice that answered me wasn
't Benjamin Cooper's. "Little as he can," drawled Garrison, approaching from behind us on a different horse, a black one. He didn't look particularly pleased to see us, which means he looked just as I remembered him—stocky and bearded and familiar. Cattle drives and Kansas farmers and Wyoming Territory felt completely new, but Garrison? Not so much.

Other than a brief nod at me when he thumbed the brim of his hat in offhand politeness, his full annoyance focused on Benj. "Hope you
're enjoyin' your social while the rest of us work," he drawled, steely-eyed, and this time I recognized the sarcasm right away.

Benj just grinned, brazen. "More than someone with your poor sensibilities could hope to imagine.
" Then he looked back at me, to answer my earlier question. "I'm the silent partner."

Garrison snorted, and I grinned at the implied comment. Okay, so
silent
, Benj Cooper was not. Neither did he take offense at the teasing.

"I put up two-thirds of the money, and Jacob here does two-thirds of the work," he explained, turning back to his partner and pointing for emphasis. "Now that was our agreement. Seein
' as how I had to boss this crew for the last two days while you wandered Kansas huntin' up pretty ladies, seems to me I'm entitled to keep company with our charmin' visitor."

Garrison wasn
't swayed. "Next time you can take the dead boy to his folks."

"Well on the off chance that any more of the crew is from anywhere in Kansas
and
gets himself kilt in the locale of his birth, I
will
."

They glared, at a stalemate—but somehow I doubted either would draw his weapon and fill the other full of lead. The fight came too easily to them, as if they
'd done it for years.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I offered, as a distraction, as if I wasn
't near exhausted.

"Now
darlin', you are our
guest
," Benj protested, but I was watching the Boss.