EPILOGUE

 

 

August 12th, 1892

Grapevine Springs, Idaho

 

DUSTER AND BONNIE and Dawn and Madison had decided on the fifth summer of Grapevine Springs existence, to go visit Sophie and Wade and see how Grapevine Springs was doing.

Duster had spent the last five years in Denver, playing cards, and then helping out a small town in Northern Nevada with some law issues.

Bonnie and Dawn had been in San Francisco for the five years, and Madison had spent his time in a mining town in Montana doing research for his next book.

Duster was impressed at Grapevine Springs from the moment they crossed the main bridge on the road in. It now had three saloons and law offices and two large stables. The main street of town had boarded sidewalks on both sides and a good half-dozen bridges that he could see spanned the creek up the valley.

Many, many log homes dotted the edge of the hills, with very few tents left in evidence. Sophie and Wade’s home looked huge sitting above the hill and it clearly had been added on to in the last five years.

The feeling of the town as they left their horses in the stable and moved up the walkway was of energy, but controlled energy.

And when the four of them went into the front door of the general store, Duster was even more shocked. The place was fully stocked and smelled like fresh cookies. It was, without a doubt, one of the nicest general stores he had ever been in.

Sophie was behind the counter and looked up and beamed.

She shouted for Wade in the back room and when she came around the counter to hug them, Duster got an even larger shock.

Sophie was pregnant.

Very pregnant.

Like any day pregnant.

And when Wade came out of the back room, he was walking a two-year-old boy.

Duster just stood there, staring.

Dawn and Madison instantly shouted for joy and went to them. Dawn and Madison had raised many families in the past in the Monumental Lodge that they wouldn’t even build yet in this timeline for another ten years, so they instantly understood.

Bonnie came over and hugged Duster, then whispered in his ear. “Your kids need to grow up. Don’t be shocked when they do.”

Duster just laughed at that. He wasn’t certain why he was so shocked. It just wasn’t what he had expected. But since Wade was an MD, they clearly knew what they were doing.

No wonder their home on the hill looked like it had additions added.

Duster learned later that Sophie and Wade had gone back to 2018, in the summer of 1888, leaving the timelines plugged in, gotten computer and other supplies they would need for their research, including many medical supplies, and come back to 1888 just one day after they left.

They did that every summer since, being gone from their store for less than a week. Wade had gone alone this summer since Sophie was pregnant and the summer when she was pregnant with their son.

Sophie and Wade got some help to run the store and watch their son for them for the day and then gave Duster, Bonnie, Dawn, and Madison a tour of their town.

Duster was impressed. The town had no marshal but seemed to run itself. The lawyer by the name of Bryce was the mayor and major decisions about the town were dealt with by a committee of business owners.

In all his travels around the west, Duster had never seen a town so well run and calm, especially a mining town.

Later that day, they were out in front of the general store, standing in the warm sun, talking about how the town had developed and who was here for the summer, when Duster glanced around just in time to see a man take their picture.

He started laughing and got them all to look around as the man waved and smiled at them.

“He just took the picture of us, didn’t he?” Wade asked. “That’s Bryce, our resident lawyer, mayor, and photographer.”

“That’s the picture you found the day we told you about timeline travel,” Duster said. “Don’t you just love this traveling in timelines?”

“I do,” Wade said. “Everything goes around and comes around.”

“So do I,” Sophie said, hugging Wade as best she could with her large stomach. “I’m just glad I had my back to the camera when he took that shot. Imagine if I had been pregnant in that photo?”

“You were pregnant in that photo,” Duster said, smiling. “You just couldn’t tell.”

“Told you that you looked good,” Wade said, smiling at Sophie.

“Don’t even try,” Madison said. “I gave up trying to tell Dawn she looked good pregnant about forty kids ago.”

“I still appreciated it,” Dawn said, kissing her husband.

With that, Duster followed the others up the street and then along the wagon road to the large house on the side of the hill.

Around them, Grapevine Springs hummed along, the sounds of construction filling the air mixing with the music from the pianos in the saloons.

He had thought this valley beautiful when he found it uninhabited. But now he found it even more beautiful.

It seemed the mystery of Grapevine Springs has been solved.

He liked that.

He had hated the idea that history could be cheated by simply being planted for the sake of money. That had bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

To him, history was everything.

He loved history, he loved supporting the research into history. He loved the researchers who worked to get history correct, no matter how politically wrong or inconvenient that might be.

And more than anything, he loved living in the history.

He loved the people and the way of life and everything about it.

Even after thousands of years of living in the past, it just never got old.