CHAPTER 26

I hadn’t worried about midnight feedings and diaper changes in nearly eighteen years. The memories came flooding back, like a nightmare. Tamhas had woken up every couple of hours throughout the night wanting to be fed and changed. We would not have enough linen cloths to get us through more than a day at this rate. I felt like a zombie, my eyes felt as though steel weights hung from my lashes. I was forty years old and too old for that madness.

Henry was up early and prepared Louis for our ride to Tanaghrisson and the Mingo. The appetizing smell of cooked food wafted through the air. I could also smell the stench of the barnyard, which was much less appetizing. I longed to slip into a booth at Betsy’s Biscuits with Beth and indulge in a stack of french toast drenched in maple syrup, a glass of orange juice, and mug of piping hot coffee, while we chat about the subject of one her upcoming classes or one of my research projects. Afterwards, a stroll over to By the River Book Store, sign a few copies of my latest novel, chat with Maggie, and pet her tabby cat, Pom, and her Dachshund, Fritz, before heading home to work. Instead, I get to wake up to the smell of horseshit. Also, a crying baby that wants food–that was a constant struggle to provide–and a diaper change. All of that prior to spending the day on a horse. Poor Louis. The remarkable horse was a good boy putting up with all this madness. I thought I would get used to riding after a couple of days. When I dismounted, I walked bow-legged, like I was one of those cartoon cowboys. I was a hot mess. All of us were a mess.

We had breakfast in the house, replenished a couple of canteens with goat’s milk for Tamhas, cleaned the cloths that were soiled throughout the night and tied them to the saddlebags to dry as we rode. Then, we stocked up with food for us to get through the day. Henry offered our host payment, which he accepted.

The warm morning sun, combined with yesterday’s rain, left the air thick with humidity. The multiple layers of clothes hung heavy with sweat by the time we were out of sight of the cabin.

“Are you going to tell me why we need to bring him with us?” Cranky from the lack of sleep and too warm with my clothes, sun, the baby strapped next to me, Henry’s warm body behind me, and Louis’ overworked body between my legs, I was not in the mood to deal with an infant. Henry didn’t say a word. “Listen, I thought we were beyond this whole keeping secrets and not talking to each other.”

“It is not that I do not want to tell you. I am not sure if I should or how to say it without sounding as though I am a lunatic.”

“Well, I’m going to have to walk for a bit. I’m overheating. That should give you time to figure yourself out.” I snapped at him. I was too hot, too tired, and too old to dance around whatever he was trying to figure out.

We both dismounted, allowing Louis to cool down without the extra weight and heat. “Do you remember when I told you that Tanaghrisson visited me while I was on my way to the fort?”

I wiped the sweat away from my forehead with my kerchief. “Yes, he said that it was going to be attacked. He must have seen the French encampment, which I escaped from.”

Henry fidgeted with the reins in his hands. “He also told me of a dream that he had. He said that in his dream, I would meet the woman that walked through time and that I should bring his people the child.”

“He said what?” I felt the blood drain from my face. I gulped.

His pace continued. “Listen, I know it sounds strange. There’s more. Well, then I met you, but you did not have a child with you. I thought nothing of our meeting.” His voice was quick and jagged. I had never seen him this uneasy.

My breath shortened. “Right.” I was about to hyperventilate.

“Then you asked me if I believed in time travel. Mayhap that was just a coincidence,” he continued his story, looking straight ahead. “But then, you found Tamhas. I’m not sure what the walking through time has to do with anything, but here you are and…”

“And here we are.” I swallowed. “Headed to see Tanaghrisson to bring him me and this child. Okay.” I couldn’t tell him about me walking through time, but he had believed what Tanaghrisson had told him. He might believe me.

“Cheese and rice, Henry. I must tell you something and I'm not sure how or if you will believe me.”

His paced slowed. He cocked an eyebrow at me. If I wasn’t about to explode in a nervous bundle, I might find that utterly charming.

“If it will make you feel better, I don't understand what I'm about to tell you, but the truth is… the truth is…” deep breath, “ugh… the truth is, I am from the future. One minute I am in the year twenty nineteen walking into Fort Ashby, the next minute I am passed out and waking up in the year seventeen fifty-four.”

“Do you hear what you are saying? This is absurd.” Henry turned away from me and quickened his pace. “Why would you say that? After everything we have been through, why would you lie to me? Why would you play on what I just told you about what Tanaghrisson told me?”

Why in the world would he get worked up over that, after what he had told me? “I told you,” I got angry at being called a liar. “I told you from the very beginning that I would not lie to you. You need to know why I can't always tell you everything. Why would you believe me when I tell you I came here from two hundred sixty-five years in the future?”

“If I believe you came from the future,” Henry said, he emphasized the word “if” in a way that crushed my hope that he would believe me. “Why would you come here? Why would you go with the French?” His arms flailed about. Louis snorted in disapproval.

Tamhas started to stir in his wrap. I patted his bottom to soothe him. “There is a lot to unpack here, and I will try to explain it all as best as I can. If it becomes too much for you, let me know and I will stop.” I rubbed my forehead.

He drew in a long, deep breath. “Continue.”

I explained I was conducting research on a book about George Washington's involvement in the French and Indian War. I had gone to Fort Ashby, which does not exist in seventeen fifty-four, but would be built in the next year. I had stumbled upon a French detachment headed by Jumonville and Bouchard, thinking they were a reenactment troop. The explanation as I thought they were a group of men that liked to dress up and pretend they were living in the past. I sounded like a knucklehead. Instead of helping me, they abducted and beat me, all for the information that I had in my notebook.

“Exactly what is contained in this notebook?”

“Dates and locations of conflicts where George Washington will be for the next few years.”

Silence hung in the air, except for the birds, and the bugs. The bugs were always around, ready to feast on my blood. The nip, gnawed, and bit. Why wouldn’t the birds swoop down and have a nice, tasty, buggy lunch. I smacked a freeloader bug before it made a meal out of my sweaty neck. “Why? How?” Henry's mind was clearly racing all over the place with this information. His eyes searched my face for the truth. He turned away from me and looked down the path in front of us.

“I was, or is it will be?” I said, confused with the idea of past and future and present and where we currently fit. “I am writing a book and I wanted to visit the places he had gone in order to make the story more accurate and to get a feel of where things happened. Jumonville Glen is coming up, but I only remember a few items on the list. There will be a skirmish that will help launch the French and Indian War.”

“The French and Indian War? We are not at war with the French in the colonies.” Henry pulled Louis to a stop.

“War is coming. Until now, it has been just border disputes and the occasional skirmish. There will be a long war you will have with the French, and this is only the beginning.” I continued to pat Tamhas. “We need to meet with Washington, and I need to get my notebook back from Jumonville.”

“Where is this Jumonville Glen? I am familiar with areas around here and the only Jumonville I have heard of is the insufferable Jumonville you had mentioned.” We started walking down the path again. My legs cramped. They just couldn’t get a break from the constant riding. “If he had land nearby, I would know about it.”

“Yes, I remember him telling me something about New France.” I pulled a sweaty Tamhas out of the wrap. We both needed to be cooled down. “Well, maybe it's his family's land or something. I don't know. I had some of my notes in the notebook and other notes on my laptop. Neither one is available to me. My notebook is with Jumonville, and my laptop is in twenty nineteen.”

“What's a laptop?”

“It's complicated for me to explain, but it contains my research and is safely two hundred sixty-five years in the future, out of the hands of Jumonville, and also out of my hands.”

“Your notebook is not as safe.”

“No,” I said as I tucked a tendril of hair that had stuck to the sweat on my face back behind my ear. “And I don't know how to get it, but we need to secure it from that bastard.”

“I do not believe he is a bastard. However, you are correct. We need to secure it.”

“Are you beginning to believe me?”

“About being from the future?”

“Yes, about me being from the future.”

“There is what Tanaghrisson told me. I do not believe you lied to me previously.” He seemed to think through the evidence laid in front of him. “I may not understand how it could have happened, but it would explain your odd clothes and some of the strange things you say and your lack of understanding of how women do things here. I have seen things I couldn’t explain.” He huffed a laugh and trailed off into a memory he kept to himself. “Are things really that different in the future?”

I fought the urge for a good shin kick or really could yell at him for the lack of understanding on how to be a woman comment. Sigh. “The future is so completely different. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel so completely and totally lost.”

“We need to get to Tanaghrisson’s people.”

“We need to get my notebook.” At that moment, Tamhas began to cry. I rubbed his little back in order to soothe the little bundle against my chest. Notebook aside, I felt a huge weight lifted from my shoulders.

“What we need to do is feed the baby.”

The smell of a full diaper hit my nose as I moved little Tamhas over to my left shoulder. “What we need to do is change the little guy. Whoa. I’m not sure goat’s milk agrees with him. He needs a wet nurse.” This was going to be a long trip to find Tanaghrisson.