Page 63 of My Heart Will Find You

“I guess you mean a carriage. You have to go by horseback. It’s about two hundred miles, so it’ll have to be fifty miles a day.”

Etta’s thighs and backside ached at the thought. Even if she could do that, there was the matter of direction. Did she use a compass? There’d be rivers to cross, and she’d meet men with guns. In the movies, when a woman alone encountered men, it never ended well. And there were snakes and creatures that bit. She looked at him. “Maybe I can hire a guide. Some bad-tempered old man who’ll protect me. I hope I don’t lose an arm.” She mumbled the last as she rememberedTrue Grit, one of her father’s favorite movies.

Max was looking at his beer and saying nothing.

“I guess I’ll ask Pat or Bert. Maybe they know someone who could be my guide.”

“Who else?” he asked.

“Who else what?”

He looked at her. “What other lives are you going to take over? There’s my sister and the blacksmith and his kid. Cornelia and her lawyer. Martha is now being called a healer. Freddy would rather dig in the dirt and Sally might become the first woman preacher in the world.”

“I’m not a historian but I doubt that. Maybe Joan of Arc would qualify.”

“So who else are you planning to change, manipulate, and generally rip apart?”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I haven’t meant anything bad. I just needed to...” She couldn’t explain. “I think I better go try to find a guide. Sorry for making you pay for it, but I don’t seem to have any money of my own.”

“If I take you on a hell-bent trip to Van Buren, does that mean I get you to myself for four whole days?”

Her expression showed her surprise. “I guess so.”

“You wouldn’t suddenly tell me that I have to make a detour to, say, Wichita, because there’s somebody there you need to save?”

A bit of hope came to her. “There’s no one else. Even if I saw Henry, I’d just tell him to go to Martha. He can get there by himself.”

“So you and I would have four days alone?”

She smiled. “Yes, we would.”

“There might be a few hotels along the way, but they won’t be nice places. People have to share beds.”

“Really?”

“Or we’d have to sleep outside. Kansas wind is bad. Cold.”

She tried to keep from grinning. “For warmth we should, uh, stay close together. That would fit in with my dream.”

“Fifty miles a day to someone who hardly knows what a horseismight think it’s a nightmare.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“You have to do the cooking. Ever skin a jackrabbit?”

“My boss, Lester, made me skincows. He said I couldn’t appreciate meat if I didn’t know where it came from.” She paused. “Can we leave now?”

“We need to get supplies. And I have to see to my sister.”

“Leave her with Pat and Nellie.”

He looked shocked.

“Oh right. Double standards are alive and thriving. You have to protect her.”

“You don’t need protection? Not even from the veterans roaming about? Some of them haven’t recovered.”

“PTSD,” she said.

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