Page 96 of My Heart Will Find You

“Okay.” When Zack got downstairs, he saw the little black book. Henry had brought it into the house and left it on the table. When Zack picked it up, it fell open to the back. The first thing he saw was a footnote.

Grandpa Rufus said the published date of the 1871 massacre was off by days. He said the wrong date was printed. Everyone quoted it as the fourteenth, but it really happened on the nineteenth. Grandpa said that’s why the woman’s attempt to prevent it failed, and why she was killed. I didn’t include this in my account because it makes no sense. A wrong date given after the event wouldn’t matter. But, as I said, Grandpa was very old.

Zack bounded up the stairs two at a time and thrust the book at Henry.

When he finished reading it, he was shaking. He was in a chair by Etta’s bedside. “She went on the date the newspaper said it took place,” Henry said in disgust. “But it didn’t. Not on Sunday, but on the following Friday.”

“Somehow, Etta found out when it was really about to happen,” Zack said.

“And she went alone,” Henry said. “She wasn’t able to prevent the tragedy, and she was killed along with everyone else.” He took her hand in both of his. “Etta!” he said loudly. “Do not go alone. Take Max with you. Not alone! Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, Max,” Zack said. He pulled a chair to the other side of the bed and took Etta’s hand in his. “Take Max. He’ll protect you.”

“And maybe he’ll talk some sense into you,” Henry said in disgust.

“Yeah, that too,” Zack added.

Henry squeezed her hand. “Do not go alone. Do you understand? Not alone!”

They didn’t leave Etta’s side.

18

When Etta woke, she didn’t open her eyes. She was afraid she’d see Ben’s curtains. The fact that she could hardly breathe could be due to covers wrapped around her.

Or it could be a corset.

She crossed her fingers in hope. She would have crossed her toes, but they were jammed into shoes that were way too tight. Were they the dress shoes the woman in Van Buren said were what all the fashionable ladies were wearing?

Cautiously, Etta opened her eyes a tiny bit. She was on a train.

She squeezed them closed again. Was it too much to hope that she was on the train Max had put her on? Or maybe it was like Henry said and it was 1902 or 1950s New York? Somewhere else in time and place?

“It looks like you’re feeling better.”

She finally opened her eyes to see the porter. He was the same man who’d helped her when she left Max, and he was waiting for a reply.

“What is today’s date?” she asked.

“The seventh of May, the year of our Lord, 1871. You must be hungry after all the sleeping you’ve been doing.”

Etta’s mind nearly clogged with flashing bits of all she’d done since she’d seen this man. Henry, Zack, Freddy, the flattened town of Garrett, the glorification of John Kecklin, the massacre of 1871. It jumbled together like a two-minute recap of a twenty episode TV series. “I, uh...” she managed to say.

“You just stay there and rest. You’ll be home in minutes.”

His look said,And then you’ll be someone else’s responsibility.He hurried down the aisle.

Etta saw that she had on a different dress from the one she’d been wearing when she boarded, so she’d changed. She wondered what she’d been like during the days she was on the train. According to the porter, she hadn’t been well.I was a zombie,she thought.No soul, just a body.

As the train began to slow, she looked out the window. Sitting on a buckboard, his muscles covered by a big shirt, was her brother-in-law, Phillip, reincarnated as Pat, the blacksmith.

I will not cry in joy, she thought, then in her mind, she yelled,Henry, I’m here!

She’d meant her thought as fun, but she frowned. It was almost as though she could hear Henry. He was saying that he was alone. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’ll—” She started to say that she’d return, but she knew she didn’t want to go back. Not ever.

She waved at Pat and he raised his hand in greeting.

Out of habit, Etta looked about for her luggage, but no, it wasn’t the twenty-first century. This was a time when women were thought to be weak and helpless and needed to be taken care of. The thought made her smile. “So much for female empowerment,” she said and kept smiling.

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