Cowboy Joins the Fight: Rose Roamer: Time Traveler, #2

By J.L. Salter

A stranger named Merlin Vector sent a bewildered cowboy from the wild West 100 years into his future to save my life. That cowboy, Hunt Weston, and I fell hopelessly in love in south Alabama in 1985. Now that we're engaged, I'm assuming we're being assigned to a new time-travel adventure as a pair to save somebody else — but who? where, and when?

The mysterious Mr. Vector provides no explanations, just a torn poker card with a name, a place, and a date. That's not much to go on when we just zoomed across time and space in a flash.

Now, huddled beside a rough stone wall in an old-timey village, the night black about us and gunfire booming in the distance, I can only imagine the worst. This time-travel adventure is going to be wild, difficult… and dangerous.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dingbat Publishing
• Release date: Sep 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215018798

Book preview

Chapter One

Wow.

I was still clinging to Hunt Weston with all my strength and was far too rattled to let go.

Are you okay, Rose? asked my rustic fiancé, as he pried himself loose from my grasp and shook my shoulders none too gently. It was pitch black, and we heard scarcely a sound except for the faint bark of a distant dog.

Ugh. That felt like intense ice and heat plus insane speed and fierce wind... all together, I replied, still trembling and sweating. Is this how traveling through time and space was for you before?

He nodded. I reckon. Weston had never been much of a talker, but then I’d only known the transplanted Texas cowboy for a few days in 1985 before we were launched into this new assignment.

I felt for my busted lip and the sore, bruised spot on my temple. Hey, your mystery friend was right.

Can’t say as I follow you, Rose.

My injuries. Remember Mister Vector said the time-travel process itself would diminish our injuries?

Don’t quite recollect...

Well, how’s your ankle? What about that gunshot to your arm?

Aw, that was just a bullet crease, he replied, and my foot moves just dandy now. He demonstrated, though I could only feel the movement, rather than see anything in the darkness.

Weston and I met in my town in 1985, but he’d been living in 1885 — a hundred years in the past—until his new friend Merlin Vector had sent him to protect me. We’d settled my crisis and, in the meantime — corny as it sounded and against the zealous advice of my best friend, Sophia — we’d fallen urgently in love. Our last experience before embarking was Weston’s marriage proposal, his nineteenth century propriety rattled that it wasn’t acceptable for a single woman to travel with a man unless they were at least engaged.

I felt for my deceased Aunt Neecy’s leather carryall that Uncle Fulton had packed and loaned me. Looks like my stuff made it through. How about yours, Hunt?

Weston patted the canvas army musette bag my uncle had loaned him, still slung over his shoulder, but didn’t even bother to open its broad front flap. Right here.

We’d left Fulton Roamer’s front porch a moment before — or what had seemed only a moment — on October 6, 1985. Where we’d ended up — and quite importantly, when — I had no idea.

Can you see much of anything? We were seated on a hard, irregular surface... with our backs to a rough stone wall.

He squinted into the gloom in all directions and rose up on his knees to peer over the low wall. Looks like a church house to me, he drawled, and yonder is their graveyard.

Not sure why the proximity of graves chilled me as I darted a peek over the stone barrier. Yeah... a cemetery adjacent to a steepled church structure. But with only occasional moonlight, due to the heavy intermittent clouds, we almost had to go by feel.

I briefly inventoried my body parts and was relieved everything had arrived safely and seemingly in the same configuration. I’d seen movies where time travel went bonkers somehow and people’s thumbs ended up on their foreheads... or some such. Wow... not sure I want to go through that again.

Weston seemed elsewhere absorbed, listening intently for anything or anyone approaching, since we could see scarcely even a few feet in front of us. Let’s ease into this church house if we can, Rose. Might not be safe to stay out here in the open.

Good idea. Slowly we both stood, and though I was woozy on my feet, he seemed to be stable enough. Maybe having traveled previously, he’d gotten his time legs. Weston crept toward the church door. C’mon, Rose. Then he fumbled at the handle, made a grunt, and it pulled free. I’m in.

I felt for the door — sturdy, un-sanded wood, either heavily weathered or never finished. Once I was inside, Weston softly closed the door behind me. Then he extracted a match, likely from a vest pocket, and struck it on the door jamb.

It took my eyes a moment to adjust to our abrupt, but still tiny, sole source of light. Weston looked just as he had before: black cavalry style hat with no braid, wool vest, pin-striped cotton shirt with no pocket, and brown canvas pants over his nearly knee-high leather boots. I hoped the more modern clothing I’d purchased for him in Manetton, Alabama, had somehow made our journey. His ever-present holstered Colt six-gun and sheathed Bowie knife were strapped to his side. Well, you made it in one piece, I said, clutching his elbow. Wish I had a mirror. How do I look?

He grinned crookedly. Like a thousand silver dollars, fresh from the Denver mint house.

Judging by his nineteenth-century analogy, I’d been devalued. In 1985 currency, I hoped I still looked like a million bucks, as I’d been told by my girlfriend back home. As Elvira Rose Roamer, I was the great-great-granddaughter of Elvira Rose Bolling Mount, whom Weston had briefly known back in Butler County, Alabama, in 1885. Judging by the photo I’d seen of her about that same time frame, my ancestor was quite a looker... and both Weston and my uncle had said I could be her twin. Reddish brown hair, fair and clear skin, tall enough to not need heels, nice legs, trim waist and enough bosom to attract more attention than I sometimes desired. Presently, I was wearing jeans, running sneakers, a sports bra, and a light blue cotton blouse that buttoned down the front.

Ow. The match had burned down and Weston flung it away before briefly sucking at his painful fingertips.

If this is a Catholic church, they’ll have candles somewhere, I said, pointing vaguely toward the dark interior... though uncertain he could see my hand movements. Although I had one set of young Catholic cousins who’d been fond of showing off their catechism lessons by spouting off architectural terms like narthex, chancel, and nave... it was all Greek to me. I was not familiar enough with places of Catholic worship to know whether they kept their devotional candles in the vestibule, where we were presently, or all the way down to the altar, just in front of the pulpit. In previous visits to such churches, I thought I’d seen candles on altars off to the sides.

Seemingly ignoring me and my observation, he asked, What do you reckon is in your clutch? As he noisily pulled the strap of his borrowed musette bag over his head, he patted the leather carryall Uncle Fulton had loaned me.

I think I remember including a flashlight on my list. Let’s see if my uncle located everything I’d requested. Searching the unknown contents of Aunt Neecy’s old purse in the pitch black of a closed church had elements of apprehension and surprise. Things feel differently when you can’t see them. Finally my fingers located a thin cylinder which could be a flashlight. It was! Okay, now let’s find the altar and see if we can get some candles burning. Then we can conduct a proper inventory.

With the thin beam of my flashlight, it was easy for us to advance among the rows of empty pews to the main altar, where I spotted an elaborate candelabra... or whatever the Catholics called it.

Not these, I said softly, as though it might offend the sober saints who likely kept watch from the stained glass. Let’s see if they have any tables off to the side.

Weston just grunted, either with disagreement or indecisiveness... or maybe merely his own lack of knowledge about the insides of churches. But he followed me, nonetheless.

Atop the altar to our left were dozens of cold candles, in various lengths. I turned off the flashlight to save its battery.

When my fiancé lit a match and touched it to the wicks of three tall candles, a small wooden statue of a kindly saint looked on. As Weston used that minor light to begin rifling through his bag, I did the same with mine. However, this wasn’t an adequate place and we didn’t have the proper time right then to spread out everything we now owned over the surface of this wooden table.

We were both armed: Weston with his Colt Peacemaker .45 in its well-used leather holster around his slender hips, and me with Uncle Fulton’s S&W five-shot J-Frame, Model 60 revolver. In my bag, I thought I felt a box of extra ammo — .38 Special — but no telling if it was completely full.

From this quick, mainly tactile survey, I concluded my uncle had been able to locate nearly everything on my list — prepared when I still didn’t completely believe time travel was even possible... much less that I’d be embarking on my first trip scarcely twelve hours after making that list. We’d left the cabin’s porch at nearly noon Manetton time and, upon placing my watch to my ear, I discovered it was no longer ticking. In our current situation, I realized time would be all-important, so I tried to calculate how long I’d been conscious — here, wherever we were. I estimated less than ten minutes had passed. Of course, in the time-travel business, an overnight sleep had advanced Hunt Weston one hundred years, so I had no idea when we’d ended up. As for the where — so far, at least — we could only surmise it was a sparsely populated, if not abandoned town somewhere... and they had at least one church with an adjoining cemetery.

Hunt, what are we doing here?

Don’t reckon I know, Rose.

Won’t that card tell us? The one Mister Vector scribbled on and tore in half?

I expect so.

Well, open the envelope and let’s find out.

Not yet. His ears or eyes must have caught something I didn’t, because his fingertips reached for the walnut grips of his Peacemaker. But it was merely an instinctive reflex — he didn’t pull the gun. We need to get the lay of the land and be sure we’re safe before we do much poking around our gear.

I didn’t agree, but had no desire to argue. Weston had been correct in nearly every aspect of his mission to travel to 1985 to protect me... so I’d have to trust him — and his mysterious friend, Merlin Vector — to steer us rightly in this new endeavor. So what’s our first move?

He sighed heavily and removed his hat to wipe his forehead. Seems to me we ought to figure out what town this is.

I nodded. And which year. We’d obviously not traveled back to pioneer days, as I had feared we might... and just as clearly this didn’t seem to be what I’d expect of a typical church in the distant future. Who knows? We might still be in 1985.

Somehow, I doubt it, he said, rising slowly and replacing his hat. Did you say you had a canteen in your bag?

Two plastic bottles of water — a pint apiece. I handed him one.

Thanks. He stared at the tiny cap.

I took it back and twisted off the cap. Like this.

Weston took a short swallow and then smacked his lips. I haven’t checked every piece in my bag, but I didn’t notice any vittles up top. Did he pack any for you?

Nothing like you’re used to, Hunt. By that, I meant beans, hardtack, and dried jerky. So far, I’ve found a few granola bars and some toaster pastries. Two chocolate bars. Small pack of gum. And Uncle Fulton had remembered the breath mints! "You want to eat now?"

No, he said with a wave of his calloused hand. Eat later. Grab some of those other long candles and let’s get moving.

To where?

When you’re in the deep woods and don’t know your way out, what do you do?

I’d expected him to answer his own question, but he was apparently utilizing a teaching moment. Climb a tree?

He grinned. You reckon this church house has a ladder to that steeple we spotted?

Chapter Two

Since their weak flames would slow us down, we doused the burning candles and picked up two fresh ones, then grabbed our still-packed bags and made our way through one of the two doors on either side of the main pulpit. With the flashlight’s beam as our only illumination again, we had no sense of the probable layout... and, of course, nothing about this specific church’s structure was familiar.

We’d each tried several doors and not yet found anything with stairs. Then, off to the right, just out of range of my beam, Weston struck a match and soon kicked something that sounded like wood. Found some steps going up.

I quickly joined him, and he kept the flickering match raised until it went out. Ow!

An updraft — or maybe it was a downdraft — kept us from successfully lighting a new candle. So, from there upward, we relied on my miniature flashlight.

You reckon this goes clear on up to the steeple? he asked.

I assumed it had to. We still don’t know where we are... or when, I replied. But every good church has a bell of some kind. And with a big bell, you need a belfry. I wasn’t actually counting, but it seemed this narrowly confining space had about a dozen regular steps, then several wedged-shaped to turn a corner, then another dozen regular... then more of the wedges. That went on until I lost count of how many corners we’d turned. No railing on the inside, so I hugged the walls. I dared not look down in the bleak open, even though I knew the darkness would prevent me from seeing anything below us.

Weston was a few steps ahead of me and sometimes his broad shoulders partially blocked the upward beam of my light. Coming up on another door, he said quietly, pausing to listen through the heavy wooden panel. Not sure what he expected to find inside of a belfry. Maybe bats? Still, better to be safe than sorry.

Hear anything?

Wings flapping, he replied. They know we’re here.

They... who?

Pigeon birds, I reckon, said Weston. My buddy Festus told me all the big towns have pigeon birds. They’re a bit like quail, I expect, but pigeons graze on food leavings from messy folks.

I hadn’t yet seen nearly enough of this town to ascertain its size, but we’d hopefully get a feel for that in a few moments. It could be anything from a hamlet to a city. And who knew what time period?

Raising an older-style iron latch, Weston cautiously pushed open the door, causing several of the fowl — whatever they were — to fuss... and some to scatter. My beam illuminated what appeared to be a bronze bell. Nothing particularly majestic — the bottom perhaps eighteen inches in diameter.

See anything, Rose? he asked.

Though we’d both somehow expected to have a better view of the town from that elevation, we had not counted on the black night with its full moon intermittently blocked by heavy cloud cover. Not a thing. Don’t hear anything either. I played the flashlight in a full circuit, as though I were atop a lighthouse and holding the main beam. Didn’t do any good, since the weak light dissipated just a few feet into the gloom. All I could make out from brief glimpses between the passing clouds were dark, boxy shapes — obviously dwellings or businesses — and none seemed any taller than two stories. No way to guess how large this municipality was.

What’s that over yonder? he asked, grabbing my wrist and redirecting