OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 55: What Have I Done? (Lillabit) -- warning, F-words

Boss sent Amos away.

I felt punched by that unexpected information. "He couldn't have. Amos isn't well enough to trav--"

Then I remembered Benj joking with Amos the night before. He'd asked if Amos was ready to take-a-journey fine?

Jacob and Benj? Both of them? But... surely this hadn't been premeditated. No. It couldn't have been.

Had Amos gotten worse overnight, and needed a doctor? It occurred to me that the calf cart, usually parked near camp overnight, was also gone, along with my things, not that they mattered the way Amos did. Why didn't anyone wake me?

Sundae mooed a long, undulating hello toward me from where she grazed at the end of a staked rope, a few lengths back from the chuck wagon. She needed to be milked within the next hour or so. Not being milked would pain her. But... Amos was clearly in trouble!

I looked around desperately, for answers as much as anything else, and felt considerable relief to see Jacob riding toward me from the herd. That sight always encouraged me, the arrival of my cowboy husband on horseback, coming to the rescue. He could make everything right.

Even as he dismounted from his gray gelding, I closed the distance between us and grabbed his arm with both my hands. "Where did you send Amos? For how long? Did he get worse?"

He sent a disgusted look toward Schmidty, probably for breaking the news before he could. Then he reassured me, "Doin' fine. Left his goodbye."

Goodbye. Again, I felt punched. If he had to leave--a big, cavernous if--we should have said goodbye in person. We should have hugged, and cried... well, me anyway. I hadn't gotten a chance to say a proper goodbye to Maddie before she died, or Ted, or Mitch. I hadn't gotten a chance to say goodbye to my Nana or all my friends or my cats, before being kidnapped into the past. And now Amos?

Even more important? Why was he gone in the first place, a day after nearly drowning? "So why isn't he here?"

Jacob scowled down at me, and those imaginary gut-shots kept on coming, leaving me nauseated. I tried to ignore my sudden suspicions, because I had to be wrong. But... I'd been learning my husband pretty well, over the last month or two. He had a talent when it came to explaining how things worked -- how to milk a cow, how to fire a carbine, how to read a brand. He could be patient, gentle, competent.

What he had trouble with was explaining himself.

"You did this?" I guessed. Half guessed, since Schmidty had said as much. Behind us, I heard the splat of the cook dumping the morning's meager leftovers, pre-Tupperware, onto the ground.

Jacob nodded. "I did."

I uncurled my fingers from his arm and took a step back. Jacob was a good man, and would clearly have good reasons for whatever he'd done, but--I just needed a little distance until I understood, is all. "Why?"

"Good of the drive." He studied me. "Good of his health."

"You said he was feeling fine."

"Meant to keep him that way."

Beyond us, Sundae mooed, imploring me to get along with my morning routine. Normally she waited until I'd eaten breakfast--at Amos's insistence. She would be fine for a while longer.

"I don't understand," I admitted. "Make me understand."

Jacob glared at the ground for a moment or so, before he raised troubled gray eyes at me and offered a firm, "Weren't your fault."