“Hot damn!” he growled, backing away, the moment gone. When he looked at Journey once more, her cheeks were pink – but she was smiling.
Her radiant serenity put him at ease. “Ready to go?”
“Almost.” His attention returned to the monument. “You asked me if I knew any of those people? I did. I knew the Moss family. We weren’t exactly friends, but we were acquainted. They couldn’t see past the color of my skin.”
Journey mumbled a curse beneath her breath. “Unfortunately, there are still people around like that.”
“I want to know more about this battle. Do you think you can find some information?”
“We’ll certainly look into it,” she promised. They returned to the car and this time Reno was able to fasten his own seat belt.
Journey started the car and pulled onto the highway. “I’m going to drive down the entrance road to the Blackhawk Ranch. You can tell me if you think we’re in the same spot where King’s Ransom is located.” All of a sudden, Journey felt badly about what she was doing. Even though she was thrilled this unbelievable miracle had brought him to her, she knew he was faced with the possibility that everyone he knew and loved were long dead. The world he knew was gone. Changed irrevocably.
“All right.” He folded his hands in his lap, his fingers digging into his own flesh. “How come its cooler in here than outside?”
“Air conditioning.”
She tapped the hard surface in front of them and he noticed all manner of numbers and letters in various colors. The lights were dimmer than the ones he’d seen on that box in his bedroom, but he could see them well enough. “What is all that?”
Journey giggled. “Oh, my. I feel very inadequate as your teacher. Let me think, air conditioning in a car takes the air available and removes the heat and moisture out of it, using something called a condenser…” She shook her head in consternation. “I think. I’m sorry. I don’t know that I’ve ever spent much time thinking about how anything works. I just take it for granted that it will.”
“It’s fine.” He ran his finger over the fancy display. “There sure has been a great deal of headway made since my time.”
Journey put on the blinker to turn. “There definitely has been many amazing inventions. If you stay…” Those words shook Journey to the core. If you stay. If you stay. “If you stay, we’ll have a good time discovering them together.”
Reno felt so torn. He was drawn to this woman. What he was learning excited him. Yet, he felt pulled back to his time. There were people there who needed him. Cole. Ela. Saul and the little ones. He swallowed, making no reply, trying to tamp down the emotions rushing through him.
“Look. Here’s the entrance gate and there’s the main house.”
He sat tall in the seat, pushing his hat back on his head, striving to get a closer look. The gate proudly proclaimed BLACKHAWK and was decorated with what looked to be a totem on one side. “Are they Indian?”
“Yes. Their father was Native American, but I’m not sure what tribe. Their mother was a descendant of Kingston and Fancy Ramsay. My aunt Myra knew them pretty well. They used to get together and talk about the old days. I remember her saying that the original stone house is almost a hundred years old.”
Reno was quiet while she spoke. He felt as if he’d been hit in the gut with a battering ram. A sinking, sad sensation made him feel a little nauseous as his eyes strained to see any trace of what once was – what used to be. “I was just here yesterday,” he whispered. “The cabin is gone, but this house sits in the footprint. The bunkhouse sat to the left, right where that rock fence is now. Boone and Jericho snored so loudly night before last that I had to sleep with a pillow over my head.”
Journey didn’t interrupt him, she just let Reno reminisce. She noticed his voice took on a sad, wistful tone.
“Ace and his sister Amelia lived in the back side of the bunkhouse. We walled them off a separate area to give the girl some privacy. She had a hard time getting over the ordeal she suffered, being kidnapped by the Indians. I don’t think they were cruel to her, but she blamed them for her parents’ deaths.” His tone changed yet again, taking on a questioning quality. “Although…after