Chapter 7

Fussing with clothes that didn’t fit right while gingerly walking on increasingly sore bare feet, and shivering, either from the cool air or fear; the girls made their way back to the barn. The sun was high in the sky but provided little warmth. Thank goodness the snow they had endured before the Eisenhower Tunnel was not present on this western slope— or in this new time. Were they having an unusually early, warm spring?

Anya would gladly trade the weather for being back in her own time, but it was what it was. Gathering inside the barn, they waited for someone to discover them. None of them expressed their concerns about the possibility that these ranch workers would not believe them, or take advantage of them sexually, or be furious that they had essentially stolen their clothes. But the reality of any of those things happening hung among them like the warm, moist, pungent aroma of fresh manure and ammonia-saturated hay. Apparently, it was time to clean out the stalls, or was this just the natural smell of a barn with live animals? It was nauseating. Anya kept gulping in air to try to control the bile that continued creeping up her throat.

Unconsciously, or maybe subconsciously, they gravitated to the wall of pitchforks, sickles, and other farm tools hung by wooden pegs which had a potentially lethal consequence should one be handled inappropriately, say like, if a gal might yank it off the wall and swing it violently at an aggressive attacker. Anya eyed the tools, deciding which one she would grab should this plan turn out to be a bad idea. She was pretty good with a bat, maybe she’d get that handle-looking device and clobber any man who tried to take his clothes back without giving her something else to wear.

A rooster suddenly crowed, startling the women. Nervous giggles and squeaks blended with the chickens who responded in kind and scattered to a driftwood-looking lean-to that had been fashioned into a coop. The fowl had a small door where they could go outside and scratch the ground for food or come inside the barn into their coop and roost. But with the rooster crowing for all he was worth, the chickens reacted nervously as if his crowing had alerted them to some sort of danger, like a fox or ... five strange women hovering against the implements wall.

Anya wanted to tell the rooster to shush. But somehow knew it wouldn’t do any good. While their plan was to be discovered and beg for help with a trumped-up story about being kidnapped and narrowly escaping with their lives, she wasn’t emotionally ready to be found just because a darn tattle-tale rooster had called them out.

“Shhh! It’s alright.” She attempted to soothe the squawking beast. He eyed her for a quick moment, lifted on the tips of his giant toes, flapped his wings, and crowed all the louder.

A door opened and closed, slammed actually, at the house, and footsteps quickly padded toward the barn. Someone spoke. “What in tarnation is going on out here?”

It was a woman’s voice. That sent a wave of relief through Anya’s electrified nerves. Sargent Rooster continued to scream his report, and the chickens continued to flutter about as if they, too, were very excited to announce there were strangers in the barn.

But when Anya heard a shotgun cocked and readied to be fired, her nerves lit back up, like Clark Griswold’s house on Christmas Day. She stepped back against the pre-chosen tool, took it into her hand, and then took a small step forward. Why? She wasn’t sure, except that she felt responsible to protect the other girls.

Except for Chris, Anya was the largest among them, being big-boned by her German ancestry and her joy of rich, calorie-laden foods. Also, being a physical therapist, she was definitely the strongest among them. Either way, this had been her idea to take this ride. Nicole was quick to agree to it, but Anya had a keen sense that she needed to stick her arm out in front of them, like a mother in a car, holding her child back in the seat as if the safety belt would not do its job.

From the corner of her eye, she noticed Nikki was doing the same thing. The other three were wide-eyed and slinking back to allow the two more aggressive women to take the frontline of defense. The woman from the house walked around the chicken pen on the outside of the barn, peeking through the bird’s door to the inside. With the crow still tip-toeing his alarm, she made her way to a person-sized door and slipped through.

“What’s got you all riled up, Sebastian?” she said gently as if her voice alone would calm the creature down. He crowed again but with less vigilance. The woman turned and spotted Anya, and Nikki, and the three cowering behind them.

“Oh!” She jerked so violently, she dropped her shotgun.

Anya’s eyes darted to the longest gun she’d ever seen laying on the hay-strewn floor and wondered why it had not gone off when it hit the ground. That always seemed to happen in the movies. Thank goodness it had not happened, but still. She lifted her eyes to the woman. “We don’t mean you no harm,” Anya said, also something she’d seen in an old Western movie.

Nikki spoke next. “We need your help.”

Anya nodded. Yeah, that was what she was supposed to say. But she was too wrapped up in being stunned by this woman with the shotgun at her feet. For one, she looked fourteen.

Okay, maybe not fourteen, but really young. For two, she wore a shiny baby-blue dress that looked like something one would wear to a Cinderella-themed costume ball. Her skin was creamy white, as if she never ever got out in the sun, and her waist looked to be twelve inches around. The dress had long sleeves and the bell skirt hung so long it dragged in the dirty hay muck of the barn floor. Anya instantly knew this woman, or little girl, would not hurt them.

“My name’s Anya Burrows.” Anya began. “We...” She hated lying, but that was the plan. “We took these clothes from that bunkhouse.”

Nikki nodded. But surprisingly, it was Chris who stepped forward. “Please help us.” She held out her hands in a pleading open fashion. “We were kidnapped and left for dead.”

Anya cringed. They didn’t look like they were near death. In fact, compared to this gal, they looked well cared for and abundantly fed. Anya blurted. “They took all our clothes and did ... awful things to us. We barely escaped.” She cringed, dreading her next words. “And left us naked.” Sighing, she continued. “So we took these clothes to cover ourselves. Please forgive us! We didn’t know what else to do.”