Free OverTime 1 - Searching (Time Travel) by Yvonne Jocks Page B

plenty onions. The Boss done brought a whole garden with him!"
    "He traded a horse for vegetables ?" I thought better of mentioning the clothes, but even with clothes thrown into the deal, it didn't sound like the smartest business decision.
    "Yep. " Benj lifted out a couple of carrots by their feathery green stalks and handed me one. I rubbed it clean on my pants leg and bit into it—mmm! Okay, so personally, a carrot was worth a lot at this moment. But a horse?
    "Good," said Schmidty, like a German would:  Goot . The German accent mixed oddly with his drawl. "Now put away."
    Returning from that particular task, Benj brought a can, which he opened with a jackknife. I 'd finished my carrot, but my mouth began to water when I caught the tangy smell emanating from the can. I swallowed. Several times. Then he handed me the can, and I looked at the pulpy red interior and paused. "What is it?"
    "Tomatoes," Benj announced. "Eat 'em up afore any of the boys sees 'em and gets greedy—ain't Sunday."
    I must 've still been smarting from Garrison's earlier attack on my manners. I managed to form the words, "I should share," as if I weren't drooling.
    "Th 'others nooned almost two hours afore now," Benj countered, which was enough for me. Despite my sense of lingering unbalance astride Valley Boy, I used my leather-clad reins hand to hold the can. Careful not to cut my fingers, I delicately pulled out a soggy hunk of tomato pulp, then popped it into my mouth. I couldn't imagine having eaten one like this before, but I don't know why not. It was juicy and delicious. I chewed happily, then swallowed, then sighed.
    It seemed I should be more closely watching where my horse was going, though. "So it 's about two p.m. now?"
    Benj glanced at the sun. "Nigh on. " He seemed content just to watch me eat, so I obliged him, apparently with such enthusiasm that he said, "You're plumb near starved! Should've guessed Jacob wouldn't know how to treat his women any better than he'd know how to dance the can-can."
    " His women?" I protested between bites. "You make it sound like he owns people."
    "No, he don 't own folk—never did, neither," he added significantly. Then he flashed that con-man grin of his again. "But he surely thinks he does, of an occasion."
    "He hasn 't eaten either," I thought to mention, after slurping the last of the juice from the now-empty can.
    Benj took the can from me and handed over a second carrot. "Oh, he won 't stop for anythin' so inconsequential as feedin' himself—we're moving double-time, so's we can get to the Arkansas afore them beasts decide to turn back to the Cimarron."
    "What 's in Arkansas?" I asked, between bites. Eating had made me downright cheery. Everything seemed more real, now. That made me cheery, too.
    " The Arkansas," he corrected. "Water, darlin'. Water."
    Unlike some cowboys, Benj turned out to be a font of information. Apparently there used to be better trails across Kansas to the railroad, first to Abilene, and then Wichita, then Ellsworth, then Newton... okay, so maybe he was a font of a little too much information. But the farmers—aka clod hoppers, sodbusters, and/or nesters—had spent the last ten years putting up fences and establishing anti-cow quarantines that pushed the Texas drives farther and farther west until now they could only travel the western-most, driest edge of the state to the notorious Dodge City. Well, that clarified significant undercurrents from our visit to the Peaveses' farm.
    "What 's so special about the Kansas railroad?" I asked. It seemed like an awful lot of trouble to be choosy about trains.
    Benj laughed as if I were the wittiest woman on earth—and don 't think I didn't appreciate it! "Darlin', you shoulda seen the difficulty Texians had tryin' to herd beeves through the swamp to New Orleans, afore the war."
    Surely he was joking.
    In any case, our friend Garrison had seen the writing on the wall, especially with the railroad that had just come through Fort