Cha'Nara's Gift

Chapter 18

Chapter 18 Drink and Be Merry

Deak Picks up the Story

I had to keep my eye on Pip, she was bound and determined to drink that whole pitcher of beer, I'll bet she could put a whole lot of college students to shame. Emily and Rachel were on their second margarita's Emily was starting to get "mouthy" a sure sign that she was getting drunk, Rachel was harder to gauge, she seemed friendlier and more open, Emily was starting to tell her all about her time in Afghanistan, and the things she had seen there. "Bet you didn't know I got a medal," she casually mentioned to Rachel. "Navy and Marine commendation medal with "V" device for an act of uncommon valor performed in the face of the enemy, Ha! That's the ambush when Deak and I first met." She gave me a sweet smile, "He's been worth it though, guess I'll keep him!" Rachel looked at me and smiled, "I cannot believe women can serve in the military nowadays," "Neither can I" I snickered, receiving a kick under the table for the comment. Pip seemed to like the burrito's and tostada's. Rachel, once she had mastered the proper method of eating them loved the taco's, I looked over at Pip and said, "Pip have you forgiven me yet for killing those bad men?" She thought for a moment, that twinkle in her eye and smile, "I forgive you, but do not harm others," "I'm sorry Pip, I can't guarantee that , given the type of element that comes through Deakstown, but I have been thinking about building something to lock the bad guys in to cool them down, tell you more about it later."

By now I knew Emily was truly drunk, she was using foul language, something she only did when she was really s**t-faced drunk. Rachel was becoming very offended, while Emily staggered off to the ladies room I said to Rachel, "Rachel, pay no mind to her, she's very drunk and acts that way when she is, I'm going to need your help getting her out to the truck," "I am not sure how useful I can be, Mr. Mathers, I feel like I have had too much to drink as well, I'm very warm." "Well don't start taking anything off, they tend to frown on things like that, let's just get out to the truck and go home." I flagged the waitress, got our bill paid it and began the struggle to get my wife out to the truck without her making smart remarks to people she didn't like the looks of.

Pip crawled in the back again, Rachel sat between Emily and I. Once we were underway Emily zonked out, Rachel however kept trying to lean her head on my shoulder and run her hands over me, I let it go on for awhile, but kept having to gently push her away, finally in the end, she succumbed and fell asleep. I spent the next sixty miles trying to stay awake with three sleeping women in the truck.

Once we were home, Pip and I managed to get Emily and Rachel into the house, it was after midnight and Emily's parents were asleep, but Emily's mom came padding out into the kitchen saw what I had on my hands and pitched in, helping Pip get Rachel to bed, I carried Emily to bed got her undressed and tucked in, man, what a night.

In the morning Pip and I were the only ones with clear heads, I went out with Mr. Carter to help feed the cattle, and when I returned they were still asleep, Mrs. Carter tried to apologize for Emily's behavior but I said, "That's all right Mrs. Carter, once in awhile she just needs to let herself "go" usually she's pretty good about not getting drunk like that, one too many margarita's I guess." The two women started stirring by noon, both taking cold showers, but by then I was working hard on the internet setting up the sale of the weapons, as for the gold. It looked like another trip to Denver, The gold had to be assayed first to determine the purity plus buyers needed to see an assay report first before they would buy anything.

Emily and Rachel were pretty useless for the rest of the day, I had done all I could, Monday I would be calling the Colorado Assaying company in Denver to arrange for all the gold to be assayed out, finally we would find out whether all our trouble was worth it.

This time it was just Emily and I who drove to Denver, Cha'Nara and Rachel stayed home, I didn't think they would get into too much trouble. Rachel said she would begin wrapping the presents Emily bought for the "Girls" but I suspected she would do like Pip had been doing lately, sitting in front of the TV watching soaps or crap like "Swamp People." We made good time to the Assayer's office spent most of the day there getting the gold assayed out, 87.7 per cent pure gold, we were told a very high percentage, not the greatest but pretty good, naturally curiosity about where we "found" all this. Emily and I had settled on a "story" quite awhile ago, settling for, "We found all of it in a couple re-worked claims dating from the 1880 gold rush," naturally we couldn't reveal exactly where. We got a good report from the assay and were given the names of respected gold buyers. We were also told that if we ever came across any unusual shaped nuggets, they could be sold "as is" for their intrinsic value.

I called a few buyers and made arrangements to sell what we had, right now it was selling at over $1690.00 per ounce our total supply ran around 25.6 ounces, after all our running around. We banked around $43,000 dollars a rather tidy sum, more good news soon came our way. Two days before Christmas the auction house informed us that the Indian stuff brought in over $20,000 dollars, it was the saddle that did it, apparently there's only one other just like it in existence, the clothing also went for high dollar, apparently it was a very rare pattern Arapaho design, unusual beadwork. The guns were another matter, they were shooting up in price, I had a lot of nice examples. I had an original Colt Dragoon that went for $7,500.00, a Winchester, model 1866 "Yellow boy" selling for $4,200.00, an 1872 Colt Cloverleaf pistol that went for $6,435.00, a Civil War Joslyn .44 pistol for $2,200.00 and a beautiful Colt single action Army for an incredible $18,000.00 I think I took that off the second guy I killed at our stockade. I sold the rest of the guns for an accumulated total of $18,760.00 plus another $11,700.00 for a total pf $30,460.00 I was definitely going to be paying a little more attention to the "gun" side of things, all in all, our little "adventure" had netted us over $94,000.00, We were really hoping the next "go-round" would bring even more.

We had planned to head back right after Christmas, but selling the gold and guns took longer than I had planned. Unforeseen problems kept popping up, getting the taxes on all this straightened out took time as well, Emily and I secretly worried about Cha'Nara and Rachel , we began to fear Pip would start pining for home and want to leave, but so far she seemed happy.

Rachel, on the other hand seemed to be "settling in" to her new life here, she claimed she had no desire to remain here, but she seemed pretty contented, lying around watching TV, although as of late, she had been working with Cha'Nara in the craft. Emily and I suspected that Pip performed another "mind meld" on her as the two of them seemed "closer" and Rachel now seemed to be as knowledgeable about Pip's "unit" as Emily. I was intrigued by this, a 19th century woman assisting a being from another universe, thinking about it for too long started my brain to hurt, but it took some of the pressure off Emily anyway. Emily and I ended up doing a lot of Christmas shopping on the internet, Emily tried showing Rachel shopping the modern way, but it was just all magic, no other word for it , she kept her distance from it all.

We kept fed-Ex and UPS pretty busy running out to the ranch, with all the online purchasing we were doing, but with the gold selling gun auctions, and screwing around with our various accounts we just didn't have time for anything else. We took Rachel and Cha'Nara into Wal-Mart to buy stuff, but this Christmas was going to be pretty hectic. Two days before Christmas things began to wind down, but it was looking like it wouldn't be until the new year before we could head back to Deakstown, I kept telling Pip and Rachel that as soon as I finished the last of our business dealings, we were out of here, in fact, I began to discuss with Cha'Nara how much stuff her "Dahampa" could handle, there were a lot of things I wanted to take with us, too big to fit in the "unit."

At her request, we took Rachel into the Catholic Church, for midnight mass, even though Emily and I weren't Catholic, we enjoyed the service as well. Pip chose to remain at home, not really understanding this God stuff. Rachel prayed at the alter and sang hymns, I have to admit, it was a rather moving service, she hugged each of us for bringing her. It was snowing rather heavily as we drove home, Rachel was quite impressed with the way we cut through the snow and kept warm. " I'm afraid that the more I ride in these machines the more I will hate to go back to riding in cold wagons or stagecoaches," Emily remarked, "Try to live a long life Rachel, you'll be riding in these Machines before you know it."

Christmas morning brought a wintry wonderland, we sat around and exchanged gifts to the sound of Christmas carols on the radio, Rachel was moved to tears with the presents Emily and I presented to her, even little Pip bought her a nice hair brush and a decorative box to keep her personal items in. Both Cha'Nara and Rachel felt bad that they weren't able to get us much, as Emily explained it to Pip. "Cha'Nara, you've already given us the best gift, your presence, Deak and I will be very sad when you eventually leave us. Not only have you graced us with you're presence, you've allowed us to travel in time, something no other human has been able to do, and although we've been able to enrich ourselves, we've been able to help others, and continue to help others, such as Rachel here." With that, Emily got up and walked over to Cha'Nara and hugged and kissed her on the forehead, "I'm telling you right now Pip I'm going to bawl my head off when you're gone, I'll be losing a "sister." This got Cha'Nara crying as well, they hugged and kissed each other for several moments.

We bought Pip a Macbook Air with a couple extra batteries, a re-charge device, an iPod and a camera, with the idea she would be taking them back to her world. "We know you've probably got computers a whole lot more impressive than this, but this is state of the art for our world. Be sure to put all the pictures we take on it and the music you like as well. Later, Emily and I made a couple video's Pip downloaded onto the computer of us greeting her parents, and describing our efforts at keeping her safe and looking out for her. We also made a video of shots of us standing by the "unit" driving into Limon and Denver, pictures of Emily and I, Rachel and Emily's parents. Emily also bought her some more clothes, very "hip" and becoming, according to Emily. We also had the turquoise ring sized down so Pip could wear it, and the bracelet engraved. On the inside it read, "To Cha'Nara from Deak and Emily and Ben, Everything is gonna be alright, Rocka-Bye Rocka-Bye!" Cha'Nara broke down and cried. For Rachel we got her a couple very nice Western outfits, Denim skirts and vests some jewelry and boots. The boots were modern, but resembled the high toped boots women wore in 1878. Rachel cried and hugged us both; she said she would ask God to bless us in her prayers. Deak also gave her a pin he found in an antique store, it was from the 1939 Worlds fair, it simply said "I Have Seen the Future" "I think this would apply to you Rachel" as he pinned it on her blouse.

I bought Emily a beautiful gold wedding ring made with gold from our first strike, a couple 14k diamonds in a beautiful setting. It replaced the simple one she had been wearing ever since Afghanistan. Although the thing that did the trick was the Marine corps emblem done in gold right in the middle, I thought she would never stop hugging and kissing me. I also bought her some sexy Harley Davidson high heel riding boots a couple sequined Harley tank tops and a leather jacket. Darling Emily bought me a Les Baer Mid-length Monolith .308 sniper rifle with extra magazines, "It almost didn't come in time, lover, I had to go through Colorado Gunworks in town, they ordered it late but it came just in time,. You'll have to put a scope on it, but I know that's what you've been talking about." Now it was my turn to hug and kiss being cheered on by Rachel and Pip Emily then stood up and presented Rachel with the last gift, and a speech. "Rachel dear, I've saved the last gift for you, it's kind of apropos for this occasion, It's a timepiece a lady Rolex, keep it always in a safe place, these won't show up on the market for at least a hundred years, wear it for special occasions and hopefully your wedding day, the fact that you chose to come with us indicated to me you had that little "extra." You just may be right, God did choose you for something special, and I suspect that special thing is yet to come, so take this gift as a token of our feelings for you ." Rachel broke down and cried, Emily sat and comforted her, "I am just so sorry I couldn't give you more Emily" sobbed Rachel, "Hush, Rachel, just by coming with us and seeing our world you've given us more than enough."