Ted

Theodore F. Ransom III stood in the center of his office staring at the evening sky. He loved the view from the large, almost floor to ceiling window, but tonight he barely saw the city scape stretched out before him. He was looking past the city to the Flint Hills, their own, “woods and wilderness”, his face pinched into a frown. He ran his fingers through his hair. Patrice Johnson was driving him crazy. He hadn’t seen her for two months, her phone was going straight to voicemail, He had finally called the stable where she worked, they hadn’t heard from her either. “I can’t believe she left me for horrid nature,” Ted jumped at the sound of his own voice, then shrugged. “I can’t get any work done, I need to know where she is.” He grabbed his keys and briefcase and left.

He drove his new Jaguar to the edge of town and turned on the road that Patrice lived on. The road was rough. Ted carefully slowed, turned around in the road and went back toward civilization. He sped into the parking lot of the Ford dealership, there were a few people still hanging around. “Don’t touch the car!” he called to the group headed towards him, and headed towards the office. Forty minutes later, the tiny house Patrice called home came into view. He parked his rented F150 next to her jeep and walked around the house looking in the windows. It didn’t look like anyone was home or had been home for quite a while.

“What are you doing?”

The voice startled Ted, he turned to see a young man in old jeans, tee shirt, cowboy hat and boots walking towards him. “I am looking for Patrice Johnson. I think she lives here, I’m her fiance.”

“I am Jose. I take care of her place when she goes to visit nature. If you think that you are are her fiance, you must be Theodore F. Ransom the third. The purpose of her last trip was to get away from you and your absurd excuse of a prenup: now no one can find her. We have looked through the entire park and all private land that she has ever had permission to camp on. There is no trace of her or her horse.”

“Her horse? She took a horse with her?”

“Yes she did, Willow, the best broodmare the stable has ever seen, worth about $7000 and she was due to foal by now. We have a couple of potential buyers for the foal demanding that we produce them. One even offered a reward of $3000 for information leading to the animal's recovery.” Ted stood still gripping his keys and stared at Jose, his mouth open. Jose stared back straight into his eyes. “If you had anything to do with her disappearance, besides being stupid and driving her away, YOU WILL PAY” the last words made Ted flinch, he backed away a few feet.

“Is Carrie still at the stables? Can I talk to her?”

Jose firmly held Ted’s gaze for a long moment then nodded slowly, “follow me”.

Ted followed Patrice’s jeep down a rutted gravel road that seemed to wind through endless wilderness. “Why did Patrice need to ‘go to nature’ she lived there” He shuddered and almost ran into Carrie as she walked out of the barn and motioned for him to park. She opened the truck door as he turned off the engine.

“We reported her missing to the Authorities a month ago, you are just now coming out to check on her.”

“A police officer spoke with me, I told him that we broke up and that she likes to disappear for weeks at a time into nature. I get that she is mad at me, I just want to talk to her, do you have any idea how to get a hold of her?”

Carrie stared at Ted, took a step back and really looked him over. He squirmed under her scrutiny, something inside him cracked, and it scared him.

“Come inside, let's get some food and you can explain the purpose of your visit.”

He followed her to a small house on the other side of the graveled parking lot of the stables. She motioned for him to sit at the square table covered with a red checkered table cloth, he wrinkled his nose at the quaint efficiency of the small kitchen, then flushed when he realized he must have seen that look. Carrie didn’t say a word until she had laid out ham salad sandwiches, potato salad, a platter of fresh, raw vegetables and iced tea.

“Why now? Did you think that she would come crawling back to you after that fiasco?”

“No, There was something in the way she tore up the marriage contract that told me she wouldn’t come crawling back; But I didn’t think that she would ignore me for so long without coming back to emphasize her point either. Do you know where she is?”

“I might have an inkling of an idea, but why should I tell you?”

“I love her, I miss her, I don’t know what I’m going to do without her, I.. I.. don’t know. Please?” Whatever it was that had cracked earlier seemed to separate, leaving his feelings open and raw, he buried his face in his hands and fought back tears. ‘I have worked so hard for the past thirty years to build myself into a strong, confident, rich business man, and now I am cracking, splintering into pieces.’ He slowly raised his face to look into the eyes of the best friend of the woman he loved, aloud he said. “What do I have to do to get you to tell me?”

She stared at home long enough to make him squirm, but he forced himself to hold her gaze. “The first thing you can do is pick up the second half of your sandwich and eat it with your fingers.”

“What?!” He sat straight up and pulled back from the table slightly, watched her lips twitch briefly and looked down at his plate dubiously. “I never eat anything with my fingers.”

“It won’t hurt you, just pick it up and take a bite.”

“Civilized people use forks.” his voice trailed, he shook his head in confusion.

“Civilized people use forks, to eat potato salad and baked beans, not ham salad sandwiches”

He lay down his fork and reached for the sandwich, his hand shook as he picked it up. He didn’t like the feel of bread on his fingers, but he couldn’t ignore the challenge and he really wanted to find out where Patrice was. He quickly took a bite and dropped the sandwich on his plate. When he looked up, Carrie was not even trying to hide her smile. “You have dropped a lot of arrogance with that sandwich. I am very impressed.”

“Can you tell me where Patrice is now?”

Carrie’s brow wrinkled and she ran one hand across her eyes. “I have a suspicion but I’m not sure that you will believe me.”

Ted picked up the remaining piece of sandwich “I’ll eat the rest with my fingers if I have to, Please just tell me, Please.”

She waited until he had finished the last crust then nodded. “Ok, I will.”

They stared at each other for a long moment each deep with their own thoughts. Ted broke first “Tell where she is and why her phone goes straight to voicemail.”

Carrie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think that her phone goes straight to voicemail for the same reason that we can’t find even the slightest trace of her or Willow.” she rubbed her hands over her face and took another cleansing breath. “I think. . . “ she paused only a few seconds but Ted was getting restless.

“What do you think?”

“When did you start dating Patrice?”

“What?”

“Did you start dating in the past three years or earlier?”

“Two years ago next week, why?

“Did she tell you about the trip she took for her twenty-first birthday?”

“No where did she go?”

“She went where she always goes, deeper into nature, but that time was different.”

Ted shifted in his chair in the stretching silence. “Different, how?”

“She said that she was out there eight days, but she came back seven days after she left, and she had some very authentic, yet barely worn, eighteenth century buckskins.”

“So, she learned how to make buckskin clothes, I have a step-cousin that does that. He’s a park ranger, maybe she knows him.”

“But her descriptions of the terrain and the people she met were also consistent with historical documentation that we have from the seventeen hundreds.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“We tried some experiments, we left some things by the rock when storms were in the immediate forecast, sometimes they were gone after the storm and sometimes they were still there; and a couple of times artifacts from different times were found in place of something we left.”

Ted stood, walked to the door and turned back to face Carrie. “You are insane, you know that right!?”

“I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“You actually think that Patrice is in another century!”

“Yes, I believe that is a real possibility”

“Well I don’t believe it, It can’t possibly be true.”

“Well it is either the truth or it isn’t what you and I believe doesn’t change the facts.”

Ted snorted, “You think storms are a factor.”

“Yes we are pretty sure that is the case, Patrice said that Grandmother said so.”

“Ok, when’s the next storm coming? I will stand in the rain at the rock.” Carrie burst out laughing. “I am serious I have to find her, but I don’t believe THAT”

“You don’t know the first thing about how to survive in the outdoors in any century, don’t you think you should spend a little time out there when you know that you are just a few miles from modern life before you take a chance on leaving the modern world.”

Ted shook his head so hard so hard that he felt a little dizzy, he paused a few seconds then turned abruptly and left the house. He fish tailed and threw gravel as he left the stables parking lot and headed back to town.

Ted swiveled restlessly in his office chair, first staring out of the window, then at the bookcase covering the back wall. He heard a light knock on the door, “come in”. He watched listlessly as the door opened and his part-time assistant entered. “Did you get the last contract finalized?”

“Yes, everything is signed, sealed and delivered. Will there be anything else?”

“Here” Ted handed her a sealed envelope, “This should take care of you for a while.”

“What are you doing?”

“I need to find Patrice.”

“If you are away too long, you will lose your contacts.”

“I know, but I am unable to function at my best. It will be better to rebuild from this spot than from where I’d be if I bungled a merger or two.”

“You are right. I have arranged for the office to be cleaned every week for the next year, just in case.”

“Thanks, I hope it doesn’t take that long. I’ll lock up”.

“Thanks again.” She waved the envelope and walked out the door.

Ted stood and slowly walked out the office and locked the door behind him. He was barely aware of the road as he drove. The door of the Ranger’s office open and Paul walked toward the truck, his mouth fell open when Ted stepped out.

“You, You are driving a truck?!”

“Yes, I traded my Jag for it a few days ago. I need to ask you something.”

“Paul looked up at him, Ok, go ahead.”

“When is your next wilderness survival class?”

“It starts next Friday, all the enrollment info is on my website.”

“I couldn’t find you on google.”

“It is under Paul SunClould Survivalist training. I can get you a card. Who wants to join?”

“I do.”

“Teddy, I mean Ted, are you sure, Do you have a fever?”

“I don’t know, maybe I do, I need to find Patrice.”

“Ted. I don’t know what to say. After that family camping trip we went on when you were about ten, you vowed that you would never come back to nature as long as you lived.”

“I know what I said, I know how I have lived, I know how I've treated Patrice. I’ve done a lot of soul searching and I want to learn to like nature.” Paul stared at his cousin unable to speak. “Know I haven’t always been nice to you and I’m sorry. Can you forgive me enough to help me out?”

Paul took a deep breath, let it out slowly and shook his head as if to clear cobwebs from his brain, then met Ted’s gaze. “Yes, I believe I can and I will help you. I won't even put caterpillars in your shorts this time.”