Biography: Susan Greiner

Through my twenty-two years as a whitewater rafting outfitter, I have traveled the west extensively and collected western lore along the way. Living in a 100-year-old farmhouse in the small Colorado mountain town of Buena Vista has led to my fascination with the time period depicted in this story and with the early cattle ranching that gets so much less attention than mining in the region. My family background in science has contributed to my love of the time travel theme. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Biology, and a deep love of the outdoors that comes through in my writing. My husband and I have two boys, ages ten and thirteen.

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Synopsis: The Good Old Days

In The Good Old Days, Erin, a modern-day divorced horsewoman, finds eleven-year-old Joe hiding in her barn. He claims to be from 1875. Is he delusional? She takes him in and soon realizes that he really is from the past. While trying to help him figure out what has happened, she falls through time with him into 1875 Colorado Territory, onto a cattle ranch that is embroiled in a dangerous cattle feud. Joe persuades ranch foreman, Butch McGuire to give Erin a job training the ranch’s new horses. But life on the ranch is hard for Erin, and she is both frustrated by and attracted to the poker-faced Butch. As she struggles to survive in a wild and untamed world where men make the rules, she must find out who is manipulating time and get home before history changes forever. But as her feelings for Butch deepen and the cattle feud heats up, she realizes that going home may no longer be as important as finding the mysterious time traveler before someone gets hurt.

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Manuscript:

Chapter 1
The world dropped no hints the day Erin’s life changed forever. She walked out to the barn as she always did, her boots becoming slick and black from the dew. Her thick auburn hair hung loosely to just above her shoulders and she pulled it out from her jean jacket collar with one hand as she walked along. Inhaling deeply of the crisp morning air, she could smell each plant, each tree, each blade of grass. It was as if they had spritzed on perfume to greet the dawn. She paused to gaze at the forested slopes and stark bare peaks emblazoned in a pink glow along the western side of the broad valley. The backbone of the continent. She sighed. On days like this she felt like she lived in the next-best thing to heaven.
Erin’s horse, Jade, nickered softly as she approached the old barn. She smiled and patted his nose when he shoved it through the fence rails. He followed her when she shut the gate behind her, nosing into her hands looking for sugar. Although not a particularly large horse, he seemed big compared to her petite five foot four. But despite her size she had always been good with horses.
“Oh, stop that,” she said, quietly, so as not to disturb the peaceful morning. “You haven’t done anything to deserve any goodies yet.”
She rubbed his nose again and slid a hand down his long sleek bay neck, letting her fingers get tangled in his jet-black mane. She had always loved the smell of leather and horses, dust and sage. Jade was about the only true friend she felt like she had in the world now. Fact was she didn’t have much time or interest in anyone else. She and Jade had been together for five years, ever since she had left Sam.
Unprovoked, as it had a million times, the image of Sam’s handsome, condescending face shoved its way into her mind, souring her happy mood. She had married him right after they had graduated from high school; far too young. After two years of marriage, she found him in bed with a blonde rodeo groupie. “Lighten up, Erin. It don’t mean nothin’,” he had said.
She shook her head angrily to rid herself of the persistent image. To hell with his endless cowboy ego.
“Why did I have to ruin a fine June morning by thinking about him?” she said, and yanked the weathered old barn door open harder than was necessary, causing it to slam against the wall and dust to sift down from the roof.
She coughed and waved her hand to clear the cloud. “Brilliant move, Erin.”
She peered through the settling dust and felt her way through to the hay cage, where she grabbed down Jade’s breakfast and hauled it over to his stall. Jade was already waiting, and pulled a mouthful of hay out from under her arm before she could even drop it into the manger. It made her laugh, and the laugh settled her anger like the dust that had sifted to the floor.
“You’d think you hadn’t eaten for a week,” she said, and rubbed the horse’s neck.
He nickered, and then dug into his hay.
She stood watching him for a few moments, grateful for the warm bond that filled the space between them.
Then from the far corner of the barn, she heard a sneeze.
Erin whirled toward the noise.
“Who’s there?”
She owned no other animals except Jade, and besides, it definitely sounded like a human sneeze. She felt herself tense. Years of cultural conditioning paraded through her consciousness, images of murder and kidnapping. Reruns of a thousand news reports blared in her head: Women should never be caught alone. She felt a cold sweat break out in her armpits despite the morning chill. But she moved slowly toward where the offending sneeze came from, snatching up a manure shovel on the way.
“Who is it?” she repeated, hoping her voice didn’t sound shaky. A frantic shuffling noise was her answer. She kept meaning to take that self defense class that the women’s group put on every spring. Now she wished she hadn’t talked herself out of it. Someone was in the barn with her right now. What would she do if he attacked her? She gripped the shovel so hard she was sure her fingers would leave permanent imprints.
She moved slowly back through the barn, throwing open each stall door in turn, but each one proved empty. There were six old plastic barrels in the back corner, which Erin used for farm trash sometimes and barrel racing the rest of the time. As she threw back the last stall door there was a loud crash and she had to jump back to avoid being hit as two of the barrels fell into her path. Two other barrels wobbled as someone scuttered between them and the wall.
“Hey!” Erin shouted. She raised her shovel and tried to give her voice a stern edge she didn’t feel. “Come on out of there.”
She kicked the nearest barrel back against the barn wall. What am I doing, she thought? What if this is some kind of criminal with a gun? A lot of good this plastic manure scoop is going to do me then. But she kicked the next barrel in line anyway, and to her surprise, heard a high-pitched yelp.
That didn’t sound like a gun-wielding gangster, she thought, although she supposed a gun-wielding gangster could fool you. That sounded like a woman or … a child. She decided to keep up the illusion of bluster, and whacked the shovel loudly on the heavy pine of the stall behind her. “Come out of there NOW!”
“Okay, okay,” came the frightened reply. “Jus’ don’t shoot!”
A skinny young boy rose up from behind the row of barrels, his hands in the air and his face was as pale as a sheet. Well, a dirty sheet. Filthy, actually. He wore a beat-up cowboy hat and his sandy hair poked out from underneath it like so much straw. He was dressed in dirty brown pants held up by suspenders over a long sleeved buttoned shirt that might have originally been cream-colored. He looked to be no older than 10 or 12.
“Don’ shoot me Ma’am,” he said. “I ain’t armed or nothin’.”
Erin felt both like laughing with relief and yelling at the boy for scaring her so much. “Come on out of there. This shovel isn’t loaded.”
The boy sidestepped his way down the line of barrels, his hands still in the air, until he got to the end one and could come out from behind them. Then he stopped and Erin thought his scrawny legs might actually be shaking at the knees.
“What were you doing hiding back there?” She asked. “And put your hands down, for goodness sake.”
He dropped his hands to his sides like a puppet whose strings had been let go and stared at her wide-eyed. “I was just lookin’ for some shelter Ma’am. It gets mighty cold outside at night.”
“Yes, it does.” Erin leaned the shovel against the side of the stall. “Are you hungry?”
The boy looked so relieved she was afraid he might faint dead away. “Oh, yes Ma’am. I sure am.”
“Well come on then. It’s silly to be hiding out here when there is a perfectly good house next door.” She beckoned to him with her arm and then slid it around his bony shoulders as he came alongside. “Why are you hiding out here all alone, anyway? Are you lost? Did you run away from home?”
“No, Ma’am, I ain’t lost,” he said as she steered him out the barn door. Suddenly he went rigid and stopped in his tracks. “You ain’t takin’ me to old man Hensley’s house are ya’?”
Erin searched his frightened eyes. What on Earth was he talking about? “No, honey. This is my house. Mr. Hensley doesn’t live here.” He must be delirious or something, she thought to herself.
The boy relaxed a little but still did not move. “Are you sure? It looks a lot like Hensley’s house.”
“I’m positive. My name is Erin. What’s yours?”
Momentarily distracted, he allowed her to continue steering him through the corral gate and toward the house. “I’m Joe.”
“Nice to meet you Joe. Why don’t I fix you some nice hot oatmeal, and you can tell me how you ended up in my barn?”

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Erin had barely set the warm bowl of oatmeal in front of Joe before the boy began gobbling it down.
“Geez, don’t take my hand off, Joe.”

He stopped shoveling abruptly. “I’m sorry Ma’am. I didn’t mean to be rude. But I’m real hungry.”
“When was the last time you ate?”

Joe considered the question while he resumed shoveling. “Sometime yesterday, I guess,” he managed between bites.
“Well, no wonder then.”

“Uh-huh,” Joe said through a mouthful of oatmeal. “Do you have any more of this?”
“Oh. Of course. Let me fix you some.” Erin took Joe’s bowl and began to make another batch. I’ve got a runaway on my hands, she thought. What am I going to do with him? Social Services? The police? Maybe I should find out what, or whom he is running away from first. She imagined a hulking, drunken father with a baseball bat and shivered.
“You’ve got a nice house,” Joe said from the combination dining room, living room.
No I don’t, she thought. This place is a proverbial dump by modern standards. Sam didn’t own much, but she did get alimony. At least that helped a little. It eventually helped her buy Jade and this old rundown ranch. What kind of a hovel did this kid grow up in, she wondered? Or maybe he is just trying to be polite.
“Thank you, Joe. Are you from around here?”
“Uh, yeah. Not too far. Hey what is this thing?” He sounded frightened again, and she left the softly bubbling oatmeal to join him in the living room.
“Well, Joe, it’s a television. Don’t you have one at your house?”
Joe shook his head vigorously. “No, Ma’am. I ain’t never seen one before. What’s it do?”
Good grief! Had this boy been kept in a closet all his life? “Well, you watch shows on it. Here, I’ll show you.” Erin picked up the remote control and pointed it at the TV. It popped to life and a few seconds later a morning news show appeared, the anchor telling about his next guest, who had just written a new book.
Joe gasped and stepped back two steps. Erin looked into his terrified face.
“How did you do that!” he cried. “Is it witchcraft?”
Erin flicked off the set and stepped in front of it. “Heavens, no. It’s just a machine. Have you never seen a movie before?”
Joe peered around her at the now dark screen of the television. “I ain’t never seen anything like that before,” he said in an awed voice.
It was like he was from another century. “Well, it won’t hurt you. Come on. I imagine the oatmeal is done.”
Joe followed her into the kitchen and took the steaming bowl from her. He ate slower this time.
“I’m much obliged for the food, Ma’am,” he said in a subdued voice, eyeing the living room.
“You’re very welcome,” she said. “And please don’t call me Ma’am. It makes me feel like my mother. My name is Erin.”
“All right, Ma’—Erin.”
Erin watched him eat. He was really an enigma. This was going to take some time to figure out. She looked at his hands as he lifted the spoon in his fist. They were nearly black with dirt. At least she knew what was next. As soon as he finished eating, he was going to have a bath.
Chapter 2
Erin trotted Jade around the ring. With a touch of her knee and a flick of the reins, she turned him smoothly toward the middle of the ring. Another touch and shift of her weight and he reversed direction, changing his lead leg. Erin spoke quietly again and applied slight pressure with her knees and Jade moved into a canter. She continued to guide him around the ring and had him change direction several times. He followed her commands smoothly, almost seeming to know what she wanted before she spoke. Woman and horse moved as one. Several laps later, Erin pulled him back just as smoothly to a trot, and then to a walk.
“You’re real good with that horse, Ma’am, I mean, Erin,” Joe said from his perch on the top rail near the gate. They had come out right after breakfast, even though he still hadn’t had a bath. He had seemed agitated, and wanted to see her horse. Watching her run Jade through his paces seemed to calm him down.
“Thank you,” Erin said, steering the horse over to where Joe sat.
“He pays attention real good,” Joe said. He hopped off the rail and pulled the gate open.
“Most of the time,” she said, walking the horse through the gate and on up to the barn. She dismounted and tied Jade to the corral fence, then removed the saddle and hauled it into the barn with Joe right on her heels.
“Can I rub him down?” he asked.
Erin smiled at the eager light in his eyes. “Sure,” she said, handing him the curry brush. He was confidently brushing the horse’s back when she returned from putting the saddle away.
“You’ve done this before, I see,” she said.
Joe glanced at her in surprise. “Well, o’ course. Everybody knows how to curry a horse.” He stopped brushing. “By the way, where are the rest of the horses?”
“The rest? Oh. Well, Jade is all I need. And all I really have time for.”
Joe began to brush again more slowly, frowning. “This has been the strangest morning of my entire life.”
“Why is that?”
He stopped brushing again and his skin took on an almost translucent paleness. Erin thought he might faint and lunged to his side. She took the curry brush from his hand, and steered him to a straw bale in the cool shade inside the barn.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, brushing the unruly blonde hair away from his face. When he looked at her, he seemed so lost and vulnerable that she wanted to take him in her arms.
“I just don’t understand what’s goin’ on. I snuck into this barn last night and thought I was safe. But ever since I woke up this mornin’, nothin’ is right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, first this barn is different.” He pointed to the far corner. “Them barrels ain’t made out of wood. Your house,” he stood up and walked to the door of the barn. “It’s a different color, and it’s right where old man Hensley’s house ought to be. And where are the bunkhouse and the foreman’s cabin and the chow hall?” He turned to look at her with fear in his face. “And I noticed that your stove don’t run on wood, and that box with the people inside it…” He swung around and swept his arm toward the pasture and his voice took on a frantic edge. “Even the ground looks different. The fence is all wrong. And the field ain’t grazed down like it was yesterday. How can grass grow so much in one night? And you only got one horse!” He threw up his hands. “Yesterday, I knew the score. Today I don’t understand anything!”
Erin stared at the boy. He was on the verge of panic. She wanted to comfort him. Only, she had no idea what he was talking about.
She felt like she was on an episode of The Twilight Zone. What did the boy mean? Why did he expect her stove to run on wood? How could he have never seen a television, or even understand the concept of one? She looked at the barrels in the corner of the barn. He acted like he had never seen plastic before either. And what about the grass and the other buildings he mentioned- was he delusional?
Just then a jet roared across the sky far overhead. It was a regular occurrence. Martinville sat under the route from Denver to Salt Lake City. Erin barely noticed them.
But Joe stared at the sky, horror-stricken. He backed up into the barn a few steps, then turned his frenzied gaze on Erin and backed away from her, too, until he had his back against the wall of the first stall.
“It’s okay, Joe. It’s just an airplane,” Erin said and moved slowly toward him as if she were approaching a frightened horse.
Joe’s eyes were wide. “Stay away from me! Everything has gone crazy. You must have done it somehow. Stay away!”
Erin continued to move toward him, steadily, slowly, keeping eye contact, keeping her voice low and calm. “No, Joe. I didn’t do anything. It’s okay. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Joe pressed his body against the wall. Looking around wildly, he could see there was nowhere to go. Erin was between him and the door, and he had backed himself into a corner.
He bolted for the door. And he was fast, too, but Erin saw what he was intending just before it happened. She grabbed him around the waist as he tried to get by her and both of them crashed to the floor in a heap. She held on tight, and it wasn’t easy. Joe clawed and kicked for all he was worth as he tried to get to the door. But he was so skinny, and finally she managed to climb on top of his back and hold him down until he quit struggling.
He lay panting, the side of his face pressed into the dirt and straw of the barn floor, eyeing her like she was the devil incarnate.
“Joe,” she said quietly. “I agree that something is very wrong, but I assure you, that I didn’t cause it. I don’t know why you don’t recognize these things around you. But I would like to help you figure it out.” He looked up at her doubtfully. “If I let you up, will you try to be calm and talk this out with me?”
He didn’t answer, and she sighed heavily. Things just kept getting weirder and weirder. How could he not know about airplanes? What century was he from anyway? Wait. What century…
That’s ridiculous, she thought, shaking her head. That only happens in movies and storybooks. Still…
“Joe. Do you know what year it is?”
The side of his face that wasn’t smashed into the barn floor held an expression that said he was absolutely certain she was out of her mind now. “What?”
“The year, Joe. What is it?”
He spit dust from his mouth in disgust. “What kind of person doesn’t know that it’s 1875?”
Erin stared at the boy. She was temporarily incapable of responding.
“Why you starin’ at me like that. I ain’t stupid.”
“Joe, I want to let you up now, and I want to talk to you about this, but first there is something you need to know.” His one eye looked slightly fearful. “The year is 2007.”
Suddenly the floor under Erin exploded again as the boy began clawing and kicking and flailing for the door. Only this time his desperate screams were added to the mix.
“No! You’re wrong! You’re tryin’ to scare me. Let me go! You’re crazy!”
Erin released him, partly to avoid serious injury, and partly because she didn’t know what else to do. As he bolted for the door, she sat back heavily in the dust. He disappeared from view and Erin could hear him climb over the corral fence and land hard on the other side. Then just his running footsteps fading away.
She let him go. If he really thought he was from 1875, he would be back. Just as soon as he hit the main road. And saw the cars.