Written for Steemit: A love story occurs during a time anomaly. A woman from today somehow steps into an anomaly and meets a cowboy asleep on his ranch, in his bed, in the 1850's. ©Jeff Kubitz 2016 - All Rights Reserved.

Song of Angels - Chapter 13

Mindy Woczlewski courtesy of Nastya Muratokova

Please read and vote for the previous chapters:

Song of Angels - Chapter 1

Song of Angels - Chapter 2

Song of Angels - Chapter 3

Song of Angels - Chapter 4

Song of Angels - Chapter 5

Song of Angels - Chapter 6

Song of Angels - Chapter 7

Song of Angels - Chapter 8

Song of Angels - Chapter 9

Song of Angels - Chapter 10

Song of Angels - Chapter 11

Song of Angels - Chapter 12

I have a fiancee Mindy thought joyously, who lives in a very dirty, filthy house. That house is dirty, Mindy thought, very dirty. Since there is nothing else I can do, I will clean that house. Her determination set, she marched straight into the house and left the door open. This place needs some air she thought.

Mindy put her phone in her purse. She took the two buckets back to the pond and filled them. The buckets were larger than five gallons she was sure. She could only carry one bucket back at a time. It was a couple of hundred yards to the spring. Down the hill into the dale to the pond and then back up.

With the door open, Mindy found a broom and a brush. The broom, if it could be called that was cylindrical and Cyrus must have made it. The brush had a wooden handle and looked normal enough but she was sure it was hairs or fur of some animal. "Umm...do the best I can," and set at the inside of the house with fury.

Walls, chairs, table, sink and cabinets, Cyrus lived in a sooty, filthy house. In the act as a dervish, she found the sheets under the bed. She pulled them out to examine the sheets. She would save the bottom sheet forever, she thought wistfully, tears coming to her eyes, and she folded the bottom sheet and set it on the bed, but the rest was about to suffer the water of vengeance.

Eight buckets of water, later everything in the house was as clean as a desert shack could be. The bedding was washed the mattress taken out, shaken and beat, and replaced.

"This house needs some rugs, really bad." Mindy’ and her clothes now had as much dirt, more dirt than she had started the day. She realized she would have to bathe herself again and wash her clothes.

Tiring but resolved that Cyrus should not see her like this, this dirty, she retrieved two more buckets from the pond. Before she washed she checked the blankets and the sheet, she had managed to hang them from pegs on the veranda and in spite of it the temperature being no more than fifty degrees they had dried. They were stiff like boards.

Mindy brought in the laundry and made the bed using the top sheet for a bottom sheet. There did not appear to be any more sheets in the house. At least the mattress will be protected, she thought.

Mindy closed the front door. It was later afternoon, not yet dusk but soon to be and not as warm as earlier in the day. She stripped and washed herself.

The bucket of water was as black as she thought it would be. She washed her clothes in the other bucket of water; hand wrung the clothes and hung them on the pegs Cyrus used for his Coat, hat, and chaps.

Some wood went into the stove. The light was dimming at the cracks of the door. Mindy stood nude, lit by the light from outside as Cyrus entered the house.

“Halloo!” Cyrus exclaimed. He stood with the door open gawking. He had never seen Mindy naked in the full light.

“Hello and close the door my hair is still wet.” Mindy said. “No wait. Fetch us two more buckets of water please." Mindy said as she pointed her finger at the buckets.

“Right,” Cyrus said “Beautiful Mindy.” He smiled.

“I am going to have to cover myself if I don’t catch cold. Get the buckets, please Cyrus.”

“Right.” Cyrus said and picked up the full buckets. “Be right back, Honey.”

“We’ll see if you still call me Honey when you get back.” Mindy smiled wickedly.

“Oh?” Cyrus asked.

“Now go quickly.” Mindy said pointing her finger out the door. “An’ please close the door.”

“Yes Dear.” Cyrus said as he took the buckets out the door, and then closed it behind him. A chill was in the room from the open door.

It would take a minute or two for the room to heat back up after all the cold air that was let in. Mindy put some more wood into the stove and noticed no flame was inside.

“Oh no.” She said, then ran into the bedroom and snatched the top blanket around herself. Cyrus came back in the door with the buckets.

“The fire in the stove has gone out.” Mindy said as she walked into the room with a blanket around her. “My hair is still wet.”

“It’s not out but the ashes need to be emptied. I’ll take care of it.” Cyrus said as he set the buckets down near the table. He attended the stove and stood to the side as he talked so Mindy could see what he did.

“This is the ash pan (Cyrus still wore his gloves, chaps, and coat). All the ashes will fall into here. Then we take it out and empty it in the garden out back. If there are coals in it we bury it, though in the winter it won’t matter if there are coals or not. We do not need to bury the coals and most likely can't anyway and the ground is froze three feet thick."

“Oh. I didn’t know.” Mindy said as Cyrus took the completely full ash pan out the door.

“That’s okey-do-key.” Cyrus said as he closed the door behind him.

Mindy heard the fire in the stove start to roar before Cyrus returned with the ash pan. In an instant, she could feel the room begin to warm. Oh good she thought.

Cyrus entered the house and put the ash pan back into its place at the bottom of the stove. He looked at Mindy wrapped in the blanket. He smiled and said,

“Liked what I just saw for the first time in full light. Just wondered why you were out of your clothes in the winter.”

“I cleaned this house today and it was so dirty I had to wash my clothes as well as myself twice.”

“Oh.” Cyrus said looking around with only the light escaping from the stove to see. “Yes. It is a lot different in here.”

“Eight buckets of water plus two for me.” Mindy said sounding tired but continued, “Then I wondered how long it has been since you took a bath or bathed, Cyrus.”

“What?” Mindy smiled wickedly as Cyrus stammered. “Why, I…I wash up.”

“Oh sure you do.” Mindy said grinning. “It’s time for you to meet Miss Soap. I am sure you two are not married yet!”

“Oh well, maybe in the morning.” Cyrus responded meekly.

“Strip this instant or the marriage is off!” Mindy pointed the index finger of her right hand at him in the perfect imitation of the command of a dictator.

“But it is cold.”

“Now!” Mindy ordered.

“Well, okay.” Cyrus agreed meekly.

“Did you find the jeep?” Mindy asked as he stripped and laid his clothes over the back of the chair nearest him.

“Is it spelled ‘jeep’?” Cyrus asked.

“Yes, that’s it.” She said with joy. “Hmm…you really are a man to look at Cyrus.”

“Why thank you, Honey.” Cyrus said. “I think the Jeep is frozen to the ground. I tried to move it and all it would do is rock but it did not move and inch. I could not get inside of it either. What pulls it?”

“Sorry Cy, but you forgot the keys for the Jeep and I left it locked. The parking brake is on, so it will not move.”

“Whatever that is, how is it pulled?”

“There is an engine in it.”

“What is an engine? Like a locomotive for a train?”

“Something like that but it runs on gas.”

“We will have to wait for some more of the snow to melt because the west half of the Jeep is buried but I know we can use that around here.”

“Quit stalling Cyrus.”

“Undress?”

“Undress or you will be once I have all that dirt off you and out of your clothes.” Mindy said as she walked to the bed and dropped the blanket into place. At the doorway, "This house needs some rugs." While she was still in the bedroom Cyrus said,

“I can wash myself woman.” And as she entered the parlor nude and gave him a warning look he said, “Then again some help would be greatly appreciated. All the help I can get.”

"This will take some care," Mindy mused as she washed Cyrus.

"I don't have any animal rugs." Cyrus said dreamily as Mindy scrubbed him, "But there are several animal hides out in the barn that would work."

Mindy washed Cyrus, "Tomorrow." Gently at first but when the dirt would not come off much to his protestations, she used the brush. But he put up with the washing.

“Don’t you have another set of clothes, Cyrus?”

“Not really, this is it. I have a suit for important occasions but it is not worn very much.”

“That is strange, only one set?”

“All I ever needed, why spend good money on more.”

“They will dry by morning hopefully. Your clothes are very heavy.”

“I’m hungry, if not scrubbed raw my flesh it…”

“Itches from the removal of all that dirt. But I’ll take your mind off your itching if we put the chili on the stove to warm.”

“I’ll take that offer.” Cyrus said and picked up Mindy and carried her to the bed. It was a night of love and dinner and love and laughter, the last night of very dirty feet, and as chili causes what chili causes.

When catching breaths, Cyrus asked a lot of questions about the Jeep. Mindy could tell it fascinated him, just like he never saw anything like it before. She now knew he had not. He said he knew her Jeep said Illinois on the back.

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