Chapter 1: The two sisters meet their 'mother'

It was a perfect day to be out on the trail. Katie and Sally were quite at home hiking up the trail following the old logging path. They had been doing research into logging in the great Northwest and were looking for some artifacts that might help them to create a story and a new tourist attraction for Washington State. They hiked to the waterfall and looked from one end to the other.

"Katie, didn't the newspaper article say there had been a logging camp around here somewhere?" Sally said as she took her water bottle out of the backpack and opened it up. Katie was looking at the map and found one camp site that had not been used or destroyed that was supposed to be about a half mile from the waterfall.

"I think if we go in that direction…" she checked her compass and then said:

"Towards that stand of trees, I think we might find something." She started to walk away. Sara was taking more pictures when she noticed that Katie had moved on. She left what she was doing and caught up to her. They came to a place that was cleared and looked as if no one had been up there for some time. There was something sticking out from behind a tree and Katie went over to see what it was. She touched what she thought was a tree root and suddenly fell down. Sally came up behind her to see if she could help and she too fell down. They sat up and wondered what had happened and why they were on the ground. The tree root they had touched was no longer in sight. As they stood up, they heard some noises, and saw some smoke. They stayed behind the tree for a few minutes.

"Whatcha doin' here?" said a male voice behind the girls. They jumped and turned around. The man looked at them and realized they were not two guys fooling around at camp. He took his rifle and pointed it at them.

"You two come with me! We is goin' to see the camp foreman!" He pointed the way to them and followed. As they were walking past the trees, they could see some men sawing at a particularly large tree, They saw some men moving logs along a pathway. The canvas tents that surrounded the area were small, mostly sleeping places for the men who worked up on that mountain.

"Hey boss! Look what I found sneaking around?" He shoved them with the rifle into the camp headquarters tent. A man with a beard stood up and looked at them. He recognized them as ladies and treated them accordingly. He took his hat off and greeted them as was the custom he was used to. Sally smiled a bit, but Katie elbowed her sister, and they stood very still.

"My name is Robert Benson, I am the Camp foreman, may I inquire as to your names?" Sally did not know what to say, but Katie, who had read many books on the customs and culture of the late 1800's in North America was able to answer.

"My name is Katie Furlong, and this is my sister Sally!" Katie answered. The foreman looked at them and was about to aske them some more questions when a couple of the men who had followed them in started to ask all sorts of questions.
" Are you lost? Are you spying on us? Who are you working for? Why you wearing men's clothing?" The foreman looked at them and said:

"Jack, Bill, don't you have something you need to do? I will ask the questions and I will let everyone know later what the answers are!" He said with authority after that the men left. He was now alone with the women, he called his other man Paul, to get the 'Old Mary' and come back quickly. He offered the girls a seat and then not having anything other than whiskey he did offer them that, but Katie refused for both of them. Sally looked at her sister with a question and Katie gave the look back and Sally kept quiet.

"Well, that is good that you don't drink! That tells me what kind of ladies ye are! Now, when Old Mary and Paul get back, I will ask some more questions. I can ask if you are lost?"

"Well, sort of!" Katie said but said no more. She was not sure what could be or would be believed and she for sure did not want any controversy as to their 'appearance.' Robert Benson, looked at them, he too was unsure of who they were, where they came from, they certainly did not come from around this neck of the woods. He had seen Indians, squatters, homesteaders, and the like even orphans who had been living in the forests, but he had not seen two young women alone out in the woods wearing britches!

He made a sound as he continued looking at them. There was a knock on the pole and Old Mary and Paul came back in. She was a woman, a little older than Katie but she smoked a pipe and looked as if she were about 80. She looked at them and stared for a moment. Then she said;

"Me thinks I will talk to these young ladies before any of you! So, git out of here!" She said. The men looked at Old Mary and left. If she said to 'git' then they would 'git'!

"I can tell, if you are standin' outside listenin' so youse had better be workin' not hangin' around here!" She hollered and then waited a spell. While she waited she looked Katie and Sally up and down, they looked at her as well.

"So, I suppose you gonna tell me you fell over a root?" she stared first at Katie then at Sally, she was waiting for protestations, or some form of reaction. Katie had already told Sally not to say or do anything, that she would speak for them. So, they sat there and stared at the old lady as well. Neither spoke. She looked at them a while longer and then said:
"We have had others here. I know, I saw, and I am also one of them. I have been her 'nigh' on to 50 years. But, I don't think time on the other side is the same. When I arrived, they had just started this camp. There is another one over by Mt Tahoma, closer to Seattle. So, when I arrived, the year was 1995, what year is it now?" Old Mary looked at them, waiting for them to say something. Katie wondered and thought about this lady.

"She didn't seem to be any more than a couple of years older than herself" She thought,

"I am not sure who you are yet, but I have decided to trust you with this confidence! Yes, we touched a root, and it seemed as if we tripped and fell, when we sat up, we were here!" Katie said to Old Mary.

"I thought so, there are a few who have passed in this area I am the last one so far, the others who came before me, had come as early as the 1970's!" said Old Mary. Sally gasped and asked before Katie could stop her:

"Does that mean we are going to have to stay forever?" Sally said. Old Mary looked at her and then at Katie:

"What it means is that one will stay, one will leave. I have come to the end since you are here. I will guide both of you. But I do not know who will stay or who could be sent back. I only know that when I arrived, the lady before me was known as Michelle. She came here from her time which was 1980. She was, when I met her a daughter of a trapper, that was her story. Her origin was a student at the UW studying historic sights. My origin, was just out for a nice day hike with my boyfriend, I fell over the root, and he went to help me, but he didn't find me. I don't really know what happened to him. Do you know? If you have been studying this area, you should know, right?" Old Mary asked Katie and Sally.

"Mary, I think I know, but I cant say it, the words won't come out. I know that there was a big fuss made about your disappearance, and that it is a legend, but I cannot say what happened to your boyfriend.!" Katie said. She remembered the news about it. They had not found the body. It was one of those 'cold case' things you read about in the papers, and they show on the tv. The boyfriend now had a family and did not talk about that time or Mary at all. Why she could not tell her, was a mystery when it was at the tip of her lips, but she was forbidden. She could not tell her anything about what happened to her boyfriend.

Mary looked at Katie and understood. She had not been able to tell Michelle that her family had long gone and left the area and no longer remembered who she was or had been.

"Okay, ladies, we need a backstory as to why you are here and dressed like that. Sally, that camera has to be buried and lost. No pictures from that camera must ever show up anywhere in time or space! Do you understand!" Sally looked at Mary and really did not want to get rid of her camera, she really liked using it. But they were in a time when they did not have digital camera's let alone film, yet. She shook her head yes she understood.

"Next your names are perfect for this time period. You can be my long-lost children who were searching for you. I know Katie, I am or was 20 when I showed here, but I am now in my 70's? I am not very good with math. I created a back story with Michelle's help, I was an herbal medicine woman, I have some knowledge, so they accepted that and took me into camp. They cared for me and treated me like a sister. That is how you will be treated, they will not do anything to you, because you are my daughters, and were searching for me, you put on men's clothes to stay safe and chaste! Do you understand?" Sally just nodded, she was thinking of how to keep her camera and document this so that if they could get back someday, she would be able to use the pictures to tell a story.

"If I understand you correctly, Mary, you are our mother, we have been searching for you. Why are we searching for you?" Katie asked

"Ah, yes, you aunt and uncle were not kind to either of you, so you left home to find me. They made you do all the work; you took care of the farm and the house. You fed the animals and took care of them. They got too old, you finally left after they had died!" Mary looked at them and both understood and that was enough for now.

"Okay, let's get you some, 'proper' clothes. Are you religious by any chance? We have a presbyterian minister that comes around occasionally. Katie said she was sort of leaning to the Lutheran, but Presbyterian would be fine, Sally said it didn't matter to her, but she would do what her sister did. Mary then pointed to the opening of the tent, and they went out. Robert Benson walked up to her and said:
"Well, Old Mary, who are these ladies?"

"They are my long-lost children! I had to leave them behind when I left home. My sister and her husband have taken care of them all these years. I just found out that they are gone now, and the girls came looking for me. They dressed as boys to keep themselves safe.