A Nugget of Time
Author: Mary Vine
 
A time travel novella. A Boise newspaper sent Dixie Lea to interview the owner of the largest gold nugget found in a century. While waiting for him in a mining territory of Northeast Oregon, she walks into a man-made cave. Feeling dizzy, she puts a hand to the wall of the tunnel and wakes up alone on a hill with no transportation out of the woods. Her journey to find help leads her to a man leading a horse. He says he doesn’t know what a car or cell phone is and she believes he’s only being loyal to the eerie town that’s given a strict oath to live in times past. Retired Lieutenant Colonel James Brogan is at a complete loss of what to do with this woman alone in the woods with no knowledge of how to survive in a rough gold mining town. She dresses like no other, speaks of things he’s never heard and seems to think she can get along without a man. Still, his sense of right and wrong gives him no choice but to keep her safe until he finds a place for her to thrive in 1870. Unbeknownst to James and Dixie, someone is watching, waiting and planning for them not to succeed, but come to a disastrous end.