Trail of Bones

by Mark London Williams

  That weird word again. What is this incognitum that Jefferson is so worked up about?

  “You and your incognitums, sir.” Clark shakes his head. “I appreciate your accompanying us all the way through Missouri in order to look for large and mysterious bones, but let’s not terrify the men any more than we have to.” Clark pats the bone laying near me on the wagon.

  “Dinosaur bone “ I tell them, getting a couple more words out of my mouth.

  “What?”

  “From a dinosaur. But not the one who does homework. Luckily.”

  Clark looks at Jefferson and shrugs. “I don’t know what he’s saying. Maybe he is from another country.”

  “Dinosaur.” Jefferson repeats the word. “It’s some kind of Latin I’ve never heard before.”

  “Hat.”

  “What?”

  “Hat,” I repeat.

  I want my Seals cap. Still feeling shaky I start to reach for it again, thinking I’ll climb down from the wagon.

  But before I can, I’m jerked back in as the horse the wagon’s hitched to starts to move.

  “Let Sally tend him!” Jefferson says to the driver of the wagon. “Later, when he’s regained his strength, we shall find out how our young squire came to be by the banks of the Ohio River this sunny day in May!”

  I’m shivering and still feeling sick, and this time I take the blanket completely off the dinosaur bone and wrap it around myself.

  The wagon pulls me along, farther and farther away from the baseball cap that’s my only real ticket home.

  Chapter Two

  Thea: Runaway

  May 1804

  I’m still not sure where I am, but wherever it is, they keep telling me I am a slave. That, at least, is the translation courtesy of the lingo-spot behind my ear. And slave, unfortunately, is one of those words with few alternate meanings.

  There was a blackout period after the lizard man K’lion’s ship seemed to come alive and spin out of control on our way back from seeing the wizard Merlin, and his king, Arthur, and saving the king’s cursed-and-weighty blade, Excalibur. The three of us were then separated as we were flung through the Fifth Dimension

  But Eli is here now. I have seen him.

  They brought him into camp a short while ago. He appears to be sick.

  I wonder if they told him that he’s a slave, too?

  I haven’t been able to get near him, to ask him any questions. But at least we’ve been pulled toward the same place, the same moment in time.

  But which moment? And is our lizard friend nearby?

  After the blackout, I awoke in a fairly dense stand of trees, clothing torn, my skin scratched. Working my way through the trees, toward the sound of water, I soon came to a road, or broad path, that appeared to follow the course of a great river.

  I drank from the river, cleaned myself as best I could, and eventually heard a group of travelers approaching.

  I spied them from the safety of the trees. Since it was a mixed company, both men and women, I decided to show myself.

  “Help! Please.”

  I said it in Latin first. If this was indeed the same Earth that Eli and I know, the Roman language is the most common tongue. At least, it was when I lived there.

  “Halt.”

  The speaker was a tall man, with red hair, and somewhat stern, though lively, features. He was riding on a horse. His name, I quickly learned, was Jefferson.

  With his raised hand, the horses and pair of wagons behind him pulled to a stop.

  Another man, Howard, rode up on another steed, and eyed me intensely. “Sir,” he said. “I believe that’s her.”

  “Who?”

  “The escaped slave from New Orleans. The one whose likeness is featured in all the handbills. Brassy.”

  Without waiting for a reply, Howard jumped off his horse and grabbed me. “You’re coming with us, girl. We’ll get you back to your rightful master!”

  “Mr. Howard—“

  “I have no master!” I used Latin again. The tall redhead looked at me curiously.

  The one called Howard was squeezing my wrists. I was getting ready to kick him

  “Mr. Howard—“

  “What? Ow!” I delivered the blow, but still he held me.

  “She speaks Latin.”

  “It makes no difference, sir. —Stop that! — Whether she’s an over-educated house-slave — Ow! Be still! — or a field hand, we must return her. She belongs to the governor of your new territory, sir! You’re the president of the United States! You cannot be perceived as helping runaway slaves! — Ow!”

  Jefferson looked away. He appeared to be embarrassed.

  “She’s just a Negro, sir. A darky. She’s no business of the president’s.”

  “No. She is some business of the president’s, Mr. Howard. But what sort? That is what we grapple with.”

  A woman who appeared to be Nubian, or an Ethiop, from the very heart of Africa, sat on top of the largest wagon — a kind of chariot with inner seating and doors — holding the reins of the horses. She stared down at the men. Her eyes were ablaze, but she said nothing.

  Jefferson’s eyes stayed averted, but he spoke. “And when did you switch from worrying about my security to worrying about politics?”

  “Sir — stop that, young wench, or I’ll lash you myself! — one should not try to separate security and politics.”

  Jefferson sighed, finally turning back to face us. He seemed wearier.

  “No shackles, at least, Mr. Howard. Not for a young girl like that. We’ll bring her with us.”

  Thus was I mistaken for someone’s slave. Even after pointing out that I approached them. I spoke in Latin, and Jefferson translated for his assistant, Howard.

  “A ruse,” Howard called it. Jefferson was again silent. And so they believe — or wish — me to be an escapee named Brassy.

  There were slaves in Alexandria, though mother and I certainly never kept any at the library. But many of the wealthier families had them. Mother argued against the idea of slavery, in a lecture, once. Another reason a lot of people hated her.

  In Alexandria, slavery was a function of economics — or a failure of it. People would often sell themselves as slaves if they had no other means of support.

  But usually it’s about more than just money. Like at Peenemünde, the rocket factory of the Third Reich, where K’lion and I were taken prisoner during our search for Eli.

  Where we met the escapees, who risked death on their own terms rather than die making implements of war. Where I gave the woman Hannah the sklaan— the warmth-giving cloth— from Clyne’s planet

  There, the slavery was about power. Who had it all, and who didn’t have any.

  Was I going to be taken to another rocket factory?

  “Come on, little cocoa bean.”

  “I am not a ‘little cocoa bean!’”

  The man Howard was hauling me over to the horse-drawn wagon where the African woman sat. “Please be careful, Mr. Howard,” Jefferson said. “Her Latin, after all, is better than yours.”

  Mr. Howard didn’t think that was funny.

  “I’ve got her now, Howard,” the Nubian said. Was she some kind of visiting dignitary, to address the man so casually? “You go on back to making the world safe for the president.”

  She took my hand and pulled me up next to her.

  “Afternoon, young lady. My name’s Sally Hemings. What’s yours?”

  I want to see Eli. They took him off a wagon, but he didn’t seem fully awake. I don’t where— or how— they found him, but he didn’t appear well. Sally was summoned to help tend him. I want to follow, but some of the Centurions, the soldiers, are blocking my way to his tent.

  So I remain in Sally’s tent, where I have been left unguarded. I trust that the enhanced lingo-spot, the plasmechanical translation device I was given during my stay on K’lion’s home world, will continue to record my experiences as a sort of living journal.

  Yet I miss writing on my own
scrolls. So much has changed and so quickly.

  Including, apparently, the lingo-spots themselves. They are suddenly more active, more electric, as if they — like Clyne’s ship — were taking on a life of their own.

  At least, when I hear echoes coming from the lingo-spots that seem in no way connected to the conversation I am having, that is what I fear.

  I hope I get to see Eli soon.

  “Are you from Ethiopia?”

  “What, young miss?”

  “Are you an Ethiopian queen? On a royal visit?” I’d heard the one named Jefferson referred to as “president,” a Roman-sounding title, which I assumed meant he presided over a law-making body, perhaps even a senate. It stood to reason, then, that this striking African woman, piloting her own wooden carriage, might also be a leader.

  “Are you some kind of ruler? I want to understand what world I’m in.”

  “My Latin doesn’t move that quickly,” she said, straining to hear me. “Do you know French?”

  French? It wasn’t an Earth-tongue I’d encountered, if this was indeed the same Earth. But she repeated the question in what I assume was that tongue, and parts of it were Latin-like.

  “A queen?” I said again, still in Latin, more slowly, pointing to her.

  There was a silence.

  It was filled, not with sound, but Mr. Howard’s sharp looks. He didn’t like the idea of my talking with Sally. Queen Sally.

  When he turned away, I knew I was going to have to do something that allowed us to whisper, even with all the noise.

  Show me.

  Who said that?

  I looked around. Only Sally and I were there.

  But my lingo-spot was really tingling.

  Show me.

  This time I spun round so fast at the unseen voice that Sally jumped, jerking on the reins, causing the horses to rear up.

  Show who? What?

  Sally struggled to regain control of the horses.

  “What are you trying to do, child?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. Again using Latin. I was praying to find someone else connected to that voice. I didn’t want to think that the lingo-spot could be acting… on its own.

  Explaining any of this to Sally — or even myself — would have to wait.

  “Thea,” I said, tapping myself on the chest.

  “Thea…” Sally repeated. “That’s your name?”

  I nodded.

  “But you’re… you’re a runaway slave. Aren’t you?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Alexandria…” I tell her, sounding out the name of my home, hoping she will understand.

  Her eyes widen in recognition. “That’s close to where I live.”

  Then she was from Africa! A princess or a queen! I hoped I could make her understand.

  She smiled in a sad way. “Yes, but we live in a different part of Virginia. In Monticello. I’m one of Mr. Jefferson’s slaves. Though I expect he would prefer the word servant. Except there’s not a whole lot of choice to it. On my part.”

  I had never heard of Virginia before. Sally also told me that Jefferson was the leader of his people, the Americans, who were also Eli’s people, so perhaps we were close to his home and not near mine after all.

  But why was there another Alexandria in this province of Virginia? What happened to the first one, my Alexandria, since the fire?

  Sally didn’t know about any fires, “except a small one in the kitchen last year.” But she did tell me that Jefferson the president was currently far from Alexandria, or any place in Virginia, since he was traveling in secret with a team of adventurers led by two captains named Lewis and Clark.

  The captains and their men were off on a “great exploration,” financed by Jefferson in order to find “secret routes to the ocean, and maybe look for giants.”

  Sally didn’t think there really were giants, but Jefferson had developed a fascination with unearthing skeletal remains. He’d become obsessed with trying to understand the past, and therefore the future, by examining mysterious bones, both ancient and enormous, belonging to mysterious creatures. Creatures that seemed as unknowable as the gods — half animal, half human — that were worshipped back in Egypt.

  Such bones were found here, where Jefferson’s camp is made, near the great rivers Sally calls the Ohio and the Missouri. Jefferson’s plan was to accompany Lewis and Clark to the Missouri in order to “say goodbye, and find more femurs” in Sally’s words. “Mr. Jefferson says he’s eager to learn the truth about America.

  “Here’s one truth.” She looks over at me as she continues to guide the horses. We still have to raise our voices to hear each other, but Sally’s not worried about Mr. Howard. “ I have been Mr. Jefferson’s friend for many years, and I know that he cares for me, too. But I am not able to leave his house as a free woman. As a plain American citizen. As a true friend. And now, you won’t, either. I wonder what Mr. Lewis and Mr. Clark can find that will change the truth about that?”

  “You there! Girl!”

  I’m snapped out of my reverie. It’s Mr. Howard, at the entrance to the tent.

  “Sally wants you. She needs help.”

  Help. Help for Eli? I look around to see if there’s anything I should gather up.

  “No time for dawdling. The boy is getting worse.”

  I follow Mr. Howard outside.

  I’m worried and scared, like I was for my mother. But when I think of Eli, there’s another feeling, too. In my stomach.

  One I’ve never had before.

  One that makes me realize I really don’t want to lose him.

  Chapter Three

  Eli: Incognitum

  May 1804

  I think I just talked with Thomas Jefferson. And I think Thea has been in to see me, too. But I was feverish when both things were happening, so I can’t be sure.

  And feverish or not, I don’t know which is more surprising.

  “What is happening in America that two young people show up out of nowhere, claiming to be lost, on such an otherwise pleasant afternoon?”

  I’m pretty sure I heard Jefferson say that. He kind of likes to talk with extra words in his sentences.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you.” That was Thea. She was dabbing cold rags on my head at the time.

  As far as I could tell.

  But even if it wasn’t a dream, she’s gone now, and there are guards outside the tent to keep me from leaving. I don’t think I’m under arrest. I just don’t think they know what to do with me yet.

  And if I told them the truth — that I’m from the future, that I’ve been tangled up in time after an accident in my parents’ lab, that I was whisked back to ancient Alexandria where I met Thea, and that I bumped into Clyne, a talking dinosaur, while crossing the Fifth Dimension, time-traveled again to 1941, to World War II, to look for my mother, and then back to King Arthur’s England to keep his sword Excalibur out of the hands of Nazis — if I told them all that, well, I don’t know where they lock people up who they think are crazy or dangerous, but I bet they’d think there was something a little more wrong with me than just “fever.”

  I’m still not sure how we got here: Last thing I remember clearly is crossing the Fifth Dimension again after saving Excalibur— all of us, Thea, Clyne, and me— in the Saurian time-ship from Clyne’s planet. But our German prisoner, Rolf Royd, the Dragon Jerk kid, managed to escape when the ship itself started to… come alive somehow. And in all the confusion, in the swirls of color and time and possibility that move around you when you time-travel, we were tossed directly through the Fifth Dimension, like three Alices —four, if I have to include Rolf — going down separate rabbit holes. And then we landed.

  Here. Where they don’t study American history in books, because they are American history, and where I don’t think Alice and the rabbit have even been written about yet. And you can forget about the movie and game versions.

  They don’t even have baseball.

  They don’t even have
Barnstormers! No Comnet games at all!

  No wonder they had so much time to be historical and do famous stuff.

  But wherever this is, whatever’s going on, I have to find Thea again, and then figure out if Clyne is anywhere close by. Or any when close by, for that matter.

  But it won’t be easy. If Thomas Jefferson is president, that means I’ve landed way way back, even before Eisenhower and maybe both of the Roosevelts. Prehistory. When all the guys on stamps and money are still walking around, breathing air.

  So far back, they don’t even have gasoline-powered cars. And maybe not trains. I’ll have to check.

  But hey, that means there isn’t any DARPA yet either— no Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. No Mr. Howe overseeing Dad’s experiments, no military goons to keep watch over me, with their corny “Danger Boy” codename, and all their time-travel plans.

  Which means the guys here shouldn’t be too hard to duck: They won’t have Night Vision goggles, or laser-guided stun guns, so I can start looking for Thea as soon as I crawl out the back of the tent.

  Wait. Bayonets. They do have bayonets. They have funny clothes and long coats, and bayonets on the end of their rifles. And a couple of them just walked in. With the president.

  “Taking leave of us, young squire?”

  Jefferson spoke those words to my butt. My head was already poking out the back of the tent. Now I’m turned around, my arms are in the air, and those bayonets are looking pretty sharp.

  Jefferson waves the soldiers away.

  “I suspect I am not in too much jeopardy,” the president tells them. “You may return to your posts outside. I will send out an alarum if the squire attempts another escape.”

  “What if he has another suspect hat, sir?”

  Jefferson nods. “I intend to ask him about that. Now please leave us alone.”

  Jefferson looks for a place to sit, and pulls over a short barrel. He squints at some writing on the side. “Hmm. One of Captains Lewis and Clark’s barrels of whiskey found its way into our supplies. I should return it. I suspect they will need all the spirits and Godspeed they can muster.”