Time Rebound

by Cathy Peper

  “Some people today like finding out about their ancestors. Tracking their family tree. They call this genealogy and there are memberships and websites devoted to this.”

  Bryce shrugged. “Doesn’t sound all that different to me. My father was obsessed with our family history. He was always droning on to me about our legacy and my responsibilities as a member of such an exalted lineage.”

  “Which is why he didn’t want you to marry me,” Ari said, diverted from her subject.

  “He had already selected someone for me, so he wouldn’t have been happy with any choice of mine, but you are correct. He didn’t think you were good enough for me.”

  “And what did you think?” she asked. Bryce smiled that smile that made her insides tingle. It wasn’t a kind smile, but more of a shark-like baring of teeth. What did it say about her that she loved this man in spite of his faults?

  “I chose you and I would never choose anyone I considered unworthy.”

  Typical Bryce-like answer. “Well, he wasn’t the first to find my bloodline wanting. Although we were related to many of the first families of St. Louis, some branches felt we had fallen too far from the main tree.”

  “You’re stalling, Ari. I don’t think you sent the little one away so we could compare the blue tint of our blood. From what you say, it seems that people still care about this sort of thing, but what does that have to do with us?”

  Had she been stalling? Ari didn’t think so, but it was hard to get the words out. “It took me a while after I arrived in this time period to learn these records were available, but once I did, I looked up Sebastien. Some might say it was foolish. No matter what he had done with his life, he was long dead now. But I couldn’t see it like that.”

  “I understand; you wanted him to have had a happy life.”

  “Exactly. I found traces of him, or at least of someone I believed could be him. Records are sketchy so it was impossible to say whether or not he was happy, but he continued with his trapping career and eventually married and had children.”

  Bryce looked uneasy. “So what’s the problem?”

  “Well, things grew more solid after Tori went back in time. You met her and my brother. You must have noticed they were falling in love. A few weeks after Tori disappeared, I found a copy of their marriage certificate. Later I found they too had children. Or I suppose I should say Sebastien had children with Tori instead of the other woman.”

  “So?”

  Ari clicked her nails on the table. “Things have changed again. I framed their marriage certificate and hid it in my drawer. Silly, I know.”

  Bryce reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. “Not at all.”

  “It’s gone. The frame, the photocopy, the record itself. I went back online to the site where I first discovered the information. It’s not there. I looked other places, but can’t find it anywhere.”

  “I can’t explain it, Ari, but perhaps they decided not to get married. Or the records got lost. You know how things were back then, especially on the frontier.”

  “There’s more. Sebastien no longer appears in the 1820 or 1830 census. Not as the husband of Tori or the other woman. He doesn’t show up at all.”

  Bryce frowned. “And Tori?”

  “I found someone that could be her in the 1820 census, married to a man other than Sebastien. But she’s gone by 1830.”

  Bryce placed his elbow on the table and braced his chin in his hand. “There were many dangers back in our time. More so than now, though clearly danger still exists.” He gestured towards the bandage under his shirt. “They may both have died young.”

  “You don’t understand. You did this. Somehow, when you came to the future, you changed the past.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not blaming you. I know you wouldn’t do anything on purpose to hurt them.” A fleeting expression crossed Bryce’s face and she faltered. He almost looked guilty. She tried again. “There have been books and movies about time travel. Movies are kind of like TV, but with a larger screen. Anyway, there is something they call the butterfly effect. The idea is that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world could theoretically change weather patterns resulting in a hurricane in another part of the world.”

  “Sounds unlikely.”

  “I agree, but changes, even small changes, can have major consequences. Tori gave you the necklace. Maybe she was supposed to use it to return to the future for medical treatment for herself or Sebastien.” She rubbed her head. The pills had eased her pain but hadn’t eliminated it. “Why did Tori give you the necklace?”

  Bryce rose from his chair and began to pace around the kitchen. “There is something I haven’t told you because I didn’t want you to worry. Sebastien was injured when I left.”

  Ari gasped. “What happened?”

  “He took a hunting party ashore and some old coot shot him. Seemed he’d gone a bit crazy living alone in the woods, trying to make it on a struggling farm.”

  “But it wasn’t a fatal wound?” Ari shook her head. “Still, if infection set in he could die.”

  “Victoria took care of him. The last time I saw him, he was on the mend.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Tori didn’t exactly give me the necklace. She hoped to use it to return to her own time but didn’t know how it worked. I also wanted to use it and we were arguing about how it might work when the second major earthquake struck. Electrical energy activated the stone. It began to glow and pulse. I jumped at the chance to come to the future, but Tori chose to remain with your brother.”

  Bryce continued his restless pacing and didn’t look her in the eye. She guessed there was more to the story. “So Sebastien was injured, but healing. And you can’t think of any reason why that would change with you coming to the future?”

  “No.” He looked baffled as he met her gaze. “It might have something to do with taking the necklace, but I don’t think so. Tori couldn’t operate it at will. It needs electricity to work.”

  “You and Sebastien both operated keelboats. You’ve spoken about how dangerous the river is. Perhaps you were supposed to save him from something.” She snapped her fingers. “The third quake. You must be the one to rescue him from the last quake.”

  “Unlikely, unless he is swept overboard and the crew of the Revenge pulls him out of the water. I suppose it is possible, but while keelboats travel downriver together for protection against river pirates, empty boats make unappealing targets and we usually return to St. Louis at our own speed.”

  “This is all useless speculation, but one thing seems clear to me. We have to return to the past.”

  “To save Sebastien? Even if we can activate the necklace, how will we find him?”

  “We know where he’s going. Travel upriver is slow. If we go by horseback, we should catch him easily. And once we know he’s safe, we can go dig up your treasure.”

  * * *

  Getting to his treasure appealed to Bryce, but dragging Ari back to the nineteenth century did not. It was too dangerous, both physically, and more important, emotionally. If Ari learned all that he had done to Sebastien and Tori, she would be angry. Angry enough to leave him. Possibly even angry enough to keep him from Hannah. Why this should matter when he didn’t even know of her existence a week ago, he wasn’t sure, but it did. Even if she was only a girl.

  “Very well, I will go back, dig up my treasure and check on your brother, although I still don’t see how my coming to this time could have any impact on his life in the past.”

  Ari frowned, her dark eyebrows forming a vee above her nose. “What do you mean, you’ll go back. We will all go back. I’m not going to risk losing you again.”

  “All? Even the child? Don’t be foolish. The past is rife with danger. Leave her with that woman who watched her before.”

  Ari shook her head. “Absolutely not. I’m not sure you understand how risky this is. I’ve been trapped here fo
r four years, Bryce. If we go back, there’s no guarantee we can return to this time.”

  “Trapped? I thought you liked it here?”

  Ari looked startled. “I do like it here. Of course, I do. I only meant that I had no choice. I tried going back in the early days, but the stone remained inoperative.”

  Bryce dropped the matter of who would make the trip although he still had no intention of allowing Ari to speak to her brother. Better to work out details now and fight about that later. “We’ve learned that the common element is electricity, which is now available at the flip of a switch. But how can we transfer that power into the stone?”

  Ari rubbed her forehead. It seemed her headache had not gone away. “I’m not an electrician. I don’t know how it works, but I do know it travels through wires. I think we could somehow wire the stone, but we will either have to ask someone who knows more about this kind of thing or do more research.”

  “The fewer people who know about the stone, the better.”

  Ari laughed. “Well, I didn’t intend to go into Radio Shack and ask them how to power my time travel device. They would think I was crazy.”

  Bryce smiled. “You do have a way with words. But we’ll do the research ourselves and only ask for help if absolutely necessary.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time. And once we return to the past, we’ll have a lot of ground to cover.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. You suggested bringing horses back with us, but maybe we could bring something back even better. Like a car.”

  “Cars would never be able to travel on the mud and wooden roads of our time. However…” she tapped a finger against her lips. “Let me get my laptop. There is this thing called an ATV.”

  Bryce found himself enthralled from the moment she brought up the website. Although he’d initially been intimidated by the speed of car travel, he’d grown used to it and marveled at the convenience. These rugged little beauties appearing on the screen could go just about anywhere. “This is a great idea, Ari.”

  “It may not work. We don’t know if we can bring something so big with us. We are not even sure we can transport more than one person.”

  Bryce still planned on going alone, but he recalled the day he had made the jump. The air had grown thick and heavy and he had felt the pull of something. He was fairly certain that if Victoria hadn’t broken free of his grasp, they would both have been taken through the doorway. “It’s strong enough to carry more than one person. Whether it can carry an ATV, well, I guess we will find out.”

  They gathered up Hannah and drove to the library. Bryce worked on the laptop while Ari used a library computer and Hannah browsed through the children’s books. They also visited the stacks. When Hannah grew bored, Ari sat with her and they worked on a puzzle, while Bryce continued searching. By the time they broke for lunch, he had an idea how to accomplish the transfer.

  They stopped by the electronics store on the way home and purchased wire and conductive silicon. Ari made sandwiches and heated up soup from the freezer while Bryce stripped the wires of their protective coating.

  “After we eat, we need to buy a generator and rent an ATV.”

  “I’ll have to get Hannah some clothes, too. I have mine from my job and you have the ones you arrived in.”

  “Can you buy something from the shops in town? We don’t have time for you to sew anything.”

  “The gift shop where I work should have something.” She placed bowls and plates on the table. “I can’t believe we are actually going to do this. May I see the necklace?”

  Bryce handed it to her reluctantly. He remembered how Victoria had dangled it in front of him but had not allowed him to take it. No wonder she had been cautious. Ari caressed the stone before lifting the chain over her neck.

  “I’ve missed this. I wore it every day from the time my mother gave it to me until I loaned it to Tori.”

  “I should hold on to it. We wouldn’t want anyone to steal it.”

  “I took care of it for years. I think I can keep it safe another day.”

  Bryce itched to have it back in his possession. “I need to drill holes in the stone to insert the wires.”

  Ari’s hand closed around the rock. “No. We can’t risk that. It might damage the stone.”

  “How else are we going to get the electricity into it?”

  “It’s worked without holes.”

  “Yes, but we were dealing with lightning, a very high voltage power source. We only have a generator now.”

  “Then I think we should do more research.”

  “We haven’t much time.”

  “We’re not leaving until tomorrow. That gives us several more hours. Since I’m the one who knows how to drive, I will get the generator and arrange for the ATV. You need to find another way to transfer the power. We could use high voltage power lines, but that would be dangerous and we’d have to rely on lightning to get home.”

  “What are high voltage power lines?”

  “Come here.” Ari led him to the window in the front of her house. “See those poles? They carry telephone lines, but also electrical lines. The power in those lines is much greater than in individual houses.”

  “I thought your ‘smart’ phone didn’t need any wires?”

  “It doesn’t. Smart phones use cell towers and somehow it is all done without wires. But some people still use a regular phone line, often called a landline nowadays. They are connected by wires.”

  “If we understood how cell phones operate without wires, we might know how to get the stone to work without drilling any holes.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t think a few hours on the Internet will be enough for you to understand cell technology.”

  Bryce bristled, although he suspected she was right. He’d gone to the best schools and was well educated, but knew nothing about the strange and wonderful technology that had not even existed two hundred years ago. “Well, I had better get started, then,” he said, striding away.

  Ari followed him into the family room. He flopped on the couch and opened up the laptop.

  “Come on, Hannah. Time to go shopping with Mom.”

  Hannah looked up from where she was playing with a handful of dolls. They didn’t look anything like the dolls he had seen in the nineteenth century, although, having no siblings, he’d not seen many. They looked like miniature adults rather than the stuffed baby dolls with porcelain heads he’d seen in various shops. “I’d rather stay here with Daddy,” she said.

  “Well…” Ari looked over at him uncertainly. “Daddy’s busy.”

  “She can stay,” Bryce said, ridiculously pleased that Hannah had picked him over her mother, though to be fair, she probably just wanted to keep playing with those odd dolls.

  “Very well. Be good.” Ari grabbed her coat, purse, and keys.

  “Why don’t you leave the necklace here? It might help me with my research.”

  Ari’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve had plenty of time to study it. When my mother gave it to me, she told me to always keep it close. Perhaps I should never have given it to Tori, although I don’t regret doing so. But now that I have it back, it’s not leaving my neck.”

  Bryce gritted his teeth and let her go. Why did he get the feeling she didn’t entirely trust him? Probably because she’d always been a smart woman.

  Chapter 11

  New Orleans, January 1812

  Gordon and Olivia arrived in New Orleans shortly after the New Year. Olivia seemed happy to get off the ship and see the sights, so Gordon arranged for someone to take her around, show her the church and the finest shops. He made his way to the docks where he hoped to either find his son or information about him.

  The docks were crowded with boats of every description. There were large ocean-going vessels, like the one he had taken from Virginia, from countries all over the world. Jumbled among them were rudely constructed flatboats meant to get a cargo downriver and nothing more. They would be sold for scrap once emp
ty, their crew returning home on foot, or horseback if they could afford it. And there were the keelboats, small, but functional, designed to carry goods downriver and then to return, slowly and painfully, to their place of origin. He paid more attention to these, searching for the Revenge and finally resorting to questioning the captains and merchants he saw. Somewhat to his surprise, most of them seemed to have heard of the boat, and her captain, who had a reputation for being tough but fair in his dealings.

  “You just missed him,” one of the merchants said. “Rivers left a few days ago after selling me a large portion of his inventory.”

  “Headed where?” Gordon asked.

  “Back to St. Louis, I expect. Course, with the earthquakes, who knows? I’ve been buying all I can afford and am certain to make a tidy profit. Prices have been rising since many cargoes never made it down here and no one knows when travel on the river will be safe again.”

  Gordon scowled. Everywhere he went people discussed the earthquakes. He didn’t see how the tremors could disrupt trade. “Come now, while I admit the shaking is a bit unnerving, I’ve seen no damage in the town.”

  “The center of the disturbance is hundreds of miles upstream.”

  Hundreds of miles? Surely the man was in error. It would take a powerful earthquake to reverberate that far. “What is the quickest way to reach St. Louis?”

  “You missed the steamboat, too. First one to ply the waters of the Mississippi. Don’t think they were taking on passengers, but it would have your fastest route.” He shook his head. “If steamboats become common on the river, New Orleans’ value as a port will only grow. Along with my coffers.” The man beamed, then sobered as he remembered who he was speaking to. “Of course, it would put keelboats out of business. You might consider investing in a steamboat, my good man.”

  Always open to new monetary ventures, Gordon tucked away the advice, before bringing his source back on topic. “Since I missed the steamboat, what is my best option?”

  “Keelboat, unless you want to ride overland. There’s a road of sorts on the eastern bank. Might be quicker, but it’s more dangerous unless you can afford to hire guards. Outlaws prey upon travelers, both on and off the river, but at least you have the protection of numbers on the boat.” He looked Gordon up and down, taking note of his expensive clothes. “Neither option provides much comfort.”