by Lon Frank
* * *
As her scream echoed uselessly among the listing markers in the little graveyard, Ellie leapt to her feet and threw herself at the re-solidified wall of the crypt. The roughness of the seashell concrete tore at her palms as she slid down to collapse at its base.
The afternoon shadows were drifting across her tear-streaked face when the boy showed up. He walked up out of the woods in the direction away from the road and stood silently looking at the strangely attired young woman. Ellie was startled and slightly panicked when she looked up and saw him standing over her, the memory of the three corpses vivid in her mind.
The boy appeared to be about 14 years old and wore the remnants of a homespun gray uniform and tattered kepi hat. He held out a canteen towards her.
“I caught your horse out there by the water and got ‘er tied up in the woods. You help me right that little wagon and we can leave this here place.”
Ellie looked around the corner again at the photographer’s overturned cart and nodded. They used a fence timber to lever it upright, and as the youth went to fetch the horse, Ellie brought out ragged curtains to cover the old couple and the unfortunate traveler. She then read the sign, looked at the equipment stored securely in the covered bed area of the lightweight conveyance, and began to realize her own future.
When the boy returned with the horse and they silently buried the bodies in shallow holes scraped in the black gumbo of the graveyard, she lifted the little chest from the crypt into the wagon and decided upon a course of action.
“Now, boy, I thank you for catching my horse. My name is E. E. Hawkins. Miss Ellie Eden Hawkins, ‘Master of Modern Photographic Method’. And what would your name be?”
The boy took off his hat, extended a slightly grimy hand, and spoke with the firm optimism and confidence of youth, tempered by grim trial.
“Francis, ma’am. Francis E. Greatwood. My folks are all dead, and the farm burned. I... I’m headed for Texas to seek my fortune.”
Ellie let him assist her into the buckboard, then patted the empty seat next to her and said gently,
“Well, Francis E. Greatwood, I’m bound for San Antonio myself, so I guess you should ride along and protect me, since you are a Southern gentleman and I am a lady in distress.”
The oak stood in its place since the bayou was salty with youth and the soil was a new gift of the great river, fresh from the fields that men would later call Missouri. It counted the risings of the moon and idly numbered the seasons of flowers and of geese. It noted with interest the heavy armor and strange horses of the Spanish as they passed, looking for cities of gold. It smiled at the respect paid it by the red men and mourned the unthinking industry of the whites. It had sung old, old songs over their graves, and harbored wayward spirits within its branches on moonless nights. Now, it roused briefly from slumber to eavesdrop on the two people passing beneath in the little creaking wagon.
Ellie suddenly smiled to herself, as if remembering a forgotten punch line of a favorite joke. She turned to her young companion and asked a question, to which she already knew the answer.
“Tell me, Mr. Francis E. Greatwood, just what does the E. stand for?”
“Why that would be ‘Elmo’, ma’am. It’s kind of a family name.”
* * *
The machine was designed so that touching the red square would ‘emergency launch’ it into the time warp continuum, only without pre-staging the control pads for a desired point in time. In such a situation, the fail-safe program of date selection was initiated and the machine returned to its most previous destination.
Arthur Lemaire was pacing the dark interior of the false crypt. He had been so close this time. He had once again seen the machine and once again lost it to his old nemesis at the last moment. Even with all the resources at his disposal, somehow the bumbling old fool had beaten him to the portal vehicle and left him behind in this pitiful and primitive society.
Impossible as it may seem, the bumbling misfit Redford had surprised and disarmed his adroit assistant, Mason. As they came into sight, Lemaire simply pushed the three others towards them and again pressed the medallion into its niche, stepping through the crypt wall.
But now, where to go? How to start again? Arthur knew there would be questions being asked outside, questions he would never be able to answer. There would be investigations and allegations; possibly even convictions and confinement. Machine or no machine, he knew it was time to once again disappear.
Suddenly the room began to brighten with a bluish light, and little colored specks started to float about in the center. Arthur backed against the wall as the machine materialized with a slight sizzle and the peculiar smell of hot electrical circuits.
Lucky was dreaming of the dancing elephant again. This time it was leading a circus parade with acrobats and jugglers performing alongside great, painted wagons filled with ferocious beasts. A lithe and beautiful Godiva rode bareback amidst a cloud of golden curls and a steam calliope roared its festive march. As the dream procession passed, Lucky began to follow the final wagon. It was painted black and was pulled by two prancing black horses, glistening with sweat beneath blankets of honeysuckle and wild rose blossoms. On either side of the dark hearse were long windows, and as Lucky looked, he was drawn in to peer down into an empty coffin lined with meadow flowers. Suddenly the wagon jolted to a stop and he began to fall headfirst into the bright depths of the casket.
“So, you are finally awake, old friend.”
Lucky lay sprawled on the stone floor of the crypt, where Arthur dropped him after dragging his unconscious bulk from inside the machine. He put one hand to shield his eyes from the light and looked up into the other man’s face.
“Who…who are you?”
“Come come, now, Odelon, or LeFeet, or Lucky, or whatever you’re calling yourself these days, don’t you recognize your old partner?”
He squatted down and put his face close to the older man’s and deftly removed an expensive hairpiece and peeled off false eyebrows. A flood of confused memory washed into Lucky’s brain and he whispered, as if only he needed to hear, “Tsarthor.”
“Yes, Tsarthor! And I will at last have my justice and my machine!”
“YOUR MACHINE!? Why you pig-kissin’, low-down…”
Tsarthor stuck the barrel of his automatic pistol under the chin of his outraged captive.
“Yes, Odelon, MY machine, because I say it is. And I’ve got a ticket on it to paradise. Only this time, I’ll be traveling alone.”
He backed away from the old clown and stepped quickly into the door of the machine. As the glow intensified, Lucky slipped off the contrary left boot, which had never been fully back on his foot. When the humming reached its crescendo, he casually tossed it up onto the nearest rod-like appendage that he and Ellie had assembled into the sides of the machine when they first found it. He could see the horrified face of Tsarthor as the machine began to shiver and vibrate violently, before it disappeared with an earsplitting screech, leaving behind two of the lightweight pieces which had fallen from their notches on the vehicle’s cabin.
Lucky stood and brushed the dust from his jeans. Placing his hands on his hips, he chuckled to himself and said aloud,
“Yeah, Tsarthor, but it looks like that ticket was one-way, ol’ bud. Say hi to the Jurassic Age fer me, will ya’? The dinosaurs will love ya’; I bet they beg you to stay ...FER DINNER!”
He patted his right pocket and remembered the gold and emeralds he had hastily stuffed there, then reached into the left and brought out the little necklace medallion of Ellie’s.
As he stepped through the wall of the crypt, he saluted the little elephant statue and called, “Well, darlin’, I think it’s high time fer this ol’ clown to go get hisself a bowl of gumbo, and see if I caint find that there tattooed lady.”
He waddled off into the sultry twilight, whistling an old calliope melody. Passing by the bayou, he paused to look at his reflection, and once again dug into his pocket for
the small item he found in the old circus trailer in the meadow.
Carefully placing the band over his head, he looked down at the grinning face floating on the dark and ancient water and adjusted a large, red rubber nose.
Book Three - The White Shaman
It was in the season of long nights they first came into the hidden canyon. The season when the northern sky would suddenly turn purple and the wind would come to tear at their crude shelters of brush and animal skins. A wind that would ofttimes carry away the old ones or the newborn in its frosted teeth. It was the blue wind, the taker of souls.
Far to the south lived the green wind, the giver of life. It would visit in the season of warming, bringing rain to the grasslands and life to the streams. But they knew that this wind too could be a danger, as the abundance of its blessing would cause the little arroyos to rise up and swallow the camps of the people.
In the east lived the yellow wind. It blew the sun along its journey each day and brought the spirit of Coyote, the Trickster, to make their lives interesting. And in the west lived the dark wind, the bringer of twilight, the caller of men to a time of introspection.
They called themselves by a word which only meant ‘people’. But the little band knew many names, names of animals and names of spirits. They knew stones could hear their voices and spirits lived in water that could impregnate a bold or careless woman. And in these names they held their knowledge.
Stalking Bird, now an old man and almost toothless, was their leader. He was revered as a wise man, a teacher, for all his life. His skin was slightly more reddish than others’, a sign of the muddy red waters which made his mother swell with child after she crossed a wild canyon river and was almost lost. The spirit in the river had given Stalking Bird the ability of quiet; the ability to see the pathways of men as though beneath the still surface of water.
So it was that Stalking Bird had fasted three days beside the pond near the village before he called the little band together and revealed their upcoming journey. It was unusual to venture out in the time of the blue wind, but he saw clearly the necessity of it and no one dared challenge his vision.
* * *
Tsarthor bolted upright with a gasp, as if suddenly waking from a nightmare. A thin trickle of blood ran from his left nostril and a bluish lump had risen on his otherwise featureless pate. Indeed, he first thought that he was still in a perverse dream. One that he had dreamed many times in the past few years. One of a grinning Odelon, clutching the treasure they had amassed, while he himself was consumed by smoke and noise. But then he remembered. The uncontrollable screeching of the machine, the shattering instruments and the fading image of his old partner. He tasted the blood as it flowed into the corner of his mouth and he knew this was no dream.
He struggled briefly to free himself from the disarray of the machine’s interior and looked out upon a vast and barren landscape. As he kicked the door open, the west wind flew about him and again brought darkness into his mind. He would not wake again for two days, when he would then feel the stare of slightly Asian eyes, set into a reddish-brown and weathered face.
* * *
The smoke from the cooking fire rose up through the ragged roof of the lodge. Stalking Bird told the people that with the dawn, they must move from this place. And now his songs beseeched the Great Spirit to send the green wind early to the plateau lands to blow in their faces and guide them as they fled south across unknown lands.
He feared for the safety of the band, but his vision was clear and demanding. The sickness claimed all in the village except the seven remaining and the last word from the adobe dwellers to the west was that it was even worse among their crumbling walls. The vastness of the unmarked plains stretched away to the eastern horizon and the frozen peaks of the Father Mountains loomed in the north.
So, the vision told Stalking Bird to lead the people away from their lodges, away from the streams they had named, away from the game trails they knew from their father’s fathers. It told him of strange creatures and dangerous crossings they would encounter. But Stalking Bird could never have imagined the creature that waited for him below the broken lands, nor the border of time to which he would eventually bring the people.
* * *
Luca Sanchez was laying low. This was the third time he had crossed the Rio Grande, and he didn’t want to ride the big bus again. This time he paid $200 American dollars to the ‘coyote’ to get him safely into the hills of New Mexico. But the green trucks of the Border Patrol seemed to be everywhere and the ranchers could not be counted on for help, like they could be in his father’s day.
Nowadays, it seemed that everyone was out to catch them. They had pretty much quit calling them ‘wetbacks’ due to the recent upsurge in American political correctness, but still, sympathy for the illegal aliens had vanished like dew on an agave leaf. If he could make it to Santa Fe, he could blend in for a while and maybe hook a ride to Dallas, where there were always jobs for lawn boys, chicken gutters, hot roofers, or anything else requiring a lot of sweat and little English.
Last trip, Luca worked, along with 14 compadres, for a commercial landscape company. But the owners of the company only paid once a month, and somehow, just before payday at the very end of the summer, the Border Patrol was tipped off and all the workers got a free bus ride home, sans paychecks of course. It didn’t matter, really. At home, Luca was a chef in a little café that he and his wife owned in Progresso Nuevo, and he only worked the season to send money back, which would go for the kids’ education.
But this time was different. This time Marta had been sick, and the café income was not sufficient. So he used the last of his seed money to hire passage with a professional to get to the hidden trail up through the Davis Mountains, into the shacks outside Carlsbad. But in the true spirit of the game, the coyote was working both sides of the equation. By surreptitiously turning in his charges, he insured a future of increased need for his services.
Perhaps because he was a little older than the others, or perhaps because of the warm cerveza that put him to bed, Luca sought relief in the nearby bushes at about 2 am. He was still outside when the green trucks turned up the road to the shack. He immediately melted into the dark along a little wash and now was traveling only by night and living from one windmill to the next. It was hard going, but he was continually thankful for his habit of sleeping with his boots on while on the trail and he had twice been lucky with his small rabbit snare.
He covered four days worth of sage and cactus since slipping the trap in Carlsbad, but still felt exposed and as vulnerable as a prairie dog above ground in the daylight. So as the sun lifted above the eastern horizon, he crept around the crumbling and decrepit walls of a little mesa, searching for a piece of shade that would resist even the midday sun. He was startled to find a singular shaft of sunlight, framed by other rocks on a similar outcrop to the east, seemingly suspended above him on the flat cliff face.
The spear of light pointed to an otherwise-unnoticeable shadow beneath the cliff, and as the sun rose higher, he saw that the shaft of light moved down the face to disappear into the darkness of its little target. Lying on his belly, flat as a horny toad, he was surprised to see muted sunlight now on the other side of the little shady passage. He wiggled through and stood motionless. A tight whistle came from his dry lips, and he instinctively removed the rag from atop his head.
He was in a little natural courtyard, completely enclosed except for the crawl-way by which he had entered, and overhung by layers of harder sediments which made up the top of the mesa. Under the overhang, and covering the walls on all sides, staring back at him as if in the dawn of time, were pictographs of men with large red hats, and strange animals with red horns, lightning and whirlwinds, and something else—round, red, flying machines.
* * *
The youngest of the children in the group was called Running Rabbit. At nine, she was an essential and productive member of the thrown-together family of Stalking Bird. She al
ready knew how to find hidden water in the vast dryness and could carefully and correctly prepare the large desert lizards, which she dispatched with a deadly aim and a basalt rock.
In fact, it was to hunt the lizards in the still chill of the dawn that she was out on this particular early morning. She wore woven sandals that her people learned to make from fibrous yucca plants growing among the mesas and a one-piece girdle of softened deer skin around her waist, more for decoration than for modesty, since she had yet to come of sexual age.
She saw two lizards the afternoon before, lazing on the rocks below, and now stationed herself to be in position for their dawn excursion into the sun, once again to warm their cold-blooded life mechanisms. But as the sun rose into her face, she felt that peculiar prickle on the back of her neck, as if she were being watched by a momma bobcat. With the calm slowness of a wild creature, she turned her head to scan the cliff behind her and was amazed to see an arrow of sunlight being shot down into a little hole at its base.
It was late in the afternoon when she led the little band to their new home.
* * *
Tsarthor thought for the briefest of moments that he had awakened from an impromptu nap at his desk at the agency. But the sunlight was so bright and his head hurt, and most of all, the half-naked little red man could not be made to fit into the imagined scenario in any way. So, he lightly rubbed his forehead where his eyebrows would have been, shook the cobwebs out of his mind and remembered what happened to the time machine. His lips were split and dry and his voice was raspy with thirst as he met the eyes of Stalking Bird.
