Time-Travel Duo

by James Paddock

  “No. I was told it was dismantled and destroyed.”

  “What about the nuclear component?”

  “I don’t know if I like this line of questioning. What’s going through your mind?”

  “I’m just wondering, is all. Maybe they just hauled it all off somewhere and stuck it in a storage unit.”

  “So that after twenty years you could pull it out and go rescue Tony.”

  “No. That’d be stupid.”

  “Damn right it would be stupid, so get it out of your head.”

  “I’m just wondering.”

  Steven looked up at the ceiling and said, “Kind of like the day you were wondering how easy it would be to make mercuric fulminate?”

  “I was trying to make percussion caps. I had it under control. I didn’t realize there would be so much smoke.”

  “Probably wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t caught the blanket on fire.”

  “I had a fire extinguisher, and I used it.”

  “You were only twelve.”

  “The firemen thought it was rather funny.”

  “Only one of the firemen thought it was funny. The others chewed my ass for letting you conduct dangerous experiments. You never did tell me where you got the nitric acid.”

  “Sworn to secrecy.”

  Steven snorted a laugh. “So, what’s prompted this questioning about where all the equipment went?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. Just wondering is all. Forget it, okay? Pretend I never brought it up.”

  Steven looked at his daughter for a long time and then reached out and wiped a leftover tear from her cheek. “Maybe I’ll come out middle June, after the park opens.”

  “You don’t have to check up on me like I’m going off to church camp or something.”

  “You’ve never been to church camp.”

  “Girl Scout camp, then.”

  “You went to that once and hated it. And then you quit Girl Scouts because they did stupid girl stuff. I think your scout leader fully supported your decision. She told me you were a bad example for her girls. Wasn’t it Kathy who helped you with the mercuric fulminate experiment?”

  “Katie. Haven’t seen her since. Her mother was so angry. Not like we were doing drugs.”

  Steven smiled. “You had an interesting childhood.”

  “Yeah, I did. A bit abnormal, though, if you ask most people.”

  “True.”

  Annie smiled back at her father. “If you want to come out and do a little father-daughter exploring, I could be up for that. The cabin has a loft bedroom and a sleeper downstairs. Not the entire summer, though. I want some time to myself.”

  Steven thought about it for a minute. “That might be a good idea. A week or so away might do me some good as well.”

  “The park opens in a couple of weeks so middle to end of June, or come out middle July for my birthday.”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  Annie put her arms around her dad, and he did the same to her.

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you.”

  Annie stepped into the line and Steven stepped back. Ten minutes later, from the other side of the security station, Annie waved to her father and then turned and melded into the stream of people. Steven watched until he couldn’t see her anymore and then watched for another five minutes, thinking and remembering, and feeling very alone. The last time he felt this alone was between July 17, 1987 when Anne, Annie’s mother, disappeared before his eyes in the machine he had helped build, to travel back 44 years, and November 13, 1987 when 4-month-old Annie appeared before him in the same machine, without her mother, screaming her head off.

  Annie’s birthday, he thought. July 18. It was always strange to think about. The stress of time travel triggered Anne’s labor a month early, so Annie was born the day after her mother arrived in 1943, making her now almost 64 years old, technically. Her birthdays were always a mix of emotions; the celebration of his daughter’s life; the mourning of his wife’s tragic departure. Fortunately the former followed the latter or else Steven would probably have succumbed long ago to the deep pit of guilt. If not for his laboratory blunder, the events that took Annabelle Waring away would never have happened.

  He thought about Annie’s offer to join her for her birthday and realized that that was exactly what he was afraid of with her being gone for the summer. He had been afraid that if he didn’t have her near on her special day of the year, the day after his second most depressive day of the year, that he would not recover. He decided that he would check his schedule and then change or cancel whatever was necessary to ensure he would be with her on that day, even if it meant backpacking into a wilderness of grizzly bears and mountain lions.

  Chapter 9

  May 27, 2007

  The sun’s trailing edge peaked though the tree tops as Annie pulled onto Grizzly Road. She wasn’t used to dirt roads, and especially not the guy who blew by her five minutes before in a pile of rusty scrap metal trying to pass for a truck. His rude passing left enough suspended dust to obliterate what was left of the sun and force her to brake to a skidding stop and then scramble for the window button.

  A shower, and the possibility that she’d made a bad decision, were the only things she could think about as she made the final turn at the sign that read, “Grizzly Ranch” and then passed through an entrance framed by a goalpost-like structure made of logs as big around as a pair of Suma Wrestlers. “Welcome to Grizzly Ranch” in giant letters was burned into the log spanning the road. She looked up at it as she passed under, sure that she and her cute little rental car would be crushed like a bug if an earthquake suddenly struck.

  She followed the dirt road another 200 yards until it opened onto a fairytale pond. A deer and her fawn paused from drinking, watched as she braked to a stop and then bounded across the road, stopping at the tree line. After a time the fawn lost interest and began nudging her nose underneath her mother’s belly. The mother continued to eye Annie for a dozen of Annie’s joyous heartbeats and then led her fawn into the trees. “Wow!” Annie said out loud. Beyond the pond, sitting on a rise overlooking this fairytale scene was Grizzly Lodge, just like the picture on the website, built of cedar and pine, she recalled reading. Nestled in the trees along both sides were numerous cabins of three different sizes: Big Grizzly, Little Grizzly, and Grizzly Cub. She’d rented a Grizzly Cub. A woman was watching from the lodge’s covered entryway. She waved. Annie lifted her foot from the brake and proceeded around the circle until she was in front of the lodge. She turned off the engine and got out.

  The woman came around the car to greet her. “We call them Beauty and Bambi. You arrived at just the right time of day to witness them at their watering. You must be Elizabeth Caschetta.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I um . . . I go by Annie; after my middle name, Anne.”

  “Annie, then. And you can call me Ruth. Nobody calls me Ma’am. You’ll meet Chuck, my other half, in a little bit. He’s out back getting ready for the nightly campfire, marshmallow roast, and storytelling. I’ll bet you’re hungry, or did you stop on the way from the airport?”

  “No Ma’am. Sorry. Ruth. Long flight. I just wanted to get here.”

  “Well don’t you worry. We don’t normally serve supper; generally let everyone fend for themselves. All the units have kitchens. We do lay out a hardy breakfast, though. Seeing as you haven’t eaten, and haven’t taken the time to hit a grocery store either, I can whip up a sandwich to get you through the night.”

  “Thank you, but you don’t have to.”

  “Nonsense. Let’s get you checked in and then while I’m putting together a plate you can move into your cabin. You’ll be in Number 7 Grizzly Cub, the luckiest and best cub on the ranch. You’ll be close to the North Fork.”

  “North Fork?”

  “The North Fork of the Flathead River.”

  I have a river? Annie followed the wo
man into the lodge.

  Forty-five minutes later Annie was sitting on a stump at the edge of the campfire with a long stick in her hand on the end of which dangled a marshmallow. It had felt like a whirlwind; checking in, moving in, showering, unpacking, trying to get a look at the river in the dimming light, eating one of the most delicious sandwiches she had ever enjoyed, and then, finally, after awkward introductions around the fire, relaxing to the call of crickets, the crackle of burning logs and the deep baritone voice of Chuck West.

  The marshmallow suddenly ignited. She pulled it close to her face and blew out the fire. She waited for it to cool and then carefully ate it. The only negative aspect of the entire scene was the truck she had spotted parked behind the lodge. It was the rusty piece of junk that nearly ran her off the road and suffocated her in dust. It belonged, she was sure, to Brad West, the son of Ruth and Chuck. He was sitting on a log on the opposite side of the circle, dangling a stick with two marshmallows over his edge of the fire, a sardonic smile plastered to his face. Sardonic was the only word she could think of to describe his idiot look. He wore a dirty brown cowboy hat and tattered jeans that told her he probably spent the day punching cows, or whatever it was that cowboys did. He kept looking past her, not at her, with that awful grin. His marshmallows flashed into a single blaze. He watched them until they were black and then blew them out. Without a blink he shoved them both into his mouth, pulled the gooey-ended stick away and grinned even more.

  What a jerk! Why did such nice people get stuck with guys like that for sons? She made a face at him and then turned her attention to his father’s story about a grizzly bear that chased him up a tree when he was a kid. While he talked he leaned on a walking stick. It was a thick, burly thing with knots and twists, which he pointed out early on, had the teeth marks of two different bears. He called it his Grizzly Staff. “Not a quarter mile from this very spot,” he added with a sudden thrust of the staff, sending up a small plume of dust. His stories were great, but Annie wondered if he repeated them every night, or did he have a huge store of them and only had to repeat them once a month? Was he for real, or was this just a business? She hoped he was for real. She considered Brad from the corner of her eye. Certainly no like father, like son going on here.

  In addition to the West family there were two other couples; one older, Richard and Mary, grandparent age with strong British accents, and one maybe around thirty, Susan and Greg, with a little boy, Gregory, about six. Gregory was shy, though a bit more interested in the flaming marshmallows than the stories. His mother wouldn’t allow him to hold his own stick, carefully letting his marshmallow brown before handing it to him. She had given Brad a weary look when his pair of marshmallows flared up, pulling Gregory back as though his very life was at risk. Maybe Brad was part of the nightly show; he eats flaming marshmallows while his father tells scary grizzly tales.

  “I would guess from your accent that you’re from eastern Massachusetts?” Richard said in the lull at the end of the story.

  Annie looked at him in surprise. “Yes, I am.”

  “Boston?”

  Annie nodded. “Actually Cambridge. I’m on summer break.”

  “By yourself?”

  “My father will be out for a week or so, but basically, yes, I’m by myself.” She pulled her eyes away and down as she remembered why she had come. It was to get away from reminders of Tony. Now with every new and unusual thing she saw, she thought of how it would be more fun sharing it with him.

  “Where are you attending university?” the Mary asked.

  Forced by the question, Annie brought her face back up, hoping that the firelight wasn’t enough to reveal her moist eyes. “MIT.”

  “Really!” Richard said. “Had a friend once who went there. He was too smart for me. You’re a freshman, I gather?”

  She shook her head. “I just finished my first year of graduate study.”

  “You must be a lot older than you look. I wouldn’t have guessed more than twenty.”

  “Actually, I won’t be twenty for another couple of months.”

  Mary opened her mouth in shock, looked at her husband, and then back at Annie. “How old were you when you started at MIT“Fifteen.” Annie glanced at Brad. His grin was gone and he was staring into the fire. She wondered what he was doing at fifteen. Probably sitting in this same spot stuffing freshly charred marshmallows into his mouth, impressing cute teenage girls with freshly developed chests.

  “Fifteen! Holy moly!” Richard said. “What are you studying?”

  In Boston everybody knew somebody at MIT and it wasn’t all that unusual to be young, unless you were young and female. Except for her first year people hardly gave her a second look. But here in backwoods Montana she started to feel like she was sitting on a stump in just her underwear with all the firelight focused on her. To avoid stripping off the underwear too, she sidestepped the question.

  “I’m in engineering.”

  “If you say nuclear physics I’m going to eat my hat.”

  Annie couldn’t help but smile, and then grin at him.

  He pointed his finger at her. “Don’t you say it cause I really don’t want to have to go out and buy a new hat.”

  “And besides, dear, you’ll be sick for a week,” his wife added.

  Annie was taking a liking to the couple. She laughed. “I’ll take you off the hook on a technicality. Nuclear physics is not the term used. My BS is in Nuclear Science and Engineering.” She was going to leave it at that but for some reason the rest came popping out. “I’m currently studying quantum physics as well as plasma physics and fusion technology.”

  “Well, thank God. I was starting to think it was something really technical, and you were like a genius or something. What the heck is your IQ anyway, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Annie dropped her eyes again.

  “Richard!” the woman said, slapping him on the arm. “That’s none of your business.”

  Thank you, Annie thought. If these people were already uncomfortable, telling them her IQ wasn’t going to make things better.

  Susan, Gregory’s hand tightly clasped in hers, stood up and brushed off her butt and then her son’s. “I think it’s time we turned in.”

  Don’t blame you, Annie thought. Who’d want to be around a burning marshmallow-eating clown and an MIT freak?

  Her husband, seeming reluctant, rose to his feet as well. “Yeah. Been a long day and we’ve got to head out early. Thank you for another fascinating evening, Chuck.”

  “It was nice having you here, Greg. Have a safe trip back to Seattle.”

  As they walked away, Richard stood up. “It’s been great, but I think my bride and I might turn in as well.”

  “You’re just married?” Annie asked.

  Richard looked down at his wife and burst out laughing. “You nailed it. We’re newly married and we’ve been on our honeymoon for thirty-seven years.”

  “Oh!”

  Mary rose up next to him and he put his arm around her. “Mary will always be my bride.”

  Annie didn’t know what to say.

  “We’re going to be up just before sunrise and walk down to the river.” Mary said. “Never know what you’re going to see. The other morning there were three bull elk. You should join us.”

  Annie wondered what time sunrise was. “Ah . . . I don’t know.”

  “Two hours difference from Boston, right?” Richard said. “So getting up at five is like you getting up at seven.”

  She looked at her watch. “That means it’s already after midnight. And I haven’t called my dad yet.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket.

  “You won’t be able to call on that from here, dear,” Ruth said. “You can use the phone inside.”

  “Oh! How about internet?”

  “We have a computer you can use, but it’s dialup,” Chuck said. “Sorry, no high speed internet. You’ll have to go the Flathead County Library in Columbia Falls for that.”

  An
nie had never considered that. No constant hook to the web? No cell phone? What next? Outhouses?

  As if reading her thoughts, Chuck said, “You’re lucky, though. We upgraded to indoor flush toilets just a few months ago, right after we got electricity.”

  Ruth stood up. “Don’t listen to him. Come on. I’ll show you where the phone is. I’ll bet your father is worried sick.”

  Chapter 10

  May 28, 2007

  When Annie awoke she swore she could see her breath. She remembered it being cold when she climbed into a bed layered with blankets and quilts, but had only a fleeting thought as to how the little cabin was heated. Now she looked around in the dim morning light and spotted a thermostat which she’d have to get out of bed to reach. Why didn’t she think of that last night?

  She lazed for another minute and then jumped up and turned the thermostat to 75—it was set to 50—and then peeked between the window blinds. She remembered hearing the patter of rain shortly after going to bed. Now a thin layer of snow blanketed the ground, and fog blocked out the view of the river through the trees. “Damn!”

  She wondered if Mary and Richard actually went out this morning. She had intended on joining them until she felt the chill when she reached to turn off the alarm at 5 a.m. There was no way. This weather was possible in Boston in late March or early April, not at the end of May. She looked at the clock. It was 7:12. She slid back into bed to wait for the room to warm up and then both heard and felt her stomach growl.

  Breakfast!

  Annie walked into the Lodge to a mixture of breakfast smells, of which bacon predominated. She followed the odors into the dining room only to be stopped short by the first person she recognized, Brad West. Wrapped in a kitchen apron, he wore a big, white, floppy chef’s hat and carried a platter of pancakes. Before either of them could say anything, Mary called out her name.

  “Annie! We missed you this morning.”

  Relieved to have the distraction, Annie turned away from Brad, pulled out the chair next to Mary and sat down. “You actually went down to the river this morning?”