Thunder Mountain

by Smith, Dean Wesley

When Bonnie and Duster had promised her a trip into the Thunder Mountain region, they hadn’t meant going in 2014. They meant she could do it in 1902, when the mining town of Roosevelt was first in its prime.

  She could be there when the valley was alive and booming and history was being made.

  And when there were no bodies in that cemetery yet.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MADISON SAT AT THE TABLE in the big cavern trying to eat some lunch and let his mind just grasp a tiny part of what Duster and Bonnie had said. If they had actually lived that long in the past, it was no wonder they knew so much about western history.

  They had lived it.

  They were basically immortals.

  But in all his research, he had never run across anyone like them living anywhere in the west.

  He had to ask. “Okay, a little help to get me to understand what you are saying,”

  Duster and Bonnie both nodded as they ate.

  Across the table from him, Dawn seemed in as much shock as he felt. She had asked a few questions, then just suddenly stopped and gone to staring at her food, clearly lost in deep thought.

  He turned to Duster and focused on asking his questions instead of just staring at Dawn.

  “So you go back in time,” Madison said. “How come in all my research, I’ve never seen references to either of you?”

  “Because in this timeline we never did go back,” Duster said. “When we go back, we start a new timeline with us in it.”

  “And a new crystal forms on the wall,” Bonnie said. “And the crystal we are hooked to sometimes will grow when we are gone.”

  “So you never run into yourself because every trip back you are always in new timelines?” Madison asked, slowly starting to understand.

  “That’s correct,” Duster said. “But there do seem to be what we call ‘echoes’ from one timeline to the next, things we do that sometimes show slight hints in this timeline later. We have no idea what causes those echoes, but it’s one of the reasons we got interested in your research.”

  “So you change history?” Madison asked.

  “Oh, sure,” Duster said. “Can’t help it. But that just creates new timelines.”

  “We will attach the wires to a small crystal,” Bonnie said, “and by the time we return, just over two minutes later in this time, there may be thousands of crystals in and around that one we started with.”

  Madison nodded. He understood that the theory of timelines completely solved all time paradoxes. The fact that Bonnie and Duster could always return to their original timeline was amazing.

  “What happens if you get killed back there?” Dawn asked, suddenly looking up.

  The question sent shivers down Madison’s spine. Dawn had a distant look in her eyes and a very worried expression on her face.

  “You find yourself standing, touching the machine back in the crystal cavern,” Bonnie said, staring at her sandwich. “Just over two minutes after you left.”

  “So you can’t be killed?” Dawn asked.

  “Oh, you can be killed in a different timeline,” Duster said, also not happy with the subject. “But it doesn’t kill you in this timeline, your main timeline.”

  “Oh,” Dawn said and went back to staring at her food again, picking at her sandwich.

  “How many times have you both died in the past?” Madison asked.

  “Too many,” Duster said, also not meeting Madison’s gaze. “Dying in the Old West is never fun, so try to avoid it, even though you end up here just fine.”

  “Never a fun memory,” Bonnie said, shivering slightly while she worked at her soup.

  “So what happens,” Dawn said, asking a second very pointed question, “if say all four of us went back and someone came in here and unplugged the machine from the crystal?”

  “We would all appear right back here, just over two minutes after we left,” Duster said. “Never an exception to that rule it seems. On some things time and physics are very firm.”

  Dawn nodded and kept eating.

  Madison was impressed. Her questions were spot on the money and focused on the people aspects of all this, not the actual physics of it all.

  “So you’re thinking we should all go into the Roosevelt area together, in 1902?” Dawn asked, looking first at Duster, then at Bonnie.

  Both Duster and Bonnie nodded.

  “That was the idea,” Bonnie said, looking worriedly at Dawn.

  Madison sat back. Wow, that was something he had not thought of. There was no doubt that was what this had all been about. With two of them introduced to the entire thing, and a set goal like that, it would allow both of them to get used to this crazy idea.

  “I’ll go back about five years ahead of that,” Duster said. “Get set up, get what we need for the trip, then the three of you come through in early May of 1902. I’ll meet you here.”

  “We should be able to make it into Roosevelt in about a week,” Bonnie said. “We can take our time, spend most of the summer, and get back here before the snow flies. Neither Duster or I have ever been there, so we’re kind of excited to see it as well.”

  “And we’ll only be gone from her just over two minutes?” Dawn asked.

  Duster nodded, smiling. “Kind of fun, isn’t it?”

  “And we’ll hit the same timeline as you are in ahead of us?” Madison asked.

  “Yes,” Duster said, nodding. “We have a way of doing that and we have tried it a number of times and it works fine.”

  Bonnie pushed her half-finished bowl of soup away and looked first at Madison, then at Dawn.

  “We’ve never told anyone about this because we didn’t think anyone would believe us. And we are telling you now because we feel that having access to history like this will help the richness of both of your works.”

  “I would think so,” Madison said, his stomach twisting at the idea of actually going back into history itself.

  “But we will completely understand if you decide not to use this,” Duster said. “Now that you know about it, Bonnie and I will be glad to make research trips for either or both of you to help in your work.”

  He smiled at them both. “Remember, we can spend years living there and only be gone two minutes from here. So the resource would be pretty amazing and very quick research for you.”

  “Life in the Old West is not an easy life,” Bonnie said. “Especially for women.”

  She looked at Dawn, who was nodding.

  “And you have to be careful on what you reveal about the future,” Duster said. “It can quickly warp a timeline.”

  Madison could completely understand that as well.

  They all sat there in silence for a moment around the dining table. The cavern around them felt comfortable to Madison. If this were all real, if he really could travel in time and see the history he loved to study so much, the possibilities were endless.

  He looked across at Dawn, the most beautiful woman he had seen in memory. And a woman he wanted to spend a lot more time with. No matter what the year was.

  She glanced up at him.

  “You want to go spend a summer in 1902 in Roosevelt, Idaho, Professor Edwards?” he asked.

  Her eyes lit up a little, and she smiled for the first time since they got back from their first little jaunt into the past. “Are you asking me on a date, Professor Rogers?”

  He laughed and a ton of the tension he had been feeling sort of just drained away in the face of the fantastic smile across the table from him.

  “Couples in the Old West tended to do better as teams,” he said.

  “That they did,” she said, still smiling.

  “So why not a date?” he asked. “Might be the strangest date in recorded history in this or any time line, but sure, a date.”

  “It will most certainly be different,” she said, smiling at him.

  “So when do we leave?” Madison turned to Duster and Bonnie, who were both smiling.

  “As soon as we’re ready to go,” Duster
said. “We should be ready by about noon in this time, but it’s time travel, remember? We’re only going to be gone just over two minutes.”

  “And a lifetime in a summer,” Dawn said, clearly suddenly excited about the coming adventure.

  “That too,” Bonnie said. “That too.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MADISON STILL PARTIALLY FELT like he was walking in a dream as they prepared for a summer living in the past.

  Duster basically had saddlebags, a change of clothes, and a bunch of gold pieces from the time period in different parts of his clothing. He had an oilcloth dark duster and a brown cowboy hat. In that outfit he looked striking and someone to not mess with in any time period.

  He wore jeans from the time and flannel shirts. He packed two extra pair of jeans and four extra shirts, a lot of extra underwear and socks, plus a bedding role.

  “One of my cheats from this time period,” he said, showing Bonnie and Madison his bedroll. “If no one is around, I tap this button and the thing blows up to a nice cushion so I don’t have to sleep on the rough ground all the time. It’s in your bedrolls as well.”

  He then showed them what looked like a simple toothpick. But when he struck it against the rock wall it flamed.

  “Nifty,” Madison said.

  “We both try to use what we can from the time we are in, but these things come in handy. And they are light to carry. You both will be carrying them as well.”

  Then Duster showed them his Colts as he strapped them on his hip.

  “How good a shot are you?” Madison asked.

  “Scary good, aren’t you, Marshal?” Bonnie said, smiling.

  “A lot of years of practice,” Duster said.

  “Marshal?” Dawn asked.

  “He likes to become a marshal,” Bonnie said.

  Duster shrugged. “Keeps me busy.”

  “You ought to see his collection of tin stars back home,” Bonnie said, kissing her husband on the cheek.

  “Can you fire a revolver?” Duster asked Madison.

  “I know how to fire one, but hitting something besides my own foot would be another matter,” Madison said. He had fired pistols on a range for a time, but he hadn’t been that good at it.

  “Good enough,” Duster said, giving him a wide belt with a revolver in a holster on it.

  Madison looked at it, but didn’t touch it. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to wear it, to be honest. “I’d rather not unless that’s a problem?”

  “Not a problem,” Duster said, smiling and putting the guns away on a shelf. “I’ll have saddle rifles for all of us on each horse when you come through.”

  Madison felt better about that.

  Dawn and Bonnie spent a lot of time on Dawn’s wardrobe off on one side of the cave. It seemed that Duster and Bonnie had been planning for this for some time and had brought back with them on a number of trips clothes and undergarments and everything that Madison and Dawn would need to get started. The rest they could buy along the way.

  Then Duster took them back out of the mine and into the heat of the summer day.

  Madison could see the Cadillac in the trees on the ridge and below Silver City was only a ghost town.

  “This is so strange,” he said, remembering how the last time he had stepped out of the mine it was cold and that town below had been alive.

  Dawn could only nod standing beside him as she too stared down at the ghost town.

  Duster closed up the mine, then showed them how to unlock the mine if they got separated and had to get back here.

  “You will always end up back in the cavern in this time eventually, no matter what,” Duster said. “But better to do it on your own terms if you need to. Worse-comes-to-worst, you just grow old and die and then end up back here.”

  “Only two minutes older,” Madison said, shaking his head trying to imagine that.

  “Only two minutes and some seconds older,” Duster said.

  He handed each of them two of the special skeleton keys. One to keep on them, one to hide in a special pocket of the leather saddlebag they would be taking.

  Bonnie and Dawn would also be taking traveling cases, as was the custom of the time for women to carry when traveling.

  Duster then showed them were he had hidden a key up the hill.

  “Make sure no one follows you up the hill when you come up here,” Duster said.

  Then they went back inside to finish packing.

  All four of them had modern medicine tucked into secret pockets of their saddlebags. And stomach drugs for the adjustment period between modern food and the food of 1902. For the most part, they packed a lot of what they would need to start off with.

  And pills to clean water. It seemed humans from 2014 were a lot more delicate than those from 1902.

  “Don’t worry,” Duster said. “You get used to the food and water with time.”

  “The process just isn’t pleasant,” Bonnie said. “With luck, we won’t be gone long enough for any of that to matter.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Duster said, smiling. “I’ll have been back there for five years before you three arrive.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Bonnie said, smiling at her husband. “Are you going to miss me?”

  “Every day,” he said.

  Bonnie laughed. “Great husband answer.”

  Madison glanced over at Dawn who was looking sort of shocked at the idea that Bonnie and Duster could be apart that long and be fine with it.

  To be honest, Madison had to admit he was having a little trouble with that idea as well.

  But considering that they had lived for a couple thousand years back in the past, what was five years here and there?

  That thought just made him shake his head.

  From the time they had decided to make the trip, it took just over two hours real time to get ready.

  It was still just around noon on the first day of their trip.

  “Anyone hungry?” Bonnie asked as she and Duster headed for the kitchen area, hand-in-hand.

  Madison glanced at Dawn and she shrugged. “One last supper.”

  Then she laughed.

  “This is going to be fun,” he said, smiling at her as they turned and headed across the cave behind Duster and Bonnie, walking side-by-side. He just wished they were holding hands as well.

  And for some reason, he was now excited about going into the past.

  Scared to death, but excited at the same time.

  And a lot of that excitement came because he was going with Dawn.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DAWN FOUND HERSELF STANDING in the crystal room, next to the machine on the table, dressed as a lady of 1902 who would be riding horses. The undergarments felt strange when she tried them on and she had decided instead to just go with her normal underwear and work later to get used to the standard for the era.

  No point in being chapped in places she didn’t want to be chapped in.

  Bonnie had agreed that would be a good idea.

  The blouse and riding pants felt soft, but the boots were slightly uncomfortable, even though they were brand new boots manufactured here to look like they were from 1902. They were completely waterproof and very light. She was supposed to tell anyone who asked about them that they were deer hide and made specially for her in Denver.

  She was glad that Duster and Bonnie had put so much thought into their wardrobe.

  Dawn also had a hat and a long black coat that she would put on against the weather, both of which were also made modern to look period and both were completely waterproof as well.

  And she had gloves. Thin, lady gloves, but gloves. She also had a pair of modern thick gloves in her saddlebag and dresses and changes of clothes, as well as enough supplies to make it through three periods without resorting to 1902 methods of dealing with that problem.

  Madison had complimented her on how good she looked as they headed for the crystal room and Duster had seconded that opinion.

  Duster looked striking in
his oilcloth duster and cowboy hat. He wore cowboy boots like he belonged in them and she could see him being a marshal.

  But what had surprised her was Madison. He also had on a long duster-like jacket over his suit coat, and when he put a cowboy hat on, she thought she might have trouble breathing. He was almost as tall as Duster, but not as rugged-looking. But damned if he wasn’t handsome. More like a gentleman you would find in a top hotel than a marshal of an old west town.

  “Wow,” Bonnie said as Madison walked up to them, dressed and ready to go.

  “I’ll second that,” Dawn said, smiling at him.

  For a second she thought Madison had blushed.

  “Ready?” Duster asked, looking at all of them.

  “This just can’t be real,” Madison said. “But I’m as ready as I’ll ever be with that belief.”

  Dawn laughed because that was exactly how she was feeling.

  And she was flat scared to death.

  She just kept repeating over and over that no matter what happened, they would all end up back here two minutes and some seconds after they left.

  No matter what.

  Damn that was hard to believe.

  Duster kissed his wife long and hard, then told them he’d see them soon.

  He connected the cables to a crystal on the wall, then picked up everything he wanted to take with him and with one hand on the box, he connected the other wire.

  And vanished.

  “Shit!” Madison said, “This is real.”

  In all her life Dawn had never been so scared.

  She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t swallow, and more than anything else she just wanted to turn and run.

  She almost dropped half the supplies she had on her back and in her left hand.

  Bonnie, with gloves on, quickly moved to the box and changed the date to May 1st, 1902, leaving the wires completely connected.

  Then she pulled her glove off and told them to make sure they were holding everything they wanted to take, then touch the box on the count of three.

  “One. Two. Three.”

  Dawn put her hand down on the box at the same time as the other two.