The Golden Minute

by John Birmingham

  Smith blinked away blood and salty sweat as strong hands lifted him from the floor and helped him to a chair. More enquiries followed as to his health and his thirst, but when he croaked that he would be fine, the excited chatter turned to delivering a verdict on his pugilistic skills. An excellent showing seemed to be the consensus, if not as technically adept as the great Max Schmeling.

  Smith’s nose twitched and he smelled a lighter, flowery scent in among the barnyard stink of men who’d just exerted themselves in a fracas. A woman’s voice ordered the crowd around him to let her through, and his heart lifted, thinking that Cady had found him. But that did not last much longer than the fleeting moment it took for the idea to occur to him. A young German woman, dressed in some native costume, wiped his face with a cool, wet cloth. It helped to clear some of the crud from his eyes, and for the first time since he’d been bushwhacked, Smith was able to assess his particulars.

  The Wild West Bar was still crowded, but all attention was now directed on him. The band had resumed playing, but nobody danced. He’d been dropped into a deep leather tub chair, and now somebody pressed a huge glass jug of beer into his hand. Smith was thirsty in spite of the water he’d quaffed, and he pulled deeply from the bitter draft, earning himself a small cheer from his attending company.

  At first he thought himself rescued by ushers or bellhops. He was surrounded by uniforms. But as his head cleared and reason caught up with his senses, he recognized the stylish black regalia of Colonel Hausser’s regiment. The colonel himself was nowhere to be seen, but these fellers could not be anything other than his compadres. They all had that same severe, steel-cut look about them, the sort of fellers whose idea of fun ran to cold showers of a morning and extra floggin’s with the switch for any that complains of it.

  Still, they seemed to have a powerful antipathy for the brown-shirted curs, who had taken as equal a dislike to Smith for some reason. Even as he gathered his wits, they toasted his health with their own drinks and relived the recent scuffle as though it were a jolly jape indeed. His lawman’s eye saw the freshly bruised knuckles and swollen faces of common brawlers all around him, and yet, like Hausser, they seemed… controlled. Rigorously, even severely controlled.

  Smith looked about for his assailants, or their remains.

  “Ha, do not concern yourself with that scum, my friend,” a voice boomed out over the general hubbub and celebration. “We gave their carcasses over to the Gestapo, yes? They are not the only dregs to be cleaned out tonight.”

  Smith, still a little woozy, found the speaker, a handsome young feller in that same striking black livery. A few spots of dried blood stood out on the backs of his hands, but Smith wasn’t able to discern any other evidence of his having been inconvenienced by a tavern brawl.

  “I am Obersturmführer Wilhelm Dittrich,” the speaker said, holding out his hand to shake.

  Smith took it, returning the firm grip.

  “I am right grateful for your help… sir.”

  The watch gave him to understand that Obersturmführer was another of those strange German ranks that directly translated as ‘senior assault leader’, which sounded a darn queer thing to call a feller, even in his own language. Not that Smith was speaking actual German. That was one of the passing strange oddities of having the watch about you. You just spoke as normal, and folks heard you as normal, ’cept in this case the words came out of his piehole English and went into Dittrich’s ear as German. Sometimes, from the listener’s reaction, he figured the translation had to be fluent. Other times it seemed merely workmanlike. Smith had no idea how any of it worked.

  Still, t’weren’t the queerest darned aspect of this whole misadventure, were it?

  Smith drank down the rest of his beer as he sat in the made-up western saloon in Berlin, surrounded by black-clad…

  The professor!

  Where’d that darn professor get to?

  His brains had been so shook up by the enthusiastic pummeling of his brown-shirted nemeses he’d plum forgot all about the very reason he was sitting in this cockamamie bar.

  “The professor,” he said, as much to himself as to anyone else. “I need to find me that professor with the carnation…”

  “I am here, Herr Smith,” came a voice, to his left. The small crowd of… what were they, these fellers who’d done saved his bacon twice now? Soldiers? They seemed so. And now they parted with apparent deference to a small, bearded man in a three-piece suit, with a bright red flower in the buttonhole. He was managing to frown at Smith, at the same time as he smiled encouragingly as though to speed his recovery.

  “Are you hurt, Herr Smith? I must apologize for the unpleasantness with the brownshirts. They run amok right now.”

  “Not for much longer, Herr Professor,” assault leader Dittrich said, to a round of affirming growls and snarls from his men. “The Chancellor himself has stepped in to crush their revolt. These incidents we see now and last night, they are the twitches and spasms of a dying body.”

  “We can but hope, Obersturmführer,” said…

  What was the professor’s name? Smith feared it had been knocked clean out of his ears by some untimely blow, and then it flashed into his head.

  Koffler. Professor Ludwig Koffler.

  It all came back to him then. The letters from Ms Cady and from this feller. The surprise of hearing from her so soon after the shock of losing her. And the suspicion that such profound good fortune simply could not be. That ill intent was at play and Koffler behind it. Could he be another Chumley?

  As the professor called for more water and asked if Smith needed any wounds dressed, the chances of his being some devious Apprentice doing the work of the Watchmakers seemed to diminish. Chumley woulda hopped in and helped them brownshirt fellers with their kickin’ and stompin’ for sure.

  “I don’t believe I’m leakin’ or badly broke, no,” Smith said. “My apologies for the disturbance. Them fellers and I had a set-to earlier today and…” he turned to Dittrich, “… and one of your colleagues helped me then, too, sir. A feller called Hausser, if you know of him.”

  Dittrich grinned hugely and clapped Smith on the shoulder.

  “Colonel Hausser! Of course I know him. A fine fellow. We of the SS are not so numerous as the SA, but one of ours is worth ten of them, Herr Schmidt. I do not doubt that Hausser gave those vermin a good showing, and that they followed you here intending to settle their account with you for the earlier humiliation.” Dittrich clapped Smith on the shoulder again. “Lucky for you the Führer’s own Protection Squadron was on duty, eh?”

  “Lucky for Germany,” Koffler said, in all seriousness, and the SS men fell into furious agreement with him. None of it felt right or good to Smith. He had hunted and hanged some of the worst gangs in the Territories since pinning on his badge, and in spite of their polish and apparent discipline, there was definitely something about these fellers that called to mind the dangerous esprit of an outlaw gang.

  On the other hand, he also knew that harsh measures were often called for on the frontier, and for all of its civilized grandeur, there was a feeling of the raw frontier here in Berlin, a sense of the settled way of things being destroyed and remade. That were always a violent process. Perhaps these SS fellers were simply the marshals of their own time. The Lord knew there were some who wore a badge could be just as hard and terrible in their own way as any outlaw.

  “If’n you fellers were agreeable, I’d be of a mind to stand you a drink for your help,” Smith said. It was the only decent thing to do, after all.

  “Nonsense!” Dittrich shot back. “It is we who should treat you, Schmidt, lest you think the new Germany a wretched disgrace. Allow us. Please, Professor, reason with the fellow.”

  Koffler smiled at Dittrich and Smith in turn.

  “I witnessed the short work they made of your assailants, Herr Smith. If these men insist on buying you a drink, I do not imagine there is much you can do to stop them.”

  “Then I would be a
fool to try,” Smith conceded. And it would not be entirely irksome to have another stein of this German beer.

  “Herr Smith and I did have a professional matter to discuss, however, Obersturmführer,” Koffler said. “He was to assist me with a question I had about the early American colonies. I wonder if I might speak with him about this before you fill him entirely with pilsner.”

  “Naturally!” Dittrich said, as though it were ever in doubt. “For an old campaigner such as yourself, anything.”

  “Thank you. I understand my research is of little interest to anybody but myself. Yet I cannot let an opportunity to speak with a descendant of the Jamestown Smiths. They carried the Aryan race to the American wilderness, you know.”

  The watch was not much help translating the deeper meaning of all that double-thick waffling on, but it had an immediate effect on Dittrich and his men. They deferred to Koffler and repaired to a booth over near the stagecoach in the corner.

  “Come, come with me,” the professor said, heading to a small table in the far corner. Smith’s vision swam and his head pounded a little when he stood up to follow Koffler, but he made it to the table without incident.

  “We will not have long,” the old German said. “I regret the necessity of involving brutes such as Dittrich and his men, but I am afraid I had to find help where I could. Röhm’s thugs picked you out when you entered the building.”

  Smith was having trouble keeping up. He got the impression there were a whole bunch of chapters to this book he hadn’t read yet; he’d just jumped in halfway through. Koffler appeared to sense his confusion.

  “My apologies. You have arrived at a difficult time. Hitler is not fully settled in power, and his rivals in the party and the state maneuver against him and each other. This very night it will turn bloody. The brownshirts you encountered today? They run wild everywhere. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Even now the SS and the Gestapo are rounding up their leadership, murdering them, but with so many fighters on the streets, it will be some time before the situation calms. That is why the SS is everywhere. The SS, the Gestapo, the army, the SA. Germany is a tinder box. I cannot wait to get out.”

  The little man looked to be in his early sixties. He was bald and his goatee beard was mostly grey. Liver spots dotted the backs of his hands, which trembled as he spoke. But he sure didn’t look like no time-travelin’ Pinkerton agent.

  “You want to get out?” Smith said, grasping for some handle to help him pick up this whole story. “But didn’t Ms Cady send you, or something?”

  Koffler looked into Smith’s eyes and smiled as if relieved.

  “She did not send me, no. And I do wish to get out, yes. It is a terrible burden, Smith, knowing what must soon become of my country. I have a wife and children. I do not want them here when it happens.”

  Smith wondered at his guess that Koffler was in his sixties. Maybe he was a deal younger, but like that Jewish barber, hard times had aged him.

  “So I will get them out. But first I must take you back to Miss Cadence.”

  “Take?”

  “Yes, Herr Smith. I am coming with you. Back to Salem. To 1692.”

  14

  Corwin nearly threw her across the cell when they returned. He was gentler with Mary, but still shoved her back behind bars with enough force to send the old woman sprawling on the stone floor. Worried that she might have sprained or broken a wrist, Cady hurried to help her up and to give her a quick pat down.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Mistress Cadence, you keep saying that word—Oh Kay—but its meaning is unknown to me. I will hazard that you ask after my person. If so, I give thanks to be without injury.”

  “For now,” Corwin growled, before slamming the cage door and snapping closed the padlock.

  “Thanks, Newt,” Cady snarked, and it had a pleasing effect on him. He hustled backward a little ways, eyeing her warily.

  “I will bring the heavy chains next time, and you will remain in them, hag,” he said.

  “Whatever your kink, big boy. I don’t judge.”

  Corwin snarled but beat a retreat. Cady got the strong impression that he felt nervous being alone down there with them. The other deputies and constables—they had constables here, just like in London—had stayed behind to restore order to the courthouse. Cady looked for their fellow prisoners, but their cell was empty. Perhaps they’d been moved to the main jail. Perhaps they were standing in chains before the magistrates right now.

  Didn’t matter.

  She helped Mary to the spot where she habitually sat, leaned up against the wall, and reached into the voluminous folds of her dress or smock or whatever the hell the wearable tent was called. She found what she needed in a pocket near the woman’s hip.

  A packet of orange cacao protein balls and the Altoids tin.

  “My apologies for turning you into my mule, but have one of these,” she said, offering the woman one of the citrus-flavored health snacks. Mary’s hand shook as she took the offering. Her parchment-thin skin was scratched and bruised. Her eyes went wide again when she tasted the protein ball.

  “Never seen anyone enjoy them quite that much,” Cady confessed. “But they’ll give you the strength of three bowls of gruel.”

  That was a lie, but placebos undoubtedly worked just as well here as they did in her time. In fact, judging by the mass hysteria she’d just witnessed in the courtroom, the power of suggestion was massively amplified for these people.

  “We’re getting out of here tonight,” Cady promised. “You, me and any of those other… goodwomen who want to come.”

  She jerked a thumb back over her shoulder at the empty cell.

  “And how will you effect this miracle, Mistress Cadence?” Mary eyed her skeptically.

  “No magic. Just the tools of men,” Cady replied.

  The other women did not return before darkness fell. It came early at this latitude and time of year. Nobody arrived with a meal, leaving Cady to guess they were being punished for the morning’s shenanigans.

  “Of that I have no doubt,” Mary confirmed. “Corwin’s men would have delivered our supper an hour past if they were so minded.”

  “Yeah, well fuck them and the horse they rode in on,” Cady said. “I’m happy to be left alone.”

  “Your husband, the Titanic Smith, does he curse with such abandon?” Mary asked.

  Cady smiled widely.

  It was the first time she’d done so since arriving.

  “First, he’d love it that you called him the Titanic Smith. And no, he is not given to a-cussin’ and a-bellerin’ as he would put it.”

  The old woman looked perplexed and not a little worried.

  “Then why must you profane the air with such language, mistress? It is unbecoming a gentlewoman.”

  Cady purposely sketched a smile this time, softening it at the edges.

  “Well, I am no more a witch than you are, Mary. But I am no gentlewoman either.”

  “You speak the truth of that.”

  “I told you. We are travelers, my husband and I.” She was getting used to that particular lie. It felt good to put it out there again, as though it somehow kept Smith close to her. “We have walked very different paths to find each other. I do confess, Mary, that mine have carried me into… low company and infamous connections. I have traversed the provinces of faraway Skyrim and the vast open world of Los Santos. I have quested for the Princess Zelda in Hyrule and journeyed under no man’s sky. These adventures were not for the gentle of heart. Did I ever tell you I took an arrow in the knee once?”

  “Goodness no!”

  “It’s okay. I got better. But I’m sorry if the rough edges I have picked up in my travels are discomforting to you. I’ll try to smooth off the worst of them.”

  Mary sighed. She looked very tired.

  “I am in my seventy-eighth year, Mistress Cadence. I am not so much bothered with words these days as I am with deeds. You have done nothing but spake true and shown me ki
ndness. Others I have known, lo these many years, cannot claim such lest they offend our Lord’s commandment that we not bear false witness.”

  “Booyah, sister,” Cady said and held her fist up for a solidarity bump. “That’s like ‘amen’ where I come from,” she explained.

  She gently raised Mary’s hand, made a tiny, frail fist of it, and gave her the bump.

  “Your ways are strange to me, traveler,” said the increasingly baffled-looking old woman.

  “Yeah. I guess they are.”

  They shared the rest of the protein balls. It wasn’t enough to stave off hunger pangs. Matter of fact, it brought Cady’s appetite roaring back from wherever it had gone while the adrenaline was still surging through her system. She told Mary to get some sleep.

  An hour passed. Then two.

  When neither the other female prisoners nor Sheriff Corwin returned, Cady decided it was time to move. The sounds of the township had ebbed away as the darkness outside the tiny cellar windows grew more complete. The clip clop of horses’ hooves faded. No axes chopped logs into firewood. The low rumble and hubbub of the crowd that had followed them back to their cell in the basement of Ingersoll’s Tavern was gone. Even the scrape and footfall of boots in the barroom upstairs eventually fell silent.

  She shook Mary awake.

  Cady didn’t need her help with the hand-operated saw-chain, but she didn’t want the old girl waking up to find her mysterious cellmate had miraculously freed them from captivity. These people saw the divine or the diabolical everywhere. If you dropped a fart at the wrong moment they’d set you on fire because you must have let Lucifer disco down in your poop chute. There could be no other explanation.