Time's Edge

by Rysa Walker

  There are no cows or horses in sight, although it looks like there are a few chickens wandering around near the barn. “It seems a little bare, Farmer Dunne.”

  “I’ve been too busy to play farmer. The livestock will come in around the same time Owens arrives.”

  He opens the back door to the cabin, although it’s a good deal more spacious than the word cabin suggests. We enter a large room with hardwood walls and flooring. A multicolored woven rug is in front of the fireplace, and there’s a ladder leading to a loft up above. I see a small kitchen near the front of the house and two doors on the right side of the main room. It’s maybe twice the size of the cottage Dad and I shared at Briar Hill, when you add in the loft.

  “It’s really nice, Kiernan. A lot more room than your other place.” I’m about to ask why he decided to invest in a house right now, in the middle of everything, but I heed the little voice whispering that I probably don’t want to know.

  “There’s no electric and no cell phone tower. But we do have indoor plumbing. Hot water, too.”

  “You’re kidding? In 1905?”

  “Not kidding.” He crosses over to one of the doors and opens it to reveal a bathroom, complete with a toilet, sink, and a big white claw-foot tub. There’s also a cast-iron contraption, which looks like something from the cover of a steampunk novel, attached to the wall. It’s about three feet tall, with one end extending upward through the ceiling and silver pipes coming out the bottom and running underneath the sink and tub. A third pipe winds behind the sink and through a hole in the left wall, so I’m guessing it goes to the kitchen.

  “That’s the monster that conked me on the head when Charlie and I put it in. Runs on gasoline. You light the pilot and turn on the water. Just don’t touch it once it gets going. You can heat up a towel just by hanging it near the thing.”

  “And you can buy this contraption in Bogart, Georgia?”

  “Actually, no. Had to drive to Atlanta for it. I’ve gained quite the reputation as an odd Yankee as a result. Charlie—the local guy I hired to help me install it—talks nonstop, so I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. They can laugh all they want, though. I’m tired of cold showers where it takes half an hour to get the soap off you. The one at my old place had a line halfway down the hall most days, and when you finally did get in, it was like a squirrel peeing on your head.”

  “Ick.”

  “Yes, it was ick.” His eyes take on a teasing look, and he adds, “Perhaps I could run you a bath, so you can wash that god-awful paint out of your hair?”

  “It’s not supposed to be attractive. It’s a disguise.”

  “A travesty’s more like it. But I guess it’ll have to do for now.”

  He motions for me to follow him back into the main part of the cabin. “My room’s up there,” he says, nodding up toward the loft. “This one’s yours.”

  Maybe he notices me tensing up, because he quickly adds, “I mean, it’s the guest room. Yours when you need it. I know you’ve been putting in more hours than there are in the day, so this is another place you can go, if you need to get away. Just don’t forget to charge your computer first, and don’t count on accessing the internet.”

  The door swings inward to show a small room with a single window opened halfway. A double bed, covered by a patchwork quilt, takes up most of the room, but there’s also a small dresser with a mirror that has those little knobs on the side so that you can adjust the angle. It’s very much the image of a turn-of-the-century bedroom, until my eyes drift upward and I see the glow stars.

  I laugh, shaking my head, and he says, “I’ll take ’em down when I’m not here. But I couldn’t leave those behind.” He nods toward the bed. “Amelia, Jess’s wife, gave me the quilt before I left. Jess said to tell you hello, by the way.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’s okay, I guess. I hated to leave him up there with no one else believing him, but . . . I told him I’d pop in when I can.”

  “It’s a lovely room.” I give him the best smile I can manage, even though the room and the effort he’s put into the entire cabin make me feel a little strange, maybe even a little guilty. I know he doesn’t really think I’ll be staying here, at least not often, but it’s beyond obvious that he wishes I would. He built this place with Other-Kate in mind—a house with as many of the comforts of the twenty-first century as he could possibly offer. Showing it to me is the closest he can get to her being here to see it.

  “Your 1905 dress is in the closet there, along with a few other things. I bought two pairs of boy’s jeans that should fit you. You might want to slip a pair on before your lessons.”

  I narrow my eyes. “What lessons?”

  He opens one of the top drawers of the dresser and pulls out a gun. It’s smaller than the one he showed me before and looks more modern—square, a shorter barrel with engraving, and a pearl handle.

  “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

  I swallow hard and shake my head. “The situation hasn’t changed, so I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “Not unless you’re willing to let me stay by your side all the time. And truthfully, I’d still prefer that you were armed, just in case. But I’m not turning a gun over to you until I’m sure you can use it safely.” He sets it down on the edge of the white crocheted doily in the center of the dresser, which somehow makes the gun look even more sinister, and then taps the bottom drawer with his knuckles. “Jeans are in here.”

  “Why do I need to change? I can shoot a gun in a dress.”

  “True. But for the other lesson, you’re gonna want the jeans. Trust me.” He closes the door behind him before I can ask any other questions. And while I’m tempted to open the door and follow him, perhaps it’s best to just humor him for now.

  The jeans aren’t really cut for a girl, so they’re a little tight in the hips and a little loose in the waist, but they’ll do. The shirt in the closet must be one of Kiernan’s, because I have to roll up the sleeves and the hem falls nearly to my knees.

  I open the door and then realize that the gun is still on the dresser. Kiernan probably left it there intentionally, so that I’d be forced to pick it up. A logical first step, given that I’ll have to touch it in order to learn to shoot.

  This would have been much easier before Chicago. I’ve never liked guns, but having Holmes fire one at me elevated a simple dislike to something closer to an outright phobia. And somehow the modern look of this gun makes it worse. The one Holmes fired at me was a revolver, but like the gun that I saw in Kiernan’s apartment, it looked more like a prop—like something you’d use with a Halloween costume. This, on the other hand, looks exactly like something you’d use to kill people.

  It’s not a snake, Kate. Just pick the damned thing up. It’s probably not even loaded.

  I wrap my fingers around the gun and lift it, centering its weight in my palm. Then I raise it higher and take practice aim at a leaf on the tree just outside the window.

  “Don’t pull the trigger, okay? Window glass isn’t easy to come by.”

  It’s good that my finger isn’t on the trigger, because I jump at the sound of his voice. Suddenly the gun feels a lot heavier. “It’s loaded?”

  “Of course. What good is an unloaded gun?”

  “I wasn’t going to pull the trigger,” I say, lowering the pistol to hide my shaking hand.

  He smiles, but his eyes remain serious. “I’m glad. Because if you’d taken a shot holding it like that, with just one hand, you’d’ve landed square on your bottom and possibly knocked out a tooth to boot.” He holds his hand out. “I can carry it for now, if you want.”

  “I’m fine.” I grip the handle a little tighter and follow him outside.

  Kiernan has set up a board between two sawhorses, with eight tin cans in a neat little row. A gun similar to mine is tucked into his belt.

  “Where’s the other one? The revolver?”

  “Gave it back to Jess, just in case. This one’s better anyway.
”

  “It looks too modern for 1905.”

  He holds it up so that I can read the information on the side. Automatic Colt Calibre 32 Rimless Smokeless. Then he flips it over. Browning’s Patent. Apr.20.1897 Dec.22.1903.

  “These are both Colt Model 1903. Yours is a little newer than mine. Let me see it.”

  He points to an engraved number just above the trigger. “Mine is 1903, and it has a four-digit serial number. If you look here, yours has five digits, which means it’s newer. They look modern because this model’s a classic. Police and military, and quite a few gangsters, will use this model until the 1950s. So you’ve probably seen it in movies. I bought it because it’s easy to conceal and easy to shoot. You remember how Jess’s gun had a hammer at the top, right?”

  The only hammer I can picture in my mind is used to pound nails. It must show on my face, because he laughs.

  “The little thing you pull back with your thumb? That’s the hammer. This model Colt has the hammer inside, so you don’t have to cock it. The bullets are in a cartridge, making it easier to reload. Eight bullets to a cartridge. Fires a lot faster, too.”

  “Okay. A nice upgrade.” I take the gun back and smile at him. “But I can’t believe you bought me a girly gun. A pearl handle?”

  “Quite a few gunfighters carried pistols with pearl grips.”

  “Who?” I ask. “Belle Starr?”

  He shakes his head. “Tell you what, I’ll demonstrate with mine, and then you can fire yours. We’ll see if you still call it a girly gun after you feel its kick.”

  He takes a step forward, aiming his pistol at the first can. “Fair warning. I’m not exactly a crack shot. I’ll be lucky if I hit half of them.”

  I stick my fingers in my ears the first time, but it’s actually not as loud as I’d expected. Kiernan hits five the first time, and we line the cans back up. He manages six the next time around, and then it’s my turn.

  I’m less nervous now. I think part of it is that we’re just aiming at cans, so it seems more like a video game than actually doing anything lethal. But I’m also getting used to the feel of the gun. I hold it out with both hands, like Kiernan did, and start to take aim, but he stops me.

  “Okay, this model has less recoil than most guns, but you still have to get used to it. Keep both arms level, and angle your elbows out a bit.”

  He steps behind me, and I inhale sharply, because I just know he’s about to do that thing where the guy comes in close and presses his body against the girl to show her how to hold a weapon. But he doesn’t. I exhale, relieved, but now my skin is hyperalert. He repositions my elbows, first the right and then the left, his touch gentle on my bare skin. A shiver runs through me, even though his breath is warm against the side of my face.

  “Are you sure you’re okay, Katie? You don’t have to do this.”

  I let out a little laugh and shake my head, glad that he’s misread my body language. It’s not the gun that has me nervous right now. Bowing my elbows slightly, I take aim and fire at the first can.

  I miss. By a mile. I’m not sure I’d call the gun’s recoil a kick, but the abrupt movement still catches me off guard, and I take a few steps backward, directly into Kiernan.

  I may have given him a bit too much credit, because he probably knew that would happen. And while his arms are perfectly positioned to help me maintain my physical balance, they aren’t exactly helping my emotional balance.

  I curse under my breath, partly annoyed at missing the target but mostly annoyed at my response to Kiernan. Why does his touch evoke such a strong, instinctive reaction that I have to fight it back each and every time? I remind myself that Trey’s waiting at the townhouse for me to return and make my feet step a few inches away.

  “It’s not as easy as it looks, is it?”

  “Nowhere near as easy,” I mutter, biting the side of my lip. “That shot was way off. How far do these bullets go?”

  “A good distance, which is why we’re firing toward the broad side of the barn. Although you may have missed that too.”

  “Oh, ha, ha. You’re a real laugh riot.” I raise the gun again and fire. I miss, but I do hit the board, and all eight cans tumble to the ground as a result.

  “I win,” I tell him. “The goal was to knock down the cans, right? I knocked down all eight with one bullet. Can’t beat that.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not how it works, love.”

  He sets the last few cans upright and steps away. This time, I hit the second can. I was aiming at the first one, but it’s a definite improvement.

  A half hour or so later, he’s taught me how to reload and where the safety is, and my aim is improving rapidly. I’m routinely hitting six out of eight and finally manage a clean sweep. The trick, at least for me, seems to be holding my breath when I fire and, most importantly, thinking of this as a game. If I remember that it’s a real and potentially deadly weapon in my hand, my aim isn’t nearly as good.

  “My turn,” Kiernan says as he steps forward, his mouth pressed in a thin line. He gets seven this time, and then it’s back to six again. And the next time, it’s still six.

  I’m doing a really good job of keeping a straight face, until he looks over at me and raises his eyebrows, at which point the triumphant grin sneaks out of control. “I played a lot of this video game called Duck Hunt when I lived in Iowa. So maybe . . .” I shrug.

  “Yeah, right. I’m going to put these back in the house,” he says, his lower lip out slightly in a mock pout. “You have a moral obligation to help repair my shattered male ego, now that you’ve totally emasculated me, so you might want to start thinking of how you’re going to manage that.”

  I snort at his retreating, broad-shouldered, totally unemasculated back and wonder who slipped him a copy of Freud a decade or two in advance. I’m looking around for a bin or someplace to discard the mangled cans when Kiernan comes up and pulls some sort of hat onto my head.

  “What the—”

  “Safety precaution.” He’s wearing one, too—it looks kind of like a leather helmet, with long brown flaps that hang down over his ears.

  “You look like Daphne,” I say.

  “I’ve had worse insults. But you really should look in the mirror before talking.”

  “And this is a safety precaution for . . . ?”

  He leads me around the corner and into the shed. The rear bicycle wheel I noticed earlier is attached to a bike that looks pretty much like Mom’s, which I occasionally ride in DC, except there’s a weird cylindrical object attached beneath the crossbar and a few extra parts here and there. There’s another bike a few feet away, identical other than the wicker basket strapped to the back fender.

  “These are actually football helmets,” he says. “There’s no such thing as a motorcycle helmet in 1905, but since I suspected you’d never get on one without a helmet . . .”

  “Kiernan, those just look like bikes.”

  “Well, they are bikes, for the most part. With a motor added, so you can go faster. I have a car waiting in 1938, but it seemed pointless to try and teach you how to drive here, because autos change a lot between now and then. So I bought these. They’ll be fine here in the shed for a couple of years, and—”

  I sigh, closing my eyes. The house I kind of understand. But the bikes? Kiernan seems to be building up a fantasy where I stay here in 1905 with him and wander around the countryside, going on rides and having picnics or whatever.

  “Kiernan, you need transportation in 1905. I don’t. The CHRONOS key takes care of that.”

  He leans back against the wall and gives me a long look. “I was hoping we could do the fun part first, but you’re right. Let’s go back inside. You need to see the mess your grandpa left in 1911.”

  ∞13∞

  I sit down at the small kitchen table and pull my helmet off. The inside is now a nearly uniform shade of gray. I run my finger across it, and sure enough, it comes away coated with the temporary hair color.

  Kiernan
climbs down from the loft, a yellow box under one arm. He hands it to me, and I run my fingertip over his wrist, leaving a silvery trail. “Oops,” he says, looking back up at me. “Sorry about that.”

  “Ri-i-ght. I don’t believe you for even a second. How badly is it smeared?”

  “Um . . . it’s bad. Looks like you’re wearing a gray helmet.”

  I narrow my eyes and yank the box toward me before noticing Kiernan’s expression. He’s looking at it as though it houses something poisonous. I decide to treat it with a bit more caution and lift the lid gingerly.

  No snakes or spiders. Aside from the CHRONOS diary at the bottom of the box, it’s nothing more than newspaper clippings, maybe a dozen in all, with headlines like “Grisly Scene in Backwoods Church,” and “Greene County Deaths Still a Mystery.” Most of them are just text, dated late September 1911, but two of the articles near the bottom have photographs.

  I begin with those, but after I see the pictures, I wish I’d started with the text-only articles and worked up an immunity. The images are both black and white, and they aren’t especially gory. But they are eerie as hell.

  “How many dead?” I ask.

  “One account said forty-seven; another said forty-eight. There was at least one small kid, so maybe someone just counted the heads in the pews and didn’t look in laps. The village is isolated, but they’re pretty sure it was the entire population. A few of their people always came into town for supplies once a week, like clockwork. When they didn’t show up two weeks in a row, someone went looking.”

  The pictures are both taken inside a tiny, rustic church with a simple pulpit, adorned only by a cross in the middle. To the right of the pulpit is a woman’s body, tall and thin, sitting upright on a bench, her head slumped against the top of the dark wood panel separating the pulpit area from the small choir loft directly behind it. A chest about the size of a coffee table, standing waist high on long, thin legs, sits off to the left, the lid open. Something inside the chest reflects light from the windows, but I can’t tell what it is.