Time Travelers

by Peter Haining (ed)

  Then she’d turned on her heel and stalked away.

  In practice around the mile dirt oval, Barney found that 999 was a savage beast to handle at anything approaching full throttle.

  ‘She’s got the power, all right, but she’s wild,’ he said after several runs. ‘Open her up and she goes for the fence. Dunno if I can keep her on the track.’

  ‘Are you willing to try?’ asked Cooper. ‘You’ll have to do better than fifty out there tomorrow to beat Winton’s Bullet. Can you handle her at that speed?’

  Oldfield squinted down from his seat behind the tiller. ‘Well,’ he grinned, ‘this damn chariot may kill me—but they will have to say afterwards that I was goin’ like hell when she took me through the rail!’ He looked down sheepishly at Kathy: ‘And I beg yer pardon for my crude way of expression.’

  The morning of October 25, 1902, dawned chill and grey, and by noon a gust of wind-driven rain had dampened the Grosse Pointe oval.

  The popular horse track had originally been laid out over a stretch of low-lying marshland bordering the Detroit River, and many a spirited thoroughbred had galloped its dusty surface. On this particular afternoon, however, the crowd of two thousand excited citizens had come to see horsepower instead of horses, as a group of odd-looking machines lined up behind the starting tape. Alexander Winton, the millionaire founder of the Winton Motor Carriage Company and the man credited with the first commercial sale of an auto in the United States in 1898, was the odds-on favourite in his swift, flat-bodied Winton Bullet. Dapper and handsomely moustached, he waved a white-gloved hand to the crowd. They responded with cheers and encouragement: ‘Go get ‘em, Alex!’

  Winton’s main competition was expected to come from the powerful Geneva Steamer, Detroit’s largest car, with its wide wheelbase, four massive boilers, and tall stack—looking more like a land-bound ship than a racing automobile. A Winton Pup, a White Steamer, and young Oldfield at the tiller of 999 filled out the five-car field.

  Kathy spotted Henry Ford among the spectators in the main grandstand, looking tense and apprehensive; Ford was no longer the legal owner of 999, but the car had been built to his design, and he was anxious to see it win. In 1902, Ford was thirty-nine, with his whole legendary career as the nation’s auto king ahead of him. His empire was still a dream.

  Kathy’s heart was pounding; she felt flushed, almost dizzy with excitement. The race she’d spent weeks reading about was actually going to happen in front of her; she was a vital, breathing part of the history she’d so carefully researched. At the starting line, she overheard Tom Cooper’s last-minute words to Oldfield.

  ‘All the money’s on Winton,’ he was saying. ‘But we’re betting you can whup him! What do you say, lad?’

  ‘I say let him eat my dust. Nobody’s gonna catch me out there on that track today.’

  ‘Do you think he can do it, Kate?’ asked Willy, gripping her elbow as they stood close to the fence. ‘Do you think Barney can beat Winton? The Bullet’s won a lot of races!’

  ‘We’ll just have to wait and see,’ she said, with a twinkle in her eyes. ‘But I can guarantee one thing—this race will go down in history!’

  At the drop of the starter’s flag all five cars surged forward, the high, whistling kettle-boil scream of the steamers drowned by the thunder-pistoned roar of 999 and the Winton Bullet.

  Sliding wide as he throttled the bouncing red hell wagon around the first turn, Barney immediately took the lead away from Winton. But could he hold it?

  ‘Winton’s a fox!’ declared Willy as they watched the cars roar into the back stretch. ‘He’s given Barney some room just to find out what 999 can do. See! He’s starting his move now!’

  Which was true. It was a five-mile event, and by the end of the first mile Alex Winton had Oldfield firmly in his sights, and was closing steadily with the Bullet as the two steamers and the Pup dropped back.

  It was a two-care race.

  Barney knew he was in trouble. He was getting a continuous oil bath from the exposed crankshaft, and almost lost control as his goggles filmed with oil. He pushed them up on his forehead, knowing they were useless. But there was a greater problem: bouncing over the ruts and deep-gouged potholes, the car’s rigid ashwood-and-steel chassis was giving Oldfield a terrible pounding, and he was losing the sharp edge of concentration needed to win. On some of the rougher sections of the track the entire car became airborne.

  Watching the Bullet’s relentless progress, as Winton closed the gap between himself and Oldfield, Kathy experienced a sharp sense of frustration. At this rate, within another mile the Bullet would overhaul 999 and take the lead.

  But that must not happen, she told herself. It could not happen. The pattern of the race was already fixed in history!

  Suddenly, she had the answer.

  ‘He forgot it!’ she yelled to Willy.

  ‘Forgot what?’

  ‘Never mind! Just wait here. I’ll be back.’

  And she pushed through the spectators, knocking off a fat man’s bowler and dislodging several straw boaters; she had a destination and there was no time to waste in getting there.

  When Oldfield neared the far turn, at the end of the back stretch, each new wheel hole in the track’s surface rattling his teeth, he saw Kathy Benedict straddling the fence.

  She was waving him closer to the rail, pointing to something in her hand, yelling at him, her voice without sound in the Gatling-gun roar of 999’s engine.

  Closer.

  And yet closer.

  What in the devil’s name did this mad girl want with him?

  Then she tossed something—and he caught it. By damn!

  The cigar!

  It was just what he needed—and he jammed the cushioning cheroot between his teeth, lowered his body over the iron control bar, and opened the throttle. In a whirling plume of yellow dust, 999 hurtled forward.

  Now let old Winton try and catch him!

  ‘Look at that!’ shouted Willy when Kathy was back with him at the fence. ‘He’s pullin’ away!’

  Oldfield was driving brilliantly now, throwing the big red wagon into each turn with fearless energy, sliding wide, almost clipping the fence, yet maintaining that hairline edge of control at the tiller. The blast from the red car’s four open exhausts was deafening—and the crowd cheered wildly as 999 whipped past the main grandstand in a crimson blur.

  By the third mile, Alex Winton was out, his overstrained engine misfiring as the Bullet slowed to a crawl in Barney’s dust.

  And when Oldfield boomed under the finish flag, to a sea of cheering from the stands, he had lapped the second-place Geneva Steamer and left the other competitors far, far behind.

  Willy jumped up and down, hugged Kathy, lifting her from the ground and spinning her in a circle, yelling out his delight.

  Sure enough, just as she’d promised it would be, this one had been a race for the history books.

  The morning papers proclaimed 999’s triumph in bold black headlines:

  WINTON LOSES!

  OLDFIELD WINS!

  And the lurid copy described Barney as ‘hatless, his long, tawny hair flying out behind him with the speed of his mount, seeming a dozen times on the verge of capsize, he became a human comet behind the tiller of his incredible machine.’

  Reporters asked Barney what it was like to travel at a truly astonishing fifty miles per hour! How could mortal man stand the bullet-like speed?

  Oldfield was quoted in detail: ‘You have every sensation of being hurled through space. The machine is throbbing under you with its cylinders beating a drummer’s tattoo, and the air tears past you in a gale. In its maddening dash through the swirling dust the machine takes on the attributes of a sentient thing … I tell you, gentlemen, no man can drive faster and live!’

  Henry Ford was quick to claim credit for the design and manufacture of 999, and the nation’s papers headlined his name next to Oldfield’s, touting the victory at Grosse Pointe as ‘the real beginning of the Au
to Age’.

  Within a month, riding the crest of public acclaim, Hank Ford laid the foundations for his Ford Motor Company—already planning for the day when his ‘tin lizzies’ would swarm the highways of America.

  The victory of 999 also benefited Willy McGuire. ‘I want you and Spider to work for me from now on, Willy,’ Hank Ford had told him. ‘Cooper just doesn’t appreciate you. And, for a start, I’ll double your salary!’

  During the days following the race at Grosse Pointe, Kathy fell deeply in love with the happy, red-haired Irishman. He was totally unlike any man she’d ever known: honest, kind, strong, gentle and attentive. And he loved her as a complete woman—mind and body. For the first time in her life, she had found real emotional fulfilment.

  His question was inevitable: ‘Will you marry me, Kate?’

  And her reply came instantly: ‘Yes, yes, yes! Oh, yes, Willy, I’ll marry you!’

  As they embraced, holding one another tightly, Kathy knew that she was no longer afraid of anything. The old life was gone.

  ‘Nothing frightens me now that I’m with you,’ she told him.

  ‘Not even the lake?’ he suddenly asked, his blue eyes intense.

  She was startled by the question. ‘I never said that I was afraid of the lake.’

  ‘It’s been obvious. We do everything together. Ride … skate … picnic … attend band concerts. But you never want to go boating with me on the lake.’

  ‘I don’t like boating. I told you that.’

  His eyes were steady on hers. ‘Then why were you on the lake alone the day I found you? What made you go out there?’

  She sighed, lowering her eyes. ‘It’s a long, long story and someday, when I’m sure you’ll understand, I’ll tell you all about it. I swear I will.’

  ‘It’s a fine day, Kate. Sky’s clear. No wind. No clouds. I think we ought to go out on the lake. Together.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘To put that final fear of yours to rest. It’s like climbing back on a horse once he’s bucked you off. If you don’t, you never ride again. The fear is always there.’

  A strained moment of silence.

  ‘I’m not afraid of the lake, Willy,’ she said in a measured tone.

  ‘Then prove you’re not! Today. Now. Show me, Kate!’

  And she agreed. There was nothing to fear out there on the quiet water. She kept telling herself that over and over …

  Nothing to fear.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  The weather was ideal for boating—and Willy handled the oars with practised ease, giving Kathy a sense of confidence and serenity.

  She did feel serene out here on the placid lake. She enjoyed the pleasant warmth of the afternoon sun on her shoulders as she twirled the bright red parasol Willy had bought her just for this occasion.

  The water was spangled with moving patterns of sunlight, glittering diamond shapes, shifting and breaking and re-forming in complex designs around the boat as Willy rowed steadily away from the shore.

  In this calming aura of peace and natural beauty she wondered why she had been so afraid of the lake. It was lovely here, and there was certainly nothing to fear. The bizarre circumstances of that fateful afternoon in 1982 were unique; a freak storm had created some kind of time gate through which she had passed. And no harm had been done to her. In fact, she was grateful for the experience; it had brought her across a bridge of years to the one man she could truly love and respect.

  She reached out to touch his shoulder gently. ‘Mr McGuire, I love you.’

  He grinned at her. ‘And I love you, Miss Benedict!’

  Willy laid aside the oars to take her into his arms. They stretched out next to one another in the bottom of the easy-drifting boat. The sky above them was a delicate shade of pastel blue (like Willy’s eyes, she thought) and a faint breeze carried the perfume of deep woods out on to the water.

  ‘It’s an absolutely perfect moment,’ she said. ‘I wish we could put it in a bottle and open it whenever we get sad!’

  ‘Don’t need to,’ said Willy softly. ‘We’ve got a lifetime of perfect moments ahead of us, Kate.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Life is never perfect.’

  ‘Ours will be,’ he said, running a finger along the side of her sun-warm cheek, tracing the curve of her chin. ‘I’ll make it perfect—and that’s a promise.’

  She kissed him, pressing her lips deeply into his.

  He sat up.

  ‘Hey,’ she protested, opening her eyes. ‘Where’d you go? We were just getting started.’ And she giggled.

  ‘Sky’s darkening,’ he said, looking upwards, shading his eyes. ‘I’d better row us in. A lake storm can—’

  ‘Storm?’ She sat up abruptly, staring at him, at the sky and water. ‘No! Oh, God, no!’

  ‘Whoa there, you’re shaking!’ he said, holding her. ‘There’s nothing to get worried over. We’ll be back on shore in a few minutes.’

  ‘But you weren’t there … you don’t understand!’ she said, a desperate tone in her voice. ‘That’s just how the other storm came along— out of nowhere. And the wind …’

  It was there, suddenly whipping at the lake surface.

  He was rowing strongly now, with the boat cutting towards the shoreline. ‘Be on the beach in a jiffy. You’ll see. Trust me, Kate.’

  But the wind was building rapidly, blowing against them, neutralising Willy’s efforts.

  Kathy looked fearfully at the sky. Yes, there they were, the same ugly mass of grey-black clouds.

  It began to rain.

  ‘Hurry, Willy! Row faster!’

  ‘I’m trying … but this wind’s really strong!’

  She sat in a huddled position in the stern of the boat, head down now, hands locked around her legs as the rain struck at her in blown gusts.

  ‘Never seen a storm build up this fast,’ Willy grunted, rowing harder. ‘Freak weather, that’s for sure.’

  How could he understand that she’d seen it all before, in a world eighty years beyond him? Clouds, wind, rain and—

  And…

  She knew when she looked up, slowly raising her head, that it would be there, at the horizon, coming for them.

  The wave.

  Willy stopped rowing at her scream. He looked towards the horizon.

  ‘God A’amighty!’

  Then, in the blink of a cat’s eye, it was upon them—blasting their senses, an angry, falling mountain of rushing water that split their boat asunder and pitched them into the seething depths of the lake.

  Into blackness.

  And silence.

  Kathy opened her eyes.

  She was alone on the beach. Somehow, without any visible proof, she knew she had returned to 1982.

  And Willy was gone.

  The thought tore through her, knife-sharp, filling her with desperate anguish.

  Willy has gone!

  She had lost him to the lake. It had given him to her and now it had taken him away.

  Forever.

  A husky lifeguard in orange swim trunks was running towards her across the sand.

  I don’t want to be saved, she told herself; I want to go back into the lake and die there, as Willy had died. There’s no reason to go on living. No reason at all.

  ‘You all right, miss?’

  Same words! Same voice!

  She looked up—into the face of her beloved. The blue eyes. The red hair. The gentle, intense features.

  ‘Willy!’ she cried, suddenly hugging him. ‘Oh, God, Willy, I thought I’d lost you! I thought you were—’

  She hesitated as the young man pulled back.

  ‘Afraid you’ve made a mistake,’ he said. ‘My name’s Tom.’

  She stared at him, and then she knew who he was. No doubt of it. Kathy knew.

  ‘What about your middle name?’

  ‘It’s William,’ he told her. And then grinned. ‘Oh, I see what you mean—but nobody ever calls
me Willy. Not since I was a kid.’

  ‘I know your last name,’ she said softly.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘It’s McGuire.’

  He blinked at her. ‘Yeah. Yeah, it is.’

  ‘Thomas William McGuire,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Please … sit down here, next to me.’

  With a small sigh, he did so. She intrigued him.

  ‘When were you born?’

  ‘In I960.’

  ‘And who was your father? What was his name?’

  ‘Timothy McGuire.’

  ‘Born? … The year?’

  ‘My Dad was born in 1929.’

  ‘And your grandfather … What was his name and when was he born?’

  ‘Patrick McGuire. Born in 1904.’

  Kathy’s eyes were shining. She blinked back the wetness. ‘And his father, your great-grandfather—’

  He started to speak, but she touched his lips with a finger to stop the words.

  ‘He was William Patrick McGuire,’ she said, ‘and he was born in 1880, right?’

  The young man was amazed. He nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. Right.’

  ‘And he survived a boating accident late in 1902, on this lake, didn’t he?’

  ‘He sure did, miss.’

  ‘Who was your great-grandmother?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Her name was Patricia Hennessey. They met after the accident, that Christmas. They say he kind of—’

  ‘Kind of what?’

  ‘Kind of married her on the rebound. Seems he lost the girl he was going to marry in the boating accident. My great-grandma was what I guess you’d call a second choice.’

  Then he grinned (Willy’s grin!), shaking his head. ‘I just can’t figure how you knew about him … Are you a friend of the family?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head.

  ‘And we’ve never met before, have we?’

  She looked into the deep lake-blue of his eyes. ‘No, Willy, we’ve never met.’ She smiled. ‘But we’re going to be friends … very, very good friends.’