by Jack L Knapp
“We’ll be older, won’t we?”
“Yes. Time has passed, so we’ll be a few months older. We lived through the time we spent in the past and we can’t undo that. You’ll remember Sarah, I’ll remember Billy Bonney and Jesse Evans and Jimmy McKenna, Grandpa the cook and so many others...” Ray’s voice trailed off as he thought about the things that had happened during his short journey to the past.
“That man I killed, I won’t forget that either, will I?”
“No, Libby, those memories don’t go away. I...” Ray hesitated. “Libby, men tried to kill me too while I was in the past. I did what you did, I struck back. I didn’t have a choice either. I didn’t want to take a chance on using my psionic abilities any more than I had to. I was afraid they might start to spread, just as they’ve begun spreading around Nevada. T and I think it’s happening because we’re there and somehow people near us are being affected as we use our talents. I didn’t want to take the chance it might happen in the past. That would change history and we might not be able to go home again. I hid my abilities as much as I could and only did what I had to do.”
“Ray, you killed a man?”
“I did. One came at me with a knife, a lot like that Apache did when he saw you. I had options you don’t have, though. I tangled his feet and hit him with my fist. The other man shot at me through the window of my hotel room. He would have done it again, or at least his friends would have. I’d made an enemy who would stop at nothing.”
Libby’s silence lasted more than a minute. Finally, she said, “Ray, is that what our abilities are for? Should we kill people just because they threaten us? We have these special abilities, shouldn’t we do more than that? Don’t we have responsibilities? Is it really fair to use abilities others don’t have in the way we’ve done?”
“Libby, in the end, there is no fairness. Some people are stronger, have faster reflexes, some have weapons that others don’t. We can only try to treat people fairly and do the best we can. It’s all anyone can do.”
“It’s so hard to understand. I understand what you’re saying, but there are more questions, aren’t there?”
“There are always more questions, Libby. Sometimes there aren’t any answers. You’re growing up, and it’s not easy being grown-up. We have to make decisions for ourselves. No parents, no teachers, we can’t rely on government leaders or police or anyone but ourselves.”
“I’m pretty sure I liked it better when I was a kid.”
#
The man swore in surprise and reached for his axe, the only weapon he had.
Across the clearing stood a man, dressed in the tattered remnants of a suit. Most of the coat was gone, the collar no more than a fragment and the sleeves missing entirely. The coat gaped, revealing a vest beneath that was in slightly better shape. The shirt had also suffered damage, as had the trousers. Burns and scorch marks showed against the once-white shirt and most of the man’s hair had been singed off. One shoe was missing; the other was unsuited for the wild country where the man now stood.
“Kto ty? Otkuda ty priyekhal? The strange man looked back, no sign of comprehension on his face. “Ty idiot?”
“I...do you speak English?”
The peasant lowered his axe. “Angliyskiy?”
The stranger blinked, trying to understand the unfamiliar word. “Not English. I’m...American, I think.”
“Amerikanskaya?”
The man nodded. The roughly-dressed peasant stood his axe by the door and shouted to someone inside. A heavy-set woman hurried out in response and gaped at the stranger.
“Is he a soldier, Mischa?”
“I don’t think so, Mother. He has no uniform, but that doesn’t mean much. Some of Semenov’s soldiers don’t wear uniforms. They have guns, though, and this one doesn’t.”
“I’ll call your father. He will know what to do.”
An older man arrived ten minutes later, accompanied by the woman who’d gone to fetch him.
“Mischa, this is dangerous. If he’s one of Kolchak’s men and Semenov finds him here, they will kill us. If he comes from Semenov, Kolchak’s soldiers will kill us. He could bring the soldiers on us and then they would take you away. We would starve, if they didn’t kill us first. This man is dangerous, I say we kill him and bury the body in the swamp.”
“Father, he has done us no harm. Look, he seems dazed. He does not understand Russian.”
“Do we not owe it to ourselves to survive? We owe this stranger nothing!”
“Father, we will offer him soup. I’m hungry, you are too. Mother has made soup, there will be enough. I will decide what to do after we eat. Come, we will take the man inside and give him food. It is what we have always done, be hospitable to strangers.”
“Mark my words, nothing good can come of this! Look, he’s ragged, no more than a beggar! He will eat us out of house and home!”
“Father, I will decide. I respect your words, but we have our traditions. Sometimes I think it is all this revolution has left to us. Only the food we grow ourselves or gather from the forest is left, and the Bolsheviks will take that if they learn we have it. We will have our soup and then speak again.”
The old man muttered as he led the way inside. A rude table, small, but sturdy, stood beside a woodburning stove. A large pot simmered on the stove and a wooden ladle hung from a peg on the wall. The woman dished up the soup, ensuring that the stranger got a full bowl. The family muttered and crossed themselves before eating.
“Pork? This contains pork, doesn’t it?” The strangers words were no more than nonsense. The family ignored him and ate, wiping the bowls clean with slabs of heavy dark bread thickly spread with butter. Cups of tea, sweetened with honey, were placed on the table. The stranger noticed that the soup pot was empty and that there was no more tea in the teapot. Even the samovar had been set aside.
“Thank you, ma’am. I was hungry. I don’t know who you are, but I get the idea you folks aren’t well off. Would it offend you if I offered to pay? I think you need the money more than I do.” The man reached for the last button on his shirt and opened it, losing the button as the thread snapped. Sighing, he fumbled open a pocket on the belt he wore beneath the shirt. Taking out a coin, he laid it on the table, then pushed it toward the woman, looking at her expectantly.
“Mother, that is...is that gold?”
“I think it must be. It is not Russian. Will we get in trouble for having it?”
“We can get in trouble for drinking tea, Mother. Take that and hide it, quick!”
“Mischa, he may have more of those things. I still say we should kill him and hide the body!”
“Father, I have decided. I will leave as soon as we are finished. Mother, make up a packet of food. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Misha, take your axe. After you kill the stranger, search his body to see if he has more gold. Don’t forget to bury the body deep, so the wolves don’t dig it up.”
“Father, I won’t kill him. I’m going to turn him over to the soldiers.”
“Mischa, they will kill him and probably kill you too. Semenov’s Cossacks are beasts!”
“I will not give him to the Cossacks, Father.”
“The others are almost as bad, Mischa. They’re all murderers, too lazy to work.”
“I will take him to the foreigners, Father.”
“There are others like this man? In Russia?”
“Yes, Father, Americans like this man, and many more strangers. The Chinese, Japanese, Czechs, and English have come. This is what the revolution has done, Russia is overrun with foreigners.”
“Won’t they kill you, Mischa? How can we trust foreigners?”
“I will not trust them, Father. I will take this man to them and let them decide what to do with him. Perhaps they will give me food or maybe a new shovel. They might even give me a gun, so that if the Cossacks come I can shoot them.”
#
“Libby, look up at the sky; do you see what I see?”
/> “Ray, is that an airplane? Is it a jet?”
“Right, the other one we saw had propellers but this one is a jet. It’s taking off from the airport. I think we’re almost home, Libby.”
“Shouldn’t we try to contact someone, Ray?”
“Not yet. There’s a possible problem with that; we need to arrive just before we left, each of us. What were you doing before you went back in time?”
“I was shopping with my mother. Why?”
“You also commed T, right?”
“Well, sure. I was worried about Grandpa Shorty.”
“So you teleported west and went back in time. I headed east after I found out you were missing, intending to find you by going where you teleported from and following you from there. Instead, I went back in time even though I was going east, the opposite direction you were going. That implies we can’t go into the future, only the past. I think the future isn’t determined, because there are an infinite number of futures. There may also be an infinite number of pasts, but only one that brought us to where we were. Anyway, I think our next teleport will take us to where we left our timeline. If we teleport again, in any direction, we’ll go into the past again.
“We have to be silent during any overlap period when our previous selves are still there. We’ll get home, and the question of trying to travel into the future won’t come up.
“I’ll stay with you at my ranch long enough for everything to clear up. We’ll have to tell your mother something, but maybe we should get your father involved. Shorty talked to him after you were kidnapped. Joe wanted to know who brought you back, and Shorty told him not to ask questions. I think your father believes we’re some sort of vigilantes! Anyway, maybe Shorty can telephone him and tell him not to ask questions this time either. Joe can tell your mother whatever he wants.”
“I’ll bet she grounds me forever!”
“I’ll get my car and we can drive to Reno. I’ll get you that hamburger you’ve been craving on the way!”
“How long will it take, Ray?”
“I don’t know, Libby, but you won’t starve!”
#
“Sarge, you better come see this. There’s a Russian at the gate and he’s got somebody with him. The fellow looks like he’s been hit by a truck or something.”
“Dammit, Heintzelman, can’t you make a decision for yourself? You’re a corporal now!”
“Want me to just shoot these two?”
“Hell no! Well, not unless they’ve got guns. Hang on, I’ll be right there.” The sergeant set down the cup of coffee and picked up his trench shotgun.
“Heintzelman says there are a couple of Russians at the gate. I’ll be right back, but you three pick up your rifles and watch what happens. Smithers, if this is some kind of trick, I want to hear that BAR of yours. And don’t blow through the entire magazine like you did last week!”
“I won’t, Sarge,” said the mortified Smithers. How many times had he explained that the damned trigger had been sticky, slow to return after he squeezed it?
“Back me up, Heintzelman. Be ready, but don’t shoot unless I do.”
“Me, Sarge? Can’t I do better if I stay behind cover?”
“With me, Heintzelman. That’s why they pay you the big bucks now.”
“Shit, I should’a stayed a private!”
The ragged man with the Russian heard this exchange. “Are you Americans?”
“Son of a gun, this character speaks English!”
“Well, sort of. It don’t sound like Boston English, so maybe he’s with that English regiment that’s west of us.”
“We’re Americans. Are you English?” The sergeant looked doubtful. “You’re not Czech, are you?”
“No, I’m pretty sure I’m American. What are you doing here? Isn’t this Russia?”
“I guess you’d call it that. We’re part of the AEFS, Army troops assigned to Siberia.”
“I don’t remember. I don’t know how I got here. I found this man, and he fed me and brought me here.”
“I guess we’ll take charge of you then. Heintzelman, you speak Russian. More than I do, anyway. Tell that fellow thanks and send him on his way.”
“Okay, Sarge.” Heintzelman rattled off a string of words and the Russian answered back. “Sarge, he asks if we can give him a shovel for finding the American? If we don’t have a shovel, can we give him a rifle?”
“Hell, we’ll give him both. Take a rifle from that shipment the general is refusing to turn over to the Bolsheviks. Ammo too, give him a case if he’s willing to carry it. He looks hungry, have the cooks feed him too before you send him on his way.”
“Wait a minute. I’ve got something for him too.”
The stranger pulled out two coins from his money belt and handed them to the delighted Mischa.
“Are you part of the 31st Infantry, buddy? Or maybe some of the Russian Railroad Service Corps? They’re American too.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Wouldn’t I remember if I was?”
“Maybe not. Some of the men have gone crazy over here. It’s the ass end of the world, buddy. How the hell President Wilson every decided we should be sent here is beyond me. Maybe he’s crazy too. It was bad enough, heading for France to be part of the Ass End Foremost, but Siberia? We just this past Christmas got our wool uniforms.
“You come with me, we’ll get you a uniform. I reckon we can get you a pistol, too. In this part of the world you need a gun of some kind. You ever shoot a pistol? The new M1911A1 is guaranteed to put a Cossack down and when it does, he won’t be getting up again.”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“You got a name, buddy?”
“I think so. But I don’t remember what it is.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Ray...I don’t know about this. I found an article online. You know I was doing research for T, and after he left I kept doing it.”
“Let me see, Shezzie.”
She swung the screen around and showed Ray.
The headline was relatively small; business news, especially the recent downturn in the stock market, got most of the ink. The article described the failure of Nikola Tesla’s tower and the famous scientist’s nervous collapse. He had been taken to a sanitarium and his friends hoped he would make a complete recovery.
The article reported that one of Tesla’s friends, a financial benefactor named Tom Tagliaferro, had vanished during the storm, just before it mysteriously weakened. The workmen at Wardenclyffe described the man as affable and somewhat mysterious, but Mr. Tesla liked his company. He had been there earlier during the test but had not been seen since the storm. No body had been recovered, but the workmen feared he had been killed, possibly by lightning. They believed he had been washed out to sea during the storm.
“Shezzie...wasn’t that the name T was using when I first met you two?”
“It was. I’m worried, Ray.”
#
“Major, I’ve got a fellow here who says he doesn’t remember his name. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, just some scorched rags. Lucky he wasn’t caught out overnight; he’d have got pretty damned cold, if a bear didn’t get him first. Anyway, he says he’s American and I believe him. He sounds like us, some of us anyway. Maybe he’s from Texas or someplace like that.”
“One of ours, Lieutenant?”
“Not as far as I can tell. Like I said, he wasn’t wearing a uniform when he showed up. He had a ragged coat with a label inside that I think said New York. It was pretty charred, though. You want I should send him to Vladivostok?”
The major drummed his fingers on the desk and thought. “Could he be one of those railroad people?”
“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Except for not remembering his name, he seems pretty sharp. He was surprised to find us here in Siberia, so that makes me think he’s not one our missing KIA-BNR guys. He did say one thing, though. He couldn’t remember his name, but when I tried to use letters to see if anything jogge
d his memory, he said T sounded familiar.”
“Didn’t the 27th Infantry lose a Corporal Tyler last month? They never found the body so they reported him killed in action, body not recovered. He could be Tyler or one of the other KIA-BNR people we’ve lost. Let me think for a minute.”
The major took a full minute and more. Finally, he decided.
“Maybe his memory will come back if he’s around people. Put him in uniform, issue him a rifle. See if he knows how to shoot. Let him zero the rifle, then use him with the railroad guards as soon as you’re satisfied he knows what to do. Maybe he is Tyler. Any sign of recent wounds?”
“None I saw. Most soldiers pick up scrapes here and there, but if he’s got any wounds or scars I didn’t see them.”
“Let the doctor examine him, then if he pronounces him fit for duty enlist him. But don’t make him a corporal, at least not yet. Let’s see how he does first. He might be Tyler or for all we know he might be Tippecanoe.”
The sergeant smiled at the joke, saluted, and went off to follow his orders. He was a happy man; losses hadn’t been replaced, meaning the work had been shared between fewer men as casualties mounted. One more warm body would help.
And if the new soldier named T, or Tyler, didn’t know how to soldier, well, teaching him would be just the thing for Corporal Heintzelman. About time that slacker earned his stripes!
#
“Grandpa!” Libby ran to the bed and hugged Shorty.
“Don’t take on so, girl; I’m fit as a fiddle!”
“We were worried, Shorty. Libby panicked when she couldn’t hear you.”
“Wal, they kept me on drugs for a while. I couldn’t hear anyone else either. But I’m raring to go home as soon as they’ll let me out. Libby, you want to come stay with me for a while? We could go camping.”
“I’d love that, Grandpa. I might surprise you; I’ve learned a few things since the last time I saw you.”
“Say, Ray, I haven’t heard from Mr. T in a while. He’s all right, isn’t he?”
“Shorty, I’m sure he is. Maybe he’s busy.”
###
Author’s Notes
