Portals of Time

by Vicky McCracken

  “Are you okay,” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yes, I just wasn’t expecting to see my mother. I miss her and Daddy so much.” The tears came again and Bo put his arm around her.

  “It’s okay, Miss Lori. Just let it out.”

  After a minute, she backed away from him and said, “Thank you Bo. You have been my parent since my parents died and I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  They got on their horses and rode back toward the little cabin. By this time, Lori had composed herself. Once they were far enough away from the house to be safe, they pulled up their horses. Lori turned to Bo.

  “So, Trace isn’t my brother. So why is he claiming to be? Who is he really? Why is he on our family tree?”

  “I don’t know Lori but we need to get back to our ranch and start going through those papers again. We have had to have missed something important. We have to find out what’s going on,” Bo told her.

  They rode back to the portal. Once there, they put their horses close and Lori moved the little car forward a little. The world began to spin around them. After a few minutes, everything stopped spinning and Lori looked at Bo.

  “You alright,” she asked.

  “Yes, fine, you?”

  Lori nodded. “Well, it looks as if we are back home. Think we are?”

  “Sure looks like it,” Bo said as they rode toward the ranch house.

  As they arrived back at the ranch, Lori and Bo both realized they were hungry and tired. They met Jessie coming from the house.

  “Hey,” he said. “Where have you been?”

  “You know where we’ve been Jessie,” Lori said.

  “You two have been gone for two days,” Jessie said.

  “I guess I don’t have the timing right, do I?” Lori said.

  “I’m hungry. Are you Lori,” Bo asked.

  “Yes. I’m tired too. I guess all this stuff we need to do can wait a little while,” Lori told him.

  Lori and Bo walked into the kitchen and found something to eat from the refrigerator and Jessie came with them.

  “Where did you go,” Jessie asked.

  “We will tell you everything later when we get together to figure all this out, but we were back when I was a little girl,” Lori said.

  Jessie was stunned. “Did you see yourself?”

  “No, we had to be careful for anyone not to see us but we saw my parents.”

  “I can’t wait to hear what happened,” Jessie said getting up. “I’m going to my room. Call for me when you’re ready.”

  “Will do,” Bo told him.

  Jessie walked out of the room and Bo and Lori finished eating in silence. Afterwards, they realized how tired they were and each retired to their rooms. Lori awoke around four p.m. She felt better- more refreshed now. She left her bedroom and went into her office. Once there, she picked up the phone and called Bo.

  “Where are you,” she asked when he answered.

  “I was getting ready to come up to the house and find you. You feel alright,” Bo asked.

  “Yes, really good in fact,” Lori told him. “Will you bring Jessie?”

  “Will do. See you in a few.”

  After hanging up, Lori went back to looking at the papers. After looking at the paper that had Trace on it, she realized it wasn’t real. The paper was a different thickness and a different color. Not much but enough so that if you were looking for something you could tell. She laid it aside to show Bo and Jessie and opened her computer and began to look through her ancestry. Trace’s name was there as if he was a child of her father. She looked at it for a minute then closed out the page and began to look through other web sites on ancestry. The first three were the same with Trace there as her father’s child. Then she moved on down to one near the bottom of the page and opened it. This one was different showing Lori as an only child. Suddenly she knew what had happened. Trace was smart. He had been here sometime earlier and fixed the pages and somehow planted his name in the web sites. She leaned back in her chair looking at the screen.

  Suddenly, Jessie and Bo came into the room and Lori smiled at them. “Come here you two and see what I found.”

  Bo and Jessie came to stand behind Lori at the computer. Lori pulled up the web sites with Trace on them, then down to the other one.

  “See,” she said. “He has fixed the first of the sites and added himself to them but not the others. Then there’s the paper. If you look at it closely, the paper is thicker and the color is a little off.”

  “He knew when he did this that I would probably only check the first ones. Most people do I guess. I know I do.”

  “So, he was hiding something,” Jessie said. “He really isn’t your brother.”

  “No he isn’t. That’s what Bo and I overheard when we went back. See, we found my mom and dad talking here in the house. My mother and father were having a fight. A woman had come and told them her son belonged to my father. I think my mother thought my father had an affair. Daddy knew better and had a DNA test run. He had received the results and was trying to tell my mother. Finally, he made her understand he was telling the truth and showed her the DNA test. The boy had to be Trace which also proves, along with this, he is not my brother. Now the question is, who is he? Why is he here?”

  “That is a question we need answered before something bad happens,” Bo said.

  “Maybe if we went back in time, we could find out where he came from,” Jessie said.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Bo said. “Why don’t you and Lori go back tomorrow and see if you can find out anything at all about Trace. I’ll stay here and take care of the ranch and watch him. I’ll make sure he stays here and doesn’t do anything.”

  “Alright, if Lori’s up to it,” Jessie looked at Lori as he spoke.

  “After breakfast in the morning, okay Jessie,” Lori asked.

  “Sounds good,” Jessie said.

  “Great,” said Bo. “Now let’s dig and see if we can find out why Trace is here.”

  “Maybe that’s not even his real name,” Jessie said.

  Lori worked on the computer while Bo and Jessie went through the papers one by one. By about nine, Lori rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know why we can’t find out anything on these web sites. It’s like he doesn’t exist.”

  “It is strange,” Bo said.

  “Let’s give up for now. You two haven’t found out anything have you,” Lori asked.

  As soon as she spoke there was a knock on the door. Bo went to answer it and there was Trace.

  “Hey Sis,” he said. “Here you are. Would you three come on out to the living room and watch some television with me.

  Lori smiled at him. Be there in a minute Trace. I need to shut off the computer.”

  “Good,” Trace walked off.

  Bo and Jessie gathered up the papers and put them in the desk while Lori picked up the laptop and locked it up in the same drawer.

  “Just in case he decides to be nosy.”

  Lori locked the office door behind them and together the three walked to the living room. Trace was in one of the recliners and Bo chose the other one with Lori and Jessie sitting on the love seat. They agreed on a show and began to watch. It was a two hour movie and Lori fell asleep, her head falling on Jessie’s shoulder about half way through.

  Jessie looked at her as she slept and she looked so peaceful. As the movie ended she stirred and sat up.

  “I’m going to bed guys,” she said.

  They all told her good night and Bo and Jessie started off toward the bunk house followed by Trace.

  * * * * * * * *

  Trace walked to his room and sat in the darkness. His mind went back to his childhood. The Indians had treated him as if he were their own. When he was eight and began to ask why he didn’t look the same way as everyone else, the Indian Chief took him aside one day and told him all about how his mother had died in childbirth and how the father had went off, probably to find a doctor.

  “You see,
” the Chief said, “Only a few years before you were born, the same couple had found my youngest son and nursed him back to health. They had befriended him when others left him for dead. So I felt I should try to help them. We had no way of knowing you were even alive until we got you back to the village. So we kept you, knowing your father wouldn’t know how to take care of a baby. It was my way of repaying them for helping my son. I do think of you as my son even though I know you are a white man.”

  “Do I have any other family,” Trace had asked.

  “You have a grandfather and grandmother in Tennessee.”

  Trace thought for a minute. “I would like to go live with my grandparents. Will you take me there?”

  “If you are sure this is what you want, I will take you there myself.”

  In only a few days Trace and the Indian Chief along with two young braves were on their way to Tennessee. It seemed to Trace as if it took forever to arrive but finally, one day the Chief pointed to a small house and told Trace that would be his new home.

  “Are you sure you want to do this,” the Chief asked.

  Trace nodded. “Yes I do.”

  Even now he wondered about the Indian Chief sometimes. They had been good to him and sometimes he was even grateful. He smiled a little thinking of Grandpa. He had taught him to time travel. It was the one thing they had in common. Grandpa had figured out the secret of the watch and invented two more watches before he was married. Trace had no idea what had happened to the original. Grandpa had told him there were magnetic fields all over the world and in certain places there were portals used to time travel. Grandpa had been smart. He had made the cars so they could be used as a compass to attract the portals in the magnetic fields. He had no way of knowing for sure but he thought Lori had somehow been jumping time.

  He remembered now the first time he and Grandpa had seen The Lazy Cross in the future. Grandpa had told him about how the ranch had somehow stayed in his family because Lori was a descendant of Missy, Trace’s dead mother. Once Trace was thinking of this, his thoughts were of the ranch and how it should have been his and all the power and money that came along with it.

  Over the years he had come back over and over again. It was what had made him first start to hate Grandpa because he always told him to forget about trying to take the ranch. Trace became bitter and mean. He couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t try to help him get what was rightfully his anyway. So he came up with an idea and began to put it in motion.

  This Jessie person puzzled him. He seemed somehow familiar to him even though he had never met him before. He had seen the yellow tape and removed it along with the tree stump because he thought they were time traveling. He had to find out for sure.

  All he knew was he had come here for a reason and wasn’t about to leave until he had what he had come after. He had some more work to do before he could get what he wanted. He had been trying to time travel at night, trying to find Grandpa. They had a fight one day and Trace had trapped him in time. He just needed to make sure Grandpa didn’t get out and come back to stop him. He was almost ready to do what he had come here for. It wouldn’t be long now. He smiled to himself as he laid down to rest for a while. His work was coming to a close and all he had to do was sit back and enjoy the rest of his life. In fact, Miss Lori and Bo wouldn’t know what hit them if he moved fast enough and he wasn’t worried at all about Jessie. He fell asleep with the smile still on his face.

  chapter 8

  Lori awoke to the smell of coffee. She sat up, not feeling sick for once. She touched her belly. She had so much on her mind, she had almost forgotten about the baby. She still had no idea how she was going to raise a child on her own- if her animals kept dying, anyway. Jessie had told her they had lost four more while she and Bo were gone. That was two each day. The Animal Control thought the animals were poisoned. She shook her head wondering if it would end soon. She went to take a shower.

  Not long after breakfast, Lori and Jessie were getting ready to time travel once more. Bo told Lori not to worry about the ranch because he would take care of everything. Lori put on a pair of jeans and a western shirt. She met Jessie at the barn where he was saddling their horses. He was finishing up as Lori walked into the barn and smiled.

  “Are you ready Jessie,” Lori asked.

  “I am,” Jessie replied. “Let’s go.”

  They walked their horses out of the barn and rode off toward the portal. They talked a little as they rode.

  “Do we know where we are going this time,” Jessie asked.

  “No,” Lori told him. “I haven’t a clue.”

  Once they had reached the portal, Lori looked at the newly planted trees around the spot as she rode her horse close to Jessie’s.

  “Alright,” she said. “You do it this time.”

  Jessie took the watch and touched the loose car, all the time saying to himself how he wanted to see Missy one more time. The world began to spin ‘round and ‘round faster and faster. Then as suddenly as the world was spinning around him, it slowed and stopped. He sat on his horse for a minute then turned to Lori beside him.

  “We are back on my ranch, Lori,” he said smiling. “Let’s go to the cabin and see what time we are in.”

  “Did you notice something,” Lori asked him. “It isn’t cold this time. It must be summer.”

  As they began to ride toward the cabin, Lori could see that the grass was green and the trees were full and blooming. It was breathtakingly beautiful. It didn’t take long for them to arrive at the cabin. As they rode close to the cabin they could see someone in the yard. Jessie pulled up his horse and stopped. Lori did the same.

  “What is it Jessie,” she asked.

  “Missy,” he told her softly. “That is Missy.”

  Lori could see the look on his face. She moved closer to him and touched his arm.

  “We can’t be seen Jessie or we will change the past and that can’t happen.”

  “I know,” Jessie jumped from his horse as did Lori. They tied the horses to a tree and walked to the corner of the cabin just as Jessie saw himself come from the barn. Lori heard Jessie catch his breath as he and Missy talked in the yard. Then he whispered to Lori.

  “This is the day Missy died and the Indians came.”

  “Oh God, I’m sorry. Do you want to leave?”

  “No, not yet. Maybe we can learn something,” Jessie shook his head as he spoke.

  They watched through the window at the back of the house as Missy began to go into labor and Jessie was trying to help her. They watched as the drums of the Indians came near and Lori’s eyes filled with tears watching as Missy tried to give birth and then all the fight left her body. The Jessie with Missy cried, begging her not to leave him. Finally, when the last breath had left her body, Jessie left the room.

  Jessie watched as he remembered what had happened. He had gone to the barn, saddled his horse, and rode into town to find a doctor. He had met the doctor just outside of town and told him what happened. Jessie and the doctor rode as fast as they could back to the cabin to see if there was anything the doctor could do for Missy.

  Jessie and Lori watched and while the other Jessie was gone the Indians came inside the house. It was as if they had been hiding somewhere waiting for him to leave. They entered the cabin and as Jessie and Lori watched, they took the baby from Missy’s dead body. The baby boy was wrapped in a blanket and the Indians rode off.

  Lori and Jessie looked at each other. They wanted to leave but somehow couldn’t and before they could do anything they saw the other Jessie and the doctor ride into the yard. The doctor came into the house but Jessie stayed outside. The doctor checked Missy and covered her with a blanket. Jessie and Lori climbed into the saddle and rode off. They came up behind the Indians soon afterward. Lori could tell Jessie had never known the Indians had taken the baby. The doctor had never told him.

  They rode for almost an hour before the Indians came to their village. The brave with the baby ran into a t
epee and after a minute they could hear the baby cry. Lori looked at Jessie. She was stunned. The baby had not died. He was alive and Jessie’s face went white.

  Lori heard the Indians beating on their drums as she turned her eyes back to them. They were close enough to hear what the Indians were saying but neither she nor Jessie could understand. A woman brought out the baby wrapped tightly in a blanket and crying softly.

  The beat of the drums slowed and the woman sat with the baby still cradled in her arms in the middle of the circle of drummers. Other women came and danced around them. After a few minutes, the Indian Chief came out dressed in a large head dress and shook beads over the baby, chanting something neither of them could understand.

  Lori whispered to Jessie, “What are they doing?”

  “I think they are naming him,” Jessie answered, his voice husky. “They are celebrating the birth of a child.”

  Lori reached over and took his hand, moving her horse closer to his. His fingers tightened around her own. Jessie leaned toward her.

  “I think he is saying little brave one.”

  Lori nodded as they listened closely and once in a while they could make out a word. Then suddenly she heard a word she did understand from the Indian Chief as he said, “Indian name, little Brave One. White man name, Trace.”

  Lori looked at Jessie. “Oh my, I’ve seen and heard enough. Let’s go.”

  Quietly they walked their horses away from the Indian village and once they were far enough away they began to run the horses at top speed, not stopping until they were back at the portal.

  Lori jumped off her horse and sat on the ground. Jessie joined her. Lori was trying to piece all this together. She spoke out loud,

  “Trace is yours and Missy’s son. But how can that be? He is young. He shouldn’t even be alive. Maybe it’s because he travels in time a lot. He has, but I don’t think he knows who you are. But I could be wrong.”

  “Then he must be the one killing the animals,” Jessie said.