Dixie reached over and pulled Brice to his feet. Then she kissed him.
He seemed very confused, which she had no doubt she would be in his spot.
“You think this is real? This nexus?” Brice asked as they turned and headed toward the huge log staircase up to their rooms.
“I don’t think it’s real,” Dixie said. “I know it is and more than anything else in the world, I want you to see it.”
He looked down at her for a moment and she smiled up into his wonderful concerned gaze.
“Either I’ve gone nuts or all of you have,” Brice said as they started up the stairs.
“Well, nuts or not,” Dixie said. “I really enjoyed last night.”
“So did I. Very much so.”
“Good,” she said. “So let’s go see a cave and then get back to more of last night as soon as possible. Keep your priorities straight there, mister.”
“You said that, didn’t you?” he asked, laughing as she opened her room door and went to get her suitcase.
“And I meant it,” she said, smiling back at him. “Now go get your stuff.”
When he laughed and moved off, she sighed with relief and packed her bag quickly.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
September 5th, 2016
Brice’s Timeline
BRICE COULD TELL that Dixie was getting more and more nervous as Duster bounced the big Cadillac SUV up the steep grade toward the mine. She was holding on with one hand on a handle above the door and another gripping the back of Bonnie’s seat in front of her.
This was Brice’s second ride up this rut-fest of a cattle trail that Duster seemed to think was a road. And he didn’t much like it any better this time.
But the last trip up here, in just a few short hours in this timeline, he had taken two trips to other timelines and spent almost two months with the Dixie from another timeline in a wonderful suite in Boise.
More than anything on the planet, he wanted to get back there with her now. But not the Dixie of that other timeline, but this Dixie sitting beside him right now. Except for the year of experience teaching at CalTech, she was the same Dixie he had fallen in love with.
He and Bonnie and Duster had planned that if Dixie decided to take a chance and go with them to the mine, they would follow the same routine they had done with him.
Bonnie would first take her out into the snowstorm in October 1878, then the four of them would go back to August 1901 and head to Boise.
Finally Duster pulled the Cadillac up into a stand of trees and got out.
Brice let out the breath he had been holding out of fear and relaxed.
“That was fun,” Dixie said. “If you like climbing inside the agitation cycle of a wash machine.”
Bonnie laughed as she also opened her door and climbed out.
The smell of hot pine needles and sagebrush washed through the car before Brice could get his door open. The smell relaxed him even more.
“I don’t have sunscreen on,” Dixie said as the heat hit her.
The sun was almost directly overhead and hot, even though it was September.
“Not going to be out in the sun long enough to worry about,” Bonnie said.
They left all their stuff in the car and followed Duster along a trail leading toward a big mine. On the drive here, Dixie had asked all sorts of questions, including the history of the mine and how this was found in the first place.
And she had asked how Duster and Bonnie had built a lodge in their own timeline.
“We did it, but the we that did it were from another timeline,” Bonnie had said. “Which is why we hired Brice in the first place, to help us figure out why that had happened and why we could remember both timelines.”
“Did you solve that?” Dixie had asked, looking over at Brice.
“I did with help,” Brice had said. “I’ll show you that math after we get back to Boise.”
He had decided that since they had both worked on that math solving that problem, he would wait until she understood everything before showing it to her.
They made it across the narrow trail over the old ruins of Silver City a thousand feet below them.
Brice stayed close to Dixie as Duster opened the big rock and they crowded into the entrance and then into the mine tunnel.
“Oh, shit, this is real,” Dixie said.
“More than you can ever imagine,” Brice said.
He took her hand and helped to get her through the protective holograms and then into the big storage cavern.
Then without slowing, they went on through the first cavern and into the big cavern of crystals.
To Brice, it was more beautiful than he had remembered it two months before. He got about five steps inside and just stopped, staring at the slightly rose-colored crystals shining from the walls with an energy all their own.
Small crystals, large crystals, in clusters and alone.
Billions of crystals that he could see in just a quick glance and the cavern went on into the mountain into the distance as far as he could see. He doubted he would ever get used to this place.
Dixie did the same thing he had done when he had first come into the cavern. She made it about five steps and then just sat down on the hard dirt floor.
Bonnie came over after a moment and helped her up.
Dixie had a haunted look in her eyes.
“It’s real,” Dixie said softly.
“It is,” Bonnie said.
“This is a physical representation of all of time,” Dixie whispered.
“Not all of it,” Duster said. “Just our area of it, and that goes off into infinity and other dimensions in that direction.”
Duster pointed down into the mountain and the caverns that could be seen going into the distance like looking at facing mirrors.
“Come on,” Bonnie said, “the two of us need to take a little trip.”
“We’ll get the hot chocolate going,” Duster said, smiling as he finished hooking up the machine to a random crystal on the wall and then set the date on the machine.
Brice went over and made sure the crystal on the wall where he had first met Dixie was clearly marked. It still was. And Duster was not using it.
“What are we doing?” Dixie asked.
“There’s just something I want to show you,” Bonnie said.
She had Dixie put her hand on the wood surface of the machine on the big wooden table and then nodded to Duster.
Duster connected the wires and the two women just vanished.
“Wow, that’s something to see from this side,” Brice said, shocked.
Duster laughed. “That it is. Come on. Two minutes and fifteen seconds is a damn short time to make hot chocolate.”
Brice stared at where Bonnie and Dixie had vanished, then followed Duster back toward the kitchen in the big cavern.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
September 5th, 2016
Dixie’s Timeline
WITH DIXIE’S HELP, Bonnie almost had the hot chocolate done when Brice and Duster appeared from the crystal cavern. They both looked cold and Brice was actually shivering. He moved like his mind was not attached to his body. He managed to get to the table and sit down.
Dixie didn’t know what to say. She remembered very clearly that first short trip out onto the main tailings in that 1878 snowstorm and how cold and shocked she had been when she came back.
Finally Brice looked at her. “It is real. But it can’t be.”
“My feelings exactly,” Dixie said as Bonnie put a mug of hot chocolate in front of Brice and another in front of Duster. To Dixie it smelled wonderful and she remembered how that smell had helped calm her after that first jump to another timeline.
“The math tells you this is possible, doesn’t it?” Bonnie asked Brice.
Brice nodded as he sipped the hot chocolate.
“So trust the math,” Bonnie said, tossing a bag of small marshmallows on the table, then sliding a cup of hot chocolate in front of Dixie and then sitting down with a
cup herself.
Even though it had to be over eighty outside right now, Dixie was glad for the hot chocolate. Just the memory of that intense cold on that mine tailings in the winter of 1878 chilled her.
For the next half hour they talked and finished their drinks, letting Brice get used to the idea that beyond that wall was a cavern filled with billions of alternate timelines represented by glowing crystals.
And that he could travel to any of them he wanted and stay as long as he liked.
Then Duster pushed his mug away from him and stood. “Let’s take a trip to a warmer time, stay a month or two, let you experience the past to get used to all this.”
Brice started to open his mouth, then shut it.
Dixie laughed. She had a hunch she knew what he was thinking.
“We’ll only be gone for two minutes and fifteen seconds from here,” she said, touching Brice’s hand. “No matter what happens back in the other timeline.”
Brice nodded.
Dixie knew he understood the math of it all. But knowing the math and combining that math with a reality that seemed impossible were two very different things.
“I’ll head back a couple months early, get us some horses and supplies,” Duster said. “You guys get ready. Let’s go for August 13, 1901. Morning if you can.”
Bonnie nodded.
Dixie was about to object. That had been the date she and Bonnie had gone back to when she met Brice. But that was in another timeline and if the four of them showed up that day, a new timeline would split off, one where she and Bonnie had not gone back.
And where Brice and Duster had not gone back two days later.
They would form a new timeline and that seemed perfect to Dixie.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
August 13th, 1901
Brice’s Timeline
THEY HAD ALL gotten what supplies and money they would need ready and gone back to the crystal room. Duster again hooked up the wires to a random crystal that was not marked as having been used before, then set the date on the big wooden box, hooked the wire and vanished.
To Brice, he doubted he would ever get used to someone just not existing in front of him. No sound, no phasing out, just one minute there, next gone.
“Okay,” Bonnie said, making sure that Dixie was right beside her as she reset the timer on the box for two months after Duster had left.
Brice made sure he was on the other side of Dixie to help her. She was looking scared to death, but managing to hold on for the moment.
“When I say now, we all touch the box at the same time,” Bonnie said.
Dixie nodded and Brice could see she was ready.
Dixie hovered her hand over the box and Bonnie said now.
All three of them touched the box at the same time.
It felt like nothing happened.
Bonnie stepped back from the box and said to Dixie and Brice. “Let’s go see if that husband of mine got into trouble the last two months.”
“And if he did, or he’s not out there,” Dixie asked as they got to the cavern door.
“We pull the wires and yank him back to 2016 and find out what happened,” Bonnie said. “It’s happened more than once.”
“I’d love to hear some of those stories,” Brice said.
Bonnie laughed. “Have Dawn and Madison tell you the story of their first trip back.”
“Dawn and Madison?” Brice asked. He hadn’t remembered meeting anyone by that name over the last year.
“Dawn Edwards and Madison Rogers,” Bonnie said as they got to the big supply cavern.
“The two famous historians?” Dixie asked. “They go back in time?”
“They do,” Duster said, coming toward them from the kitchen area. He was dressed in his oilcloth long coat, jeans, cowboy boots, a plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat. He looked like he had just come in from outside since his face was slightly flushed and he had a glass of water in one hand.
“In fact,” Bonnie said, “Dawn and Madison helped build the lodge and have lived in the lodge and raised their family there many, many different times.”
“Yeah, there’s an advanced math problem we haven’t got a handle on,” Duster said. “Why is it that in every timeline their kids are different?”
Brice just shook his head.
“You mean beyond normal variations of sperm and egg?” Dixie asked.
“You are the same in all timelines,” Bonnie said. Their kids should always be the same in each timeline as well, but their kids are not, they vary. Beyond Duster and I at the moment.”
“We’re hoping you two can help on that one as well,” Duster said.
Dixie looked at Brice, clearly shocked and struggling.
“Trust the math,” Brice said to her. “You know the math, believe it, so trust it.”
Dixie nodded and took a deep breath.
Duster kissed Bonnie.
Brice just shook his head. To Duster, two months had passed. To Bonnie, only a few seconds.
“You get into trouble?” Bonnie asked as they turned and headed for the clothing area of the big cavern.
“No more than normal,” Duster said, laughing. He looked back at Brice and Dixie. “She always asks me that as if I’m going to tell her.”
Brice laughed, but Dixie just looked even more shocked.
Duster had gotten them supplies and four good horses and within an hour of arrival, the four of them were leading their horses on the trail across the hillside toward where the Cadillac was parked in 2016. Now, in 1901, it was a barren hillside, long ago logged off and pockmarked by fresh mine tailings dripping down the steep slope toward the dying town of Silver City below.
They rode an hour and walked an hour in the growing heat of the August day. Brice was thankful for that, since it had been a few months since his last time on a horse and he hadn’t gotten that used to it them.
And the heat was brutal in the afternoon, more than likely climbing into the high nineties with no humidity at all. Dry as a bone.
They drank a lot and Dixie kept a wide, floppy hat on and her exposed skin slathered in suntan lotion. Being red-haired with fair skin made this weather downright dangerous to her.
As far as riding, clearly Dixie was having the same issues with soreness he had had to start. She said she hadn’t managed to go riding, something she loved, since she took the teaching job at CalTech, so she was well out of practice.
“You can ride all you want, now,” Bonnie said, smiling. “Call it part of the job description.”
Dixie smiled, for pretty much the first time in the entire day.
Brice knew she was having troubles and just stayed close to her and tried to help where he could without being in the way.
They camped the first night near the Snake River among some cottonwood trees. Duster showed them both how to take care of the horses and Brice was glad for the refresher.
They pitched three tents in a small clearing right over the river so they could get the fresh breeze from the water. One tent for him, one for Dixie, one for Bonnie and Duster.
Brice felt slightly disappointed he would not be sleeping with Dixie on this first night in the past, but she looked wiped out and he felt the same way. After a great dinner of steaks and small potatoes that Duster cooked over the open fire, they all went to their tents after washing everything up and hanging the food in a tree and taking care of the horses.
Next thing Brice knew was the smell of bacon and eggs and talking around the campfire. He managed to change shirts and slip on his oilcloth coat that looked very similar to Duster’s coat before climbing out of the tent. The morning air near the river had a chill to it that Brice knew he would miss in a few hours.
Bonnie and Duster were talking and laughing around the campfire. You could never tell that they were two of the most famous and brilliant mathematicians of all time. They looked very much like they fit perfectly in 1901.
And clearly both were very comfortable here.
There was no
way Brice could tell they both had lived for over a thousand years in different timelines. Clearly being able to switch timelines and live entire lifetimes while only being gone for a few minutes in their own world allowed a person to live a very, very long time.
In fact, Brice doubted there would be an upper limit on it. He’d have to crunch the numbers when they got back to Boise. But right now he had something far, far more important to worry about.
He was worried, very worried, about Dixie getting settled and understanding what was happening.
If he remembered his first trip back here right, he had peppered Duster with questions all the second day. Brice still had a bunch, but he had a hunch Dixie would have even more.
Brice had splashed water on his face and managed to comb his hair before Dixie poked her head out of her tent.
“That smells wonderful,” she said, standing and stretching.
“Almost ready,” Duster said.
All Brice could do was stare at her and think how fantastically beautiful she was. Even in the morning climbing out of a tent after a long day of riding.
He really was in love with Dixie, especially this Dixie of this timeline. Of that there was no doubt.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
August 15th, 1901
Dixie’s Timeline
DIXIE WAS SURPRISED how much she could ride instead of walk the second day. She had expected to be saddle sore, but it wasn’t that bad and the tight muscles in her legs relaxed as she got more relaxed. Clearly the riding she had done the first time back here had helped her get ready for this second trip. Brice seemed to be doing all right, but she could tell he would be very sore by the time they got to Boise.
From the river to the ferry and then into Caldwell, Brice peppered Bonnie and Duster with questions. Many of them were questions Dixie had wanted to ask Bonnie, but just never got around to it.
They were great questions. Brice was clearly settling in and understanding far faster than she had her first trip back here.
Last night she had so wanted to go crawl in his tent and sleep with him, but they were both so tired, it had worked out better that the two of them just slept.
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