Then the image shifted and the dying mining town returned.
At least for a short time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
July 15th, 2016
Above the ghost town of Silver City, Idaho
KELLI AND JESSE and Bonnie and Dawn were all sitting in Bonnie’s big kitchen in Boise waiting. Madison and Duster had left yesterday for Silver City to pull the plug on this trip into the past.
April and Ryan were in their home waiting in their kitchen.
For the past hour, she and Jesse had their saddlebags on their laps with her notebooks, his research stuff on past crimes, and the hidden Season Medals.
Not a person had asked what they had done with them.
And they had told no one about Bushnell being a traveler or that they had met a traveler from a far distant future.
Bonnie and Duster knew the plan for the medals being under Janice and Steven’s general store. That was fine for now.
No one else needed to know the rest of the details.
One thing for certain, there was nothing about the Season Medals that had been boring.
And because of them, she had met the love of her life.
Bonnie and Duster’s big mansion around them was dark and closed up. Horses were all sold off and a caretaker had been hired to watch the house and clean a few times a week.
Dawn and Madison were planning on coming back to this point in time in this timeline in a month, so their house was closed up, but not as tightly as this house. Kelli wasn’t sure how that would work, but Bonnie assured her it would.
Dawn and Madison wanted to spend more of a lifetime in the lodge. Then they would return and join the others for lunch in the mine.
Kelli was once again having trouble understanding that she and Jesse had spent all this time, these years, in the past and only just over two minutes had really elapsed. And Dawn and Madison could come back and spend another forty or fifty years and for them only another two minutes would pass.
The idea of it all just made her mind go numb.
She wasn’t sure if she would ever get used to the idea. But she certainly planned on taking advantage of it many, many times.
Bonnie glanced at her gold pocket watch and tucked it back in her pocket. “It’s nine a.m. They should be in the mine by now. Everyone get ready.”
Kelli put her saddlebag over her shoulder at the same time as Jesse did.
Bonnie and Dawn also put saddlebags over their shoulders, holding onto them with one hand.
A moment later they were all standing with one hand on the wooden box in the crystal cavern.
Eight of them were crowded around the wooden box on the table. Bonnie and Duster and Ryan and April and Madison had left years earlier, but they had all come back together.
“Well, that was an interesting two minutes,” Duster said, stepping back out of the crowd as Madison put on a glove and only unhooked one wire from the machine, leaving the wires connected to the same crystal.
“I got the men’s shower first,” Duster said. He turned with a saddlebag over his shoulder and headed for the open door to the supply cavern.
Kelli had stepped back and just stared at the huge place. The beauty of the billions of crystals was almost too much for her mind to grasp.
“You all mind if I take the women’s shower?” Madison said after kissing Dawn. “Long dusty ride.”
“Be our guest,” Bonnie said.
Kelli just kept staring at the intense beauty of the crystal cavern towering over them.
Jesse was standing beside her and he reached over and took her hand.
“It’s real,” he said.
She nodded, just staring around at the billions of crystals and how the cavern seemed to disappear off into the distance.
“And only just over two minutes passed in all that time we spent back there,” Kelli said.
Jesse laughed. “I don’t think we spent it. As far as I’m concerned, we enjoyed it.”
She looked up into his handsome smiling face and squeezed his hand. “I agree and stand corrected.”
With that, they turned for the supply cavern following Dawn and Bonnie and April and Ryan.
At the door, Jesse pointed to the few hundred crystals stacked and glowing beside the door where the door had been cut into the cavern.
Kelli nodded. “It seems we have work to do right here in this timeline, don’t we?”
“That we do,” Jesse said.
They went to one of the big tables and worked at changing clothes into the modern clothes it seemed like they hadn’t worn in a very long time. To Kelli, the jeans and blouse felt normal, but the tennis shoes just felt strange after years of women’s shoes in the past and cowboy boots.
They were the last ones in the cavern when they moved all the medals to one saddlebag.
Kelli nodded to him and he smiled.
She was so thankful they were doing this.
“I want you with me when I hide these,” Jesse said.
Kelli glanced up at him. “What are you worried about?”
“Because if anything ever happened to me, these medals are far, far too valuable to be lost again.
She kissed him and he put the bag on the ground under one table.
Then the two of them headed for the kitchen area, arm-in-arm.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
July 15th, 2016
Above the ghost town of Silver City, Idaho
JESSE LET DAWN use the men’s showers and April went for the women’s showers while Bonnie started on something for them to eat with Ryan helping.
After Duster looked like he was settled, Jesse motioned for him. “We need to ask you a question or two if we could.”
Jesse, holding Kelli’s hand, turned and headed back into the supply cavern.
Duster followed and when Jesse got back to the table, he turned to face Duster. “We got one thing to deal with, and something major to talk about.”
Duster nodded, clearly looking worried as he glanced between the two.
“I need you to make sure I am not setting off any of your hidden alarms down the tunnel, but we would rather, at this point, you not come with us.”
“Going outside?” Duster asked, frowning.
“No,” Jesse said. He picked up the heavy saddlebag with the Season Medals in it. “We just need to hide something for a decade or two real time, and since so few of us know about this place, I figured this would be the best and safest place in the world.”
Duster smiled, nodded, and moved over to where there was a hidden panel on the wall and flicked off three switches, showing Kelli and Jesse what they were.
“No cameras on?” Jesse asked.
“None,” Duster said, showing him the controls for those as well.
Jesse picked up a shovel from a stack of them and then holding Kelli’s hand, they headed down the tunnel, the heavy saddlebag over his shoulder.
“We’ll only be a minute,” Kelli said.
Duster nodded and turned his back.
They went down the tunnel and then turned into the side tunnel. From the looks of it, Duster had reinforced the dead-end fake tunnel for a good thirty paces to make it look like everything else.
Jesse checked the end of the tunnel to make sure it wasn’t a hologram, then he turned and walked ten paces back up the tunnel to about where Kelli stood looking nervous.
“Have I said how much I hate mine tunnels?” she asked.
He laughed and kissed her. “Almost done.”
He finally found an opening above one of the large timbers and under the dirt above it. He tucked the saddlebag up there on top of the huge beam, making sure it couldn’t be seen from either direction, pushing it back with the handle of the shovel.
He pointed back at the corner and Kelli followed his direction.
Then he silently counted the beams back to the one where the bag was hidden.
“Fourteen beams,” he said. “Same number as the originals who know about this pla
ce.”
“I can remember that,” she said, smiling.
They headed back up the tunnel and through the two hologram walls to where Duster waited. He still had his back to the tunnel when Jesse put the shovel back in the pile and then picked up a heavy pair of gloves from another table.
“That can’t be found for at least a decade or more,” Jesse said.
“I’m assuming there is something I missed,” Duster said, “about your adventure with Bushnell and the Season Medals.”
“Given time,” Jesse said, “We’ll tell you all about it. But first, we have something else to talk about.”
Duster nodded. “You had a hell of a first trip I gather.”
“More than you can know at this point,” Jesse said.
Even Kelli looked at him funny when he said that.
Jesse motioned for Duster to come with him and they walked together back down the short tunnel and into the impressive crystal cavern. He didn’t let the incredible beauty distract him this time.
Jesse took two steps inside and turned and pointed to the pile of crystals on the ground.
He put on the thick pair of gloves and gently picked up one crystal from the pile.
It was surprisingly heavy and glowed in his hands.
He held it away from his body for a moment as Duster watched, then gently returned it to the pile.
“I watched your fear of someone finding this place when we came in,” Jesse said. “And after experiencing all this and the past, I totally and completely agree.”
“There are fourteen of us who know about this place,” Jesse said. “That needs to be the limit for here.”
Duster frowned, but said nothing.
Jesse went on. “We need to build a top secret place in Boise and take those crystals and others from the wall and that machine and move this operation to Boise.”
Duster looked at him with this strange look.
“You’ll have to figure out if the crystals will work from there, but I’m betting they will,” Jesse said. “Besides those of us who already know about this cavern, no one new should ever be allowed to come here again.”
Duster nodded, so Jesse just kept pushing.
“We build a mansion out on Warm Springs with three layers of secret underground research and computer and crystal areas,” Jesse said.
Duster again nodded.
“And instead of just tossing history majors into the past with no training, we train them before they go and give them strict rules, such as no one can talk to anyone from the future in the past. For example, Kelli and I can’t go back into the past on our own and track you down and talk to you before this.”
Duster looked at Jesse and Kelli. “You two had a hell of a few years back there I see.”
“I’m not a mathematician or a history major,” Jesse said. “You hired me to make sure people were vetted and the type of people you want. You hired me to see things. That’s what I do.”
Duster nodded.
“So now that I know about all this and have spent some years back in the past, I can see just a few of the problems going forward. Hire me to pay attention to the future and give the rest of you the freedom to pay attention to the mathematics and the past.”
Duster smiled and reached out his hand. “Damn, Bonnie and I were hoping for just that. And this idea for a place in Boise solves all sorts of problems.”
Jesse shook Duster’s hand.
“I suppose you even have a name made up for it,” Duster said, smiling?”
Jesse just laughed. “How about The Historical Research Institute? Just the Institute for short.”
“Damn,” Duster said, nodding. “I like it.”
“This is wonderful,” Kelli said, hugging Jesse’s arm.
Duster looked at Jesse “I think you just got yourself a hell of a job.”
“It will certainly be interesting,” Jesse said, smiling.
They turned and headed back into the supply cavern with Duster leading.
“Now, if the crystals work outside of this cavern,” Jesse said, “I have some ideas of what we can do to build a very, very safe and hidden place. But we’re going to need all fourteen of us originals involved to build it in 1880 in a lot of different timelines.”
Duster just laughed. “I love the excitement. But how about we have some lunch first?”
Kelli hugged Jesse and they both laughed as they walked toward the kitchen area.
“I guess there’s always time for lunch,” Jesse said.
With that, Kelli stopped him and kissed him hard while trying not to laugh.
She pretty much succeeded.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith published more than a hundred novels in thirty years and hundreds and hundreds of short stories across many genres.
He wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, they wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies.
He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown.
He now writes his own original fiction under just the one name, Dean Wesley Smith. In addition to his upcoming novel releases, his monthly magazine called Smith’s Monthly premiered October 1, 2013, filled entirely with his original novels and stories.
Dean also worked as an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He now plays a role as an executive editor for the original anthology series Fiction River.
For more information go to www.deanwesleysmith.com, www.smithsmonthly.com or www.fictionriver.com.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Living Time
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
Miss Smallwood’s Goodies
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
They’re Back
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Nostalgia 101
ONE
TWO
THREE
She Arrived without a Song
ONE
TWO
THREE
A Vanilla Three-Way with a Cherry
ONE
TWO
THREE
Lake Roosevelt
AUTHOR’S NOTE
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
PART TWO
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
PART FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
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Copyright Information
Smith's Monthly #16 Page 19
