by Paul Siluch
“Mrs. Charles Whitcomb,” she corrected.
“She’s a widow,” Dennis said. “Indians killed her husband.”
The arrowheads. The cabin ruins.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Max said to Celia, the words falling short of the strange guilt he felt. Should he warn her, or offer to help her? He knew he’d gazed at her too long when she bit her lip and turned away.
“What about me?” Dennis demanded. “Nobody’s sorry I’ve been stuck here four weeks?”
Max didn’t answer. He looked at the cabin’s sparse furnishings. He saw little evidence of provisions. Had Dennis spent a month eating his way through this woman’s meager stores?
As if she’d read his mind, Celia told Max, “I would have let him go, if I’d known.” She nodded toward Dennis. “When he first came here I thought him mad.”
“I was just taking a look around. There’s nothing else here, Max.”
Celia arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t believe his story and he offered proof, if I cared to accompany him.”
“Yeah, and that was my biggest mistake.”
Max choked back a retort. He and Dennis shared the same mistake. Neither of them should have done Riley’s bidding.
“How could I know?” Celia asked. “I felt that unnatural wall of wind and thought it was the devil’s work.”
“She stopped you?” Max, incredulous, considered Celia’s spare frame and turned to Dennis.
“She’s a lot stronger than she looks.”
A long and awkward silence fell over them. The fire crackled. Celia moved back over to stand near the flames.
“I’m sure she meant well,” Max said.
He wondered how long ago her husband died, and what she would do. They didn’t have much time to waste but it felt wrong to leave her in the wilderness. He’d seen no stable, no wagon, no horses. And he knew the region’s history. The valley that his university would one day call home held nothing more than a fort now, manned by either by a fur trading company or the Union army, depending on the decade.
Even a strong woman, no matter how brave, would face grave risks travelling so far alone, on foot. If she reached the fort would she find safe haven there?
“Did the equipment have any trouble?”
“What?” Max blinked, his thoughts on scalps and flint shards.
“When Riley sent you here.”
“Well, something started smoking, but he just told me to get going,” Max said as Celia shifted in the shadows. “So you’ve been here all this time?”
“I knew Riley would open the portal in the same place.” Dennis shrugged. “I didn’t dare go too far away and I didn’t want to sleep in the woods.”
“I actually thought you guys were pulling a joke on me. I probably wouldn’t have—” The words died in Max’s throat when his eyes zeroed in on the dark glint of a gun barrel.
“What?” Dennis squinted when Max stopped talking.
Max, his eyes riveted to the weapon in Celia’s hands, only managed to swallow loudly.
Dennis spun around in his chair to face her.
“Now,” her steely voice scythed through the stillness, “I think it’s time we came to an understanding.” Behind the long barrel her figure seemed even more feminine. In the firelight her hair shone golden and her cheeks blossomed a fiery rose.
“We’ll just go,” Max volunteered, careful not to move, not to startle her. “We’ll leave right now.”
“Oh, no,” her tone sweetened and a smile emerged. “You gentlemen are going to stay right there.”
In his peripheral vision Max saw the flames dancing in the hearth. He felt dizzy.
“You, Max.” She kept her gaze trained on Dennis as she spoke. “There’s a length of rope hanging on the wall behind you.”
Max turned to see it, fearing she might shoot him at the slightest provocation.
“You get that rope, Max. Then you tie Dennis to his chair.” When Dennis stifled an exclamation she added, “And if either of you makes a move I don’t like, I’ll shoot you both.”
Max crossed the room as if moving under water. He got the rope and walked back to the table. He tied Dennis’ feet to the rickety chair, then tied his hands behind him.
“You can sit back down,” she said with a courteous indifference when Max finished.
“But, I won’t hurt you,” Max bargained, “really, I’ll just leave.”
“Sit.”
He sat.
Celia skirted around Dennis, as wary as if two wild animals sat at her table.
“You listen,” Dennis started, his tone threatening enough that Max shook his head to discourage him.
Celia hitched the gun up to her shoulder. “Not another word.”
Dennis stared at her, fury radiating off him as he leaned forward against his bonds.
“That’s right,” she coaxed, “you try to get free. You do it.”
Max wanted to lunge for the door but didn’t dare. Of all his mother’s dire warnings, she’d never cautioned him against time travel and mad women bearing antique firearms. He risked a glance at Celia.
Shock struck him, a fist driving the air from his lungs. She didn’t look crazy. She looked sorry.
“Max,” she retrieved another length of rope, “you lash your ankles to the legs of that chair.” She tossed the coiled rope into his lap.
Max followed her orders, but didn’t tie his own legs as well as he had Dennis’.
“Reach your arms behind you,” she whispered. When Max did so, she said, “Don’t you fellows think I can’t pick this weapon up as fast as I laid it down.”
Max didn’t move as she knotted the rope around his wrists. As she finished the task Dennis began thrashing about, rocking his chair from side to side. Celia leapt up and aimed the gun at him.
“What’d I tell you?”
Dennis turned a vivid shade of scarlet. Celia glared back at him as she sidled over to the door. She drew a watch from her pocket and opened it one-handed, cradling the gun in her other arm.
“No hurry,” she said, watching them from under her eyelashes, demure.
Sweat crawled down Max’s back. Her eyes flicked from Max, to Dennis, to the watch. Max, Dennis, the watch. She had beautiful eyes.
“You came here to homestead,” Max said to her. “But not to farm.”
Celia gave him a tiny nod. The tension around her mouth and eyes softened just a little.
“You can’t know a thing like that,” Dennis scoffed.
But Max did. The land was too rocky to cultivate, too far from the valley settlements that would capitalize on irrigation.
“Your husband wanted to be a rancher,” he guessed.
“He did,” she told him. Nodding to the sheltering walls and roof, she added, “We built this together.”
Max pictured her helping to notch and place the logs. She’s a lot stronger than she looks. He wondered if Celia had seen her husband die or if he’d simply gone missing, never come back.
“Indians started picking off your herd.” Max could have sworn he heard the watch ticking.
“Charlie tried to stop them. He didn’t mean them harm, but the animals were all we had.”
Max tried to look away from her, but his eyes snagged on the gun. Celia kept a rotating surveillance on the watch face, on her two prisoners. Minutes passed. Each pop from the fire jolted Max’s nerves.
“War party came through,” Celia startled him anew by reviving their talk. “Charlie didn’t want trouble for us, but—” she stopped. A lone tear trailed down her cheek. Max wondered how anyone with so much pain in her eyes could shed just one tear.
The logs in the fire settled lower. Celia glanced at the watch.
“Celia,” Max said, “you could just untie us.”
She gave him a small, tight smile. She spared a look of lingering contempt for Dennis. And then she lifted a shawl that hung from a peg.
“You seem a gentleman, Max. It’s a shame we had to meet like this.” She gave Dennis a dark look, th
en told Max, “I told him to clear out, but he wouldn’t leave. Said his brother would find a way to get him home, how he guessed it’d be good old Max that’d get tricked into coming here.”
Dennis choked back a snarl. Max looked back and forth between them, a shiver running between his shoulder blades.
“What do you mean?” Max asked Celia. When she didn’t answer, he asked Dennis, “What does she mean??”
“I expect you might work your way loose.” Celia opened the door. “If I catch either of you coming after me, I’ll kill you.”
She turned and walked out.
“What did she mean, about me getting tricked?” Max looked across the table at Dennis.
Dennis erupted in a barrage of curses, tugging at his ropes. He shouted after Celia, shouted at Max, thrashing, incoherent.
Max waited for Dennis to calm down and began twisting his arms in his first efforts to escape. Did Celia know something they didn’t? Was another war party on its way, riding by moonlight? Had she left them here as bait so she could exact revenge for her murdered husband?
Max ignored the raw bite of the rope into his wrists. They hadn’t found arrowheads in the cabin ruins. That means I won’t die here. I won’t.
“How could you be so stupid?” Dennis finally spat out a full sentence.
“What did you do to make her leave us like this?” Max asked. He realized that under the scruffy beard, Dennis had taken on a ghostly pallor. “What is it? What’s wrong with you?”
“She’s going to leave us here,” Dennis said.
“She already did.” Max shrugged as best he could with his hands tied behind him. “Look, let’s just get free and get out of here. We don’t have much time left before Riley opens the way back for us.”
“Don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
“She’s going to get there ahead of us!”
Max blinked. Did Celia plan to flee to the 21st century for safety? “Well, so long as we get there in time.”
“You don’t know,” Dennis whispered.
“Don’t know what?”
The fire crackled. The unlatched door banged in its frame. Dennis grimaced. He looked guilty and frightened.
“Only one person can go through!”
The words stuck like barbs. Max thought about the arrowheads in the clearing and the way Riley’s machine had smoldered.
“What do you mean, only one person can go through?” Max wriggled his fingers, hoping to get some slack in the ropes.
“I don’t know how it works, I just know that after two trips he has to recalibrate it. He said it can cycle the same window in four hours, but then he has to start all over again.”
Max stopped moving. He searched Dennis’ face for any hint of joking, any trace of a lie. “Explain to me how he has to start all over again.”
“To you, we played pool last week, right?”
Max nodded.
“The day after that, Riley sent me here. I missed the window back, though. The equipment burns things out after a double cycle, he said. Takes him a week to get everything repaired.”
“While a month goes by for whoever’s stranded in time.”
“Yeah, seems that way,” Dennis said, his eyes darting around as if he couldn’t hold Max’s gaze.
“So he meant to strand me here? I’m just here to let you know the window would be opening, so that you could go back and leave me here?” Max began to wish that Celia had shot Dennis.
Dennis nodded.
Max took a deep breath. He tugged at the ropes. He levered his left hand halfway free.
“I told her everything,” Dennis said, penitent as a sinner at confessional. “But I didn’t think she’d do anything like this!”
Arrowheads. Indians. War parties. A dead husband.
Max couldn’t blame her.
“I mean, she’s from the past,” Dennis said. “Why would she want to live in our time?”
Max wondered just how stupid Dennis could be. He yanked his hands from the bonds and began unknotting the ropes around his ankles.
“Oh, thank God!”
“Yes, you do that,” Max encouraged. He finished freeing his feet and shoved away from the chair like a sprinter leaving the blocks.
“No! No, Max! Don’t leave me here!”
Max flew out the door. Dennis screamed a second before crashing to the floor. Let him bash his way free. Max would reach the clearing first. Riley would find a way to retrieve his baby brother from this mess, but if Max missed the window Riley would leave him here. They weren’t close friends, and Riley was exactly what his mother had cautioned him against. Riley was bad people.
Trees swayed in the restless night air. The moon poured down a silver light like a waterfall that carried Max along. He had to stop her. Not just for his sake, but for hers. She didn’t belong in the future. He ran and tried to think of a way to persuade her. Let me go through, Celia, you stay here and wait for a better, braver man to come along and help you.
Why would she go along with that? He slowed his pace and tried to think of any argument, any reason, any sane plan that he could offer her. He glanced back at the cabin, its glow outdone by moonlight. Dennis’ presence might have given a war party pause. Maybe. But they wouldn’t hold off forever, not if the arrowheads from the dig told him anything.
Celia had planned a life with a man she’d never see again. She’d married, left civilization behind, built a cabin. She’d tried to help a stranger. She’d held two men at gunpoint in a bid for a better life.
Max reached the clearing.
Celia waited, a ghost in her pale dress, the gun still ready.
“Stop right there.”
“Celia, listen to me. Did Dennis tell you about where you’re trying to go? It’s nothing like what you’re used to!”
“He told me,” she said. “No more chopping wood. Roofs that don’t leak. Machines that wash your clothes and machines that take the place of horses.”
“That’s not all,” Max shot back. “Did he talk about pollution? Did he talk about over-population? Did he tell you about spending your whole life inside a city, having to drive for hours just to get a little peace and quiet?”
“I’ve had all the peace and quiet I’ll ever need.”
“Life’s just the same where I’m from,” he said, not daring to take another step forward. “Things go wrong, people die, no reward ever reflects how hard you work. It’s…it’s not any better than here and now.”
“Maybe not for men!” The anger in her voice took on a note of desperation. “He said women go to college and can choose if they want to have children or not. He said that they can vote!”
Max stood there with no argument to offer.
“Did he lie to me?” Celia’s demand rang in the night air.
“No.” Max felt as though he was sliding backward down a steep hill. He tried to find any traction. “But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be!” The idea flowered inside him before he could doubt it. “Stay here! I’ll stay too! I’ll get you to whatever city you want. We could,” he paused, breathless as he realized how attracted he was to her, “we could go live in one of the mining towns, run a dry goods store.” It had taken only a moment to consider, but life in the once-academic past suddenly seemed like a chance worth taking.
“You don’t know me.” She never lowered the gun.
Max kept seeing the cabin ruins. He knew what would happen if someone didn’t see her to safety. A war party wouldn’t kill a lone woman and leave her corpse behind. They’d take her, they’d keep her.
“Then let me get you to someplace civilized, and we’ll go our own ways after that.”
At last Celia’s arms relaxed a little. She kept the gun pointed his direction, but no longer aimed the barrel at his head. “If I understand it, Max, in your time, a woman might be something other than property.”
“That’s not true!”
“You’re saying Dennis lied?”
“No, what I
meant was, you’re not property now! Don’t do this! I’ll stay, I’ll help you!”
A pop, like a burst of static, echoed around them. A blast of wind threw dirt in Max’s face. Far away, Dennis yelled. Raising a hand to shield his eyes, Max staggered forward.
“Celia! Wait!”
“I thank you for your kind offer, Max,” she shouted above the wind, “but I’m going where I won’t need anyone’s help.” She hitched up her long skirts and, her voice breaking a little, called out, “If I can find a way to send help for you, I will!”
She ran.
Max dashed forward, heedless of the danger.
Celia was gone.
The wind stopped. His chance to go home vanished. His foot came down on something hard.
She had left the gun.
Max tried not to panic. They could wait. When his brother didn’t come through, Riley would try again. Maybe if they waited, if the window really did open in two cycles, they could both go home.
Would it really take a month?
The gun was unwieldy in Max’s hands. He listened as Dennis’ shouts grew closer.
Did he hear something else? Hoof beats? Max looked around the clearing. He’d found arrowheads, right here.
Gripping the gun, he hurried for the nearest shadows, desperate to hide anyplace where he hadn’t dug up something interesting.
Ω
About the Author
K. P. Hornsby, freelance author and researcher, has spent her life in the Pacific Northwest. Raised in a household that enjoyed everything from documentaries to science fiction to courtroom dramas, she dreamed of becoming an archaeologist, an astronaut, and a lawyer. The only way to reconcile those ambitions was to become a storyteller. She has a bachelor’s in English and a master’s in History, and enjoys biking in the summer, and studying martial arts and Pilates in the winter. Find out more at www.kapehorn.com.
A Thousand Different Copies
by Janet Guy
“Some old show said that space was the final frontier, but I always thought the final frontier was time.” –Daniel Hilborn, Lost in Time: The Quest of a Life
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Kyoko slapped her hand against the closest tree trunk. “Are you serious?”
