Monumental Summit

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  But it was either that or time travel really did exist. She wasn’t sure which outcome she hoped for the most.

  The café was a combination of large Formica tables and booths, old tile that had the color mopped right off it, and photos from farms and pioneers, many framed and slightly grease-covered.

  Each table had a big pile of napkins on it and a partially-empty bottle of ketchup and a bottle of mustard. Nothing else.

  The lunch was fantastic. She had never tasted a hamburger so juicy and a bun so perfectly soft. It was if the guy in the back had made it on a grill in the backyard.

  For all she knew, he had. And she didn’t care.

  And the fries were heavenly. Salt-covered, grease-covered potatoes that just tasted like she had bitten into the most expensive meal in Denver.

  It had all been served by a heavy waitress with a front tooth missing named Connie who wore an apron with washed-out stains from years past, April was sure. She welcomed the four of them and nodded to April and Madison. And seldom spoke after that.

  But the décor or the waitress didn’t matter. The food was amazing. It was no wonder Bonnie and Duster stopped here. Under that weathered old sign was the best food April could remember tasting.

  They were the only six customers in the place the entire time and Duster tipped big, even though Connie didn’t seem friendly and didn’t seem to much care.

  Then they all piled back into the Cadillac and turned off the main road and headed east. Once she and Ryan were settled, she reached over and put her hand on his.

  He smiled at her and whispered, “Nice.”

  She had to agree with that completely.

  In about ten miles, they turned off the paved road onto a wide gravel road that was wide enough for two cars. April had been on a lot of mountain roads, but never one this smooth and wide.

  “Silver City sits in a valley between two large mountains,” Duster said. “War Eagle Mountain on one side, Florida Mountain on the other. My great-great-grandfather bought a mine on Florida Mountain called The Trade Dollar.”

  “It officially played out in 1871,” Madison said.

  Duster nodded, keeping the big car climbing up the smooth gravel road. The hills above and below the road were covered only in sagebrush and scrub brush. April could see trees up higher, where they were going, but here everything outside the car looked hot and barren.

  “My great-great-grandfather boarded the mine up and gave up on it. My great-grandfather went back up a few years later and tried to get it going again, mostly doing the work himself. He’s the one that broke into the crystal room.”

  April looked at Ryan when Duster said that and Ryan just smiled and nodded.

  “When he did that,” Duster said, going on with the story, “he didn’t tell anyone. He just closed the mine up again. Many years later he showed it to his son, who then showed it to my dad. Bonnie and I had been married for two years when my dad took us up there and showed us the crystal room.”

  “So this mine has been in your family for the entire time?” April asked, amazed at the story.

  “Did they know what it was?” Ryan asked.

  “They had no idea. And the mine was almost played out when my great-great-grandfather bought it. It was a family joke from what I understand for decades.”

  Duster went on as they neared the top of the steep climb up the side of the hill on the wide, gravel road. “Bonnie and I started to get an idea of what the vast cavern of crystals might be and we worked on it for almost five years during the summers, doing tests of various sorts.”

  “I still can’t imagine what it was like that first time back,” Madison said, shaking his head.

  “Scary,” Bonnie said. “Flat scared us both to death.”

  Duster nodded. “We didn’t try it again for another year and a lot of tests and higher math calculations.”

  For some reason, it felt good to April to know that Bonnie and Duster could be scared of something. It made them seem more human.

  “How long ago was that second trip?” Ryan asked.

  “Three summers ago,” Duster said as he turned the big Cadillac off the wide road and onto what looked like nothing more than a single-lane wagon track that wound through some scrub trees.

  “We’re up on War Eagle now,” Madison said.

  Duster slowed way down and the road got very rough.

  April held on to Ryan’s hand and steadied herself against the side of the car with her other as the car pitched back and forth. On Ryan’s side there had to be a drop of a good thousand feet.

  Ryan glanced at it only once and never looked in that direction again.

  The talking stopped for a moment as Duster wound them around the edge of the mountain and then started down toward the valley below.

  “Someone say something,” April said, “so I don’t have to think about this road.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “How many trips have you taken into alternate pasts since that second one?” Ryan asked.

  Bonnie glanced back at them and smiled. “Four or five hundred. I’ve lost count.”

  Then she turned back to watch the road and brace herself.

  “When did you two go through the first time?” Ryan asked Madison.

  “Last summer,” Madison said. “We’ve gone through thirty-eight times since.”

  “Forty counting those two false starts that first trip,” Dawn said.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, smiling at her.

  April had to know, but she was almost afraid to ask. But she asked anyway.

  “How many years have you spent in other timelines?”

  Madison looked back at her with a surprised look and Ryan squeezed her hand.

  “About seven hundred years,” Dawn said matter-of-factly, not turning around.

  “And you spent all of that time together?” April asked, and again Ryan squeezed her hand.

  “Almost all of it,” Madison said, nodding.

  April glanced over at the handsome man sitting beside her holding her hand as they bounced down the rough road off the mountain. Could she spend seven hundred years with him?

  Or with any person for that matter?

  She honestly didn’t know the answer to that question.

  But with Ryan, she sure wouldn’t mind trying a year first.

  Maybe two.

  Maybe ten.

  And then going from there.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  July 19, 2015

  RYAN WAS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED at how April was asking direct questions about the belief of going into an alternate timeline. He wasn’t convinced he believed it really at any level, but at least after two months, April wasn’t as actively against the entire notion as she had been.

  And he really liked kissing her and holding her hand. He had been attracted to her from the first moment and they had worked wonderfully as a team designing the lodge over the last two months. He hoped they would do a lot more together now.

  If he had anything to say about it, they sure would.

  Duster finally banged them over a wooden bridge at the bottom of the valley and started up a very, very steep slope on a road that really didn’t look like a road at all. More like two ruts washed by rain out of the side of the hill.

  Madison said, “Silver City is in that direction about a mile.” He pointed to the left up a decent road. “Hang on now.”

  “Oh, great,” April muttered and Ryan smiled and squeezed her hand.

  The big Cadillac didn’t seem to have trouble with climbing the slope, even with six people inside, but the people inside were bouncing around like the car was trying to blend them all into a milkshake. Only the seat belts and strong grips held them in place.

  April and Ryan both braced against each other and held on to the handles above their seats.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Ryan, but was actually only sixty seconds or so, Duster turned the big Cadillac onto a trail going across the hill. If Ryan hadn�
�t been belted in, he would have slid over on top of April. Not that he would have minded, actually.

  Then after another forever sixty seconds, Duster turned the big car up into a stand of trees and stopped, the back end of the car down the hill.

  Beside them a white Jeep was parked.

  “Oh, good,” Bonnie said, “Janice and Steve are here.”

  “Oh, shit, what day is it?” Dawn asked, a slight touch of panic in her voice.

  “July 19th,” Madison said.

  Dawn looked at her watch and visibly relaxed. She had clearly just realized something. And it had to do with another couple here somewhere on this mountain.

  Madison looked at her with a puzzled look as Duster turned off the car and turned around and looked down at his passengers. “Everyone all right?”

  “If you had the last three minutes as an amusement ride at a fair,” April said, “no one would ride it.”

  “Agreed,” Bonnie said, and everyone laughed.

  Ryan climbed out, stepping down on dried grass and dirt, and then turned and helped April climb up and out behind him on the passenger side.

  The heat and the silence of the high mountains hit him. And the smell of sagebrush and warm pine, two smells he loved more than anything.

  The view over the mountains and the valley beyond was amazing. He could make out the hills along the Boise Range and some of the Central Idaho Mountains beyond them.

  “Wow,” April said, standing beside him and staring at the same view.

  He really, really loved the idea that he had met someone who loved the mountains and appreciated them as much as he did.

  Duster, his hat and long coat now back on, said, “Follow me.”

  He turned and strode off through the trees and out into the open.

  Bonnie followed him, then Ryan and April and then Madison and Dawn behind them.

  The hot air swirled around them. At some point Ryan was going to have to ask Duster why he always wore that hat and coat, no matter how warm it was.

  There wasn’t much of a path, more like a cattle trail, that cut across a steep slope.

  Far below them on the left were the ruins of an old town.

  “Silver City?” Ryan asked.

  “What’s left of it,” Madison said from behind him.

  Ryan could see maybe ten buildings scattered around the valley and some cars parked in front of one.

  They went across the hill to a flat area that looked to be the top of an old mine tailings. There was a weathered old shack about the size of a shed sitting on the flat area. It had no windows or doors, and old, rusted mining car tracks led from it to the edge of the tailings pile.

  From the size of the pile, it was clear a lot of dirt had been taken from this hillside at one point in the past.

  Ryan looked around. This top area was twenty-paces across and just about as deep. The mine itself was boarded over and had caved in behind the boards. Sagebrush grew out of the area where the mine had caved in and the mountain went up steeply above the old mine.

  From what Ryan could tell, this was where the delusion was going to end.

  April looked at the old shack and then at Ryan with a look of worry on her face.

  Duster turned and smiled at them both as the six of them stood on the flat top of that old mine tailings pile in the silence and heat. Not even a slight breeze disturbed the air.

  “We didn’t have you sign anything,” Duster said, looking cool under his wide-brimmed hat and long coat, “because to be honest, the four of us have come to trust you. And besides, who would believe you if you told anyone, which we hope you never do.”

  “About what?” April asked. “That joyride over a thousand ruts?”

  Again everyone laughed.

  “About what we are about to show you,” Duster said.

  “Whatever it is, you got my word to not mention it to anyone,” Ryan said.

  “Mine as well,” April said.

  Duster looked at Bonnie who nodded.

  “Clear,” Madison said as he scanned the surrounding hills. “No one above us.”

  Duster then took what looked like an antique skeleton key out of his pocket and a moment later a big rock beside the old mine sort of slid to one side revealing a large vault door that slid open as the rock moved to one side.

  Now Ryan was impressed. Not only did that take some real engineering, but some real power as well. There had been no sign at all that rock could move.

  Or any source of power.

  He had no idea where the power came from way up here on the hill.

  “Okay,” April said softly. “Now that’s interesting.”

  Duster moved over and went inside, followed by Bonnie and Dawn.

  “Entry is too small for six,” Madison said as the rock slid closed again.

  Ryan had never seen anything like it. There was no sign at all that that rock could move or ever had moved. And it made no noise at all moving. None.

  “That’s just flat amazing,” he said.

  Madison laughed. “You haven’t seen the half of it yet.”

  The rock slid back and Madison indicated that Ryan and April should step inside.

  Ryan reached over and took April’s hand to show her they were in this together, whatever “this” happened to be. Then they stepped into the area behind the steel door and rock.

  Madison joined them and the rock slid closed and the big door shut, leaving them for a moment in the dark.

  “Just in case we have to open that at night,” Madison said, explaining the second of darkness before an interior light came on and an interior door opened onto an old mine tunnel lit with yellow bulbs hanging on what looked to be old electrical cords.

  That moment of darkness made complete sense to Ryan once Madison said it. He squeezed April’s hand and she gripped his hand back as they took a couple steps into the old mine.

  The wooden timbers were a good foot across and the mine itself was more than tall enough for all of them to walk down the middle of it without ducking for anything. The lights gave the mine a golden tint and everything smelled of dry earth.

  The ore car rails ran along the floor and dust seemed to cover everything, giving the mine a look of very old age.

  Duster and Bonnie and Dawn were waiting for them a few steps down the mine tunnel.

  “Welcome to the Trade Dollar Mine,” Duster said, his voice echoing.

  Ryan studied the old timbers holding up the ton of rock over their heads. They looked old, but he could tell they had been completely reinforced and yet decorated to remain older-looking.

  “Is this safe?” April asked, looking around.

  “Completely,” Ryan said, nodding.

  “Trust an architect to see the details,” Duster said, laughing as he turned and headed deeper into the mine.

  About forty steps in, the mine tunnel turned to the right along with the string of lights, but Duster didn’t turn. He just walked right through the wall.

  April gasped and squeezed his hand.

  “Hologram,” Madison said as Bonnie and then Dawn vanished through the wall. “Just like the hologram of the lodge this morning you had done on that table. Just shut your eyes and walk and you’ll be fine.

  Keeping hold of April’s hand behind him, he walked right through where the wall should be.

  April followed and then they both looked back.

  “Security,” Duster said. “Plus I have alarms all the way along this tunnel that unless turned off right, lock the place down and alert me anywhere in the world.”

  “We’ll show you how to shut those off,” Bonnie said, smiling.

  Duster turned and kept walking toward what looked like the end of the mine, hidden slightly in the dark. And again he walked through the wall.

  Ryan flat didn’t know what to think at this point. He was starting to feel numb and only April’s hand in his gave him any reassurance.

  They followed through yet another hologram and into a well-lit natural cavern.<
br />
  Tables with a massive amount of supplies lined a couple of the walls and there were shelves in the middle of the cavern as well. Clothes of every sort and size and era hung on racks in two different places, as well as a rack of guns and hats hanging on one cavern wall.

  From one corner of the cavern on the left, Ryan heard two voices chorus, “Welcome!”

  The couple that must have owned the Jeep stood and started toward them. They were both wearing clothing from what looked to be the late 1800s and both had bottles of water in their hands.

  The two new arrivals walked across the smooth floor of the cavern, smiling. The guy was as tall as Duster with a slightly balding head and was dressed like a shopkeeper would dress in the late 1800s, with a short coat and vest and dark slacks.

  The woman wore riding clothes appropriate for a woman of the late 1800s and had a bonnet pulled back off her dark brown hair.

  The guy said, “I see they decided to join the craziness.”

  “They haven’t seen it all yet,” Bonnie said.

  Then Bonnie turned and did introductions. “Ryan Knott, April Buckley, this is Professor Janice Franks of Stanford and her husband, Professor Steven Conklin of Berkley.”

  Ryan shook both their hands, stunned at the two newcomers. “I read your book, Professor Conklin, about the construction methods of the Old West. It helped me get through some of what we were going to need to do to build the lodge.”

  “And Professor Franks,” April said. “I am honored beyond words. Your two books on the household furnishings and supplies of Western America have helped me more this last year than I want to admit.”

  “It’s Janice and Steven,” Janice said, smiling. “And we’re really glad you decided to join this little crazy crew. We have both admired your incredible work as well. It’s an honor if our work influenced you in any way.”

  Ryan instantly had a feeling he would like them, just as he liked the other four with them.

  “So you two haven’t seen any of this yet?” Steven asked.

  Ryan shook his head.

  Steven glanced over at Duster and said, “We’re ready to head back again, just finished a little lunch. You want us to knock their socks off for a few minutes first?”