The Time-Traveling Outlaw

by Macy Babineaux

  The car’s guidance system told them the route to follow to get to the hospital, and for the next twenty minutes, they sat in silence.

  When they pulled into the hospital parking lot, Logan started to get out of the car. He paused when he saw Dylan wasn’t unhooking his seatbelt.

  “Are you coming in?” Logan asked.

  “Nah,” Dylan said. “You need to see her one more time, talk to her. Better if I just wait in the car.”

  Logan reached out and put his hand on Dylan’s arm, squeezing. Then he got out and went inside.

  He asked for Natalie Wescott at the information desk on the first floor. The woman there told him she was on duty, on the seventh floor.

  On the way to the hospital, he had mostly concentrated on listening to Dylan, then telling his story. But he couldn’t help notice all the little things that were different. He’d been to Dallas several times, but the roads seemed different. Billboards were advertising soft drinks and fast food that he’d never heard of before. He felt like a stranger in his own time. But then, it wasn’t really his time, was it?

  The elevator opened to the seventh floor. He stepped out looking at the little placards with names and arrows. This was the oncology ward. She’d always said she wanted to work with cancer patients. He didn’t understand wanting to do that. It sounded horrible and depressing. But she’d said she wanted to help people in the worst situations, to help make them better, to give them hope. And that made him love her all the more.

  A nurse in powder blue scrubs was walking down the hall, looking at a clipboard, and he almost didn’t recognize her. Her hair was different, cut short. And even though she looked tired, there was a beauty around her that he almost couldn’t recall, from a time when she was happy and healthy.

  “Natalie?” he said as she passed.

  She stopped and turned to look up from her clipboard. Her eyebrows narrowed. “Yes, sir?” she said. “Can I help you with something?”

  He’d known she wouldn’t recognize him, but he’d somehow also expected her to, needed her to. The lack of recognition, the lack of love in her eyes felt like a punch in the gut.

  “I’m just…” he began, realizing he was an idiot for not planning how this was going to go better. “Would you like to have a cup of coffee?”

  She smiled, little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. “Do I know you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said instinctively, then: “No. I mean, not really.”

  She laughed, not sure what to make of that. She looked him up and down. “I mean, I do kind of dig the whole retro cowboy thing,” she said. “But…” she lifted up her hand and wiggled her wedding band at him.

  He took a step closer to her, then realized maybe he was coming off as a stalker or a weirdo. He took a half-step back. “I was just hoping you could answer a couple of questions for me.”

  She was still smiling. She didn’t seem creeped out. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “But I’m really busy.”

  “Logan,” he said. “My name’s Logan. And this will only take a minute. Please.”

  She sighed, but didn’t look really put out. She liked him. He could see that in her eyes. He should have at least expected that, too. They’d fallen in love once, after all.

  “Okay, Logan,” she said, looking at her watch. “I’ll give you twice that. Two minutes. Shoot.”

  “Are you healthy?” he asked. “I mean, have you had any issues with your heart, or have you had it check out?”

  Her smile faded. She put one hand to her chest, just over her heart. “How do you know about that?” she asked. “Who are you?”

  His mind raced. He needed to know, and he didn’t want her to walk away. “I’m a friend of a friend.” Which was true, in a way.

  “Which friend?”

  His mind raced, trying to remember her best friend’s name, the brunette she’d roomed with in college and stayed in touch with. He hoped they were still friends in this timeline. “Denise.”

  Her face relaxed. He could see she was still a little skeptical, but someone would have to be a real nut job to hunt down her friend’s name as well. And he was hoping she didn’t think he seemed like a stalker.

  “I’m fine,” Natalie said. She reached up to the neckline of her scrubs, and in a strangely intimate gesture, she pulled it down far enough for him to see the top of a scar. “I had surgery last year. The doctors say I’ll be fine.”

  “That’s great,” Logan said, feeling the tears standing out in his eyes. “That’s really great, Natalie. I just want to ask you one more question. Then I’ll leave you alone.”

  “Okay,” she said, taking a half-step closer to him and lowering her voice. There was no one in the hall but the two of them.

  “Are you happy?”

  She smiled, opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. He could see she was really thinking about it, considering the question.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she said. “I haven’t even told Holden yet.” She placed her hand over her belly. “I’m pregnant. I always wanted a little girl, but I really don’t care either way.”

  Logan blinked away the tears, one slipping down his cheek.

  “So yeah, I'm very happy,” she said, a smile spreading back across her face. He loved that smile. It could drive away the darkest shadows, and it made him feel good all over again just seeing it.

  “Thank you,” he said. He wanted to take her in his arms and hug her one last time, say goodbye. But he didn’t want to push. “I’ll leave you alone now.”

  He turned and pushed the elevator button. It opened immediately and he stepped on.

  “Wait,” Natalie said, but the doors were already closing. He turned away as they slid closed. He wanted the memory of her smiling to be the last he had of her.

  He got back in the car.

  “How’d it go?” Dylan asked.

  “I got what I needed,” Logan said. “Let’s go.”

  “You all right?”

  Logan wiped away the last of the tears with the back of his sleeve. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine.” There was no more reason to cry for Natalie anymore. She was fine. Better than fine. She was alive, her heart fixed. She was married, with a child on the way. What else could he ask for?

  “Okay,” Dylan said.

  “Let’s head back to Lockdale,” Logan said. “I’m ready to go home.”

  Back at the university, Dr. Tidwell was waiting for them.

  “You sure you want to go back?” he asked Logan.

  “I do,” Logan said. He wanted to see Sally, to hold her in his arms again. His life was in 1861 now, with her on the ranch. “Can you do it?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Of course. The hardest part was already worked out by my other self, in the timeline you originally came from. Isolating and entangling the temporal particles was the trickiest aspect, but that’s already been done.”

  “You’re saying you don’t know how to do that?” Dylan asked.

  “No,” Sam said. “It’s a very difficult problem. I suppose I should be able to work it out, if my other self did. But it might take some time. Maybe years.”

  “Like I said before,” Logan said. “If I were you, I’d abandon the whole project.”

  “Yes,” Tidwell said. “You said it almost got me killed. What does that mean?”

  “There was a man who wanted to use the technology for his own self-interests,” Logan said. “He had your daughter hostage.”

  “Rebecca?” Tidwell seemed horrified, the first emotion Logan had seen him show that wasn’t either nerdy enthusiasm or curiosity.

  “He never said her name,” he said. “Probably. And the last time before I went back, he actually killed you. I saw you die.”

  “Oh,” Tidwell said. All the color had drained out of his face. He looked like he might pass out.

  “Yeah, you don’t have to worry about him anymore. At least I don’t think so. But like I said—”

  “If you were me, you’d
scrap the project,” Tidwell said. “Yes, I understand. Now then, what time would you like to go back to?”

  Logan realized he hadn’t really thought that through very hard. If he went back earlier than his first visit, it was possible he would undo the changes made here, and he didn’t want that to happen.

  “Just in case you’re wondering, the computer is rejecting all temporal coordinates prior to your return.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not really sure I do either,” Sam said. “Maybe there’s some kind of fixed property of the universe that while it allows travel through time, it somehow prohibits that person or thing from existing in the same period twice.”

  That made a weird kind of sense. It would keep him from running into another copy of himself.

  “So you can either go much further back,” Sam said. “Or I can return you to anytime from the moment you left or later. Except of course during your current life span.”

  “The other you,” Logan said. “His equipment wasn’t that accurate.”

  “Well,” Sam said. “He was working under duress, with potentially inferior equipment. My current lab is very well-equipped. I can’t get you when you want to be within a very narrow window, down to the millisecond.”

  Logan smiled and told him exactly when he wanted to return. Then he turned to Dylan, who had been waiting patiently by the door, looking like he was unsure what he was supposed to be doing.

  Logan hugged him, and Dylan hugged him back.

  “Thanks again,” Logan said.

  “No problem,” Dylan said. “This was pretty weird, but also kind of amazing. I’m really glad I got to meet you.”

  “Me too,” Logan said. He turned to Sam. “You need to do any kind of preparation? Power up the machine or anything?”

  “Not really,” Sam said. “If you’re ready, just lie back down where you were.”

  Logan walked to the gelatinous blue chair and reclined in it, feeling his body sink a couple of inches.

  Sam sat down and wheeled his chair up to one of the computer terminals. He typed for a couple of minutes, then turned to Logan.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Logan said. “And Sam, thank you.”

  Sam seemed to blush a little. “I’m pretty sure I should be the one thanking you.” He turned, his finger hovering over the keyboard. “All right, then,” he said. “Happy trails.”

  Sam’s finger pushed down onto the key, and Logan turned his head to look at Dylan, who looked a little sad, but had a smile on his lips.

  Then the whole world went white with light.

  19: Sally

  Sally threw her arms around Logan’s neck, pulled him close, and drew him in for a kiss.

  Then he was gone.

  No sound. No light. He was just there one second, and the next she had her arms wrapped around nothing.

  She knew he intended to revisit the future, and even though he’d said he had to return to avoid a paradox, she was terrified. She had no idea how this whole confusing thing worked, and as far as she knew, Logan could visit the future, find his wife alive, and decide to stay there and never come back.

  Maybe the Logan she knew was from a different timeline, maybe one where the watch in her pocket didn’t even need to make it into the future. If he never came back she didn’t even know what she’d do with the stupid watch.

  And what if she was really pregnant with his child. She didn’t think she could make it out here with a child on her own. She might have to sell the ranch after all, move back East. What if—

  He was back. No sound. No light. One second there was an empty space where he had been, and the next it was filled with him.

  Everything that had run through her mind had taken probably twenty or thirty seconds.

  He was still wearing the same clothes he had been wearing before. He had a dazed look in his eyes, and then he looked up and saw her face and his eyes focused. A light smile came to his lips, but he looked a little sad too.

  “Hello, Sally,” he said.

  “Hi,” she said tentatively. She wanted to throw her arms back around him, but she was afraid he might just disappear again. How was she going to live like this, always wondering when he might disappear?

  Instead, he reached for her, wrapping his strong arms around her shoulders and pulling her close.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  She slid her arms around his waist. “What if they take you away again?” she asked. “What if you—”

  “They won’t,” he said. “It’s over. I’m here for good.”

  “And the future?” she asked. She wanted to ask about his wife, even though it was really none of her business. Maybe in time he would tell her, when he was ready. What she really wanted to know was where his heart was, or rather, when his heart was. Did he really love her? Or would he always wish he was back with his wife, if she was now alive because of his actions in the past?

  “Everything’s better,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it sometime, but not now. Right now the only future I care about is yours and mine.”

  Sally felt the tears well up in her eyes. She hugged him fiercely, then pulled back and kissed him. He kissed her back, sliding his hands to the curves of her jaw.

  They drew apart, but only slightly, their lips only inches apart, their eyes close to one another.

  “I want to marry you, Sally Macintosh,” he said. “I want to get hitched. Do they say that in this time period?”

  She smiled and laughed a little, tears running down her cheeks. “They do,” she said. “When do you want to get hitched?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “No need to rush,” she said, moving in for another kiss. It was long and sweet. When she pulled back, she looked him in the eyes. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”

  THE END

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