Shift (ChronoShift Trilogy)

by Zack Mason

  They were on dangerous ground now. Anybody not from the South was by definition a traitor.

  “I’m from Richmond.”

  Richmond, VA was close enough to Washington DC, that the lack of a strong southern accent could be explained.

  “Could just as easily be from the other side of the border.”

  Mark shrugged. He glanced at Ty who still sat motionless. This could get ugly for both of them fast.

  “I obviously can’t convince you of the truth, so what are you going to do?”

  “We gonna hang Jefferson and your’n slave too, jes’ for the heck of it. We gotta talk some about you. I reckon you’rn a northern spy, but there’s a chance you ain’t. I’d hate to kill another southern boy when we’s so short on ’em already.”

  Turning, he walked out the door and closed it behind him. Ty lifted his face. He sat more erect and his defeated spirit melted away. No, he had not given up.

  “You got some plan going, Mark?”

  “I’m thinking. We’ve got to get our hands free somehow.”

  “You ain’t kidding. This situation right here is noooo good. No good at all.”

  “We’ll think of something. Regardless of what they decide about me, I won’t leave you.”

  Ty smiled a smile that came from the heart. “Didn’t think you would, buddy. Still, I appreciate you saying it.”

  “In a way, it’d be better if they let me go. Then, I could go back and get our rifles and shoot you out of this.”

  “Sure am glad you finally woke up. They must have hit you harder than they hit me. Plageanet’s spawn was having a good old time roughing me up before he decided to wake you. By the way, Jefferson’s tied up outside.”

  They heard footsteps and Ty changed back to intimidated slave mode. Hugh Plageanet stormed back in, furious determination blazing in his eyes. Three other men trailed behind him.

  “You’re gonna hang, boy. Same as your slave. My men who saw what happened didn’t tell me about how pa died for fear I’d think they were crazy, but now they done spoke up. Said pa an’ the others were kilt by guns that made no noise.

  “Don’t know what kind of trickery that is, they thought it were witchery. I think it’s some kind of new-fangled fabrication from up north. Same as that band on your wrist. First time I saw that, I knew something were wrong. Puttin’ two an’ two together though, says yer some kind of northern spy fer sure. Not sure what you’re doin’ round these parts, but by gosh, I don’t care. You’re gonna hang.”

  He grabbed Mark’s elbow and yanked him to his feet. The other men did the same with Ty. He was about twice the size of any one of them. The men cut the ropes around their ankles that tied them to the rafters.

  Now, Mark and Ty could make a break for it if they wanted to, but where would they go? They still couldn’t shift with their hands tied behind their backs. Still, if both of them could somehow escape at the same time, Mark could push Ty's shifter for him....

  There was no time for that unfortunately. Before they could even protest, they were both hoisted up and seated astride a horse. The men secured their ankles together again with ropes that ran under the horses’ bellies. If for some reason, they were to fall off the horse’s back on the trail, they’d most likely be drug to a gruesome death.

  After a twenty minute ride, they arrived at the top of a cliff, with a view overlooking a small valley. The drop was at least 100 feet straight down.

  Hugh Plageanet stopped Mark’s horse short next to his own.

  “You ever read about Judas, spy? Bible says after he betrayed the Lord he went and hung himself on a tree overlooking a field. His body hung there in that tree until it finally fell into the field and all his guts spilt out. Fittin’ end for a traitor, don’t you think?

  “Well, that’s what we’re gonna do with you. See them three trees there by the edge? We’re gonna hang all three of you, one on each tree, just a overlookin’ that valley there. An’ then, we’re gonna leave your bodies to hang and rot. Just like Judas. Whatcha think about that, spy?”

  “I think if you really believed in the Lord, you wouldn’t be doing this.”

  “War is war.” Plageanet spit on the ground as he said it.

  “Jefferson’s got nothing to do with this war. You just want revenge.”

  Plageanet grew red in the face, “He ain’t a person, you fool!”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  With venom, the predator spun to his men.

  “Get on with it! Hang ‘em all. An’ put the spy between his two beloved slaves!”

  Their ankle bonds were loosed once more so they could dismount. Once on the ground, Mark played his last card.

  “One last request?”

  “Wuz that?” Plageanet sneered.

  “Let me take a whiz before I go. I heard that hung men will pee themselves. Spare me some dignity at least.”

  “Forget it, spy.”

  One of Plageanet’s men piped up, “That don’t seem so unreasonable to me, boss.” Another man echoed the sentiment.

  “I’ll decide what’s reasonable and not! All right, fine. Untie him so he can empty his bladder, but keep your guns on him!”

  To heck with Hardy Phillips and his Shift & Strike rules. It was either that or die. As soon as his hands were loose, it would only require one quick motion to push the button on his shifter and be safe. Then, he’d have all the time in the world to figure out how to go back and save Ty.

  They cut his bond and he breathed an audible sigh of relief. He brought his arms around, reached for his shifter, saw the alarm dawning on the faces of his captors, saw the guns coming up....and then he shifted out.

  What happened next came as a complete surprise. Instead of standing safely in the future, Mark found himself airborne, about 100 feet off the ground. Instantly, that sickening feeling you get at the top of a roller coaster hit his stomach like a baseball bat, and he was falling to his death.

  He could only think the shifter must have somehow malfunctioned and moved him horizontally off the cliff’s edge as well as through time. Reflexes took over and before a second had passed, his hand was moving back to the shifter, pressing the button to return him to 1863.

  This time, his body underwent a wrenching sensation unlike any other he had ever experienced. His bones felt as if they were literally being stretched and the pain was agonizing. Nausea came upon him, tremendous and overwhelming. He felt like he was being pulled apart piece by piece, and he very nearly was. In that brief second, he’d fallen at least 15 to 20 feet.

  The shifter would always work to push him out of the way of unexpected objects occupying his projected position in the target time. This time, because he had fallen, he would have shifted to a place 20 feet underground. The device had never had to transpose him that far before. He realized now that the transposition could actually hurt.

  Luckily, when he returned to his lynch mob buddies, a glitch in the transposition feature had caused him to reappear just outside the line of fire of his attackers, slightly to their left.

  He had just one second to try and assess what he needed to do. There was no time to change a setting on the watch. Apparently, in the future, the cliff edge was in a different place than it was 1863.

  In that brief moment of falling in 2012, Mark hadn’t had time to judge distances very accurately, but he guessed he’d been about 50 feet away from the future edge of the cliff. Somehow, he had to move himself and Ty at least 50 feet away from the current edge in order to shift to safety.

  Mark dove headfirst into the man closest to him. The blow knocked the gun out of his hand and the wind out of his stomach.

  Ty stared at Mark. He’d seen Mark shift out, only to instantly reappear, but not in an ideal position as expected. He could tell something was wrong from the look on Mark's face.

  “Ty, move back! Move! Move!”

  Marine instincts kicked in and Ty drove his body into that of a second man. Mark was back up now and he kicked a third man’s gu
n away. If these men hadn’t been so distracted by Mark’s disappearing act, he doubted he and Ty could have achieved this much.

  Plageanet hadn’t had his gun drawn, but he was drawing it now. Mark grabbed Ty and yanked him up off his knees. They ran in a short zigzag pattern, which made Plageanet’s first two shots miss. The other men were regrouping quickly.

  Had they gone fifty feet yet? No way to know for sure, but Mark was out of time. It was either now or never. If they hadn’t gone far enough, Ty would certainly fall and die with his hands tied behind his back, but if they didn’t shift now, they’d be shot for sure.

  Mark knocked Ty to the ground. “Pray, buddy.” He pushed Ty’s shift activator, and then his friend was gone. Mark pushed his own next.

  And if all you ever really do is the best you can

  Well, you did it man

  “Something to Be Proud of”

  ~ Montgomery Gentry

  8:42 PM, June 11th, 2012, Madison, GA

  They lay side by side, chests heaving, hearts racing, two feet from the cliff’s edge. Now, Mark could see clearly what had happened. The shifters had not malfunctioned. By 2012, this hill had been strip mined. The entire area where their fight had taken place in 1863 no longer existed, and the cliff’s edge had moved east by about fifty feet.

  Lesson learned. Never shift into anunknown set of circumstances.

  “That was a close one,” Mark breathed.

  “You aren’t kidding.”

  The sun was beginning to set over the hills to their west bathing the clouds in beautiful shades of pink and purple. It had been morning in 1863 when they’d shifted out. The few times in Mark’s life that he had come close to dying, it seemed a super heightened appreciation for living always followed. Too bad he couldn’t feel this way all the time. Life tasted so wonderful when you came close to losing it.

  “We need to go back for Jefferson,” Ty said.

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  Ty’s face clouded. “We need to go back for Jefferson,” he repeated firmly.

  “I agree we need to save him, but do you really think our going back to that scene is going to help him? Even if we save him from those guys, then what? He’s never going to be safe since we killed those men.”

  “We just need to get him away from this lynch mob and then we can smuggle him and his family north.”

  “I’ve got a better idea, but we’d have to start over.”

  “All right, let’s hear it.”

  “How about we just go to Jacob Jennings before the original lynching, ask him to buy Jefferson Sr. and his family from Martin, and give him the funds to do it.”

  “Then, we have Jennings free them and send them up north?”

  “Basically.”

  Ty’s brow knotted in agitation. “The only thing I don’t like about that plan is that we’d be going back and changing things before we shot Plageanet, Regnier, and those other KKK wannabes.”

  “Yeah, but it’s safer for Jefferson long term. We’d still wait till after he saved that woman from being raped.”

  Ty eyed Mark suspiciously. “Why? ‘Cause she’s white?”

  “You know that isn’t it! It’s just the right thing to do.”

  Ty was silent.

  “Fine. If you want we’ll save Jefferson before he stumbles on the attempted rape, and then we’ll save the woman ourselves.”

  “Man, I just can’t stand the thought of those men living on peacefully, knowing what they are and that they’re gonna hurt more of my people. We’re gonna leave ‘em dead.”

  “Fine with me, but it puts Jefferson in more danger in the long run, even after he’s up north.”

  “I know it. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  “We’re gonna go back and kill the son, Hugh Plageanet, too. Wipe the Plageanet line off the map.”

  “I don’t know if I can go along with that, Ty.”

  “Why the heck not?”

  “I mean....the others, sure. Plageanet Sr. tried to rape a woman and then he and the others tried to murder Jefferson just because he stared Plageanet down. They’re murderers, and I have no problem killing murderers. But Hugh Plageanet was avenging his father. We don’t even know how he’ll run his plantation yet. He might be all right once he cools off.”

  “In my book, the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”

  “Could be. Still, we don’t know that. It’s a heck of a thing to kill a man without evidence.”

  “I say we’re gonna do it.”

  “I say I’ll go along with you on the others, but till I have evidence, count me out on Hugh.”

  “All right. Just don’t sit around waiting for that evidence to fall in your lap, Carpen.”

  “All right.”

  Ty was irritated with him, but Mark just didn’t feel right about taking out a man without justification.

  ***

  4:22 PM, April 15th, 1863, Madison, GA

  The Jennings' plantation was humbler than Martin’s and more orderly than Plageanet’s. The main set of buildings consisted of a smallish main house, which was a simple square building painted white, a separate cooking shed, various barns, and some white-washed cabins behind the main house. The cabins were probably slaves’ quarters, but if they were, they were certainly much nicer than Martin’s slave shacks.

  Jennings was heavyset and had a jovial manner about him. His smile was quick, and his handshake warm.

  “What can I do for you, Mr....?”

  “Smith. John Smith.”

  “I see.”

  “Could I have a word with you in private, sir?”

  “Why, of course! Come into my parlor.”

  They moved into the parlor and sat in a pair of opposing plush chairs. The room was decorated with burgundy wallpaper and dark, cherry wood trim.

  “I have an unusual request, Mr. Jennings. There is a slave on the Martin plantation who I feel is in grave danger. I have reason to believe that Hugh Plageanet may try to lynch this slave, unjustly, I might add, sometime this evening, and I was hoping you could help me save him.”

  “Why is this slave in trouble?”

  “Hugh Plageanet’s father, Stephen, was killed earlier today while he was trying to lynch this slave, and Hugh thinks the slave is to blame.”

  “Plageanet’s dead?” Jennings leaned forward in disbelief. “When did this happen?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  Jennings leaned back in his chair and let out a shocked gasp.

  “What is this slave’s name?”

  “Jefferson Sr.”

  “I know Jefferson, he’s a good ma...a good slave, I mean. He wouldn’t have hurt Plageanet unjustly.”

  “Glad to see you’re a good judge of character. He didn’t hurt him justly either. He didn't hurt him at all. It was someone else. We want to give you enough gold to buy Jefferson and his family and pay for their train fare up north.”

  Jennings snorted derisively. “For that matter, I’d gladly buy him with my own money if he’s really in danger.”

  “He is, and we're happy to. I’ve got the money, and we want you to make Martin an offer he can’t refuse. Offer double the going rate.”

  “All right.”

  Silence cooled the air.

  “Where’d you come from anyway, son? I don’t recall seeing you around these parts before.”

  “Just passin’ through.”

  “I see.”

  “So, will you do it?”

  Jennings sat quietly, staring at the floor.

  “I don’t really cotton to slavery, you know?”

  “Then, why do you have them?”

  “Several years ago, a fellow up Covington way freed all of his slaves in a fit of conscience. Within a couple of weeks, half of them came back begging him for work just so they could eat. The majority of the rest were trapped and claimed by other plantations as if they’d never been freed. Those few who actu
ally made it up north weren’t much better off, having to scramble and fight for factory jobs.

  “I’d free ‘em if I thought they’d be better off. Heck they really are free anyway, I just haven’t told ‘em officially. If one of ‘em ran off, I wouldn’t chase him. I don’t bust up families, and I certainly would never sell a man to somebody else. I’ve paid extra a couple of times just to keep a family together.

  “I try my best to make sure they’ve got plenty to eat, nice places to stay. They get sick, I take care of them. I limit their work hours to the normal work week. There’s absolutely no beating or anything of the sort on my land. I'd buy all my neighbors slaves if I could just to give them a better life, but the God's honest truth is I can't afford it. When you run a plantation the way I do, your profit isn't quite as high.

  “I set a man by the name of Thomas free a couple of years ago. He knew how to read and write, so I gave him a loan and set him up with a business in town. He does pretty well too. The others just don’t have the skills to make it on their own, and I don’t have the resources to teach them.”

  “Sounds more like a commune to me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nevermind. So, what do you say?”

  “Well, Mr. Smith. You've brought me some shocking news, but you seem to be an honest man, with the exception of your name, of course. I need to verify what you’ve told me first. Meet me at the train depot around 8:00 this evening. If I don’t show, the answer’s ‘No’.”

  “Just remember, we’re pressed for time.”

  “Understood.”

  “And when you pay Martin, give him a little extra to keep his mouth shut about who bought Jefferson.”

  7:51 PM, April 15th, 1863, Madison, GA

  The sun was low enough in the sky the whole town was dressed in a late afternoon, golden hue. Mark and Ty waited on a bench at the depot. The train had pulled in a few minutes ago and was scheduled to leave again a little after 8:00. Their conversation had dropped off into a lull a few minutes before. Until it became clear what Jennings was going to do, the tension would remain thick.