[Timekeepers 01.0] A Revolutionary Tale

by J. Y. Harris

  She had slipped her arms through the straps and secured the latch across her ribs. This would make it easier to run if their plan went south. In fact, even if the plan succeeded, she and Brad may have to do some sprinting through the woods; that would be a lot easier to do without having to lug a backpack in one hand.

  Kristen could hear the muted voices of Bob and Walt as they bickered in the small clearing ahead. She dared to peek from behind the thick trunk of the oak tree next to which she was standing, and saw Bob sitting on the ground while Walt fussed with a pile of kindling. He looked around nervously from time to time, as if half-expecting to be confronted at any moment.

  She heard a low whistle, and used the same whistle in return. It was a “birdcall” their father had used on family camping trips when the kids were younger. Dad always thought he was being clever, a real outdoorsman; no birds ever ‘replied’ to his call, mainly because he had made it up, but to him it sounded like a bird’s call, and he was content to add it to the cacophony of nature’s sounds, authentic or not.

  As soon as Kristen answered Brad’s faux-bird call, she thumbed her phone, putting it at its loudest setting, and then accessed the agreed-upon ringtone.

  A panther’s growl cut into the sounds of the forest. It was echoed a few seconds later by another one, about thirty yards away to Kristen’s left.

  From behind the tree, she saw the two deserters start and look around. Kristen clicked her phone again and the panther gave another menacing growl.

  She heard the sound of movement in the forest, coming toward her from where Brad had been. Kristen too shuffled her feet in the leaf-covered ground, and shaking nearby branches and shrubs, purposely making as much noise as possible from her place behind the big tree. Peeking around the trunk again and into the clearing, she could see that Bob and Walt were scared witless.

  Walt dropped the small branches he’d been holding, and looked at Bob. Bob scrambled to his feet and backed up against the nearest tree trunk, scanning the woods wildly.

  At that moment another roar from the panther sounded, a little closer this time. Kristen initiated an answering roar of her own. She rustled more leaves and branches.

  As soon as she saw Brad move to a tree nearby, she nodded at him and darted to another tree herself, closer to the clearing. She made sure to make as much noise as possible in doing so. This time the panther gave a low growl, rather than a fearsome roar, and the effect was almost more menacing than the louder sound. Behind her she heard Brad shuffling to the cover of yet another tree.

  By now Walt and Bob were beyond terrified, their faces plainly pale, even in the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the trees.

  “What do we do, Bob? I ain’t gonna stay in this forest to be eaten by no wildcat.”

  “Me neither. I reckon we can go back to town and find someplace to stay the night—someplace with walls, or at least a fence. Then we can light out for Washington’s camp again in the morning.”

  Walt tried to peer into the forest. “You still think that’s a good idea? Maybe we should reconsider that plan.” He turned to look at his friend, but Bob was already gone, leaving small shrubbery twitching in his wake.

  “Bob?” said Walt uncertainly, a tremor in his voice.

  Another big cat growl. More shuffling leaves.

  Walt turned and hightailed it after his comrade.

  Kristen brought out one last roar, and whacked some nearby branches for good measure. Brad ran past her, kicking leaves freely as he made his way to where the two deserters had been. Kristen joined him. Up ahead they could hear sounds of someone crashing through the woods in hasty flight.

  “Now that was fun,” she said, grinning broadly.

  “It was kind of exciting, wasn’t it?” her brother agreed. “Good thinking on your part.”

  “Thanks. It’s just a good thing we had our mascot ringtone loaded to our phones.”

  “Yeah, and it’s a good thing we’re the Port Barton Panthers. I don’t think they would have been quite as intimidated if we were, say, the Drexel High Cardinals.”

  Kristen’s adrenaline was pumping, and she had to take some deep breaths to try to calm herself and slow her racing heartbeat. She was glad to have the opportunity to ‘walk it off’ and get her breathing back to normal as she and Brad picked their way through the forest back to where Jacob and Rebecca were waiting.

  “Well?” Jacob asked, standing when he saw them. “Did your plan work?”

  “Oh yeah,” replied Brad. “They’re gone, at least until tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow it won’t matter. By then I’ll have warned the officers, and General Washington’s scouts will be sent out to look for a couple of deserters.”

  “So what was your plan, anyway?” Rebecca asked curiously. “What did you do?”

  “Depends. What did you hear?”

  The girl shrugged. “We just heard some sort of commotion in the forest.”

  “A commotion?” Kristen asked.

  “Yes. Some noise—I’m not sure what it was, maybe some sort of animal. And then the sound of someone—or something—moving through the trees.”

  “Running, more like,” Jacob put in.

  “Well, there was no animal,” Brad assured them. “We just made them think there was. No animal and no danger. Those men are gone, baby, gone.”

  Kristen took a deep breath. “So, what do we do now?”

  Rebecca held up her empty sack. “I still have to get flour.”

  “Right. We were on our way to—where was it?” Brad looked questioningly at Kristen.

  “I don’t know. Something to do with… hot dogs? Or wieners?”

  “No, frankfurters,” Brad said. “That was it--frankfurters.”

  “Frankford,” Jacob cut in. “We were heading to the mill at Frankford.”

  “Close enough,” Kristen said. “Lead on, MacDuff.”

  When Jacob looked at her questioningly, she said, “That was a line by a very famous writer, William Shakespeare. You might have heard of him, he lived in England about—let me think—oh, a hundred and fifty, sixty years ago.”

  Brad rolled his eyes. “While I’m impressed with the attempt, you should know that Shakespeare never wrote ‘Lead on, MacDuff.’ It’s a misquote. A very common one, possibly, but a misquote just the same.”

  “Okay, then how about… lead on, Davy Crockett.”

  “Wrong century. Not born yet.”

  “Ummm, Lewis and Clark?”

  “About twenty five years early.”

  “Daniel Boone.”

  “That’ll work.”

  “Daniel Boone,” Jacob said. “I’ve heard of him. He’s been involved in some of the skirmishes with the Indians down in Kentucky. Do you know him?”

  Brad just laughed and shook his head.

  The four teens continued walking through the forest. Kristen found herself walking with Jacob, while Brad and Rebecca fell in behind.

  “So you’re strangers to these parts,” Jacob said.

  Kristen realized these were just about the first words Jacob had directed solely to her since she’d met him. “Well, yes and no,” she replied. “We’ve actually been here before—or near here, anyway. But it’s not the same now.”

  “So it was long ago, then, when you were here.”

  “Yeah, it seems like a lifetime ago. About five lifetimes, actually.”

  “You and your brother have an odd way of speaking. You say ‘yeah’ rather than ‘yes,’ for example.”

  Kristen smiled. “Yeah, I guess that would seem strange to you.”

  “And the word ‘okay,’ which I understand means ‘fine’ or ‘very well.’ Maybe I’ll start using that, too.”

  “No, don’t,” Kristen said. “It doesn’t suit you. I don’t think you should change the way you speak. Not because of us.”

  “Between the way you speak, and the packs that you carry over your shoulders, it would be easy to believe that you come from some very strange place.”

&
nbsp; “We do. At least, you would think it was strange.”

  “I can honestly say that I’ve never met anyone quite like you. Er, I mean, the two of you, of course. And I assume you might think the way we live is strange.”

  “Again, yes and no. It’s strange in that it’s not something we’re used to. But that doesn’t mean it’s strange in a bad way. Just… different.” Kristen paused for a moment and then thought it best to change the subject. “So, what do you do when you’re not working at the tavern? Or are you always working at the tavern?”

  “Well, things have changed since the war began. We used to live normal lives: have lessons, be with our families, have fun from time to time, occasionally we’d take time away to go to dances or social affairs and play games. But now… most of the men have joined the Continental Army, and even a lot of the boys my age.”

  “How come you haven’t?” Kristen asked. Walking through the woods in the darkening autumn afternoon was not something she would have thought to enjoy—at least, the twenty-first-century her wouldn’t have enjoyed it; she’d rather be at the mall—but she was enjoying this, both the walk and the company. She wished it could go on, for two major reasons: one, it was just plain enjoyable; after all, what’s not to like about a walk through the peaceful woods on such a gorgeous autumn day… especially with a cute, intriguing boy? And two, she was afraid to think about what came next, what would happen when the pleasant walk was over and they reached their destination, as they inevitably would. The longer she could put off thinking about and dealing with that, the better.

  Which brought her back to asking Jacob why he hadn’t joined the army to fight in the war.

  He shook his dark blond curls. “I don’t know, really. I should have. My mother says I’m not old enough, yet others my age—my friends, even—have joined. I just think she doesn’t want me to leave.”

  Kristen smiled. “That’s only natural. Most mothers don’t want their children to do something that could be dangerous. They’d be very proud of them if they did, but still, moms want their sons to stay safe.”

  “Moms?”

  “Mothers.”

  Jacob nodded, by now apparently getting a little used to the unusual words and phrases of the Everhearts. “Anyway, my father needs my help at the tavern. And Major Clark has me run errands for him from time to time, delivering messages and such like.”

  “Ah, yes, the spy master.”

  “He prefers the term Intelligence Officer. And I never carry any secret information; just the usual kinds of messages from one military officer to another.”

  “Do the British ever come to the tavern?”

  “Oh, yes. We’re on a main road, and we serve good ale and strong whiskey. And when the king’s men come in, we make sure they have plenty of it.”

  “And you probably also make sure there are ears to listen, in case their lips are loosened to the point at which they say something interesting.”

  Jacob smiled and shrugged. “If a few lobsterbacks are in their cups and getting talkative, ‘tis no fault of ours. We provide the liquor, Miss Everheart. What they do—or say—once they consume it… well, that’s their problem.”

  Kristen smiled. The old “get-’em-drunk-and-loosen-their-tongues” trick. Where better to employ it than a country tavern? She could see Major Clark sitting in a corner, dressed like a poor country yokel, supposedly three sheets to the wind, soaking up whatever an unsuspecting British soldier might say. Or perhaps Jacob’s father employs a pretty tavern wench, skilled in asking just the right questions as she serves the next tankard.

  Yeah, this Revolutionary War business wasn’t nearly as boring in real life as it seemed in the history books. Lots of cool stuff and intrigue was taking place, mostly behind the scenes, and most people would never even know about it.

  A few yards behind, her brother and Rebecca were having their own interesting conversation.

  “So, do you like living in Philadelphia?” Brad asked.

  Rebecca shrugged. “I’ve lived here all my life. I do love the city; it’s so big, and has so much going on. But obviously things were different—better—before the war.”

  Brad’s mind was still stuck on the “so big, so much going on” thing.

  Big? If he remembered correctly, Philadelphia had a population of about twenty- or twenty-five thousand during this time period. In his world, that wouldn’t even rate as a mid-sized ‘burg. But it was the most populated city in the colonies, he remembered, and second only to London in the British Empire at the time.

  Everything is relative, I guess.

  And ‘so much going on’? Brad chuckled to himself; Rebecca had no idea. Current residents of Philadelphia sometimes bemoan the fact that ‘there’s nothing to do’ in their city; this, despite the fact that there were four professional sports teams, an orchestra, umpteen museums, a zoo, numerous parks, concerts, festivals… the list went on and on. People in the twenty-first century always seem to overlook what is under their very noses, Brad knew, no matter where they live. They take so many things for granted.

  Not to mention, some people are never satisfied, no matter how much they have at their very fingertips.

  “What did you like to do before the war?” he asked.

  Rebecca tucked a strand of hair that had come loose back behind her ear. “I just liked to walk around the city. From what I understand, it’s very unique in the layout.”

  “The layout?”

  “Yes. The grid pattern; no other city in the colonies is configured that way. Also, there is Mr. Franklin’s library, the State House, and dozens of shops. I also love the waterfront, and watching the ships come and go; there’s always so much going on there.”

  Once again, Brad was stuck on ‘so much going on.’ He mentally shook himself, and became aware that Kristen and Jacob had stopped, and as he and Rebecca caught up to them, he realized there was a road up ahead, just outside of the woods.

  Jacob indicated one direction, north. “This is the way to Frankford Mill,” he said.

  “Well, then that’s the direction I need to take,” said Rebecca. “Then I’ll come back this same way and the road will take me to Philadelphia. It’s only a few miles south, in the other direction.”

  Jacob turned to the Everhearts. “You’re not going to either the mill or Philadelphia?”

  “No, we’d best not,” Brad replied. “But we’ll wait for you to get back from the mill.”

  “We will?” Kristen asked in surprise.

  He looked at her, eyebrows raised. “You got somewhere else you need to be?”

  She gave a snort. “Not at the moment. Not here.”

  “Are you sure?” Rebecca asked. “I hate the thought of leaving you in the forest to wait. Especially at this time of day.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Kristen said. “You two go ahead.”

  Still skeptical, Jacob and Rebecca set off toward the mill. The Everhearts found a large-boled tree near the road with some scraggly shrubbery growing near the base. Together they provided sufficient cover for the siblings to sit down, yet still be out of sight from the road.

  “Man, what I wouldn’t give for a couch right about now,” Kristen said, stretching her legs out as if she were indeed reclining on a couch. “Add some nachos and salsa and a Dr. Who marathon, and I’d be in heaven.”

  “For me, you can skip the nachos. Dr. Who is good, though. Nice touch.”

  “Yeah, but only the David Tennant episodes.”

  “Ha! Figures you’d like those. Now if only we could find a Tardis and step out of it in our own time zone.” Brad checked his cellphone. “Getting late. Probably an hour or so until sunset.”

  “Not that you could tell that with all these friggin’ trees around,” Kristen replied. “I can barely tell where the sun is, to determine the direction, or where it’s going to set.”

  “Let’s see, Philly is that way, right down the road apiece, or so we’ve been told. And since where we originally started is a bit northwes
t of the city… well, I figure we’d want to head in that general direction,” he said, pointing.

  “Terrific. Our target is somewhere within a twenty-square-mile area, in that general direction,” she said. “We think.”

  “I know,” Brad said with a sigh. “We’re totally boned. And I bet it’s going to get wicked cold tonight.”

  “La la la…. I’m trying not to think about that,” Kris warned.

  “Sorry.”

  After a minute of silence, she said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing Philly, though. How often do you get to see your hometown as it was two hundred and forty years ago?” She turned to look speculatively at the road. “It’s only a couple miles that way, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Why not? I can zip down that way a mile or so, and I should be able to see it from there.”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Doubt it? Why?” Kristen asked. “If I walk a mile down the road, it’ll only be another mile or so from there. It’s not like I’m going to go into the city and do some shopping. I just want to see it.”

  Brad shook his head. “You’re not thinking. Our Philadelphia, yes, it’s huge, with tall buildings, and you can see it from miles away. But this Philadelphia… not so much. It’s tiny in comparison. And the tallest building probably isn’t more than four stories high.”

  Kristen sighed. “Good point. I didn’t think of that. Although wouldn’t it be kind of cool to see some of the buildings we know as historic landmarks, when they’re brand new? Like Independence Hall, for one.”

  “Which of course isn’t called Independence Hall in this time period.”

  “Right, it was the… wait, don’t tell me! The Pennsylvania State House building, wasn’t it?”

  Brad nodded. “Very good. Let’s see, what else would we recognize? Christ Church.”