More Stories from the Twilight Zone

by Carol Serling

  Frowning, Crockett leaned across the table. “Mind telling me just where I am? And when?”

  “Certainly! David Crockett is alive and well and living in Philadelphia on March 6, 1845. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “Ain’t so sure. Don’t mean to sound unappreciative, Mr. McCracken, but maybe you shoulda left well enough alone.”

  McCracken couldn’t wait to show his guest the brave new world that had developed in Philadelphia during the past decade: advances in urban transportation, new systems for lighting the downtown area, and recent improvements in such important matters as running water and sewage removal. Also, restaurants that offered cuisine from around the world right here, so every citizen could try international delicacies to cultivate more sophisticated tastes. The inventor couldn’t believe Crockett’s reaction: While this throwback to the now-all-but-bygone frontier did marvel at what he observed, the colonel grew nostalgic for the old ways.

  “I know, I know,” Crockett said as they strolled through a magnificent three-story building in which one could purchase virtually any goods from the globe’s four corners. Crockett wore a suit that McCracken had ordered for him; his buckskins were hanging in a closet of the inventor’s home. “Beautiful, sure. But not fer me. I miss the old trading posts, the rustic general stores. The way we were.”

  “Davy,” McCracken sighed, as they were now on first-name terms. “If I’d known how unhappy you’d be, I never would have—”

  “Y’ meant well, Angus. I do know that.”

  The one place Crockett deeply desired to go was Liberty Hall, to see the great bell that symbolized the land he loved and had done so much to tame and settle. McCracken noticed his new friend’s eyes light up at the sight, Davy grinning from ear to ear when he considered the large crack running the entire distance from the bell’s top to bottom.

  “Y’ know, Angus, when I first got t’ Congress, I set out t’ patch that up. Got me some mortar, marched right in, made m’self t’ home, spent a day fillin’ that space. Looked just like new. Wall. I let it sit fer two days, then struck it with a gong. Soon’s I did, the mortar fell away, an’ there was the crack again, big an’ bold as ever.”

  “If David Crockett couldn’t fix it,” Angus admiringly observed, “I don’t guess anyone could.”

  “I allus took it as a sign from On High. Democracy by its very nature can’t be perfected. Too complex, too many edges. May not reach the ideal, but in the real world, it’s the best mankind can ever know. Way I see it, that crack reappearin’ was God’s way of tellin’ me so. ‘Davy,’ the Good Lord was a-sayin’, ‘do your best to make things better. Go ahead! Just understand: There will always be limitations to what you, or any man, kin accomplish.’ ”

  Angus marveled at the profound philosophy that this uneducated soul spouted in impromptu poetry which conveyed the voice of the common man. “You really do believe that?”

  “To everything there is a season. Yup. All that happens is fer a purpose. Sometimes, though, it kin be pretty tough figurin’ out precisely what that is.”

  “Including my bringing you here?”

  “I wish I could figure out what I’m supposed t’ do. Ain’t been able to so fer.” Crockett’s voice turned melancholy.

  “So you still wish you could go back to where you came from? Even knowing that to do so would mean instant death?” The only time and place other than here that Crockett could be placed, according to the paradigm that McCracken had created for his time machine, was precisely where he’d been picked up: in Davy’s case, a split second before his death at the hands of the Mexican soldiers.

  “In all honesty? Yes. More I think on it, the Alamo wasn’t just somethin’ that happened to happen. It was in my stars. Why, I’d been born fer it. I feel . . . robbed!”

  “I had hoped you might do wonderful things here. I understand now this was a mistake. A man belongs to his own generation. Let’s head back to my place and fix it.”

  Crockett looked happier than he had since the moment McCracken had brought the buckskinned buckaroo into his own time period. An hour later, the colonel appeared sadder than he had throughout the past two weeks. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, growing a little surly.

  “I just don’t know.” McCracken had helped his guest into the machine, set the controls, and pulled the lever. Nothing happened. The inventor could only guess that, when trying it out for the first time, something had gone wrong. Perhaps that explained why so much smoke poured out, which had surprised him. “It’s just not working.”

  “So ‘m stuck here?”

  “I’m . . . afraid so. For the time being, at least.”

  “Why, if that don’t beat all.” Crockett began pacing around the room like an animal confined to a cage.

  “I’m so deeply sorry.”

  “Sorry don’t make it right.”

  “I know. Davy, let me go out and buy some equipment to try to fix it. That’s all I’ll work on, day and—”

  “Look me in the eye,” Crockett insisted. McCracken did as commanded. “You really think you can get this infernal thing-a-ma-jigger goin’ again?”

  “Probably not.” McCracken found it impossible not only to lie but even put a positive spin on the situation when staring into Crockett’s honest-as-oak face. “But I swear to you, Davy, I’ll give it everything I got.” This did not visibly hearten his guest, Davy’s eyes growing misty.

  For the next week, Angus came and went, purchasing gadgets, sending all the way to New York for others not yet available in Philadelphia. Hours passed; he labored hard. Crockett, who had grown uncomfortable with the suit, went back to wearing his buckskins. This made McCracken feel even worse. He had learned the hard way that, as an old adage put it, the road to hell may be paved with good intentions. By saving Crockett’s life he’d robbed his hero of a birthright—a gallant death at what had, during the past decade, come to be considered America’s greatest shrine of liberty.

  “Where you goin’?” Crockett called out as McCracken headed for the door.

  “Post office, see if the new materials came in. Care to come along?”

  “Nah. Don’t feel t’ home out there.”

  “We’ve got to keep hoping. Sooner or—”

  “Later, I’d imagine. Much later.”

  Guilt-ridden, McCracken ran off to get the goods. Left alone, Crockett continued his daily ritual of reading the papers, particularly intrigued but also disturbed by front-page news about Texas. Initially he’d been thrilled to learn that two months after the fall of the Alamo, Sam Houston and his ragged group of volunteers had defeated Santa Anna’s army along the San Jacinto River. Texas had immediately declared itself a sovereign country. More recently, though, the governments of Texas and the United States agreed to abandon the former following its nearly decade-long status as a republic, entering its Lone Star into the American flag.

  Two days before leaving office, President John Tyler signed the legal papers; the Mexican government announced this was tantamount to the United States declaring war on Mexico. The new president, James K. Polk, nervously sent troops, led by that old warrior Zachary Taylor, down to the Rio Grande to protect what were now U.S. citizens. Mexico’s moderate leader, Jose Joaqin de Herrera, considered Polk’s offer of many millions of dollars to maintain friendly relations fair. The military quickly deposed him, sending troops up to the Rio Grande, now a powder keg waiting to explode. Reading this, Crockett grimaced. Somebody ought to do something! But . . . who?

  An hour later McCracken returned, ready to begin again, if fearful his latest experiment might achieve no more than everything else he’d tried. He found the house empty.

  “Davy?” he called out. “Where are you?”

  No answer. McCracken headed into the dining room. There he found a scrawled note waiting on the table:

  My good friend Angus—

  When you read this, I will be long gonne. Not in yer

  counfounded time travel thing, but on my own too sturdy legs.


  ’Preciate how hard ye be tryin. Yet I cain’t stay confined no

  longer. Mebbe you was right. Mebbe there is some work needs to

  be done: here, now. If so, you was correct bringin’ me forwerd in

  time. If that indead be the case, my chore now is to discover it.

  First though I muste earn me some money. Go ahead!

  Yours trooly,

  David Crockett

  “Oh, Davy,” Angus wept. “Forgive me if I have done wrong. I hope and pray you are right. And that, in time, there truly will be some meaning to all of this. Like that old song you so love: ‘To everyone there is a purpose.’ ”

  “I’m half horse, half alligator, and a little teched by a snappin’ turtle. I can outride, outwrassle, outshoot, outsmart, outrun any man in Tennessee. My pappy could lick a den o’ wildcats before breakfast, and I kin lick my pap—”

  “Thank you. Next?”

  The theatrical team had been interviewing actors for their new show all morning. Each subsequent hopeful appeared more poorly fitted for the title role than the previous. This weak attempt caused Anne Semple, the show’s producer, to wonder if mounting a play to mark the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Alamo was such a good idea after all.

  The piece, which she’d penned out of respect for that battle’s greatest hero, bore the title Wildfire; the central character was Jeremiah Nimrod, a fictionalized version of David Crockett, dead nearly a decade. Every nation needs its epic hero: Crockett had become America’s Heracles. The fly in the buttermilk, as a Texas native like Anne Semple would put it. The larger-than-life image of this man whose memory she hoped to enshrine made it difficult to cast. Every one of these seasoned actors auditioning for the role played at being Colonel Crockett. Anne and her colleagues sensed this wouldn’t work. What they needed was not a traditional performance, but a presence. This caused her to consider closing down the show before any more money could be wasted. After all, who could embody such a figure?

  “Let’s ‘go dark’ for lunch,” she whispered to her assistant, who had interrupted the latest actor while signaling for the next. “I can’t take anymore.”

  Quickly, the fellow instructed the group of hopefuls to return in ninety minutes. Then he, Anne, and the four key members of their team exited the Philadelphia theatre.

  “Miss Tinley’s Tea House?” the assistant, George, suggested. A pleasant and refined place, this was where a respectable lady like Anne Semple ordinarily dined.

  “I need a beer,” she announced. “Let’s try Barney’s Beef and Brew down the street.” Refined women did not ordinarily retire to such male-oriented establishments. Then again, they knew Semple to be a suffragist, demanding voting rights and equal opportunity for all American women.

  Twenty minutes later, they sat around a large table, partaking of a hearty stew washed down by large mugs of ale, processed in the brewery located behind the restaurant. The repast helped them relax, at least a little.

  “I’d hate to see this wonderful project close down simply because we have a casting problem,” Michael, one of the largest investors, sighed.

  “I know, I know,” Anne replied. “Never did I think this would become such a serious problem.”

  “Let’s face it,” George agreed, “without a strong central figure, it doesn’t matter how much time or cash we lavish on theatrical trappings. It just won’t work.”

  Michael was about to make another suggestion when a large, lumbering man, holding a mug in one hand, obviously drunk, approached. “What’s a woman doin’ in here?” he demanded, eye-balling Anne with fiery orbs.

  “My good sir,” George said, about to rise and face the ill-mannered fellow, “would you please leave us to our—”

  “Sit down,” the huge oaf bellowed, pushing George back in his seat before he had a chance to try to be Anne’s white knight. Everyone in the bar fell silent, nervously waiting to see what might happen next. “Too many changes goin’ on these days. Now why don’t you git—”

  “To my way o’ thinking, yer the one who ought to ‘git.’ And do so quicker’n a cornered jackrabbit.”

  All eyes were drawn to the speaker, an impossibly tall fellow who had quietly slipped out from the backroom. In simple clothes, fists clenched, he obviously served as the establishment’s bouncer, on hand to stop confrontations before they erupted. Momentarily, the ill-mannered assailant stood stock-still; big as he was, this newcomer had him beat by an inch. While the bouncer spoke in a soft voice, all understood this was not a man to be trifled with. Still, the amount of brew that the oaf had consumed filled him with false courage. He lunged forward, furious.

  “This is a man’s world and this is a man’s saloon!” he insisted, raising his right arm. Faster than anyone could imagine, the bouncer casually grabbed hold of the oncoming fist, twisting the brute’s arm, then swung the fellow about so the bouncer could easily escort him to the doorway. A mild shove and the ill-mannered lout flew out onto the street, angrily shrieking as he stalked off. Arms crossed over his chest, the bouncer waited, making certain the drunk wouldn’t try to return. He stopped by the table on his way through the main room, right in front of Anne Semple, nodding humbly.

  “Sorry for the slight scuffle,” he apologized. “He won’t be botherin’ you ag’in.”

  With an irresistible smile, the tall man, whom Anne guessed to be about fifty, bowed graciously and left. Once he’d returned to the backroom, Anne eyeballed her colleagues. Even before she could speak, the delighted look in each man’s eyes made clear they knew what she was going to say.

  “That’s him. That’s Davy Crockett!”

  “Citizens of the great state of Tennessee. It has been my privilege, first as a Democrat, then a Whig, to represent your interests in the halls of Congress. Now, you have seen fit to vote me out of office. Well, lemme jes’ say: You can all go to hell; I’m goin’ to Texas.”

  The tall bouncer put down the script, considering the group of men and one woman seated before him. He stood on the stage of the theater where Wildfire was set to premiere in two months’ time, having accompanied the producing team when, after lunch, they convinced him to join them for a few minutes. Now, he could not believe what he was hearing.

  “So far as I’m concerned,” Thomas, set to direct, shrugged, “he’s our man.”

  “Precisely what I was looking for,” Anne agreed.

  “Now, hold on a dang-burned moment,” the subject of their approval interrupted as all the others buzzed happily. He stepped down, approaching them where they’d gathered in the front row, close to the stage. “You people better think this through. I’m no actor.”

  Anne sweetly smiled as she explained what the group had decided that very morning. “But you see, Mr.—”

  “Newman. D. C. Newman.”

  “You see, Mr. Newman, we don’t want an actor. Rather, we’ve been looking for someone who has the stature to embody David Crockett for an entire generation.”

  “Huh! Still ain’t certain I’m yer best bet.”

  “We are!” the group exclaimed in unison.

  “Look at it this way,” Anne coaxed. “Clearly, you come from Tennessee; the accent is so authentic! If not for us, or yourself, please do this for the country.”

  “How’s performin’ in some show supposed to help—”

  “There’s going to be a war. No sensible person in the United States or Mexico wants it, yet war is coming at us like a loose wagon rolling downhill. As a nation, we must be prepared. Not just militarily, but patriotically. That’s why I decided to mount this play; I want to employ the figure of Crockett to reignite pride in being an American.”

  Michael agreed. “You say those lines so naturally, it’s as if you were born to recite them.”

  “In truth,” Thomas added, “it’s almost as if you’d written them yourself, the conviction is so complete.”

  “I don’t see how we can pull it off without you,” Anne concluded. “And, as I said, before we happened to di
scover you, we were agreed that the show ought to be shut down.”

  “A happy coincidence,” George ventured.

  “That, or—” The man who’d identified himself as Newman paused, searching for precisely the right word. “Fate?”

  “Fate or coincidence.” Anne nodded. “I guess that all depends on how one views the world: chaotic or meaningful.”

  “Huh! When you put it that way, guess I can’t refuse.”

  There was no reason to wait for the reviews to pour in; audience reaction told them all on opening night they had a hit on their hands. When Jeremiah Nimrod faced off with a bear (more correctly, a man in a fur suit) and grinned him down to the ground, or outboasted as well as outfought Mike Fink, the burliest of all river men, the full house of men, women, and children broke into spontaneous applause.

  One major change had been made. In the original script, Nimrod was to whip a band of Indians. The star, for truly Newman was best considered that as he made no pretenses to being an actor, insisted such stuff be removed. “Crockett was a blood brother t’ the Cherokee. He hated every minute he spent in the army,” he blurted to Anne as they conferred in her office. “I don’t want to play such scenes.”

  She stared at him. “Since when did you become such an expert about Colonel Crockett?”

  That caught him off guard. She watched as he stumbled to find the words. “Uh, ever since I agreed to do this part, I been researchin’ over at the library. If folks are goin’ to think of me as him, I’d best be well-prepared.”

  “I see.” Anne nodded, sounding none too convinced. “But don’t you agree that most people recall Crockett as a great Indian fighter?”

  “He hated that reputation.” Quickly, Newman added, “At least, from what I have read, that’s what I gather.”

  “All right, then, we’ll rewrite the scene so that you will fight a group of outlaws on the trail instead.”