Written in Time

by Jerry Ahern

  Hats were something Ellen Naile positively detested, and especially the one she wore. It had a broad brim, with lace trim banded around the crown matching the tight and itchy collar that felt like it was closing more tightly around her throat by the second. Remembering to catch up the enormous skirt and billowing petticoats under it, Ellen Naile opened the trailer door and warily navigated the trailer steps, her feet buttoned inside what had to be the ugliest cross between orthopedic shoes and combat boots ever conceived.

  Settling her borrowed clothing, Ellen began looking for Elizabeth, after a few seconds and even fewer hesitant steps encountering her so suddenly that they almost bumped into one another, Elizabeth climbing down from the trailer next door.

  “Oh, you look beautiful, Lizzie!”

  “You look beautiful, Mom. You really do.”

  “I feel like an idiot.” As if on cue, a wind blew up along the alley-width walkway between the rows of trailers and Ellen Naile felt her hat starting to go. She put her right hand, open palm, on top of it to keep it in place. “Having to dress like this every day is going to suck big time,” Ellen declared.

  Lizzie started to cry, and Ellen thought, “To hell with the hat,” and put both arms around her daughter and just hugged her close while the wind kept blowing. But the wind from the mountains beyond the fake Western town wasn’t the source of the chill that Ellen felt. The reason for the icy tingle that spread upward along Ellen’s spine and stopped so abruptly at the crown of her head under the damned hat that her body shook with a paroxysm was something different. Both she and her daughter had glimpsed the reality that stalked their destiny, haunted their souls. They would be in a time when women were cared for and protected and sheltered and never, ever consulted, a time when everyday tasks consumed enormous amounts of time and a woman’s intellect and desires weren’t given a second thought.

  “Kirk Douglas always believed—said so in print in his autobiography—that if he rode real erect-like in the saddle, he’d look like more of a horseman than he was. And he did.”

  Jack glanced down from the saddle into the weathered brown face of Elvis Wilson. “Are you saying I should sit up straighter in the saddle, Elvis?”

  “Since you and your family got here ten days ago, and you connived me into teaching you and them some ridin’, you’ve gotten a damn sight better, Jack. But until you get better still, sit erect. Remember Kirk’s words, and you’ll look good, at least.”

  The advice of Elvis Wilson was to be taken seriously. Some of the stuntmen on the set claimed Wilson was almost in the Ben Johnson class when it came to horsemanship. Once Jack Naile and his family had arrived on location, Jack had set out to find somewhere in the area where basic horsemanship could be learned.

  It was Holly Kinsey who had said, “Elvis Wilson taught me and half the actors I know. He’s good, and he doesn’t expect miracles. And he likes kids, so he’d be great with Liz. Your daughter is just the sweetest and smartest girl in the world. And is your son David terrific-looking! He’s so awfully mature.” After thanking the actress for the compliments to his daughter and son, Jack had looked up Elvis Wilson, who was doing some stunt riding and a little acting in Angel Street when he wasn’t supervising the horse wrangling. Despite Jack’s insistence, Elvis Wilson refused to take money for his services, saying instead, “Everybody who’s a decent person should learn himself to ride. Folks who aren’t—decent, I mean—well, the horses are better off. Buy me a steak dinner or a bottle of scotch sometime, and we’ll call it even.”

  David did not like horses. A natural athlete in every sport he’d ever tried, riding interested him not at all and chiefly because he openly ridiculed everything and anything which had to do with the Old West. This was, of course, because his father liked westerns, was a dedicated student of Earpiana and owned a cowboy hat and a Colt .45. Yet David agreed to the riding lessons without protest.

  That only heightened Jack’s already eerie feelings concerning their future in the past. Ellen, who loved horses but had ridden almost not at all, made steady progress, as did Liz, who admitted that she was afraid a horse would bite her. Of the Naile family’s four students of equitation, it was David, of course, who was learning to ride so well that, with proper wardrobe, he could have served as a Mongol warrior under Genghis Khan.

  Jack glanced down again into Elvis’ weathered face. Wilson wasn’t made-up; the scene in which Wilson was about to perform was one in which his face would never be seen. Wilson would be riding across a great barren expanse as one of fifty desperadoes on their way to wreak death and destruction. At Wilson’s prompting of the second-unit director, Jack and David would swell that number to fifty-two.

  “Nobody will see my face wearing some damn cowboy hat, right?” David had insisted when the idea was suggested a day earlier.

  “Nobody will see you wearing a cowboy hat, son.”

  “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  David, hat stuffed under his arm and leading his already saddled horse, walked out of the holding corral. “We ready?”

  Elvis looked up at Jack Naile and winked, then went to get his horse.

  It was hot despite the wind, or maybe because of it. The wind rustled the manes of the horses, tore at the hats of the men and necessitated squinting against driven dust. But it was the perfect special effect for the shot, and cost nothing. If Jack had learned one thing about moviemaking since they’d arrived on set, it was that free stuff was good.

  “What did you say one of those camera trucks was called, Dad?”

  “An insert car, I think.”

  There were two of them, whatever they were called, trucks with special suspension, each mounted with a movie camera, the cameras rolling. The second-unit director had just called “Action” and was getting the long shot of the head desperado turning around in the saddle and giving his cohort of nasties a pep talk about all the fun death and destruction that they could perpetrate upon the town. In another few seconds, he’d wave his sombrero and it would be the signal for everyone to start forward on their mounts, at little more than a canter at first, then breaking into a gallop.

  “You up for this, Dad?” David inquired.

  “Yeah. I’m not going to do anything dangerous. And you remember that, too. If the other riders start going a little too fast for us, we can rein back a little. Nobody’ll notice. I mean, we’re supposed to be bad guys, not cavalry in a John Ford western.”

  “Whatever.”

  The sombrero was waved, and, more to the point, the second-unit director signaled. Trucks rolled and mounted men started forward. “Kind of exciting,” Jack Naile enthused to his son over the clopping of hoofbeats and the creaking of saddles and gun leather.

  “Kind of dusty.”

  “That Holly Kinsey really seemed to like you, David.”

  Jack remembered to sit up straighter in the saddle, pulling his costume-department cowboy hat lower over his eyes against the rising clouds of dust.

  “If I tell you something, promise you won’t tell Mom?”

  This was David’s way of insulating himself from Ellen’s direct criticism. David knew perfectly well that Jack would hold a confidence sacred from anyone except his wife. But prefacing the revelation as he was, David knew that his mother would never mention it, no matter what.

  “Tell me.” That was Jack’s usual sort of response, noncommittal.

  “Tell me first. What did she say? Holly, I mean.”

  “That you were good-looking and seemed—yeah, mature. Holly said mature. Why?”

  “I had sex with her the first time a little over a week ago.”

  “We’ve only been here a little over a week, David! The first time?! For God’s sake! She’s almost old enough—”

  “I never dated anyone younger than I am. And don’t worry—Holly’s on the pill.”

  “Aww shit, son! Your mother and I never had sex with anybody but each other. Ever.”

  “It’s the nineties, Dad, huh. You wouldn’t buy one of these horses wi
thout taking it for a test ride, right?”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “We’re lagging behind. One of the ADs is waving at us.” And David leaned into the whipping mane of the bay mare he rode, the animal’s pace quickening.

  “I’m not through talking to you, Davey!” Jack Naile urged his buckskin ahead, the blunted rowels of his spurs raking the animal gently, as Elvis had instructed him.

  “Put yourself in the horse’s position, Jack,” Elvis said.

  That stud or whatever you’re ridin’ wants direction, control. No creature wants pain and meanness.”

  Jack cut the distance, pulled alongside David. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”

  “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  That was David’s way. He sincerely wanted to be open and truth-telling, but he also had the uncanny ability to make anyone feel guilty about questioning his conduct or disagreeing with him in any way. “You’re not shitting me.”

  “Let it go, Dad. I was just trying to be honest with you, and this is what I get for it.”

  “No, listen, son. I appreciate you telling me, sharing stuff with me.” Jack Naile thought, My God, he’s doing it to me, making me feel guilty. The insert cars were breaking off in opposite directions. In a moment or two, the second unit director would signal “Cut” and everyone would start reining in.

  Movies were good. When the scene ended, that was it and life went on just as before.

  “Our son did what, Jack?”

  The suite of rooms the production company paid for was clean, comfortable and semiluxurious: huge bedroom with a king-size bed, couch and television; slightly smaller sitting room with another couch, several overstuffed chairs and an even larger television; bathroom with a large tub and great water pressure; a balcony overlooking the parking lot to the west and the mountains to the east. It adjoined a two-bedroom suite with a smaller sitting room and a bath, just as nice and with a better view of the parking lot, for Liz and David.

  “You heard me, Ellen.”

  “I just don’t understand him sometimes.”

  “Maybe it’s good we’re getting away for a couple of days.” Jack was inspecting the contents of the attaché case, just retrieved from the production company’s safe. The contents—the diamonds, the small amount of gold, the Seecamp .32, the only modern firearm he hadn’t disposed of—seemed just as he’d left them. “Get David’s mind off the girl. We can look around the old store, if the current owner doesn’t mind, and check out what’s left of the house, too,” Jack told his wife. “It seems like we would have written something, left behind something. And if we could find out what we’d written, we might have an edge on what’s going to happen.” The mere contemplation of already having lived and died before they were born, having left notes or letters behind for their future selves in a past they had already lived but were to live again, was enough to induce insanity. Were they insane? All of them? How could this happen? Jack shook his head in momentary disbelief.

  “Clarence called while you were getting the attaché case. He spoke with Liz for a while, and then got on the phone with me.”

  “You tell him we’re all okay, kid?”

  “Yeah, both physically and chronologically.”

  “Clarence doing all right?”

  “He sounded . . . You know, I’ve never used this word to say it, but it fits. He sounded distraught and kind of depressed.”

  “Normal, huh?” Jack laughed. “I’m just kidding. I’m gonna miss him.”

  “The kids’ll miss him. Speaking of the kids, where’s David?” Ellen asked.

  “Liz sleeping?”

  “Yeah. I’m supposed to wake her up in about an hour. Where’s David?”

  “Riding.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not that kind. He’s out with Elvis Wilson. David’s conned Elvis into teaching him a Pony Express mount, and he wanted to polish it up before we left. I think he’s thinking this might be it, or at least we’re getting close.”

  “Or is it just that a Pony Express mount is a good bet for quick getaways?” Ellen suggested.

  “Ellen.”

  “I’m sorry. No, I’m not. Are you going to talk to him about this thing with Holly Kinsey, since I’m not supposed to know about it?”

  “He knows you’ll know about it. And,” Jack sighed audibly, “I really don’t know what to say that I haven’t said already. With one of the picture’s stars out of—out of the picture,” Jack said lamely, “for a few days with a dislocated shoulder, and the company shooting around him, we’ve got the time to get away and that may be just what David needs. It could be pretty overwhelming to a guy of seventeen to have a movie star tumble to him.”

  “Would you have done it, Jack?”

  “No, but I’m not him, and we don’t know the circumstances. Would a lot of guys do it if some hot babe who’s an international household word came on to them? Probably would.”

  “That household word isn’t hard to guess. It’s got four letters and the third one’s a u,” Ellen supplied. “And if you change that third letter to an i, that’s what I’d just as soon do to Holly Kinsey’s throat.”

  “Look at it this way, princess. Once this time shift happens, Holly Kinsey won’t have been born yet and David will be living in a much less permissive era.”

  “And you just remember, Jack, that in those days the only way a girl could practice birth control was by keeping her knees together,” Ellen added soberingly.

  Driving across the Sierra Nevada Mountains was something that Jack Naile was certain he would never forget. There was the agricultural inspection station at the border; then, once out of California—Ellen was driving by then—they turned north toward Carson City, stopping there to stretch their legs, the Suburban cramped because of the load it carried. They grabbed fast food, tanked up the Suburban and drove on toward Atlas, reaching the little town in early evening.

  “You were right, Jack. It doesn’t look at all like it did in the photo, like it will for us,” Ellen almost whispered as Jack helped her from the Suburban’s front passenger seat.

  “This can’t be right, Dad,” David declared, climbing out of the car and holding the middle seat door for his sister. “There’s almost nothing left from the photo. Did the whole town burn down or something?”

  “That’s where the store was, wasn’t it, Daddy?”

  “Yeah, Lizzie, where that law office is now. The foundation is pretty much the only thing left of it, though, but maybe there was a cellar or something. It’s too late to check it out today.” It was after six, well after anyone who didn’t have to kept office hours. But there was still plenty of daylight remaining, time enough for a quick drive to the ranch and an even quicker look at the remains of the house.

  As there had been when Clarence and he had first stood on that street, alongside Arthur Beach, there was a strong breeze blowing in from the desert, dust devils appearing and disappearing.

  They’d called for reservations at the town’s only motel, eschewing the two bed and breakfasts because the rates seemed scarily low.

  Jack looked down the main street to his right, back toward where the highway did its right angle and continued on, almost as if Atlas were merely an inconvenience to the highway department engineers as they pressed their road onward across the high desert and into the purpling mountains.

  “Anybody need to make a pit stop?” Jack gestured toward the highway. “The restaurant’s probably got decent johns.”

  No one volunteered.

  The ranch was just as Jack had described it. Ellen stepped out of the Suburban and turned a full three hundred sixty degrees. Yes, just as he had described it.

  Jack holding her by the hand, the kids fanning out at their flanks, Ellen walked across the surprisingly level ground that would have comprised a front yard for the ruined house. She wondered, fleetingly, what irreplaceable memorabilia might have been lost when the house burned. What memories were gone forever?

  The
bones of the house laid upon a terrace. More open land—about the same size as a suburban backyard— separated the house from a roaring stream that emerged from a higher, wooded area beyond. There were a great many pines, but other types of trees as well. When the season was right, there would be flowers in the meadow that lay like an apron beneath the tree line. She’d have to learn the names of the wildflowers and plants.

  The farthest boundary of the backyard seemed some several feet above the stream, a good feature during times of heavy rains or snow melt-off; the ground sloped radically downward to the water. “You were right, Jack; this is a perfect place for using hydro-electric power—if we can rig it up.”

  “We can do it—we did it.” and he squeezed her hand.

  A line of trees, almost perfectly paired, reached downward from the woods toward the terraced lot, as if grasping for the dirt ranch road leading up to the house. The track was precious little wider than the Suburban.

  “How far is it from the highway, Jack?”

  “Just a hair under nine miles. But remember, on horseback we’d knock about six miles off between here and the highway. The highway follows a natural ridgeline and then dips into the valley, which is kind of a usual thing for roads dating from horse backing days. So that was probably the highway a hundred years ago, too.”

  The ride from the highway had been gradually uphill. Jack had said something earlier about the lot’s elevation accounting for the swiftness of the stream as it coursed downward.

  The kids closing in at their sides, Ellen stepped across what was once the threshold, Jack beside her. Thankfully, he hadn’t offered to carry her over it. Considering the fact that the house, in its current state, was like a dead thing, to do so would have been spooky in the extreme.

  From the layout of the house, as best Ellen could discern, they stood within what had once been a combination of sitting room, living room and dining room, planned out in the shape of an L resting on its side, the long vertical leg forming the sitting room and living room, the short horizontal leg the dining room. There were indications that another room had been off to her right as she faced the rear of the house where there was evidence of still more rooms. “This is the layout of the first floor of the house in Oak Park, Jack. We always liked that arrangement of rooms. We built this place.” And Ellen Naile shivered.