Written in Time

by Jerry Ahern

  Matthews grabbed Alan by what remained of his shirtfront, but Kaminsky waved him off. “By controlling the flow of technology, then playing the combatants against one another, I think I’ll do well. No high-tech fighter planes like F-16s, but maybe the Korean War kind of jets. That sort of thing. One sale like that a hundred years ago would propel things along throughout the century to where Lakewood now would be the dominant financial power in the whole world. All thanks to your lovely family, the present is going to change very dramatically. Technology will leap ahead by a hundred years. If you could see what the present will be like, you wouldn’t recognize it. The more high-tech military hardware I introduce into the past, the more technology will have to catch up. Progress, Alan. Progress! I’ll own it all. You’ll be dead. Your relatives back in the past will watch it happen and won’t be able to stop it.

  “Just think, Alan.” Bethany stooped down in front of him, grabbed his testicles through his pants and whispered, “The dream of Caesar, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Hitler—all of them, guys, couldn’t do it. I don’t have balls. I don’t need them. And I’m the one who’s going to conquer the whole fucking world.”

  Bethany stood up and ordered Matthews, “Take him back in time and shoot him with a period weapon with period ammunition. Then leave his body for the insects and the animals—and his loving family.”

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  Jack had taken his own mount, Barbie, Blake’s horse and one other, heading back for the ranch to discover Lizzie’s and Peggy’s fates, essentially retracing the way he had come and as quickly as possible. With hard riding, he would be at the ranch by dawn.

  For safety’s sake—it was a way less traveled—and because the route would be easier on someone who was injured, Ellen had told Jack that she would take the slower course back, through the mountains.

  With dusk approaching, early it seemed, and leading Helen’s mount behind her, Ellen began a serious search for what would be their evening’s campsite. Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels had always found a convenient “grove of cottonwoods just outside of town,” but there were no cottonwood groves to be had, and town—Atlas— was quite a long distance away. Ellen Naile settled instead, for what in other climes might have been called an oasis.

  In the barren expanse so high still in the mountains, there were few examples of vegetation other than scrub pines, but they happened on a reasonably flat tract perhaps a quarter the length of a football field and nearly as wide, an ideal mountain pasture except for its comparatively miniscule size. There was decent-looking grass for the horses, a pool of water from which she wouldn’t be reckless enough to drink (without a ceramic filter) and pines that looked overall fuller and greener, less as if they were struggling for life. All told, the spot was as fine a campsite as she might have hoped for.

  “We’ll stop here for the night, Helen.”

  “Yes, Miz Naile.”

  “You can call me Ellen, sweetheart.”

  “Yes, Miz Ellen.”

  “Youth.” Ellen shrugged and sighed under her breath. Albeit bruised, with abrasions and cuts all over her body—Ellen had treated them from her first aid-kit—the Bledsoe girl had bounced back remarkably quickly. Aside from her tattered dress beneath the blankets in which she was cocooned and the cuts that were obvious on what skin still showed, the Bledsoe girl’s principal physical symptom was exhaustion. And she said little about that. The relatively stoic pioneer girl was mainly bone tired, but elated that her parents had survived.

  “Helen,” Ellen volunteered, continuing quickly before the girl could return some polite response. “I’m going to help you off your horse, then get you settled. If you want to nap, feel free. I don’t need any assistance at all getting camp set up, and I really just want you to rest so you’re feeling good when you see your mother and father. I’m going to make something warm to eat, and I want you to have plenty of it.”

  Eating—Ellen had yet to defecate since she’d set out after Jack and had no intention of doing like the proverbial bear in the woods unless such were unavoidable; she would eat sparingly.

  In a way, Ellen felt liberated. After eating, the inevitable did, in fact, become unavoidable. She had gotten through it—less yucky an experience than she had thought that it would be—and felt confident that she was, at last, at home in the wild, could handle the rugged life. She laughed at herself. However successful the experiment in physical hygiene had been, she harbored no desire to repeat it.

  Adjusting her clothes as she walked out of the trees and toward their small fire, Ellen wished again for a cigarette. Certain bodily functions just seemed to cry out to be punctuated with a smoke.

  Looking past the fire and into the fast-advancing night beyond their campsite, Ellen spied flashes of light in the purpling darkness.

  Barbie had settled into a long-strided trot after Jack Naile resaddled and remounted the mare. According to his leather-cased Rolex, the time was a few minutes after two in the morning. Judging from the terrain, at the current pace he could make it to the ranch by a little before six. At this stage, Blake’s horse and the mount Jack had liberated from one of the dead ambushers were more a liability than an asset. He left them behind to show up on some spread nearby—perhaps even his own ranch— when they got tired of foraging for food and water and missed the security of the feedbag and the trough.

  There was the matter of Blake’s body, but the marshal’s death would be easily enough explained. As a writer of fiction, Jack had occasionally referred to himself as “a professional liar,” and covering for Blake being gunned down—especially in an age where forensic ballistics were all but unknown—wouldn’t even be a challenge.

  All that concerned Jack Naile was the safety of his family. He had already promised himself that he would kill Jess Fowler, had to before Fowler hatched some other plot. Soon, perhaps within days, David and Clarence would be back from San Franciso, having cashed in a portion of the diamonds brought back into the past as a portable and negotiable source of wealth. Once they were back, Jack was determined to do what he had to do.

  Jack turned his horse on the familiar track toward the house, filled with trepidation. Vengeance had or would have little to do with the intent to kill Fowler, merely practicality. With Fowler dead, there would be no one left with a blood vendetta against the family.

  Alan was packed aboard the Lakewood Industries jet which would bring him to a private airfield not far from Reno. He would then be spirited, by vehicle, to the time transfer location in the mountains near Atlas, Nevada. The Lakewood Industries time base was fewer than twenty miles from the sparsely guarded facility used by Horizon Enterprises, a single mountain peak masking its presence.

  Once arrived, Lester Matthews would personally oversee Alan’s one-way trip ninety-six years into the past, kill him, abandon the body and return to the present.

  Standing outside the hangar from which one of her small fleet of business jets would soon emerge, Bethany Kaminsky gave Matthews his final instructions, her voice raised against the roaring intake of the jet engines. “Remember to kill him with that special gun.”

  “The revolver.” He let his sportcoat come open, revealing the wooden-gripped butt of the handgun. “Use the .45 Colt caliber Smith & Wesson revolver so if Naile’s body is found the bullet won’t be looked at as being—what’s that word you used?”

  “Anomalous, Lester. Anomalous. And when you get back, work up some plans for me on how we could have some terrible accident wipe out every living member of Alan’s family. Maybe if they have a bodyless funeral for him a few months from now, maybe then. I want all the descendants of David Naile and Elizabeth Naile killed, but artfully.”

  “Wipe out the whole fuckin’ family. You’re really into this vendetta thing, aren’t you, Bethany? Blood vendetta. You woulda made one helluva mob boss during the twenties and thirties.”

  Bethany took that as a compliment.

  “Just figure out how to do it.” She glanced at t
he Rolex on her left wrist. “Morton Hardesty is expecting me, and if screwing him is the way to perfect this time-travel thing to the nth degree, little Morty can pop me until that poor excuse for a dick of his wears out. You’ll be having more fun than I will, Lester. Guaranteed. I’m gone.

  But remember, before you kill Alan, tell him in graphic detail what we’re planning for his wife and family and parents and all of them. Give him a moment for it to sink in, then let him have it good.” Bethany shifted the purse strap on her left shoulder and started walking back to her Mercedes. There was a scuff on the toe of her left pump, and she muttered, “Damn” as she walked on.

  Dawn was a palpable promise along the ragged edge of granite horizon by the time Ellen, the Bledsoe girl in tow, settled into the concealment of broad, flat rocks and focused her binoculars on the scene below her, the place from which the flashes of light had originated. She’d wanted to get closer, would have if she’d had only herself to worry about. With Helen along, she couldn’t risk it.

  Even without the benefit of binoculars, Ellen could easily discern the anachronistic nature of what lay in the rock depression on the other side of the mountain from the time transfer point used by Horizon Enterprises. A few four-wheel ATVs, a double-cab Ford pickup truck with a long bed, electrical generators. All of those had been readily apparent. But with the binoculars, she could see that the men guarding the facility’s perimeter carried modern M-16 rifles and that submachine gun Jack had always drooled over, an H-K something or other. There wasn’t a Winchester lever action in the bunch. No Colt Single Actions were slung on their hips, either; rather, she saw modern looking semiautomatic pistols.

  Their clothing, as well, was from the future she had left behind. No cowboy hats, but the ever-ubiquitous baseball cap. Their jeans didn’t look to be riveted denim, but the designer kind. Combat rather than cowboy boots were the norm when it came to footgear, those or track shoes.

  “Shit.”

  “Miz Ellen!”

  “Sorry,” Ellen responded. “But, be quiet, Helen. We don’t want those men down there to know we’re up here spying on them. So, be very, very silent.” If she’d been in the mood for levity, she could have added that they were “hunting wabbit,” but the Bledsoe girl might have taken her seriously.

  Video surveillance cameras dotted the fence line. The men with the M-16s carried walkie-talkies as well.

  “Miz Ellen?” Helen whispered.

  “Yes, honey?” Ellen put down the binoculars and gazed at her weary young charge. “What are we looking at? Is that what you want to ask me?”

  “I ain’t never seen—”

  “Now, your aunt the schoolteacher and my daughter— what have they told you about double negatives?”

  “Don’t never use none, Miz Ellen. I know.”

  Ellen sighed audibly. “What we’re looking at is a whole bunch of men and machinery and stuff that doesn’t belong here. Its likely purpose is to cause a whole lot of trouble for a whole lot of people. Unless I miss my guess, darling, the people who paid to put that fence up and have those armed men patrolling around it aren’t much different from Jess Fowler’s men who kidnapped you. Just better paid, equipped and dressed. And,” Ellen added, punctuating her remark by pouching the binoculars, “that is why you and I, young lady, are going to be extremely quiet and sneak out of here right now, get to our horses and ride like the devil’s chasing us. For all intents and purposes, he just might be.”

  One hand prodding gently at Helen Bledsoe’s elbow, the other on a Colt revolver, Ellen started back the way they’d come.

  “I’m alright, Daddy. I’m just kind of tired.”

  On his knees beside his daughter’s bed, Jack bent his head and touched his lips to her forehead. He looked up at Peggy. She’d almost opened fire on him as he’d approached the house, walking the done-in Barbie the last few hundred yards. When, lowering her rifle, she’d called out and run to him, he’d swept her into his arms and hugged her for a moment.

  “Where’s—” Jack had begun.

  “Lizzie was shot. She’ll be fine. She’s—”

  Jack started running at the first word from Peggy’s lips. Vaulting the steps, he nearly smashed through the door leading from the porch.

  Lizzie opened her eyes the instant he barged into her bedroom.

  Jack looked once more at his daughter. She seemed pale. “How much blood—”

  “I transfused her. She’ll be fine, Jack.”

  Jack nodded. Looking at his daughter, thinking how close he had come to losing her, getting out more than a few halting words without the choked-back tears flowing as well was all but impossible.

  “Fine doctor I am, Jack, but why don’t you just step out onto the porch and have a cigarette, and I’ll look after your horse.”

  “No. You relax. Come outside if it’s safe for Lizzie. Tell me what happened while I tend to Barbie.” Jack looked down once again at his daughter and kissed her forehead as he stood. Lizzie closed her eyes, a thin smile on her lips.

  Jack washed up and changed shirts, not bothering with anything beyond that and a tetanus booster. He’d smoked several cigarettes, eating nothing, waiting while the exhausted Peggy showered and dressed. Leaving the two women alone was dangerous, especially before Ellen reached the house, but leaving Jess Fowler alive any longer than necessary seemed somehow vastly more dangerous, insanely so.

  With a replenished supply of ammunition in his saddlebags and cartridge belts, the two spare revolvers tucked into his waistband, Jack saddled a horse. There were three from which to choose, aside from the exhausted Barbie. Both of Lizzie’s horses were palominos. One of them, the smaller of the two, was called Victoria, the larger male was called Garbonzo. Jack chose, instead, the little gray with black stockings, mane and tail, the one both Lizzie and David had agreed should be called Trixie.

  As soon as Peggy emerged from the house, changed into a clean blue dress, her hair still wet, Jack swung up into the saddle. “Did you check on Lizzie?”

  “She’s fine, Jack. No fever. She’ll be okay.”

  “Ellen should be here soon. Helen Bledsoe’s going to need a tetanus shot. Make up some kind of a lie about what it is. She’s got a lot of cuts that’ll require attention. Ellen and I don’t think she was raped, but you should check discreetly. Remember, she’s got superficial wounds that’ll need tending.”

  “So do you, Jack.”

  “I’ll be back in a few hours. If I’m not back, well, the medical attention would have been wasted. Let’s say we have an appointment for later today, Doctor.” He smiled. He’d sat with his right leg crossed over the neck of his horse, his hat cocked back on his head. He shifted his leg down and lowered his hat over his eyes.

  “Do you still like being a cowboy, Jack?”

  Jack laughed. “With most of the important, significant things in life, there’s precious little choice, isn’t there? We had no choice in coming here, and I have no choice but to go after Fowler and his men, too, if I have to. They nearly wiped out our entire family. If they had, they would have gone after David and Clarence when they got back from San Francisco. Without Fowler, his range detectives will look for greener pastures—and by ‘greener’ I’m referring to money. But, do I like being a cowboy?

  “When I was a little boy,” he went on, “I wanted to be a cowboy, like most boys from my generation. I grew up on westerns. I always admired the men who were fast on the draw. When I got older, I learned that it wasn’t speed so much as accuracy. But, did I ever think I’d become one of those gunmen? No. And am I happy about the fact that I did? Precious little choice. I wouldn’t mind you saying a prayer for me. See ya.”

  Jack Naile wheeled the little gray around on her hind legs. She sprang into a trot, away from the ranch, toward Atlas and Fowler’s ranch house, which lay between.

  ***

  Fowler and three of his range detectives were riding hard. With faded-out high grass on either side of the track, the road they traversed was analogous t
o a twentieth-century driveway, but a long one. From where Jack observed deep within the treeline on the slope opposite, Fowler’s comparatively palatial ranch house was more than a mile distant.

  One of the three range detectives spurred his mount ahead, dismounted hurriedly and barely had the gate open in time to jump aside as Fowler and the other two gunmen goaded their horses through the opening, then turned onto the road, riding toward Atlas.

  The gateman vaulted into the saddle, urged his horse ahead, bent low and closed the gate, then galloped into the dust cloud that was the wake of Jess Fowler and the others. Each man wore two pistols and had a rifle in his saddle scabbard. One of the men had a Greener shotgun in a scabbard across the horn of his saddle.

  If they stuck to the road, the perennial movie western option presented itself to Jack: he could head ‘em off at the pass. But in this case, that would be where the road into town hairpinned around the outlet of a steep, rocky defile leading down out of the mountains.

  Jack walked quickly back to his horse, slipped the Marlin into his saddle scabbard and mounted. He took out his watch, glanced at it and marked the time. “Alright, Trixie. Let’s get this over with.” He tugged on the reins, wheeled her around and started his cross-country run.

  The distance he had to traverse was less than two miles. Fowler and his men would have to cover a little over twice that before reaching the same spot. They had an open road; Jack had to negotiate broken ground littered with rocks and deadfall trees. The little gray was sure-footed and Jack felt that he had a good chance of reaching the spot where the road turned before Fowler and his men could.

  Another commonly encountered western-movie term came to mind as Jack rode, urging the horse onward but letting her pick her own way. The word was bushwhack. That was what he was about to do—bushwhack Fowler’s men. Fowler, if the opportunity presented itself, would not be so disposed of. Jack intended to face Fowler and kill him, even if that meant risking his own life. There were some things in life that needed doing in one certain way and no other. Long-distancing Fowler would be a last-ditch option.