by Zack Mason
She'd already replaced the ropes that held her roof up with less perishable iron chains, but Hardy set about building her a real roof, one that wouldn't have to be supported by chains from above. She sincerely appreciated his efforts, but resisted when he'd expressed a desire to add rooms to the house. She didn't need such a fancy place, she said. So, instead, the two of them set about improving her garden, planting new vegetables, expanding its size.
At night, she would read to him from her well-worn Bible, one she'd inherited from her father when he passed. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but that was the real reason he was so content spending all this time back here. Well, she was the real reason — but the evening Bible-reading was a big part of it.
He'd never before entertained a belief in God. Not that he'd necessarily been a committed atheist or anything, just an unofficial agnostic. He'd always believed that if there were a God, He must have simply wound the universe up and then let it go, watching it unwind like some giant, cosmic sport. Otherwise, he couldn't reconcile the evil he saw in the world with the possibility of God.
His parents were New England Catholics and had raised him in that tradition, but he'd shrugged off the formality of their belief system as soon as he'd hit his teens. He’d convinced himself that if there were such a thing as God, then He couldn't be known, and He certainly wasn't like the God everyone claimed they knew.
Still, two things shook up his deeply ingrained convictions, or lack thereof. The first was meeting a person as good as Abbie. She was pure — truly a good person. If he'd ever met anyone who could be called "righteous" it would be her.
He'd already met evil on the battlefield a thousand times over before Mark had found him, and since then, he'd personally witnessed it again and again burning in the eyes of countless vicious criminals before he dispatched them. He saw it incarnate in the person of Alexander Rialto.
To meet someone like Abbie, however, was a first. She was a direct contrast to all the selfish, evil people he'd ever met. That blatant difference between good and evil before him forced him to recognize there was something more to the world than what he'd been willing to admit. Maybe something spiritual was going on behind the scenes, motivating people, influencing events and minds in such a way people could see the effect, but not the cause.
In spite of Hardy's argumentative digs at Ty to the contrary, the second thing that had shaken Hardy's belief system was the obvious interference they'd experienced from time to time when trying to alter history. Clearly, Mark could not save his kids. Ty had not been able to save a few of his buddies. None of them were apparently allowed to change any major historical event.
The operative word there being allowed. Unless there was some yet undiscovered natural force of the physical universe which kicked in automatically to prevent chronological paradoxes they couldn't predict, and of which Bobby Prescott, their resident physicist, couldn't conceive, Hardy had to concede the force preventing them from changing certain things was an intelligent one. Which could only mean that God had not just wound the universe up and let it go, but was still actively involved.
Abbie had been right. Being restricted to headquarters in the future was just an excuse for coming back here. He'd really wanted to spend time with Abbie, to learn from her, to learn what she believed. His heart was hungry for answers.
Those simple hours they spent every evening reading from Scripture, the gentle intonations of her soft voice as she read, the way she answered his questions without judgment and posed pointed questions of her own at just the right moment, it was transforming him, bringing him to a new state of being.
She'd asked him the night before last if he was ready to follow Christ, but he'd deferred. She was a dedicated Christian, but it was a big leap from admitting there was a God who was actively involved in the daily life of people to believing that Jesus was His Son. There were still too many doubts, though Abbie was an expert at deflating his seemingly important questions with little pricks of truth.
He probably would be ready someday, he guessed. It was likely only a matter of time at the rate he was going. Just not yet...
Today, Hardy was worried.
Abbie had left on a hunt early yesterday and had not come home all night, nor was she back this morning. She'd slept overnight in the forest before, but she'd always told him before she did that. This time, she'd said she'd be back before nightfall.
Something was wrong. Hardy loaded a knapsack, slung it over his shoulder, and headed down the path she'd taken.
Three hours later, he found signs she'd backtracked and tried to hide it. She wouldn't have done that unless she'd thought someone was following her. She'd done a good job of it too. If he weren't an expert tracker himself, he never would have seen it.
He soon discovered the reason for her actions. A couple of moccasined footprints crossed her trail a few hundred yards further on. The natives had been following her.
She hadn’t been able to shake them and later took more drastic evasive maneuvers. An hour further down the trail, he found a hastily constructed booby trap which had already been sprung. She'd cut and sharpened some short sticks and tied them in series to the end of a low tree branch like spikes. She'd pulled that branch back, hooked it on another branch, and then set a trip line across the path which would release it when kicked — into the legs of whoever tripped it.
Somebody had triggered the trap, because drops of blood ran in a line across the tops of the dried leaves, showing where her stalker had staggered on. The outlines of the footprints matched the type of moccasin typically worn by Wampanoag, which wasn't really a surprise. The height of the trap indicated Abbie hadn't really wanted to kill, just wound and slow down. It had most likely struck the stalker in the thigh.
Hardy would have to be on guard against booby traps himself now. He could end up her unintended victim if her pursuer successfully bypassed one. Sure enough, about thirty minutes later, he spied another nasty-looking trap.
This one was more serious. Aimed at neck level, this spiked branch was intended to maim, at a minimum. Deftly, he undid the hazard and moved on. He decided it would be safer to continue following on a line about ten feet to the left of the actual path she'd walked from here on out.
There were no more booby-traps, however, before he found her. She lay face down in the dirt in a small clearing directly ahead of him, her body distended unnaturally. An ugly arrow shaft protruded from her slender back.
He raced to her side, oblivious to the possible danger of attackers still lurking in the bushes.
None apparently were, as the afternoon air was not stirred by any new airborne missiles.
He was too late.
They'd slaughtered her mercilessly. There was more than just the one arrow in her back. Another jutted horizontally from her arm, and a third stuck out from her foot.
He estimated she must have gotten off a few shots of her own because she normally kept seven to eight arrows in her quiver, and now there were only five.
It was just one more killing to the Wampanoag. One more death in the war between them and the settlers of Massachusetts, but it was the rude destruction of a precious friend to him.
Hardy was not one in whom passion boiled easily, yet as he held her pale, limp body in his arms, its fiery stirrings titillated his blood into a fury he hadn't known before.
He vowed then and there to make them pay for this. He would kill every last one of ’em.
He just prayed this wasn't one of those cases.
Please, God, help me fix this.
***
One day earlier
The grey mist parted briefly, and she caught a glimpse of the shadowy figure as it flitted back and forth between the distant trees and brush. Curt, muffled cries echoing in the cool morning air accompanied it wherever it went.
Abbie had left home quite early this morning in search of quail, turkey, or whatever other game she might find. A good tracker knows when they are being followed, and she'd no
ticed right away. In these times of war, she had no doubt as to the nationality of the man, and surely it had to be a man, on the trail behind her. Of course, he had to be Wampanoag.
She'd set a few traps hoping to warn him off, or at least slow him down, but he'd avoided them and closed in further. She should have stopped to mount an ambush, or made some kind of attempt to dig in and defend herself. Instead, she'd stupidly walked into this clearing and was now exposed and vulnerable.
She’d walked in a trap of her own making. Imitation bird calls sounded from the brush on all sides. Her follower had not been operating alone.
He had creatively herded her into this clearing where his friends waited in ambush, and she was hopelessly surrounded.
She notched an arrow and dropped to her stomach in the grass, which really didn't provide much cover, but it was better than nothing.
That was when she first saw the shadowy figure.
One Indian had stood, ready to release a shot her way, when the strange form appeared suddenly, slaying the would-be attacker, and then disappeared just as quickly. The thin grey fog that ebbed and flowed with the breeze made positive identification impossible from this distance, yet she suspected it must be Hardy. Who else knew she was out here that could appear and disappear at will?
The shadow darted silently between groups of hidden Wampanoag, eliciting without mercy weakened death cries from those it attacked. She moved closer, wiggling her way through the grass, partly desiring to help, partly wanting to confirm it was indeed Hardy.
The sound of static from the path behind her followed by a heavy thud startled her. She whipped her head around and saw the shadow man had just killed the Wampanoag who'd been following her.
It was Hardy.
She got a good look at him before he shifted back out, though she'd never seen such tight anger in his face before. Mark, yes, but not Hardy. Hardy was always so much more at ease.
When she reached the far side of the clearing where most of the fighting was taking place, several shocking realizations hit her at once. First, she had apparently been surrounded by a war party of about thirty to forty painted warriors lusting for white blood. If it weren't for Hardy and his unnatural ability to shift through time, she most certainly would have been killed.
Second, Hardy was not quitting. He was like a man possessed. The warriors were already in full retreat, fleeing as fast as they could from the deadly phantom. Yet, he did not let them go, but pursued them in whatever direction they ran.
A warrior in his early twenties rushed to escape the killing ghost and twisted in a panic at the sound of static behind him. He stumbled, fell back, and raised his hands helplessly in a fruitless gesture to fend off the phantom, his face morphed with fear. Hardy dispatched him.
He should stop. The will to fight had left the warriors.
"Hardy!" She called.
He didn't waver. Another warrior fell and the phantom vanished once more.
As soon as she saw him appear again, she yelled louder, "Hardy, stop!"
He paused and turned toward her. She didn't recognize the distant, pained torment in his eyes.
"It's okay, Hardy. Stop. They're leaving. I'm safe."
She understood they must have originally killed her and he'd found her body. That was the source of the ferocity in him now, which was thankfully, and finally, melting away.
He came to her.
"I've been fighting for four days," he mumbled to no one in particular.
Of course, he could only shift six times before his shifter shut down. As many times as she'd seen him shift just now, he must have spent several nights sleeping in the damp forest waiting to resume the attack. Abject weariness showed now where the anger had been.
She laid her fingertips lightly on his cheek. "They're gone, Hardy."
"They'll be back."
"No, they won't. Let them go."
Bending down, he kissed her softly on the lips.
And she let him.
May 18th 2014, Boston, MA
Randall Cook wiped a strand of greasy hair out of his face. "So who are we gonna test it on, Cap'n?"
Even in modern society, the man avoided baths far too often and he stank. Rialto never thought he'd have to make rules about hygiene, but it was getting out of hand. "I thought we'd test it on you, Cook," he replied dryly.
"Uh-uh." He shook his head vigorously. "I ain't vol'teerin' for no electric'ty test."
"Plageanet?" Rialto motioned to the former plantation owner, who stepped up behind Cook and promptly slammed his weapon into the back of the sailor's skull. Cook collapsed to the floor unconscious.
"There ya are." Plageanet looked disdainfully upon the fallen man before turning away.
Graves and Torino stood like silent sentinels in opposing corners of the room. They weren't about to let anyone sneak up behind them. Laura merely watched, a blank facial expression denying any observer insight into the thoughts running behind her eyes. DeCleary had refused to participate; he wasn't even in the room.
Rialto dragged Cook onto two metal plates Stanley Irvine had designed just for this test. He'd asked Irvine to study the taser and any way they could use electricity to make a shifter inactive. He knew that tasers had a potential of anywhere from 50,000 to 400,000 volts, but Irvine had explained that voltage wasn't as important as amperage when it came to electrocuting somebody, and that when a person was being tased, only about 2 milliamps would be flowing. It was enough current to cause a lot of pain and incapacitate, but not to kill.
So, they designed a plate system where they could test the actual amperage necessary to shut down a shifter, and Cook was now on them, fully clothed to match the electrical conditions that would likely be present when they needed to use such a set-up. They attached electrodes at different points on Cook's skin to measure the current flowing through him.
Rialto flipped the switch allowing electricity to flow through the plates and then slowly turned a knob which controlled the voltage differential between them. They immediately registered .5 milliamps flowing between the electrodes on Cook. Rialto stepped it up from there. There was no need to cause his man any more pain than necessary. Laura's job was to monitor the shifter and signal as soon as the face of it turned red.
She did at just a little over 1 milliamp. That didn't seem like a lot, but there it was. He shut the over-sized equipment off.
"Wake him up," he ordered.
Plageanet threw water from a glass in Cook's face. It was a good thing Rialto had already turned the shock plate off.
The sailor began to roll about, cursing.
"When he's got his senses back, tell him to take a bath," Rialto called over his shoulder.
***
September 12th 1675, Swansea, MA
The romance proceeded unusually, and Hardy had not expected anything different. For starters, Abbie called it a courtship, not a romance, or dating. She had let him kiss her, but just that once, and the kiss had been almost platonic in nature. Still, it lingered in his mind like none other.
He was in love with her. She did not deny having feelings for him as well, but informed him flatly that things could not progress until she was sure of his religious piety. In the back of his mind, he'd always known it would be this way. He knew she was waiting for him to shrug off his agnosticism once and for all and make a final decision to follow her Lord. She'd made that perfectly clear.
Still, he resented it. He shouldn't, but he did, even though he understood her and her reasoning. The idea of making such a tremendous decision under pressure to continue a "courtship," well, it just rubbed him wrong. If he were to make such a decision, he wanted it to be genuine. He would decide independently of her, of his desire for her, and he would decide such a thing when he was ready.
"Hardy, I hate to ask...but I need help."
"You?" He laughed. "You never need help."
"It's my young cousin, Nathaniel. Metacomet attacked a small hamlet nearby and little Nathan was killed. I just f
ound out. He was only seven."
"I didn't know you had any family left here." He knew her mother, father, and brother were all dead.
"I've a few scattered here and there. Nathaniel is the son of one of my first cousins. His parents died of the fever a few years ago. Some neighbors took him in."
"This war has really been devastating, hasn't it?"
"Thankfully, Metacomet and the Wampanoag are beginning to lose more than they win. I spoke with one of the colony's officials a month ago. They think they'll have him on the run shortly, but he estimated we've lost almost half our brothers and sisters in Christ in this bloody war. They don't know for sure, but the Wampanoag may have lost as many as seven out of every ten. It's so senseless."
"Yet many times unavoidable."
"Will you help?"
He couldn't resist her large blue eyes. The beginnings of unwanted tears made them shine even more crystalline. "Of course, Abbie."
***
September 7th 1675, Hadley, MA
He was all too familiar with the scene. Puritan village. Indians attacking. From the first time when they'd saved Abbie's life to his latest foray with her to save fellow colonists from Metocomet's hatchet, Hardy had become an unwitting veteran of King Philip's War which took place three hundred years before he was even inducted into the U.S. army.
He sat with his back to the wooden wall of a home on the outskirts of the village. The battle had already begun. Hardy tamped the tobacco down in his rustic 17th century pipe and relit it, taking a deep breath of smoke. He reclined his head against the weather-worn planks, his posture relaxed.