She did a quick scan of the narrow valley around them, studying the trees up the sides of the hill.
No one else she could see, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t there.
“As I said,” the man said. “I didn’t kill poor old Bushnell this time. Just knocked him out so we could talk. He’ll have a headache, but he’ll be fine in a day. The gunshot was just to get your attention. I tossed the gun on the bed.”
Kelli again scanned the area around the cabin for any help this nutcase might have.
“So what’s your name?” Jesse asked.
“I can only tell you that my name is Bryant. I’m from the institute and the year 2110.”
Kelli just shook her head.
Not two of them.
They had been stunned to learn that Bushnell was a traveler, but now the guy that had been killing him was as well.
And from a hundred years in the future.
She and Jesse hadn’t told Bonnie and Duster about Bushnell being from the future because Bushnell had warned them not to. So why were they now facing another traveler?
“I was starting to guess that something like this was happening,” Jesse said, putting his rifle down.
“What?” Kelli asked, stunned at Jesse’s response. Her rifle was still aimed at the Bryant guy.
“Even someone as inexperienced as Bushnell would have easily avoided the same guy from this timeline that many times,” Jesse said. “But not if it was someone from the future stalking him for some reason.”
“Oh,” Kelli said, lowering her rifle.
Jesse glared at the smiling face of the man named Bryant. “What the hell is your reason?”
“I can only talk in very general terms,” the man said. “I cannot contaminate the future by telling you about it. Major rule.”
“Fine,” Jesse said. “I understand that. Start where you can and tell us a story.”
The man looked back at Bushnell sprawled inside the cabin, then indicated they move away from the cabin.
They all walked down the trail about twenty paces and then stopped. Kelli kept her gun down, but ready. Jesse didn’t seem to be worried in the slightest, which she didn’t understand at all. Over the last few years he had been the most careful person she had ever met, seeing things going on around them that she had completely missed. He was seeing something here as well that told him this guy was not a threat.
“In the early years of the crystal cavern and the institute,” Bryant said, “only historical researchers and mathematicians were involved, thus the focus was either on the math or on the past, with no thought to the future at all.”
“I’m involved now,” Jesse said. “And I don’t do either.”
The man nodded. “Thankfully, yes.”
Kelli wanted him to say more, but Bryant said nothing. Just kept smiling, glancing back and forth at both of them.
“Go on,” Kelli said.
“I am authorized to tell you this much,” Bryant said. “In 2019 your expedition to retrieve the Season Medals from Roosevelt Lake is successful and your book and Bushnell’s book are successful.”
“That seems to be a given,” Jesse said. “If it is allowed to happen. Which I doubt it will be. Go on.”
Kelli glanced at Jesse. He was clearly angry and she had never really seen Jesse angry while in the past before. The last time he was this angry was when he saw the picture and thought he was being duped by his good friends.
And she had no idea why he figured the medals being found wouldn’t be successful.
“The medals are stolen in a robbery before they can be distributed,” Bryant said. “Six innocent people are killed in that robbery.”
“And that robbery happening changes just about every timeline going forward to 2110, doesn’t it?” Jesse said.
Bryant nodded. “And not in a good way.”
“How do you know all this?” Kelli asked.
“In one hundred years,” Bryant said, “the math on all this has advanced to the point where it makes the fantastic breakthrough math that Bonnie and Duster are doing look like kids’ algebra. And we have the computing power to trace the repercussions of any major event in history and most minor ones as well. In all major timelines.”
“A robbery of some commemorative medals does not seem like a major event,” Jesse said.
“I agree,” Bryant said. “The medals were accidently destroyed in the process and we could not stop that, the robbery, or the deaths that occurred from our position in the future. At least not at the point of the robbery, or even slightly before.”
“So your world sucks because of those six deaths,” Jesse said. “And you are back here trying to stop the medals being even found.”
Bryant nodded, now no longer smiling. “More billions die needlessly in billions of timelines because of those robbery deaths than I want to think about. In numbers of timelines, humans are basically wiped off this planet by events set in motion from those deaths during that robbery.”
“All because we rescue some historical medals?” Kelli asked.
She wasn’t really believing any of this, but of course, she was also standing in the Idaho mountains in 1907 and had lived for years back here while only two minutes passed in her real timeline. So belief at this point for her was a very relative term.
Jesse just shook his head.
“It’s not really the medals as they stand,” Bryant said. “It’s the robbery of the medals after they are recovered from Roosevelt Lake. It is the deaths that cause the problem in the future timelines. All the deaths are collateral damage to the attempt to take the medals.”
“So because Bushnell rounds up those medals instead of leaving them alone, the ripples forward through time are disastrous,” Jesse said.
“Exactly,” Bryant said.
“So you are trying to do a Monumental Summit Lodge switch of timelines,” Jesse said.
Kelli glanced at him, feeling stunned. Bonnie and Duster had told them about what happened with the lodge, but that didn’t mean she understood it. Clearly Jesse did.
“Yes,” Bryant said simply.
“What do you want us to do?” Jesse asked.
“Get rid of the medals,” Bryant said, “just as I did after each time I killed Bushnell.”
“But you getting rid of the medals did not change the problem in your time, did it?”
“No,” Bryant said. “Because Bushnell would just repeat his process again. So we need one more thing done. When Bushnell returns to the institute after this attempt and the medals can’t be found in the lake, ban him from collecting them again.”
“I can ban him?” Jesse asked.
Kelli was surprised at that as well, but said nothing.
“Just trust me and do it,” Bryant said.
“If this works this way, how will you know?” Kelli asked.
“I will know instantly when I return to my time,” Bryant said. “Did Bonnie and Duster explain the shimmering to you after they returned from building the Monumental Summit Lodge?”
“They described it like a heat wave without heat that only lasted a second,” Kelli said.
“That’s a time wave as time streams simply reset and adjust into the future. Time and matter and space are fluid and connected.”
“And you will be able to remember the other time streams?” Kelli asked.
“I will, and a few others who are in the institute in my time as well.”
A moaning came from the cabin and Bryant turned and looked worried. “I need to get out of here. Just tell him you chased me off. And please tell no one you met me. Not even Bonnie and Duster. This must remain our secret until you both die.”
“Pretty strong request,” Jesse said.
Bryant nodded. “I hope you do what we are asking. In all the years of the institute, this is only the third time we have adjusted time streams like this. Doing so is so against all that we believe and that the institute stands for. But this was critical and this is our only chance with t
his adjustment.”
Bryant glanced back at the cabin and then faced them again.
“It really isn’t though, is it?” Jesse asked, laughing. “You are not a good liar.”
Bryant also laughed and the laugh sounded almost the same as Jesse’s laugh to Kelli as the sounds echoed up through the canyon.
And now she understood why this guy looked familiar.
“No, it isn’t,” Bryant said. “This was just the easiest, even killing poor Bushnell in there a bunch of times to get your attention. Problem was that he didn’t tell anyone what was happening until this last time, so Bonnie and Duster couldn’t help him or stop him.”
“Seems like the institute needs a reporting system or two,” Jesse said, shaking his head.
Bryant laughed again. “Researchers, can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”
Sounds came from the cabin as Bushnell struggled to stand up.
“It was wonderful meeting you both. A dream come true for me,” Bryant said.
With that, he tapped something beside his ear and vanished without a sound.
Jesse and Kelli just stood there, staring at each other.
Finally Jesse sighed. “We tell no one. About him or Bushnell in there.”
Kelli nodded as they turned toward the cabin to help Bushnell.
“I agree,” Kelli said. “And besides, who would believe us if we told them we just met our great-great-grandson.”
That stopped Jesse cold in his tracks and she just kept walking and laughing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
December 3rd, 1907
Roosevelt, Idaho
JESSE USED THE break in the weather to bundle up in two layers of coats and two pairs of pants to take a ride up the valley to Bushnell’s cabin. The sun was shining, but it added no heat at all to the biting cold air. Jesse could see every breath he or his horse took.
The towering white-covered mountains that stretched above him on both sides felt comforting.
There was no one moving at all in the valley. The silence seemed almost like a weight. Isolation didn’t begin to describe this area of the country.
Bushnell was long gone. He had left in the summer right after he had been hit on the head, taking the one medal with him.
Jesse knew that he would see Bushnell the moment after he arrived back in the institute in Boise in two years. Of course, the institute wasn’t built yet and Jesse knew he had many lives to live before those two years of real time passed.
And there was a lot of work to do in real time, from what he was gathering.
He and Kelli had told Janice and Steven they would run their general store for them through the winter. Since the Roosevelt area only had about a hundred people in the valley during the winter, there wasn’t much to do, and Janice and Steven were happy to let them stay since they had survived seven winters in this valley already. They were ready for a break.
Bushnell’s small log cabin in the snow looked very sad, almost buried up to its eaves, not even protected by the tall pine trees around it.
Jesse tied his horse up to a small pine sticking out of the snow near the cabin front and waded through the knee-deep snow to the heavy log door and pushed it open.
There had been no tracks in the snow from anyone else since it started snowing.
There was very little inside the small cabin. Just a mattress against one wall stripped of all blankets, a cold stone fireplace that felt even colder without a fire going in its black mouth.
The windows were holding against the weight of the snow and the winter winds, but didn’t let in much light because they were covered from the outside. A clean sink sat to the left side of the cabin under one window and a few chairs were around a rough wooden table.
Most of the light came from the open door, but that was enough for now.
He thought about building the fire, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He was warm enough in his coats for the moment.
And more than likely this was just a wild goose chase after all. He had told Kelli he was looking for a safe place to make sure the medals were lost for good.
But Jesse had a hunch he would find something better to do with them, and that came from a comment Bushnell himself had made.
“Kelli know you are here?” a voice said behind him.
Jesse turned around to face Duster.
Only not the Duster he knew, but a Duster aged to almost sixty.
Duster still wore the same coat and hat and it clearly looked like Duster, just an older version.
So the message had been accurate. Right to the time of day. Just not sent by the person who Jesse thought had sent it.
“She does,” Jesse said. “But she thinks I’m just out to check on the cabin here, find a place to bury the medals, and get some air. She did not see the message.”
“This valley can be claustrophobic at times,” Duster said, nodding. “Glad you understood the message.”
“But from my understanding,” Jesse said. “You can’t be here, since you are also in Boise right now. You know, the old two of the same people in the same spot kind of time travel problem.”
Duster smiled and laughed. “First trip back into the past and you already understand it better than most.”
Duster reached over and put his hand through the countertop.
“Let me guess,” Jesse said. “Hologram from your time sent back here.”
Duster again nodded.
“I thought that was Bryant that left the message,” Jesse said.
In the sink in a red blood-like ink a date and time had been written. Written under the date, “Jesse, meet me, please.”
“That kid is way after my time is gone,” Duster said. “But you told me about what happened here about ten years ago my time, even though you promised not to. I sent an assistant to come in quickly, write the message and get out while you were talking to the kid out front.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “But why?”
“Because when you told me about meeting the Bryant kid from the future and what he had done, you and I talked about doing this in my time.”
“Not too much information,” Jesse said, holding up his hand. “I already know too much.”
Duster nodded. “Something came up that I needed to talk with you now, before you go back and get going with everything we do together going into the future. I figured this was as good a place as any.”
“Might as well get me while I am still confused,” Jesse said, laughing.
Duster laughed at that as well. “I’ve known you for a very long time now and I can’t remember ever seeing you confused.”
“I cover it well,” Jesse said.
Duster shook his head. “The future is a grand place. And this conversation won’t be that long and you can’t tell me about this meeting until June 8th of 2058. It’s June 7th for me.”
“Okay,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “I think I’ll just forget about it until you mention it to me.”
Duster shook his head sadly. “You can’t forget this. That’s the reason I’m here.”
Jesse just stared at the hologram of the older version of his boss for a moment. “Either something horrible happens, such as with the medals, or you are here for something else.”
“I’m here,” Duster said, “because this can never happen. What has happened to you during this trip into the past can never happen going into the future to any other timeline travelers.”
“You mean meeting three other time travelers from the future counting you?”
“Exactly,” Duster said, nodding. “I’m not going to tell you what happens as we go forward together, but make sure this sort of thing has a firm rule against it. Convince me and Bonnie without telling me about this conversation.”
“Oh, that’s going to be easy,” Jesse said, shaking his head.
“Maybe not, but it is critical,” Duster said. “What has happened to you on this trip cannot happen to anyone going forward. The world is a very
lucky place because this happened to you and not someone else.”
“And since you can’t tell yourself to fix it, you have to tell me,” Jesse said. “But I’m betting that hologram could go back and tell yourself a ton of stuff.”
Duster laughed. “There is a real reason I tell you this that you will discover over time.”
Jesse waved that off. “I assume there is a mathematical reason for this as well, since this is coming from you in the distant future,” Jesse said.
Duster nodded “We just developed the next level of timeline math. And have the computers to crunch the immense amount of data.”
Duster shook his head.
“Tired of playing god?” Jesse asked.
Duster jerked and then nodded. “It is not our place to direct the future of trillions of lives. We only research the past as it existed and leave the future the hell alone.”
“That seems to be more than enough,” Jesse said. “I can almost understand the mess Bushnell did with coming back and simply trying to save those medals.”
“And with that I agree,” Duster said. “So make sure the rule sticks. Now I’m going to get out of here before I slip and say something that will cause more problems.”
With that he vanished like turning off a light without so much as “I’ll see you in forty plus years.”
The cabin was empty and cold and silent once again.
Clearly the technology had gotten a lot better than plugging in wires to a wooden box in a cave. And the hologram technology was clearly off the charts better.
Jesse went about making sure that nothing had been disturbed in the cabin, then he pulled the door closed and climbed back on his horse in the bright sunshine that reflected off the pure white snow.
The bitingly cold winter day was beautiful, with the air crisp and clear, the snow sparkling, and the mountains like walls to his own private world.
If he wasn’t actually living in 1907, after all this he’d be laughing all the way to the nearest bar.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
April 22nd, 1908
Roosevelt, Idaho
KELLI WATCHED AS Jesse dug in the frozen dirt under Janice and Steven’s store.
Lake Roosevelt Page 11