by Janet Leigh
“Is that why Mahlia is still alive? Because she only injured Marco?”
“Aye. Ace will take Marco to Gitmo, and they will take care of him there in the infirmary. After he is stabilized, they will move him to a place and make it look like an accident. The local medics will be called, and he will be placed in a normal hospital, where he will get a lot of unneeded press to increase his already enormous popularity.”
“Where are we?”
We seemed to be at the mouth of a large cave somewhere in the mountains. The vessel had changed our dress once again to the western wear from before. Caiyan sported a gash on the side of his neck, reminding me of our meeting in the dark staircase.
“I’m sorry about your neck. I hope it doesn’t scar.”
“I have many scars, lassie, and none of them were as exciting to receive as this one, yeah?”
I’m pretty sure I blushed. The singing in my head was louder here. “Do you think we are supposed to go in the cave?”
“Won’t know unless we try.”
Caiyan led the way. We were in the basin of a canyon with big boulders that surrounded us. I knew if Gertie were here, she could probably tell us some historical fact about these mountains. Caiyan walked through the mouth of the cave with me in tow.
Not too far inside, a large rock blocked the path.
“Open Sesame.” I waved a hand at the large rock.
“Funny.” Caiyan cocked a grin at me. “If it had moved, I would have raced you inside to find the magic lamp.” Caiyan pushed, and the rock rolled out of the way surprisingly easily.
“It’s not real, probably man-made.”
Beyond the mouth of the cave, light and air were filtered in from a small opening in the roof. I looked up and saw a full moon.
“Caiyan, the moon is full here. Tonight in this time.”
He looked up, nodding his head in agreement. “Maybe it’s the reason you could still travel.”
Around the room were empty cages that looked similar to jail cells. In the last one, a girl huddled into the back of the cage singing softly to herself. I slowly walked up to the cage and asked her if she was OK. She looked up at me with huge, frightened brown eyes, then a hopeful look came over her face. She stood, hesitantly coming over to the cell door. I blinked twice, because in the moonlight she looked exactly like my sister Melody, except she was extremely pregnant. She wore a simple cotton dress, and her feet were covered in moccasins.
I put my hand to the cell door and pulled, but it wouldn’t open.
“Villa has the only key,” she said sadly.
Caiyan smiled and put his hand on the lock. It tumbled open.
“You are one with us?” she asked.
“Yes,” Caiyan said. “Is this the secret cave where Pancho Villa is rumored to keep his treasures?”
“Yes,” she explained. “This is the Sierra Madre Mountains. Down that tunnel is an old mine shaft. At the bottom is a vast treasure collected by Villa and his hombres.” She shuddered and pointed toward the mine.
“I was not supposed to travel in my condition, but the mountains are the only place where I can find a special vine that helps with my pregnancy. I was so sick after the first baby; I wanted to make sure this time would be different. That’s when Villa snagged me. He saw my key and thought he could sell it.”
I opened the neck of my western shirt, revealing the key. Her eyes glowed with happiness. I removed the key and placed it around her neck. The key began to glow, and my key reappeared around my neck. Amazing.
“You are family?”
“Yes,” I said, and she reached out and pulled me into her arms.
“We should go now,” Caiyan said. We walked out of the cave in time to see a whirlwind develop in front of us.
The girl giggled. “My husband. He is coming to rescue me.”
A large teepee materialized. Paintings of wolves and Indian hunters with spears adorned each of the sides. Out stepped a man with straight black hair pulled back in a ponytail. He was wearing faded jeans and a plaid shirt, but the Native American characteristics were undeniable.
He looked at us apprehensively at first, but the girl ran toward him. He swept her off her feet in a big hug.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do with our baby boy. I had a day’s ride on horseback to the neighbor’s ranch and asked them to keep him. Are you well?”
“I’m fine, and thanks to these good people, I have my key.”
Now that we were out of the cave, I could see the darker skin of the Indian girl.
“I am Jeremiah Cloud, and I am grateful to you for saving my wife.”
“That means you are Mahalo Jane,” I said.
“Yes. These people are from our future family,” she said to Jeremiah.
“I’m Jennifer Cloud.” I was overwhelmed by the fact that I was standing in front of my great-grandparents and they were so young and happy.
“Let’s go, my love, before Villa comes back to get you for himself,” Jeremiah said.
Mahalo Jane laughed. “Even Villa didn’t want me in this condition,” she said, patting her big belly.
“Dinnae you want to get the gold?” Caiyan asked, pointing toward the mine.
“No. Taking what doesn’t belong to you only leads to trouble. Villa will get his in the end,” Jeremiah said, wrapping a protective arm around his wife. “Besides, I already have my treasure.”
“Thank you again, and many safe travels to you.” She smiled, then followed her husband to his teepee. Just as she was about to enter, she turned and looked at us thoughtfully.
“What do I name this one?” she asked, rubbing her big tummy.
“You name her Elma, Elma Jane.”
“Elma Jane,” she replied cheerfully. “A girl. I was hoping for one.” Then she turned and entered the teepee. I saw her tilt her head upward to Jeremiah, and he placed his mouth over hers. The wind whipped up, there was a loud crack, and they were gone.
I looked up at Caiyan, and he was grinning down at me. “I think I know how you got your gift. Yeah?”
“Yeah. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother both had the gift. But wouldn’t that have at least made my grandfather or my father a defender?”
“True, but that was before the WTF. I haven’t heard anything aboot either of them, and Elma never mentioned it.”
“Ya know, I have seen that teepee somewhere.” I tried to remember, because I was sure I had seen it before.
“Let’s go, lassie. More adventures are waiting.” He eyed the cave, mulling over right and wrong. I could tell he was struggling to keep from helping himself to some of Villa’s riches.
“We should probably go before Villa returns.” I motioned toward the clearing where Jeremiah’s teepee had disappeared and called for my vessel.
“Aye, you come from a good stock of people.”
I smiled as we entered my vessel, and in the next instant, I was back in my garden at home.
Caiyan stepped out and extended his hand to me.
“So, this is where you live?”
“Yep, probably not as exciting as your many homes.”
“Let’s take a look.” He pulled my sliding-glass door open, wagging a finger and tsking at me for leaving it unlocked. He looked around, nodding his head in approval of my home. The big gray cat raised his head as we entered; he yawned, then kept one eye on Caiyan, who moved into the kitchen to make a call.
I grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and listened intently.
Caiyan used the landline to call Gitmo. I couldn’t wait to find out how much that phone call would cost. He gave them the info on what had gone down in 1915 and got information on the Mafusos’ arrest. He put the phone on speaker mode so I could hear the update on Marco. He was recovering from a slight concussion, broken rib, and collapsed lung. The bullet had been slowed by his suit and deflected by the rib. The broken rib had punctured a lung. He had hit his head when he fell but should recover nicely. They had him sedated and said I coul
d see him tomorrow.
After Caiyan got off the phone, he came over to me.
“Did the WTF arrest all the Mafusos?” I asked.
“Not exactly. Gian-Carlo offered up Mortas in prison for three years in exchange for Mitchell.”
“Three years? That’s it? You mean Mahlia gets off for shooting Marco? And the old man doesn’t even get arrested?” I stomped around. “It’s so wrong, so…so…unfair!”
“True, but this way we have made an arrest for the murder of Marco’s grandfather. The crime was reported in the news and needed to be solved. It will appear to the public that Mortas is getting life imprisonment, but he will be lost in the system and released after three years. Mahlia has been a spy for us for the past year, which goes to her credit. Mitchell is harmless right now, and we have his key, so that puts one vessel out of commission.”
“What about all the counterfeit money?”
“Your CIA is allowing Gian-Carlo to make it disappear.”
“Well, I think it sucks. If this is what our tax dollars are paying for, then we had better do something to make things better.” I sulked.
“Lassie, you might make a fair transporter after all.”
“Really?” I asked. “Is that why you travel? To make things better, not to steal?”
Caiyan put his arms around me and pulled me close, feeling my hesitation.
“You cannae always believe what other people say.”
“So you’re telling me you don’t go back in time and sleep with random women.”
“I didnae say that, but people can change.”
“Are you going to change?”
“Whit’s fur ye’ll no’ go past ye.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, looking up into his deep green eyes, which were clouded with desire.
“It’s Gaelic for ‘what will happen will happen.’”
My heart was racing, and my insides were turning to mush. I wanted him badly, even though I knew the risk. I was now Jennifer Cloud, transporter, agent for the WTF, fearless risk taker, chiropractic assistant, and horny lassie.
Caiyan swept me up into his arms and carried me upstairs. He took me into Gertie’s room and laid me gently down onto the queen-sized bed.
“This is Gertie’s room,” I said.
“It’s pink,” he said, looking around and pulling his shirt off. His hard body was cut to perfection, making me all too eager to run my hands over his torso. Lying there in my white Marilyn Monroe dress, I reached up and took off the pearl earrings as he stood watching me. I turned to set them on Gertie’s nightstand and gasped.
“What is it?” He moved on the bed close to me, concerned.
I picked up the photo that sat on the table next to Gertie’s alarm clock. There in the picture were Slim and Opal Hawkins, their son, Johnny, and Gertie and me smiling back.
“Bloody hell,” Caiyan said.
“Whit’s fur ye’ll no’ go past ye,” I said, mocking Caiyan.
“You know what else?” he asked.
“What?” I said, crossing my legs and admiring my new Fendi strappy heels.
He ran a hand down my leg and pulled off my shoes.
“The shoes come first,” he said as he tossed my new babies to the floor and turned out the light.
—The End—
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Scotland 1602
I was sitting with my forehead resting on my knees, cursing Caiyan for leaving me here alone. My body ached from two days of riding on horseback around the Scottish countryside, looking for our mark. The mud oozed around me, stuck to my tartan skirt, and slipped inside my loafers. The icy rain drizzled down around me, and I wondered how much longer we were going to lie in this pigpen, waiting on our bad guy to appear. Damn him for leaving me here to wait.
I moved deeper into my shelter and sighed, reminding myself that I, Jennifer Cloud, had chosen to be part of this. Well, I’d chosen to continue to be part of the WTF, or World Travel Federation. When I was eighteen, I discovered I had the gift of time travel. Apparently, I inherited some special gene that allows me to travel through time. Great-Aint Elma Jean Cloud left me her time machine. The WTF refers to it as my time vessel. I call it a smelly old outhouse that scares the crap out of me every time I travel in it. I smiled at the memory of the argument my parents always had about the word aint. My dad is from the backwoods of East Texas, and everyone down there has aints, not aunts, as my East Coast parochial school mom would have corrected.
The friendly and much-wrinkled face of Aint Elma flashed to my mind. The vision of the little old lady with eyes the color of a summer sky, clapping with excitement over my gift, surfaced from my memories. When I met her at the age of nine, I didn’t understand what was in store for me. A warm tingle caressed the skin above my heart. I reached up to touch the other gift Aint Elma had left me—her key. A medallion made from moonstone hung from a dainty but inviolable titanium chain around my neck. The unique medallion lay flat on my chest, hidden under the high-necked blouse with the plaid buttons. Carved in the moonstone was a crescent moon surrounded by tiny blue diamonds that sparkled like they had been freshly polished. I could feel a slight hum from the key, almost as if it were alive. In order for my outhouse to take me back in time, I have to wear the key and say a magic word. Sometimes I feel like I fell out of a Disney story.
I pulled the wool coat closer, trying to keep the wind at my back. My hair was secured under an ugly brown toboggan that matched my equally ugly wool coat. But I could feel the tendrils of my blond hair brush against my neck as they made their escape from the cap. One of the rules of the WTF was no hair dye. This rule was just in case I was sent back to a time when hair dye was obsolete. I think that might be the Stone Age, in which case, the locals wouldn’t give a hoot what color my hair was as long as they could grab it and drag me to their cave. I put my foot down about going back to the dishwater blond from my childhood and finally compromised on a Marilyn Monroe blond. No highlights, no lowlights. Other rules included no tattoos, no fake fingernails, no body piercings (too late for that one—I had my ears pierced when I was five), and above all no implants. A prior transporter was injured back in time, and the local doctors operated on her, revealing her breast implants. The doctors promptly removed them, and she remained under arrest until the WTF could rescue her and convince the authorities the “water balloons” were not some kind of secret smuggling device. Thankfully, I inherited my mom’s slim hips and voluptuous bustline.
The rain was tap-dancing above me on the small troll bridge that provided my shelter. How much longer was I going to wait? I had my limits. Caiyan had disappeared into the twilight, telling me to, “Wait here, lassie.” I should have known the important question was “How long?” Instead, I just shook my head and smiled up into his gorgeous green eyes. The thoughts of last night’s passion-filled frolic still embedded in my mind clouded my judgment. Caiyan is a defender. He works for the WTF and is sent back in time to capture the bad guys, or what the WTF calls brigands. I am a transporter. The defenders can’t haul the bad guys around, so it’s up to me to come back and transport any brigands that Caiyan may catch back to headquarters. I am also his backup. Well, at least his backup in training. Since I am new to the WTF, Caiyan had to pull a few strings to allow me to assist him on this mission.
Before I left on this assignment, I was given a history lesson by my boss, Jake, on seventeenth-century Scotland. Jake was my childhood friend, and we had history together. I was as surprised as he was when our paths met again after a long on-again, off-again love affair. He took a job with the CIA, and I discovered how to time travel. Mamma Bea used
to say, “Things happen for a reason, sugarplum.” Those things keep happening to me like flies drawn to a cow pie. The reasons remain unknown.
Jake speed-tutored me for this trip, even though he didn’t want me to travel until I was better trained. He threw all the customs and rituals of the very poor to the upper elite at me like darts at a dartboard. If only I could have unscrewed my head and poured the information in like cake batter, I might have recollection of them. Right now, all the information was a jumbled mess. Maybe Jake was right; I needed more training. The main brigand Caiyan usually followed was a smarmy guy named Rogue. Our mission was to capture him and bring him into custody at the WTF. I had helped capture Rogue on our first adventure together, but sadly, he escaped.
Rogue is after the missing key, allegedly owned by Mary Stuart, the queen of Scots. Although she didn’t have the gift—that we can prove—we have a picture of her wearing the key. It was one of the few oils painted of her while Queen Elizabeth I imprisoned her. Although they were cousins, we believe Queen Elizabeth I was in cahoots with Lord Byron Mafuso, a known brigand. Rumors say they were responsible for the death of Mary’s second husband, Lord Darnley. Blown up…
Rogue knows she gave the key to her lady’s maid for safekeeping before she was beheaded on drummed-up charges of betraying Queen Elizabeth I. The trail is lost there until we get to 1746, when the key appears in a painting around Flora MacDonald’s neck.
The MacDonalds are known for having the gift. We assume she used the key to transport Charles Edward Stuart, better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, to safety during the Scottish rebellion. Rogue has attempted many times to retrieve the key before it gets to Flora.
There is some confusion as to what happens to the key after that, but Caiyan assures me the key is safe, and we need to keep it that way.
The boggy scent of decaying vegetation rose up from the river bottoms. Huge naked trees hugged the sides of the riverbank and extended their branches like skeletal hands intertwined in prayer. I sighed as a small mud-covered frog leaped over my loafer. Jeez, the inhabitants of the river that ran under the bridge were starting to come after me. What was probably a beautiful babbling brook in the summer had turned into a raging river in November. The water below me swooshed and churned as I watched a tree branch float by at maximum velocity. I pulled tight on my coat and carefully exited my hidey-hole into the cool rain.