“Hot chocolate sounds great,” Brice said, sitting so he could face Duster and Bonnie across the big wooden table.
The hot chocolate smelled wonderful and rich and Bonnie took a mug of steaming water out of the microwave and stirred in a spoon-full of mix and set it in front of him. Then she went back over a cabinet, took out a pack of small marshmallows and tossed it onto the table in front of them before going back to what she was doing.
“Hard to imagine we need hot chocolate to warm up in July, isn’t it?” Duster asked.
Brice still felt chilled to the bone from the short trip outside. “It is,” Brice said, dropping some marshmallows into his cup and then blowing on it to cool it all a little before sipping the rich, thick drink.
It warmed him some, but not all the way yet.
“So, ask anything you want,” Bonnie said without turning around.
Brice looked at the two of them. Clearly they had lived a very, very long time, as they had said, in different timelines. So there was one thing right off that bothered him more than anything else.
“So why exactly did you hire me?”
Duster laughed and Bonnie just shook her head without turning from the sandwiches she worked on.
“Not the question we were expecting,” Duster said. He sipped on his hot chocolate, then set it down. “We hired you because of that lodge appearing in our timeline. We are clearly not seeing the math of how that can happen.”
Brice nodded. “Mathematically, from everything I have been working on with your original calculations, it can’t happen.”
“Exactly,” Bonnie said, turning and putting a sandwich in front of Duster, then Brice. “We hired you because we wanted fresh eyes, a fresh mind on this problem.”
Brice sat back, holding the hot chocolate in his hand. “Each crystal out there is the physical manifestation of a timeline. At least from the math you two have worked out and I checked.”
Both nodded, but said nothing, letting him go on.
“Even though it may seem like a lot,” Brice said, “there are a finite number of crystals in that one cavern. All of the crystals in that room are worlds that are very, very similar, down to almost every detail.”
“Indistinguishable,” Bonnie said, nodding.
Brice was now, as far as he was concerned, back working in theoretical form. For the moment he was going to let the fact that he had actually traveled to another timeline just sit.
“So the math is firm on the fact that if someone in this timeline attached to a crystal in that room,” Brice said, “and the same person in another timeline did the same, a new timeline would form that would allow both to go to that timeline, and not meet themselves.”
“Yes,” Bonnie said. “And we tried once to stay past our own birthdates and we found ourselves back here. The timeline spit us out, in other words. Time does not allow the same person, in any form, to be duplicated in a timeline.”
Brice nodded. “From the math you both knew that would happen, correct?”
“We wanted to test it,” Duster said, nodding.
Brice took another sip of the hot chocolate. He was finally starting to warm up.
“So you hired me to determine the math that explains why you could remember the lodge always existing and the lodge not existing at the same time. Correct?”
Both Bonnie and Duster nodded.
“We were stumped and still are,” Duster said.
Brice forced himself to take a deep breath. Having two of the greatest math brains to have ever existed say they were stumped was something to hear.
“We think you are on the right track,” Bonnie said. “That’s why we wanted to show you the reality of all this, to maybe help you jump to the answer.”
“It’s going to take a bit for the reality of this to settle in,” Brice said, indicating the cave around him.
“Yeah, it would at that,” Bonnie said. “Duster, how about you take Brice back to say 1901 Boise for a late summer and early fall? Boise is always so beautiful in the fall. That will give Brice time to think. The Idanha Hotel is wonderful.”
Brice knew the Idanha Hotel. It was a classic landmark in Boise and it had been renovated and saved a few years back. It had been built in 1900, so it would be in its first full year of operation. It was a stunning place renovated, at least from the outside. Brice could only imagine what it looked like in 1901.
“There’s no need to do that,” Brice said.
Duster laughed. “I got a guy who gets shot in Flagstaff in October 1901 that I wouldn’t mind trying to rescue in a few timelines. So we go back in the middle of August and that will give me enough time to get to Flagstaff.”
Bonnie laughed. “Whatever you want, Marshal,” she said. “But leave Brice in Boise, at the Idanha Hotel, to think on his own and get used to the past and the idea of all of this.”
“How’s that sound?” Duster asked, turning to Brice. “You up for a couple months in a fancy hotel, getting used to the reality of all that math you’ve been working on?”
Brice nodded, but his stomach clamped up tight at the very idea.
“Finish your sandwiches,” Bonnie said, pointing to the half-finished sandwich in front of Brice. “I’ll make you some traveling food while you get ready and I’ll do the dishes and clean up while you are gone.”
That startled Brice even more. He could spend a few months in the past and only slightly over two minutes would pass here.
He would only age a few minutes.
He knew that from the math he had done.
Damn, reality was confusing at times.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
July 8th, 2016
Dixie’s Timeline
DIXIE WATCHED AS Duster appeared touching the wooden box on the table in the vast crystal cavern. He took a glove and carefully undid one wire only from the box, then stepped away, leaving the wires all attached to the same crystal on the wall.
He carefully adjusted the dial on the machine just slightly.
“Two horses are tied up outside the shed and saddles and some extra supplies are in the mine shaft near the door,” Duster said. “The horses should be fine there for a couple of days. They have enough food and water. And the weather is good, not too hot.”
“Thank you, dear, for doing that for us,” Bonnie said, kissing Duster.
“My pleasure,” Duster said.
Dixie just shook her head. After agreeing to go with Bonnie to spend a few fall months in a Boise hotel in 1901 to get used to all this, Duster had offered to jump back ahead of them and get them a couple of horses and supplies. In 1901 Silver City was in sharp decline and it would be difficult to get horses.
Dixie was surprised. It seemed they had figured out a way to time their arrival into the past timelines to the day. And it was easier and safer for a man in 1901 to buy horses and supplies than a lady.
So in the two minutes and fifteen seconds they had waited in the crystal cavern, Duster had spent part of a summer in 1901.
Bonnie said that more than likely he spent it playing poker and drinking at the Idanha Hotel in Boise, since he loved the place. And he said he had made reservations for them.
Dixie was shocked that Bonnie said something like that so calmly. But after being together for maybe upward of a thousand lived years, they clearly understood each other.
Dixie only hoped that some day she would meet a person that would understand her. So far, her love life had consisted of a few boyfriends who eventually got bored and left after a year and a few short-lived flings. Not much else, since school had kept her so busy and focused.
Now, because of all that work, she stood in an underground cavern that seemed to be the very nexus of time dressed as a woman from 1900. She was wearing riding clothes that a woman of the time would wear, with black leather pants, a very puffy white blouse, and riding boots. Duster and Bonnie had hoped she would come along on this and had ordered her a wardrobe of period clothing, from underwear to make-up and hair products and hats to keep her shaded
. It all surprisingly fit very well.
At five four, finding clothes that fit was often a challenge for her.
They were going to let her take sunscreen and normal sports bras and her own underwear along with period underwear, plus a few other pieces of clothing, but the modern stuff had to remain very hidden.
Bonnie planned on getting Dixie settled in the Idanha Hotel in Boise, then go on down to San Francisco for a few months. She hadn’t said why and Duster hadn’t asked. He did say he would try to do some of the dishes while they were gone.
Dixie would have diaries from the times that women used to write in and would be able to make notes the entire time. Bonnie told her to write down everything to make it real when she got back.
Dixie couldn’t imagine actually living for a full two months, yet only have a few minutes pass.
Really hard to grasp that concept just yet.
Dixie stood beside the big table in the crystal room, studying everything. The wires from the machine were still hooked up to a crystal about six feet up the wall near the table. When Duster had returned, he had only taken off one wire from the machine. So they were jumping back into the same timeline he had just left, only a day after he left.
She understood the math and theory of that as well, but again the reality of it scared hell out of her.
“Got your keys?” Duster asked.
Dixie nodded. Duster had given her two keys to the mine and had shown her where the spare was hidden up the slope if anything happened to Bonnie. The plan was that if Bonnie didn’t return to Boise by October 15th, Dixie was to come to Silver City, not let anyone see her climb to the mine, and pull a wire from the machine. That would bring both of them back, no matter what had happened to Bonnie.
So that would leave Dixie alone for about two months in 1901 in Boise, Idaho, since they were going back on August 10th.
“Ready for an adventure?” Bonnie asked Dixie, smiling.
Dixie managed to nod, or at least she hoped she did. Her mind was on auto-pilot and her stomach was twisted in a knot.
“Touch the box,” Bonnie said and Dixie did.
“Have fun,” Duster said, smiling at them.
“Back in a few minutes,” Bonnie said and hooked up the wire.
Duster vanished and Bonnie stepped back from the machine.
“Let’s go see if we hit the right time and those horses are there,” Bonnie said, turning and heading for the door to the cavern that was standing open.
Dixie stepped back and forced herself to take a deep breath. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know if it really was August 10th, 1901.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
August 15th, 1901
Brice’s Timeline
BRICE FOLLOWED DUSTER along the trail down the hill away from the mine. Duster had spent part of the morning telling Brice all the tricks to getting back to the mine without being seen in case something happened to him.
And he had given him two of the strange-looking skeleton keys to the mine and showed him how to find the hidden key up the hill above the mine.
Then they headed along a trail away from the mine. Both had on the long oilcloth coats, cowboy hats, jeans, and cowboy boots. They both had packed saddlebags over their shoulders.
Brice was surprised that even though the day was hot, the light oilcloth long coat seemed to keep him cooler by keeping the sun from him. The saddlebag was packed with money, some gold, and a few changes of clothes. Everything else he would buy on the way to Boise or in Boise after he got there. Duster was funding the entire trip and didn’t seem worried at all about money.
“I’ll explain all that to you at some point in the future,” Duster had said, waving off his money questions when Brice saw how much money he was carrying in his saddlebags in hidden pockets. “You’re here to just rest, think, and try to figure out why we can remember that lodge being built.”
It took them about two hours to hike down to a small ranch where Duster bought them two horses and saddles. So it was only a little after two in the afternoon when they headed up the hill and out of the Silver City valley.
It had been a while since Brice had ridden a horse, and after the first hour he asked Duster if they could walk for a while.
Duster had just laughed and agreed. “Takes some getting used to.”
They alternated walking and riding, not seeing hardly anyone else, until they were down on the Snake River right before dusk. Brice felt like he had been through a beating, and every muscle in his back and legs ached.
Duster quickly showed Brice how to take care of the horses for the night, then started a fire and got them the two sandwiches Bonnie had made and packed for them. After eating in mostly silence, they both rolled out the bedding they had brought on either side of the fire.
The ground was hard, but Brice didn’t care he was so tired.
He put his head on his saddlebag and the next thing he knew Duster was working the fire to get some coffee brewing and the sun was starting to color the sky in the east.
Duster managed a decent cup of coffee somehow over that fire and they again ate sandwiches and packed food. “No point in cooking for just the two of us,” Duster had said.
Brice walked around and stretched while eating and sipping the coffee and by the time they broke camp, he was feeling a little better.
They rode for an hour, walked a half-hour, rode for an hour, not really stopping for anything. They ate as they walked and talked, Duster mostly pointing out landmarks that would allow Brice to get back to Silver City from Boise on his own if he needed to.
In 1901, the road system was fairly well developed for farm wagons, and farms dotted the landscape along the river edges and up on the flats on the other side of the river once they got across on a ferry.
Just before dusk they rode into Caldwell, Idaho, and gave their horses to a stable to take care of for the night.
Compared to the Caldwell that Brice knew, this town was nothing more than a small farming town tucked in a shallow valley. But it did have a small hotel that Duster paid for rooms in.
For the second day, Brice was so tired he could barely walk. He had prided himself on being in good condition, being a runner, exercising regularly. But he was in good condition for 2016, not 1901. And none of this seemed to bother Duster at all.
“There should be water and towels in your room,” Duster said as they headed up the stairs, carrying their saddlebags. “Wash up and meet me near the front desk in fifteen minutes and we’ll get some dinner. And bring that saddlebag.”
Brice nodded and fifteen minutes later he found himself across the street from the hotel in a small restaurant with checkered cloth table coverings and cloth napkins and silverware. He felt better at least getting one layer of the dirt off.
They mostly ate in silence, since there were people close to them at another table. But Brice had to admit, the rib-eye steak was about as good as he had ever tasted. And the fresh bread seemed to melt in his mouth.
He had made a comment about how good the food tasted and Duster had just laughed. “Wait until you get to Boise.”
He hadn’t said anything else.
The next morning at sunrise, after a breakfast of eggs, ham, and coffee, they were again saddled up and heading toward Boise.
To Brice, it flat didn’t matter that he had slept on a feather bed in a small hotel or on hard dirt next to a river. He had slept like the dead both times.
And felt just as beat up the next morning.
He had really, really been kidding himself when he thought he was in good condition before this trip. He was a computer math geek and this trip was pointing that out clearly.
And painfully.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
August 13th, 1901
Dixie’s Timeline
DIXIE COULDN’T BELIEVE that they had finally made it to Boise. She had never considered herself out of shape, but after the first day walking and riding, she felt like an entire football team had run over her in band
practice.
She had thought she was good at riding horses, but it became quickly clear that it was one thing to ride a horse for thirty minutes or an hour in a modern saddle on flat ground, another thing completely to ride a horse over rough ground with a 1900’s saddle.
Parts of her body hurt she didn’t know could hurt.
And after sleeping on the hard ground and a second day of travel, the torture was just getting worse. The water to clean off and the good dinner and the feather bed in the hotel in Caldwell had helped some, but not a lot.
She and Bonnie had talked a lot about the problems a woman had in 1901 as they walked, and the problems Dixie was going to have as a small woman. For the first bit of time Dixie would need to just stay close to the hotel in Boise and one or two restaurants until she became more comfortable with everything.
Boise in 1901 was very civilized and law-abiding, but it was still the Old West. Women would get the right to vote in Idaho in a few years, one of the first states to do so. So women had respect, but still being careful was the key.
They also talked about how memory was permanent from these trips, not physical aspects. Bonnie stressed that a few times and wouldn’t go any farther than “You’ll see.”
After the two days of riding and torture, Dixie had every plan on staying mostly in the hotel and just thinking while Bonnie was down in San Francisco.
She had remembered seeing the big stone Idanha Hotel over the last year, but it had been one of those old buildings in downtown Boise she had paid little interest to. So she really knew nothing about where they were heading or where she would be staying.
But no matter where she ended up staying, she really, really needed to let the reality that she was in the past in a different timeline sink in. Until that happened, she had no real hope of actually helping Bonnie and Duster with the math issues of what had happened with the big lodge.
A lodge that wouldn’t even be built for a year or two yet.
The day was warm and they had been riding along the Boise River for a number of miles on a wide wagon trail before finally reaching the center of town.
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