Time Travelers Never Die

by Jack McDevitt

  “You know, you son of a bitch, you come here and make trouble for—”

  Shel pressed the button.

  WITH the extra ten minutes in hand, he had no trouble beating the marchers onto US 80. He was watching when they came out of Alabama Street in a long file and turned toward the bridge. The crowd waved the Stars and Bars and screamed, but the police kept them at a distance.

  Dave was about a third of the way back. He kept his eyes straight forward. They all did.

  It was a beautiful day, maybe a bit chilly. The sky was clear, and the Alabama River sparkled in the sunlight.

  When you walked onto the Pettis Bridge, from either end, you went uphill until you hit the center. So the marchers couldn’t see what lay at the far end of the bridge until they topped the rise in the middle.

  Shel told himself Dave was in no real danger. All he had to do was use the converter when things got rough. He could get out of there anytime he wanted. Just as Shel had.

  Lewis was still in the lead. And Hosea Williams.

  He watched them move onto the bridge. It was a long line of maybe five hundred people in all. They moved in absolute silence, two or three abreast.

  Shel tried to follow them, but police stopped him.

  The bridge carried four lanes of vehicular traffic and a pair of walkways. Lewis and his people stayed on the north side, on the walkway. Shel knew, though he could not see them, that police cars and state troopers and a mob of deputized citizens were gathered, along with a host of TV cameras, at the eastern end of the bridge. He watched the marchers walking steadily up the incline. Eventually, the head of the line reached the top, where they could see what awaited them. But they never paused.

  The line continued forward. Shel focused on Dave and the two women, as they climbed the slope, reached the top, and started down. After a minute or two, they were out of sight.

  CHAPTER 12

  I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.

  —U. S. GRANT

  DAVE had never thought of himself as particularly courageous. He didn’t much like heights, always played it safe, and avoided confrontations whenever possible. Now he was walking with the heroes of Bloody Sunday.

  A kid, about eighteen, bounced along beside him. Probably false bravado, but he seemed unfazed by the threats and guns. “Don’t worry about it, man,” he said. “They’ll just throw us in jail for a day or so. It’s what they always do.”

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “Lennie.”

  “Lennie, you’ve done this before?”

  “Marched? Sure. And hey, they’ll put you in the white jail. You’ll have a lot more room tonight than I will.”

  Dave was thinking he’d maybe been a bit hasty. He wondered what his chances would be of slipping back into the crowd. But how could he do that in front of Lennie? How could he do that and face Shel, who was still watching him from the safety of the sidelines?

  More important, how could he justify it to himself? Well, maybe there was an easy answer to that one: This wasn’t his fight.

  Screams of rage and obscene gestures followed them through the streets. It didn’t seem to matter that there were children among both the marchers and the bystanders.

  They’d watched George Wallace, the Alabama governor, in the video record. He’d made his feelings clear enough about the demonstration. It was a public-safety issue, he’d claimed, and he would not allow it. The impetus for the event had probably been the murder of twenty-seven-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson during a civil rights demonstration in Marion three weeks earlier. But the anger and frustration on both sides had been building for a long time.

  The people lining Broad Street strained against the police lines.

  THE Alabama River was beautiful in the late-morning sunlight. Dave was thinking how he’d like to drop in on Wallace and show him how history would record his name.

  They stayed on the pavement as the walkway angled up. Ahead, the front of the line had ascended to the midpoint of the bridge and started down. Dave knew that Lewis and Williams were now able to see the waiting troopers.

  Despite what Lennie assumed, there’d be no jail for these people. Broken bones lay ahead. Concussions and tear gas and a lot of blood. Some of the marchers would carry the marks of this day for the rest of their lives.

  “I thought they’d stop us before we got out of town,” Lennie said. “I didn’t think we’d get this far.”

  They reached the top of the incline, and the troopers became visible. There were three lines of them, maybe a hundred altogether, backed up by local cops on horses. And people behind the cops who were not in uniform. They were Sheriff Jim Clark’s deputies. Drafted thugs.

  The troopers carried billy clubs; the deputies had clubs and whips. A state police commander, his bars glittering in the sunlight, stepped forward and held up a hand. His name was John Cloud.

  Television crews on the far side pointed their cameras. A couple of reporters were talking into microphones.

  “HOLD it,” Cloud said. His voice was thin.

  Lewis raised a hand, and the people immediately behind him slowed and stopped. Gradually, the entire line came to a halt. “We don’t want any trouble here,” said Cloud. “You have two minutes to break this up and go back.”

  Lewis replied. Dave was too far away to make out his words, but he knew what he was saying: “We’d like a moment to pray.”

  The commander stared at Lewis. And waited.

  Seconds ticked by. Then, apparently forgetting the two-m inute grace period he’d promised, Cloud gave a hand signal and moved back. The troopers and the deputies strode into the marchers, swinging clubs and whips. Tear-gas canisters exploded like gunshots.

  Screams erupted, and the onlookers cheered and laughed. The demonstrators scrambled for safety. But there was nowhere to go. More police and deputies moved in from the flank and rear to cut them off. Blows rained down, and people fell into the roadway, their hands over their heads. Some were dragged to their feet and clubbed again.

  Police on horses rode into them. Drove the marchers to their knees. Trampled them. Kids screamed and cried. Lennie covered his head and was hammered by a three-h undred-pounder with a nightstick.

  When they came for Dave, he tried to back away. They kept coming, two cops with smoldering eyes and batons. He did the only thing he could think of: He held up his hands to show he had no weapon and would not resist. He was accustomed to reasonable police officers and, despite what was going on around him, was shocked when one of them hit him in the mouth.

  His reflexes kicked in. The cop, who expected Dave to take his beating submissively, made no effort to protect himself. Dave nailed him in the jaw and hit him again as he went down.

  Somebody screamed at him from behind. He started to turn when the lights went out.

  HE wasn’t sure what had happened or why he was standing in front of a counter with a uniformed officer behind it. “Name?” said the officer.

  Every time he moved, a stab of pain ripped through his ribs. One eye was swollen shut. “Dryden.”

  Someone was going through his jacket. Pulling out his wallet, car keys, a couple of pens, a cell phone. And they had the converter.

  “First name?”

  He hesitated, still not certain what was happening. “David.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.” He touched his eye. It hurt. He began to remember the march. Remembered walking on the bridge. “Am I being charged with something?”

  “Assaulting an officer.” He looked at Dave with contempt. “Where are you from, Mr. Dryden?”

  “Philadelphia.”

  “What were you doing out there?”

  He was trying to remember when the cop holding his wallet extracted his driver’s license. He held it up to the light, made a face, and handed it to the booking officer. There was some whispering. Then the booking officer stared suspiciously at him. “What’s this?
” he asked.

  “It’s my license.”

  He rubbed it, frowned. Showed it to a fat, bald-headed guy with sergeant’s stripes. “Look at this, Jay.”

  Jay took it, tapped the edge of it on the counter, and turned back to David. “Pennsylvania’s doing plastic licenses now?”

  Plastic licenses? Sure. Oh, wait. It was 1965. “Yes,” he said. “Started this year.”

  Jay’s frown deepened. “Mr. Dryden,” he said, “I see you’re a joker.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Most of it came back to him with the query about the license. Selma, the Brown Chapel, and the march. He couldn’t remember anything, though, after walking up the incline on the bridge. Never got to the top.

  Jay put the license back on the counter where the booking officer could see it, and pointed at it. The booking officer broke into a large smile. Shook his head. Jay turned back to David. “Tell me your name again.”

  “Dryden.”

  “Your real name?”

  “Dryden’s my real name.”

  “Look, sonny. You have any idea what can happen to you for falsifying state documents?”

  “I didn’t falsify anything.”

  “This thing says it was issued in 2016.”

  “Um . . . Oh.”

  “That all you got to say?”

  “I . . .” Dave could think of no way to explain it.

  “All right.” Jay shook his head. “Get him printed and put him in back. Let me know if he decides to tell us who he is.” Jay led him to a desk occupied by a woman. A plate identified her as the property officer. One of the other cops put his personal belongings, including the converter, down in front of her. She took a form from her top drawer and started an inventory.

  “Mr. Dryden,” she said, examining his cell phone, “what’s this?”

  Jay was still hanging around. She handed the instrument to him. He looked at it. Looked at Dave. Turned it over and opened it. “I think the officer asked you a question,” he said.

  The cell phone wasn’t going to work in 1965. “It’s a tabulator.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “It counts things.”

  “It counts things?”

  “It’s an adding machine.”

  Jay sneered at it and put it down. Then he scooped up the converter. “How about this?”

  Dave was tempted to tell him to lift the plastic cover and press the black button. “It’s a game box.”

  “A what?”

  “You can play games with it.”

  “Sure you can. Like you’re doing now.” Dave held his breath, fearing that Jay might do something to it. But he only shook his head before putting it back on the table.

  The property officer bagged everything and passed the inventory sheet to him. “Please sign both copies,” she said. She’d dutifully logged a game box and an adding machine, putting both items in quotation marks. Dave signed, she initialed, and she put the papers into a pile at her right hand. Then she dropped the bag into a metal basket.

  They fingerprinted him and took him back to the cellblock. Several others, three or four, he couldn’t be sure, were locked away. All white males. “Here’s one of the sons of bitches now,” said the guard, to nobody in particular.

  He was guiding Dave toward a cell that held a prisoner who must have weighed four hundred pounds. “Yeah, Charlie,” said the prisoner, “put him in here.”

  Charlie smiled at Dave. “What do you think, Dryden? Want to stay with Arky here? No?”

  Arky delivered some comments about Dave’s racial preferences, reached through the bars, and laughed when Dave kept his distance.

  Charlie shook his head. “You do have a way of gettin’ people riled,” he said. “Better put you in a cell by yourself.”

  The cell had two cots. He sank onto one, hoping he hadn’t broken a rib.

  HE’D been in the cell about five minutes when Charlie and another officer returned. “You’re sure?” asked the new cop.

  “Absolutely, Al. You can look for yourself.”

  Al took a quick look around. “Makes no sense.”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about it.”

  “Okay. I guess you’re right. But where the hell’d he go?”

  “You check the break room?”

  “Yeah. It’s the first place I looked. Harvey said he thought he was coming back here.”

  “If so, he never got here.”

  They left. Fifteen minutes later, they were both back looking at Dave. “This the one?” said Al.

  “That’s him.”

  Charlie began unlocking the door. “Get up, Dryden,” said Al.

  “What do you want?”

  “Just do what I tell you. Get up.”

  They opened the cell door and held it for him. Dave climbed painfully to his feet and limped out. His knee had begun hurting, too. Al took him back to the booking area, and he was shown into a side office, where the woman who’d done the inventory waited, along with a guy wearing bars. The sheriff.

  “Mr. Dryden.” The sheriff had a permanent scowl. He looked worn-out, tired of putting up with troublemakers. The bag with Dave’s belongings lay on the desk in front of him, as well as a copy of the inventory. “You had something with you that you described as a ‘game box.’ ”

  “Yes, I did. Nothing’s happened to it, has it?”

  The sheriff ignored the question. “What exactly is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me put it this way. Is it valuable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? What was the damned thing?”

  Dave shivered at his use of the past tense. “It’s an experimental device I was working on,” he said.

  “What kind of experimental device?”

  “It helps people learn languages.”

  The sheriff’s eyes grew hard. “Who exactly are you, Mr. Dryden?”

  “My name’s David Dryden.”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a language teacher.”

  “Mr. Dryden, I’d like not to waste either your time or mine. I wonder if you’d explain why you’re carrying fake documents?”

  “My driver’s license?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s hard to explain.”

  “Try.”

  “It’s a bogus license.”

  “I can figure that out for myself. Did you lose your license?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?

  “Drunk-driving offenses.”

  “It figures. But if you’re going to buy a bogus license, how in hell can you be so dumb about the birth date?” He looked at it and shook his head—1989.

  “That was the way they did it. I didn’t notice it until I got home. The guy who made the thing got in trouble and took off, so I never got it fixed.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Dryden is my real name.”

  “Are you a communist, by any chance?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You say that game box is valuable.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “How valuable?”

  “A lot. It’s hard to put a price on it.”

  “You know, Dryden, things are going to go a lot easier for you if you tell us the truth now. About whatever’s going on.”

  “There’s nothing going on.”

  “Okay. Have it your way.”

  He signaled for one of the cops to open the door. “Take him back inside.”

  As David was leaving, the sheriff turned to the inventory officer and lowered his voice. “Any sign yet of Jay?”

  “Nothin’, Sheriff. I’ll let you know as soon as he shows up.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON, LETTERS AND SOCIAL AIMS

  SHEL lost track of Dave. The victims, still choking on tear gas, la
y broken and bleeding in the roadway. The crowd began to disperse. There were scattered voices, people saying they deserved it, maybe next time they’ll know better, got no choice. They wandered back into Selma. The police, after a delay, allowed the medics in.

  They put the more seriously injured on stretchers and loaded them into the ambulances. Others staggered away, back toward the Brown Chapel.

  Shel got a whiff of the tear gas, and his eyes began to water.

  “Look out,” said a guy behind him. “Wind’s coming this way.”

  The man stood a few feet away, shaking his head silently.

  “Where are the victims going?” asked Shel.

  “Probably Good Samaritan,” he said. “It’s the only hospital that’ll take them.”

  HE went back to the Brown Chapel. The demonstrators stumbled in amid sobs and screams. Two of the ambulances were unloading. Volunteers helped victims into the parsonage and tried to calm hysterical children. As he watched, a victim was carried out of the building on a stretcher and placed in a waiting hearse. Moments later a second hearse joined the first. A man got into the driver’s seat. One of the stretcher carriers climbed in back and pulled the doors shut. A woman hurried around to talk to the driver. “Wait, James,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They’re filling up at Samaritan. Take them to Burwell. You know where that is?”

  “Sure.”

  “Go.”

  Shel intercepted her on the way back inside. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” she said. “They’re all maniacs.” She took a moment to control her voice. “Broken bones mostly. But the tear gas was the worst. They can’t get it out of their lungs.” Her eyes were ice-cold. “Those homemade clubs. They used garden hoses with nails. The sons of—” She started to cry, shook it off, and hurried back inside.

  Shel followed her in and did what he could. He helped carry stretchers, took fresh bandages to the doctors, got water for people whose legs had been broken. After a while it became more than he could take, and he went outside. He sucked in air, tried to block off what he was seeing, watched a child carried screaming from the building. Then he went back in.