The Fire (Northwest Passage Book 4)

by John A. Heldt

  Kevin took care of other matters as well. He printed a PDF file containing a lunar calendar for 1910. He was confident that the solstice sun that had sent him to July 22, 1910, earlier that morning would send him to the same date that afternoon, but he wasn't supremely confident. If he exited the time portal on a different date, he wanted information and options.

  At noon Kevin packed the suitcase with five pairs of dark socks, boxer shorts, a slim digital camera, a comb, a toothbrush, toothpaste, two plastic razors, a penlight, a hundred double eagles, and bills and coins from the early 1900s totaling another two hundred dollars. Whether he went to the past for a few hours or a few days, he wanted to go in style and have a little fun.

  With the exception of the camera, Kevin didn't pack any modern toys or conveniences. He didn't want to be caught with anything that could be seen as an obvious anachronism. Taking the camera was risky enough. He could just picture a policeman fumbling through his personal belongings and turning on a device with a power-zoom lens and a 2.8-inch LCD screen.

  After stuffing his suitcase, Kevin grabbed a bite to eat, showered, threw on a suit that fit surprisingly well, and checked his luggage one last time. He didn't want to forget that essential something extra on this trip. He folded the lunar calendar in half and tucked it in a jacket pocket.

  When Kevin walked out of Roger Johnson's house in patent leather shoes at 1:10 p.m., he looked like a man on a mission. He was a man on a mission. He was about to experience Wallace in a way Walking Walt could only dream about. He imagined picking up a phone and calling Joel Smith and asking if he could get graduate credit for a paper on "How I Spent My Summer Vacation in the Edwardian Era."

  Like he did the first time, he pulled two dozen double eagles from his pockets and arranged them in the shape of two Ms, a C, and an X. Like he did the second time, he waited a moment, collected the coins and opened the door to the chamber of stones. He carried the suitcase into the tiny structure and dropped it on a concrete floor.

  The chamber was empty, as it had been on both occasions, and mostly dark. The only light streamed in from horizontal slits located about a foot below the top of each wall. Kevin assumed that the slits had been created for ventilation purposes, though he didn't know for whom. He couldn't imagine anyone voluntarily spending more than a minute or two in the bleak space.

  He waited a moment, turned to face the door, and then reached for the brass knob. He then attempted to turn the knob, as he had done the previous times, but the knob wouldn't budge. It wouldn't turn in the other direction either.

  Kevin tried again to open the door, this time with both hands, but succeeded only in chafing the skin on his palms. Something was wrong.

  Before he had the chance to try again, he heard the wind pick up. Cool air flowed through the vents – very cool air, the kind one might find in a breezy tunnel. He stood on his toes and tried to peek through one of the slits but managed to do little more than strain his feet. He again went for the door and again failed to force it open. For the second time as a time traveler, Kevin felt genuine fear. This wasn't funny. This wasn't funny at all.

  Kevin tried to turn the knob again, with similar results. He threw his weight against the door, kicked it several times, and pounded it with his fists. Nothing moved and no one answered. He repeated the process several times and several times managed only to raise his blood pressure. This was the price one paid, he thought, for messing with powers beyond his control.

  When the air in the chamber turned from cool to cold, he collected himself in a corner and tried to stay warm. Summer, it seemed, had turned to winter. Kevin was never one to panic, but he felt like panicking now. He began to seriously wonder whether he had entered one of Dante's nine circles of hell. The thrill of time travel had long gone by the wayside.

  Gathering his strength, he assaulted the door again. He attacked the knob, kicked the bottom, and knocked as hard as he could. He shouted for help at least three times. Then the door opened and Kevin saw something he welcomed: the outside world.

  But the joy of liberation was short-lived. When Kevin looked out the door of the chamber of stones he saw more than Asa Johnson's backyard and Asa Johnson's house. He saw Asa Johnson himself, along with the business end of a pump-action shotgun.

  CHAPTER 9: KEVIN

  Kevin had to give his great-great-granddad credit. Asa didn't shoot him on the spot or leave him in the backyard to freeze. He instead invited him into his warm house – at gunpoint, of course – for a friendly game of Twenty Questions.

  Asa directed the trespasser through a door in the back of the house to an extension of the kitchen the trespasser knew well. A woman in her late twenties held an infant in her arms. A boy of four or five stood at her side. Celia and Randolph Johnson seemed none too pleased to see Kevin. Great-grandfather Lloyd, asleep in a blanket, didn't appear to care.

  "Take a seat," Asa said. He pulled up a chair at one end of the dining table and set his shotgun aside as his family assembled behind him.

  Kevin sat in a chair at the opposite end of the table and tried to keep calm as he processed a hundred thoughts. He had found trouble and found it fast. Where once he had worried about whether he could return to the future in time to meet his family, he now worried about whether he could return to the future at all. He watched Asa cautiously as he blew on his cold hands.

  "Would you like some coffee?" Asa asked.

  Kevin nodded.

  "Celia?"

  The lady of the house placed Lloyd in a nearby crib, walked to a serving counter, and poured coffee from an enamel pot into a porcelain cup. She returned to the table, placed the cup in front of Kevin, and returned to her frowning son and smiling husband.

  While he waited for Asa to make the next move, Kevin did an inventory of his immediate surroundings. He could see from the expensive furniture in the nearby living room that Asa Johnson's ship had not only come in but also stayed in port. He recognized at least two chairs and a hutch he had last seen in 2013.

  Kevin also saw a calendar of February 1910 hanging on a wall in the kitchen extension. He deduced from child-like marks blotting out the first two weeks that Randolph was counting the days toward an important event. He deduced as well that it was Valentine's Day, a Monday.

  Kevin didn't know what to make of Asa. He seemed more suspicious than angry. Maybe he would cut the trespasser some slack, settle for a plausible explanation, and send him on his way.

  Then there was the other possibility. Asa might ask Kevin to open his suitcase and discover that the intruder had taken not only his diary of numbers and secrets but also a sizeable share of the gold and cash he had hidden under the guest-room floor. If that happened, then this surreally pleasant exchange might turn ugly in a hurry.

  Asa folded his hands on the table and stared at his new acquaintance. He dropped his smile and spoke in the measured, deliberate cadence of a businessman.

  "Make yourself comfortable, friend, but not too comfortable. The reason I offered you a cup of coffee and not a belly full of shot is that I'm a curious man," Asa said. "It's not every day I find someone inside my stone shed, particularly a well-dressed dandy like you."

  "I understand," Kevin said.

  "Let's start with your name."

  "My name is Kevin Johnson, sir."

  Asa laughed heartily and looked over his shoulder at his wife.

  "Did you hear that, Celia? He says he's a Johnson!"

  Kevin watched Celia smile nervously at her husband. He could see she didn't like having a trespasser in her home. Like Kevin, she appeared to be making the best of a bad situation.

  "That's quite a coincidence," Asa said. "I, too, am a Johnson – Asa Lysander Johnson. Strange as it may seem, I have not met many Johnsons. Had you knocked on the door of my house instead of the door of my shed, I might have welcomed you as a distant relative."

  Kevin winced. He wondered what Asa – a short, slender man with a thick, neatly trimmed mustache – would think of Roger's reunion bo
ok.

  "As it is," Asa continued, "I must think of you as a stranger who violated the sanctity of my home and has not yet explained his circumstances. I assume you have an explanation."

  "I do," Kevin replied.

  "Then please provide it," Asa said. He folded his arms. "You have five minutes to persuade me not to contact the police."

  Kevin sighed and glanced at a bare wall that would someday support his grandma's hideous cuckoo clock. He would gladly give up everything in his possession to see that stupid clock again, if doing so didn't put him in even more jeopardy. He turned to Asa.

  "I entered your shed because I needed shelter from the weather," Kevin said.

  Asa smiled.

  "Wallace has several hotels and boarding houses, Mr. Johnson. No man chooses a hard floor in a cold room over a soft bed in a warm room."

  "He does if he leaves his wallet on a train."

  Celia covered her mouth with a hand.

  "When my train stopped here yesterday, I got off," Kevin said. "I had planned to continue to Missoula, but I thought Wallace looked interesting and decided to stay for the night. So I got off the train, walked around, and looked for a restaurant. When I saw one, I reached for my wallet and found an empty pocket. By the time I returned to the station, the train was gone."

  "I see," Asa said. "So, naturally, when you discovered that you had no money, you walked nearly a mile across town to my rock shed, opened the door, and made yourself comfortable."

  "Asa!" Celia exclaimed.

  Kevin looked at his great-great-grandmother and noticed that her eyes and expressions had softened considerably. Perhaps he had an unexpected ally in this trial.

  "I came here as a last resort," Kevin said. "I looked first for a telegraph office. I figured if I could find one, I could wire my family for money, pay for a room, and catch the next train out. When I saw that one office was closed, I wandered some more."

  "What about the hotel lobbies?" Celia asked. "You could have warmed yourself there."

  "I walked into a few, but the proprietors threw me out when they realized I wasn't a paying customer," Kevin said. "I wandered into this neighborhood around midnight. I didn't want to enter a house and take a chance on getting shot, so I looked around a bit and found your shed. When I saw that the door wasn't locked, I walked in."

  Kevin felt a surge of satisfaction when he finished his speech and then a surge of panic when he realized he had made claims he couldn't substantiate. He didn't know for a fact that eastbound trains rolled through Wallace every day or that the town had a telegraph office that closed at night. He didn't know the location of that telegraph office. He had said too much and left himself vulnerable to a withering cross-examination.

  Asa didn't speak right away. He instead rubbed his hands together and stared at Kevin for what seemed like an eternity. When he finally spoke, he didn't cross-examine the defendant. He did something worse. He brought up the suitcase.

  "Would you mind if I opened that case?" Asa asked.

  "I would mind," Kevin answered. "Some of the items inside are personal in nature – very personal. I would prefer to be spared the indignity of displaying them."

  Kevin tried to quell his nerves as he watched Asa grin. He suspected that Asa wanted to see the contents of the case but didn't want to embarrass his wife or impressionable son.

  "You are fortunate, my friend. I know for a fact my shed was empty when I opened it last, so I know for a fact you didn't remove anything of value," Asa said. "I don't think much of your story. I've heard more plausible tales in saloons. But I don't believe you mean us harm, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt."

  Celia smiled at Kevin, adjusted her apron, and walked to the serving counter, which divided the cooking and dining areas. She looked at Asa, tilted her head, and raised a brow.

  Asa chuckled.

  "I assume you haven't had breakfast, Mr. Johnson."

  "No," Kevin said. "I haven't."

  Not since 2013, anyway.

  Asa extended an arm toward the counter. A large plate of pancakes and smaller plates of eggs, sweet rolls, and link sausages sat next to the coffee pot.

  "My wife has prepared a feast," Asa said. "Please join us."

  CHAPTER 10: KEVIN

  Monday, February 14, 1910

  Kevin had fun once Asa put his gun away. He had breakfast in the same room for the second time in 103 years – or a few hours as the crow flies through time – and enjoyed every minute. He learned more about his great-great-grandfather in an hour than he had learned in family albums, reunion books, and countless conversations with his father and grandfather.

  Asa Johnson, Kevin discovered, was more than a shrewd businessman and a free thinker. He was also a stand-up husband and father.

  In between eggs and sausages, Asa recounted his transition from bachelor to family man. He had met Celia on a business trip to Spokane in 1902 – when he was thirty-three and she was twenty – and had wooed her for more than a year with flowers and poems before she finally agreed to marry him. When Celia had insisted on a large home as her price for moving to the isolated mining town of Wallace, Asa bought his partner's second house on Garnet Street and filled it with the finest furnishings a successful speculator could buy.

  Celia Blake Johnson was no less surprising and impressive. The oldest daughter of a district court judge and a Spokane socialite, she was an accomplished pianist who could speak fluent French and German and recite the poems of Byron and Blake as effortlessly as she could make and serve a four-star breakfast. With long, strawberry-blond hair, high cheekbones, and alabaster skin, she was also decidedly easy on the eyes.

  Kevin asked the Johnsons about their backgrounds and long-term plans. He shared little about his background and immediate plans. He knew the best way to get through breakfast was to describe his past in the most general of terms.

  In the end, Kevin offered a mix of fact and fiction. He said he was a college graduate from Seattle who had come east in search of teaching opportunities. He said he had a mastery of the sciences and English but precious little experience. He told the Johnsons he intended to gain that experience in Montana, where the need for educators, he had heard, was great.

  Kevin hoped his story would close the door on talk about him, but it succeeded only in pushing it open. Asa and Celia seized the opportunity to tout Wallace as a place to teach and settle. They told him that northern Idaho needed capable educators, too, and offered to do what they could to make any transition to the area seamless.

  Kevin was tempted to investigate the possibilities until he remembered he had a graduate program to complete and a life to live in the twenty-first century. Teaching K-12 students in the age of slates and oak-and-iron desks might be a kick.

  Then Kevin remembered something else, something important, and checked that something out when Asa left the room and Celia carried dishes to the sink. He retrieved the calendar from his jacket pocket and checked the lunar cycles for February 1910. The next full moon was Wednesday, February 23. He had nine more days in Wallace whether he liked it or not.

  Kevin hid the calendar from view when Celia approached the table and tucked it in his pocket when Asa reentered the room. He did not want to invite more scrutiny by showing them something he had printed from a computer in 2013. He sat up straight, smiled, and kept to himself until Asa put on a coat and a hat and announced he was going to work.

  Asa offered Kevin a ride in his carriage. Kevin gladly accepted. A short while later, the two men stopped in front of a building near Bank and Sixth, where the phone company maintained a telegraph office and Asa conducted business by appointment in a rented room.

  Kevin told Asa when they parted that he would give serious thought to teaching in Wallace. He said he would contact him again if he opted to stick around. He didn't add that the decision to do so had already been made.

  CHAPTER 11: KEVIN

  Wednesday, February 16, 1910

  Kevin got his fill of the real-life
historical museum that was 1910 Wallace, Idaho, in his first forty-eight hours. After renting a safe-deposit box for his valuables and finding a room at a hotel on Bank Street, he investigated everything worth investigating on Monday and revisited the things he liked on Tuesday.

  The things he liked weren't hard to find. Most of the fun in Wallace could be found in the three-block red-light district between Fifth Street, Cedar Street, and the river – or what Walking Walt had called the city's "Triangle of Sin."

  Kevin limited his fun in the restricted district to that of an observer. Though he found the idea of patronizing a brothel pretty ghastly, he didn't mind watching others, particularly well-dressed men wearing wedding rings, slip out the side doors of nondescript buildings. He spent a good part of Monday afternoon watching men with money keep the local economy afloat.

  On Tuesday he picked up a box of cigars at Wallace's busiest smoke shop, got a haircut and a bath at its most popular barbershop, and took in a show at a variety theater. The saloon-like establishment featured actresses, singers, dancers, and vaudeville routines.

  Kevin took digital photographs of these amazing sights whenever he had the chance. He knew that snapping any pictures involved an element of risk, but he didn't care. Who in his right mind would travel back a century in time and not bring back some quality JPEGs?

  Kevin also sought out the girl. Twice on Monday and three times on Tuesday he walked past the house on the east end of Garnet Street hoping to capture a glimpse of a vision. He knew she wouldn't remember their meeting, which technically hadn't happened yet, and even if she did, she wouldn't necessarily greet him the same way. She might ignore him or even toy with him, just as other beautiful women had toyed with Kevin his entire life.

  Still, he sought her. He wouldn't consider his second trip to 1910 complete until he got at least one more look at her lovely face and captivating smile.