I sat down next to Lucas, who pretended to be busy in conversation, but in one short second I caught him noticing me, and I felt heat in my cheeks. A big part of me wanted to be kissing him again, but as soon as I felt lusty for him I got guilty. We had way more important issues to deal with than my time-trotting love life. I brought my attention back to the group, which unfortunately was in the middle of a sentence from Darling.
“So I knew I had to come and tell everyone what Miss Kleinman said.” Miss Kleinman was her employer, Lucas explained to me in a whisper. I must not have a good poker face for covering up when I’m confused, I figured. She owned the town’s only hotel, and Darling worked there part-time as a housekeeper.
“What should we do about it?” asked Darling. Her hands were folded neatly in front of her, and she had the best posture of everyone in the room. She reminded me of the teachers at St. Francis: her back straight, perched directly under a carefully tied hair bun.
I leaned over to Lucas and asked what Mrs. Kleinman’s news was.
“Dr. Traver had lunch with a state senator today.”
“So? Why does that matter?” I asked Lucas.
Lucas seemed unflustered.
“Just that he may have stronger connections than we realized. We’re looking for allies at the state level, not influenced by his people in town, but if he knows powerful officials in Frankfort, then we need to double check that Mr. Dawkins’s friend will stand up for us if we find any evidence of Traver’s criminal acts.” Of course, they haven’t found any bodies or evidence yet. No wonder Traver burned the farm house down—they had tracked down his secret cabin on Black Mountain. That’s what they don’t know about yet.
Mr. Dawkins cleared his throat, a sign that we should stop whispering. I apologized. Everything is just like school.
They sure had a lot of people around town to pick up gossip—Mr. Dawkins, Lucille, Darling, and Mr. Van Doren all regularly gathered information from folks who either considered them friends or who underestimated their importance to a collection of people like us. Because we had formed with a common interest instead of a known central relationship, we had not come to Dr. Traver’s attention, at least not yet.
Lucas took his turn at the meeting, speaking in glowing terms about the creative ideas I had for our defense against the stockpile of weapons Mr. Dawkins said our enemies had acquired. I offered that he was overstating my contribution, but he wouldn’t hear of it, and the others nodded their heads, as if they were used to hearing me be too modest. I needed to get some time alone with Lucas again, though not because of my affection for him. I was floundering, trying to sort out who knew what, and it was beginning to exhaust me. I wanted to share the truth about my situation with him, even if it was a risk.
What if he wanted nothing to do with me after I told him I was Jack Inman, born in 1964 in Cleveland, Ohio? How could he continue to put any faith in me after such a revelation? I’d only been back for twelve hours but already my life as a teenage boy seemed like a lie, some tall tale I’d made up to look more interesting. I’d done so much research about the 1920s that I wasn’t sure anymore what was familiar because of a book and what I’d laid eyes on here myself.
I stopped listening to them talk, trying to replay what I’d done and seen the last time I was here, anything that could help us now. I could figure out later how I’d gotten back at this earlier time. Now that we had a kind of head start, I should help us make the most of it.
The cousin. Darling’s cousin, the one she’d told me to go see on the west end of the state. I was supposed to sneak out in the middle of the night and go find him. She’d packed the horse up for me, she’d said. What if I went to see him six months early? Couldn’t hurt, right?
I stood up from the table. Conversation stopped, and all the people gathered stared at me.
“I have to. . .powder my nose,” I said, running off to the bathroom. It was a terrible excuse, but it was the best I could come up with.
I shut the door and set the lock in place. From the other room, I heard chairs squeaking against the hardwood floor as people pushed back from the table. A few minutes passed, and a soft knock rapped at the door. It was Lucas’s quiet voice asking for me to come out so we could talk.
I put my back to the door and looked at the room. A bar of soap next to the sink. A pull chain hanging from the tank over the toilet, with a soft gold fringe attached to the bulb of wood. A frayed, but still serviceable rug next to the iron tub. And there it was—a window, half-hidden by a lacy curtain.
I pushed opened the window and climbed out, crash landing on the hard ground. The stable was close. I threw a blanket on the back of my horse and set the saddle behind her withers, then checked that it was tight. Were there supplies in here? There must be. I found an ice chest and there were a few cans of beans inside. I took those and from another chest door, grabbed a box of crackers and a can of hash, whatever that was. I put three scoops of grain into a feeder sack and tucked it all into a leather pack that hooked on to the saddle.
I led the horse out through the back of the stables, figuring someone would come after me any second. Pressing my heels into her, she knew I was looking for speed, and gave it to me. This is better than throwing a transmission into gear, I thought. We galloped off toward the other side of the valley following the last bit of sunrise. My last thought before getting some distance from Mother’s house: Someday I’ll have to actually plan the shit I do before I do it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MY HORSE NEEDED A REST, even as she pounded across a long stretch of grass and weeds, shelling out every ounce of energy she had to take me as far as possible. I sat back in the saddle to slow her down, telling her it was okay, she was a good, good horse, and petting her on her mane. The leather squeaked quietly as we walked along, blending with the clicks from bats hunting in the trees around us. I’d run off without paying attention to how cold it was out here, and although the horse gave off a lot of heat from her run, I was shivering. At some point numbness had crawled into my hands, nose and ears. I should have at least taken an extra horse blanket from the stables. Or a can opener. Oops.
So far I was full of crappy ideas and I hoped my cousin would be an energetic genius. Where would Darling’s cousin live? I better find his home fast or I could be wandering around Kentucky the whole six months before the fire.
As I came to the top of a rolling hill, I could see the fringe of another town. There certainly was a lot of farmland out here. I wondered how often people went from one small town to another. Hopefully this place was outside of Dr. Traver’s reach. We walked slowly to where a dirt road shifted into pavement, and from where we stood I could see a gathering in a small, white wood house. Beyond the front porch, in what looked like a living room, one man stood in the middle of a crowd of about twenty-five people. Shit, it’s Dr. Traver. So much for a better town out here. He held a small black book in one hand; his other palm was raised to the sky. He appeared to be shouting, although I was too far away to hear him. The others were animated, too, raising their own arms up and swaying to some rhythm.
My horse lowered her head and picked at a sprig of something on the ground, the only food she’d had in hours. I tried to figure out the layout of the town—the house full of people stood at the end of a long row of homes. Faded paint but otherwise tidy. Off to their left was a strip of store fronts: a cobbler, grocer, butcher, bank, barber shop, and trading post. Past the strip was a school house not unlike the one I’d been in before. This school though, was missing glass in its windows and instead of a proud bell out front there was a broken post. Who would let a school look like that?
I had an answer, perhaps, as I saw a line of dirty children walking toward the town, covered in black dust, a few of them wearing headlamps, most of them carrying small metal…lunch pails, I guessed. Were these children miners? When did we stop making children mine stuff? I didn’t know.
I clicked my tongue to get the horse to move, trying to stay out o
f view. We trotted along the periphery of the town until we were behind and then past the school. I was thankful that I had a dark brown horse.
Past the vacant playground were a few other empty buildings, so I headed there hoping we could rest and the horse could find something to eat. My own stomach was grumbling; I hadn’t helped myself to any food at the underground meeting. Just another instance of pure brilliance from the wonder nugget. I dismounted and tied the horse to a tree. She nuzzled me with her head, a small streak of white running between her eyes. I pet her and tugged gently at her fuzzy ear.
“I’m sorry I don’t know your name. I need to find you some water, huh?” She gave me a soft whinny.
I pulled out her grain sack and tied it around her head and she seemed happy for some kind of sustenance.
Leaning against the side of the building, I pushed hard against a large door that slid over and a line of cobwebs burst open. I brushed off the spiders that descended on me, and walked inside. Faint light beams streamed in from holes in the rafters, and old, moldy straw crunched under my boots. It felt a little warmer in here, but I had lost feeling in my lower legs so hey, who knew anymore what temperature it was.
I crept further in, expecting to be startled by someone else who had taken refuge, maybe through another opening. In the far corner, a low pile of blankets sat folded and stacked, maybe once used for livestock. Good enough.
Little clouds of dust collapsed onto the ground.
I hunted around in the barn for tools that a horse groom might use so I could bust open a can of my provisions. I might actually have gasped when I came across a can opener, but nobody was around to notice. And I found a can of sardines, but my hash seemed more palatable. I went back to the horse, untied her grain sack, and saw a water pump not too far from the barn. I cleaned out an old trough that was next to the pump, digging through a pile of mushy leaves and at least two pounds of worms, The horse figured out what I was up to right away. She even nudged me with her nose.
“I’m working on it, okay? Everybody’s in a damn hurry.” I crossed my fingers that the pump would work and was relieved to see clear water spurt out from the end of the pipe. I tied her to the pump and then tried to wash off my hands before using them as a cup to drink from. Whatever, it tasted magnificent.
I grabbed some food from the pack and went into the barn to hunker under a mound of scratchy blankets. There was something else Darling had mentioned about traveling to see her cousin, but I couldn’t quite remember it. I dozed off.
***
I had no one to take watch while I slept, or make sure I woke before dawn, so I told myself I’d sleep with one eye open. I’m not sure what that one eye was supposed to do if I was sleeping, anyway. I didn’t feel rested when I woke up.
It was the morning sun streaming onto my face that got me up, not the mad crowing of some nearby rooster. Sunlight had just begun peeking over the eastern ridge. I was out of time. I grabbed the top blanket and ran out to the horse, who looked at me nervously. She huffed and brayed, and I turned to look at what was in her field of view.
A sheriff’s deputy stood in front of his car, smoking a cigarette. He busied himself by scraping mud off of one knee-high boot against the running board of the vehicle. I tiptoed to the horse, shushing her and strapping the blanket in to the back of the saddle, and then quickly untied her from the water pump. Planting my foot in the stirrup, I bounded up, snapping a branch, and this alerted the officer to my presence.
“Hey,” he called out to me, “stop!”
His shouting startled the horse, and she burst into a gallop, with me not quite in the saddle.
“Whoa, horse! Whoa, horse!” She carried on at her full speed.
Okay, so this is where cars are easier to use.
Behind me the police siren wailed, and a jury-rigged blue light on the roof did its best to alert the world that it was shining. From my crooked position, half-lying across the saddle, I saw that he was chasing us through the grass and would soon overtake us. I managed to pull my right leg around and sit upright. I hunkered down over the horse’s neck and leaned hard to the left, over toward a stream. The car roared after us.
“Halt! Halt! Tresspasser, or I’ll shoot!” he yelled.
Just as a big moment of concern hit me, the horse bounded over a thick log that crossed the stream, and in a second we were on the other bank. I craned my neck around and saw the sheriff out of his car, now stopped, taking aim at us with a shotgun propped up on the open driver door. I yanked hard to the right and we ducked behind a small crop of trees, heading in a direction I thought would provide some cover. How could sleeping in an old barn justify shooting a person?
After a time, the horse slowed down, too tired to keep running.
“I don’t blame you,” I said in her ear. She snorted, like she agreed with me.
We meandered through another wooded area and I saw a small clearing up a ways. I unbridled the horse and stroked her cheek a few times. She cupped her muzzle in my hand, then wandered a few yards away to graze and drink some water at a creek that marked the edge of the clearing. Above us the sun provided as much warmth as it could muster on a mid-spring day. There were still patches of snow here and there, wherever they found sanctuary out of the sunlight.
I thought about calling Lucas with all of my buckets of new information before I realized I’d have to ask for the Rushman farm house, and the operator would rat us out. Too bad we couldn’t talk directly.
Wait. The HAM radio. I’d installed most of one into the car in the abandoned bank. I’d studied those amateur radio manuals for so many hours, sitting at the edge of my subdivision, writing out installation instructions and specifications. Maybe I’d written all that shit down here, too. Only the speakers and speaker wiring were left to finish in the car I was building with Lucas. Really, speakers were the simplest part of the whole assembly. Lucas was at least as handy in the workroom as I was. I didn’t know if we’d talked about transmitting on short wave radio, or how familiar he was with building a radio, though. But if I could get to a radio, maybe I could communicate with him. We didn’t have a license but we could probably get a message through to each other.
So now I’d run away but I wanted to talk to him. My first sentence should be, “Hello, it’s me, the dumbass.”
Maybe he thought I was never coming back. He and his father had been shocked when I’d shown up later this year. The whole town had thought I was dead. Why had they assumed that again?
A telegram sent to my mother. That was it, yes. But what had it said? I didn’t know what the cause of my death had been, because my mother became too distraught to speak that part, even as she could see I was alive and well. But without knowing, I was less able to see danger coming. I would have to keep using my cruddy wits and cruddier instincts.
***
After resting for a couple of hours and letting the horse graze, I grabbed the saddle off of a fallen tree and hitched up again. Following the sun we headed north-northwest, taking a slow trot. I appreciated not having boy junk to deal with as I bounced along toward Michigan. We walked along a narrow highway the whole afternoon, the shadows from our bodies growing longer and darker, and finally, we approached another town after a series of farms. It looked larger than Jacqueline’s hometown but not any more modern or wealthy. I hadn’t gotten any attention since my run-in with the deputy from the morning. Still, I refused to let down my guard. An attack could come when I was least expecting it. That made me start thinking about horror movies. I wished I’d gotten to see Halloween.
I almost ran down a man who called out my name as I rode by his house.
“Stop, stop,” he said, holding up his arms in defense. It was the same thing the deputy had said to me, but he seemed more urgent and less homicidal.
“Jacqueline, wait!”
My horse also seemed disinclined to bear down on him. She held back, sidestepping away from him, not wanting to follow my instructions on where she should go. The man was
short, with a crown of brown hair hugging his temples, and a tight-cropped beard hiding most of his face. He had wide-set eyes, and a hawk-like nose. His black boots had red clay all over them, but the rest of his clothing was spotless. I stopped the horse but remained mounted.
“How do you know me?” I asked him, spitting the words out like they had a bad taste.
“Darling, I know you from Darling. I’m her cousin.”
“But you’re white,” I said. Here comes Captain Obvious again!
“So I am,” he said, shaking his head like I was a fool. “You ever hear of slavery, girl? Come bring that horse inside before someone sees you.” He took the reins and led us to a clean stable. Hopefully this isn’t where he slaughters young women from out of town, I thought.
I checked out his row house, which looked like something I’d have seen in Cleveland, except the ones in Ohio came in clumps, and this stood alone, with the next house a stadium-length away. It was narrow but long, light blue with a porch that boasted its own swing, screwed into the ceiling. Incandescent lights inside gave everything a warm glow.
“So how do I know you’re Darling’s cousin?” I asked.
“She said you would ask that. Come on inside and we’ll talk. I know you ain’t had a decent meal in at least a day.” He looked around at the street, like he was some kind of bank robbing lookout.
It could be a trap, I thought. But it was worth figuring out what his story was. I pulled the horse into the front stall and took off her gear. He put a loose rope bridle on her and walked her back out of the stables.
“Of course I’ve heard of slavery,” I said to him. I had to walk faster to keep up with him.
“Well then, my great-grandfather Buford owned slaves, right here in Kentucky, and he is Darling’s great-grandfather, too. It’s a shameful history, but I don’t have better family than Darling.” He and the horse walked over to a fence.
The Unintentional Time Traveler (Time Guardians Book 1) Page 18