She nodded, adding, "Without time, what happens to the individual? Without the dividers that time puts in place, I exist in the same plane as the Heather of ten years from now and the Heather who went to Heritage Christian Academy twenty years ago. I would also occupy the same physical space as the Heather of five minutes from now. That's an impossibility, isn't it?"
"It should be. We're looking at complete and total chaos. Volcanos that stopped erupting fifty years ago might be erupting, lying dormant, and not even created—all at the same time. You mentioned yourself five minutes from now. I hadn't thought of it in terms that close together, but you're right. At a microscopic level, I am different from five minutes ago. Cells have decayed and others have replaced them. I have five minutes of memories I didn't have then. Take away the barriers between the me of five minutes ago and the me of now—"
"Five seconds ago," Heather pointed out. "At a most basic level, we are different with each passing nano second. The only thing that separates it all is time. If that goes . . . " she let it trail off.
"Remember when you asked what happened to the guy who was supposed to fill in the grave? You wondered if he saw bare ground, a grave, or what? I think you were hitting on the truth when you guessed 'or what'. But what did he see? Did he get there? Could he get there at all?"
"This, then, could be Armageddon, Garison. The end of everything." Her face got pensive as she asked, "And if so, CAN you do anything about it?"
"What?"
"What if this is the end of the world? Doesn't the Bible say that 'time itself shall be no more'? What if this is God's instrument for destroying time? You don't know how you traveled through time. Maybe it was the hand of God, setting the end in motion."
Garison shrugged a slight acquiesence, then asked, "But what if it's not?"
"Hmm?"
"Go back to the wood. God created wood so that it wouldn't just up an burst into flame. We have the means, however, to make it do so. We also have the means to put out the fire."
He stood up and began to pace, as he always had when ideas were coming so fast he could barely say them, let alone arrange them. He said, "Like STDs."
"Huh?" she asked, completely dumbfounded as to the leap of logic—or illogic, as it appeared.
"Sexually transmitted disease. I don't believe they are a curse sent by God to plague the immoral like some people say. I do believe God set up an orderly universe. There are rules, however. It's like a prescription drug. If you follow the directions it will help you and, hopefully, heal you. You don't follow the directions and it will kill you. It's not the doctor or the pharmacist's fault that you're dead, it's because you didn't follow the directions. Same with sex. God made it; God intended for it to be enjoyed; but there's a prescription involved. Violate that prescription and you run the risk of bringing the disease down on you. Use the lightbulb correctly, you're fine; use it incorrectly, you're electrocuted to death. That's not God's fault. You're the one who chose to risk the consequences and you lost."
"You wanna tell me how this all applies to the hole in time in our back yard?"
"God created time to be used in a specific way: forward. As long as it's used that way, everything is fine. But when I started monkeying around with it—when I didn't follow the directions—I screwed it up. It's like my scroll saw out there in the shop. It works wonderfully as long as I use it for what it's designed for. When I try to use it for something I shouldn't, I either mess up the wood, or the saw—"
"Or both," she nodded. "You're saying time should only be used one way—forward."
"Right. I don't know if I ever told you, but I knew a guy named Roger back in the Soviet Americas who had invented a time machine. Well, he had the drawings for it, anyway. The deal was, though, that it could only go forward. I put his machine—and him—down when I told him we all did that anyway. We all go forward. He just kind of speeded up the process. But maybe he was right even if he didn't know it. There's only one correct way to use time, and that's forward."
"Let's say you're right, Garison. I mean, you're making sense to me. So what? It's like cancer: we've identified the problem but we haven't the slightest idea for a cure."
"We start looking for one. Polio used to be incurable, too, you know." He cast a woeful glance out the window and said, "The problem is, I thinking we don't have a lot of time for research."
They were standing near the counter at the convenience store in Mancos waiting impatiently as the cashier sold another hopeless dreamer a slew of lottery tickets. With nothing else to do, Garison and Heather were chuckling at the ridiculous headlines on the tabloids.
"When are they ever going to let Elvis rest in peace?" Heather asked.
"I wouldn't really trust in that whiskey and pastries diet, either," Garison remarked.
The lottery buyer left and the cashier politely asked Heather, "Will that be all, ma'am?"
"Sure," she replied.
Garison suddenly held up one of the tabloids and said, as if embarrassed to even be holding the rag, "And this."
Heather eyed him strangely, but went ahead and paid the bill. As they left, she chided, "Salmun Rushdie have another secret conference with JFK? Or are you trying to see if the collected writings of Mark Twain really were penned by the ghost of Francis Bacon."
"You drive," Garison instructed. He tossed Heather the keys as he helped Sarah into her car seat and buckled her down. He climbed into the passenger seat as a confused Heather got in behind the wheel. She shrugged put the keys in the ignition.
"What's the deal? Reading your horoscope?"
"No, but look at this headline on the bottom of the front page."
Heather was about to start the engine when her eyes got wide upon reading:
VIRGINIA MAN CLAIMS TO HAVE TIME PORTAL IN FRONT YARD
"What's the article say?" Heather asked. Ordinarily, she wouldn't have trusted one of those tabloids to even make a good birdcage liner, but this struck her as different. After all, the headline sounded suspiciously similar to their own dilemma. She found herself hoping it was just another stupid story made up by an idiot who couldn't get a real job in journalism.
"You drive. I'll read it."
Heather nodded and started the truck. As she pulled out onto the highway, Garison read aloud:
"Jonathan Day, of Mount Vernon, Virginia, claims there is a time portal in his front yard.
"Mister Day, a silver haired man in his late sixties, says he has been seeing odd sights in his front yard for approximately the last four months.
"Four months? We haven't been seeing things for that long," Heather objected.
"Let me read.
"Mister Day claims to have seen people in revolutionary war era clothing walking through his yard; men in depression era work clothes digging up his yard—then disappearing and leaving no mark on the yard; and women in clothing styles from the revolutionary period until now."
"Why is it that the first culture clash of time travel is always the clothing," Heather remarked. At Garison's scowl, she smiled embarrassedly and instructed, "Read on. Sorry."
"'I checked with the department of public works,' Mister Day told us, 'And they said a water main was put in right where I saw those men working. But they said it was put in in 1938, as part of President Roosevelt's work program. According to them, the pipeline was shut off in the 1960s, in favor of another route, and no work has been done on it since.' Our sources were able to confirm Mister Day's facts with a simple trip to the county records office.
"Mister Day, upon receiving no help from traditionally recognized sources, enlisted the help of paranormal experts from the University of Virginia. 'I don't believe in ghosts or none of that stuff,' Mister Day told us emphatically, 'But they were the only people who would listen to me. I figured they would be better than nothing.'
"Alexis Montegue, renown psychic and expert in the paranormal, brought a team from the university to investigate Mister Day's claims. Using the most scientifically advanced equipment
available, Ms. Montegue and her team could find no evidence of paranormal activity anywhere near his property.
"Mister Day then allowed them to administer a lie detector test and he passed it with flying colors. Said Ms. Montegue, 'This man is without a doubt telling the truth.'
"Ms. Montegue tells us she was about to call off the investigation and attribute it to a neurological problem on Mister Day's part or to apparitions who are not susceptible to the readings of ordinary equipment. On the last scheduled day of tests, however, Ms. Montegue—along with Mister Day and her crew—witnessed something they could not explain.
"As they stood in Mister Day's front yard, they noticed an old shed standing in the corner of the yard that hadn't previously been there. Just as they noticed the shed, a young, dark haired man dressed in colonial clothes entered the shed. Ms. Montegue told us he was quite handsome and sported a pony tail and a mustache.
"Suddenly, the shed burst into flames. According to witnesses, of which there were several, the shed and the flames faded from view as if suddenly obscured by a thick mist. There was no mist, however, and then there was no shed. Nor was there any evidence there ever had been a shed in that spot.
"Mister Day and Ms. Montegue have been to the authorities and even the local newspapers with their story, but have been turned away. Mister Day, who readily admits to not reading tabloids, said he saw them as his only way of getting the truth out."
Heather stopped the truck and pulled over onto the shoulder. She looked at Garison with something akin to shock. She asked, "They saw you, didn't they? They saw you the day you went in the shed and accidentally sent yourself back here, didn't they?"
Garison nodded and said, "There's a little side bar here that says research has shown that a man named Garison Fitch perished in a fire on Mister Day's property in the year 1844. That's me, all right."
"So the holes in time aren't confined to just our yard?"
"If we can believe this rag. I mean, someone may have run across that old story of me—and the weird gravestone Sarah put up—and concocted a story."
"Ordinarily I wouldn't believe that rag, either," Heather admitted. "But I don't ordinarily see the sorts of things that have been going on around our house for the last few months. I'd think it would be just too much of a coincidence for someone to make up a story that so closely images our own experiences."
He nodded and asked, sounding as if it were rhetorical, "You notice there is no mention of these holes in time being found anywhere else?
"You drive. I'll read it." He added sardonically, "Time is fighting the disease with its white blood cells for now, but we better get a doctor in there soon."
To lighten to moment, Heather quipped, "These medical metaphors of yours are really getting out of hand."
"Sorry."
"So what do we do?" she asked.
"I say we go to Mount Vernon and talk to this Jonathan Day."
"And then what?"
"I don't know."
She sighed, "I was afraid you'd say that."
Chapter Fifteen
September 1, 1964
Parmalee Stillwell sat outside, downhill from his claim, and drank from the jug of whiskey he had been hoarding. He had bought it off a man at Parrot City, or so he was relatively sure. He had bought it while drunk and the evening of the purchase wasn't real clear to him. He thought he remembered snatches of the event, but not many. Nor was he concerned enough about it to dwell on it long.
At his first taste, it had been clear to him that—whoever had sold it to him—probably wasn't too sad to see it go. It wasn't fine Tennessee sipping whiskey—as if he'd ever had any to know the difference. It was one step below rot gut and only a nudge above stump water. He was relatively certain it had some tobacco in it and he only hoped it wasn't "pre chewed". But it WAS fermented corn, which was his main interest in it.
Parmalee Stillwell had been working his claim for almost two years and what did he have to show for it? He'd fought Indians, white folks, and white folks dressed like Indians during that two year period just to hold onto his claim. For what? A piece of side hill that was quickly proving to be a bust.
Not that it always had been, he mused over another swallow of the foul liquor. Late last summer he had hit a pocket of gold that could have made him a millionaire. If he'd have been smart (not one of Stillwell's better known traits), he would have done what VanZandt did. VanZandt hit a pocket of gold no bigger than Stillwell's in May of '64. The pocket all but played out, then VanZandt convinced some big mining company that there was more to the claim further in. They bought the claim from VanZandt and—the last time Stillwell had seen him—the old German was headed for Denver. VanZandt had quickly blown the money on riotous living, but Stillwell didn't know that and wouldn't have cared, anyway. The fact was that—at least for a while—VanZandt had been flush.
The first flakes of winter had been falling for a week and Stillwell was thinking more and more about the good idea VanZandt had had. But Stillwell had been convinced he could make a go of it in the canyon and didn't need to resort to trickery. He was sure there was more gold behind the pocket he'd found, so he had stuck with it. The problem was, he hadn't found the rest of the gold—if it were there at all. With winter coming on, he had better not look for it too much longer, or someone would find him frozen to the ground come spring. Or starved to death in his mine shaft.
Stillwell swore and took another swig of the foul liquid. He had almost thought of it as a "brew" but that would have implied far more work and care had gone into it than probably had. If only he had sold out. He could have at least gotten enough money to make it to Denver—or even Kansas City. But no one was going to buy a claim this late in the year unless he could prove it was worth their trip. And even if it were worth something (which it didn't appear to be), he'd have a hard time convincing someone of it. By the time he went to Denver and found a buyer, they couldn't even make it into the La Plata Canyon country—let alone look at a mine—until the next spring.
With the gold of the previous summer's pocket spent on trying to dig out more this summer, he had almost no money. If he spent wisely (another thing he wasn't known for), and rode the grub line a bit, he might make it back to Canyon City before winter set in. There, he could probably find some place to hole up with another miner or two as many of them wintered there every year—and most of them were known to him. Then he could come back in the spring. Maybe then he'd find something worth fighting the Indians for.
Or maybe he ought to just forget the whole La Plata idea. If there was gold in those hills, he wasn't finding it. He was hearing some talk about a big strike up on the Blue, near Breckenridge. Maybe he'd try his hand there—or on the Tarryall or the Platte. Word was, there were some folks pulling gold out of those places hand over fist. Word also was that the Tarryall was full up with miners, but that there was still room on the Platte. As to the Blue, he'd heard stories both ways.
There were always rumors like that, though. Hang around a group of miners long enough, he thought to himself, and sooner or later someone's going to have heard of a big strike going on somewhere else.
Sometimes they were right, though. Stillwell had been in on the rush of Forty nine. One of the first ones there, in fact. He had made his strike. Lived it up in 'Frisco for a while and even made it out to Hawaii once. While some guys invested their money and turned into giants of industry and finance, Stillwell found himself fifteen years later sucking muddy river water out of a stone jar on the La Plata River. Even if he could make a showing up on the Blue, he told himself, fifteen years later he'd be right where he was now. Maybe not La Plata Canyon, but in some other desolate place, trying to scrape some color out of an unfriendly and unforgiving rock. Or he'd have one too many in some saloon and be found dead in the gutter like Hansen up in Oro City.
He lowered the jug to look out across the valley. If he had something those robber barons didn't have, he told himself, it was an eye for beauty. He still liked a mou
ntain stream, a spring meadow, or a sunset like those he'd grown up watching in Texas.
Instead of the expected sunset on the western rim of the La Plata Canyon, though, he saw a massive house rising before him. It was a two story building, made of peeled logs expertly fit together. It had real glass in the windows, a wooden porch across the side facing him, and flowers planted about. Like a dream house, Stillwell thought, never having seen such a place.
Stillwell closed his eyes and shook his head. He tasted the film the corn mash had left in his mouth and reached the sudden conclusion he really needed to lay off the stuff. He'd seen things with the liquor before; goats and helephants, and even a pink mule, but he'd never seen a house.
"Yep," he muttered, surprised at the sound of his own voice. "I gotta lay off this stuff."
Then the vision of the house faded, as if receding through a fog, and he was left with a sunset—like he had wanted. And a useless mine behind him—like he hadn't wanted. Stillwell blinked a couple times, took a look at the jug, and shrugged, "Starting tomorrow, I use this only for medicinal purposes."
Chapter Sixteen
November 8, 2007
I have not kept a journal like this in a long time. Perhaps too long, my typing skills tell me. After my trip through time, when it seemed as if everything was settling down, a journal just did not seem necessary. Or maybe it was something else.
I have, of course, kept a record of my experiments, but nothing like this. Perhaps a more thorough journal would have better prepared me for the current events.
That may have been the deal all along: my journal was so closely tied to my experiments, and it was a hard pattern to get out of. I guess I should explain that. Destroying the world as I knew it, though I held up pretty well, was very traumatic. So after it was all over, I stopped my experiments for a long time, and the journal, as well. I eventually started experimenting with things (it's in my blood), but I avoided the journal. Writing in the journal would necessitate thinking, and thinking of that sort led too often to thoughts of what I had done and what once was.
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 2): Saving Time Page 13