A Glitch in Time

by April Hill

  He doubled the belt and smacked my rear end three or four times, very, very hard–and quite painfully, considering what it had already gone through so recently. Perhaps because he had been in such a rush, Edward had not as yet noticed the condition in which Wild Bill had left my bottom, but suddenly, he stopped, paused for a moment and poked a finger into the soft and very tender flesh. "What?"

  He dumped me back on my feet, stood me between his opened knees and held me firmly by my upper arms. "Who did that?"

  My face flushed, looking, no doubt, very much like my welted bottom.

  "A friend," I said, realizing at once how foolish my answer sounded.

  "You don't mean…?"

  "It's a very long story, Edward, but if you must know, I tried to steal Mr. Hickock's wallet, to secure your release from jail."

  "And he did that?" Edward shouted.

  "I don't see why you're so shocked," I cried indignantly. "Every single adult male I have encountered during this entire excursion into insanity has had his way with my bottom! Why in heaven's name should this one be any different? At least this man seemed willing to help us."

  "Help us! My God, Abigail, of you had spent your time reading history instead of those low novels you're so fond of, you might be aware of the fact that at this juncture on his life, Wild Bill Hickock is nothing more a lowlife gambler and a drunkard. He has spent several years performing in the sort of gaudy circus acts they call Wild West Shows, for God's sake! What do you think he'll do with the Time Machine, should he ever get access to it?"

  I put my head in my hands and moaned. All seemed lost. But of course, Edward already had a plan. He motioned me to the farthest end of the room and spoke quietly.

  "I saw your dear friend whispering with the man at the desk downstairs," he said. "I suspect we will be watched. Mr. Hickock doesn't actually believe you, or me, but he knows that something peculiar is going on, and he doesn't want to miss it. Now, listen carefully." He knelt by the bed and pulled out a long wooden crate with rope handles.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "I pried open the small closet in the bath," Edward explained. "These tools probably belong to the handyman here." He held up two or three metal objects. "These are not as good as those I was forced to leave hidden behind an empty crate at the livery stable, but they'll have to do."

  "Do what?"

  Edward sighed deeply. "You must be brave, now, Abigail. My plan will put us both in some degree of peril. I'm afraid, but it's the best I can come up with. I am going to climb out the window, and try to make it back to the machine. If luck is with us, I can repair enough of the damage in three or four hours to get us out of here."

  I gulped. "And I am to stay here?"

  Edward shook his head miserably. "Yes, darling. There's no other way. If the concierge doesn't believe we are still here, in this room…. When you think it safe, perhaps just before dawn, you will slip out, too, and hurry to the small bridge we passed on the road here. Do you remember?"

  I nodded.

  "Good. Hide in the brush beneath the bridge until I come and get you. It's hard to see from the road. You should be safe there."

  "But what if I'm caught?"

  "If you don't arrive by an hour or so after dawn, I'll come back to town for you."

  "Edward," I protested. "That is an extremely stupid plan. Perhaps one of your worst. If you come back, we shall both be caught."

  "Darling, we haven't actually done anything wrong, and whatever his dishonest or avaricious interest in us, this Hickock person seems decent enough, in his way. If he sees no profit to be had in us, he'll have to let us go, eventually. Besides, by tomorrow evening..." He stopped.

  "What about tomorrow evening?" I asked.

  "It's nothing, sweetheart, really. Abby, I have no more time to argue. You must do this my way."

  Since I had no better plan, I relented. Five minutes later, after embracing and kissing me, Edward slipped out the window, across the long roof, and down a porch post to the darkened alleyway behind the hotel. I watched until he disappeared around a corner, then sat down and wept. Several moments later, when I heard a slight sound in the hallway outside my door, I crept to the door to put my ear against it. There was someone on the other side. I could hear the distinct, unhealthy wheeze of a heavy smoker. I had to do something to make whomever it was believe that Edward and I were inside. But what?

  With an inspiration born of desperation, I leapt onto the bed, stood in the center of the sagging mattress and put both hands firmly on the metal headboard. Then, with my knees bent, I began to bounce slowly up and down, as hard as I could, in a rhythm I could only hope sounded like–well, I'm quite sure you understand what I mean. The bed was against the wall that backed to the hallway, so with every new jounce, I slammed the metal headboard up firmly against the wall with a great thud. The rusted grid of the bed creaked precisely as I had hoped. Finally, I began to make appropriate sounds of passion with which to embellish my performance.

  "Oh! Oh! Ahhhh! Oh God, Edward!" I moaned, increasing the volume of each tormented cry until I reached nearly top volume. "Again! Please don't stop! Oh! Oh! Oh, yes, darling, yes! Yes! Harder! Deeper! Oh God! Yes Edward, Yes! Deeper, harder! Ahhh!"

  I continued to bounce and moan, and for reality's sake, added what I very much hoped sounded like a male voice groaning and grunting in a crescendo of lust and satisfaction.

  I inflicted a number of very painful slaps to my thighs, following each with a low, throaty laugh and another prolonged shriek of ecstasy.

  "Oh. Edward! You beast," I cried. "No, no, don't stop. It's been so long! Yes, yes, yes! More, more, oh, yes, that's it! Right there! More! Harder! Deeper! Oh, oh, ahh-h-h!"

  I continued this nonsense until I was hoarse and sweating, and then collapsed on the bed, which creaked one last time in appropriate complaint. Outside the door, I could hear heavy breathing. The concierge had apparently enjoyed himself immensely. Although a bit embarrassed, I was actually quite pleased with myself, and eager to tell Edward of my small triumph. I had always harbored a secret wish to be an actress, and now, in this unlikely place, I was. Shortly, I heard the sound of footsteps retreating down the hall, and then the telltale squeak of the stairs. I dropped my head onto the pillow and within seconds, I was fast asleep.

  I woke perhaps two hours later, and out the window, I could see the first faint traces of daylight. It was well past the time when I should have been on my way. I jumped up, dashed to the window and glanced down at the still dark main street of Deadwood.

  And then, in an instant of what might have been madness or lack of sleep, I decided to trust my instincts–and to change Edward's plan. Five minutes later, dressed in my sadly faded and wrinkled dress, I made my way down the street to the Number 10 Saloon, to prevail once more upon the goodwill of the infamous Wild Bill Hickock.

  After I knocked on the door, the meeting did not go as well as I had hoped.

  "God damned lying' little witch. I knew I shouldn't have trusted you and that snake you call a husband. Where the hell is he, now, and how long has be been gone?"

  "I can't tell you that," I said calmly. "Not until I have your assurance that..."

  "Assurance, my ass," he bellowed. "Wakin' a man up at this time of mornin' just to tell him he's been snookered!"

  "I'm very sorry about the hour," I explained. "But I still need..."

  "What you need is your goddamned ass blistered, lady," Bill thundered. "Now, start talkin', and tell me where the polecat is!"

  "Not until you swear to me that..."

  At which point, Bill strode to the dresser, picked up the largest, thickest wooden hairbrush I have ever seen in my life, and smacked the flat side of it against his thigh. "Talk!"

  I blanched, refused, and before I could turn for the door, Bill had one strong arm wrapped around my waist. With no further ceremony, he sat down on the bed and dragged me across his knee, with my head nearly touching the ground, and my hind end poised in that position with
which I am much too familiar.

  He made short work of tossing up my awful dress and yanking down my quaint, ill-fitting drawers, leaving them to puddle forlornly around my ankles. Although I knew very well there was no point in arguing with his intention, I made one feeble try.

  "You might at least listen!"

  "I'm gonna listen," he said grimly. "In about one minute, me and everybody else in Deadwood are gonna be listenin' to you hollerin' your fool head off while I take the hide off your pretty ass!" (This is very much the sort of thing Edward is wont to say at these moments, actually. Edward's grammar is better, but I was about to learn that Bill Hickock was considerably stronger.)

  With a speed I wouldn't have thought possible, the huge brush cracked twice–first across my right buttock, I think. I can't say this with precision, since I was already in midair and midshriek. At the very first blow, I had lifted off his knee in one astonished motion, with my mouth wide open in a howl of absolute, screaming agony. Thus, when the second blow landed, I was in far too much pain to distinguish whether the exact source of my torment was emanating from the right or left hemisphere. In any case, blows three through God only knows what number arrived in such rapid succession thereafter that it was all I could do to keep my eyeballs from popping out. You think I exaggerate?

  The thing of it is, the chastisements to which I was accustomed, though always unpleasant and painful, had normally been applied to the necessary part of my anatomy by either Uncle Herbert, who is exceedingly fond of me, or Edward, who purports to be madly in love with me. Thus, the person administering my spankings, canings, strappings, etc. has usually been careful to–well, to be careful. Each time in the past, when Edward explained to me that it wasn't his purpose to "hurt" me, but simply to "make a point" or deliver a "lesson," I had sneered.

  Bill was not being careful, nor was his prime motive to make a point or deliver a lesson. Bill's purpose–as he so quaintly put it–was to "skin me alive", and from my vantage point, it felt as though he was succeeding. Both cheeks of my ass were ablaze, and Bill was apparently just getting started. Every few strokes, he would pause and ask me again if I was "ready to talk." Actually, I was ready to burst into smoke and flames, but I still refused to surrender my beloved to an uncertain fate. Wasn't that brave of me?

  It's probably an exaggeration to say I suffered three hundred blows of that deadly hairbrush. It felt like three hundred, but then, I was somewhat distracted, and had lost count at approximately the same time I began hiccupping and lost control of my bladder. This didn't seem to upset Bill nor deter him. He merely chuckled, readjusted me over his knee and kept spanking.

  But I won. I held my tongue, and did not tell him where Edward was. (Not then, anyway.)

  Finally, Bill tossed the hairbrush on the bed, and shook his head.

  "Well, little lady, I'll give you this much. You can sure as hell take one hell of a lickin'."

  I sighed and allowed myself a small thrill of triumph between the throb in my rear end and my hiccups. But the triumph was short-lived.

  "You're stubborn, that's for sure, but bein' stubborn's not always bein' smart. And you're a clever little thing–too clever for your own good, really. So, if I was to let you off now, you'd go on bein' stubborn and clever and never get smart like you need to. You're bein' stupid about this, and you just might be puttin' that husband of yours in danger. There's a lot of pretty bad folks around here, and if they get to him before I do..."

  "I came here to ask for your help," I cried. "And you..."

  "Then you'll take me to where he is?"

  "Not now, I won't, you bastard! Why would I trust you now?"

  "Well, then, I reckon you're about to have just about the most painful few minutes of your young life." He pushed me off his lap and stood up. Then, holding me by one arm, he reached into the dresser drawer and pulled out a small bundle wrapped in calico. He placed the bundle on the bed and unrolled it. Inside was a long, flexible rod of perhaps fifteen inches in length, the handle of which was decorated with elaborate Indian beadwork. The shaft of the rod was composed of several strands of rawhide braided tightly together. One end of the braided rod culminated in a cluster of long, thin strips of rawhide. Each strip was about eight inches long, with a small knot at the end. The object's workmanship was beautiful, its braiding and beading exquisite, and its purpose all too evident.

  I am not a splendid horsewoman, although I endured the requisite number of riding lessons at school to allow me to ride to hounds with the gentry, should I care to do so. Alas, joining in that sport would require that I first overcome my revulsion for the sort of people who do that sort of thing. In any event, when Bill tossed the rawhide gadget on the bed, my heart sank. It was unusual in its ornamentation, but I knew a leather riding crop when I saw one.

  "A Comanche chief gave me this, more years ago than I care to remember," Bill said, stroking the thing affectionately. "I reckon you know what it is, and what it might feel like. This fella had himself four wives, all of 'em young and full o' piss and vinegar. He said he got real fine results with this little thing, when one of his ladies got a little too big for her britches. Of course, Comanche ladies don't wear britches, but you get the idea."

  Bill released my arm and pointed to the footboard of the big oaken bed. "I'm gonna need you to take them drawers off–all the way, this time. This Comanche fella told me that this little beauty works best when it goes where it wants to, and gets in all them out of the way places. Now, get your britches off and bend over the tail of the bed, there, as far as you can–and hold on real, real good. As stubborn as you are, it looks like this is gonna take a spell."

  I looked at Bill to see if he was serious. He looked very serious. I looked at the riding crop. I even looked at my scalded bottom in the big mirror above the dresser. And then, with nowhere else to look, and like the craven coward I apparently am, I surrendered.

  A half an hour later, in a wagon loaded with the tools we had found exactly where Edward had hidden them, Bill and I rumbled along the rutted road outside Deadwood to where I had last seen the Time Machine. On the splintered wooden seat of the buckboard, the journey was almost as painful as the spanking I had just undergone, but when I finally saw Edward in the distance, nothing else mattered.

  Edward, of course, was livid.

  "Abigail! Where have you been?" he shouted as we approached the bridge. Apparently, poor Edward had been unable to fix the machine with what tools he had brought with him, and had been waiting for me under the bridge for some hours. He was almost white with fear as he threw his arms around me, barely seeming to notice the presence of Bill, the wagon or the stolen tools.

  "I was about to start back to Deadwood," he exclaimed. Suddenly, he held me at arm's length and glared to me. "You disobeyed me, didn't you, and then you were captured?"

  "Yes," I replied. "But you needn't bother, Edward dear. My crimes and misdeeds have already been punished, and Mr. Hickock here, has brought what you need to fix the machine."

  Edward tried to stop me, but it was too late. I pointed down the road to the spot where we had hidden the machine under a pile of tumbleweeds and thick brush. "It's just there, Bill–beyond that rise, in the gully. Please take Edward with you in the wagon. I would prefer to walk."

  Bill grinned. "I figured you might." He gave Edward a hand up into the wagon. "All right now, let's get this done. I've seen a lot of things in my day, but never an honest to God Time Machine. Your missus has me just about convinced she's not tetched, after all, but I'm still gonna need to see the blamed thing."

  By the time I walked stiffly down the road to the gully, Bill and Edward were chatting quite companionably, and working on straightening the machine's bent runner. I gathered up several large bunches of grass and made a sort of cushion, and then sat uncomfortably on it to watch as they worked. Several people rode by on horseback, and each time, Edward and I hid in the gully while Bill talked with them and sent them on their way.

  "I told them me a
nd Mabel were havin' us kind of a picnic out here," he grinned when we asked how he had gotten rid of the unwelcome visitors. "They're more scared of old Mabel's temper than mine, any day. The main road goes the other direction, so not too many folks come out this way. We won't be troubled much. Now, what else needs fixin' on this contraption of yours? Meanwhile, I'm workin' up one mighty big appetite." He waved up the slope to me. "Why don't you go ahead and open up that basket in the back of the wagon, Abigail, and feed a couple of hungry men?"

  And so, I did. Soon, with Bill's invaluable help, the machine's needed repairs were complete. For a while, as the hot afternoon sun begin to set, Edward showed Bill how it worked and they talked quietly–mostly about the future.

  As Bill loaded the tools back into the wagon for the trip back to Deadwood, I asked Edward if it was possible that Bill could come along.

  "He's ill, you know," I said softly. "He coughs all the time. And I think he's lonely, darling. Perhaps if..."

  Edward shook his head. "We can't do that, Abby. Herbert always made it very clear that we should not—must not—try to alter the past, what has already been. Besides, Bill has very little..." He hesitated, and I saw again in his eyes that terrible something I had noticed before. "What is it, Edward?"

  For a few moments, Edward said nothing. "Today is the second of August, darling. 1876."

  "So?"

  "Sometime today, a man named Jack McCall will walk into the Number 10 Saloon, pull out a gun, and..."

  I remembered, then–not the date, of course, but what had happened in Deadwood, to Wild Bill Hickock.

  "No," I cried. "We can stop it, if..."

  Edward shook his head again. At that moment, Bill finished what he was doing and walked down the slope–to say goodbye.

  "I reckon I'd best be getting' back to town," he said with a grin. "There's usually a good game startin' around now at the Number 10. Can I give you a little bit of advice, Ed, before you ride off?"

  "Sure, Bill. What is it?"

  "Well now, this little lady is your wife, and not mine, but if she was mine, I think I'd make it a habit to roll outta bed first thing every mornin' and take my razor strop to her ass. I'd know in my bones she was plannin' on doin' somethin' to earn it before noon. And with that in mind, you might want to take this along, just in case." He handed the Comanche riding crop to Edward. "This hasn't been used in some time, but it comes highly recommended."