Taft Ranch: A Thunder Mountain Novel

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  But even if they did, Duster had no idea what Lee would do. Lee and Dr. Failor would be just too far into the future.

  The crystals that were there after the event would only jump them back a hundred years, if the boxes still worked. Duster was certain the boxes would work, but the boxes would limit how far they could come.

  In other words, Lee and Dr. Failor were trapped after the event. And there was no way anyone could get to them.

  Or even send a message into the future to them.

  TWENTY-TWO

  September 8th, 2728

  Boise, Idaho

  LEE AND JOAN made the institute on Warm Springs Avenue by five in the evening, with less than an hour of daylight left. In the camping shop, Lee had picked up a couple small lanterns that burned a paraffin fuel, but he hoped they didn’t have to use them.

  “Wow, looks like it hasn’t changed at all,” Joan said, staring at the Victorian mansion tucked among massive old oak and willow trees.

  Lee could see lots of weeds and places the old building needed a lot of work, but she was right, the building looked almost identical to how it had looked when Duster and Bonnie and a few others built it in 1880.

  Considering all the crumbling modern architecture they had been walking through, it felt like a familiar friend welcoming him home.

  They went up on the wide wooden porch, moving carefully to make sure no boards had rotted out, and then to the massive wooden front door.

  “Locked or unlocked?” Joan asked.

  “Unlocked,” Lee said. “The disaster that killed everyone came with no warning. And besides, no one ever locked this door.”

  She nodded and he tested the door, pushing it open on hinges that squealed.

  Lights came up as they entered and he sighed with relief.

  “That’s a good sign, right?” Joan asked.

  “A very good sign,” Lee said. “If there’s power, we can hope there’s going to be fresh water as well, just as with the mall. This complex is completely self-contained and has been from day one.”

  “This place looks like it was frozen in 1880,” Joan said, looking around at the long drapes, the period couches, the old desk, everything.

  “Historical institute,” he said. “Part of the charm and the cover.”

  Lee went to where he knew a hidden doorway was and pushed on a latch and the door slid open in the wood panel.

  “That’s nifty,” Joan said, following him into the hallway beyond.

  It hadn’t changed either, as far as Lee could tell.

  He went to the staircase and led Joan downward.

  Lights came on as they descended and turned off behind them.

  Finally, at the bottom, he pulled on a large door, holding his breath that it would open.

  It did and he stepped into what everyone in his time called the living room. The lights came up and behind him Joan said, “Wow.”

  The room was a large cavern with a kitchen against the black lava rock on one wall, bathrooms off to one side, many, many couches and chairs, and a massive stone fireplace filling the middle.

  Doors and corridors led off of the big space in all directions.

  The furniture was still in place and the kitchen counter looked solid.

  He had spent many an hour sitting at that counter talking with Bonnie and Duster.

  He moved over and put his pack on the counter, then stood and looked around. It seemed the same, yet very modern. Some of the couches and chairs were clearly from the time of the disaster, while others were from previous time periods.

  “This is really amazing,” Joan said. “But what I find encouraging is that there are no bodies here.”

  Lee sort of jerked and looked around. She was right, no bodies.

  He took a deep breath and tried to let himself think.

  “Is it encouraging?” Joan asked.

  “I think it might be,” Lee said, nodding. “It means they jumped in here after the disaster that killed everyone. So time is still going forward for those crystals that might be able to get us back to a time before the disaster.”

  But he had a hunch it wasn’t going to work that way.

  TWENTY-THREE

  September 8th, 2728

  Boise, Idaho

  JOAN COULDN’T BELIEVE the massive cavern that was under the old Victorian home. She had driven along Warm Springs Avenue many times and past this building and always marveled at how amazing it looked.

  But now, being under it and knowing this cave had been under it in her time just shocked her.

  “So what do we do now?” Joan asked Lee, who was standing at the counter, clearly lost in thought.

  “We need to explore,” he said, nodding to her.

  He led her in the direction across the cavern toward a door to the back left of the big cave and then down two flights of stone stairs.

  She was very relieved when the lights in the stairways came on as they descended. This could have easily been one of those closed-in dark places she hated so much.

  “So do you know where we are heading?”

  Lee nodded and opened a door at the bottom of the stairs to show beyond a large, empty cavern.

  Joan was again shocked. This entire complex must have stretched for a long way along Warm Springs Avenue. How could the city not know about it?

  “This was where all the supplies were kept for those traveling back into the Old West, meaning Boise from 1890 onward. You got dressed here for the time period you were heading to.”

  She nodded, looking around at the massive cavern. This could have held more clothes and supplies than five department stores.

  He went across the big room with her following. A long wall of doors stood open on the other side. He looked in the first door and shook his head, clearly not happy with what he saw.

  She could see that the room was carved out of solid stone and was long and very narrow, with wire fence running down both sides. There were spots in the rock walls behind the wire fence carved out.

  “Let me guess,” she said, “the crystals were in those places in the walls.”

  Lee nodded.

  He moved over a door and looked in, again shaking his head. “The crystal I used to go back the last time had been in here.”

  “That’s the one I am from?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “You and I are from every crystal that had been in all these rooms. Every timeline was so identical, it was impossible to tell them apart. But yes, a crystal in this room was my gateway to that timeline and the events in that timeline happened to me and you in every crystal at the same time.”

  She let that sink in for a moment as she stared down the long, narrow cave at the hundreds, maybe thousands of niches in the rock walls.

  “As I said before, thinking about timelines really can give a person a headache,” she said.

  He just laughed softly.

  “So why do they take the crystals away?” Joan asked.

  “The institute functions as a sort of way station,” Lee said. “Except for the crystals that had been in here, a traveler from any time can only go back a maximum of one hundred years. Then they have to change rooms to keep going back, if they have permission.”

  “Like changing trains,” Joan said.

  Lee nodded. “A failsafe that Duster and Bonnie put into every device when they set up this institute.”

  “So we need to find where the last crystals are and jump back a hundred years,” she said, surprised that those words had even come out of her mouth.

  Lee nodded, but didn’t look happy. “I’m betting the disaster that killed everyone was more than a hundred years ago. That means those crystals have been sitting here for that long and no new ones put in because no one could get very far past the disaster.”

  Joan stared at him where he stood thinking.

  If that was the case, they could jump back a hundred years and still be trapped here, after the time the world was destroyed.

  She didn’t want to panic,
but for the first time since being in that mine tunnel, she was starting to feel that way.

  Lee finally nodded to himself. “Let’s go see if we can find the crystals,” he said. “At least that will be a start. I just hope Duster and Parks didn’t come in after the disaster and remove them all.”

  “Why would they do that?” Joan asked, turning to follow Lee back across the empty cavern toward the door.

  “More than likely they wouldn’t,” Lee said. “But when you can spend an eternity in the past with live people, not much reason to come to the world we just walked through.”

  She had to admit that he had a point there.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  September 8th, 2728

  Boise, Idaho

  LEE AND JOAN explored empty cavern after empty cavern, climbing up and down stone stairs for almost an hour before Joan said they needed a break. Lee wanted to keep going, but his feet were hurting and he knew she was right.

  They went back to the kitchen area of the big cavern and both of them used the rest rooms, which still had water flowing, same as the big mall.

  Lee then tried the stove behind the counter and was surprised that it actually worked. He boiled some water and cooked another of the beef stew camping meals. They sat at the counter drinking water and eating stew.

  He had no idea if they could find the crystals, if there still were crystals here, or if the wooden boxes that Bonnie and Duster had built that allowed someone to step into the past of a timeline would still work.

  And if it did work, would the limit of one hundred years still hold them to a place after the disaster that killed everything and everyone?

  About halfway through their meal, Joan asked, “You didn’t know about the disaster. Do you think Bonnie and Duster did?”

  “I think so,” Lee said. “I always found it odd that he never talked about the institute moving forward past the year 2318. I never asked, but sort of guessed that something happened in the next hundred years.”

  “But it looks like this disaster happened in just over a hundred years ago,” Joan said, “not four hundred years ago.”

  “I agree,” Lee said. “But from the looks of how modern all this is around here, how it fits with the world, they clearly made it up to the disaster.”

  “And they had to come in here after and clear out the bodies of those who died,” Joan said.

  Lee shook his head and glanced at the beautiful woman sitting beside him. “Wouldn’t work that way. Lots of them might have died, but the moment someone unplugged a crystal and came back after the disaster, they would go back and save everyone from even dying in the first place. Since that would be what would happen in every timeline because there would be no decision to not do that, no one would actually be killed here.”

  She shook her head. “Headache again.”

  He laughed. “You are actually grasping this better than most ever would.”

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. “But not sure that means much.”

  “It actually helps a lot,” he said.

  They finished up their meals, put their dishes in the sink, and then headed back in search.

  It was on the third flight of stairs after lunch they had gone down that they found the cavern that still had supplies in it. Tables of stuff, seemingly miles of clothing. Of course, all the supplies were well over a hundred years old, most of the clothing rotted and useless, but it made Lee clap his hands in excitement.

  “I don’t recognize much of any of this stuff,” she said. “I feel like someone from the fifteen hundreds looking at a department store from nineteen eighty-five.”

  He had to agree with her. That’s exactly what it felt like. Most of stuff and a lot of the clothes looked odd and a bunch of things he flat didn’t recognize or could even figure out what they were used for.

  He led the way through the cavern and to the first door with crystals and opened it.

  It was a heavenly sight.

  A thousand crystals glowed along both walls and wooden tables sat in the middle of the long cavern.

  Wires ran from boxes on the tables toward an area of crystals on the other side of the wire fence.

  “Oh, my,” she said as she stood beside him in the door.

  He walked over and touched the first wooden box. It seemed solid enough. And the wires seemed flexible enough. The devices might still be working.

  He turned and smiled. “Let’s go get our packs and see if we can catch a train out of here.”

  “Wow, does that sound wonderful.”

  He had to agree. It did.

  It really did.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  September 8th, 2628

  Boise, Idaho

  JOAN HAD HERSELF scared to death by the time they got their packs and made it back down to the crystal room.

  “What is this going to feel like?” she asked Lee as he picked up a pair of gloves and went through the wire cage and hooked ends of the wires to wires around the crystal.

  “Did you feel anything when we jumped into the cavern?” Lee asked as he came out of the cage and hooked a black wire to a black terminal on one of the boxes.

  “Not a thing,” she said.

  “That’s what it feels like,” he said. “Nothing, no movement, no time in transit, nothing.”

  She nodded.

  She watched as he set a timer on the box for September 8th, 2628, one hundred years in the past from where they stood.

  Then he hooked up the other wire and took off the gloves.

  “Got your pack on your back securely?” he asked, checking his pack as he asked.

  She checked her pack and nodded. “Got it.”

  “Now when I say so, touch the wooden box with one bare hand at the same moment I do,” he said.

  She nodded. There was no chance she could even speak. Regular terror moments seemed to be a part of this entire thing.

  “Three, two, one, now,” Lee said.

  They both touched the wooden box at the same moment.

  “Nothing happened,” she said as they both stepped back.

  The room was exactly the same as a moment before.

  “We should be one hundred years closer to home,” he said. “And if we need to go back to that time, we just unhook those wires.”

  She looked at the two wires still hooked up and nodded.

  He turned and led the way out of the crystal room and into the supply room.

  It was clear at a glance they had made it. Same clothes and stuff sat on the tables, but now it all looked new and wasn’t covered with much dust at all.

  They quickly made their way through all the supplies and headed back up the stone staircase toward the main room. She was feeling excited. Were they really going to get home?

  Was this nightmare about to be over?

  The large main room looked almost the same as when they left it. The only difference was that when the lights came up as they entered, they were brighter because fewer bulbs had burnt out.

  But all the furniture was the same and there was no one around.

  Lee put his pack on the counter and turned to her. “We didn’t make it back past the disaster,” Lee said.

  “Damn.”

  Lee nodded and looked around. “We need to go upstairs and outside to try to figure out exactly when the disaster happened.”

  She nodded and followed him to an elevator.

  “You think it’s safe?” she asked.

  “I’m sure it is now, but I sure wouldn’t have tried it a hundred years from now.”

  She nodded to that and a moment after the doors closed they opened again to show the same hidden room they had come in through. Smoothest and fastest elevator she had ever been on.

  Lee opened the secret panel and went back out into the front room that looked like they had stepped back into 1890, then toward the big wooden front door.

  Outside, the evening air had a bite to it and everything was deadly silent. Not even a wind rustled the leaves in t
he oak trees around them.

  The lights of the mansion were the only lights in the entire town that she could see.

  Lee went down the sidewalk and out the front gate of the institute, heading toward one of the driverless cars. Lee stayed right with him.

  In the back seat of the strange-looking mini-bus-like car, a person sat, clearly dead.

  She took one look at the body in the sealed car and just shook her head.

  “Got any idea how long ago this person died?”

  She nodded. “At least twenty years ago.”

  Lee just stood there, saying nothing as behind them the lights of the mansion blinked off, leaving them in darkness in the middle of a futuristic street next to a dead person.

  “Now what do we do?” she asked softly.

  He reached out and took her hand and they turned back toward the mansion. “I honestly don’t know.”

  And that from the most brilliant man she had ever met scared her more than anything had so far.

  PART FIVE

  Impossible Choices

  TWENTY-SIX

  August 7th, 2018

  Central, Idaho

  DUSTER, BONNIE, DAWN, and Parks all just sat staring into space, thinking, as a waiter cleared off their dinner plates and brought them all coffee. Duster ignored the coffee and got a refill of iced tea instead.

  His steak had been good, but he really hadn’t enjoyed it.

  After the waiter was gone, they still just sat there.

  No one saying a word.

  All of them were trying to figure out a way to save Lee and Dr. Failor, but Duster had no doubt that if they could be saved in all timelines, Lee and Dr. Failor had to do it themselves.

  But even then, if they had made decisions along the way, then timelines split off where they didn’t save themselves. But Duster hoped that Lee understood that and made pretty much all logical decisions, so the split timelines just merged back in.