by D. L. Koontz
What in the name of all that’s sensical did that mean?
Most disturbing, why had a man been watching her from the oak grove tonight? And, why had that scared him to death? When the man shifted his stance, Brogan had caught a metallic reflection in the moonlight. A gun. That prompted a flash of a memory to race at him, but veer away before he could assess it, decipher it. He wasn’t sure why, but he had needed to remove the woman from the man’s sight. He’d seen this stranger around town a few times, he was certain.
The woman stirred and put her hands on her forehead as though to stop it from throbbing. Or, was it to induce thinking? She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him.
“You!” she said, her voice hoarse, her face awash with confusion. “You grabbed me?”
A tightness entered his chest. He shifted his gaze to the left where he steered the car to a crawl then off the road across gravel into a wooded area. They were almost there. He didn’t want to alarm her further, but their conversation could wait. His experiences had taught him temperance and the dangers of speaking and acting too soon.
A large opossum scurried from the glow of the headlights and disappeared into the dark. Once Brogan would have shot him and happily brought him home for dinner. Now, the thought of opossum on his plate turned his stomach.
“Are you taking me to jail?” Her voice cracked.
He didn’t answer, instead maneuvering the motorcar to a stop. After turning off the engine, he reached into the back to retrieve the lantern he kept there. He pulled matches from his pocket and lit the cloth wick.
“Where are we?” She peered into the darkness beyond the car, but he was aware she could see nothing. No people. No buildings. Certainly no jail. “Why did you bring me here?” A new fear settled in her voice. The light was too dull for him to read her face.
He clenched his jaw. Did she think him an unscrupulous kind of sheriff who determined to swap certain favors for her freedom? She had no idea how important her safety was to him. Especially after what he’d just seen.
“What do you want from me? I didn’t kill Hardin.” Her voice shook. “He was burned beyond help. It’s hard to explain. You have no right to bring me here.”
He flinched. She was right.
She looked at him with a strength he found a little disarming, yet her tone wavered between annoyance and fear. “You don’t say much, do you?”
“You’re safe,” he said. “We need to talk privately. I’ll get your door,” he said, reaching for his own door handle.
“Shouldn’t you be at the fire?”
He slumped back in the seat. “My first responsibility is to victims. No one else was in danger. There is an alley on one side and an empty business on the other.” Why was he explaining himself to her? “N.C. and Roscoe will guard and investigate. I’ll return later. I wasn’t certain of your status...” but my heart pounded when I saw you in the middle of the blaze “...or of Hardin’s situation so I followed you.”
She sucked in her lips as if she wanted to argue more but wasn’t quite sure what to say. Ignoring his offer about the door, she shoved it open and scrambled out, heaving it shut behind her.
He shook his head at her stubbornness, then climbed out too.
“This way,” he said. “Please don’t run. You’re safer with me than anything out there.” He nodded at the darkness.
She followed him in barbed silence as he led her about fifty feet from the car, into a sloping grove of trees and around an outcropping of rocks. The trees thinned, opening into a small clearing. Stopping, he pulled another match from his jacket pocket and held it in the lantern flame until it caught. He took two more steps and lit a torch that rose from the ground at least four feet into the air. Then five more steps and lit another. He knew their location and height well because he had placed them there.
The new light revealed a stone fireplace standing alone, as though a house once stood there, and the chimney was all that survived. He took off his jacket, draped it across a log positioned between the torches, and gestured for her to sit. She hugged her arms, moved to the log, and plunked onto the jacket.
Looking around, she wrinkled her nose, but didn’t ask about the aroma.
“Fresh wood.” He pointed into the darkness. “I’m building a cabin.”
Her eyebrows arched a fraction, but she said nothing.
“You ought to take those wet shoes off,” he suggested. “If you’re chilled you could wrap your feet in my jacket instead—”
“It’s warm tonight. I’m fine.” She kicked free of her shoes and wiped her feet dry with her hands. “Why are we here?” She sounded resigned, and spoke in hushed tones, as though the still of the darkness demanded mute voices.
“I know you put Hardin Lochery in the water.” He folded his lean frame a comfortable distance from her onto the log.
She took a deep breath, as if marshaling her forces, but said nothing, shifting her gaze to the ground. Thanks to the torches, he could see her better. At times. At others, the wavering lights created more shadows than they dispelled, and that annoyed him.
“But,” he continued, “I know you probably gave him a new life by doing so.”
Her head snapped up and her gaze met his, but she remained silent.
He pulled off his hat, placed it on the log between them, and ran a hand over his head. “You’re a traveler as well, aren’t you?”
Her rigidness unfurled and relaxed like a plant seeking the sun, understanding dawning on her face. She covered her mouth with both hands. Finally, she said, “A traveler,” like she was testing the word. “Do you mean as well as Hardin or...are you saying...”
“As well as me,” he clarified, leaning forward to park his elbows on his knees and clasp his hands together.
“So...by traveling... you mean...”
“Taking the water and going to another time,” he finished.
They stared at one another, and he watched any remaining guardedness melt.
“When did you—” Their voices collided with the same question.
A startled pause fell.
She studied his face. “Three months ago. From 2016. You?”
Only three months? Her husband was back in 2016? “Nine years ago. From 1769. I was born Nathan McKenzie in 1743.”
Confusion or disappointment crossed her face. But which? It was there, but quickly gone.
She closed her eyes. “Incredible...This whole time-travel thing, do you ever wonder if we’re being punished?”
“Punished?” He cocked his head. “No, just the opposite.”
She shot him a look of curiosity.
“I think we’ve been blessed.” He shrugged. “God made the mineral water, right? So, it’s because of Him we have a new start.”
“A new start,” she echoed, but with a tone of dismay. “What if we were okay with our old start?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think the point is how long you stay in a place. More important is what you do while you’re there. To make it a better place. It’s a new chance. Like you gave Hardin tonight.”
She remained still, staring at him.
He whistled an exhale, fighting the thought that while there was complete surprise in this development, there was also a comfort in not being alone in this twisted time journey. Since Ista’s departure, he’d grown lonely as a castaway, seemingly the sole survivor the water had deposited on foreign terrain.
He chose his next words carefully to nudge her to relax. “Twenty sixteen. I can’t fathom that year. But, I’m not surprised. You seem very...independent. This women’s movement for equal everything, it’s successful then?”
She exhaled a shaky breath and shook her head, as though this wasn’t the conversation she anticipated. “It may seem successful to you, but women in the future would argue with that conclusion.”
He considered that. “My secretary Jean says women want equal pay for meaningful work.”
A slow smile grew on her lips and inched to her eyes.
“She sounds like a smart lady.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. I’m a little stifled by it all. When I’m from, everyone worked. Man, woman, child. It was a matter of survival. Women dreamed of not working. But always, women were to be cherished and protected. Respected. It was a code of conduct a gentleman followed. I’m not much understanding these changes and what women want.”
She raised a brow. “Wow.”
Was that fascination he heard in her voice, or consternation? He looked at the ground. Best to change the subject. He didn’t want to upset her or make her feel like this was an interrogation, but there were things, random things, he needed to understand and he found her intriguing. “Why didn’t you scream back there? When I grabbed you?”
She studied him, as though trying to determine the reason for his question. “A scream would dull my senses momentarily, and it wouldn’t stop you if you intended to hurt me.” To his dismay, her tone grew serious. “If I’d thought there was help within earshot, I would have. But, I heard a noise in the woods right before you grabbed me. I figured someone was with you so my best bet was to be quiet so that he’d have more trouble catching up to us.” She shrugged. “I thought I could get away from one, but not two men. Now, I assume he wasn’t with you.”
“No.”
Another silent beat fell.
“You thought all that,” Brogan said, “in one moment? That’s...astonishing. You sound like you’ve been trained to react.”
“I have been. At least,” she looked away, “I’ve come to believe I have.”
“Your memory isn’t restored yet?”
She looked back at him and shook her head. “Yours?”
“Memories still elude me. The person who took care of me when I arrived said I should continue my healing by drinking a lot of the mineral water. That it would help me remember. But, some of the memories that came back to me were so painful, I stopped.”
Her face flattened of all emotions. In a hushed tone, she said, “Me, too.”
When she spoke those two words, that same strange current passed between them, the one he’d noticed at Gil Harris’s murder site in town. He liked it so much, he felt a compulsion to stay right there forever. After she’d lost her hat at the spring, her hair had come undone in their struggle and it now caressed her shoulders. He watched the flickering light dance on her locks, illuminating and turning them the colors of low-burning flames. He had the strangest urge to touch it, to see if it was as thick and soft as it looked.
She disturbed his thoughts by pulling her knees close and wrapping her hands around them. “You said someone helped you after you came forward in time?”
He nodded. “She’s not here anymore.”
“She? But, weren’t you naked?” She bit her lip.
He could swear she found humor in that picture, and he grinned. “It was a bit hard making eye contact with her after that. But, she was like a mother to me.” He reached down and picked up a twig and picked at its bark. “What about you? You must have been...unclothed as well.”
“He’s not around either.”
He? Why had he hoped it would be a woman that helped her? He shifted position on the log. “When I first arrived, I returned to the spring several times a week. Just sat there and stared into it. Wondering how all this was possible. I was flabbergasted.”
She chuckled. “Flabbergasted? I wouldn’t have thought that would be a word used much in the seventeen hundreds.”
He liked her smile, her laugh. “It wasn’t. I’ve had to change my vocabulary quite a bit. Adopt contractions. Drop the thees and thous.”
She nodded. “I’m well-versed in languages, but I had to hear the term ‘boiled to the ears’ several times before I figured out what people meant.”
“I’m glad to hear certain phrases don’t last.”
She chuckled and nodded, but said nothing.
A cow mooed in the distance, echoing in the still of the late summer air, a reminder of the world beyond this spot. The night was so still, so calm. Brogan breathed it in, liking the moment. He should be discussing Hardin, but he wanted, needed, to learn more about her. It was almost an inherent need. And, he wanted to keep her looking at him in that pleasant way.
“When I saw you at the edge of the spring tonight,” he said, “then saw that same man hiding in the trees and something metal in the moonlight...I experienced a memory, or déjà vu, or something. It was as though I had experienced this before. With you.” He watched her closely. “Does any of that evoke a memory for you?”
She looked like she was giving it effort, trying hard, real hard, to draw upon such a memory, but that it eluded her. “No, I’m sorry.”
He exhaled a sound of futility and plowed a hand over his head again.
Once more, silence fell, and Brogan tracked her gaze to the moon, wondering if she felt the same comfort in familiarity that he felt when he looked in that direction. It was the only constant companion he’d ever had. Everything, and everyone, else had been temporary. Around them the torch fire snapped and responded to gentle breezes, and an owl and a coyote called their lonely sounds.
Libby broke the silence. “You said, ‘that same man’ as though you’d seen him before.”
He nodded. “In town.”
“Who is he?”
Brogan shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably just a familiar face. It is a small town, practically impossible to cough without your neighbors bringing you chicken soup.”
She reacted with a smile, but it came and went quickly. She didn’t appear to be afraid anymore, only puzzled, as though she had a thought. “Still, why would he be there?” she asked, almost to herself.
Yes, why would he be there? That quickly Brogan experienced a clarity. “When I saw him before in town, you were there, too. I’m sure of it.”
“Was he tall or short?”
He thought about it. “I wasn’t close enough to tell. But, judging by the other men that walked near him, he was taller than most.”
Libby looked disappointed. “I had to leave my husband Andrew behind. In 2016. He’s not very tall. You’re certain you saw this man before tonight?”
When Brogan nodded, he could swear her disappointment gave way to a quiver of fear, but it disappeared instantly as she gathered her wits. When at last she spoke, the tone of her question suggested wonderment more than inquisitiveness. “You saw me in town?”
“Several times. I also came to the hotel to see you once. To let you know we caught the guy who murdered Gilbert Harris. Your assessment of the victim was startling. Instrumental in helping us focus our investigation.”
She smirked. “I’m guessing the mayor is not behind bars.”
“Mayor Drenning? He didn’t do it. A man named Ambrose Talbot confessed. Turns out, Harris had been trying to blackmail Talbot over several crimes he discovered that Talbot committed. Talbot confessed to those, too.”
“But the mayor lied about knowing Harris. He withheld evidence.”
“He told me later that day that he knew Harris. The three of them worked stills together. Wanted to avoid the public’s ears.” Brogan smiled. “Drenning’s a bootlegger and an opportunist, but that doesn’t make him a criminal. Half the country is making moonshine and bathtub gin. If I jailed everyone bucking prohibition, there would be more people incarcerated than on the street. Besides, he’s a politician. Are you saying they become more honest in the future?”
She rolled her eyes. “Point taken.”
He flattened his lips. “The mayor has power around here. Powerful men are often careless when it comes to their pursuits.”
“That doesn’t change with time either,” she quipped, stretching out her legs, looking more relaxed. She gazed back at the dark night. “You said seventeen sixty-nine? Before the Revolutionary War. I guess politics were pretty bad in those days. It must actually seem better now.”
“Somewhat.”
“What has surprised you? About this era, I mean.”
He liked her que
stions, her hushed tone. They seemed to close the two of them together in this spot, and he endeavored to answer her question, but his head was aswarm with thoughts of so many changes. How could he list them all? “How the women dress. How forward they are. Dating instead of courting.”
“Courting?”
He nodded “It was more intentional. Purposeful. Like you had identified your desired future and were going after it.”
She offered a half-smile, so he continued.
“Everything is noisier and more expensive now. No more British rule, that was a good surprise. No more Indian raids and scalpings...sorry to be graphic. Motorcars. Airplanes. A country that spans from ocean to ocean, amazing. Oh,” he clicked two fingers together, “indoor plumbing and wringer washer.”
She chuckled. “Wringer washer?”
“We used to catch rainwater in a log trough under the cabin eaves, or haul it in pails from the creek. Then, we heated it in a pot over an outdoor fire, before beating the clothes on a rock to get the dirt out. Drying was on the fence or hung from rafters in the cabin. Now we have wringer machines and clothes lines.”
Libby laughed harder and he liked the sound of it.
“The most startling change though, is the free time everyone has. Where...when I come from, every minute was spent working or hunting or preparing a meal. If there was any time left, we would sleep, then get up and do it all over again.”
“I can’t imagine that life.” She pulled her brows together and twisted her lips as though wrestling with something beyond comprehension. “And yet, I don’t know why, but it feels familiar. Perhaps it’s the way you describe it.”
Brogan studied her. What would she think of the world he left?
“For me,” she said, “it was the poverty. I’ve driven the countryside and observed how people live. In the future, the poorest people we consider poverty-stricken still live ten times better than these people. They have their own cars...motorcars, and dish satellites, cell phones and televisions. Most at taxpayer expense, no less.”
He thought about that. He knew what a dish was, but not a satellite. He wasn’t sure what a cell phone was either. He repeated the word that struck him as most intriguing, “Television,” he said as if he were trying the sound of it.