27

Quinn didn’t respond the first time his name was called.

Holding a clipboard, a sour-faced man with stringy hair stood in front of a rowdy group of young men. In answer to the ad for West Side cowboys, they had all come to the makeshift metal hut near the Hudson River.

“Ahem. I repeat—number seven—Roper! Quinn Roper!” The man’s nasal voice rang out.

Corey elbowed Quinn, who was slumped against the back of a stiff wooden chair, fast asleep. “That’s you,” Corey whispered.

“Wha— Huh—?” Quinn said.

“They called your name,” Corey said. “Your turn.”

They were both exhausted from the night at the Better Ridgefield Hotel. Corey didn’t know which was worse—the bug-infested horsehair mattress he’d slept on, or the metal chair from which Quinn had not moved all night. Now, at seven in the morning, they were jammed together with dozens of men in a tin hut. Although the entrance was open to the river, Corey couldn’t even feel a hint of a breeze.

Two rows in front of them, a smirking, skinny guy turned to his neighbor and said, “Watch this.” He popped up from his seat and began strutting toward the front. “Yup—I’m Roper! That’ll be me!”

Instantly awake, Quinn leaped to his feet. “No, you ain’t.”

He unhooked the rope from his shoulder. As he twirled it over his head, the man sitting next to him ducked away. Quinn sent the lasso flying over the heads of the other men. It fell around the skinny guy, pinning his arms to his sides. “What the devil?” he shouted.

“Follow me,” Quinn said to Corey. Stepping quickly into the aisle, he yanked on the rope. As the hapless impostor fell to the floor, a cheer went up from the room.

“Excuse me . . . excuse me . . . ,” Corey said, stepping over the other men as he tried to follow Quinn.

“Git along, li’l dogie!” Quinn shouted, dragging the startled man toward him up the aisle floor. Now everyone in the room was standing. The guy was kicking and screaming as Quinn yanked him to his feet. Pulling the guy’s face close, Quinn growled, “Don’t. You. Ever. Do. That. Again.”

With easy, quick moves, he untied the guy, coiled the rope back up around his shoulder, and strode to the front of the room. “Here I am, sir!”

The place exploded with laughter and whoops. Guys crowded the aisles to pat Quinn on the back. Chairs fell to the floor. In front, the guy with the clipboard began banging a hammer on a desktop. “Order! Order!”

Corey fought his way through the excited throng. As he and Quinn got to the front, the leader had to shout to be heard over the din. “Well, that sure was a humdinger.” He offered Quinn a bony hand. “Name’s Jensen.”

“Roper,” Quinn said. “This here’s my best friend, Fletch. We come as a pair.”

“A pair?” Corey said.

Quinn elbowed him in the side.

“I hire person by person,” Jensen said. “Not pair by pair.”

“We can split the fee,” Quinn said with a shrug. “Either that, or we both walk, and you lose the best, bravest, and most reliable men here.”

Jensen gave them each a long, appraising look. “Well, ya made me laugh. No one makes me laugh in the morning. Guess that oughtta be good for something. Follow me. But remember, if ya can’t ride, ya lose the job.”

Jensen led Quinn and Corey out the door. He walked with a noticeable limp, grabbing a cane that was propped by the entrance.

“What did you just do?” Corey whispered.

“Saved your butt,” Quinn said.

They walked along the river’s edge, heading south. As the din of the metal hut faded away, Corey could hear delighted screams coming from the water. Just ahead, a ladder led down to a small, lopsided dock that looked like it hadn’t been used by boats in years. There, a group of boys were skinny-dipping in the river, their clothes in piles on the dock. One of them spotted Corey and waved. “Water’s nice and cold!” he said. “Come on down!”

After the humid, showerless night at the Better Ridgefield Hotel, Corey was tempted. It sure would be a heck of a lot more fun than trying to ride a horse. “Later!” he called down.

Quinn and Jensen were heading away from the river, up a small hill toward the freight rail. Corey ran to catch up. Near the tracks was a small horse pen and stable. Behind that was a ten-story factory building. In present times, Corey thought, the factory would be barely noticeable. Here, it overwhelmed the landscape.

“The rail’s pretty quiet at this hour,” Jensen said. “But soon the train cars’ll be chugging along. They run uptown, picking up meat from the shops on Gansevoort, then all kinds of goods from the shipyards in midtown. Then up the West Side to the Bronx, Yonkers, and Westchester. Goes on all day and through the night, every day. But this area here—this is where we have the safety problems. You’d think people would be smart enough to stay off the tracks, hah! Some of the drunks, they see track bed and they want to put a pillow in it and snooze!”

He thought his joke was so funny, he started wheezing with laughter. “Ya get that? Track bed . . . pillow? Hee! Anyways, someday they’re gonna build an elevated track, if they can work out the politics. So for the time being, we need guys like you. Your job is to ride the horses in front of the trains and clear the tracks. Go too fast, and something could slip onto the tracks behind you. Go too slow, that train sneaks up faster’n you think, and your horse gets killed. Or you. Okay, wait here. I’ll choose suitable steeds, one for each of you.”

“No need to choose.” As Quinn eyed the horses, he put his hand gently on the guy’s shoulder. “I’ll take the roan. Corey will like the chestnut.”

Jensen gave him a curious but strangely impressed look. “Oh? The chestnut is new. He’s still a little meek.”

“We’ll take him anyway.” Quinn shrugged. “Hey, just saving you the headache of picking the right ones.”

“All righty—Thunder and Paisley it’ll be, then,” Jensen replied, turning toward the pen.

Corey gave Quinn a look. “I hope Thunder’s for you,” he said.

“Yup.” Quinn smiled. “Paisley will be as obedient as a mouse. Trust me. I know how to pick ’em.”

Corey didn’t trust horses. He was afraid Paisley would wander to the dock, dive in, and swim to New Jersey. That would be just his luck.

But Quinn had been right about this one. Paisley was easy to ride and agreeable.

Their test: trot down a siding, and make sure to clear it as efficiently as possible. Corey quickly learned that a “siding” meant a section of track that went nowhere—it led off to the side, kind of a parking area for trains. Jensen and his men had booby-trapped the rails with life-size dummies, branches, tree trunks, a car tire or two, and a baby carriage. Quinn was a natural, positioning himself just right and using a lasso. He was the one clearing almost all the debris. By the end of the test period, a crowd of bystanders from the neighborhood had gathered to watch.

Corey had a long broom handle. He did manage to push away at least four items. Luckily, none of the bystanders was looking at him.

After it was over, his legs felt wobbly from the riding. The temperature had shot up and the humidity made every inch of fabric stick to him. As he and Quinn dismounted, Jensen’s only comment was, “You’re hired. Report here for the late shift at five o’clock.”

“Both of us?” Quinn said.

Jensen gave him a sour look. “You said that’s the only way you’d do the job, right?”

It wasn’t exactly a compliment, but Corey would take it.

“Thank you, sir!” Quinn said with a deep bow.

As the old guy limped back to the hut, Corey leaped into the air. “Woo-HOO!”

He threw his arms around Quinn. But instead of hugging him back, Quinn pushed himself away. “Woo-hoo?” he said.

“That’s East Coast for yee-hah,” Corey said. “Sorry, dude. I guess hugging isn’t what guys do in Wyoming. In 1917. Whatever. But this is so awesome, Quinn! You taught me how to ride a horse.”

Quinn nodded. His face was red. “Well. You’re . . . awesome, too,” he said. “Dude.”

Corey could hear squeals and splashing from beyond the pilings that lined the river. “Now that we’re free for a while, I have an idea,” he said. “Follow me.”

He ran toward the river and looked over. The group of swimmers had grown. There were maybe twelve of them, half wearing shorts and the other half skinny-dipping. It looked like some of them were brothers. Corey figured their ages were maybe eight to fourteen or so. Everyone looked cool and wet and happy. “Come on down!” a boy called upward.

“No grown-ups here!” another yelled. “So don’t worry about being caught!”

“Twist our arms,” Corey said, turning to climb down.

Quinn stepped to the edge and looked over. Eyes widening, he stepped back. “Nah. I’ll pass.”

“Oh . . . ,” Corey said with sudden understanding. “You can’t swim?”

“I can swim,” Quinn replied. “I just don’t want to.”

The coolness of the river breeze felt great on Corey’s back. He was dying to jump in. “Dude, we were in the Gash, and then that fleabag hotel. We didn’t shower. You didn’t even sleep. Plus, we just spent the morning on horses, I smell like a sewer, and the Hudson’s not polluted like it’s going to be in a few years. So the water will be awesome—”

“I said no,” Quinn snapped. “Do what you want. I’ll do what I want.”

“’Smatter?” one of the kids yelled up. “Ya friend too good for us?”

As Quinn turned to go, one of the boys scrambled up the ladder, darting around Corey. The kid was quick and slippery, and he reached over the piling, pulling Quinn by the ankle.

Quinn was caught off guard. Windmilling his arms, he teetered backward and tumbled over the dock. Corey watched as he arced through the air and splashed into the river.

The boy on the ladder did a backflip after him, and his friends screamed with approval. Corey scrambled down the ladder. By the time he got to the rickety dock, Quinn had emerged, gasping for air and treading water. His hat had come off and gone floating away, but the boy who’d pulled him into the river grabbed it. Smashing it down on his own head, he shouted, “Yippie-ay-oh-ki-yay!”

Lunging through the water, Quinn took his hat back. With his other hand he grabbed the boy by the neck. “Nobody does that to me,” he shouted, jerking his neck forward.

He butted his forehead sharply with the kid’s, who sank back into the water. “Aaaaaay, whadja do that for?” one of the other boys shouted. “It was just a joke!”

With powerful strokes, Quinn swam to the dock. Corey kneeled, extending a hand to help. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Quinn’s face was red. Clasping Corey’s hand, he yanked him off the dock. “Are you?” he shouted, as Corey plunged in.

Now the other boys were hollering again. Corey felt the heaviness of his clothes weighing him down. He swam to the piling and pulled himself up. Quinn had made it to the ladder and was climbing fast, water cascading from his clothes.

“Wait!” Corey said, struggling to his feet.

By the time Corey got to the top of the ladder, Quinn was striding angrily downtown. His wet boots crunched against the rocky soil. Corey ran after him as quickly as he could. “Quinn, sorry!” he shouted.

Quinn spun around. The brim of his waterlogged cowboy hat drooped on both sides like a bonnet, but the expression on his face was no laughing matter. “That’s the thanks I get, huh?” he spat. “Just pull me into the water fully dressed in the only clothes I own, after I said no?”

“That wasn’t me, Quinn,” Corey replied. “It was one of those kids. And what was the big deal, anyway? It’s just water. Your clothes will dry.”

Quinn’s face was red. “You egged them on. Because why? Because my no doesn’t mean anything? Because you know what I want, better than I do?”

“Whoa, I never said that!” Corey protested.

“You know why I left Wyoming? Do you? It’s because everybody knew the best for me. How I should dress, what I should believe, who I should make friends with, what I should be interested in. I thought people were different here. Obviously I was wrong.”

“Dude, look, I know that sucked, okay? Those kids were jerks. But I didn’t mean to diss you. If you’d told me how you felt about stuff like this, I never would have even considered—”

“I don’t have to tell you anything!” Quinn shoved Corey hard. He stumbled backward and fell onto a sharp rock. Pain jolted up his body, taking his breath away. His vision blurred.

Quinn was standing over him now. Corey blinked away the pain. Mustering his strength, he tucked his head down and lurched forward. His shoulders jammed into Quinn’s knees. Crying out in pain, Quinn tumbled on top of him. The two tangled on the ground, rolling in the dirt. Almost instantly Quinn took charge, straddling Corey as if he were a calf in a rodeo. He gripped Corey’s neck, and in an instant Corey was gagging. “Quinn . . . stop. . . .”

“Isn’t there anything you keep to yourself, Corey?” Quinn growled. “Do you understand what private means? Huh?”

“You’re—you’re choking—cchchcghhhh!” Corey said.

With a desperate burst of strength, Corey jammed the heel of his right hand into Quinn’s jaw. He felt the grip loosen. With a cry of pain, Quinn let go, falling to the ground.

Corey slid away. He struggled to his feet, coughing like crazy. Quinn’s hat had fallen off again, and Corey picked it up, flinging it at his attacker. “You think you have it so bad, poor thing,” he snarled. “You want to know my secret? You want to know what I’m keeping private from you? Why I talk funny, and dress funny, and why I want to get back my stuff—and why what you just did was the stupidest thing in the history of the world?”

Quinn turned. His eyes were red, brimming with tears.

“I’m from the future, cowboy!” Corey blurted out. “Happy now? I was born in the twenty-first century, and that’s the truth. Don’t ask me how I got here. But without the artifacts I brought, I am stuck here with you. And it’s the last place in the world I want to be.”

Quinn stared at him, slack-jawed. “But that’s . . .”

“Impossible?” Corey replied. “Yeah, I thought so, too, until it happened. And I don’t care if you believe me or not.”

Quinn shook his head. His eyes were wide and his skin seemed ashy. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

Corey stood, brushing himself off. He was sopping wet from head to foot and he felt miserable. “Must be nice getting away from those mean, naughty people in Wyoming. But at least you have someone to go home to.”

He spun around and began walking back the way he’d come. Anger and sadness and helplessness all collided in his brain. Quinn had been his friend. Having a friend had made all the difference. It had given Corey hope. Taken his mind away from the fact that he was stuck. A prisoner of time.

Now, as far as Corey was concerned, he might as well be dead.

But Quinn was right behind him. Corey felt a hand on his shoulder. “I have a secret, too,” he murmured in a voice so soft Corey almost didn’t hear it.

He turned. “What?”

“I said, I have a secret.”

“I got that,” Corey said. “I meant, ‘What’ as in ‘What is the secret?’”

The cowboy stood, shaking out his hair. He let the rope fall to the ground. Without the ten-gallon hat, his head looked smaller than Corey had expected. “Quinn is a nickname,” he said haltingly, “for Katherine.”