I had a weird dream, which wasn’t wholly unexpected after drinking so much. In it, I was unable to cool off. I stood in the hot Arizona sun, in the middle of Tombstone. The tourists were gone, and I was alone, except for ...
Carter. At least, I thought it was him. His athletic form was at the end of the street. Whenever I tried to walk towards him, he stayed the same distance away. In fact, it was like I was walking in place. Sweating. Craving a damn mocha. With a weird headache.
“Hey, Carter!” I shouted. “You forgot my gift card!” I paused to look around, then up at the sky. “What the hell?” I shielded my eyes with both hands to get a better look.
The sun was rapidly getting closer, larger and brighter.
“Almost time to go.”
I whirled at Carter’s voice, startled to find him standing behind me.
“I have to cover a few things before you leave.” A tablet appeared in his hands.
“Where am I going?” I asked.
“More like, when?” He beamed a warm smile. “That sounded better in my head. Anyway, let’s get started.”
“Oh, right. The eighteen forties. We’re still doing that?”
“Yes! Your brain chips are in!”
“Cool.” I smiled. It wasn’t like I really cared. It was a dream, after all, and I liked Carter. “Shots, too?”
“Yep! You are immune to everything from the Black Death to diseases that don’t exist yet.”
“Awesome.”
“Okay.” He focused on his tablet. “First, you’ll have headaches for a few days, the side effect of brain surgery.”
“Naturally,” I agreed.
“Second, you’ll find over time that what we did is going to materialize rather randomly. We have mastered the how but not the timing yet,” he said, eyes on the screen of his tablet. “Your language and empathic memory skills will hopefully emerge the first week. I’d really appreciate feedback on how they work for consideration of future travelers.”
I shifted feet, half listening, alarm fluttering through me. “Are you worried about that?” I pointed up. The idea of the sun crashing down on us was more concerning than anything Carter said.
“It means I don’t have the time I’d like to cover things,” he said. “Third, don’t go swimming for at least two days. I was going to say don’t go flying, but there’s no chance of that where you’re going.” He chuckled.
Frowning, I stared at him.
“Because they didn’t have planes,” he prodded.
“Oh, right. Cowboys and such. You sure that’s not a problem?” The light was growing hotter, more intense and closer.
I willed myself to wake up, not liking the semi-lucid dream at all. I had never had one so real – or so bizarre – and my body was uncomfortably fevered.
“Fourth, you can always text me,” he said. “Okay? I’ll answer. Always.”
“I don’t have your number.” My phone was in my hand. I started to unlock it when he continued.
“Fifth … someone out there is trying to prevent me from changing history and saving lives.” Carter’s tone grew urgent. “If they succeed in thwarting you, horrible things will happen. There’s a man named Taylor Hansen. He might be dangerous. I need to know what he’s doing back there to figure out his role in all this. So find him and let me know what he’s doing. Then find the Choctaw Indian named Running Bear. Remember whatever happens on or around September twentieth fourth is what eventually results in a million deaths.”
“I understand.”
“Are you taking this seriously?” he searched my gaze.
“Yeah, sure. It’ll be a piece of cake. Go back, find Running Horse and Taylor and –”
“Running Bear.”
“Yeah. Easy.”
He offered a smile. “Thank you for volunteering.”
“No problem. When I get back, we can go drinking again.”
An emotion I didn’t understand flickered across his features. “Sure. I’d like that.” The words weren’t as warm as they had been, and he averted his gaze to the screen of his iPad once more.
Sounds a little bit ominous. I studied him. Or maybe, he was being himself – awkward.
“Sixth and most importantly, whatever you do, play along and don’t panic. They have to believe you’re the person they think you are,” he added. “Oh, and the others might know you’re coming, so be careful.”
“Others?” I echoed.
“People who don’t think history should be changed.”
“Oh, yeah. They’re pretty serious?”
“Very.” Carter nodded solemnly. “You don’t want to get mixed up with their kind.”
“I understand.” I didn’t, but I was overheating, a sign I would probably wake up soon.
“Close your eyes. It gets bright.”
The world around me was bathed in white-blue light so intense, it hurt my eyes. I found myself obeying out of necessity.
I was too distracted by the idea that the sun was getting ready to fry me alive to consider everything Carter and I had discussed. I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes and began panting, unable to bear the heat. Sweat dripped down my body and soaked my pajamas and my hair. It grew too hot to breathe. The insides of my nostrils burned, and I choked then buried my face into my shoulder to try to protect it from the sun.
“Carter?” I rasped.
“Don’t fight it, Josie. I promise – you’ll be okay.” Eventually.
Did he say the last word or did my drunk, sleeping mind imagine it? The light was too blinding for me to look.
In the distance, I heard what sounded like a sonic boom, and hot, dry air roared by me. I was no longer standing but floating, upright yet unable to reach the ground with my feet.
A second boom went off, followed by the strange crack of a baseball smacking into a concrete wall.
The heat was suddenly gone, along with the light.
Gasping for air, my eyes flew open, and I flung my arms wide, too fevered to touch my own skin.
Cold rain poured from the skies, shocking me at first. Lightning tore through the night, brilliant and bright, before it vanished and just as quickly plunged me once more into darkness.
The world smelled funny, like the area in Tombstone where a man had been super heating and blowing glass by hand. Raindrops pelted my face. The surface beneath me was hard, cool, and smelled of dirt.
I was definitely not in bed, and the sensations were too real for me not to be awake. I was on my back, gazing up at a night sky. It took a moment for the fast moving clouds to take shape beyond the sunspots left over from the brilliant light.
Disoriented, I pushed myself up and looked around. I lay in the bottom of a steaming crater, right at its center. At first I thought I was surrounded by water, until I recognized the glassy, green rock.
“Moldavite,” I recited. “Occurs when dirt and dust are thrown into the atmosphere after a meteorite hits the earth.”
Moldavite was rare – and sold for a huge price. If I took some back to my aunt, I knew her jeweler could make me something from it and I could sell the rest to pay down my student loans. A thrill went through me at the discovery and I stretched towards the nearest pile. It was still soft. The weird sensation of malleable glass made me withdraw. Wiping my hand self-consciously on my wet yoga pants, I took a second look around.
How did I get to the center of a crater? Beneath me was earth, and surrounding me, moldavite. As if I had been there when the meteorite struck.
As if I were the meteorite. I touched the edge of a thick chunk of moldavite near one foot. It was still soft enough for me to push an indent into but cooling rapidly. No longer super heated, it had not yet frozen into its permanent shape yet, either.
This shit is worth a fortune. And there was a ton of it. If I weren’t somewhere I shouldn’t have been, I would have been calculating how to transport the rare rocks to the hotel before someone else found them.
More than the chilly rain caused the shudder that ran down my spine. Aside from feeling fevered, I was in the pajamas I normally went to sleep in. I seemed healthy or at least, uninjured.
Beyond the moldavite and patch of dirt were natural, rock-dirt walls about six feet tall topped by swaying grasses battered by the winds of the storm.
Had a meteorite hit Tombstone and flung me out of harm’s way?
Confused, I shifted to my knees. I felt … weak. As if my muscles were having difficulty remembering how to walk.
That makes no sense! Frustrated, I climbed to my feet. One pocket of my pajamas was heavy, and I reached in to see why. My cell phone was there. Satisfied I could call for help, once I was out of the crater, I ventured onto the moldavite.
My feet sank into the soft glass, and I grimaced. Wobbling, I caught myself twice as I made my way to the edge of the meteor pit. Rain quickly filled my footsteps, leaving behind an eerie trail. I made it up the slope and over the edge of the crater before pausing at my second obstacle: the dirt wall that was my height.
Fevered and tired with the mild throb of an alcohol-headache, I leaned against the earthen wall standing between the prairies and me. It was much cooler than I expected, and I pressed my forehead to a flat stone for a moment. The rain was cold, and it felt good against my burning skin.
How did I survive being flung out of the city into the grasslands? I wasn’t hurt that I could tell. The last thing I really remember was staggering through town with Carter.
Had he been thrown out of the town, too? What if he was hurt? What if my aunt and uncle were?
Someone’s hand stuck out over the edge of the crater. I blinked, uncertain if I was seeing things or not. It was a strong hand, with a wide palm and long fingers. Definitely a man’s hand by its size. What looked like a thick bone and leather bracelet was around his wrist.
I had been talking to Carter and then …
No. I had been dreaming of talking to Carter when a meteorite hit and flung me out of the dream and Tombstone simultaneously.
I shook my head. The series of events that ended with me in a meteorite made no sense.
First things first. Get out of this hole.
The man waiting with his hand extended spoke, his low voice barely above a whisper. Engulfed in trying to recall what happened, I didn’t catch what he said and moved away from the wall.
I took his hand. He gripped mine with both of his and deftly lifted me out of the crater. I swung one leg to the edge of the pit and then the other.
He released me.
I wobbled.
The stranger steadied me with his hands on my arms. Startled, I looked up, expecting to find Carter or one of the hotel workers holding me. Lighting illuminated his features.
He was a man I had never seen before whose face was hidden beneath a layer of dark paint that appeared impervious to the rain. He wore a combination of cowboy and tribal Indian period dress: workpants that might’ve been the predecessor to jeans with a gun belt slung low over narrow hips, and a leather vest and band around his forehead to keep medium length hair in place. Face paint over the upper half his features hid what he looked like.
Lighting slashed across the sky and lit up his eyes. They were pale green, a striking shade of mint I had never seen before.
My cold hands were against his warm chest, and I curled my fingers instinctively, uncertain if I should be touching him yet startled by how solid and muscular his lean frame was. Shivering, I huddled closer to him until I was pressed to him, not caring what he thought.
One of his arms went around me. He spoke, but the words warbled through my mind as if I hadn’t quite awaken fully yet.
The man was confusing me, neither cowboy nor Indian, and dressed in the clothing of the eighteen hundreds when it was clearly past the tourist hours of Tombstone. On the plus side, he was built like someone whose lean strength was honed from daily use rather than the bulk of a gym. He had absolutely no body fat that I could feel.
This time when he spoke, it came out nonsense.
Or maybe, some Native American dialect. I had only heard it in movies and had no idea for sure. Had I been blown out of my hotel and into a nearby reservation?
Another voice answered him before his attention returned to me.
“English?” I murmured.
“Who are you?” he demanded in a gravelly voice. “What’re you doing here?”
That I understood.
“J…Josie. Josie Jackson,” I managed.
There was a surprised moment of silence, and then, “Not again!” He released me and spun, stalking away, leaving me alone in the cold.
What the hell does that mean?
I watched him join two other men dressed from head to foot like Native Americans, who were mounted and waiting on horseback. He flung himself onto the horse with no effort – and no saddle. They appeared to be unaffected by the downpour. Muscular thighs pressed to the horse’s belly, and he picked up reins to a bridle much simpler than any I had ever seen during all my years of dressage.
“Let me guess. You’re John’s daughter.” The man I had never met before was angry with me.
“Yes,” I said. “How do you know that?” My parents have been dead for twenty years!
Ignoring me, he spoke rapidly to the two Native Americans waiting.
I experienced a sense of being disconnected, like watching myself in a dream, except that all my senses were painfully aware. Shaking from cold, I rubbed my arms to warm them while attempting to process what the hell happened that I ended up here.
It had something to do with Carter. I didn’t quite understand the instinct, except that we’d been talking about going back in time.
An odd feeling washed over me, one that sat heavily in my stomach. I was awake and aware but nowhere I could recall ever being. The clouds above had slowed from their frantic movement. The thunder was growing distant, and the rain was beginning to subside.
Dressed like cowboys and Indians after hours. Riding horses bareback. Some random stranger claiming to send me to another time in a dream. Uneasiness went through me at the train of thought that was inching towards a possibility I didn’t feel was remotely plausible.
“For only trade,” one of the Native Americans said, motioning past me.
“Trade?” Unable to decipher his meaning, I watched him. “What do you mean?”
He held up a piece of the moldavite.
Understanding crossed through me. They knew it was worth something, which meant my plan to repay my student loans wasn’t going to work.
I turned away. Walking to the edge of the crater, I stared into it. It still steamed, and there was a plume of dust hanging in the air, as if the meteorite had recently hit. Chunks of mossy, glassy moldavite glowed in the occasional lightning, giving the place an eerie appearance, as if it wasn’t quite part of this world.
How had I ended up in the middle of a crater?
My skin was fevered but I felt cold inside, as if some part of me knew the world was no longer mine.
“We should go.” The curt direction from the cowboy with green eyes jarred me, reminded me that I wasn’t alone. He moved his horse close enough for me to feel its heat.
“So cold,” I murmured and huddled next to the great animal’s neck. “But I think I should stay here.”
“You’re trespassing on the Indians’ lands, ma’am,” was the calm if terse response.
“I’m on a reservation?”
“A what?”
Uh, oh. I didn’t let my mind go down that path.
“You’ll catch your death out here,” he added, voice softening. “C’mon. I’ll take you home.”
“Really?” I asked. “You know where my home is?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t drag me off and murder me or something, right?”
He gave a surprised chuckle. “No, ma’am, I won’t. I’m the local law. It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
After a brief hesitation, I took the arm he held out to me. With ease that hinted at his strength, he pulled me onto the horse to sit behind him. I settled between his muscular frame and the horse’s rump, instinctively wrapping my arms around him.
“How did you find yourself out here, ma’am?” While polite, there was something in his tone that made me think he wasn’t as surprised as I was to discover me in the middle of a crater.
The horse began walking, and I debated what to say. My teeth chattered almost too much to speak.
“Take my coat,” my rescuer said. He pulled it from a saddlebag and handed it back to me.
I hugged it around me. The interior was soft from wear and smelled of the man it belonged to: leather, horses, rain, and his own dark, subtle musk. It was a natural, purely male combination with no trace of cologne or fruity soap like I used.
I rested my cheek against his back, absently breathing in his scent. It was oddly comforting, not quite familiar, but pleasant enough that it could be.
Like Carter. There was no such thing as a time machine, no way in the world I was in the past. I didn’t even know why I considered it, except that being blown out of town by a meteor opened the door to other strange possibilities.
He waited until my shaking stopped before asking again how I came to be out in the rain.
“I don’t really know,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell him what I suspected. It was hard enough for me to humor the idea without speaking it aloud and ending up humiliated when we reached my aunt and uncle. “What did you mean when you said not again?” I asked.
“I usually find the town drunk in a hole in the middle of a storm.”
I frowned. He was hiding something. He’d uttered the phrase after I told him my name, not when he found me. Not about to lose my coat or ride, I didn’t challenge him.
“Rare day when you rescue a pretty girl out in the middle of the storm. Your governess know you’re out?” he added.
The man with amazing eyes called me pretty. I smiled. “Governess?”
He muttered something beneath his breath without answering.
Dressed in my usual pajama bottoms – an old pair of yoga pants – and a tank top, I hadn’t gone to bed thinking I needed a coat in the desert when I awoke. I was soaked, though the rain had turned to a light drizzle. Without his coat, I would catch a cold for sure.
In fact, I didn’t recall going to bed at all. I went to Carter’s office and then … passed out? Then who put me in my pajamas?
I twisted, a sliver of panic working its way through my system at the idea of missing time. While not out of the ordinary for a long night of drinking, I wasn’t certain why I didn’t recall stumbling into bed at least.
The dust plume above the crater was still visible. It was impossible to tell directions in the storm. There was no glow on any horizon to indicate a city was close, and the rolling hills of grass was more representative of the fertile Great Plains than the desert southwest.
Was it possible to have been thrown miles and miles away from Tombstone by the meteor without so much as a scratch?
My cell phone vibrated. Adrenaline surged through me at the reminder I had a way to call home or for help. I yanked it out of my pocket.
There was one message.
Don’t panic. It was marked from Carter, a contact I hadn’t had in my phone earlier. It was possible I put him there when we were drinking, though.
A sense of the surreal was creeping up on me. It made my stomach turn and my insides shake.
I typed a response. WTF happened? How did I end up in a crater?
Tapping send, I went through my phone’s contacts to call my aunt and uncle and make sure they were okay.
There was only one contact in my phone. All the other icons – those for internet, my apps, everything – were also gone. There was no content on my phone, aside from Carter’s number, listed as undisclosed, and his message.
I examined the device. It had the dings and dents that I recalled, just none of the information. It had no signal and no bars indicating battery power, either, and yet, the phone was on.
My hands were starting to shake, my head spinning. His response was quick.
Doctor Who, remember? Two-ish weeks to change things? I’m in a meeting. Just hang in there and play along. I’ll text later.
His message was accompanied by a smiley face.
“You’re in a meeting?” I demanded of the phone with a startled laugh. And what the hell did he mean by the reference to one of my favorite television shows? He couldn’t possibly be serious about …
“What?” The self-proclaimed lawman asked.
I have a time machine. Carter had said.
What if it was more than a drunken boast?
“Nothing.” I pocketed the phone. My baffled thoughts tried to make sense of what had happened. I struggled to recall exactly what Carter told me in the dream.
Thank you for volunteering. But for what exactly had I volunteered? Time travel? How was that remotely possible?
“What year is it?” I asked cautiously.
The lawman didn’t answer for a moment. “You know your name but not the year.”
“Rough night,” I said in what I hope was a cheerful voice. “Help a girl out?”
“Eighteen forty two.”
“Of course.” There’s no way.
We reached the crest of one of the rolling hills and halted.
The idea Carter had somehow sent me back in time didn’t catch footing until I saw the town nestled in the valley below. Lanterns glowed in houses and stores along a main strip while smoke curled out of squat, brick chimneys. The roads were dirt, the buildings wooden, the posts in front of each occupied by horses or wagons.
The tiny town was like something out of an old western movie, only worn, rustic and realistic, designed for function rather than as a tourist destination or movie set.
Authentic.
A stab of pain went through my skull. Carter’s warning about having a headache returned. Did he really do brain surgery on me, too? Was that worse than being sent back in time? A vacation I could almost agree with but brain surgery?
Tunnel vision clouded my vision while ringing filled my ears. I slumped against the man in front of me.
“I’m not feeling so well,” I murmured. “Might be … a brain … chip … issue …”