Saturday, September 9, 1893
Pearce, Arizona Territories
Timeline version 6.05
The three men were walking out of the west, the sinking sun and orange sky silhouetted behind them in a scene straight out of a dime novel or an overly romanticized Western movie. Except in this case it was the bad guys beautifully haloed in golden light, while the good woman stood alone in the street and people scattered into buildings and behind walls, getting to where they felt safe, but to where they could still see.
My legs felt like rubber as I stood on the boardwalk in front of the saloon and watched. Three against one. She didn’t stand a chance. Everyone knew it.
“Thank you for being so kind as to wait for me, my darling,” Jenkins yelled from about a hundred yards away, the two men flanking him letting out brief chuckles. “I would hate for our little disagreement to go on too long.”
“The mine isn’t safe,” Smythe yelled back, “and you know it. More men will die. Good men.”
“Have you ever been in the Commonwealth Mine, my darling?” he asked. They were now about eighty yards apart and had slowed their walk while Smythe stood still right in front of the saloon. “Have you any experience with mines and how they are best run?”
“My husband—”
“Was a learned man,” Jenkins said, cutting her off, the tone of his voice sharpening. “I will give him that. He was well educated back there in Boston, but he knew as much about mines as you do. I was kind enough to give him a job, and what did he do? Spread rumors that attacked my very integrity.”
Smythe looked around, looking for support, someone to back her up. Her brown eyes met mine briefly and I saw something there I hadn’t seen before. Doubt. Fear. She doubted she was in the right and that made her afraid.
I opened my mouth to speak, because I knew Jenkins was lying, but I had no way to prove it. I heard some noise in the saloon behind me but didn’t turn to look, figuring it was someone moving to one of the windows to watch from there.
The three men stopped when they were about fifty yards away, Jenkins heaving a big sigh. “I will give you this one last chance, Missus Smythe. Go home. Pack up. Leave the Arizona Territories and I will let this whole unfortunate incident pass.”
Smythe’s jaw moved, but she didn’t speak.
“You all hear that, don’t you?” Jenkins yelled. “The woman knows not of what she speaks. She came here armed and threatened my life, there are many witnesses. I am giving her the chance to leave.”
Pearce was growing and Cochise County marshals made their way through from time to time, but it was still too small for a lawman to be posted here. Jenkins was making his case clear before he gunned her down.
“My…my husband saw the danger,” Smythe said, her voice breaking but gaining strength. “He warned you and you ignored him. How many other miners did he talk to this about, how many have noticed the same issues that he did?
“You can pretend nothing is wrong in the Commonwealth Mine, but everyone knows there will be more accidents like that one that took Jerome.”
Jenkins shook his head and sighed. “So, I take it you are turning down my most generous offer.”
Smythe snorted and nodded her head.
“And I also take it that you intend to gun me down right here and right now.”
Smythe paused, licking her lips, and I took a half step forward, my hands going to my guns. I had to help her.
“No you don’t,” a feminine voice said as I felt the cold steel of a pistol pressed into the small of my back. “Stay right there, cowboy.”
I sucked in a deep breath, my heart pounding hard and then I smelled it. The distinct scent of roses over the barnyard scent of the street.
Out on the street Smythe said, “I intend to defend myself against three armed men, is what I intend to do.”
“Bella?” I whispered, not turning. “What are you doing?”
“Keeping you from doing something stupid,” she said, stepping closer. “Didn’t you check your watch? Things have changed.”
I remembered the buzzing a few minutes back and shook my head. “I’ve been a bit busy. I’ve got to help her, she doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Think about it, Evan. If she lives or dies today, what will this mean to the future?”
The talking had ended as the three men and one woman faced off in the street their hands close to their guns.
And what would it mean if three men gunned down an armed woman in a little Western mining town? Word would spread and the tale will grow. It would soon be six armed men and an unarmed woman. People would cry out for justice. Things would change.
But what if she survived unaided against such odds? Would Annie Oakley’s offer of lady sharpshooters to serve in the Spanish-American War be accepted? How many other women would start standing up for themselves? How much sooner would women get the right to vote?
And how would it look if I stepped out there and helped her, if a man came to her aid? Would it change the timeline at all?
It was a dizzying thought even trying to speculate what would come of it, making me glad the Intelligence was not human and could weight all these factors.
“I don’t want her to die,” I whispered to Bella.
“Me neither,” she said.
And then it hit me. Bella’s mission had come in after I left Bisbee, which means a former version of myself had stepped out onto that street and tried to aid her, and considering my briefing, that former version of myself must have died.
I stepped back, Bella by my side, as we watched three men draw and fire while one woman returned fire.
I’m quite sure Smythe could have drawn a fraction of a second sooner than she did. I’ve played it over in my mind a thousand times.
Jenkins and his two men with the sun low on the horizon golden orange behind them drawing, their knees bending slightly, their arms bent at the elbow, smoke belching from the barrels of their three guns while sharp retorts rang out.
Smythe did not draw when they did, but instead dove to the ground and rolled.
Bella by my side, sucking in a breath and gripping my bicep painfully.
There were faces peeking out of windows and around corners watching the drama unfold, better than any dime novel, looks of shock or surprise or just plain lust on their faces.
The air was still hot but carrying the promise of a cool evening on the breeze as it licked at the sweat covering my body.
The three men fired, as fast as they could, puffs of dirt flying up all around Smythe as she moved. She came up out of her roll into a kneeling position with both guns drawn and fired each gun twice. The two men flanking Jenkins dropped to the ground and in his surprise, Jenkins stopped firing, his gun lowering a bit, his hand unsteady.
Smythe slowly got to her feet, both her guns pointing at Jenkins. “I will give you this one last chance, Bartholomew Jenkins. Close your mine down. Pack up. Leave the Arizona Territories and I will let this whole unfortunate incident pass.”
Bella’s grip became vicelike on my arm and my heart clanged in my head as the seconds ticked by.
Jenkins’ face, which was backlit and I couldn’t see it clearly, tensed and then he brought his gun level and fired.
And she fired.
And they both dropped to the ground.
I don’t like the smell of blood. Metallic and cloying, smelling of rusting iron, smelling of death.
I escaped Bella’s grip and ran to Smythe, not thinking about Jenkins, not thinking that he might get up and start firing, not thinking at all.
My breath was sour in my mouth and my heart clanged even harder, the breeze’s promise of a cool evening drowned by my nervous sweat.
“I’ve got you,” I said taking her hand. Her hat lay on the ground behind her, her red-tinged blond hair splayed inelegantly on the dusty road, her brown eyes finding mine.
Jenkins had gotten her good, a single shot to the chest, her wheezing breath speaking to a collapsed lung. She had the same kind of injury a former version of myself had suffered in the saloon. The kind of injury that wasn’t survivable under these conditions.
“Mister Price,” she said with great effort, squeezing my hand, “how did I do?”
I nodded, glancing down the street at the three unmoving men. “You did good, Missus Smythe, you did good.”
She nodded weakly. “For Jerome,” she wheezed and then closed her eyes, her hand going slack in mine.
And then I smelled roses rising above the animal smell of the street and the iron scent of blood and Bella was there, her hand going to Smythe’s neck. I saw a flash of something small and round and matte black in her palm as she pressed and held it to Smythe’s neck.
“You’re not…” I began.
She smiled and shrugged. “Part of the mission, I—” She stopped speaking because others were gathering around, but I knew what she was doing. She was injecting drugs and nanites into Smythe so that she would have a chance of surviving, and I was glad.
Glad that this brave woman would survive. Glad that the future would have a new legend. A different kind of legend
Bella’s blue eyes were shining and she smiled widely at me and I finally noticed what she was wearing. A tan jacket over a white blouse and gray trousers. They were not quite what Smythe was wearing, they fit her well and were more feminine, but they weren’t what woman wore in 1893.
“Hey,” she whispered, glancing down at Smythe. “She started it. Any excuse not to wear a bustle.”
Thirty minutes later, Smythe was sitting up and Jenkins and his men most definitely were not. You could see the look of the ladies of Pearce as they eyed Gayle Smythe and the dead men fifty yards away, as the wheels turned in their minds as to what it meant to be a woman. I could see them staring at Bella, still beautiful in her unconventional clothing. You could practically hear the future changing.
Those women swarmed around us, took over Smythe’s care, speaking to her in hushed, excited tones. Angelina was among them and gave me a warm smile and a bright, “Gracias.”
They helped her off the street and towards the saloon where they could get her in a bed and better tend to her.
The sun had set, and I looked over at Bella as she watched the woman go. There was something in her beautiful face that I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t just hope that this mission of ours to better the future might actually work, it was more than that. It was as if she were eager to see the future.
It was a beautiful night, a sliver of a moon surrounded by glittering stars, the air finally cool. Bella and I rode together, clear of Pearce and heading towards Tombstone.
If I felt a lightness now that the mission was over, I also felt a giddiness that made me think of holding Bella’s hand in the mine deep under Bisbee.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, the sound of coyotes yipping in the distance and the clop-clop of the horses the only other sounds in the quiet.
“It was a mission, Evan.”
“Thank you, all the same.” I tipped my hat and stared at her. The scant light only let me see the outline of her lovely face, but I was sure she was smiling.
“You are welcome.”
“I’m guessing that the former version of myself went out onto the street with her and…”
“And history wrote that a stranger by the name of Price lost a gunfight with three other men, an innocent bystander, a woman named Smythe, dying too.”
I sighed. Knowing what the right thing to do was beyond me, at least where it concerned the future. My instinct to protect Smythe, as men protect women in this time, was the exact kind of thing the Intelligence was trying to change. We all need saving at one time or another—Bella saved me from dying on the street today—but a woman like Gayle Smythe or Bella most definitely did not need me to step in as the cliched big strong man of the era.
We rode for a time in companionable silence, the Dragoon Mountains rising on the horizon, blocking out some of the stars.
“When I was in that saloon, when everyone had their guns drawn,” I finally said, my heart clanging in my head once again, “I thought of you. Of seeing you again.”
“Evan, please—”
“No, Bella, hear me out. This world, this version of us will soon be gone, replaced by the next version, our missions refined, our duty always for the future. What if we…?” I trailed off, I couldn’t say it.
I could feel Bella’s stare, but she didn’t say anything.
“If the Intelligence doesn’t like it…” I said, my mouth dry, my words faltering. “It…it can tweak the next versions of us so…so we never have this moment. But, Bella, we are here. Now. We are having this moment. And we had a moment in the mine two days ago.”
In the darkness she sniffed and nodded. I extended my hand to her and it hung out there in the void between us.
“I know we are in service to the future,” I added. “I know we must follow our missions. But I…Bella, I think I—”
“Just shut up, Evan,” Bella said, but her tone was gentle and I heard her sniff again. She maneuvered her horse close and took my hand and squeezed it.
I shut my mouth and let that gesture do all the talking. We rode off into the transient future hand in hand.