STEALING TIME

by

Christopher Stasheff

Copyright 2010

 

CHAPTER 7

 

            Yorick folded the paper and set it aside.  "Where do you think we're most apt to find futurian agents at work, Angus?"

            Angus shrugged.  "Any time there's too much government, or a lack of it."

            "Well, there's the Neolithic," Yorick said.  "You know—those Johnny-come-lately Cro-Magnons and their shrunken descendants."

            "Such as my ancestors, yes."

            "Be fair—I was probably one of your ancestors, too."

            'Thanks, Gran'pa."  Angus started pacing again.  "Okay, so we're clear on the Stone Age—not much chance of anyone establishing a dictatorship before civilization was invented, when people lived in small roving bands that scarcely ever ran into one another."

            "And not much point in anarchists working the scene when there weren't any governments yet," Yorick agreed.  "But I dunno about small nomad bands being immune from tyranny, Ang.  The Mongols did a petty good job of conquering."

            "Yeah but their targets were all civilized."  Angus wandered over to one of the world maps he had pinned to the wall.  Each had rough borders drawn in—on the current one, only in Egypt and Western Asia.  He tapped the Euphrates valley with a forefinger.  "The early days of civilization were just the opposite—all authoritarian, so there was no contest; the anarchists didn't have a chance of changing history."

            "Doesn't mean they might not have tried," Yorrck said, "but I agree they wouldn't concentrate too many agents back then.  You don't suppose Confucius..."

            "He was too ethical."  Angus frowned.  “Of course, he did supply the concepts underpinning an empire that lasted two thousand years."

            "It had a few periods of chaos," Yorick reminded him.

            "Maybe anarchist agents who had some temporary success?"  Angus nodded slowly.  "Could be.  We want to stay out of China, then, except for the high points of each dynasty or the worst years of the warlord eras."

            "I don’t follow."  Yorick frowned.  "Stay out when there's an efficient government or no government, but not in between?  ...Oh!  Yeah.  That's when SPITE and VETO will be slugging it out worst, won't they?"

            Angus nodded.  "Not much point in wasting effort when the government is secure, or when it's gone—but when there's a chance of pulling a tyranny together, both SPITE and VETO will be very busy indeed."

            "So that's when we want to stay out of it," Yorick interpreted.  "That means the fall of Athens to Philip of Macedon is no good—unless there’s some chance the birthplace of democracy can be saved.  Come to think of it, though, when his son Alexander is busy taking over the known world, it's a good time for VETO to be planting seeds to keep his empire going..."

            "Or trying to," Angus said.  "Didn't work too well."

            "Yes, because SPITE managed to infect Alexander with a deadly disease."

            "Now, Yorick, we don't know that," Angus chided.  "It just seems remarkable that such a vigorous, healthy young man who had conquered everything from Egypt to India wouldn't be able to fight off a virus.  You do kind of wonder how Charlemagne managed to put together an empire in the depths of the Dark Ages, though."

            "A little help from VETO agents?" Yorick asked.  "Not that Charlemagne would have known it.  So his reign is a good time for us to be working—why would either side waste effort when a strong king's in power?  We could lay the foundations for constitutional monarchy."

            "But they all came out of the woodwork when he died," Angus reminded, "so we want to be especially watchful for futurian agents in Europe from Charlemagne's death until the start of the Crusades."

            Yorick frowned.  "You think feudalism will draw fewer agents than empire?"

            "No, more," Angus said.  "At least it was preventing authoritarian governments from rising."

            "But feudalism is one step short of anarchy!"

            "Right in between," Angus agreed, "so it's the best time for both sides to be pouring in agents and trying to change history—VETO by trying to help the kings triumph over the barons, SPITE by helping the noblemen weaken royal power."

            "So Runnymede was a draw—the two sides balanced each other out, and John’s losing his treasure made it a definite draw."  Yorick nodded.  "No wonder we ran into a VETO agent there.  But that means Henry II and Louis XI and Henry VII had VETO helping them out, even though they didn't know it!"

            "I wouldn't call it 'helping' when they were trying to push them into becoming emperors and dictators," Angus said, "but those monarchs might have thought they were being uncommonly lucky."

            "Meanwhile, SPITE's agents were working with a vengeance," Yorick said, "and the result was the same as though neither side had been there at all."

            Angus nodded.  “They cancelled each other out.  SPITE had a temporary win in England—the Wars of the Roses were a great example of anarchy—but while they were tied up there, VETO made hay in France."

            "Assuming Louis XI didn't manage to achieve central government in France all on his own," Yorick said, "but that is kind of what we were assuming, isn't it?  Without knowing it, the two organizations were actually working toward the balance that led to democracy."

            "The kings and dukes and earls were."  Angus turned back to him, nodding.  "So our agents have to be on the watch for undercover enemies any time they're on a mission—but they need to be especially watchful if they have to work in the high middle ages."

            "Thirteenth Century to the Sixteenth Century, we don't need to try to help the locals balance between SPITE and VETO."  Yorick nodded.  "That means there’s no reason to go there."

            "Except as tourists."  Angus smiled.  Then he lifted his head, eyes losing focus.  "Or unless there’s a treasure we're after.  That is when Thomas Malory was writing the Death of Arthur, isn't it?"

            "Hold it!  Foul!"  Yorick gave Angus the referee's hand signal.  "No shopping for first editions, Ang—unless we have a paying customer, that is."

            "Yeah, I can wait until it's printed.”  Angus sat down at the table.  "So what're we going to ste... uh, salvage... next?"

            "Maybe we oughta think about saving people before treasures," Yorick said.  "It was okay to borrow agents from the 1980s to get us started, but we can't go doing it all the time."

            "Why not?" Angus frowned, then lifted his head, saying, "Oh."

            "Right."  Yorick nodded.  "If we never recruit, there won't be any agents in the 1980s to borrow.  Besides, I could use a little help."

            "Yes, we do have a lot of building to do, don't we?"  Angus gazed at the door that led into the darkness of the cavern.

            Yorick nodded.  "My ten-year-old self Aacthuu may be in a classroom in this very cavern a hundred years in the future, but it's time to start building that classroom and finding a teacher."

            "Not to mention his learning self-defense," Angus grunted.

            "You're right," Yorick said.  "I wasn't going to mention that."

            "Well, where do we begin?" Angus demanded.  "Strike that—we already did begin, with your ten-year-old self.  But you knew where to find him."

            "Funny thing about that."  Yorick turned to pick up a newspaper from the table.  "Might know where to find the next ones, too.”

            "Oh?"  Angus looked up.  "Where?"

            Yorick handed him the paper.  "Three skeletons found in a cave along the Mississippi, in Kentucky."

"What good is that?"  Angus took the paper, frowning down at the photograph.  "If they've been found, they can't qualify as agents, right?"

            "We can if finding them hasn't made that much of a difference in anyone's life.  The people who killed 'em, forgot about 'em right after they were buried, and the anthropologist who identified them as century-old settlers didn't even publish an article about it."

            "How do you know... never mind, scratch that," Angus said.  "Just checked the newspaper archives on one of your trips to the 1980s, right?  Okay, they three skeletons are worth a look.  How did the anthropologist identity them?"

            "By the artifacts with them," Yorick said, "a flintlock rifle, a Bowie knife, and some metal buttons."

            "Early in the century, then."  Angus frowned.  "What killed them?"

            "Rockfall.  Some workers were clearing away a talus slope and found the cave.  Anthropologists’ guess is that the cliff fell and sealed them in."

            "Makes sense," Angus said slowly, "though the cliff could have fallen any time after they died."

            "Worth a scouting trip, anyway."  Yorick turned toward the costume closet.  "Pardon me while I put on my buckskins.  Coming along?"

            "I think not, this time," Angus said.  "Kentucky in the 1840s doesn't seem quite as exciting as London the in 1890s.”

            "Thank Heaven," Yorick breathed as he went through the door.

 

            Ada took the wisp of silk—and almost dropped it.  "You mean—that's all you..."  She couldn't finish the sentence.           

"All we wear under our skirts?"  Margo nodded.  "Of course, we wear slips, too, so the dresses will move properly, and brassieres."

            She held one up.  Its function was obvious, and Ada felt her face growing hot again.  "No... no corsets?"

            "Some of the older women favor girdles, but they're nowhere nearly the portable prisons of Victorian corsets," Margo answered.  "All in all, Ada, you'll find our fashions considerably more comfortable."

            "I'm sure I will—when I work up the courage to wear them."

            "Well, we won't rush you."  Margo turned to a chest of drawers and pulled out a folded garment in rough indigo cloth, shook it out, and held it up against Ada's waist.  "Might be a little wide, but I think these should fit."

            Ada looked down and saw trousers.  She could only stare.

            Margo folded them and put them away.  "There's a bathroom off the living room where you can wash up, even take a shower or bath if you'd like.  Dinner's at six and it's four o'clock now.  I'll leave you to settle in and freshen up, but you can call me at 3333 if you have any questions."  She gave Ada a bright smile.  "Or knock on my door—I'm right across the hall.  See you at dinner!"

            She went out.  Ada stood, numb, and could think of nothing but what to wear—or dare, more likely.

 

            In the end, Ada elected to keep her own clothes for the evening—but she exchanged her pantalettes and corset for modern undergarments.  It was certainly a relief to escape the prison of her corset, and the silk caressed her skin seductively.  Still, she rode down in the elevator with her face burning, feeling as though all the world must be able to see right through her dress to the scandalous attire beneath—but Margo only chatted with her about the news of the day, noticing nothing out of the ordinary, and when the elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the midst of the throng, with Margo greeting every other person with a few cheery words and introducing Ada, not a one of them seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary—scarcely a surprise; Ada's black bombazine dress was so opaque that light screeched to a halt when it came near. 

            Very soon, the news of the day distracted Ada completely, even though she had no idea who some of the people under discussion were, nor even their nationalities.

            "Doc Angus sent one of us back to 1962, of course, to write a letter to Kennedy explaining that the real enemy was Soviet imperialism, not Communism, and that if Ho Chi Minh won, he'd turn Vietnam into a Titoist state and weaken the Soviet Empire, not strengthen it—but of course some underling threw the letter away before Kennedy saw it."

            "Of course," said a young woman with reddish-brown skin and black hair.  Others nodded agreement, and Ada wondered who Ho Chi Minh and Kennedy were, but it sounded like a fascinating episode, and she hungered for history books and newspapers.

            So as she met the other time-travelers, she found herself wondering about their work and the fascinating events they must have witnessed, and not about her wardrobe, seen or unseen.

            "Food line's over here."  Margo led Ada to the side of the room, where gleaming metal tables with glass shelves held a veritable banquet.  Margo led her to one end, took a tray from a stack, and set it on a shelf of three shining metal rails in front of the table.  "Don't forget your silverware."  She took knife, fork, and spoon from bins by the trays.

            Surely so many implements, displayed so cavalierly, could not really be silver!  Ada tried to be subtle about turning her fork over to look for the hallmark, and saw none.

            "Well, all right, stainless-steel ware," Margo said, "but it will hold your food just as well as silver."

            "Won't it taste…?"

            Margo shook her head.  "Not stainless."

            Ada took knife and spoon, too.  "Are these shelves of... 'stainless,' too?"

            "No, aluminum."  Margo pushed her tray along and stopped to spear a piece of chicken.

            Ada followed, amazed at such a profligate use of metal.

            Margo greeted person after person, stopping to introduce them to Ada, and by the time she said, "Here's an empty table," Ada's head was spinning with all the new faces and names.

            They sat with three other young women and, during dinner, she was still trying to translate the strange terms she was hearing.

            "I think maybe I'll try a bikini this summer," said a girl named Sandy.

            "You sure you're in shape for it, sweetie?" asked a girl named Lisette.

            "Been working on it all winter," Sandy avowed.

            "I think a one-piece is better for swimming," said the woman named Adele.

            "Yes, Grandma," Lisette said, and they all laughed.  Ada wondered why—surely Adele could only be a few years older than the rest of them.

            Still, at least she now knew a "bikini" was a swimming costume—not that anyone could really swim in the short skirts and pantalettes of her own day.  Still, they had come dangerously close to revealing the cardinal secret that women actually had nether limbs.

            "The point isn't really for swimming."  Sandy lifted a colorful sort of broadside that she'd laid beside her plate and pushed it across to Adele.  "You see which one shows a woman to best advantage."

            Ada caught a glimpse of a page as Adele turned it—and blanched.  "My heavens!"

            "What?"  Sandy looked up, frowning, then seemed to register Ada's costume.  "Oh, that's right—you're a Victorian."

            Ada bridled at the censure in her tone, but Margo said, "We don't have to wear yards and yards of material just to wade in the shallows any more, Ada.  We can actually swim now."

            "I... I'll grow accustomed to it," Ada said.

            "We have a term for it now, hon," Sandy said.  "We call it 'culture shock.'"

            "Future shock, in your case," Margo said, "adjusting to the culture of the future.  All of us have gone through it."

            The other women nodded.  "I was born in Renaissance Italy," Adele said.

            "Reformation France," said Lisette.  "I'm a Huguenot."

            "Tsar Ivan's Moscow," Sandy said.

            Ada thought it an odd name for a Russian but had the grace not to ask.  Sandy could see, though, and smiled with amusement.  "Alexandra," she explained.

            "Oh!"  Ada turned to Margo.

            "Spain, about 1000 BCE," Margo explained.  "My people are the ones who colonized ancient Britain.  The Celts moved in on us."

            "Your... adapting to all of this must have been quite a wrench," Ada said.

            "Not as much as for you, dear."  Margo laid a sympathetic hand over hers.  "To me, the whole world is completely different.  For you, though, most of it will be recognizable enough so that the differences will really throw you.  I came into a whole new world, but you're just coming into a different culture."

            "Well, I had known England had somewhat different values from those of America—but can you really call it 'culture?'"

            "It's a term from anthropology," Lisette explained, "the study of humankind.  'Culture' means the values underlying a society and the ways they're expressed in the arts."

            "Well, that's a good partial definition," Adele hedged.

            "Okay, anthro major," Sandy said with a grin.

            "Major?"  Ada frowned.

            "Major course of study in college," Margo said, "I mean 'university.'"

            Ada frowned.  "I had thought everyone studied the same subjects in university."

            "Not any more."  Lisette shook her head.  "Too much to learn—the body of human knowledge has mushroomed.  You take a broad base of knowledge, the basic areas, sure, but you have to start focusing by your junior... by your third year."

            "Really!" Ada said.  "And is this the case at all universities?"

            "Well, there are still a few colleges who offer a liberal arts degree, which is pretty much what you're talking about," Margo said, "but they're small, and it doesn't really give you the full college experience."

            Ada frowned.  "What would that be?"

            "Gee!"  Sandy exchanged looks with the other girls.  "How do you describe it?"

            "Exposure to people from other majors," Lisette offered.

            "Living with roomates, first in a dormitory," Adele contributed, "then in an apartment."

            "Not in your parents' home."  Ada could feel her eyes rounding.

            "Not by the 1950s, anyway," Margo said, "and the bigger universities offer many more cultural opportunities than the small ones."

            "Including coffeehouses," Adele said, "and beatniks."

            "Hippies," Sandy corrected.

            Ada turned to Margo, at a loss.

            "Bohemians," Margo explained.  “Transcendentalists.”

            "Oh!"  Ada turned to the others in surprise.  "They weren't a fad of the moment, then?'

            "Well, the names have changed, and so have the styles and ideas," Lisette said, "but there being a refuge for intellectual misfits has pretty much stayed a constant."

            Ada remembered the tales she had heard of the free life of the bohemians of Paris—freer than hers, anyway—and asked, "At what universities do they appear?"

            "Well, Berkeley’s the center of the movement," Lisette said.

            "On the west coast," Sandy corrected.  "On the East coast, it's NYU."

            "New York University," Margo explained, "but living in New York or San Francisco might give you too much to adjust to in so short a time."

            "I've been happy with the University of Illinois," Sandy said.

            "You would be," Adele said.  "You're interested in computers."

            "University of Nebraska worked well for me," Lisette said.  "It's a small city, not a big one—Lincoln, the state capitol, so it's not as isolated as some of the college towns.  The politicians have to stay in touch with the outside world, so they bring in advantages you might not get in, say, Kearny."

            Ada began to realize Margo had selected which group to join for a better reason than amusement.  She turned to Adele.  "Which institution do you hail as your alma mater?"

            "University of Michigan," Adele said.  "That's where the polio vaccine was developed."

            "She's a doctor," Margo explained.

            "A physician?"  Ada stared.

            Adele smiled, amused.  "I'll be practicing in the 1990s – after I’ve graduated and finished medical school.  There's still some resistance, but sometimes women find a female physician reassuring."

            "Especially when she's a psychiatrist," Margo added.

            "Or hopes to be," Adele added.

            Ada had heard of Dr. Freud, of course, but decided this wasn't the time to ask.  She turned to Margo.  "Which institution have you chosen?"

            "Michigan," Margo said.  "It's a big school and a university town, so it has a bit more focus on academics than some of the others—and medicine isn't the only outstanding field there."

            "Law?"

            Adele nodded.  "Their law school has an excellent reputation."

            Ada decided she'd found her alma mater.  "How do I enroll?"

 

*           *           *

 

            The bloodhound bayed behind them.  Elspeth cried out in fear and slipped on the mud, falling.  Eli turned back, managing to catch her in time to keep her from sprawling face-down.

            "Hurry!"  Abby called.  "They're almost on us!"

            Panting, they ran through the dusk, slipping and stumbling along the river bank.  The women hiked up their calico skirts to keep from tripping on the hems.  A tree branch knocked Abby's poke bonnet askew.  Elspeth had lost hers.  Eli fared better with his buckskin jacket, but briars ripped his homespun trousers in half a dozen places and his slouch hat lay somewhere back in the burning house. 

            "Where?" Elspeth gasped.  "Where?"

            "The cave," Eli answered.  "Where's the cave?"

            "This way!"  Abby passed them to take the lead.  "Still where it was when we was kids."

            Behind them, the dog's howl was growing louder.  Now they could hear the shouts of the men who followed the hound.

            Abby disappeared behind a screen of brush.  Elspeth followed her and saw Abby disappearing into a four-foot-high hole.  She turned back to make sure Eli was following, then went after Abby.  Eli slipped on the pebbles before the hole and fell in sprawling, but in.  "That blasted hound!" he gasped as he scrambled to his feet.  "If it wasn't for the dog, we might've stood a chance of 'em goin' by."

            Inside, the cave was much larger than the hole, with a roof twelve feet high.  Somewhere at the back, dim light filtered down from a crack in the top.

            "There's only one at a time can get through here."  Abby pulled the pistol from her sash and took a stance beside the entry.

            "You took Jethro's pistol when he fell."  Eli turned to Elspeth.  "Loaded?"

            Gasping with fright, she nodded, pulling the pistol from her bosom and leveling it at the hole.  "Got his knife, too."  Then the last sight of her husband flashed before her mind's eye, Jethro dead and bleeding on the floor, and her eyes filled with tears—but fear dried them as she set herself to kill anybody who tried to reach her.

            Even now, Abby could feel sympathy for the younger woman.  She had to be way sorry she'd ever married a Talley, ever gotten off that riverboat in the first place.  "You might still get out of this alive, Elspeth.  You weren't born a Talley."

            "That won't matter to the Conners."  Elspeth shook her head.  "Better dead than suffering what they'll do if they catch me!"

            "Only four guns."  Eli leveled his rifle at the entry, then touched the pistol in his belt to make sure it was still there.  "Be ready to club 'em with the butt when your powder's gone."

            "How long you think they'll keep comin' after we kill the first two?" Abby demanded.

            "They might stop," Eli admitted, "but they're Conners—they'll

think of dirty tricks."

            "Like burning our house around us in the middle of the night and shooting us down as we come out!" Abby's voice trembled with rage.  "If'n they didn't have no care for the women, why ought we care for their lives?"

            There hadn't been a dozen Talleys left after eight years of feuding, not even ten.  Hard to believe they'd been good neighbors in Abby's childhood, that she had actually played with Sarah Conner and her sister Hannah.  She couldn't believe she'd been sweet on Sarah's brother Dandy.  Her heart twisted at the memory of him then, handsome and strong even at fourteen.   Who could believe he'd grow into such a murdering catamount?

            Here's how it ends, Eli thought, and all because Tom Conner thought Pa had shot his coon dog for spite. 

            But it had been an accident, Pa had told them that, told them he'd been aiming at a fox that had come bursting out of the henhouse and fired before he'd realized it wasn't a fox at all.  He'd told Adam Conner too, but Conner hadn't believed him, and the angry words flew fast and furious, for Pa might have said he was sorry, but he wouldn't stand for being called a damn liar and Adam wouldn't stand for being called a fool who couldn't keep his dogs or women at home.  Then a rifle had fired—no one was sure whose.  Two of the five men who'd been there said the one, three said the other, but when the smoke cleared, Pa lay dead and Adam was on his back with a broken leg.

            Of course, there hadn't been any stopping it then, even though Conners had been marrying Talleys for forty years.  Blood had to answer for blood, as it had for eight years, till there'd only been sixteen Conners left and nine Talleys, and Sarah and Hannah hadn't been among them.  Abby fought down tears again and told herself angrily that the girls' uncles and brother and cousins were hunting her with their hounds now, hunting her down like a fox gone to ground, and no hope for her life but to try to kill them before they killed her.

            That fool hound was bellowing right outside the cave now.  There was the sound of a smack, of Arky's voice cussing the poor dog, then quiet, way too much quiet.

            Eli took a firmer grip on his rifle and set himself.

            Then came a scrabbling over the gravel in the cave mouth and a head poked through.

            Thunder all about them, a flare of flame that blinded them, and when her sight cleared, Abby wished it hadn't, for whoever he'd been, there was nothing left of his head.

            Shouts of anger in the tunnel, and the body jolted backward.  The shouts turned into howls of rage, and Elspeth pressed herself back against the stone to escape the violence of the words.  Finally they calmed enough for one voice to be heard saying, “You gotta come out some time, Talley.  We can wait all month 'til you do."

            Eli opened his mouth to say something, but Abby pressed her finger across his lips.  Irritated, he shook his head to be rid of her hand, but he kept his mouth shut.

            "Nothin' t' say, huh?"  It was Joram Conner, only a year or two older than Eli.  "Don't blame yuh—I wouldn't have much t' say, neither, if 'twas me in there.  Can't be no food nor water, so you'll have the choice to starve or come out.  I'll be waitin'."

            Silence, expecting an answer, but Eli shook his head to show he wouldn't talk.  Abby took his rifle and began reloading.

            "Suit yourself," Joram said.  "We'll just set up camp out here.  Let us know when you're ready."  He chuckled at his own wit, chuckling that faded as he went away from the cave-mouth.

            Then the earth seemed to jump beneath their feet.  The three Talleys looked at one another in alarm.  Elspeth sat down, and Abby and Eli saw the sense of it and followed.  There were always small earth-shocks now and then, but you never knew when they might grow.

            The rock beneath them seemed to turn liquid; it heaved and buckled.  Booming and cracking filled their ears as the rock above and beneath them broke from the stress.  Elspeth screamed once before a stone the size of a churn crushed her, an instant before another broke Eli's head and a falling rock spear pinned Abby to the floor of the cave.

 

            Across the river and well away from the trees, Yorick tried to ride the bucking ground and keep his telescope trained on the group of Conners gathered around the cave mouth—or who had been gathered there; one of them lay dead from a fallen rock splinter and the others were trying to run away from the cliff but kept falling as the ground heaved beneath them.  One had sense enough to crawl and made a little more distance, but even the bloodhound couldn't keep its feet.

            Then, with a roar, the clifftop fell, burying the cave-mouth.  Stray boulders bounced and went flying, crushing all the Conners except the one who'd had the sense to crawl.  He made it another ten feet before a huge old oak tree fell and buried him, too.  Only the bloodhound found its way home.

            Yorick didn't stay to see the dog's fate, though.  As the last Connor died, he reached in his pocket and pressed the recall button.

 

*           *           *

 

            He stepped from the time machine, shaken, and knelt to kiss the tile.

            Angus frowned.  "What's so great about terra cotta?"

            "It's terra firma, too," Yorick told him.  "It's staying still.  I don't ever wanna be in another earthquake, Ang."

            "Earthquake?"  Angus raised his eyebrows.  "So that's why the cave mouth was blocked?"

            Yorick stood up, nodding.  "It was a whopper—land heaving like waves at the beach."

            Angus frowned.  "I do seem to remember something about a mammoth earthquake in the Mississippi Valley, early in the 1800s."

            "Believe me, I'll never forget it," Yorick said fervently.  "But they're excellent candidates for recruiting, Angus.  It was a blood-feud, and they were the last of their clan—I was just in time to see the house burning.  The hunters who were chasing them died in the earthquake, too, and the winning clan will think the last of the enemy just disappeared."

            "As I remember. there were some pretty bad floods," Angus said.  "Nobody will think anything of it if somebody goes missing."

            Yorick nodded.  "Take me back twenty-four hours earlier this time, Angus.  I'm going to need to prepare my own little ambush."

 

*           *           *

 

            Elspeth followed Abby through the cave mouth and hurried to step aside so that Eli could scramble through.  He whirled about to face the hole, lifting his rifle.

            "Hi there."

            Abby and Elspeth gasped as they spun about; Eli only cursed, then said, "Sorry, la..."  Then he stopped, too.

            The big stranger stood in the light from the hole in the roof—not that tall, really, but so broad-shouldered and thick-bodied that he looked like a giant.  He wore a frock coat, black trousers, and white shirt with a string tie.  His broad-brimmed black hat was tilted way back on his head so that the light from above could show them his face—round and broad with a low forehead and wide mouth.

            "Who're you?" Eli demanded.  "A preacher?"

            "Your friend."  The stranger came toward them.  "Here to get you away from the Conners."

            Outside and coming closer, they heard the bloodhound's call.

            Eli's laugh was sharp and bitter.  "Get us away?  How you going to do that, preacher man?"

            "It's not your night to die."  The preacher held out a hand to Abby.  "Let me show you.  Give me your hand."

            Puzzled, she did—but stood ready to yank it back.

            The preacher pointed to the lines on her palm.  "Your life line's long.  It doesn't end so young."  He reached out for Elspeth with his other hand.  "Yours, too.  Let me see."

            Warily, she set her hand in his, palm up.

            "Your life line's long, too.  Hold his hand, now."

            Puzzled, Elspeth looked up at Eli as she took his hand.  Frowning, he touched her fingers, ready to whisk his hand back to the rifle.

            The bloodhound bayed closer.

            The preacher slipped a hand into his pocket, then took it out again and engulfed Eli's hand in his own huge one, rifle stock and all.  "Just a second, now."

            Eli cursed and tried to twist free, but the inside of the cave seemed to twist with him, twist and turn and blur.

 

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