That night, the travelers, Marshal Casidy, and his magnificent seven all camped around a bonfire in an open field.  Marshal Casidy spoke.  “So, the Kiowa left two days ago, which is why there is room right now in the field.  The steamboat came this afternoon, and we got your tickets.  By the way, here is a bit of funding for the trip south.  I’ll be staying here for at least a week so you should have no trouble reaching the next time gate.  Sign here.”

“What am I signing?” Lincoln asked.

“Wells Fargo account.  No reason we can’t get fifty years of interest.”  Marshal Casidy paused before he suggested, “Alice says she thinks she knows where you are going.  Maybe California.”

“Maybe?” Lincoln said and signed before he took the coins and put them in his bag that could make the time jumps without immediately rotting.  “Thanks.  Our larder was wearing a bit thin.”

“No telling where we will end up,” Tony said.  “But gold and silver hold their value pretty well.  The face on the coin does not seem to matter so much.”

“So,” Marshal Casidy turned to Sukki.  “Have you at least settled things about where you will go in the future.

“Yes,” Lockhart said.

“Yes,” Katie said and held out one hand.  She scooted over a bit and Sukki grinned and got up to sit between the two.

“Sekhmet and Artie used to sit just like this,” she said with a happy grin.

“It is a relief,” Elder Stow said.  “Knowing that she will be well cared for.”

“Elder Stow,” Captain Barnes spoke up.  “I understand the time travel, though I would love to see how this time gate business works.”

“Not me,” Mini said.

“Make her shriek,” Gordon said, and Sergeant Reynolds chuckled.

Captain Barnes went on.  “I also understand why these men in black were chosen to make the trip.  I get the two marines to provide protection and such along the way.  And Sukki.  I understand they found you in the deep past.”  Sukki nodded and nibbled on her buffalo steak.  “And Nanette and Tony fell into the past from 1905, just thirty-five years in the future.”

“More like forty-nine years by the time we get there,” Tony said, and Captain Barnes nodded to say he understood.

“But Elder Stow.  Where did you come from and how is it that you have these incredible things like your weapon, your screen device, and your scanner.  I imagine you have more incredible things we have not yet seen. Do all people in the future have such things?”

Everyone looked at Elder Stow, and the travelers were going to leave it entirely up to him what he revealed.  He hardly hesitated.  “I am one of those Gott-Druk with super advanced technology you have heard about, though the things I carry around are mere toys such as a ship’s officer might carry.”

“You look human,” Commander Roker, the Ahluzarian said, and Captain Barnes nodded like he was about to say that.

Elder Stow removed his glamour and appeared as the full-blooded Neanderthal that he was.  Then he said, “I am human.  It is one of the main things I learned on this journey.  I am not Homo Sapiens.  I am Homo Neanderthalensis.  We are both humans, and as much as it sounds terrible, personally, we even share some DNA.  I came to this world to remove the Homo Sapiens so my people could reclaim their homeland.  I had a terribly ingrained prejudice against all Homo Sapiens.  But I have learned that in every way that matters, we are not different.  And I have learned that my Gott-Druk home is a good place that we have made excellent.  And I have learned that this world now belongs to the Homo Sapiens, and that is how it should be.  We have done much in our journey to remove things that do not belong here and keep history on track, and that has been important work.  And I have learned that there is a time and place for everything under Heaven.”  Elder Stow put his glamour back on.

“Good thing,” Doc said.  “I know some medical school people back east that would love to cut you open to see how you work.”

“They might find that hard to do,” Decker said, and Nanette smiled and took his arm.

Silence followed until Marshal Casidy clapped his hands.  “Now for the good news.  The Storyteller has returned home.”

The travelers got excited except for Lincoln who said, “Figures. We are only two steps from home now.  Big help.”  He tried to keep his sarcasm to a minimum.

Marshal Casidy waved his hands for quiet.  “The Storyteller has gone back to his life with no memory of his adventures—he has some memory problems.  The golem that was filling in and doing a mediocre-poor job of it has returned to Avalon.”

“What’s the bad news,” Lincoln asked.

Marshal Casidy frowned.  “The bad news is while putting the pieces back together there were some time displacements.  No, don’t ask me what a time displacement is.  I just made up the term, but basically since things got off kilter when he vanished, there was some time leakage when he returned.  Things, basically future things, kind of slipped back a bit.  Alice will straighten it out, eventually, but you might encounter something unexpected when you visit Doctor Mishka.”

“What?  You can’t just zap us home now?” Lockhart asked.

“Don’t dare,” Marshal Casidy said.  “Not until the time displacements are corrected.  Sorry.”

“So, tomorrow we take the steamboat downriver for two hundred and some miles to the next time gate,” Katie summarized.

Lockhart nodded, but added, “And then without horses we have to find Doctor Mishka on foot.”

“Yes, sorry.  But there should be trains, and maybe even cars and busses, depending on when and where you arrive.” Marshal Casidy tried to smile an encouraging smile.  “I’m sorry, but the horses belong here, and we have given you all the coin money we have and all that we got from the horse trader after we bought your tickets for the steamboat.”

“That’s okay,” Lincoln said, surprising all the travelers.  “I would hate to come all this way and skip Doctor Mishka.  She might never forgive me.”

People agreed and wandered off to bed.

###

In the morning, the travelers waved good-bye.  People, including Colonel Decker, changed their fairy weave to regular civilian clothes. Katie admitted she made a couple of less petticoats than recommended and thickened her dress against the cold instead.

It got cold on the river.  Having a cabin did not help much, but at least the river remained relatively free of ice and snow.  Having a cabin near the boiler stacks helped a bit more, but most of the heat from the boilers got vented through the salon that the travelers rightly called the saloon.  Most of the cabin passengers spent most of their time eating and drinking in the salon and trying to keep warm.

On the second day, one of the passengers came racing into the salon yelling about something strange in the sky.  A few of the passengers bundled up to go see. Katie, Lockhart, and Elder Stow also went to take a look.  The passengers suggested a strange cloud formation, and one said a balloon of some kind.

“A weather balloon,” Lockhart said and chuckled.  They watched it move back and forth like it got suddenly lost and tried to get its bearings.

Clearly, it was a ship of some kind, and Elder Stow said as much when he admitted, “I have never seen the like.”  He got out his scanner, but before he could get a good reading, the ship vanished into thin air.  Somehow, the travelers imagined it did not just turn invisible.

“Time displacement,” Katie named it, and they went back inside where it was warm.

It took three days, with a couple of stops, to reach Omaha, and those who got off on the Nebraska side headed for the train.  The transcontinental railroad went from there all the way to San Francisco.  Crossing the Rockies in winter was not a good idea, but most were not going that far, and the few hoped to reach California before the January snows filled the passes. Some crossed the river to Council Bluffs Iowa looking for the train to Chicago and back east.  Some stayed on board the ship to continue south.  The steamship would eventually land in Saint Louis.

The weather had warmed as they traveled south, so it was not so bad when they cinched up their backpacks and headed out of town.  No one asked them where they were going, so it was a pleasant walk until the end.  They found the time gate in a barn owned by a Mister E. B. Johnson.  The man seemed kind enough, but his wife was greedy.  They had three mostly grown sons who all came to the front porch to see the strangers.  The travelers stopped outside the house and asked if they could spend the night in the barn.  The sun started to set.  Katie tried to be friendly and asked where the couple came from.

“Norway,” the man said.  “I came all the way here and built my farm with my own two hands.”    I am Erik Johnson, my wife is Britta, and my sons are Dag, Anders, and Bjorn is our youngest.”  He looked at the sky as his wife spoke.

“You can stay in the barn out of the wind and snow or rain, whatever we get, but you will have to pay for the night.”

“Where are you headed?” the man asked, to keep things friendly.

“The year twenty-fifteen,” Lockhart said with a straight face.

“Nineteen-fourteen,” Decker said.  He took Nanette’s hand and patted Tony on the shoulder.  Lockhart, Katie, Lincoln, and Sukki looked at the man.  They wondered where Decker and Nanette would end up.  Apparently, they had settled the matter.

Elder Stow spoke more plainly.  “We don’t know what year it will be when we arrive.  We are time travelers.”

The wife opened her eyes wide and spoke to her husband in Norwegian not imagining the travelers would understand.  “These people are crazy.  I don’t want crazy people around my farm.”

Katie interrupted perfectly in the same language.  “Time travel is not as crazy as you think.  We visited Norway once back in the days of the Vikings.  They were a rough and greedy people, but they were kind to us.”

Lincoln stepped forward.  “Here is eight dollars. It is not exactly hotel accommodations, but that is a dollar for each of us and should be more than enough for a night in a barn.  We will be gone in the morning before you know it.”

Bjorn, fourteen or fifteen years old, shouted, “Cool!” or the 1875 version of the word.  “You have many guns.  Did you fight any red Indians?  I sometimes dream a whole tribe of Indians comes charging out of the woods there.”

No one answered when they heard shouting in the nearby woods.  Men in very odd-looking uniforms came tumbling out of the woods like they were indeed charging the enemy.  The uniforms looked splotched in red and gray, an odd sort of camouflage, and the helmets had shaded visors down the front, like astronaut helmets, so faces could not be seen.  The travelers drew their guns.  Sukki raised her hands and Nanette raised her wand, but the men stopped suddenly and looked around like they were just as surprised at the change of location as the others were surprised at their sudden appearance.  As fast as they arrived, the soldiers faded and vanished, and Elder Stow thought a word was advisable.

“Be careful what you wish for young man,” he said, and the travelers hurried to the barn, while the man, his wife and three sons went into the house to lock themselves in.  The family got scared, and the husband thought he might tell the travelers to find shelter elsewhere, but the wife was not about to refund the eight dollars.

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MONDAY

Welcome to Hollywood in the 30s and to polio. The travelers have to cross half the continent to get there. Fortunately, they can take the train. Until then, Happy Reading

 

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