Somewhere in Time (28 page)

"Now, Jack," the older man said. "Stop scaring him like that. You will make his hair turn white before his time." "This is his time," Jack said.

It was at that moment that the true horror of the situation struck me and I looked across my shoulder at the hotel, unable to restrain a sound of dread as I saw how far away it was. "He's groaning, Al," the younger man said. "You think he's sick?"

I paid no attention to him, swallowed by despair. Was this the finish then? Was my long journey to Elise to end in brutal murder on a beach? How could I have underestimated Robinson so blindly? The last words he'd spoken to me were that he was able to "compass my demise." He was-and had-and I would lose Elise forever, having spent a few short moments with her. Those books would not be written differently, her life would be exactly as I'd read of it. Her "Coronado scandal" was already over. We would never see each other again until that night in 1953, when, sitting at a party in Columbia, Missouri, she would see my face on a nineteen-year-old boy and, hours later, die. This was all I had accomplished on my journey-an endless, unhappy circle, an unceasing round of traveling back to be killed, then to be born and live to the day when I travel back to be killed again.

I turned to the older man. "Please," I said. "Don't do this. You don't understand. I have come here from 1971 to be with Miss McKenna. We love each other and-"

"Ain't that sweet,"Jack said, a sound of pseudosympathy in his voice.

"It's true," I said, ignoring him. "I really did it. I came back through time to-"

"Boo-hoo-hoo," said Jack.

"Damn you!" I cried.

"No, damn you!" he said. I felt myself go cold as I saw his right hand plunge into his coat. I'm dead, I thought.

"Here now." The older man let go of me to grab at him. "You off your head? So close to the hotel?"

"I don't care!"Jack told him. "I want to put a bullet in his swelled head."

"Keep that pistol in your pocket, Jack, or, so help me God, I'll smash in your face," the older man said, in a voice that told me instantly how much more of a man- and menace-he was.

Jack glared at him, unmoving. The older man patted his shoulder. "Come on, boy," he said. "Use your noodle. You want to bring the law down on us?"

"No swell curses me and gets away with it," Jack muttered.

"He's upset, Jack. Can you blame him?" "He'll be dead as well, I'm bound,"Jack answered. "That's as may be," Al said. "Let's get on now." His words chilled me far more than Jack's had because I knew they were spoken from confidence rather than bluster. If he chose to kill me, I'd be killed; that simple.

We started off again and I looked at Al in pained surprise as he chuckled. "What was that you said?" he asked. "I never heard a man beg for his life that way before." I got an impression of long years spent in killing men and shivered.

I wasn't going to answer him, then decided I had nothing to gain from silence. "I'm telling you the truth," I said. "I came to this hotel seventy-five years ago-in 1971. I decided to-"

"When were you born?" he interrupted. "Nineteen thirty-six."

A wheezing laugh escaped his lips, whiskey fumes clouding over me. "Well then," he said, "if you are not yet born, how can you be walking here beside us?" "He's a loony, let's get rid of him," Jack said. The realization of how difficult it would be to explain the enigma of what I had done filled me with distress. Still, I had no other choice. "Listen to me," I said. "I came to this hotel on November 14, 1971. I saw a photograph of Miss McKenna and fell in love with her." "Aw," said Jack.

I gritted my teeth, continuing. "I did research on time and willed myself back to 1896. I did," I added quickly, seeing Al smile. "I swear I did. I was born on February 20, 1936. I went-"

I broke off as Al patted me roughly on the shoulder. "You're a good lad, Collier, but you're off your nut." I knew then the hopelessness of trying to make him understand. Which left me nothing but the possibility that, in moving so far from the hotel, I would lose my hold on 1896 and escape from them that way; which was less than nothing.

The boardwalk ended and we stepped down to the sandy beach, continuing south. I looked at the hotel again. It seemed miles away. As I stared at it, a sudden, hard resolve took hold of me: I would not go down easily.

"You don't have to keep holding my arms," I said. "I'm not going anywhere." I tried to make my tone one of bitter defeat.

"That is true, you are not," Al said. He released my arm. Jack did not let go at first. I waited tensely. After another minute or so, he dropped his hand.

The moment he did, I lunged forward and began to run as fast as I could, expecting, at any second, to hear the explosion of Jack's pistol and feel the jarring impact of a bullet hitting my back. "No, Jack!" I heard Al cry and knew my fear was justified. I tried to weave as I ran, lifting my legs as high as I could, knowing that my only remaining chance lay in outdistancing them; a reasonable possibility, it seemed, since both of them were so much bulkier than I.

I looked straight ahead of me as I ran, afraid to glance back. There was nothing in sight to run toward-no house, no sign of life. I began to curve a little to the left, hoping to move in a wide semicircle so my dash would finally be directed toward the hotel. I thought I heard their running footsteps behind me but wasn't sure. Still no shot. Momentary hope burst deep inside me.

Smothered instantly as something crashed against my legs from behind and I went pitching forward in the sand. Twisting around, I saw Jack looming overhead. With a muffled curse, he took a swing at me and I threw up my left arm to block the punch. I gasped in pain as his fist struck my arm; it felt like rock. A few blows from him and I'd be bloody and unconscious.

Then the older man was on him and before Jack had a chance to take another swing, he was yanked to his feet and flung aside. My relief was short-lived as Al bent over me and grabbed my coat. Abruptly, I was on my feet before him, seeing his arm draw back. I tried to deflect his blow but the power of it knocked my arm aside, the hard flat of his palm smashing against my cheek, driving streaks of blinding pain through my eye and jaw. "Now that's enough," he said. He shook me as an adult would a child, his strength incredible. "One more move like that and we will kill you." He jarred me down and turned to check the forward rush of Jack, holding him as easily as he had me. "Let me at him!"Jack demanded fiercely. "Let me at him, Al!" I stood, half-blinded, watching, as the older man held his partner at bay, calming him. "Easy does it, boy" he said. "Slow down your blood."

They weren't going to kill me then. The knowledge, at first a relief, now only made things worse. If I had known, I could have waited for a better opportunity to break away from them. After this, they wouldn't give me such a chance again.

It was not until the older man got angry and told Jack he was in charge and Jack had better remember it that the younger man stopped struggling. Moments later, they had me by the arms again, moving me along the beach. Jack's fingers dug unmercifully at me now but I didn't mention it. Teeth clenched, I asked the older man what he was going to do with me.

"Kill you," Jack spoke first. "Deader than a mackerel." "No, Jack," Al said, almost wearily. "I am not a man to commit murder and you know it."

"What are you going to do then?" I asked. "Keep you from returning to the hotel," Al informed me. "Until the train has left."

"Is that what Robinson told you to do?" "I believe that was the gentleman's name." Al nodded. "And you can thank him for your life. He was double-clear that you were not to be harmed, merely kept from the hotel a number of hours." He clucked disgustedly. "And we would not have harmed you either if you hadn't kept resisting us. But that is being young, I guess. My Paul was similar."

He said no more and I wondered why Robinson had been so scrupulous regarding my life when he'd seemed to desire nothing more than its abrupt conclusion. Had I, again, misjudged him? I frowned away the thought. What did it matter anyway? Losing Elise was no less than losing my life. True, I'd read that she'd remained at the hotel, but how could I rest my life on that? Did it make any sense that she'd remain alone when all her company was gone? Make any sense that her mother and, especially, Robinson would leave her there? Would Robinson have gone to all this trouble only to leave her behind?

Further, my abrupt disappearance could only make her think that I had gone as I had come-mysteriously, inexplicably. The notion that Robinson had had me abducted could not possibly occur to her. She would leave with her company. No other course was logical. Leaving me with one course: to earn enough money to follow her to New York City, a course which loomed as insurmountable. What kind of job could I get which would not require months to earn cross-country train fare? Months in which Elise could change her mind about me. Not to mention the ever-present feeling (almost a conviction now) that my hold on 1896 would be, for some time, limited to the hotel and its close environs. If I feared to lose hold with the hotel still in sight, how could I dare travel thousands of miles from it? Which left what? Writing to her? Hoping she'd return. Robinson would be alert to any letters coming in. She would never see mine.

I started as the older man said, "There it is," and, focusing my eyes, saw ahead the low, dark outline of a shed. "Here is your home for the next few hours, Collier," Al told me.

"And forever,"Jack said quietly. I looked at him in shock. "What was that?" asked Al.

Jack said nothing and I swallowed dryly. "He intends to kill me," I said.

"No one's going to kill you," Al replied. Jack has the gun though, I thought. What if his desire to murder me were so intense he'd kill Al too to gratify it? Falling out among thieves, I thought. Again ridiculously melodramatic, again chillingly real.

We had reached the shed now and the door was creaking loudly as Al pulled it open, shoving me inside. I staggered, caught my balance, wincing at the flare of pain in my left eye. It was pitch-black in the shed. For a moment, I considered reaching around hurriedly on the floor for something to hit them with. But there was still that pistol in Jack's pocket and I hesitated. A moment later, a match was being struck, the flame casting a flickering glint over their faces: those of men who had lived rough lives and been irreparably hardened by them.

I watched as Al took a candle from his pocket and lit the wick, pushing the candle into the dirt floor until it stood by itself. The flame grew long and yellow, increasing the illumination, and I looked around. No windows, only cracked wood walls.

"All right, tie him up," Al told his partner.

"Why bother?" Jack objected. "A bullet in his brain would save us the trouble."

"Jack, do what I say" Al told him. "You are going to make me lose my temper soon."

Hissing with disgust, Jack moved to a corner of the shed and, bending over, picked up a coil of dirty rope. As he turned toward me I knew, with a rush of dread, that the final moment had arrived. If I failed to get away now, I would never see Elise again. The knowledge made me stiffen and, with desperate strength, clench and drive my fist as hard as I could into Jack's face. With a startled cry, he flailed back clumsily against the wall. I whirled to see reaction just beginning on the older man's face. I knew I had no chance to knock him down and, lunging to the side, dove against the door and burst it open. Falling outside, I rolled once and started surging to my feet.

Then I felt the grip of Al's big hand on my coat-tail and was yanked back into the shed and flung to the ground; I cried out as my left arm twisted underneath my body. "You will not learn, will you, Collier?" he said, infuriated.

"Goddamn him, he's a dead man now." I heard the rasping voice of Jack behind me and twisted around to see him standing dizzily, hand reaching into his pocket. "Wait outside," Al told him.

"He's a dead man, Al." Jack pulled the pistol from his pocket and extended his arm to fire at me. I stared at him, no thoughts and no reactions, paralyzed.

I never saw Al move. The first thing I was conscious of was Jack being struck on the side of his head and knocked to the ground, the pistol flying. Al picked it up and shoved it into his pocket, then bent over Jack, grabbed him by the collar and the belt, carried him to the doorway, and heaved him outside like a sack of potatoes. "Try to come inside again and you will be the one with a bullet in the brain!" he shouted.

He turned back, breathing hard, and stared at me. "You are hard to take, young man," he said. "Damned hard to take."

I swallowed, watching him, afraid to make a sound. His breathing slowed, then, with a brusque move, he snatched up the coil of rope and shook it loose. Kneeling, he began to loop it around my body, his expression stonelike. "I suggest you make no further move," he said. "You have just come paper-close to dying. I suggest you come no closer." I remained immobile, silent, as he tied me, trying not to wince as he pulled the rope taut. I would not make any further moves. Neither would I make any further pleas for freedom. I would take what came now and be still about it. Abruptly, unexpectedly, he chuckled, making me start. For a mad instant, I thought: My God, it was all a joke, he's going to let me go. But he only said, "I like your spunk, boy. You're a bully lad. Jack is a strong man and you nearly stretched him cold." He chuckled again. "The look of wonder on his face is something I will treasure." Reaching out, he mussed my hair. "You remind me of my Paul. He had spunk too, bushels of it. Took a good twelve savages before he went down, that I'll wager. Damned Apaches."

I stared at him as he finished tying the ropes. A son killed by Apaches? I could not absorb the knowledge; it was too foreign to me. All I knew was that I was alive because of him and he would not release me whatever I asked. I would have to hope that I could untie myself quickly after he was gone.

He made a final, rock-hard knot and stood with a groan, looking at me. "Well, Collier," he said, "we part company now." He reached around for something in his rear trouser pocket, had trouble getting it. I stared at him, my heartbeat quickening. A wave of coldness gripped me as he drew the object out. There'd be no breaking loose from bonds, no returning before the train left.