The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller (15 page)

We boarded and settled in. The train clicked away from San Claredo, gathering speed. I watched the other passengers. No one paid us any special mind. Vette napped. I thought about shaking her awake, but I wanted her rested, ready to tackle whatever awaited us in Brownville.

After a stop in a one-horse town, I got up to stretch my legs and see if the train had a bathroom, which I feared would be nothing more than a plank over a hole straight through the bottom of the car. Tragically, I was correct. I finished up and exited the tiny, frightening, foul-smelling room.

A woman screamed behind me.

Down the car, men masked by bandanas piled through the door opposite the one I'd come through, leveling pistols at the passengers. One of the bandits grabbed a man by the face and pulled him close. I backed toward the door and exited onto the thunderous, swaying platform. Safely inside the next car, where the passengers remained oblivious to the invasion behind them—the noise of the train drowned out any screams or commands—I sprinted up the train, found our seat, and jostled Vette awake.

"They're here," I said.

Her eyes were sleep-fogged, crusted at the corners. "Huh?"

"Hockery's people. They're here for us."

Vette bolted upright. "Oh shit. What do we do?"

I pressed my face to the window. The train had been slowed by a long ascent to a distant ridge, but it was still making thirty miles per hour or more. The ground beside it was broken and rocky. Jumping for it risked spilling our brains across the prairie. Judging by the way the bandit had examined that man's face, they knew what we looked like. No hope of hiding among the passengers.

"The roof," I said. "We hide there. If we have to, that's where we make our stand."

I checked my inner pockets to make sure I still had my maps and real estate records, then got up and headed for the door to the next car. Outside, the train jounced and rattled, jarring the platform. There were no ladders or handholds up the side of the car. I jerked my thumb toward the next one. Vette nodded. We moved inside it. When we were halfway down the aisle, three masked men burst through the door ahead.

"Get your asses down and your hands up!" one of them shouted, sweeping a rifle across the passengers. Men and women flinched. I took an empty seat, pulling Vette beside me. Up front, the bandits ordered people to stand. The gunmen examined their captives' scared faces one by one.

"Just the three of them," I murmured. "We deal with them and move forward with the plan."

Vette nodded, expression taut. Row by row, the men moved closer. I eased my revolver from its holster. The weapon was heavy and cool. Vette jerked her gaze to the window, stared, then touched my shoulder.

"No time," I said. The bandits advanced, now three rows away. I found Vette's eye and glanced at my gun. She gritted her teeth and nodded.

I rolled from my seat, fanning the hammer of the revolver just like I'd done in the AVI sims. Vette popped up and did the same. The crash of gunfire drowned out the rumble of the train. The bandits shouted, knocked backward in a hail of lead, spraying upholstery with impossibly red blood. Passengers screamed, turning their faces from the hot mist.

All three men dropped, limbs a-tangle. I grabbed Vette's wrist and sprinted toward the door the bandits had entered from. Its dusty glass window showed the car ahead was filled with frightened citizens, but there was no sign of more gunmen.

I stepped out onto the platform; rather than being a plank-like walkway between cars like the others, this one resembled a wrap-around porch, complete with a carved wooden railing. Smoke sifted past, irritating my throat. I saw no ladders or steps up to the roof. I swore.

Vette pointed to the window in the door we'd just exited. "They're coming."

"Hang on." I moved around the platform to the side of the car. Nothing. I hammered my fist against the impassive wall. And there it was, as if waiting for me: a set of ladder-like steps embedded in the side of the car and climbing to its roof. I grinned and ran back to the front of the porch.

Vette was gone. Smoke curled overhead. A hawk banked on the wind. Through the dust-smeared window, a terrified passenger gestured my direction. A bandit shoved the man into his seat and loped forward.

I darted around the porch to the ladder and hauled myself up hand over hand, tossed by every pitch of the train. I rolled onto the roof and sat up, getting my bearings as I reloaded my pistol. Hot smoke gushed from the engines, stinging my eyes. The train was still climbing the long, shallow ascent. Yellow grass and green-gray shrubs whisked past. Miles to the west, the ocean slopped around in the sunlight.

The land leveled out. A little more than a mile ahead, a spindly metal bridge spanned a ravine. We'd crossed that bridge on the way to San Claredo. There was a river at the bottom. Decent-sized. If the drop from the bridge to the water was as short as I remembered, I'd take my chances and jump, swim until I'd put some distance between myself and the train tracks, then sneak back to Brownville.

If Vette had any sense—and wasn't already dead—she'd do something similar. Either that or hide out for the next week until the Pods yanked us back to Primetime.

The roof of the train was mostly flat and featureless, but several cars back, a chimney and pipes projected to thigh height. Cover. I got up, gathering my balance, then jogged along the car. There was a good six-foot gap between cars, but momentum was on my side. I broke into a sprint and leapt across. I landed, stumbled, spread my limbs to catch myself. My wrists and knees throbbed, but I was intact. I trundled down the car and made another jump.

I still had two cars to go when a bullet whizzed past my head.

I hit the deck. A man in a bandana swayed on the roof two cars and eighty feet away. One of the passengers must have tipped him off. I braced my shooting elbow and opened fire. He jerked out of the way, then wobbled and toppled over the side, smashing into the wooden ties along the side of the tracks.

I got up and ran. A bullet slapped into the wooden roof just ahead. I dropped. Bandits swarmed up the same ladder I'd come up. They were a good fifty yards back, which was a tough shot with these antique pistols under any circumstances, let alone on top of a rocking, jostling train, but gunshots were going off like fireworks, the smell of burnt gunpowder carrying on the wind. Pressed flat on the roof, I fired back, emptying my pistol. As soon as I stopped, a bandit got up, ran down the car, and leapt the first gap. A couple others moved to follow. The remainder went on shooting, pinning me down.

"Jump!"

I blinked. A dust cloud roiled beside the train. Vette bobbed into view, her horse surging to keep up.

She waved one hand, other clinging to the reins. "
Jump!
"

Gunshots crackled, fighting to be heard over the thunder of the iron dragon. I scrabbled to the opposite side of the car, got up, and ran straight back at the ledge. Vette galloped beside the tracks, looking very far away.

I jumped as high and far as I could. Vette's eyes went wide. I crashed into her and the pommel of the saddle, knocking the wind from my lungs. I gasped. She peeled away from the train and raced due west toward the sea. Shots popped behind us, growing fainter by the second.

I disentangled myself and clung to the horse's hot, sweaty neck. After a minute, I could breathe again. "Where did you find a
horse
?"

"Took it from the bandits." Vette glanced over her shoulder. "They were waiting along the tracks. Caught up to the train when it tried to take the hill. You're sure they were after us?"

"Extremely."

"Then we'd better get out of sight."

She cut southwest through a fold in the hills. The train disappeared from sight, though its bloom of smoke continued to give it away. Vette slowed down to negotiate the rock-studded slopes. After a couple miles with no sign of pursuit, she stopped in a draw to give the horse and ourselves a welcome breather.

I got out my handkerchief and swiped dust and sweat from my face. "How did you get to a horse in the first place?"

Vette swigged from a flask I hadn't known she carried. "They were riding right beside the train. Tried to tell you."

"Good work. Thank you."

She smiled, then quickly smothered it. "I think we should go straight to Ottoway."

"Are these directions clear enough for
you
to follow?" I opened my vest, indicating the paper the man had left me in the tunnel. "We'll sneak into Brownville at night. Find Mabry. He'll lead us there."

She looked ready to argue, then thought better and nodded. "Long ride. Better move."

We found our way to the river, watered the horse and ourselves. Crossing it nearly drowned us. We dried ourselves off, checked our firearms for water, and continued north along the coast. We were further away from Brownville than I thought; we had to stop for the night before we reached the woody peninsula where I'd been ambushed in Vance Canyon.

We couldn't risk a fire, meaning we were damp, chilled, and miserable. Hungry, too. We'd left our bag on the train, including the food I'd brought for emergencies just like this one. There were orange trees on the peninsula, the fruit falling right to the ground, but I had no intention of stumbling around in the dark for it. The saddlebags on our stolen horse had some dry bread and a single blanket, both of which we shared. The surf crashed and boomed. Overhead, five thousand stars burned more clearly than I'd ever seen.

We woke early. I was stiff and sore and scraped. We took turns riding; at times we both dismounted and walked alongside the horse, giving it a rest. Slow as we were, we drew within sight of Brownville's shacks that afternoon. With daylight ready to betray us if came too close to civilization, I circled around to Mabry's claim near the river north of town, hoping to catch him before he headed in to the saloons. We lucked out.

There in the patchy trees, Mabry straightened, back crackling, and leaned on his shovel. "You look like you got caught in a wagon's spokes."

"Hockery took exception to our interest in his business." I slapped dust from my denim pants. "You got anything to eat?"

He fed us last night's chicken and gravy, examining my map and directions while we chowed down. He tapped the text. "Don't recognize all the landmarks."

"Nobody's going to think badly of you if you don't want to get involved," I said. "Hockery's more dangerous than you know."

Mabry nodded with a wry and angry smile. "If nobody steps up, won't be long before he's threatened, bribed, and muscled control of everything here. I'll show you the way."

I clapped him on the shoulder. "Thank you."

He glanced at Vette and touched the brim of his hat. "With any luck, we'll lead you to your brother, too."

She smiled. "I'd appreciate that, Mr. Mabry."

He grinned back. Beneath his beard, he might even have blushed. Despite the declining sun, I had half a mind to ride out then and there, but we were all tired, and Mabry's camp was tucked inside the trees where it wasn't likely to get spotted by anyone, let alone Hockery's men. After promising to make an early start, we slept.

I felt better in the morning. We fed and geared ourselves while it was still dark, then Mabry led the way on his mule. The dawn's first light painted the trees unfamiliar shades of blue and gray. We broke into the prairie and the sun burned the dew, filling the air with the smell of humid grass. The foothills lumped up from the flatland. Mabry charted the way, moving from one trail to the next, pausing to examine the directions, the map, and the landscape, muttering to himself as he ran his finger along the spidery words.

My anticipation rose with the land. I didn't know what we'd find, but if it proved a world beyond Primetime had access to time travel, it would change everything. The idea was terrifying: we had the Cutting Room, Central, and two hundred years of experience defending the past, but I doubted it would be enough. It's hard enough to police the present. When all of history is open to infiltration, invasion, and attack, it's impossible to keep out those who would corrupt it.

Mountains loomed before us, high and snow-capped. Grass, pines, and wildflowers sprouted from whatever dirt collected between the sharp black rocks. Mabry headed up another ridge and stopped at its flat top. The entire basin spread out behind us. Ahead, he pointed to a boisterous waterfall pouring down a short cliff into a pool. A stream exited it, hustling away to the southeast.

"Here it is," Mabry said.

I stopped cold. "Here's what?"

"Ottoway."

I scanned the landscape. Birds winged between the pines. Bugs called to each other, hidden by nature's vastness. "There's nothing here."

Mabry tapped the directions. "Well, this is it. The falls just past Crotter's Lurch."

My stomach turned on itself. "It's a wild goose chase. A trap. But if they wanted me dead, why not kill me in the graveyard in San Claredo?"

"What if it's a metaphor?" Vette said.

"How so?"

She gestured at the pristine crags. "It means 'beginning,' right? What if whatever's going to happen here hasn't happened yet?"

I turned in a slow circle, gaze sweeping across the mountains, down to the wide yellow basin, then back to the heights and the stream. I imagined how it would look in ten years, fifty, three hundred, towns cropping up wherever there was water or a crossroads, Brownville expanding to all sides, towers climbing, until all the towns grew together and filled the basin to the brim. And where were Hockery's holdings now? Scattered through the hills just below us, dotting the plain, all the way to the long crease of the misnomered Green Valley Ranch—

My head lurched. "It's not just a metaphor."

"What?" Vette said.

I opened my mouth to explain, then forced myself not to glance at Mabry. "Your brother. I know where he's gone."

"Okay," she said slowly. "Feel like
telling
me?"

Mabry chuckled. "Not while I'm around, I reckon."

"Sorry," I said. "It's better you don't know."

"You seen all you need to see?"