Time Out of Mind (30 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
“
Did he?”
He tried. Teddy fought him one more time after a few
more lessons from John. This time he learned slipping and dodging. And how to bite down on soft wood while you're
fighting lest you get your jaw broken. That's what Teddy
did to Todd at last. For good measure he put a pair of
shanties on his glimmers.”
”
I beg your pardon.”
Corbin grinned, embarrassed. “That's some slang John
uses. It means black eyes.”
“
And that was the last of Todd Fisher.”
“
No, indeed.” Corbin touched a finger to his once broken nose, quite proudly, Sturdevant thought. “It wasn't a
fortnight before he came after me.”
“
With a broken jaw?”
“
Yes, sir, but with a pair of knucks. He broke my nose and laid open my brow with a single jab before I tackled him and brought him down. Then I left my mark on him
good and proper. John Flood says you should always finish
your man and leave your mark on him. The, mark on a beaten man always goes deep, he says. He'll always fear
the man who gave it to him. John says it's not the same
with the marks he put on me. Those are better than medals,
John says. And anyway, one more good scrap could
straighten out my nose as good as new.”
In any case, I gather you and Teddy Roosevelt became
good friends.”
Yes, until I went back to middle school after the Easter
holiday.”
“
What about after that?”
1
Our families summer in different places. And then his family moved up to Fifty-seventh Street and we saw each
other less often for a while.”
she'd caught Corbin's first use of the present tense. She
was busy scribbling. She held a note out to Sturdevant
but, preoccupied, he waved it off.
Have you never heard the name John L. Sullivan?” he
asked the boy in Corbin's mind. “Or of a prizefight be
tween him and John Flood?”
No, sir. John often speaks of trying his hand in the prize
ring after he's saved enough of a stake to bet on himself.
His father was a prizefighter, you know. Gentleman Jimmy
Flood, he was called. John says his dah was never knocked
off his feet by any man save John Barleycorn.”
“
What about John L. Sullivan, speaking of prizefighters?
Or Paddy Ryan or Jake Kilrain? Ever heard of them?”
”
I haven't, sir.”
Gwen Leamas threw up her hands and leaned toward Harry Sturdevant’s ear. ”I don't know how you managed
this, but now that you have, will you stop with those
damned boxers? Ask him something useful. And for
heaven's sake, don't call him Jonathan.”
It's fascinating,” Harry Sturdevant whispered. “Like a
window into another era. Jonathan seems to have locked in
on a single ancestral experience. He's never heard of Sul
livan or Kilrain because no one else had either at that point.
If I asked him about Ella or Margaret, he wouldn't know
what I was talking about.”
You can ask him about himself. You can ask him his
bloody name.”
Of course.” Sturdevant banged his forehead. “Stupid
of me.”
“
Ask him.”
“
Young man, does the name Tilden mean anything to
you?”
Again, Corbin seemed confused. “You mean the gov
ernor, sir?”
“
No, not the—” Sturdevant cleared his throat. “What
governor?”
“
Samuel Tilden, sir. Governor of New York.”
“
Urn, is that the only Tilden you can think of?”
Gwen showed her teeth. “Will you please, dear Uncle
Harry, simply ask him what his full name is?”
“
Oh my goodness,” Harry Sturdevant gasped.
“
What?”
“
Boxing,” he whispered. “I've just realized where I've
seen that face before. There's always been something fa
miliar about Jonathan.”
“
Uncle Harry, I'm about to dig my nails into you.”
“
Young man, your given name is Tilden as well, isn't
it?”
“
Yes, sir.”
“
You're Tilden Beckwith.”
“
Yes, sir.”
“
And your father's name?”
“
Stanton Beckwith, sir.”
“
Tilden, do you recall the name Schuyler Sturdevant?”
“
Yes, sir. He's been to some of my mother's entertain
ments.”
“
What is his profession?”
“
He
...
he's a gentleman, sir.”
“
He has no profession? How does he occupy his time?”
Mr. Sturdevant enjoys coaching, sir. And I think he
races trotters up in Harlem. On Sundays he and Father both
play baseball for the Murray Hill Maroons.”
“
And prizefights. Does he go to prizefights?”
Oh, I shouldn't think so, sir. Matches at his club, per
haps, but not a prizefight.”
Gwen did dig her nails into Harry Sturdevant’ s hand.
“What is going on here? Who is Schuyler?”
“
My grandfather. This is incredible.”
“
But your grandfather was a doctor too.”
“
Not yet apparently. He had his fun first until he was
thirty. Shhh! Now comes the tricky part.” Sturdevant
leaned forward on the edge of his chair. “Tilden, where
are you at this moment?”
“
In the park, sir.”
“
What park is that?”
“
Gramercy Park.”
”
I see. And where is Jonathan?”
“
You just blew it.” Gwen punched him.
“
Jonathan, sir?”
“
Jonathan Corbin. Do you know that name?”
“
No, sir.”
Oh God, Uncle Harry.” Gwen felt a knotting in her
stomach. “Oh God, it's what he's most afraid of. Not being
able to get back.”
“
He seems all right. Shhh!”
“
You'd better bring him out of it. Now.”
”
I didn't put him in it.”
“
You hypnotized him.”
“
No, Gwen. I didn't.” Sturdevant was beginning to per
spire.
did have a familiar ring to it but he was quite sure he did
not know the person. The only Corbin he'd ever even heard of was the one married to President Grant's sister. That was Abel Corbin. He was one of the schemers who tried to help
Jay Gould corner all the country's gold during the presi
dent's first term. Tilden didn't fully understand what they
did, but he remembered that it was all his father and his father's associates talked about for quite a time because it
nearly ruined some of them. Still, they seemed to admire
the daring of the attempt. Though they did not admire Mr. Corbin. Father called him a covetous wretch with the mor
als of a slaver. And surely not Mr. Gould, whom Mother
insists that neither she nor any other respectable hostess will
receive.
Tilden glanced at the lengthening shadow of a Japanese
maple tree and then at the western sky through its rust-
colored leaves. Father would be home for supper soon. And
Tilden had promised to read at least one more chapter of
Around the World in Eighty Days
and be prepared to recite
at the table. He would have to ask this old gentleman to
excuse him.
“
Jonathan?”
Tilden blinked. He had not noticed the woman before. She was just suddenly there at the old gentleman's elbow
and
...
my goodness ... my goodness, she's wearing trousers. And a man's shirtwaist. And she's painted almost like
a Sixth Avenue doxy.
“
Jonathan! It's me. It's Gwen.”
That name again. Now it seemed much more familiar.
He wanted to tell her that he was assuredly not this Jonathan and that he could not recall making her acquaintance
but now she too began to seem familiar. And that was impossible. He had never seen a woman like her, never in his
life, not even in books. A handsome woman to be sure.
Quite handsome. But so bold. So direct in manner. So
...
almost manly. Oh
...
oh, my goodness. At the thought of
her masculine dress and bearing, Tilden's eyes had dropped
to her bosoms. They were moving. Her bosoms were jounc
ing as she walked toward him, rhythmically, like a carriage
on its springs. Tilden felt his cheeks burst into flame, but
he could not look away. Her shirtwaist was open a full four
inches from the throat and he could see an expanse of flesh
that was tinted almost golden, the way yachtsmen are
tanned and ruddied by the sun. She was reaching for him
now. Leaning down to him. Her fingertips cool and thrilling
against his ears. He felt a thumping below his stomach as
she drew his face closer, now touching, now pressed against
a softness more wonderful than the finest goose-down pil
low.
Tilden wanted to raise his hands, to touch her, to feel the
firm warmth of her waist and hips, which he knew would
not be bound within the bone and steel of a corset. On her
breast there would be none of the wire forms resembling
twin kitchen strainers such as he'd seen in his mother's room. None of the shifts and thick chemises he'd seen in
the advertisements marked For the Woman of the House
Only, which came in the mail from Macy's and A. T. Stew
art's. But he did not raise his hands. He could not. He kept
them folded tightly across his lap to contain the humiliation
that would harden and rise in spite of his desperate wish
that it should not. She must have seen it. She's angry. Up
set. Shaking me. Oh, so embarrassing. Even the old gen
tleman, peering over her shoulder into my eyes. Oh, if I
could die. Shaking me
...
wait... wait a second ...
“Gwen?”
Thank God.” She released his shoulders and straight
ened. Corbin brought his knuckles to his eyes.
“
What's the matter? I dozed off?”
Nothing's the matter.” Sturdevant pinched Gwen's
arm, unseen. “As you say, you dozed off. You looked like
you were having a bad dream.”
Bad dream?” Corbin stretched and shook his head.
“No. It was about Gwen, I think.” That's right, he nodded
to himself. Gwen and her uncle, too. But in the dream he
didn't think he knew them. In the dream he'd been struck by what a sleek and sexy lady she was, just like the first
time he'd ever laid eyes on her. It's funny how you can get
so used to the good things in your life you almost stop
seeing them sometimes. “It wasn't a bad dream at all,” he
said to her. “'I think I was falling in love with you all over
again.”