Written in Time (14 page)

“I don’t believe you!”
 

“We’re lagging behind. One of the ADs is waving at us.” And David leaned into the whipping mane of the bay mare he rode, the animal’s pace quickening.
 

“I’m not through talking to you, Davey!” Jack Naile urged his buckskin ahead, the blunted rowels of his spurs raking the animal gently, as Elvis had instructed him.
 

“Put yourself in the horse’s position, Jack,” Elvis said.
 

That stud or whatever you’re ridin’ wants direction, control. No creature wants pain and meanness.”
 

Jack cut the distance, pulled alongside David. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”
 

“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
 

That was David’s way. He sincerely wanted to be open and truth-telling, but he also had the uncanny ability to make anyone feel guilty about questioning his conduct or disagreeing with him in any way. “You’re not shitting me.”
 

“Let it go, Dad. I was just trying to be honest with you, and this is what I get for it.”
 

“No, listen, son. I appreciate you telling me, sharing stuff with me.” Jack Naile thought, My God, he’s doing it to me, making me feel guilty. The insert cars were breaking off in opposite directions. In a moment or two, the second unit director would signal “Cut” and everyone would start reining in.
 

Movies were good. When the scene ended, that was it and life went on just as before.
 

“Our son did what, Jack?”
 

The suite of rooms the production company paid for was clean, comfortable and semiluxurious: huge bedroom with a king-size bed, couch and television; slightly smaller sitting room with another couch, several overstuffed chairs and an even larger television; bathroom with a large tub and great water pressure; a balcony overlooking the parking lot to the west and the mountains to the east. It adjoined a two-bedroom suite with a smaller sitting room and a bath, just as nice and with a better view of the parking lot, for Liz and David.
 

“You heard me, Ellen.”
 

“I just don’t understand him sometimes.”
 

“Maybe it’s good we’re getting away for a couple of days.” Jack was inspecting the contents of the attaché case, just retrieved from the production company’s safe. The contents—the diamonds, the small amount of gold, the Seecamp .32, the only modern firearm he hadn’t disposed of—seemed just as he’d left them. “Get David’s mind off the girl. We can look around the old store, if the current owner doesn’t mind, and check out what’s left of the house, too,” Jack told his wife. “It seems like we would have written something, left behind something. And if we could find out what we’d written, we might have an edge on what’s going to happen.” The mere contemplation of already having lived and died before they were born, having left notes or letters behind for their future selves in a past they had already lived but were to live again, was enough to induce insanity. Were they insane? All of them? How could this happen? Jack shook his head in momentary disbelief.
 

“Clarence called while you were getting the attaché case. He spoke with Liz for a while, and then got on the phone with me.”
 

“You tell him we’re all okay, kid?”
 

“Yeah, both physically and chronologically.”
 

“Clarence doing all right?”
 

“He sounded . . . You know, I’ve never used this word to say it, but it fits. He sounded distraught and kind of depressed.”
 

“Normal, huh?” Jack laughed. “I’m just kidding. I’m gonna miss him.”
 

“The kids’ll miss him. Speaking of the kids, where’s David?” Ellen asked.
 

“Liz sleeping?”
 

“Yeah. I’m supposed to wake her up in about an hour. Where’s David?”
 

“Riding.”
 

“Oh.”
 

“Not that kind. He’s out with Elvis Wilson. David’s conned Elvis into teaching him a Pony Express mount, and he wanted to polish it up before we left. I think he’s thinking this might be it, or at least we’re getting close.”
 

“Or is it just that a Pony Express mount is a good bet for quick getaways?” Ellen suggested.
 

“Ellen.”
 

“I’m sorry. No, I’m not. Are you going to talk to him about this thing with Holly Kinsey, since I’m not supposed to know about it?”
 

“He knows you’ll know about it. And,” Jack sighed audibly, “I really don’t know what to say that I haven’t said already. With one of the picture’s stars out of—out of the picture,” Jack said lamely, “for a few days with a dislocated shoulder, and the company shooting around him, we’ve got the time to get away and that may be just what David needs. It could be pretty overwhelming to a guy of seventeen to have a movie star tumble to him.”
 

“Would you have done it, Jack?”
 

“No, but I’m not him, and we don’t know the circumstances. Would a lot of guys do it if some hot babe who’s an international household word came on to them? Probably would.”
 

“That household word isn’t hard to guess. It’s got four letters and the third one’s a u,” Ellen supplied. “And if you change that third letter to an i, that’s what I’d just as soon do to Holly Kinsey’s throat.”
 

“Look at it this way, princess. Once this time shift happens, Holly Kinsey won’t have been born yet and David will be living in a much less permissive era.”
 

“And you just remember, Jack, that in those days the only way a girl could practice birth control was by keeping her knees together,” Ellen added soberingly.
 

Driving across the Sierra Nevada Mountains was something that Jack Naile was certain he would never forget. There was the agricultural inspection station at the border; then, once out of California—Ellen was driving by then—they turned north toward Carson City, stopping there to stretch their legs, the Suburban cramped because of the load it carried. They grabbed fast food, tanked up the Suburban and drove on toward Atlas, reaching the little town in early evening.
 

“You were right, Jack. It doesn’t look at all like it did in the photo, like it will for us,” Ellen almost whispered as Jack helped her from the Suburban’s front passenger seat.
 

“This can’t be right, Dad,” David declared, climbing out of the car and holding the middle seat door for his sister. “There’s almost nothing left from the photo. Did the whole town burn down or something?”
 

“That’s where the store was, wasn’t it, Daddy?”
 

“Yeah, Lizzie, where that law office is now. The foundation is pretty much the only thing left of it, though, but maybe there was a cellar or something. It’s too late to check it out today.” It was after six, well after anyone who didn’t have to kept office hours. But there was still plenty of daylight remaining, time enough for a quick drive to the ranch and an even quicker look at the remains of the house.
 

As there had been when Clarence and he had first stood on that street, alongside Arthur Beach, there was a strong breeze blowing in from the desert, dust devils appearing and disappearing.
 

They’d called for reservations at the town’s only motel, eschewing the two bed and breakfasts because the rates seemed scarily low.
 

Jack looked down the main street to his right, back toward where the highway did its right angle and continued on, almost as if Atlas were merely an inconvenience to the highway department engineers as they pressed their road onward across the high desert and into the purpling mountains.
 

“Anybody need to make a pit stop?” Jack gestured toward the highway. “The restaurant’s probably got decent johns.”
 

No one volunteered.
 

The ranch was just as Jack had described it. Ellen stepped out of the Suburban and turned a full three hundred sixty degrees. Yes, just as he had described it.
 

Jack holding her by the hand, the kids fanning out at their flanks, Ellen walked across the surprisingly level ground that would have comprised a front yard for the ruined house. She wondered, fleetingly, what irreplaceable memorabilia might have been lost when the house burned. What memories were gone forever?
 

The bones of the house laid upon a terrace. More open land—about the same size as a suburban backyard— separated the house from a roaring stream that emerged from a higher, wooded area beyond. There were a great many pines, but other types of trees as well. When the season was right, there would be flowers in the meadow that lay like an apron beneath the tree line. She’d have to learn the names of the wildflowers and plants.
 

The farthest boundary of the backyard seemed some several feet above the stream, a good feature during times of heavy rains or snow melt-off; the ground sloped radically downward to the water. “You were right, Jack; this is a perfect place for using hydro-electric power—if we can rig it up.”
 

“We can do it—we did it.” and he squeezed her hand.
 

A line of trees, almost perfectly paired, reached downward from the woods toward the terraced lot, as if grasping for the dirt ranch road leading up to the house. The track was precious little wider than the Suburban.
 

“How far is it from the highway, Jack?”
 

“Just a hair under nine miles. But remember, on horseback we’d knock about six miles off between here and the highway. The highway follows a natural ridgeline and then dips into the valley, which is kind of a usual thing for roads dating from horse backing days. So that was probably the highway a hundred years ago, too.”
 

The ride from the highway had been gradually uphill. Jack had said something earlier about the lot’s elevation accounting for the swiftness of the stream as it coursed downward.
 

The kids closing in at their sides, Ellen stepped across what was once the threshold, Jack beside her. Thankfully, he hadn’t offered to carry her over it. Considering the fact that the house, in its current state, was like a dead thing, to do so would have been spooky in the extreme.
 

From the layout of the house, as best Ellen could discern, they stood within what had once been a combination of sitting room, living room and dining room, planned out in the shape of an L resting on its side, the long vertical leg forming the sitting room and living room, the short horizontal leg the dining room. There were indications that another room had been off to her right as she faced the rear of the house where there was evidence of still more rooms. “This is the layout of the first floor of the house in Oak Park, Jack. We always liked that arrangement of rooms. We built this place.” And Ellen Naile shivered.
 

On closer viewing of the house, a fire might not have been the immediate cause of its destruction, but there had been a fire—afterward, perhaps.
 

All that remained essentially undamaged was an extremely nicely fitted stone-and-mortar chimney, the chimney thrusting upward into the deep blue of early evening from a hearth of inordinate size. “It’s like the fireplace they had at that little restaurant in the Chicago Loop that we used to eat at.”
 

“I thought that, too,” Jack affirmed.
 

“Still no word on who owns the property in the present?”
 

“God knows. Maybe our great-grandchildren own it.” Jack laughed softly. He might have been right. Ellen freed herself of Jack’s hand and approached the chimney. “Whatchya doing?”
 

“If we were going to leave anything special in this house, considering there would have been no fire department or anything like that, and we knew that someday we might come back looking for it in the future, where would we stash it?”
 

“In the fireplace,” Lizzie answered.
 

Ellen said, “That’s my girl. David, start checking that side.”
 

“But let’s all be careful,” Jack admonished. “With the mortar in its current state, we could get the whole thing tumbling down on us in a heartbeat.”
 

Slowly, carefully, they began to inspect the hearth, Jack producing a Mini Maglite from his bomber-jacket pocket, the pale light from its beam helping considerably. If needed, there were more flashlights in the Suburban. Lizzie said, “I just remembered something,” and produced a small light in the shape of a ladybug from within the bowels of her purse.
 

Thunder rumbled from up in the mountains and a flash of lightning freeze framed everything for an instant. “We’ve gotta hit the trail pretty soon. That road up here might be the kind that washes out during a heavy rain, guys,” Jack cautioned.
 

“Just another couple of minutes,” Ellen insisted.
 

“We can come back tomorrow and—” Lizzie began.
 

David interrupted her. “This stone almost wanted to come out by itself. Give me your knife, Dad.” Jack took a folding knife from his pocket. David opened it one-handed. “I may hurt the edge doing this.”
 

“I’ve got sharpening sticks in the Suburban. What have you found?”
 

“Just wait a minute, huh!”
 

“Take it easy, son,” Jack responded. Ellen didn’t say a word.
 

“Okay! Got it!”
 

David held a small metal box in his hands. Jack identified it. “Cast iron.”
 

“Can we open it?” Lizzie asked.
 

Ellen tried raising the lid.
 

“Probably rusted shut,” David announced.
 

“Let me have it, Davey.” Jack took the box, set it on the ground at their feet and looked about. “There we go.”