Fire, The (26 page)

Sarah laughed to herself. She couldn't remember a botany lesson like this at Indiana State.

"What about this over here?" Sarah asked.

"You mean the cactus? Oh, that's Andrew," Maude said. "It's tough, prickly, and sometimes not so pretty – particularly in the morning – but, like all plants, it needs love and attention."

Sarah smiled and looked at Maude with admiration. She really liked this woman.

"What about Kevin? Can he be found here?"

"You tell me."

Sarah studied Maude's face and looked for clues but found nothing more than a soft stare. She would have to complete this homework assignment alone.

She scanned the sunroom that was really a greenhouse and walked to a Douglas fir sapling that Maude had placed on a long table. The tree appeared to be no more than a few weeks old.

"This sapling is Kevin," Sarah said. "It's young and vulnerable and susceptible to all sorts of outside influences, but it's getting accustomed to its environment and getting stronger by the day. Left in the right hands, it will thrive and become a giant among its peers."

Maude smiled warmly and stepped toward Sarah. She put a hand on the younger woman's shoulder and looked at her like a mother advising a daughter.

"Well done, dear. It seems you've figured out the point of this lesson," she said. "People, like plants, must be handled differently and sometimes delicately. That is particularly true with Sadie. She may seem like a formidable adversary, but she's not. She's a girl, a sensitive, impressionable girl who has spent her entire life in this valley. Let her have her fun. She may have Kevin's friendship and interest, but you have his heart. That's really what matters, if you are thinking about the future. You have his heart. Don't lose it."

"I won't," Sarah said with a sigh. "I won't."

CHAPTER 46: KEVIN

Saturday, May 7, 1910

Kevin shut down the second the blade touched his throat. He knew the best thing to do in situations like this was to remain perfectly still and let matters run their course, but part of him wanted to try to get away and strangle Andy for leading him here.

"Would you like to keep your sideburns?" the barber asked.

"No. You can get rid of them," Kevin said. "Just, um, be careful."

Andy laughed from the next chair.

"Be gentle, Bill. This is his first time," he said.

Several men in the room laughed.

Kevin wished a plague on all their houses, until he realized that they had a right to laugh. They came here for machete shaves almost every day and thought nothing of it. Then again, none had seen
Scream
,
Halloween
,
A Nightmare on Elm Street
, or even
Psycho
. Kevin had seen the latter five times, though mostly because he liked Janet Leigh.

Kevin found it difficult to survey his surroundings with a straight razor on his jugular, but he could see enough of Bill's Barbershop to see why it was the most popular of ten in town. With four oak-steel-and-leather barber chairs, marble washbasins, portable electric scissors, and a seemingly limitless supply of hot water, the place was state of the art in 1910.

It reminded him of a barbershop that his maternal grandfather, Fred Preston, had owned and operated in Unionville until his death at age 75 in 2004. Kevin had fond memories of that place, just as he had fond memories of the grandfather who had never once held a razor to his throat.

Kevin could also see enough of Bill's to know that this was a place where the men of Wallace, Idaho, came to get clean. In twenty minutes, he had seen several men, mostly miners, walk through the front door, pay the cashier fifty cents, and proceed to a back room, where a hot bath, a towel, and a bar of soap awaited.

For two bits more, the same men could walk a few doors down and have their laundry done. Several laundries catered to those who did not have ready access to washing facilities or even running water. They sought the business of men who toiled in the bowels of the earth and looked forward to the day they could shed their grimy rags, wash off a week's worth of sweat, and enjoy a sliver of the good life on a Saturday night.

Kevin thought about these men as the barber transitioned from Freddy Krueger to Edward Scissorhands and went to work on his mane. He was lucky. He had a cushy white-collar position, a decent wardrobe, and his run of a wealthy widow's mansion. They had backbreaking jobs, the shirts on their backs, and lumpy mattresses in boarding houses.

Fifteen minutes later, Kevin paid Freddy, or Bill, as he was known to his customers, a dollar and walked through a bell-rigged door into the afternoon sun. He saw Andy sitting on a bench out front smoking a cigar.

"Take a seat," Andy said.

Kevin did as instructed. He found the unoccupied end of the oak-and-iron bench, which faced outward toward the street, and sat. He extended an arm across the top of the bench and stared at the other side of Sixth, where men unloaded beer and produce from two wagons and more than a dozen pedestrians, mostly women, darted in and out of shops.

"Is something going on today?" Kevin asked. "I've never seen the town this busy, at least not on a Saturday."

"It's spring, my friend. People come alive when the sun comes out," Andy said.

Andy pulled a cigar from a pocket and held it in front of Kevin.

"Take this. I bought it for you."

Kevin took the cigar and placed it in front of his nose.

"This smells exotic. Where did you get it? Cuba?"

"I got it at the cigar store on Cedar. The tobacco is imported but the smokes are local. They still roll their own, which is nice. You can taste the difference."

"Thanks. I'll save it for later."

Andy blew a few rings into the humid air and stared blankly into space.

"So what is the brave and noble Kevin Johnson doing this evening?"

"I'm paying a visit to the Marshall residence. The colonel and I are refighting the Indian wars at seven. Sarah has promised to bake a pie for each side."

"She's a true diplomat."

"What about you?" Kevin asked. "Do you have a big date tonight?"

"That depends on what you mean by date."

"Let me try again. Are you spending the evening with a beautiful woman?"

"I am."

"Do I know this woman?"

"You do. You know her very well."

Kevin leaned forward.

"Are you seeing Sadie?"

"Tonight I am."

Kevin cocked his head and raised his brows.

"Is that so?"

Andy took another puff.

"It's not what you think, friend. She's teaching me how to play chess."

Kevin laughed.

"OK. Now, I
have
heard everything. What brought this about?"

"It's simple," Andy said. "Sadie has inspired me to take on new challenges and become a more educated man. I figure if she can learn the dimensions of British warships, then I can learn how to play chess."

"I'm impressed. I'm truly impressed," Kevin said with a smile. "That says a lot about you. If I didn't know better, though, I'd suspect that you were trying to win her over."

Andy chuckled.

"In any other situation, I would be. Sadie is as fair as they come, but she is also someone who lives in the same house. She has become almost like a sister. Not that it matters. There isn't a man in the county who could tear her eyes away from the likes of you."

Kevin frowned. He had told Sadie two more times that week to forget him and move on. He had encouraged her to attend social events for singles and look around. It was clear now that his words had fallen on deaf ears.

"I feared as much. I wish she'd consider other men. She's wasting her time on me."

"She doesn't seem to see it that way," Andy said. "In any case, that's not why I wanted to speak to you."

"Do you have something else on your mind?"

Andy tapped some ashes onto the sidewalk.

"I stopped by the
Standard
this morning to work on a story and check today's wire. The telegraph has been running nonstop with news from London."

"What news?"

"The king is dead," Andy said. "Old Eddy's ticker finally gave out."

Kevin felt a knot form in his stomach. He could feel the conversation drift in an unpleasant direction.

"That's too bad."

"I suppose it is, for the British," Andy said. "I don't know what stirs the limeys these days, and I don't care to know. What I
would
like to know is how a teacher in Wallace, Idaho, correctly predicted the deaths of two prominent individuals in less than three weeks."

"It was a lucky guess, Andy, that's all."

"I don't think so. Try again."

"What do you want me to say?" Kevin asked. "I just get a hunch about these things. Maybe I'm like that Navy guy you interviewed. I can predict things every once in a while."

Andy took another puff.

"I might believe that were it not for something else. A friend of mine, an old chum from Boston College, wrote to me in March telling me that he had accepted a faculty position at the university in Seattle. He is a science man, just like you. When I wrote back, I naturally asked a few questions about you."

"You did?"

"I did."

"What did you ask him?"

"I asked, among other things, what your professors and peers thought of you. I was certain that a man like you would have left a big mark."

"It's a university, Andy. Not everyone can leave a large mark at a large school."

"You're right. Most people don't leave a large mark, but they do leave at least a small mark. My friend wrote back this week. He told me that no one he has met at the university has heard of you. He said he spoke to all of his colleagues and a few senior students."

"I see."

"Do you care to tell me who you really are?"

"Do you really want the truth?"

"As a newsman, I prefer that to fiction."

Kevin sighed and looked away, toward the still busy street. If Andy wanted the truth, he'd give him the truth. It's not like he was ashamed of the truth. He returned to his questioner.

"OK. I'll give it to you. My name is Kevin Johnson and I really did attend the university. I graduated with a degree in astronomy and earth sciences, only I graduated in the spring of 2013 and not the spring of 1909. I come from an age where you can fly across the Pacific in ten hours and instantly send photos and text to anyone with a device that fits in your hand. I've lived most of my life in the twenty-first century and traveled here through a time portal I can access only when the moon is full," Kevin said in an agitated voice. "What do you think of that?"

Kevin studied Andy's face. He expected anger but didn't find it. He looked for laughter but didn't find that either. He instead saw the hardest of hard-nosed reporters break into a smile.

"What do I think? I'll tell you what I think. I think I'm talking to a man who wants to keep his past private and his secrets secret," he said. "I apologize for the intrusion, Kevin. I meant no offense. Your affairs, past or present, are none of my business."

Kevin laughed to himself as he pondered Andy's conclusion. He could live with that.

"Thank you, Andy."

"Forget it. Let's go get a drink and discuss Sadie and Sarah."

The two men rose from the bench and started toward the Shooting Star. A moment later, Andy put a hand on Kevin's shoulder and patted it twice.

"So you're a time traveler?"

Andy laughed.

"You belong on the stage, my friend."

CHAPTER 47: KEVIN

Saturday, May 14, 1910

In a corner of the country built on speculation, hunches, and risk, few propositions posed more problems for planners than a picnic in May. This was particularly true, Kevin thought, in an age before Doppler radar and other modern weather-forecasting tools.

So when Sarah had proposed celebrating his birthday with a picnic, Kevin had been quick to offer an alternative should Mother Nature prove uncooperative. As it turned out, Plan B, a night on the town, had not been necessary. The weather all day had been spectacular.

"Did you enjoy your dinner, Mr. Johnson?" Sarah asked with a grin.

"I did," Kevin said. "I enjoyed it even more knowing that you did the cooking."

Sarah put her hands on her hips.

"You expected someone else?"

"I
feared
someone else."

Sarah stared at him incredulously.

"Bertha's a fine cook."

"I know she is," Kevin said. "I just wasn't up for smiling pork tonight."

Sarah laughed.

"You're incorrigible."

"It's my best quality. Did Bertha hover over you like a mother hen all day?"

"Hover is not the right word. She mostly gave me a lot of advice."

"This I have to hear."

"She told me twice that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

"She did, huh?"

"She did. Bertha was adamant about that. She also said that the surest way to incur a man's scorn is to cook up a calamity. She almost lost George when they were courting by serving him an overdone meatloaf."

Kevin chuckled. He couldn't imagine a time when an overdone meatloaf could have doomed a relationship, but then, until three months ago, he couldn't have imagined a lot of things. He certainly couldn't have imagined spending a birthday with a Gibson girl on a gently sloping bank of the Coeur d'Alene River in 1910.

He leaned back, spread his arms across a large blanket, and took in a scene that was just about perfect. In the distance, an increasingly dark and starry sky loomed over symmetrical peaks that looked more like the pyramids at Giza than the foothills of the Rockies. In the foreground, low bushes, tall grass, and an array of wildflowers hugged each side of the slow-moving river, which made just enough sound to compete with a steady chorus of crickets.

Thirty minutes later, after they had put the chicken salad, bread, cheese, and pie in a basket and placed the cork back on a bottle of wine, they settled into a deliciously comfortable silence. Kevin loved moments like these, even if he had known precious few in twenty-two years – or twenty-three on the time-travel calendar.