In Times Like These (35 page)

“I don’t know. I’m terrible at guessing stuff like that,” Francesca says.

Blake reaches past me and flips open the toolbox. He hands me a tape measure and flips the lid shut again without saying a word.

“Oh. Yeah. Glad one of us is thinkin
g.” I walk out into the barn, look up at the multicolored canvas again, and turn to face the back wall. “Looks like it’s facing this way. There’s no table here now, but we can find something to use.”

“That’s not
gonna work,” Blake says. He points to the light bulb above him with our chargers sticking out of the socket.

“Oh. Yeah. You’re right. We’ll have to do it in there to be plugged in. We’re going to end up out here though.”

“We won’t end up hitting that table whenever there is one?” Francesca says.

“No. Not if we do it right.”

I walk back to the toolbox and pick it up, then set it back down. “This bench it’s on is too high, unless we all had something to stand on.”

“What if we set it on this?” Blake reaches under the workbench and pulls out the wooden stool.

I measure the height. “Yeah. That should work.”

“Okay. So May 2
nd, 1989 right?” Blake says, starting to dial his chronometer. “What time?”

I consult the back of the photo. “1800 Zulu. So that’s what? 6
pm? But we’re in Montana so . . .”

“Mountain time. That’s minus seven hours
,” Blake says. “That’s 11 am.”

“Except May is daylight s
aving time,” Francesca says. “That makes it noon.”

“Okay.
It shouldn’t matter for the settings,” I say. “We can just set Zulu time.” I set the tape measure down and start to dial my chronometer settings.

“Doesn’t hurt to know what time of day you’re arriving though,” Francesca says.

I nod.

“So we get there around noon, and then we immediately look for Mym?” Blake says.

“Yeah. Hopefully she hasn’t gotten far. I don’t know how she usually sets up her anchor shots, but how far could she get out here in the middle of a prairie, right?”

“Unless she blinks away using something else,” Francesca says. “Then we’d never find her.”

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.” I frown.

“We should get a move on in any case,” Blake says. “Before this generator runs out of gas, or he shuts it off on us.”

I finish my chronometer settings and compare them with Blake’s. I center the toolbox on the stool and then set the photo down in front of it. “Okay, the box is going to be about a foot back from the edge of the table, so that edge should be about here.” I gesture to our imaginary table edge and we all step away a bit to have plenty of clearance. I extend my left hand with the chronometer to touch the toolbox and make sure I have enough room. Blake hands me the charging cord to my chronometer.

“Oh shit!” Francesca blurts.

“What?”

“My clothes!” She immediately drops down to my pack and rummages through it.

“Oh yeah. I forgot about that.” I look at my outfit and pull the waistband back on my jeans to double check my boxers.

I’m not too bad off. Need to lose the shoes and the jacket though
.

Francesca grabs her small armful of clothes and disappears around the corner into one of the empty stalls. I lean down to look through what’s left of the items in my pack. I pull out my flip-flops.

“My flip-flops got stolen,” Blake says as he lays his coat on the workbench and begins pulling off his boots.

“Yeah, that suck
s,” I say, looking at the rough-hewn boards of the floor. “You can use one of mine if you want. We can share. That way neither of us is totally barefoot.”

“Okay. That might help actually,” Blake says.

I slide him one of my flip-flops and toss my jacket on top of his. A few moments later, Francesca reappears in her wrinkled short-sleeve top and jeans, and her flip-flops. She shivers as she lays her pea coat, hat and scarf on the table with our jackets. She gently sets her boots on the floor, then folds her arms and shuffles over between us. I toss Quickly’s journal back into my pack and sling it onto my shoulders.

“Okay. Now we’re ready,” I say.

“Where am I holding onto?” Francesca says. I extend my arm. She looks from me to Blake. “How about I be Blake’s backpack.”

Blake looks at her and then shrugs. “Okay.”

He stoops down, lets Francesca wrap her arms around his neck, and stands up with her piggyback.

“If you suggest anything about me being heavy, I’ll knee you in the kidney,” Francesca says.

I plug in my chronometer and lift up my shoeless foot. Blake sways a little as he tries to balance on one foot with Francesca on his back.

“Carson was right,” I say. “
We do look ridiculous.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Blake says.

I stuff the photo back in my pocket and touch my hand to the top of the toolbox handle, next to Blake’s.

“On three. One
 . . . two . . . three.”

We drop about six inches. Blake plants his other foot but still goes over backward. The chronometers’ charger plugs rain down on my head. Francesca rolls off with a thump and tries to get free
, but Blake lands between her legs and the two of them end up in a tangle. It has to be sixty degrees warmer.

My one bare foot has landed in a pile of brown mushiness that I really hope is just mud. Blake struggles to his feet and I give Francesca a hand up.

“Thank God it’s warm,” she says, as she brushes off her backside.

I scan the barn around us. I don’t see her. “Spread out. Let’s see if we can find Mym.”

I hobble on my one flip-flop and muddy foot toward the barn door while Francesca and Blake fan out inside the barn. I scan the loft briefly and notice the color of the canvas in the rafters has changed to a vibrant blue and green. I open the barn door to bright warm sunlight.

Oh that feels good.

The barnyard has a pickup truck parked in front of the house and a Palomino horse is leaning its head over the paddock fence, chewing tufts of grass. It lifts its head to consider me as I stumble out of the barn into the yard.

I hear a loud whoosh and a crackle like a dragon’s breath. A woman laughs from somewhere behind the barn. I turn and look back to the distant interior wall of the barn and see movement through the thin spaces between the boards. Vibrant colors are shifting and changing.

“What is that?” Francesca says, as she and Blake exit the doors.

I back up
a few steps to try to see the top of the barn. The roof looks like it’s moving. A massive dome of a dozen different colors is blooming from beyond the sheet metal roof.

“No way
 . . .” I mumble.

“What is that?” Blake says.

I lose the flip-flop as I sprint around the left side of the barn. As I round the rear corner, I slow to a stop to take in the sight before me.

Floating twenty feet o
ff the ground and slowly rising is the biggest hot air balloon I’ve ever seen. A burly, bearded man with muscular arms is letting out rope from the massive wicker gondola hanging below the balloon. Looking down from his side is a petite young woman with curly blonde hair. I wave to her.

She smiles.

Chapter 17

“I frequently lecture on the dangers of misusing time.
People often ask me afterward about what I feel is the biggest waste of time, suspecting that I will say something like television or arguing politics. I think the biggest waste of time is feeling sorry for yourself. That and traffic. Thankfully I found a way out of that one.”

-Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Harold Quickly
, 1972

The man in the balloon confers with Mym about our sudden appearance. She touches his shoulder and speaks something into his ear. He pulls on a cord and the balloon stops rising, then slowly begins a descent back to earth. Francesca and Blake join me as I duck under the fence rail and walk toward the balloon through the tall grass of the pasture.

“Look at the size of that thing,” Blake says.

The balloon is immense. The gondola looks as though it would hold ten people. A metal cable connecting it to a big iron hoop in the ground grows taut as the wind attempts to push the balloon away from the barn. As it sinks close to the ground, the man gestures for me to come closer, and tosses out another cable.

“Tie us off over there!” He points me toward another iron hoop on the far side of the balloon, partially buried in the grass. I pick up the end of the cable and trot to the iron ring. The end of the cable has an oversized carabineer clip on it. I snap that over the ring and stand back. As soon as I’ve completed that, he tosses another one out and points to an identical hoop on the opposite side. I repeat the process there. He moves to a winch on the railing of the gondola and begins cranking. He signals to Mym, who gives periodic pulls on the cord to lower the balloon as he cranks the cables tighter.

After a few moments, the gondola settles to the grass with a thump. The man gives a few more cranks of the winch and locks it in place. He gives Mym a hand climbing over the rail and she drops into the grass. Francesca, Blake and I convene in front of her and she smiles at us with curiosity. Something the bearded man is doing is causing the balloon to wilt rapidly behind her.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hi, Mym.”

She tilts her head a little as she considers me.

She looks young.

“Have we met?” s
he asks.

Damn. She has no idea who we are.

Francesca holds out her hand. “Hi. I’m Francesca.”

“Mym,” she replies, giving
Francesca a warm smile.

“I’m Blake.” Another handshake.

She turns to me.

“Benjamin.”

She takes my hand and shakes it firmly while looking me in the eyes. “It’s nice to meet you.” She turns and gestures back to the bearded man climbing over the edge of the gondola. The balloon now lies horizontal in the field. “This is Cowboy Bob.”

The man walks over to us and extends Francesca a hand first. “Bob is fine. This one loves to embellish.” He gives a jerk of his head toward Mym.

“There are a lot of Bobs in the world,” she replies. “So you’re Cowboy Bob. Makes you sound more eccentric when I tell people about you.” She gives him a grin.

Bob’s handshake tells of years of manual labor. He’s a little
shorter than me, but more broad-shouldered. I had thought him older from a distance because of his beard, but on closer inspection, I realize he’s likely only in his late twenties. His close-cropped beard is neat and tidy compared to the buffalo man from town, but his dark eyes are just as friendly.

“We’re sorry to barge in on your ballooning,” I say. “We just needed a little help.”

“It’s all right,” Cowboy Bob replies. “I would have waited anyway if I’d seen you driving up.”

“Oh. We didn’t drive,” I say.

Mym has been observing my chronometer and nudges Cowboy Bob with her elbow. He looks down where she’s gesturing.

“Ah.”

“We actually came from your barn,” Francesca says.

“We may have left a rental car buried in a snow drift in your driveway,” Blake adds.

“Oh. Haha. You’re who did that!” Cowboy Bob grins. “That gave Levi fits when he found it.” He looks at Mym. “You should have heard him complaining. It snowed the next day and buried the car before he found it. He tried plowing through the lump without checking what it was first. Made quite mess of things from what I hear.”

“I’m sorry to cause so much trouble,” I say.

“Oh, no. It’s fine. Levi is never happy unless he has something to complain about.”

“So who is he?” Francesca asks.

“He’s my ranch hand. He lives here full-time and takes care of the place while I’m gone.”

“He knew right away that we were time travelers,” I say.

“Oh, yeah. He’s seen me vanish out of this field enough times. And he’s met Mym over the years, so it’s probably getting to be old hat for him now.”

“You can time travel in this?” Blake gestures to the balloon.

Cowboy Bob smiles. “It’s the only way to go, if you ask me.”

“It’s really nice,” Mym says. Then she smirks at Cowboy Bob. “Not always nice for the birds.”

“Oh. Yeah. But that’s rare,” Cowboy Bob replies.

“What’s rare?” Francesca asks.

“Oh. This last time through . . . the balloon is really safe. Probably the safest way you can go if you ask me. There’s hardly ever anything in the sky you can run into . . .”

“He had just gotten through bragging about that.” Mym smiles.

“Yeah, of course. Having just said that, we moved, and there happened to be a flock of swallows flying through where the top of the balloon arrived . . .” He looks at Francesca’s horrified face. “Most of them were fine, mind you.”