Written in Time (20 page)

The Bledsoes’ wagon turned right midway along the main street—it was as broad in the past as it had been in the future—and into what was the beginning of the residential street Jack remembered. In 1896, there were but a few houses, no more than a dozen. These were also clapboard, some with nicely maintained white fences and smallish front yards, all of the houses looking to have been built from the same simple architectural plan, to have been coated from the same lot of white paint.
 

As if proudly wearing symbols of defiance, one of the houses had green-painted window shutters. These brazen badges of nonconformity were slatted, as usual, but, rather than the upper edges being mere unadorned one-by-two, their tops rose several inches upward, forming almost a heart shape. There was a cutout of a heart at the center of each of these crown pieces. It reminded David of the small chair by the fireplace.
 

“That your sister-in-law’s house, Tom?” Jack asked.
 

“Them shutters, right! Y’all got the eye, Jack.”
 

“You made those?” Without waiting for a reply, Jack declared, “You’re one hell of a good carpenter, especially with hand tools.”
 

That was a slip up, and David mentally noted it.
 

“Y’all know o’ some other kind o’ tool?”
 

“I just meant that carpenters’ tools require a great deal of skill and patience.”
 

“Learnt carpentry back in what y’all called Bloody Kansas when I was a sprout. Pa was right smart at it, and they was a lot o’ call fo’ pine boxes and such, if’n y’all get my drift.”
 

The era of fighting between pro-and anti-slavery factions within Kansas had precipitated some of the most prolific bloodshed in the history of the United States, and schooled the country for the conflict to come. John Brown was that school’s most infamous alumnus, graduating to the raid on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry. David’s father had made them watch the Errol Flynn movie Santa Fe Trail, and Raymond Massey’s portrayal of John Brown was so scary David actually remembered it.
 

“You’ve had a rough life, Tom,” Jack Naile said, sounding like he meant it.
 

“Ain’t we all.”
 

“And you’re a bit of a philosopher, too.”
 

“I ain’t no what-you-said; I’m a Republican.”
 

“That, too, then,” David supplied, imagining his father was about to go into a lengthy explanation of the meaning of the term philosopher. Instead, the buckboard stopped.
 

Margaret Diamond was a smallish woman, quite pretty and refreshingly well-spoken, her house neat in the extreme, except for piles of books and sheaves of writing paper. Mary looked, by comparison, old enough to be her sister’s mother, if, in fact, there were any family resemblance. There was none apparent, except that both sisters had the same color hair and eyes; brown and brown.
 

The meeting with Margaret Diamond was brief, the woman obviously feeling quite “poorly.” With admirable politeness, she had offered to prepare tea and vouchsafed that she had some little cakes, but Ellen had declined on their behalf. “We really have to get some clothes and find a place to stay.”
 

Margaret seemed somewhat disconnected, one minute suggesting Mrs. Treacher’s boarding house as the best of available accommodations, especially for ladies, then in the next breath switching subjects to lament that her pupils at Atlas’ one-room schoolhouse would fall behind in their studies. Then she offered to make tea again, evidently failing to remember her earlier invitation.
 

Mrs. Treacher’s boarding house was back on the main street, and Tom Bledsoe drove them there in his buckboard, accomplishing a U-turn with it in front of his sister-in-law’s house. “She gets a fever now and again; ain’t bad like the last time, I reckon.”
 

Ellen, alone with Lizzie in the back of the buckboard, asked, “What sort of illness is it that Miss Diamond has?”
 

“Don’t rightly know, ma’am, and that’s fo’ fact. Last time Doc Severinson was in Atlas—”
 

“Doc Severinson?” Jack repeated, incredulous.
 

“Y’all heard o’ the Doc?”
 

“Forget it, Jack; it’ll only confuse things,” Ellen cautioned.
 

Jack nodded silently as Tom Bledsoe went on. “Leastways, ol’ Doc tol’ Margaret she oughta get herself down t’ Carson City for a good looksee with the docs they got down there. But, Margaret, she don’t cotton much t’ leavin’ her students fo’ no week or two.”
 

Ellen volunteered, “Maybe we can help, Lizzie and I.”
 

“I’ll tell Margaret, then, if’n y’all like.”
 

“Sure,” Lizzie volunteered.
 

Each “survival kit,” aside from things like aspirin, acetaminophen tablets, antiseptic cream, bandages, water-purification tablets and a good knife, contained a small gold bar. Ellen, Elizabeth and David each had such a kit. Within the attaché case were the diamonds and three additional gold bars. Converting one of these to current United States money at the general store—which, somehow or another, Jack Naile realized that they would come to own—provided them with enough cash for their immediate needs and then some.
 

A “suite” of rooms at Mrs. Treacher’s rented for the princely sum of twenty dollars a month, including clean linens, breakfast and dinner, which was called “supper.” Mrs. Treacher was, at one time in an apparently quite distant past, British. She was a well-spoken woman, but her speech was very plain, and her usage was peculiarly stilted. As a guess, Jack Naile assumed that she might have spent her younger years “in service” to some household in England or in the eastern United States, following a husband west. She wore a simple silver wedding band, but there had been no mention of a Mr. Treacher. Short, plump, rosy-cheeked, she reminded Jack Naile of some movie version of a “typical” Swiss or German hausfrau.
 

With accommodations arranged for the immediate future, there were other pressing concerns, funds or the lack thereof fortunately not among them. The ample gold supply that the Naile family had brought with them into the past would carry them through, as David gauged it, for more than a year, providing sufficient opportunity to eventually bring the diamonds to San Francisco and convert these into serious money.
 

No one thought to be hungry, and by afternoon Ellen and Elizabeth were back at the general store acquiring clothing and other necessities.
 

There was little in the way of ready-to-wear, most women apparently making their own clothing or engaging the services of the town’s solitary dressmaker.
 

Jack and David fared little better, finding themselves faced with two alternatives: poorly cut, boxy-styled vested woolen suits or heavy, canvaslike work clothes. “It’s a cinch Roy Rogers never would have shopped here,” Jack remarked to his son. They were trying to determine if any of the suits would be close enough in size to be a decent fit.
 

“I’m not going to wear shit like this for the rest of my life,” David announced.
 

“I know you’ve never thought a great deal of my sense of sartorial resplendence, but we can’t start the first Nevada nudist colony, so pick some threads that’ll make do for the time being. We can get down to Carson City after a while and find something better. We can order out of a catalogue, maybe. Anyway, once we own this place, we can stock it with clothes we’ll all like—or at least tolerate.”
 

David groaned, taking the most expensive suit of the few available. It was twelve dollars.
 

The Naile family’s “suite” consisted of two bedrooms— surprisingly clean—and a small sitting room. The outhouse was behind the boarding house, of course, but there were chamber pots (“Who gets to clean these?” Lizzie asked the moment Mrs. Treacher had left them). There was a room at the end of the second-floor hallway with a large bathtub. Lizzie was given first dibs on the tub, but said she wouldn’t use it unless her mother sat outside the door. Ellen agreed, but insisted on Lizzie doing the same for her.
 

Jack bathed last. It was safe to wear his Rolex on his wrist since no one could see him, and he smudged soapy water from its face to read the time. He’d reset the watch to local time shortly after they’d reached Atlas, and the luminous black face read nearly nine in the evening. All his life, Jack Naile had hated baths, seeing the concept of sitting in a bathtub as nothing more than simmering in one’s own dirt; but there was no such thing as a shower to be had in Atlas, all the more reason to move forward on acquiring the property where they would have their house built. Even without the amenities packed within the Suburban, a shower could be rigged, a good one.
 

After a bland dinner at Mrs. Treacher’s table, and conversation generally even more bland with a corset salesman, the traveling dentist (who had commended them on the apparently fine condition of their teeth) and a gun salesman, Jack had taken David with him and gone off to arrange a carriage for the following morning.
 

Upon their return to Mrs. Treacher’s, the gun salesman had been seated on the boarding-house front porch smoking a cigar. His name was Ben or Bob something, and he was a tall man for the period, about five nine or ten, and wore a plain gray three-piece suit. His hair was blond and straight, slicked back over a high forehead that seemed to be gaining ground in a battle against his hairline. Jack judged the man’s age at close to forty, but he seemed quite fit and trim. After a moment, David went inside and Jack lit a cigarette. “You’re from back East, though I can’t say I’ve seen prerolled cigarettes.”
 

“They’re much more convenient this way,” Jack told him, his voice a little shaky sounding to him. He’d almost used the disposable Bic lighter from his pocket to fire the cigarette but had remembered at the very last second to strike a match against the porch rail instead. “So, what’s a Colt Single Action Army revolver sell for these days?”
 

“I can get you a nice blued one for eighteen dollars. Nickel—but it will last longer—costs two dollars more. You’ll see ‘em higher, but not lower. That’s sure a nice lookin’ one on your hip.”
 

Jack didn’t offer to show it to the man, lest he notice that the gun hadn’t been made yet and wouldn’t be until 1971.
 

“Didn’t figure you’d show me your gun, Mr. Naile.”
 

“And why is that?”
 

“Me, as a salesman, I’m good with names. Bob Cranston’s the name, and guns are my game.” He laughed as he pulled a business card—one of the old, square kind, larger than its late-twentieth-century counterpart—from his vest pocket.
 

Jack took the card. “Thanks.”
 

“I’ve never seen a man with a gun like that who didn’t use it for making his living. You don’t strike me as one of Fowler’s range detectives, so that means you must’ve been a lawdog somewhere, back the other side of the Mississippi, maybe. Bein’ a salesman, I got a good ear for the way people talk. Only two places from around here you and your wife and family could be from, and that’s San Francisco or Denver, but I’d say Chicago’s more like it. Policeman back there?”
 

“We’re from Chicago originally, but we lived in Georgia for a while. And, no. I’ve never been a policeman. You’ll have to excuse me. It’s been good talking with you.”
 

Jack had left the porch. He found that David was using the bath. Twenty minutes later, with water that was more cool than hot, it had been Jack’s turn. He’d washed his hair first, and then bathed.
 

Jack checked the Rolex again; he’d have to find some way in which to wear his watch without attracting attention. He stood up, slowly dousing himself head to foot with the last pitcher of fresh water.
 

Definitely. Build a house, take a shower.
 

Mounted on a rented bay mare, Jack rode in comparative silence beside the carriage, which only sat three people. David sat on the far right side of its solitary seat, near the brake and the rifle, his hands holding the reins. Lizzie sat on the opposite side, Ellen in the middle.
 

“This is more comfortable than that buckboard thing Mr. Bledsoe drives,” Lizzie declared with an air of finality.
 

As best Jack Naile could recall the terrain, and judging from the map and his modern lensatic-compass bearings, they were nearing the site of what would be/had been their home here.
 

On the way out of town, as they passed the larger of Atlas’ two saloons, he had spotted what he assumed were some of Jess Fowler’s range detectives. A quick glance exchanged with his wife had confirmed that she had pegged the men as Fowler’s minions also. Jack was, of course, armed, as was David, David having donned the old Hollywood rig so that the holster was on his left side, the gun butt forward, the cartridge loops across his abdomen. However David carried a gun, Jack sincerely did not want his son to have to use one against another human being, and especially against someone who was evidently quite skilled at killing as a trade.
 

The stream’s water sparkled clean and cold and ran fast, just as it had/would in the future (only almost certainly cleaner).
 

“Hey, guys,” Jack Naile suggested. “How about you ladies taking a dip in the stream? Closest thing we’ll have to taking a shower until we get one rigged up.”
 

“It’s going to be cold, Jack.” Ellen scrunched her nose, but eventually agreed. While the ladies took a quick dip, Jack and David watered the horses downstream and out of visual range. Sooner than Jack would have expected, Ellen found them, her hair dripping wet and the skirt of her “storebought” green dress clinging to her legs. “I never would have done that if I’d thought about not having towels, Jack. Watch the rocks. They’re slippery. But even though it was a little cool, it feels so good to be clean.”