engine block, bled the brakes and otherwise fitted the Suburban for travel. It wouldn’t have to go far, only to Reno—far enough on roads that were so ill-suited to automobile use.
If memory served, Ellen had remarked, she recalled reading somewhere that, in 1900, there were approximately eight thousand automobiles in the United States. The overwhelming majority of these, of course, were in and around the major cities, predominantly in the East.
The train schedule that David and Clarence had brought back as a souvenir of their trip to San Francisco had proven helpful. If Jack and his wife could reach Reno in time to intercept and board the Overland Limited—scheduled to leave at four minutes after six that evening—they would arrive in Denver, via Ogden, Utah, and Cheyenne, Wyoming, at nine in the morning two days later, only thirty-eight hours and fifty-six minutes after departure.
“What time is Teddy Roosevelt’s speech going to be, Jack?”
They were packing the last of their things. “Around four in the afternoon, which’ll give us a few hours to get cleaned up and changed.”
“I can hardly wait to see what a toilet looks like on a train. I remember when I was commuting from downtown Chicago back to that apartment we had when we first got married. The toilets on trains weren’t so hot in 1969, either.”
“Just keep your knees together a lot and think about deserts where there’s no water for miles around.”
Ellen, closing her bag, said, “One more potty stop before we leave; this may be the last modern flush toilet I’ll see for a very long time.”
In the letter that a dying Jack Naile had written in the previous time loop to his future self, the letter found in a niche behind a loose brick in the fireplace of the otherwise burned-out ranch house, he’d warned his future self. The warning was that he—Jack—was not as good at staying alive as he thought he was and that he would need an edge, the little Seecamp .32, anachronistic as it was in 1900.
David and Clarence were off watching the time-transfer base built by Lakewood Industries. Lizzie and Peggy and Alan were in the house. Only Jack and his wife were in the barn, where the gassed and ready Suburban waited—only Jack and Ellen and a man whose face Jack recognized from a wanted poster. “You’re Steve Fowler, Jess Fowler’s kid brother, the holdup man and killer.”
“And you’s the sonofabitch fuckin’ town marshal what bushwhacked my brother.”
In the light from the lamp Ellen held—to Ellen’s considerable credit, it wasn’t shaking—Jack’s eyes were able to focus with perfect clarity on two features of Steve Fowler: the burning hatred that was like a spark in his unwavering coal-black pupils and the twin muzzles of the side-by-side twelve gauge shotgun in his hands. The eyes were definitely, almost preternaturally, black, and the shotgun’s barrels were nickel or chrome plated. “You know, the famous Chiracahua Apache chief, Cochise, carried a nickel-plated shotgun, kind of like that, I understand. And I didn’t bushwhack your brother, although I’d intended to, since he’d tried murdering my entire family. As it turned out, he bushwhacked me. But he died in a fair fight; I even let him go for his gun first. Now put that scattergun down.”
“I knows ya’ pret’ good from some ol boys talkin’ up ya’ bein’ handy with that shooter. And, ya’ got ya derringer sneak gun, too. But guess what this heah scattergun is a aimin’ at! Yo’ right arm, Naile. An’ both ya’s shooters is for right hand work.”
At the distance, Jack realized, the minimal damage the shotgun would do if only one barrel were discharged would be to rip away the right arm, shoulder and much of the chest. Even if a gun could be gotten to with his left hand, there wouldn’t be enough of him left to use it. And Ellen, standing close beside him, would be killed instantly.
To outdraw the hammer fall of a shotgun was a physical impossibility for anyone except, perhaps, the legendary Border Patrolman and gunfighter Bill Jordan, or maybe quickdraw artist and trick shooter Bob Munden. No man with ordinary reflexes, however good, stood a chance.
Jack bluffed. “I’ll get you as I fall, Stevie. Sure as anything. Let my wife step aside.”
The black pits that were Steve Fowler’s eyes wavered almost imperceptibly.
“The bitch can move if’n ya’ drops yous shooters where ya’ stand.” And the twin muzzles of the shotgun slowly shifted to cover Ellen Naile.
A lot of standup comedians in