what we can’t travel without and what we’ll leave behind. The guns won’t be in the cases, so we can use the rifle and pistol case for additional storage of anything that might be easily damaged when left behind.”
“If we’re not in the nineteenth century, Jack, being visibly armed won’t be a good idea,” Ellen supplied.
“Agreed. It might not be such a good idea even if we are, coming up on some little ranch house or something. David and I’ll each carry a rifle. It’s not going to look odd with two guys carrying lever action rifles. Each of you ladies carries one of the little guns in a pocket or something—the Seecamp and the derringer. Everything else gets thrown into a suitcase. And, remember, when you guys pack and separate, we can’t carry too much ammo because it’s too heavy, but we’ll want just about fifty rounds of .45 Colt and twenty rounds of .45-70, plus what’ll be in the guns.”
“You want to bury the stuff or just cover it from view?” David asked, picking up the axe.
***
Their trek toward some outpost of civilization wasn’t anywhere near as long a one as she had supposed that it might be. And Elizabeth couldn’t deny that the scenery was gorgeous. The farther down the mountain they went, the more abundant and luxurious were the trees, pine trees of astounding height, many as tall as or taller than those in their neighbor’s back lot in Georgia, and those were taller than three-or four-story buildings. She recognized spruce trees, but that was the limit of her knowledge of evergreens (except for magnolias, which, unlike in the climate outside her bedroom window back home, would not grow here.)
The conifers, on the other hand, were either suffering some sort of blight or it was not only the year that had changed (if it had), but also the season. Leaves were everywhere, except in the trees.
Elizabeth had been hoping against hope for some sign of late-twentieth-century civilization, and her heart raced then sank with her first glimpse of the small house, lean-tos and two horse corrals still perhaps four city blocks distant. She had a case with a pair of her father’s binoculars slung from her shoulder. She took out the binoculars, raised them to her eyes and adjusted the focus as she studied the landscape below. Beneath the shelter of one of the lean-tos was a wagon, what her father called a “buckboard” whenever he referenced one on those occasions when she could not escape watching a western movie. It looked not quite new, but not like an antique, either.
“If no one mentions hearing an explosion or seeing a fire, remember, don’t mention it, either. Okay?” Elizabeth’s mother told them.
“Gotchya,” David agreed.
“And if somebody does mention it, let your father do the talking, and all of us will back him up. He’s the wordsmith, remember, so he tells lies for a living.”
David laughed.
Elizabeth’s father murmured, “Thanks a lot.” Then he looked over his shoulder at David. “Hold that rifle with your hand over the receiver and keep the muzzle pointed toward the ground. That’s the least threatening way.”
“Right.”
Elizabeth couldn’t take her eyes off the ranch ahead.
Maybe half again the distance beyond the ranch house from where they were there were a few cattle, just grazing, with no fences that Elizabeth could see. A dozen or so chickens wandered aimlessly in the front yard, pecking at the ground. There was a windmill—she didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed that earlier—and it was mounted high on something that looked like a wooden version of one of the big metal-framed utility poles that connected one town’s power grid to another. From what she had read of the period, knowing this time transfer was going to happen, Elizabeth imagined that the windmill’s sole purpose had nothing to do with running electrical conveniences but was for pumping water instead. No wires of any type led into the house. There was no satellite dish.
They would be meeting people from the past for the first time, people who were dead before she had ever been born. Meeting people meant making first impressions. Elizabeth put away the binoculars and instinctively took stock of her clothes. The bib-front overalls that she wore were a little dirty and a lot wrinkled. Her jacket—”Daddy!”
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“We all have zippers on our jackets, and they didn’t have zippers in the old days, did they?”
“Whitcomb L. Judson displayed a primitive zipper at the Chicago World’s Fair in