In Times Like These (50 page)

“I feel bad leaving you out here, and let’s be honest, I could use some company for the walk.” I stretch down and pick it up by its sides. I make it a few steps when a sudden jet of fluid bursts out sideways from the bottom of the shell.

“What the—”

I hold the tortoise out in front of me as a thick stream sprays out onto the ground. I wait for the torrent to stop and then tilt the tortoise upwards until I can look down into the front hole.
“I try to save you from this blistering hot desert, and you pee on me? Not cool, man!”

The tortoise is unapologetic.

The puddle of urine is seeping rapidly into the parched earth.
Shit. That was probably most of this thing’s bodily fluids. Now I really feel bad. He’s going to dehydrate because of me.
I stare down into the tortoise shell. “I’m sorry. You’re still coming with me. You’re the only friend I’ve got left right now.”

The dirt road gradually deteriorates as I walk farther into the desert. It traverses small hills and dunes of sandy desolation. I spot a few lizards in the sparse vegetation
, and once I pass what I believe to be rabbit tracks near a gulley of dried-out mud. The heat is unbearable. I set the tortoise down and roll up the pant legs on my jeans. The tortoise tries to make a break for it once it’s back on solid ground, but after I’m done adjusting my pants, I scoop him back up. He gives me a hiss this time, but keeps his head and arms out for a while as I plod along. My bare forearms are starting to burn. The tortoise must feel the same thing, because after a while, he regresses to a mostly retracted state. I feel grateful when I notice the sun is beginning to edge closer to the horizon ahead of me. The dirt track bends and turns from time to time but keeps me heading generally west. I start counting my footsteps for something to do, but once I reach eight hundred, I lose interest.

“You’d think if I was going to be out leaving directional reptiles in the desert, I could have left a mountain bike or something too, huh buddy?”

I plod onward. My eyes begin to droop and before too long my feet are scuffing the ground with each step.
How long have I been awake? It feels like forever. I haven’t slept since Montana. How many hours ago was that
? I track backwards through time in my mind.
I have to have been awake for at least twenty-four hours by now. Could be more
. I look at my chronometer as I walk. It still shows the settings from my last jump.
Shit. I still never logged my jump
. I stop walking.
I don’t even have my logbook.
I stand there for a moment and then set the tortoise down. I step past him to give him some shade and then pull Quickly’s journal out of my pocket. I find a blank page near the back and get out my pen. I scribble down the time I left from the recessed inner dial. It shows my hour of departure down to the second.
I’m going to need to be exact if I want to get back to Malcolm in time. If that’s even possible now
 . . . I scribble everything I can think of about my departure point, then look around to assess my arrival location. I write what I know.
Middle of nowhere
. I shove the photo into the journal with my entry and stuff it back into my pocket.

The tortoise hasn’t moved this time. I pick it up and keep walking. The sun is touching the horizon when I climb over a small rise and finally see a destination. In the distance is a small valley made by the surrounding hills. In the center
is a wooden shack near a dried-out riverbed. I break into a trot, invigorated momentarily by the sight of habitation. My pace gradually fades again as I see no activity. As I approach the shack, I make out some blue plastic rain barrels along the side, connected with PVC pipes to the gutters. The corrugated tin roof has been painted white and there’s a narrow covered porch. The whole building looks homemade, with rough-hewn boards assembled with effective but imprecise measurement. Right now, it looks like a palace.

I’ve developed a sort of drunken stagger by the time I reach the front of the shack
, and my arm muscles are complaining from the miles of holding up a tortoise. There’s no sign of life nearby. I clomp blissfully up the couple of steps into the shade of the porch and slump against the doorframe as I rap on the door. There’s no response. I try the door handle and the door swings open easily.

“Hello?”
The interior of the shack is quiet and vacant, though there are clear signs of it being inhabited. A kettle sits atop a gas camp stove and a cup and plate are in the basin sink. A low single bed is made up along the far wall. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s home, buddy.”

Stepping inside, I kick the door shut behind me.
I set the tortoise on the floor and rub my arms. Moving into the kitchen area, I open a couple of cupboards. I find a cup and look around for a source of water. There’s an icebox sitting on the floor near a small table. I open the door and smile to see a large glass pickle jar full of water. The jar is as warm as the ambient air but I don’t care. I pour some into my cup and gulp eagerly as it courses down my throat. Once I’ve drunk two glasses, I remember my friend. I find a saucer and pour some of the water into it. The tortoise has crawled into the corner under the single dining room chair. I set the dish of water next to him but he only stares at it.

“Okay. Well
it’s there if you want it.” I fill up another glass for myself and put the jar back before I begin browsing around the room. The accommodations are sparse and decorations near non-existent. A few books line a shelf near the bed. A solitary lamp occupies a stand next to them. I walk over to the sleeping area and notice a handmade quilt folded up at the foot of the bed. I pull open a layer and notice the pattern.
My grandmother made a quilt for me just like this.
I run a finger along one of the patches.
This looks exactly like it.
I pull it open all the way to be sure.
This is definitely my quilt.

I consider the rest of the shack.
Does that make the rest of this mine too? Do I own a shack in a desert?
I set my cup on the nightstand and sit down on the edge of the bed.
My bed? I like the sound of that.
I look out the windows at the barren landscape stretching into the late afternoon sun.
I’m not ready to go back out there yet. Maybe I can just rest here for a bit
. I slump over horizontally on the bed and lay my head on the pillow. The tortoise is still watching me from the corner.
We’re just going to rest a minute, buddy. It won’t be long, don’t you worry
. I close my eyes.

Chapter 22

“
One unusual fringe benefit of time travel is the ability to visit your own grave. Personally I find the practice a tad morbid, but I do get some satisfaction from the fact that the disproportionate dates on my tombstones have confounded many a passerby
.”

-Excerpt from the j
ournal of Harold Quickly, 1897

“Get out of my bed.” The voice is stern and gravelly. My mind tries to fit the voice into the fractured puzzle of my memory
. It sounds like my dad
.

“
Yo. Get up.” This time the voice is accompanied by something prodding me in the abdomen. I open my eyes and see the toe of a thick-soled boot near my stomach. The boot is attached to a leg in khaki. At the other end of the leg is a tall grey haired man with bristly stubble on his face. The face is weathered and tan.

“You’re not my dad,” I mumble into the pillow.

“No. I’m not,” the man replies. “Get up.”

I prop myself up to a sitting position as the man crosses the room to the camp stove. My tongue feels like sandpaper. Dim light is filtering through the threadbare curtains.
“How long was I asleep?” I ask.

“A while.”
He turns around and walks back to me, carrying two steaming mugs.

“It’s like four hundred
degrees in this desert and you want me to drink hot tea?” I realize as I’m speaking, that it really isn’t that hot at the moment. The night air has cooled things off considerably.

“I need you awake. Drink it.”

I take the mug and blow on the top to cool it down. “I’m Ben.” I extend my hand.

The man ignores it.
“I know.”

I wait for him to give his name, but it doesn’t come. I drop my hand back into my lap. “Where are we?”

“This is the Mojave desert. Northwest of the Kelso Sand Dunes.”

“Oh.” I sip cautiously at my tea. “I brought your tortoise back.”
He grunts. I consider him as he settles into the chair by the table. He looks in pretty good shape for his age. Sixty? Sixty-five maybe? “It was pretty far,” I add.

“You fishing for a thank you?” The man’s eyes are hard.

“Well it wouldn’t hurt. You could have lost your tortoise.”

“I knew you’d bring him.”

“How could you know that?”

The man pauses his mug on the way to his mouth and stares at me
. “You once tried to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a rabbit that you hit with your car. You were definitely going to bring the tortoise.”

“I’ve never told anybody about that,” I say. I look at the man’s face closely. “If you know that, then that me
ans WE once tried to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a rabbit.”

The man sips his tea and sets his mug back down on the table. “No comment.”

I lean forward. “So that’s it? You’re me?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.” The man stands and pours the rest of his tea into the sink. He sets the mug down and walks to the door. He swings it open and gestures for me to leave.

“That’s it?” I set my mug down on the floor and stand up. “Have some tea and now get out?”

“Just walk outside, will you?” The man jerks his head toward the porch. I stride past him and off the porch to the front of the shack. The sunrise is just dawning over the distant hills. I walk a few yards and then spin to face him. He sidles out of the shack and closes the door behind him. He descends a step, and leans against a roof support as he considers me.

I put my hands to my hips. “So what now?”

He looks me up and down. “I forgot what an impatient little shit I was.”

I scowl back. “So you are me.”

“No.”

“No? That’s it? No? You care to elaborate on that a bit, man?”

“You know
, you should be more polite to the people whose beds you steal.”

I look down at the ground for a moment, considering my response before I look back up at him. “You know? Okay. Yes. Thank you for the use of the bed. But you should understand why I’m a little tense. I’m not exactly having a great life right now. I just had what is unequivocally the worst day of my life and my only hope of salvaging it was a photo you left in a tortoise. I walked forever in a God-forsaken desert to try to find some help, and you were nowhere to be found. So I’m sorry if I dirtied up your bed sheets or whatever, but I didn’t exactly have a lot of options.”

The man straightens up and steps the rest of the way off the porch. “I know.”

“You know? That’s right, but you’re not me, so I can just figure out how you know from the complete lack of sense you’re making, right?”

“We’re the same person,” the man says. “I am Benjamin Travers.”

“Okay, so you are now,” I say.

“But I’m still not you.”

I cock my head and stare at him.
He’s not making any sense
.

“The life you’ve had and the life I’ve had were the same up to a certain point,” he says.

“So what happened?”

“So
me of the decisions I made were . . . different.”

“When?” I ask.

The man walks toward me. “You’re here because you have a problem to solve. Let’s concentrate on you.” I look into his serious brown eyes. My eyes.
This is so surreal.

“Okay.” I drop my hands to my sides. “So you can help me?”

“Yeah. Come on. We’re going for a walk.”

“Um, okay.” I hesitate. “You mind if I use your bathroom first? You’d think I’d have sweat out all my fluids yesterday
, but my bladder begs to differ.”

“Outhouse is around back.”

I find the wooden outhouse to be tidy and clean with a half-moon vent hole in the door like old west cartoons. There’s no faucet to wash up with, but there’s a plastic gallon jug of water, a basin with a towel, and a mirror. I look at the young man in the mirror. My face is smeared with dirt in vertical lines from sweat. Another smear of dirt angles across my cheek from where I must have wiped my nose at some point.
You’re looking pretty rough, Benjamin.

I pour some of the water into my hands and splash my face. It takes three attempts till I approach any form of cleanliness. Even then, my face leaves brown stains on the hand towel. I look myself over again.
Better than nothing
. Those eyes stare back at me.
Not the eyes of a killer after all. The eyes of a failure.
I see Francesca with a gun to her head, the spray of blood spattering the chair as Blake gets shot, Malcolm coughing smoke as he’s surrounded by flames.
Is there anything you didn’t screw up?
I think about Dr. Quickly and his encouraging smile as we’d master new lessons.
He wouldn’t be very happy with me now. I burnt his lab down with my blundering attempt at a rescue mission. And Mym . . . how would she feel if she knew I was the one who cost her father everything?