Flux Read online

  I watch her for a moment, slipping from one tree to another, firing shots when she moves. There are men on the ground and horses running free. I feel sorry that she’s been forced to kill these men, but maybe she’ll find comfort in the fact that, in the time we’re from, they’re long since dead. That is, if she doesn’t also figure out that killing them might mean erasing their bloodlines from history.

  Cassie makes another break for it, raising her gun to fire at a horse rising up on its hind legs, the rider intending to block himself while using the steed to bludgeon her. The click, click, click of an empty gun makes me wince. Whether or not Cassie has more ammo, she’s never been in a gun fight, and counting bullets doesn’t come naturally to most people. Not when men are screaming, bullets are flying, and death is a single mistake away.

  She’s clipped by the horse’s hoof and sent sprawling to the forest floor. She attempts to stand, but she’s tackled by the man who lost his horse.

  I fire two rounds, both of them striking the man still on horseback. I can’t do anything about the man on top of her—not at this range. A 10mm round could pass through her attacker and strike Cassie. Helping her means taking care of the sniper.

  A quick peek to the left is followed by a bullet slamming into the side of the tree, nearly hitting my skull. I duck back and peek right before he can adjust. He’s a hundred feet back, lying down behind a fallen tree, with a clear line of sight.

  Not an ideal situation, but compared to the time travel conundrum, a gun fight is something I can solve.

  Steeling myself to make a break for it, I glance across the stream to find most of Charles’s men are dead. The crew who attacked them isn’t fairing much better, though. There’re just a few men left on each side. Charles and one of his boys are trading shots with three remaining posse members. Arthur and a stranger are locked in mortal combat, fighting for control of a knife.

  When Charles puts a round in one of the posse members, resulting in a high-pitched scream, I run. Even trained soldiers can’t help but glance away from the action when one of their own is gunned down. I extend my window of opportunity by firing three rounds toward the sniper, forcing him to duck.

  Outside his zone of fire, I begin weaving my way in and out of the trees. He fires at me in rapid succession, but I’m never visible for more than a second, and never in the same place. He’s not a bad shot, but he’s not experienced in this kind of combat. If he was, he’d already be up and moving, rather than sitting still, trying to hit a moving target in the woods.

  When I hear him curse, I holster my gun. It won’t be necessary, and I’ve already used more rounds than I should have.

  The man’s eyes widen as I round the last tree dividing us. I’ve caught him reloading, but he’s quicker than I expected. He chambers a round and swivels the weapon toward me as I close the distance. The rifle booms as I grasp the muzzle and angle it away and toward the ground.

  Using my momentum, I shove the rifle hard, sending the butt into his face. Blood oozes from his nose, and then explodes, as I drive my foot into his gut, forcing the air from his lungs.

  As he spills back, I spin the rifle around, chamber a bullet and fire it into his chest. The rifle is an M1917 Enfield, a common rifle of the period, with a mounted scope.

  I drop to a knee, raise the rifle to my shoulder, and peer through the scope. The man atop Cassie raises a knife, prepared to stab her.

  I have no choice.

  If I don’t fire, she’ll die.

  My index finger slips around the trigger and squeezes, but stops a moment before the hammer snaps forward.

  Levi lunges into view, tackling the man off Cassie. The men separate, and I take aim again, ready to end the fight and keep Levi from harm. But I never get the chance. Levi sets on the man with a series of fast punches and kicks that lack skill, but are powered by raw ferocity. The man staggers back under the assault, but is reaching for a knife.

  “Levi!” I shout, waiting for the opportunity to fire, but the kid is lost in the fight. Probably doesn’t even hear me.

  I flinch when the man swings the blade, but Levi reacts as though he was ready for the strike. He leans back just out of range, catches the man’s arm, and shoves. With all his weight behind the attack, the knife stabs its owner. They fall to the ground in a heap. Levi rises, draws the blade from the man’s side and then stabs him twice more, right in the heart.

  I shake my head. This is going to scar him for life.

  Cassie, too.

  Whoever is responsible for this mess is going to have a lot to answer for…

  “Hey,” a gruff voice says from the stream. “Turn around, real slow like, or your friend loses his head.”

  …if we live long enough to find them.

  10

  The man speaking is dressed in a blood-soaked trench coat. He’s groomed and tailored, but I don’t think he’s any stranger to violence and death. He seems fairly unshaken by the carnage surrounding us or by the fact that he’s outnumbered four to one, if you count our ‘friend.’

  The man being threatened is Arthur, a knife held to his throat. Charles, brave as he was, lies dead at his feet.

  I adjust my aim toward the man holding the knife. Looking down the pilfered rifle’s scope, I could shoot him. It would be easy, and I’m not even that worried about what happens to Arthur. Pretty sure he was meant to die here today. “Who are you?”

  The man scrunches up his face like I’ve just asked to have a look up his skirt. Then he says, “Sheriff Don Chafin.”

  I know that name. He played a major role in the infamous coal wars. To some he was a hero. To others, a devil. All depended on whether or not your lineage was steeped in coal or not. He was a figurehead of the outside world, meddling in coal culture, and in Appalachia. If not for him, the confrontation that led to Charles and his men fleeing west through the wilderness might have turned out differently.

  I also know he didn’t die today. Chafin survived well into his sixties.

  “I have no quarrel with you,” I say, lowering the rifle, much to Arthur’s dismay.

  “Afraid I have a quarrel with you,” the sheriff says.

  “We were just passing through,” Cassie says, approaching with a slight limp.

  “You okay?” I ask her.

  She rubs her thigh. “Charley horse.”

  I glance up at Levi, knife in hand, standing a few feet behind Cassie. I give him a nod of thanks, which he returns in kind.

  “If your men hadn’t opened fire—”

  “You don’t get to speak to me,” Chafin says, seething at Cassie and revealing himself to be a racist and an asshole. It’s likely that Chafin’s father, or grandfather fought in the Civil War. In our present, resentment toward the North and those freed by the war still burns hot in some areas of the South, never mind in the 1920s, when subjugation had only evolved into segregation. We shouldn’t expect to come across anyone who’s—what’s the hip, new lingo?—woke.

  “Can I kill him?” Levi says, stepping toward Chafin and catching all of us off guard. His dander is raised something fierce. The impact of taking a life has yet to settle on him. When it does…

  Chafin presses the knife harder against Arthur’s throat. The blade would have to cut through equal parts beard and skin to end the man’s life, but it looks sharp enough to do the job.

  I hold my hands out, one toward Chafin, one toward Levi. “You’re missing the point, Sheriff. We don’t know that man.” I point to Arthur. “And we don’t know any of the men you all gunned down. We were just passing through. Wrong place, wrong time. You don’t need to kill him, and I don’t need to kill you. Take your man. Go back the way you came. You’ll never see any of us again.”

  I hope.

  Chafin glares at me for a moment, no doubt weighing his options and whether or not I can be trusted. Then he reels back and clubs Arthur in the back of the head. He lets the man collapse at his feet and then waits with a tense face.

  When I don’t sho
ot him, he sighs with relief. “If you all really stumbled into this mess, you’ve got shit for luck.”

  “You have no idea,” I say, looking over the field of death.

  “But I’ve seen you fight.” He’s looking at me. “Could use more men like you. Especially on account of how you gunned down half my posse.”

  “I am sorry ’bout that,” I say.

  “Couldn’t be helped,” he says. “Wrong time. Wrong place. Right?”

  I nod and hold the rifle up. “Mind if I hold on to this?”

  “I ain’t got no need for it,” he says, looking at the dead and the collection of guns on the ground. “Got more than I can carry already.”

  “Take what you need,” I say to Cassie and Levi. They set out among the dead, collecting gear.

  I look about for a horse or two, but the steeds have all fled. All but one, lying on its side, struggling to breathe. Now that the fight is over, I regret having to shoot the animals, and I’m not about to let this one suffer. After crouching to pet its forehead and whispering an apology, I stand, take aim, and fire a single round into the horse’s head.

  When I look up, a stray tear in my eye, I note Chafin’s attention.

  “Seen war before,” Chafin says. “Haven’t yeh?”

  A slow nod is my only reply.

  “Likewise,” he says, picking up a dropped revolver and holstering it. “We’re square. I won’t come looking for you.”

  “Appreciate that,” I say, and I do. Having killed so many of his men, I fully expected Chafin to return with more. If we were still here, in this time, upon his return, the killing would have resumed, and I’d have been forced to take his life, too. But so close to the end of World War I, the respect for its veterans is powerful. I might not have fought in the war to end all wars, but I’ve killed and bled for the same country. Close enough.

  After pillaging the dead for ammo, water canteens, supplies, and jackets—in case the temperature changes again—I lead Cassie and Levi away, leaving Chafin to regroup and try to figure out a way to transport his prisoner back to Virginia. Downhill, a horse whinnies. I think about going after it, but Chafin is going to need it more than us. His journey is long, and ours, if we’re not interrupted again, is just over a mile uphill, though it’s starting to feel a lot farther.

  One step forward, two steps back…in time.

  I smile at the thought, but don’t say it aloud. Now’s not the time for making jokes. Hell, on a good day Cassie would slug me for a joke that bad.

  When we’ve put a few hundred feet between Chafin and us, and I’m confident he can no longer see us, I stop and sit atop a fallen tree. “Take a minute.”

  “We should keep moving,” Levi says. He’s doing his best to appear unshaken, but even a seasoned veteran can be left exhausted by combat. Not because of physical or emotional weakness, but because adrenaline wreaks havoc with the body, especially as the effects fade.

  I hold up my hands so he can see them. Both are shaking. As are the muscles in my thighs and stomach. Feels like Rocky Balboa is using my insides for a punching bag. Adrenaline does a lot of good things in bad situations, increasing heart rate and blood pressure, expanding the lungs and throat, and allowing the blood to be more oxygen rich. All that fuel is pumped directly into the muscles and brain, letting people think faster, react faster, and on occasion, do the impossible, like lifting a car. But when the adrenaline wears off, blood sugar plummets, leaving muscles feeling weak and shaky. “If you don’t let your body ease back to normalcy, when you try to climb this mountain, your muscles are going to cramp up. Won’t make it far when that happens. We need a minute.”

  Cassie is accustomed to following my lead when it comes to the job. Not so much in any other aspect of life. But when it comes to combat and security, she knows the depth of my experience.

  While Cassie stretches, Levi takes a seat, his back to me. Kid’s got too much pride. Doesn’t want me to see him going through the same shakes afflicting me.

  “You did what you had to,” I say to him, unbuttoning my shirt and trying not to wince from the pain in my left arm. I’m not sure how much damage the buckshot did. The arm is still fully functional, but the pain is ripe. “Ain’t no shame in it.”

  “Didn’t say there was.” There’s an edge to his voice. A few hours ago he was terrified to point an old gun in my face, and now he’s stabbed a man to death. And by the looks of it, he’s kept the knife, sheathing it on his hip using a belt he wasn’t wearing earlier.

  “I remember what it was like,” I tell him. “First time I took a life.”

  He sits silent, but I can tell he’s listening.

  “Wasn’t too different from this. An ambush. But not everyone I was with that day handled themselves as well as you.” I look at Cassie. “As both of you.” She gives me a weary grin. “While I wouldn’t wish this shit on anyone, I’m glad the two of you are with me.”

  Cassie thumps her foot into Levi’s thigh. “He don’t give out compliments very often, so thank the man, or he’s liable to start offering critique instead. You know what critique is, right?”

  Levi huffs and smiles. Pushes Cassie’s foot away. “Seems to me that you should be the one thanking me.”

  The good humor drains out of Cassie’s face. She crouches down beside Levi and for a moment, I think she’s going to ream him out. Then she says, “Thanks. Honestly. You saved my life.”

  She sits down beside him as a further peace treaty. I’m not sure she would have, if she’d known about the cougar comment. She digs into a satchel bag taken from one of the dead men. I focused mostly on ammunition for the rifle, but I took a coat that’s now tied around my waist, and a full water canteen.

  While they’re distracted with the satchel, I remove my shirt. If the wound is bad, I’d rather not be doted on. Best case scenario, I’ll be able to tend to it without either of them noticing. My triceps is bloodied, but the flow has stemmed. I got lucky.

  With a twist of skin and muscle, the wound is revealed. Three of them, actually. Two fine lines reveal where buckshot gouged divots in my skin, but failed to puncture. The third is a small, dark red hole surrounded by hot pink skin. I give it a pinch and wince when I feel the small pellet buried a half inch inside.

  Cassie extracts a wad of ancient dollar bills from the satchel. She waggles them in the air. “Fat load’a good these’ll do us.”

  Levi takes the money, thumbing through it. “Whataya reckon this is worth in our time?”

  “Couldn’t say,” I tell him, and I don’t really care. Money is the least of our concerns. Neither Cassie nor I complain when he pockets the cash. A pocket watch comes next. Cassie gives it a once-over and tosses it back to me without looking. I catch the watch in my right hand and turn it around.

  The time reads 11:20. Given that the sun is still shining, I’m guessing that’s AM. My forehead furrows a moment before a thought occurs to me. I lift my wrist and check the time. 11:20. We’re being moved through years, but it appears the time of day is ticking on as usual. Weird, but not helpful, and not worth mentioning.

  I pocket the watch and turn my attention back to the wound. While Cassie and Levi are still distracted, I grit my teeth, pinch the meat of my triceps between my finger and thumb, and squeeze toward the buckshot like I’m wringing out a tube of toothpaste. Pain swells as blood begins flowing from the small wound. I nearly shout when my fingers reach the buckshot. It resists for a moment, but then slips toward the entry wound. A moment later, the metal bead pops out of my arm and falls to the ground. I hold my sleeve over the small wound and apply pressure.

  A block of paper wrapped in twine emerges from the satchel before Cassie discards the empty leather husk. She unties the knot, opens the paper and reveals several strips of dried meat.

  “Well slap my ass and call me Nancy.” Levi says before plucking up a piece of meat.

  “I don’t think that’s a—”

  Before I can finish my warning, he bites off a chunk of meat and all bu
t melts in delight. “It ain’t rancid,” he says between bites. “Tastes fresh. Tender as shit, too.”

  When he notices Cassie and me watching him in cautious disgust, he stops midchew and says, “Ain’t no bacteria around today that ain’t a super version of itself in our time.” Then he goes right on chewing.

  “He’s got a point,” Cassie says.

  My stomach growls, waging war against my mental defenses. Eating food from the 1920s that isn’t wine or whiskey sounds like a bad idea—unless you’re in 1920. I lift my sleeve away and watch for fresh blood. When none flows, I slip my shirt back on and reach my hand out. “Give me a piece.”

  Cassie takes one for herself and hands another to me. I give it a sniff and the war against hunger is all but lost. The meat smells of salt, pepper, garlic, and maple syrup. The protein and sugar will fuel our remaining hike and keep us from having to forage—assuming our uphill journey isn’t interrupted again. I’m still not convinced it’s the best idea, but I no longer think it’s a bad idea.

  After my first bite, all trepidation fades. Ten minutes later, the meat that was likely supposed to sustain the man carrying it for days, is all gone.

  Belly full, I lean back in a long stretch, careful not to overextend my left arm, feeling ready to head out again.

  “Thought your face looked familiar.”

  I open my eyes to find Chafin standing a few feet away, revolver leveled at my exposed core. “Any one of you even twitches, and your bossman gets a hole in his chest.”

  “Why are you back?” I ask. “Thought we had an agreement.”

  “Ol’ Arthur started talking when he woke up,” Chafin says. “Offered a trade. Information for his freedom. Man’s as thick as a redwood. Believed me when I agreed to it. Then he reveals who you really are, Mr. McCoy. Wouldn’t you know it, my ma was a Hatfield, and we know better than most how quick with the tongue you McCoys can be. So I’ve decided to not believe your story.”

  “And now you plan to bring us all in?” I ask.

  “I’m fixin’ to shoot you, actually.” He raises his gun, and for a moment, I know I’m going to die. But then he hesitates, not because of Cassie or Levi, but because the air fills with the sound of angry bees, rushing down from the mountaintop.