The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance

Colby Hodge Time Trails

June 29 1886

Texas Ranger Rand Brock nudged the toe of his boot against the swollen mass at the bottom of the wash. He took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow before settling it back on his head. It was hot. The kind of hot that made you wonder if hell would be just as bad. Thinking about the heat wasn’t making this job any easier.

He’d seen men who’d been in the water a while. Just like cows they would bloat up and then the skin would burst beneath the hot West Texas sun but this. it looked as though the body had been chopped up, randomly stuck back together, and then cooked in a pot until it melted into an indistinguishable blob. And that was before it got caught up in the flash flood that carried it down the canyon and left it half buried in the sand.

He dropped down into a squat and gave it a closer look. Unfortunately for Rand, he recognized it, or maybe he should say a part of it. “Hell’s sweet heat!” His horse, Joe, twisted its ears at his curse and looked at him curiously.

The face, what was left of it, bore a distinct scar that ran from a missing ear to the corner of its mouth. He jumped back when a scorpion crawled out of the open mouth and quickly scuttered into the rocks that littered the riverbank. Joe pawed the ground behind him and tossed his head as he stretched his lower lip out and waggled it back and forth.

“Go ahead. Laugh it up, Joe.” Rand knelt back down to look at the body. “I’m sure Hank thinks it pretty funny.” There was no doubt in his mind that he was looking at Hank Miller, who was supposed to be on his way to the Federal Prison in Leavenworth along with two other prisoners. His partner, Tom, was their escort. He’d been on the trail of the entire group after the prison wagon turned up empty and burning at the bottom of a ravine. The driver had been alive, barely, and gasped out something about the attack coming from the sky before he’d died of his wounds, which were as big a mystery as his last words. He had a big round hole in the middle of his chest like someone or something had stuck a red hot poker clean through him.

Since the driver’s last words kind of went along with something a copper miner had said after stumbling into town a few days earlier, Rand had centred his search in this particular canyon. The miner reported strange lights at dusk, a boat that floated in the sky, scorpions made from steel and fire arrows. And that was all before he downed a bottle of whiskey.

This was not what he expected to find. Not at all. “What happened to you?” he said to the dead man before him. He took his hat off again and wiped the sweat away. The sun was merciless, the thunderstorms from the night before the forebears of extreme heat as if the lightning he’d watched from his shelter had boiled the air. He looked upstream. Whatever had killed Hank and left this mess had to have occurred up the canyon somewhere.

“Guess there’s nothing left to do but bury you, or what’s left of you.” He went to where Joe browsed among some gorse bushes and yanked the small shovel from his pack. He took his shirt off and hung it over the saddle as he loosened Joe’s bit. “Don’t get lazy on me.” The horse had been his faithful companion for many years. “This is the last trip for you and me. Once this is over and we get back to Laredo I promise it’s nothing but sweet grass and fat mares.”

Sweat dripped down his chest as he dug a hole far enough back from the river bed to keep Hank from washing out in the next flash flood. Finally he was content with the depth of the hole and went back to where the body lay. Another hour under the hot sun had not helped its condition one bit and Rand looked at it in distaste. Luckily he was wearing gloves and he finally reached down and grabbed the pulpy mass around what he thought could possibly be shoulders and pulled it from the sand.

What came with it made Rand jump back a good ten feet. There was another body. Or was it? What was between them was a twisted heap of. something. but beneath there was another part of a face.

“Tom!” Rand turned his head and heaved up the contents of his stomach. He wiped his mouth on his arm and covered his bile with some sand before turning once more to look at what was left of Texas Ranger Tom Jacks. Something protruded from his torso, something sharp and shiny, like the blade from a sword. Rand covered his mouth and swallowed hard as he pulled the piece of metal from his friend’s body.

It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before — about three feet long and hinged in the middle so that the piece flexed, like a knee or an elbow. Rand moved it up, then down and marvelled at the intricate craftsmanship of whatever it was. The tip of it was as sharp as a razor and sliced open the finger of his glove.

“Tarnation!” He started to fling the part away, then thought better of it and took it over to Joe, wrapped it in a piece of hide and stuffed it in his saddlebag. Then he grabbed the bodies and dragged them over to the hole and rolled them in. He shoved the dirt over the grave, packed it down with the flat side of the shovel and gathered as many rocks as he could find to place over it.

“Damn. Tom. ” He stared upstream for a moment, then back down at the dirt. “I’ll find who done this. I swear.” Rand pushed the shovel into his pack, swung up on Joe’s back without bothering to put on his shirt and rode upstream. He’d had enough of that place.

April 27 2143

Shay McCoy studied the data on the screen as her handler, Topher, quantified the position of the quirks they’d discovered. Time had been fractured by some idiot who did not have a clue what he was dealing with. More of Wiley’s work no doubt. The escaped criminal was determined to corner the market on time travel by reinventing the wheel and had left traces of his attempts all over history. This meant she was often cleaning up after him instead of hunting for him. It was her fault he’d escaped and she’d be damned if someone else was going to run him down. It was her case, her problem and she would handle it, or die trying. She could do nothing less since she was a Five-one Captain of the Time Travel Enforcement Agency.

“I need it narrowed down, Topher.”

“I’m working on it. got it. 1886. somewhere in. West Texas.”

“Please tell me it’s not the middle of summer.” Shay hated the desert with a passion. Nothing but scorpions, rattlesnakes and dry heat that made it impossible to draw a breath.

“Give me a minute,” Topher replied.

Shay shook her head in aggravation. Minutes were valuable, especially when some idiot was screwing around with them. The window for correction was short but luckily the damage in West Texas in the late nineteenth century should be minimal. There weren’t that many people around the area in that time, if the data was accurate. It should be. The world’s history had been carefully mapped and archived just in case something like this happened.

She checked her supplies while Topher studied the screen. Her armband, which stretched from wrist to elbow, was synchronized with Topher’s computer and spewed out data just a millisecond after he relayed it to her. Her weapon, the PR37, was fully charged. It hung on her hip from a belt that also carried a back-up charge, a sanitation bag, a med kit and a pair of goggles. She stuck a small vial of sunscreen into the med kit. No need to take any chances, even though she expected to be back before daybreak.

“Third of June 1886; 10.17 p.m.,” Topher said. “I’ve already ordered a costume set up.”

“Not going to need it,” Shay said. “It’s the middle of nowhere and I’m going in at night. No one will see me. I’ll be out in six, well before dawn.” She picked up the pack that held enough explosives to implode a small city. “This is all I need right here.”

“You’re the boss.” Topher punched the coordinates into the console.

Shay checked the charge on her weapon. “So they tell me.” She stepped on to the transporter and shimmered out of existence.

The sun had just dipped behind the canyon ridge when Rand made camp. The sky was cloudless, with yellows and pinks streaking out from the sunset into the deep violet of the east yet he saw lightning in the north, at the head of the wash.

He made camp behind a large rock that formed a shelter close to the wall of the canyon. He gave Joe a small ration of feed, stripped him down and gave him a good rub before turning him loose to forage along the river bank. Then he shucked his pants and boots and waded into the river. He waded out until the water reached his thighs and shivered, despite the heat that still hung heavy in the air. The vision of whatever had happened to Tom and Hank still hung in his mind and twisted his gut. The bottle of whiskey he carried with him should help with that. He hoped.

“Here’s to you, Tom.” Rand pointed the bottle towards the sky and took a long draw. He watched as night closed in and stars popped out in a sky as dark as velvet. The full moon hung clear and close enough to touch right over the lip of the canyon. It was a beautiful night, the kind you could only see in West Texas. Looking at the beauty of the night made the horror he’d seen that much more disgusting, and that much more intense.

It was bright enough that he could keep on travelling if he wanted to but he was bone weary from his days on the trail, and knew Joe, who was old, would have to feel just as bad if not worse. Upstream, to the north, he saw the flashes of light that meant another thunderstorm would come in the night yet there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He could only hope that it wouldn’t be enough to flood the canyon again and wash another mystery up at his feet.

“I hope I find the son of a bitch who did that to you, Tom.” Rand took another draw from the bottle, stuck the cork back in and sunk below the surface. He felt the water gently wash over him and marvelled at the peacefulness of the river, compared to the raging torrent that must have carried his friend downstream. Finally, out of breath, he stood in one powerful motion, slinging water from his head in a big arc. At the same instant, he felt something slam into him, with a white flash of light. Rand staggered back and fell once more beneath the surface of the water.

Shay felt her body falling and spun her arms wildly to catch herself but there was nothing to grab on to. Whatever happened had to have occurred while she was in transit and it had knocked her off course. How far and how much was yet to be determined. She landed face first in the sand and quickly pushed herself up, coughing and gagging as the sand got in her mouth and nose. She instantly realized she was not alone and drew her weapon. A horse stumbled up from the sand and shook itself clean.

Shay quickly checked her arm display. She’d been caught in a time current, the very thing she’d come here to stop. She was off course by nearly a month, too late to stop the beginning of the rift they’d discovered.

It was also bad news for anyone caught in the aftershock of the rip. “Your life just got a lot shorter,” she said to the horse that blinked at her as if it were trying to decide if she were real or not. “Sorry,” she added. “Wrong place and wrong time for both of us.” She checked her display again. She needed to get her bearings and report in. She had six hours before she could jump again, she might as well make good use of her time.

Shay took a moment to look around. Even thought it was dark, the full moon illuminated the area enough to discern landmarks. She was in the middle of a deep canyon that was littered with huge boulders. As long as it didn’t rain she should be safe from flash floods. A shallow yet wide river assured her that she would not die of thirst as long as her sanitization kit held out.

“At least I didn’t land in the water or on the edge of the cliff.” Topher must have seen the rip coming and made sure she had a safe landing, if that was what you could call it. Her med stats would show that she survived but she still needed to check in. T.T.E.A. protocol required that she call him first, just in case there was someone around. In this period of time, the locals didn’t take kindly to weird things like time travel. There were plenty of accounts of T.T.E.A. agents being accused of witchcraft, and even one case of an agent dying at the hands of hostiles during the six-hour gap between jumps.

“This is five-one calling base,” she said. She touched a finger to her jaw where her link was planted so there was no possibility of losing it. There was also a remote in her arm panel and she tweaked it while she waited for Topher to confirm.

Nothing but static. Since they were in a time before any signals bounced through the atmosphere there had to be some sort of damage, possibly caused by her rough landing. She’d have to wait for Topher to solve it on his end. Her target was still in range so she decided to make for it.

“Better make sure the wolves are at bay.” Shay programmed her display for scan. She was confident she could handle anything that came at her with one shot from her PR37 but it was nice to think she wouldn’t have to use it. The thought of disrupting the life of anything or anyone in the past was disturbing to her. The horse was already a victim of the rift. She’d hate to think of anyone else falling prey to it.

A blip showed up on her screen. An animal caught drinking at the river? She checked the display and then looked in that direction. The light on her screen showed a significant body mass lying in the river. “Oh no.” Shay realized the blip was human and had to be a man by the size of it. She wasn’t dressed for interaction. And she certainly didn’t want to have to explain who she was and what she was doing here. Still she couldn’t go off and leave him to drown.

He’ll die soon enough if you don’t fix it.

This area was supposed to be deserted, populated with nothing but rattlesnakes and scorpions. Sure there was a possibility of a random hunting party but still.

She heard him. There was a splash and she turned and looked at the river. Moonlight danced off the surface, giving it a surreal look, as if she were staring at an abstract painting. She caught a movement in her peripheral vision and watched as a man pulled himself up with the help of the rock. It was too late for her to move, too late to hide so she stayed where she was and hoped to hell that he was dazed and confused enough not to ask too many questions. Any other problems that arose could be easily solved with a stun blast from her PR37.

In the exact moment that his eyes found her, Shay realized he was naked. He stood in the moonlight as if he were carved from stone, the only movement the water sluicing down his body, trickling into the grooves and dips that gave sharp definition to his muscular frame. She could not help but watch the water’s trail in fascination, from his wide shoulders, over his smooth pectorals, into the ridges of his stomach, before trickling into the V that split his lean hips. After a long moment, in which she forgot to breathe, he moved, his long legs churning through the water.

“What in hell’s sweet behind just happened?” His voice was more like a growl and it wakened her from the trance his appearance had placed upon her.

Shay levelled her PR37 straight at him. “Don’t take another step.”

He barely spared her weapon a glance as he kept on moving. He raised a dark eyebrow. “Are you planning on shooting me with that?”

“Yes I am,” Shay said indignantly.

He stopped when he got to her and stood, with his arms crossed, imperious and impervious, dripping, and totally oblivious to the fact that he was naked. He towered over her, intentionally she was sure of it, and stared down at her with eyes that lost their colour in the moonlight. His dark hair was plastered against his forehead and curled over his ears. Once more she felt as if she were looking at a statue that was carved from stone.

“Well?” he asked.

Shay didn’t get where she was by being intimidated. She stuck the point of her weapon in the middle of his chest, right in the indentation between his pectoral muscles.

“I could blow a hole clean through you. It would cauterize instantly and give you time to think about what the hell just happened while you lie here and die.”

“It wouldn’t be any stranger than anything else that’s happened to me lately,” he snapped and walked away.

Shay stared after him. She’d seen more than her share of weird during her time at the T.T.E.A., but this was the first time anyone had ever been so cavalier about her presence. Especially when she’d had a weapon stuck in his chest.

His very nice chest. She had to admit the view of him walking away was as nice as the one from the front, if not nicer. The man was definitely fit. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He was all cowboy. long, lean and hard in all the right places.

Get over it. Now was not the time to think about how long it had been since she’d been with a man. She had a job to do. “What do you mean by strange?” Shay suddenly realized what he’d said. Did he know something?

He was talking to the horse now, stroking its nose, using soft soothing sounds to calm it. The horse leaned into him. She found his state of undress very annoying for some reason. The guy acted like he was in his bathroom instead of the middle of nowhere. Come to think of it, the middle of nowhere probably was his bathroom and would be hers too before too much time passed.

“Oh hell,” she said.

“At least that makes some sense.” He gave the horse a last comforting pat and walked behind a rock beneath an overhang of the cliff. “Where did you come from?” He pulled on a pair of well-worn jeans.

“I’d rather not say,” Shay said. “What did you see?”

“I’d rather not say,” he quipped. He walked back to the river and picked up a bottle that lay along the bank. “At least one good thing has happened today,” He held up the bottle as if it were a great prize, then removed the cork and took a long drink. He held the bottle out to her as he walked past. “You look like you could use some too.”

“Er. no thanks.” Shay followed him back to the rock and watched in astonishment as he lay down on his back and placed a hat over his face. “What are you doing?”

“Getting some rest. I don’t know about you but I’ve had one hell of a day.”

Rand didn’t want to admit it to the woman, but he felt as if he’d been ripped in half. At the moment he couldn’t care less if she shot him. He spared a glance at her, from beneath his hat. She leaned against the rock with her arms crossed. She wasn’t pretty in the usual way; instead she had strong clear features and a quiet confidence that bespoke intelligence and contentment. Her hair was strangely short for a woman. It barely touched her shoulders and framed her face in a riot of curls that gleamed white in the moonlight. Her left arm was covered with some sort of contraption that had tiny coloured lights on it. He couldn’t even begin to figure out what that was all about. She was dressed strange too, all in black with thick boots over pants that looked like a second skin, a shirt that looked like his longjohns and a short coat of the softest leather he’d ever seen. If she wanted to draw attention to herself she’d succeeded. The way her pants hugged the lines of her legs made him want to wrap them around his waist in the worst way, even if he did feel like the ass end of an armadillo.

She had to know something about what had happened to Tom. It was the only logical explanation of what she was doing out here. How she’d got here without him seeing her was another story entirely. One he needed to think on for a bit. This was why he’d decided to lie down. He needed to catch his breath after whatever it was had slammed him into the river.

“I’m guessing that you’re feeling pretty sick right now. Kind of nauseous and weak?” She dragged the toe of her squared-off boot through the sand.

He was. How would she know that? “Where did you say you were from?”

“I didn’t.” She looked at the thing on her arm again. Pushed a couple of the lights. Took what looked like a flask from her belt and drank from it. “The question is when did I come from.”

Just when he was beginning to think the night might make a turn for the better she had to go and get all crazy on him. Luckily his gun was handy. Rand sat up and eased his way around to where he could grab it if need be. Lightning flashed in the distance and he waited for the sound of thunder but none came. The woman looked at it also, then back at her arm.

“OK. I’ll bite. When are you from?”

“I’m from 2143. That’s two hundred and fifty-some years from now if you’re counting. That blast that knocked you on your ass was caused by me getting bumped from my destination by whoever is messing around up there.” She pointed towards the lightning flashes.

“I’m going to need another drink.” He looked for the bottle. She grabbed it off the boulder she leaned against and tossed it to him. “So you didn’t plan on landing here?” As if anyone would come to this canyon deliberately. Rand had learned a long time ago that it was best to humour people when they were loco, until you could get the drop on them. The weapon she’d waved around earlier was pretty wicked-looking. He didn’t know what it was but he was pretty sure it didn’t shoot bullets. That whole thing about cauterization did not sound appealing at all.

“No. My plan was to land about a month before this date. In time to stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“The rips in time.”

Rand laughed. After everything else that had happened this day it was pretty much all that was left to do. He sat back against the canyon wall and let out a big whoop then took another draw off the bottle after wiping his eyes. “I haven’t had a good one like that in a while,” he admitted.

“It will more than likely be your last.” She crouched down before him. “Still feeling weak?” She took the bottle.

“Yeah. Too much sun.” Rand looked her up and down. “And way too much excitement.”

She handed him her flask. “Drink this. You’re probably dehydrated, and this—” she pitched his bottle away “—isn’t helping things.”

Rand sniffed the flask, decided that it had to be OK since she’d just drunk from it and it smelled pretty good, kind of fruity like apples and oranges. He took a drink and was amazed at how cool it was going down his throat. His stomach felt immediately settled although he was still weak and wanted nothing more than to stretch out and sleep for days. If only there was a nice soft bed available.

He definitely didn’t mind the company at all. Several days in the sack with this woman would be a treat.

“Feel better?”

“A bit.” He wondered if there was something alcoholic in the flask. Something that would make him as crazy as she was. Still there had to be an explanation for what he saw, for what happened to Tom, and for every other weird thing that he’d seen and heard lately. Since no one else was forthcoming with explanations he might as well listen to what she had to say. “What’s your name?”

“Shay McCoy. Captain Shay McCoy. T.T.E.A. That’s the Time Travel Enforcement Agency if you’re wondering.”

“Yeah. right. Rand Brock. Captain Rand Brock. Texas Rangers.”

“A Texas Ranger? I heard about you.”

“About me?”

“No. About the Rangers. You guys were legendary. Still are as a matter of fact. It should please you to know that the Texas Rangers are still alive and kicking in the future.”

“Yeah, I was worried about that.” Rand took another drink from her flask. “So why are you here again? Something about a ‘time rip’?”

She drew a long straight line in the sand. “Time is linear. One long line, year after year, day after day, hour after hour and so on. It all keeps coming, one after the next. But. ”

“I get a feeling I’m not going to like this but. ”

She nodded. “Someone is here, in this place, messing with time.” She drew a hash across the line. “Every time they try to move through time they rip it. Or maybe ‘fracture’ is a better word.” She drew a couple more hash marks and then drew lines off them. “The fractures become their own time lines. Kind of an alternate reality which messes up our realities in the future.”

“You have got to be kidding. How is that even possible?”

“There are lots of things that are possible in the future. Mostly because of things that are happening now, in your time. You call it the Industrial Revolution. In the next hundred years there are unbelievable changes that will happen, including air flight and men walking on the moon.”

Rand straightened at the mention of air flight. The driver said the attack came from the air. Maybe what she was saying did make some kind of sense. “And time travel?”

“And time travel. The problem is regulating it. There are those who think anyone should be able to go anywhere and do whatever they want.”

“Which leads to history being changed which changes the future.”

“Yes. There’s a group who think they can change things for the better. One of them, a guy named Wiley, managed to jump into time and he’s trying to corner the market on time travel by being the first to invent it. Then he can control it.”

“And offer it to the highest bidder.”

“Greed is something that’s pretty much the same no matter what time you are in.”

“What good is it going to do him in the future if he’s back here?”

“He’s hoping to keep it in the family. He can trace his lineage back pretty far and apparently whoever his ancestor is in this time was rich, smart and greedy.”

Rand rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“It’s not me.” Shay pointed to the hash marks in the sand. “You’ve been split.”

“What?”

“There are two of you now. The blast that announced my arrival? It ripped your time line. So now there are two of you in two separate — yet parallel — time lines. It’s why you feel weak. You’re half of what you were.”

Rand staggered to his feet. The sudden movement made him dizzy and he wobbled enough so that he grabbed on to the boulder for support.

“I know it’s hard to believe but it’s true. You feel horrible because your life just got cut in half. If it happens again, you’ll be split again. Another fracture, another parallel time line.”

“How do we fix it?”

“Go to the source. So why don’t you tell me what it is that you know?”

“About time travel? Nothing. All I’ve got is a partner and a prisoner who look as if they were melted together like candle wax, a dead driver who said the attack came from the air, and lightning in the sky without thunder.” He went to his pack. “And this.” He handed Shay the strange piece of metal. “I found this in my partner’s body.”

“They were using them to experiment on,” Shay said.

Rand’s stomach turned at the thought. “Bastards.” He had no idea what had been done to Tom, but the results of it were enough to make him think that it had to have been horrible for anyone involved. Even to a cold-hearted killer like Hank Miller.

The touch of her hand on his arm was meant to be gentle and soothing but still his body reacted in ways that were far from gentle. Rand looked into her eyes and saw gold flecks over green and a clear calm gaze that gave him no doubt that she was entirely truthful with him.

“Help me stop them,” she said.

He was so very tired. Rand let out a sigh and picked up his rig. “Beats getting drunk.”

Still no word from Topher. Her display read three hours until she could jump. If she were able to jump. She stood on a rock by the river, hoping the added height would give her a better signal. She really needed to get up higher. She needed to see the lie of the land. Rand was convinced that the river held the clue since the bodies had come from somewhere upstream.

The river wasn’t much more than a trickle now. It was hard to believe that it had enough power to carry these huge boulders downstream but apparently it had. The lightning was closer now. Daggers of it shot across the sky, right over her head. If she’d had a metal rod, she probably could have pulled it to her. It had to be the source of the time machine. What else could it be?

Shay looked at Rand, who stood at the head of his horse, stroking its neck as he murmured in its ear. The poor beast was done in. Its head hung limply and its body trembled with weakness. It could go no further. They’d run out of room. There was no place to go but up and it looked as if it would be a difficult climb. The walls of the canyon were narrow and the terrain rocky.

“Sorry old man,” Rand said. “I promised you sweet grass and fat mares but it looks like I can’t come through for you.” His voice broke as he touched his forehead to the animal’s. “I’m sorry I let you down.” He unsaddled the horse and slipped its bridle off.

Shay felt a strange welling in her throat. Where did that come from? She was getting all emotional over a cowboy and his horse. Life was like that. People died. Pets died. It happened all the time.

But how many times did it happen because of some idiot playing around with a time machine? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time totally sucked. The man was just doing his job and his life was ruined.

He pulled his gun from his holster. Was he actually planning on shooting the horse? Shay jumped down from the rock and ran to him just as he put the barrel of his gun against the horse’s head. “What are you doing?”

The face he turned on her was tortured, haggard and weary. The effects of the time rip on his body were already showing.

“I can’t just leave him here to die. He’d starve. Slowly. And the buzzards would be at him. He deserves better than that. We all do.”

“He’s your friend?” she asked.

Rand turned away. “Yes.”

She rubbed her hand down the face of the horse. Its eyes looked flat and hollow in the moonlight, full of pain. The essence of the horse was gone, leaving nothing behind but a shell that obeyed because that was what it was trained to do. “I’ll do it,” she said. He started to protest but she stopped him with a look. “My way will be kinder, I promise.” She took her med kit from her belt and loaded all twelve tranks into the hypo-gun. She spoke soothing words as she found the pulse in the animal’s neck. She quickly shot in the dose and the horse blinked, one time, slowly dropped to its knees and lay down with a heavy sigh.

The ranger looked at her.

“It’s like he’s going to sleep,” she said. “Talk to him. Tell him it’s OK to go.”

Rand knelt down next to the horse and spoke into its ear as he rubbed down the long arch of its neck. The animal let out its breath and was still. Shay watched as Rand wiped his arm across his eyes and then slowly he stood.

“How long do I have?” he asked. “Before the same thing happens to me.”

Shay shrugged. It would be nice if she had an easy answer. “It depends upon your life expectancy. Your horse was already old before the split. Without knowing when and how you die, I can’t say.” She looked at him. He was all hollows and angles in the moonlight and she still could not tell what colour his eyes were. “You could die in the next five minutes or it could be years. I just don’t know.”

His laughter sounded bitter and hollow. “Sounds like another typical day.” He slung his saddlebags and rifle over his shoulder. “If we’re going to get this bastard before I die then we’d best get a move on.”

“Well, that explains a lot,” Rand said an hour later. They were lying on a ridge overlooking a lake. Dawn was still a few hours away and clouds were moving in, yet the moon cast enough of a reflection across the water to give them a good view of the surrounding area.

A dam lay across the mouth of the river. In the middle of it was a large sluice gate, which was operated with gears and pulleys. Beside it was a building with an open roof. Steam rose from one side of the building and occasionally a flash of light would flare out.

“I don’t know exactly what it is it explains but it’s got to mean something,” he added. He rolled over on his back and threw his arm over his eyes. He felt like he’d been run over after a hard night of drinking. Yet he still felt the clench in his gut every time he looked at Shay.

If he was going to go out, he might as well do it in the arms of a beautiful woman. The hard part would be convincing her to oblige him. Surely any woman that walked around in pants that hugged every muscle of her long legs and the curve of her luscious behind wouldn’t mind helping a guy who was about to die.

“I wonder how they got this stuff out here?” It wasn’t exactly what he was thinking but still he wondered. The building was pretty big and there’d been no sign of a wagon train, coach, or even a spur off the railroad.

“Probably by airship,” she said. “I think it’s docked over to the left.” She moved her head, still scanning the area. “He’s using solar power.” She was looking through a pair of binoculars that had the same strange lights on them as the thing on her arm. “The sun heats the water and creates steam. The steam turns the turbines, which turns the platform. I’m betting it’s got mirrors all around it. It seems like I remember seeing a drawing of something similar in the archives.”

“You can tell all that from looking through those binoculars.”

“They’re infra-red.” She spared him a look. “They can read heat.” She handed them to him and he rolled over on his stomach next to her.

He peered through them and sure enough saw bright red spots. “So if the big spots are heat from the steam, then does that make the little spots people?”

“Yes, it does.”

“So what are those?” Rand pointed towards the ravine. The glasses showed some smaller red spots that were moving towards their position. He dropped the glasses and peered into the darkness. “Rats?” It was the only logical answer. Still, he had yet to meet a rat that wore spurs.

The noise was getting louder. They could see nothing, but they heard small rocks tumbling down the ravine. The moon was behind the clouds so it was difficult to see. Though without a doubt Rand knew something was there. He’d learned several years ago never to ignore the feeling of being stalked and he drew his gun. Shay dropped her pack and did the same.

“What is it?”

“Since I have to guess, I’m going with some sort of steam-powered guard dogs,” Shay said. “Let me take them out.”

Rand cocked his pistol. “You’re kidding, right?”

She stood and took aim at the ridge. “Nope. You’ll make too much noise. They’ll know we’re up here.” Shay fired her gun and a blast of blue light came out of it. It made a buzzing sound, like a swarm of angry bees. He had to admit it was much quieter than his.45 yet he hated not being able to fight back. Especially since there were more things swarming towards them.

It looked as if the ground was alive and moving. The moon suddenly split a cloud and Rand saw what was stalking them. There had to be a hundred or more, metal scorpions, as big as cats, with hinged legs that moved across the rocks and pincers raised and clacking together. They were looking for targets.

“Don’t let them touch you.” Shay was blasting as quickly as they came at her.

“Yeah. right.” Rand slid his pistol into the holster and picked up his rifle. He swung it like a club at the things and they flew apart with the impact. They kept on coming and he was soon breathing hard and his arms ached. Shay kept on firing until her weapon died on her, then all she could do was kick them in Rand’s direction and let him finish them off. She danced away from the last one as its claws nipped at her ankles. She bumped into Rand who had just launched one into the canyon and they stumbled backwards. He slammed his rifle into a boulder and the stock cracked. He lost his balance and they both went down. Rand caught her in his arms and twisted so he took the full impact of the fall.

She was sturdy. The impact of their bodies hitting the ground made him grunt and they lay still for a moment as they caught their breath. Shay’s body lay on top of his, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, and hip to hip. She was a perfect fit and his body recognized it. He could not help but tighten his hold on her. Her head lay up under his chin and the scent of her tousled curls filled his nostrils. The aroma was unlike anything he’d ever experienced and a vision of blue skies and a grassy meadow bursting with flowers of every colour filled his mind. Was it heaven? If it was it was as close as he ever hoped to get and there was only one thing missing.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

Shay raised her head. Her eyes held the moon in them. She parted her lips to speak but before she could say anything he kissed her. Rand moved his hand into her hair as his lips touched hers, and he was surprised, yet grateful, when her lips moved against his and her hands framed his face. She gasped, enough so that her lips parted, and he took advantage of the opportunity to trace her bottom lip with his tongue. She responded and it felt like a kick in the gut. The feel of her body against his, her hips pressing against him stoked the fire. He rolled her over quickly, and she moved against him. His hand found her breast and she sighed as their tongues caressed.

“Five-one come in. Five-one are you there? Shay!”

Rand raised his head and looked at her in confusion. Her eyes glinted silver in the moonlight before she closed them, her face clenched in frustration, a mirror of his, he was certain.

“What is that?”

She pushed him aside and he rolled, painfully, away.

“It’s base,” she said. She touched her arm. “This is five-one. Check three.”

“Thank God,” the voice said. “We thought we’d lost you.”

“I hit a bump.” She stood up and ran her hand through her hair.

“Yeah. Any side-effects?”

Rand sat up and took a long drink from his canteen as Shay looked down at him. She handed him her flask. “Drink this.” She mouthed the words then continued with her conversation. “One. No make that two. One down. One with me.”

“You’ve got a local with you?”

“Affirmative. Status one-oh-one A. Rand Brock. Texas Ranger. Can you verify for me?”

“Affirmative. Rand Brock. Got a date of birth?”

“December 22, 1849.” Rand looked at her in confusion as she repeated his birth date back to whoever she was talking too. Why did she need his date of birth?

Instead of answering she held her hand up and walked away. Her voice dropped enough that Rand knew she did not want him to hear any more. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t as if anything that happened from here on out would change a thing.

“Topher,” Shay said after she stepped away from Rand. She shifted the communication to her headpiece. “I’ve got the machine in my sights. Can you run some parallels for me? How bad is the rift?”

“As of now there are three. I think we’re still safe as far as the time line. There’s no effects either way. Not even with your Texas Ranger. Did you get a name on the one who expired?”

“It was a horse.”

Topher laughed. Shay looked over her shoulder at Rand who still sat on the ground, sucking back the energy drink from her flask. Hopefully it would keep him going for a while longer. Being split was a bitch. She was surprised he’d been able to keep up. She’d only been with him a few hours but she knew without a doubt that Rand Brock was one hell of a man.

“Hey, to him the horse was important.” She’d never forget the look on his face when they put Joe down. Nor would she forget how she felt when he kissed her. The man needed to live.

“Sorry.” Topher seemed contrite. “What is your plan?”

“Take this thing out, then come back and keep it from happening.”

“Roger to that. Still can’t pull you for another eighty-seven minutes.”

“That’s fine. Got anything on the name yet?”

“Yeah. Rand Brock. Texas Ranger. Went after missing prison transport June 23, 1886. Presumed dead. He was born 1849. Parents divorced 1873. No impact from the rift. I’m guessing that both of his lives expired shortly after the event. It says the body was never found.”

“Thanks, Topher.” Shay looked at Rand once more. He was staring at his broken rifle. He flung it away in disgust. “Five-one out.”

“What do we do now?” Lightning streaked from the building. Shay’s hair stood on end and the eerie light turned Rand’s dark hair to a strange shade of cobalt blue that matched his eyes.

Shay picked up her pack. “We take it out.”

It had been remarkably easy. Just circle the perimeter and place the charges. The only hard part was ducking every time a trail of lightning lit the sky, especially since it seemed to be right over their heads. If there were guards they never saw them and no one stopped them. They were both out of breath when they returned to their overlook and Shay turned on the remote. The explosion shook the canyon. Rand rolled on top of her to shelter her body as debris from the building rained down on top of them. Flames lit the sky and the angles of his face as she turned beneath him. There was another explosion — the airship, most likely — and then silence, except for the crackle of the fire.

His hand smoothed her hair back from her face. “What happens now?”

“I jump back to my time.”

“How long do we have until then?”

“About ten minutes, give or take.”

“That’s not enough.”

Shay looked into his eyes. There was pain there, reflected by the flames, but worse, there was loneliness. Loneliness was something she knew. She touched his forehead and pushed back the dark hair that fell across it. There was a streak of dirt on his cheek and she rubbed it off with her thumb. He grinned at her, like they were sharing a private joke.

Except there was no joke. She was leaving in a few short moments. He would be alone, in the middle of nowhere, with no way to get back to civilization and a fat chance of living long enough to make it anywhere in his weakened condition. He would die here. Alone.

“Care to grant a dying man’s last wish?” His lips nibbled at hers and her heart swelled inside her chest.

“Oh, what the hell,” Shay said. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. “Whatever you do, don’t let go. I’m pretty sure ten minutes isn’t going to be enough.”

They were still kissing when they made the jump.