Synchronic: 13 Tales of Time Travel, Page 2

  “The Mirror” is one of those stories that feels like a classic. I think Irving Belateche has pulled the ultimate time travel stunt right here in front of us all by writing tomorrow’s classic time-travel/cursed-bauble tale for today’s anthology. I think you’ll enjoy it, unless you’re afraid of antiques, and then, well, you might really enjoy it.

  So there we have it, twelve tales of time travel. Oh, and I wrote a little something too. A military sci-fi time travel story that I’m hoping you’ll like as much as the others.

  Should we? Shouldn’t we? These masterful stories might just help you make up your mind, so when that dark stranger steps out of the alley and offers you the chance to go back…

  To make things right…

  To find the gold and get rich quick…

  Well, I don’t know what you’ll do. Just be very careful. Time’s a tough opponent.

  For all sad words of tongue or pen,

  The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

  – John Greenleaf Whittier

  The Santa Anna Gold

  by Michael Bunker

  I really did have a son. No matter what they tell you today, him gone and them all acting like he never did exist. My daughters died young. Car wreck, back before all this happened, and not long after their momma went away and then got the cancer and died. But, like I said, that was before I got put in here. The way it is now, it’s like I never had any children at all.

  My boy was named Richard. Richard Henry Smalton. He was named after his great-uncle on his mother’s side. He was born in early 1997, right on our big bed in the cottage down by the creek. We lived off the grid just north of the Santa Anna Mountains. Completely off the grid. No electricity or conveniences at all. Say that too loud now’days and they’ll lock you right up and throw away the key. Had our babies at home, too. We didn’t get birth certificates or vaccinations or social security numbers because we don’t believe in those things. That’s our right, and we didn’t feel like we needed to burden our children with government before they could make up their own minds what contracts they wanted to enter into and such. I didn’t want my boy drafted into Uncle Sam’s wars, so he grew up and lived the pure and good life like we all did, and no one was the wiser.

  I can tell you exactly when the story started too, or when things changed, back before all this went sideways and I got put in here forever—or until I change my mind (at least that’s what they say). It started when my boy—We called him Rick—got interested in the legend of the Santa Anna Gold. But first I have to tell you the story of the gold, or else none of the rest of this’ll make sense.

  To most people the gold was only a legend, and the stories had been told and re-told to anyone who ever did move to Coleman County. Not that many people move to Coleman County, though. Most folks just die off or move away. High schools in this county pump out graduates who leave skid marks gettin’ out of here. Population of the county has dropped precipitously since the early 1930’s or so. But when folks do move here—usually ranchers or city-dwelling cattlemen, but sometimes homesteaders like ourselves—someone eventually gets around to telling them all about the Santa Anna Gold.

  The great historian J. Frank Dobie wrote about it, and we found bits and pieces of the story, sometimes with all the elements changed about all scattershot-like, in lots of different histories of the area. We bought books written by locals that couldn’t be bought or had anywhere else unless you knew who to go to in order to get them. Dobie shared a story from a man by the name of J. Leeper Gay, who shared the legend as it was told to him by a Mexican, who claimed it was told to him by his grandfather down in Sonora, Mexico. But just because a story has a long and twisty path don’t make it not true.

  I’ll try to make the story short, because before long they’ll be by here to make me take pills, hoping I’ll forget my own flesh-n-blood boy or change my mind that I ever had one in the first place. No pill I ever took could do that, but they give ’em to me anyway. Even after I showed ’em the picture that proved me right. That’s what tells me they’re probably with the government. They took the picture away too, but I kept an extra that they don’t know nothin’ about. They go to great lengths to convince me I’m nuts. Sometimes I laugh at what they come up with.

  Anyway, there are lots of different stories of where the gold came from. Some say it was gold brought down from Colorado, or even the Seven Cities of Cibola or some nonsense like that. Others say it was gold carried along with the Spanish military—used to pay the soldiers as they tried to tame Texas during the time of the Spanish colonization.

  Most of the stories agree that the gold came out of the San Saba mines, and that a large load of it was stolen from the Spanish miners by an Indian raid. In turn—the best stories say—the Spanish outfitted a cavalry unit and sent them far up north—maybe as far as Colorado—to search for the stolen gold. This particular cavalry unit raided an Indian village and killed almost everyone there, and in the ashes and ruin of the camp (the story goes), the Spanish found a large sack full of gold dust and coins (although some say it was up to a wagonload of gold ore) in one of the teepees.

  Having gained the prize, the unit was pulling back with the bounty and heading south, when the surrounding Indian forces counterattacked. The Spanish cavalry fought bravely and continued to retreat, taking losses, slowly making for their forts and bases to the south, fighting their way along as they were constantly harassed and attacked from the rear. The attacks became fiercer and more violent, and it came to pass that the Spanish got to thinkin’ they’d never make it back to Mexico at all. The Rio Grande might as well have been the river Jordan or heaven’s own pearly gates as far as they were concerned.

  Nearly a month had passed since the Spanish had stolen the gold back, and the raiders were making very slow progress down southward. At last they came to the twin mesas of the “Santa Anna Mountains” in an area that is now called Coleman County, in central Texas. My home. These mesas I can see from my window today, they’re not named after the Mexican emperor, but instead after an Indian war chief named Santana who ruled from here. Santana sure ’nuff met future president James Polk one time, but that’s a whole ’nother story.

  Well, when the Spanish came near to the Santa Anna Mountains, they made camp at a creek not far from the twin mesas. I make that creek out to be Mud Creek to the north, or maybe Home Creek to the south. Coulda been any number of other creeks though, since many were runnin’ back then and most of ’em are dried up now. That evening, they received word that a large force of Indians was bearin’ down on ’em. A scout was sent to spy out the enemy from the peak of one of the twin mesas, but he’d not returned by darkfall, so the commander of the cavalry ordered his men to douse their fires, entrench themselves, and prepare for battle.

  Around midnight or thereabouts, the scout finally returned with the report that the attack was coming—he knew not how soon—and that the opposing force was so large that all was expected to be lost. That’s a mighty scary story right there—in and of itself—but then to lose the gold again after all that’d already been lost… well, for the Spanish officers, it was too much to stomach.

  Now, traveling with this Spanish force was a black man—a slave brought up from deep in Mexico to serve the Spanish cavalry. He was a strong man, and he’d become a handy guide for the Spanish officers on their way around Texas. The Spanish commander ordered the black man and two weary soldiers to carry away the gold in secret—“half a day’s ride,” it’s said—and to bury it so the Indians could never reclaim it.

  According to the legend—and in this one detail it seems that all the old legends agree—the gold was buried on top of a hill, under a large flat rock. On the rock, the men inscribed three M’s, so that it could be located again when necessary.

  The three men returned to their unit just as the Indians made their final attack. In that battle, every member of the Spanish force was killed or captured, and the prisoners were—each and every one of ’em—p
ut to death by burning… all except for the black guide, who alone was left alive and kept as a slave by the Indians.

  After many years of torture and mistreatment at the hands of the Indians, the black man escaped his tormentors and fled back into Mexico. He was the lone survivor of the Spanish raiders, and the only one—it is believed—who held the secret in his bosom as to the whereabouts of the Santa Anna Gold.

  Deep in Mexico, the man was shunned by the superstitious Mexicans as cursed, except for the many sojourners who would travel there to attempt to coax from him the location of the buried gold. He, however, believed that it was the gold that was cursed and not himself, and refused to disclose its exact whereabouts, other than in the very general sense I have related to you here in this story.

  According to legend, the gold has never been found.

  But legend has a way of not always being the whole truth. I know, because my son, Richard Henry Smalton, musta found that gold—even if he didn’t go dig it out—and because of this, he’s no longer with me. He’s gone over… or gone back… and I’m here alone with the tale. I didn’t believe in time travel then, no sir, but I do now.

  In a way, I’m brother to this brave black man who buried the gold at the first. We two keep the secret, but for different reasons. He kept it by not tellin’ it, because he believed the gold was accursed. I don’t share that opinion, since “luck” or “curses” don’t have legs or eyes or any science to them. I hold the secret by tellin’ it, and tellin’ guarantees it’ll stay secret, because no one will believe it. All told, the end’s the same. We both hold gold in our bosom as a secret no one knows in our lives but us.

  Now I’m going to tell the rest of the story, but since I can’t be believed (on account of them sayin’ I’m crazy), it’ll be just like I told no one.

  * * *

  My son got on to the story of the gold and he couldn’t let go of it. He wasn’t a covetous boy—actually a young man of fifteen years when this happened—but he was a curious one and smart as can be. “If no one found the gold,” he said, “then it has to still be out there.”

  Believe me, I argued with him. “If I found it, I wouldn’t tell no one,” I said. “And I’m probably not the only one thinks that announcing I found millions in gold to the whole wide world is a bad idea.”

  “Don’t mean it was found,” he’d say.

  “What would you do with it if you found it?” I asked.

  “Don’t know that I’d do anything with it,” he said. “I may not even dig it up at all. I’d just know the story was true.”

  I argued again, because I don’t see sense in findin’ gold you’re just plannin’ to leave there, but he said, “History’s about finding out what happened and what’s true,” and that was that as far as he was concerned.

  So he went about trying to verify the story. On his own time. He’d search the Internet and he’d go to libraries, and eventually his interest got me hip-deep involved too. He and I would go to book and estate sales—especially those held to sell off the goods of folks who’ve lived in this county a long time. Young folks don’t want books, so they sell ’em off for pennies as soon as their folk die off. Now I say readin’ books is the best form of time travel, but that’s an argument for another day.

  Then one day Rick came upon a mention in a small Internet forum posting about the Santa Anna Mountains. He came to me and we tried to reason it out.

  He said this to me—

  “An old man, close to dying up in Canada, has posted his story on the Internet, and I think it may be of importance.”

  “What’d he say?” I asked.

  “Old man was a retired U.S. Marine, name of Joe Paul Scotland. He said he was born in Santa Anna, in the old Sealy Hospital back in 1933.”

  “I remember that hospital,” I said. “I don’t remember it personal-like because it was gone before we got here, but I remember pictures of it. It was built right up against the west mesa, and a lot of babies were born in that hospital.”

  So Rick tells me to hush for a minute while he keeps tellin’ ol’ man Scotland’s tale.

  It seems Mr. Scotland said he played on the twin mesas almost every day of his life, right up until he left Santa Anna when he was twenty years old. Knew them like the back of his own hand. He said that sometime around 1946 a company began mining the east end of the western mesa for silica sand, and in the process, likely ruined many priceless cave and wall paintings that existed in that area.

  I quote here directly from the Internet posting of Mr. Joe Paul Scotland, Retired U.S.M.C. (from memory, of course):

  On the North face of the caprock at approx 31 deg, 44 min, 50.08 sec North and 99 deg, 44 min, 20.97 sec west (An area referred to as an Indian holy place and/or Lover’s Leap) were more relief carvings:

  a) A stylized Indian Swastika approx 18” x 18” (No wording)

  b) What appeared to be a “Bag” gathered and tied at the top approx 14” high and 10” wide (No wording)

  c) Several “Doves Flying” (No wording)

  The local legend intimated that the “Bag” represented treasure and the direction of the flight of the doves represented the location of the treasure. (I never did find it!)

  So my boy becomes convinced that the gold was still in its place back in 1946 when the silica company destroyed the cave paintings (despite the fact that I told him that his story was not necessarily true) and that the paintings were a clue as to the whereabouts of the gold. Rick said that the “bag gathered and tied at the top” musta been the gold. He then determined that the “doves flying” represented the distance and direction one must go to find the gold.

  I asked Rick what the Indian swastika could have meant, and he said he didn’t rightly know. Said it sometimes represented legend or mysteries for the Navajo, and that for some others it was a sign of spirit healing. In order to blend it into his theory though, Rick assumed that the swastika was a sign that a mystery was being revealed in these paintings.

  Now, none of that followed for me. What I mean to say is that logic didn’t demand any of it, and I told Rick so, but he became convinced. Beyond convinced. Further, he was certain that the gold would only be found in one of two ways. First, by accident. Someone would be digging or excavating and would come upon the gold by pure luck alone. Second, by miraculous find or else by time travel. Someone would have to either go back in time and read those wall paintings and then see the direction of the doves flyin’ and figure it out from there… or… perhaps miraculously find more clues in another as-yet-undiscovered book or letter from the time, tellin’ more about the cave paintings and the evidence.

  I told Rick that time travelin’ was a fantasy (and back then I believed that), so he could just knock that option out right from the get-go, but he disagreed. Told me Einstein proved that time travel was possible. Had me read some books by Mr. Jack Finney that were fiction, but that talked about how Einstein conceived that time travel might happen in a very weird concurrence of events. So I read the Finney books, and here is the gist of what they say…

  So, according to Einstein (Finney says), time is more like a river that flows along, and the only reason we sense it passing is because we’re like bein’ on a boat on that river. So you pass a tree and then it’s behind you, and unless you get off the boat or find some other method to do so, you can’t go back to that tree you saw awhile ago. But (and this is the trick) everything you’ve passed in time is still back there. Still just like it was. That tree is still back there and always will be. So just by gettin’ off the boat, you think you’ve traveled in time, when in reality you just got off and stayed in one moment of it. None of it makes sense to me, I’m just tellin’ you the way it was explained in the books.

  Finney went on to describe a method of time travel that he believed would actually work. First, you have to disconnect yourself from the millions of little threads of reality that grasp you and hold you in your boat (in your present time, moving forward). These threads are all realities
in the time you belong in, not in the time way back before they existed. And get this (since we were talkin’ about trees): when you see a tree every day, its growth and passage through the seasons is part of it bein’ in the boat of time with you. You’re movin’ together to the future. But say you wanted to see that tree when it was still a sapling! You’d have to get off the boat of time and go visit it back where it was, and not where it is in the mobile now (“mobile now” is my phrase, not Finney’s). In a tree’s growth and maturity, it’s a thread holding you into the mobile now too.

  So the threads belong to a point in time (or to the mobile now), and you have to sever all those, even in your brain, so’s you can go back to another time. Next, you got to immerse yourself in the time you want to be in. Everything has to be perfect. You have to have the right dress, the right money, the right environment. It all has to be just right. Now, even if you can do these two things, and even if you can get your mind convinced completely, only a tiny percentage of the population could ever do it. If the person’s mind isn’t suggestible enough to make the leap, they won’t ever go. The tiny threads of the mobile now in their minds will hold them in the boat, so to speak.

  But… if someone can do these things… if someone can totally immerse themselves in the time they want to visit, and they can really believe they are sometime else… then they can do it. So let’s say you wanted to visit the Alamo back in the day of the great fight there. You’d have to go down to San Antonio, be in the proper garb, sneak into the building (maybe at night), block out any sound at all that ain’t right for the time (traffic, radios, et cetera), and totally immerse yourself to the point that you really, actually believe you’re in the Alamo. Then, if everything goes right and you’re one of the people that can do it, you can just step out into that world and be in that time, because all the threads that hold you into your place in the universe are from that period. Now, you might step out of the Alamo in the middle of the battle, or maybe you’re a few weeks, months, or years too early or late. But the theory is that you can do it, and Rick firmly believed this theory to be true.