Chapter 4

Both women looked at each other, and then at Grant. He swore they were like two wolves looking hungrily at a lamb ready for the slaughter. Desiring to remove himself from the predatory gazes, he returned to the horses and mounted. A moment later Beth was beside him, gathering some items from her saddlebag.

“Grant,” Beth asked, “could you and the rest ride into the trees and look the other way. This will be hard enough for Sabrina without adding everyone’s stares.”

Grant answered, “Sure,” and the group moved into the trees and stopped about twenty yards from the road. On the way there, they heard several rips, a couple of strong slaps and a grunt.

When Beth joined them, she remarked, “I think her story will hold up, though I suggest we wipe away most of the tracks except for those of our murderer.”

John countered, “Zeke, Drew and I can wait until the carriage is moved and eliminate everything but the carriage and our friend here. Drew, could you swap horses with our guest? That way there will be no doubt of his trail.”

“Sure. We might not be able to fool an NCIS operation from our time, but I don’t think we’ll have a problem with fooling these downtimers. Especially when we show them what they expect to see.”

Beth rejoined the group just as they heard a distraught Sabrina crying for help. They left John and his group and Grant used his night vision goggles to lead the group back to the compound.

As they moved through the trees, Grant asked, “What all did you do?”

Beth replied, “A couple of slaps, some rouge, some dark eye shadow and an eyebrow pencil made some pretty believable bruises. Some rubbing and Celluvisc made red teary eyes, and lipstick and rouge made it appear that her vagina had been abused. A bite on one of her breasts will add to the effect, and for the piece de resistance, a mixture of suntan lotion and KY Jelly running down her thigh. Even before they find his body, mister Gill’s goose is cooked.”

“That should do it, and I compliment you on your ingenuity. As for you and Sabrina’s taste in men, I think the jury is still out on the matter. There is also the problem in my mind that she’s a younger version of Charlotte.”

“Grant, we can easily solve that last issue, and you have to admit that owning all this land and being a part of accepted Charleston Society does have some distinct advantages.”

“Yes, but I’d have to appear publicly to be at odds with my future father-in-law in order to remain effective against the British and the loyalists. Even more, if what I’m starting to suspect is true, then that may be the only way either man is able to maintain their property.”

“A power grab?” asked Beth.

“Or something similar. We’ll know more after we interrogate this Mister Gill. I’m concerned about the truthfulness of his answers. Especially of things that don’t match up with what Pat knows.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I wondered why those that sent us here chose sodium pentothal as our base anesthetic. In low doses, it has also been used as a truth serum.”

The smile returned to Grant’s face, and one could easily see that a load had been removed.

“Well, that sure solves one problem.”

“And if his boss calls Sabrina a liar?”

“We’ll see how things go, but I suspect her new fiancé would challenge him for her honor.”

Another mile through the trees and the group caught sight of a light through the trees. Remembering Oscar’s comment about an additional couple, Grant lead the group in that direction. Just in case, several pulled their rifles from their scabbards.

When they reached the edge of a small clearing, Grant shouted, “Hello the camp.”

A young man came out of a modern tent, and said, “Join us. Maybe you can tell us what’s going on and where we are.”

Grant and Beth rode into the light, leaving the others in the shadows. The young man relaxed when he saw a woman with the man and neither of whom appeared threatening.

“I’m Grant Maxwell and this is Dr Beth Alexander. Are you okay?”

“Thanks for asking, Mr Maxwell. I’m Larry Price. My wife, Missy, is resting in the tent. I’m afraid the shock of what has happened has been too much for her. Well, that’s not exactly true, as she was already having problems.”

“Larry, please just call me Grant. Would it be okay for Beth to look her over?”

“Sure, I’d appreciate it.”

Beth got off her horse and gathered some items from her saddlebags.

When she entered the tent, Grant asked, “Were you camping here before the change?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. We were set up near the ocean at Huntington Beach State Park outside Myrtle Beach. A thunderstorm came through in the middle of the night and the next morning we were here, where ever that is. We still have our Pickups, trailers and horses, but with all these giant trees there isn’t a way out. I guess I could have taken a horse for a look-see, but without a frame of reference I was afraid I couldn’t get back to Missy.”

When did the storm hit you, and what was the date?”

“It happened early this morning, June three, two thousand eight.”

“We were hit by a hurricane early this morning, August ten, two thousand ten. Now, we didn’t physically move like you did, but we’re between Charleston and Georgetown, South Carolina, in the year of our Lord, 1761.”

“How?” exclaimed the young man.

“We haven’t a clue, though we did receive a message from whoever did this telling us that we would find you and that Beth was needed to save your baby.”

“Baby? We’re on our honeymoon.”

Beth stuck her head out the door, and said, “Grant. We need to get her back to the compound immediately. Can you get someone to fix a litter or a travois?”

“Is Missy going to be alright?” asked a concerned Larry.

“I’m going to do my best to make sure both she and the baby have a long life.” Noticing that two of their people were cutting down a couple of saplings, Beth continued, “It’s my suspicion that the time jump affected the fetus in some way.”

“Larry, what do you have here that needs to be taken care of before tomorrow afternoon?”

Besides Missy, we’ve four horses and Sun Tzu, our Lhasa.

“Ride one of them and lead the rest. I’ll have one of my men attach the travois to his horse. Will Sun Tzu ride in my arms?”

“I have a carrier for him that hangs on the horn of my saddle. What about grain for the horses?”

“We’ve got room for them in our stable, and there’s plenty of hay and grain.” As for the rest of this, you are far enough from civilization that it’s doubtful anyone will discover your camp before we determine a way to get your stuff moved.”

Sioux’s voice in Grants ear interjected, “You’d be wrong. Infrared is picking up two people huddled together about twenty yards east of you. They’re in the shrub between the two palmetto palms that come together like a ‘V.’“

Without being told, Charles and Jerry eased their horses back into the trees and moments later emerged from the palms each carrying a young black girl by the collar of the shift they wore. One is older than the other.

“Are you runaways?” asked Grant.

The youngest one of the girls answered, “We’s from Horry Plantation. Massa Daniel bad sick and Big Jim said he was dying. Big Jim said I’s to warm his bed but I’s only eleven summers and not had bleeding. T’is against Massa Daniel’s rules, but Big Jim says Massa Daniel not able to protect me. So my olda sister runs away with me to keep me safe. My sister bin ready to be bred for more’n a year, but Massa Daniel not well enough to do it since she be ready, an’ Big Jim knows not to touch a slave Massa Daniel wants to breed.”

“We’ll verify that later, but climb up behind the two men that caught you. We need to get the woman from this camp into our compound.”

While this was happening, Larry Price had removed the four horses from a trailer behind one of the pickups. He’d saddled one and had the other three by lead ropes. A travois had been fastened to Michael’s horse and Beth had helped the young woman out to the waiting litter.

Grant led the group away from the campsite, but after a few minutes it was obvious that the travois would not work in these trees, nor would Larry’s lead rope on the extra horses.

“Grant. I can easily carry Missy in my arms, and I think the ride might be easier for her. I just need to do something with these other horses.”

“Michael, help get Mrs Price to her husband and drop the travois. Then you, Charles and Jerry each grab a lead rope.”

“No problem Grant. Do we need to dismantle the travois?”

“That can be done tomorrow. Right now we’ve a young woman to get to the compound, and a very sick man on his way there by boat.”

Michael and the others did as Grant directed and within five minutes, they had restarted their journey. While they rode through the trees, Grant tried to put everything into perspective. Larry and Missy weren’t really a surprise because of Oscar’s message, but he wondered how they fit into the overall picture. He knew nothing about them except they were newlyweds and were trailering four excellent looking horses.

Of course, there was the obvious ... Larry was a large man with the appearance of great strength. He was easily six four and probably weighed over two fifty, and based on the young man’s arms, little of it was fat. Missy on the other hand didn’t appear to be much more than five foot and he doubted she even weighed a hundred pounds. He couldn’t imagine the couple in the standard missionary position ... Missy would have been little more than a grease spot.

Grant had started out by dead reckoning, but he soon picked up on the trail John had marked earlier in the evening.

Moments later, Sioux’s voice in his ear said, “I just picked you up on the monitors.”

He whispered back, “We lost all our sensors, and we’ve never had any this far from the compound.”

“We do now,” she responded, “and they may well be motion sensor activated, as you just suddenly appeared on the monitor as you approached the camera.”

“Hell, I wouldn’t complain if they put several thousand of those babies out here, as well as along the river and the edge of the beach.”

“I know what you mean. Coupled to an alarm, it would greatly increase our security. The only thing that could be a problem would be false alarms.”

“Let’s just hope if they’re capable to invisibly add new cameras and sensors and link them to our system, that they could create some kind of recognition software to eliminate normal forest creatures.”

Larry eased his horse closer to Grant, and asked, “Were you saying something to me?”

Grant pointed to his ear, and said, “Radio unit. I was talking to the person monitoring our security network.”

“Are you some kind of military unit?”

“Most of us were in the military at one time, but two of our other refugees are active Marines. I’m inactive Navy reserve, but we were doing some special work for the Navy and, as a result, we had some pretty sophisticated security equipment.”

“Since you revealed that much, I assume you no longer consider things a secret.”

“Not among the uptimers. Our very existence must be top secret to most downtimers. As for our secret work, we were developing super quiet electric motors for small craft. Something like the cross between a trolling motor and the standard gasoline or diesel motors used on boats up to a hundred feet in length.”

“Sounds interesting. From the use of those terms, you must have read Eric Flint’s books too?”

“Not yet, but at least one of our group has. I suspect they’ll be required reading for most of us in the future. Anyway, the terms have a logical basis that’s easy to comprehend.”

“Do you know if this is an alternate time-line?”

“The message we received says there aren’t any alternate time-lines. It also said that we were to not be afraid to make changes that will alter the future, and to not worry about the possibility of making changes that would cause us to cease to exist. In addition, It appears that we’re in a perfect place and time to significantly alter the future of mankind.”