Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [80]
“Okay.” Dave googled Paine. Flipped through the entries. “Here’s one,” he said. “He was in Philadelphia in 1777. In September. Arranging for publication of The American Crisis. The Brits closed in, and he cleared out.”
“Where’d he go?”
“He had a friend in Bordentown, New Jersey. Joseph Kirkbride. He went up there and stayed with him through the winter.”
BORDENTOWN lay on the Delaware River, northeast of Philadelphia. Its population was small, but it was a hotbed of anti-British sentiment. Consequently, the British sent their Hessian mercenaries to seize the town in 1776.
Shel and Dave had no interest in landing in the middle of the fighting. Late 1777 seemed relatively safe. The British Army, by then, was still in the general neighborhood, but there was no record of action in the immediate area.
They arrived Saturday, September 21, at 10:30 A.M.
In someone’s backyard. Dave found himself staring at a startled woman in a bridal gown. Her eyes had gone wide, and hysterical people were staring at him. A guy who might have been a groom screamed. An older man in ceremonial garb seized a cross from a small table and thrust it in his face. A deep voice behind him growled that “It’s exactly what happened over at Robbie’s last week.” Dave would have laughed had circumstances been a bit different. Absolutely, he thought, apparitions everywhere.
The cleric stepped forward, shielding the bride from whatever intentions Shel and Dave might have, and made the sign of the cross in the air. “Begone, Satan,” he said. “In the name of the Lord, I command you, begone. Leave this place.”
Footsteps were rushing up behind them. And Shel’s voice: “Clear out, Dave.”
“I say, Leave, Spawn of the Devil.”
Dave hit the button, and moments later he was collapsing in laughter on the sofa in the town house, waving at Shel, who was coming in across the room. In near hysteria.
When they’d calmed down, he said, “Think of the stories they’ll have to tell their grandkids.”
“Placement was perfect,” said Dave, when he got a semblance of control over his voice. “We were right up front. I bet you couldn’t do that again in a thousand years.”
“He’d probably just asked whether anyone had a reason why this couple should not be joined in holy wedlock.”
“Well, I’ve been called a lot of things—”
“All right. Shall we try again?”
“Sure. But let’s move a little to the north. The other side of town.”
Shel sat down with the converters. “I’ll set them to arrive a week earlier this time. Just so we don’t run into anybody who recognizes us.” He handed Dave’s unit back to him. “Ready?”
THEY were in a field. The ground was flat, with lots of grass. There were a silo and a barn, some trees, and a grazing horse. And, just past the barn, a farmhouse. In the distance they could see a river. That would be the Delaware.
A man carrying what looked like a hoe came out of the barn, saw them, and stopped to stare. “Bordentown should be south,” said Shel, consulting his compass.
Before Dave could respond, a howl came from the direction of the barn. Two hounds raced out of the open doorway and charged. The guy with the hoe threw the implement aside, ran back into the barn, and emerged with a shotgun.
“Go,” said Shel. “Clear out.”
Dave pressed the button, watched the dogs fade into spectral light, and was glad to see the walls of Shel’s den materialize. He waited for Shel.
And waited.
Shel should have appeared over by the armchair near the fireplace.
But he didn’t.
CHAPTER 21
When I contemplate the natural dignity of man; when I feel (for
Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for
the honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the
attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all
knaves and fools. . . .
—T HOMAS PAINE, RIGHTS OF MAN
IT’S hard to stay cool when two drooling hounds are coming after you. Shel should have simply stayed still and used the converter to leave. But he hadn