OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 45: Three, Two, One (Lillabit)

"He... shot them?" I shook my head in silent protest.

Benj nodded solemnly and released my hand, sitting back.

But that didn't play into my fantasy at all! My wishful thinking had already constructed a world in which Maddie, Mitch, and Ted had reappeared in 21st century Chicago, healthy and naked--because that's how the time slips work--and laughing about the big mystery they'd left behind. Of course, in that alternate reality, Maddie would surely have left a message for me, reassuring me they had not perished in a dramatic inferno. She would! Only a terrible human being would fake their own death and not admit that to the loved ones they left behind.

So... in the absence of a letter, did that mean...?

Oh, God.

"There's a witness," guessed Jacob, getting to the point as always.

"Of course there is--I would not tell sweet Lillabit here her friends were dead on a rumor. But I mean to tell this as I see fit, if you please."

"Tellin' it slow won't help her," warned my husband. "And it don't stop Callahan."

"No." I dragged my hands down my cheeks, in case I looked to teary and weak. "I said everything, and I meant it. Benj? What did Paddy tell you?"

"First off, that Ed feller--Paddy called him Professor Lindenberger--weren't the one took down the telegraph lines. He was standin' with the others when it happened."

"Really?" I'd been so sure!

"Paddy was holdin' the buggy for them, not fifteen feet off, the whole time. Since Miss Sinclair read everythin' to her friends, he heard it all. He told me 'Ed' stepped away not long after Miss Sinclair wired about his presence. That's when we figure he hired someone else to take down them lines. But he was back afore Lillabit accused him of bein' Callahan."

"So... they didn't believe me at all?" I'll admit it. That kind of hurt. Not as bad as losing my friends did, but still--maybe if they'd listened to me, they'd still be alive! I mean... here.

That thought may have been my first real step toward accepting their deaths. Perhaps Jacob felt me shudder. He readjusted his hold on me and patted my back.

"Oh, they fussed about it. But Ed insisted he'd never heard the name Slade Callahan, nor stepped foot in Dodge City. Ted went to fetch a Mr. Hiram Phelps, you might recall him?"

"We do," agreed Jacob. The morning of our wedding, I'd pulled a carbine rifle on Phelps, just for having been in Dodge City at the same time Everett was murdered. What can I say? Coincidences bother me.

Benj said, "He insisted Slade Callahan was a different feller entirely."

"I wonder...." I felt so shaken by everything, I barely trusted my own thoughts. "Was I wrong? What if Phelps wasn't lying?"

Both Jacob and Benj said, in unison, "He was lyin'."

I looked from one to the other, lingering on my scowling husband. Whatever he saw in my grief-stricken face, or my wounded posture, it drew him to lift a hand and draw a thumb, tentative but gentle, under my eye. I guess I'd missed some tears.

"Some men jest take to mendacity," he explained to me gruffly.

"Then the lines went down. Miss Sinclair threatened to sue Pacific Telegraph if they weren't repaired straight off. The train with the medicine- show folks arrived. Matters got unruly, and Paddy found hisself extricatin' yer friends back to the lodge afore they made more enemies than they already had in that town.