OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 67: Summation ... of sorts (Lillabit)

Weeks and weeks had passed since I'd spoken to someone from my own time. This one might just mean to kill me. And yet, the first words that left my mouth, after I peeked out around my husband, were, "What in God's name do you have on your face?"

"Do you like them?" Callahan turned his head, I guess to better model the glasses he wore. Like most eyeglasses from the 19th century, they had round metal frames. These, however, were of what looked like yellow glass. "They're my own invention."

My gut clenched as I remembered the blue-tinted glasses Maddie and I had gotten at the Julesburg mercantile. Had Callahan bought these in the same place before shooting her?

The invention-part was that he'd attached little mirrors sticking out from each side, vaguely like blinders on a carriage horse. The contraption made an odd contrast against the duster he wore over his almost perfect, movie-western outfit: new jeans tucked into high boots, revolver holsters on each hip, buttoned-up vest with an ammunition-belt crossing his chest, and of course the Stetson-style hat. He didn't know that most cowboys wore old clothes--some as old as the War--which meant few had taken up the jeans yet, or the Stetson. I'd seen more cowboys wearing torn derby hats than finely creased Stetsons. And nobody wore two revolvers.

"Are you trying to look steampunk?" I asked up at him, stepping a little farther out from behind Jacob, between him and the creek. Jacob shifted sideways to block more of me again, a silent command not to give give Callahan too clear a target, but the alternative was to let Jacob be the target, so I scootched around him yet again. Rather than herd me into the fast-running water, he gave up for the moment and concentrated on aiming his rifle. "Because it seriously blows the whole old-west desperado thing you were trying for in Dodge."

"You kidding? The Wild West invented steampunk! Sheesh!" He looked to Jacob as if for backup. "Young folks nowadays, am I right?"

Jacob, of course, said nothing.

"Anyhow, they're practical. Yellow glass helps you see in the dark. If you were a cyclist, you might know that. And the mirrors--they're for that friend you have hidden in the brush around here. Nobody's sneaking up behind this guy." Finally, Slade Callahan cocked his head, studied me a moment from his high perch, and drawled, "Howdy, Lil." That's what the Castaways had called me, short for Lilabit. "How ya' been?"

Jacob growled.

"I was doing a lot better before you killed my best friend."

While I might not have been able to see his eyes roll behind his glasses, his head rolled with them. "Like I told you in the letter--I didn't kill them."

"Except for Everett," I reminded him. "And maybe Mitch."

He grinned bright. "So you did read it!"

"I also heard from Fiona O'Malley, who saw everything, so pardon my skepticism. How are they alive?"

"First things first, Mrs. Garrison." He barked out a laugh with the name. "So you really did it. Knocked up, married, staying in the past. I don't know if I admire your courage or pity your ignorance."

Again, Jacob growled--either over the insult or the phrase knocked up.

"My decision has nothing to do with you, so I don't give a damn what you think about it."

"Ah. Ah-hah-hah! But see, the thing is, it does have to do with me. I helped Mitch invent this whole time-slip process! I mean sure, he did the math and the physics and all, but I brainstormed with him, and encouraged him, and I did the first product testing. That's why I'm so good at it. So yeah, yuppers, yessiree Bob, if our process gets misused or ends up increasing the population of the past, it's my business too."