But surely that didn’t make sense? Why was he alone with the wagon? Not alone in the sense that he had his young family with him, but alone in the fact that there seemed to have been no other wagons traveling with them. Yes, it would be true to assume that he could have become detached—lost, to be more blunt—from the rest of the train. It would be a reasonable assumption, if not for the simple truth that he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember any other wagons traveling with them at any point in the journey. In point of fact, Doc was as sure as he could be that he had no recollection of even beginning the journey.
“Emily? Please answer me, my sweet. Please talk to me. Rachel, are you there? Is Jolyon all right?” The only answer was silence. Tears prickled at the corner of Doc’s eyes. “Please…please let this end. Let this not happen again.”
“Why should you get off light, Doc? Least ways you’re still alive, right? Not so lucky…”
If it had been possible to do so beneath the shattered wheel without impaling himself on the splintered spokes, Doc would have physically jumped with shock and—yes—a tinge of fear at the sound of the voice.
Footsteps came to him across the ground, moving around from the blind side of the wagon, the high heels on the delicately sculpted white calf boots still managing to click, even on the relatively soft carpet of dust. Twisting his head, Doc could see the boots and the shapely denim-clad legs that moved up from the tops of the boots in a sinuous, smoothly moving line to a pair of snaked hips. Above, a slim torso was clad in a short fur jacket, the blank face surmounting it a mask of impassivity, the big, blinking eyes focused on his prone figure, the waves of blond hair flowing like honeyed gold over her shoulders.
“Lori?”
She nodded.
Doc squinted, the fear and uncertainty fluttering in his chest, a cavity that was also being filled with pain as the spokes moved and bit deeper.
“But you’re dead.”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “So’s your wife and your kids, Doc. We’re all dead. But you’re not. That’s why you’ve got to go on suffering.”
Despite the fear and agony, a wry smile crossed Doc’s face. He had often considered that those who had perished were the lucky ones. Lori Quint, found in a redoubt in Alaska and rescued from the dysfunctional family of a “father” that used her as a toy for his own gratification, only to perish along the way.
Suddenly, Doc was no longer afraid. He knew he wasn’t trapped under a wagon in the West. He wasn’t in his own time… In fact, he had no time to call his own. He had long since left Emily, Rachel and Jolyon behind. They had their lives, lived out to whatever span, without ever knowing what had happened to him. How could they? How could nineteenth-century gentlefolk ever comprehend the perverse science behind Operation Chronos, that part of the Totality Concept that had snatched Doc from his own time and propelled him into the 1990s, before his dissension and desire to return to his own time had forced his captors to send him into a future that, ironically, had preserved his life. For while he had leaped over the nuclear holocaust known in his new time as skydark, those very scientists whose Totality Concept had helped form it were to perish.
And in that dark new world of the Deathlands, Doc had met Lori and lost her.
But despite it all, despite the physical strain of being propelled through time, and immense mental torment that made him feel as though he had descended into insanity, emerged the other side and gained the ability to dip his toe in and out of those murky waters of madness, he had survived. He and his traveling companions.
And the journey wasn’t yet over.
“Do what you must,” Doc said simply.
Lori Quint nodded blankly and walked over to the wheel, poised over Doc’s chest.
“Sorry,” she said as she began to push the wheel down…gently at first, but then with more force, the effort showing on her face.