The TARDIS materialized behind a building in a run-down and dirty backyard. No one was there to notice it. The engines died down and the Doctor stepped out, Ace close behind him. He looked around and seemed pleased.
"Ah, good old wild west," he said. "Age of gunslingers and saloon girls, where everyone was land-crazy. You aren't allowed to crowd anyone here because there's always more wide open spaces."
"Why does it smell, Doctor?" Ace asked, wrinkling her nose. "It smells like someone's piping is plugged."
"No piping in these days, Ace," he said. "It all goes into the ground, right over there." He pointed to a little wooden outhouse with a moon symbol carved into it. Ace looked at the TARDIS.
"Let's hope no one mistakes the TARDIS for a really posh loo," she said.
They stepped out between two buildings (which turned out to be the general store and pharmaceutical) and it struck Ace just how real this was. When she was travelling with the Doctor it was easy to be wowed by all the running and fighting, but every adventure they always managed to find time to sit back or lie in the grass and appreciate the fact that they were in another time, another place.
Ace watched as cowboys on horseback rode down the center of the street and wagons rolled up to the wooden houses and businesses. Some wagons and buggies were full of families, others had only a driver but were packed with supplies.
"Ah, the west." The Doctor breathed deeply through his nose. "The last era when humans were still satisfied with just the Earth and knew how to use it as efficiently as possible. Waste not, want not."
Ace inhaled deeply and gagged. "I don't know what you're talking about, but there is definitely plenty of waste here."
"Come on, Ace. Let's stop at the bar and see if we can get some good old-fashioned Sarsaparilla."
"Ooh, what's that?" Ace asked, bouncing on her toes.
"It's like coke, but much better," he informed her. After waiting for traffic to pass, they crossed the street, the Doctor leading the way.
Ace was not expecting there to be busy rush-hour traffic in a small town in the old west, so she was taken by surprise when a pushy cowboy on a wild horse galloped past her, missing her by only a few inches. She cried out and spun halfway around, taking a few steps backwards to catch her balance.
"Whoa there," said someone with a deep southern drawl. Two strong arms caught her and nearly picked her up, placing her steadily on her feet.
She turned to look at her savior. He was a rugged man, with his huge hat pushed back so she could see his face. His jaw was covered in stubble that looked so natural he could have been born with it. Ace was aware of the faint scent of alfalfa and leather.
"Thank you," she said, blinking.
"Not a problem," he smiled, displaying a row of amazingly even and clean teeth. He still did not let go of her. "That could have been messy," he looked down at a large pile of manure only a few inches from Ace's new red boots.
The cowboy gave her a little spin, almost like a dance, so that she was standing in front of him. He offered her his hand.
"I'm Hank "Cayenne" Taylor," he said heartily. She took his hand and shook it, beginning to feel more like herself again.
"Ace McShane," she introduced herself. "And this is the Doctor."
"Hey, Doc." Hank shook hands with him and turned back to Ace. "Ace," he said, grinning. "I would have guessed you were from back east with that accent of yours, but if you've already got a nickname like that, I'm guessing you know what you're doing."
"Says the guy who calls himself 'Cayenne' when he's introducing himself," Ace laughed.
"Hey, I didn't pick the name," Hank shrugged. "Some of the guys gave it to me when we were out with the cattle last season."
"Sounds like someone's pretty good at cooking," Ace teased.
"Actually, I ain't too bad. My grandmother was half Ute and she learned me how to cook some mean stuff."
Ace couldn't help herself. She giggled at his terrible grammar and immediately felt bad about it. But Hank just smiled at her and they kept walking, following the Doctor down the street toward the bar.
Ace couldn't stop looking all around her and marveling at the fact that they were actually in the old west. A group of little girls and boys ran past her, pushing a hoola-hoop along the ground with a stick. The girls' long brains streamed out behind them, tied with little muslin bows. They passed a man with a large beard wearing a faded red bandana. Ace expected him to be drinking beer, but instead he was chugging a Cola out of a plastic bottle with the familiar logo on it.
"Professor," Ace said, quickening her pace so she was next to the Doctor. He was just as engrossed in their surroundings as she had been. She tugged his sleeve. "I didn't know there was Coca-Cola in the Old West."
"There wasn't, Ace," the Doctor said.
"But, I just saw…" She looked around, trying to spot the man with the drink, but he had disappeared. "Never mind," she sighed and realized she was probably mistaken. She fell behind the Doctor and Hank came up beside her.
"Stopping in for a drink?" he asked.
"I guess so," Ace shrugged. The Doctor had stopped in front of the bar and stood just outside the doors. "Are we going in?" She asked him. The Doctor took a deep breath and spread his legs, placing his hands on his hips.
"I've always wanted to do this," he said. Then the Doctor pushed the swinging doors open with one heave and stepped inside. He stood in the doorway like a gunslinger, looking around, surveying everything.
A few people at the bar looked over at him curiously, then, seeing that it was a short man with a funny hat, curly hair, and an umbrella on his arm, they went back to their drinks. Ace and Hank stepped in behind him with much less ceremony and went over to sit at the bar. The Doctor swaggered in and sat down next to them. Ace rolled her eyes.
"I'll take a Sarsaparilla," he said, imitating a terrible western drawl. The bartender nodded.
"Make that two," Ace added.
"I'll take a whiskey, Jim," Hank said.
"Comin' right up," Jim said. He opened a metal ice box and took out two bottles that looked like beer. With a quick, practiced hand, he popped off the lids using the edge of the counter and slid them down to the Doctor and Ace.
"Enjoy," the Doctor said, holding his glass to Ace. She tapped her bottle against his and they both took a swig. It was delicious, as the Doctor had promised.
"Tastes a bit like a root-beer float," Ace observed.
Ace took a minute to look around her. The room smelled like old beer and tobacco, and everyone looked a little bit grimy. Groups of men lounged at the tables, playing cards, drinking, talking, smoking, listening to a Walkman.
Ace did a double-take and stared. Sure enough, there was a man and a woman at a table, sharing a pair of headphones, listening intently to a little portable cassette player.
"Professor," Ace said, not taking her eyes off of the couple, afraid they would disappear before she could tell the Doctor what she was seeing. "There weren't cassettes in the old west, were there?" She knew there couldn't have been, but she wasn't certain any longer.
"Of course not, Ace," the Doctor said. "Technology was not nearly advanced enough to support that kind of thing. Besides, they would run out of battery life and no one would be able to get a new set of batteries." Ace tugged on the Doctor's sleeve and he turned to see what she was pointing at.
"Well," he said, placing a hand under his chin and staring at the couple. They were oblivious to the fact that the Doctor was studying them closely. "That's very interesting. That's very interesting indeed."
"And look at that," Ace said, pointing across the room. Someone was sitting in a corner, playing with a Rubik's cube.
Suddenly, Ace was aware that there were modern things everywhere. A barmaid was using a Michael Jackson t-shirt clean off a table, an arcade game that was pushed into a corner made little beeping and ringing noises over the din of conversation. Someone was flipping through a modern magazine.
"Are you sure this is the Wild West?" Ace asked the Doctor. "This looks more like a reenactment, though it's a pretty terrible one if you ask me."
The Doctor turned to Hank who was still sitting with them, not noticing anything out of the ordinary. "What year is this?" he asked the man.
"What year?" Hank looked a little confused, but he answered. "Why, 1887, of course."
"That's what I thought," said the Doctor. "But what is that doing in 1887?" he pointed at the Walkman that the man was wrapping up and hanging on his belt.
"Oh, that's Theodore's newfangled gadget. He says it's from back East, but I think something's strange about it all. Seems like everyone round here suddenly has something new that they say they found, or say that it's from back East. Trouble is, nobody's been back East in a while."
"That's definitely not from the East." The Doctor got up and went over to the man, Theodore, who was helping his girlfriend up from her seat.
"Excuse me, but could I see that?" He pointed at the Walkman on the man's belt.
"Oh this, you like it?" he asked, holding it up so the Doctor could see it better. "It's for sale, if you want it. It's like a kind of music box. Listen." He held up the headphones and turned the volume to maximum.
"I'd just like to look at it," The Doctor said, reaching out to take it, but Theodore drew it back.
"It's nice and new and worth a pretty penny, but I'd be willing to sell it to you for ten dollars."
"That's outrageously overpriced," the Doctor said indignantly. "I could get a Colt pistol for just twice that amount. A music box is not worth that much."
"It's okay, Professor," Ace said, stepping forward. "I got this." She took a wad of cash out of her jeans pockets and handed him two fives. The man took the money eagerly and handed the Walkman to her.
"Ace!" she said, putting the headphones on as Theodore and his girlfriend left the saloon. "That was a great deal." She pressed play and immediately began rocking out to a song by Queen. Almost as soon as it started, the track began to slow and the sound grew deeper and deeper until it stopped. Ace groaned.
"Why, that little twit! He sold it to me with bad batteries." She yanked the headphones off with a sigh.
"Would you like me to get your money back fer you?" Hank offered. "I can go squeeze it out of him, if you like." He winked and she smiled.
"It's okay, I'll just get some new batteries when I stop home again."
The Doctor took the cassette player and headphones from Ace and took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. With a buzz, he scanned it and checked the screwdriver.
"It's exactly like a Walkman from 1987, except it's in 1887. It doesn't even have any time vortex residue on it. It's like it was just transported via transmat possibly." The Doctor fiddled with the Walkman.
"Your professor's bit eccentric, ain't he?" Hank asked Ace conspiratorially.
"Oh, he's just curious," Ace told him. "You could say he's a sort of traveling detective who saves the day."
"And you're his partner?" Hank asked, smiling. Ace shrugged modestly.
"You say you've found more of these things?" the Doctor asked Hank, looking up from the Walkman. He already had it disassembled and was rewiring it into something Ace couldn't recognize.
"Oh yeah, people have been finding things all over town. It's like they just show up. Some people try to pretend like the bought it or something, but I know better cuz I've seen it. One moment I'll be tying up my hoss, and the next second there will be some strange gadget on the ground nearby."
The Doctor looked thoughtful and a little concerned.
"I never pick 'em up, though," Hank said. "Something about 'em don't feel right, if you know what I mean?"
"There's nothing wrong with them, in and of themselves, but they're not supposed to be here. Someone is messing with time, and I need to find out who and why. They could be seriously damaging the continuum." The Doctor was suddenly transformed from the happy-go-lucky sightseer, to the seasoned Timelord that he was. He turned to Hank, all business.
"Tell me, Hank, has there been anything else unusual going on?"
"Actually, there has been. Just two days ago, the Sheriff sent out a scouting party for a man who went missing. Lars Jarmon was the fellow. He just got himself a new wife, and poor Missy worried half to death about where he's gone. Nobody can find him anywhere."
"That's terrible," Ace said. "Poor girl."
"I know," Hank sighed. "Come to think of it, more than just Lars have been disappearing. People all over town complaining about how their stuff just goes missing and nobody knows why. It's more than just a misplaced spoon or a sock here and there. People's crockery and water buckets and hats have just gone."
"I wonder if it has anything to do with the things that keep appearing," Ace said.
"It sounds like temporal displacement," the Doctor said. He had been quietly thinking and listening to everything Hank told them.
"You mean time travel?" Hank asked. Ace turned to look at the cowboy with renewed interest. He was cute AND smart.
"Precisely, Hank," the Doctor said. "But accidental, by the look of it. Only an amateur would be so careless. If it is temporal displacement, it's conditional."
"Meaning…" Ace waited for an explanation. Hank answered for the Doctor.
"Meaning that there are rules. When one thing gets sent through time, another thing must replace it."
"Exactly," the Doctor nodded. "Usually it's something of the same mass, or similar mass, depending on the professional level of the equipment. But this looks like a patch-up job to me."
"Now, hang on," Ace said. She turned to Hank. "How do you know about all this stuff?"
"I'm not just a cowboy, Ace." Hank replied. "I graduated from Indiana University with a degree in agricultural sciences and I'm a huge fan of Jules Verne." Ace was impressed. Hank turned to the Doctor. "But, Professor,"
"Doctor," he corrected.
"Doctor, then," Hanks said. "Isn't it all just science fiction? I mean, if we did have time travel in our future, wouldn't there be people from the past and future all over the place on tours and such?"
"You don't have time travel," the Doctor said. "But that doesn't mean that other species don't."
"So, you're trying to tell me you're, what? From another world?"
"He is, I'm not," Ace said.
"I don't believe you," Hank told them frankly. "It's just impossible."
"Here," Ace said, suddenly getting an idea. "Come with me." She took Hank's hand and noticed how warm and calloused it was. It felt nice.
They ran back across the street and behind the store where the Doctor had landed the TARDIS. Ace rounded the corner, grinning excitedly, but came to a sudden stop.
"It's gone!" she cried. She ran into the yard and looked all around, but the TARDIS was nowhere to be found.
"What's gone?"
"The TARDIS," she said. "It's a sort of space-ship." Ace looked back at Hank, fearing the worse. She wouldn't have blamed him if he'd just walked away, writing them both off as lunatics. But he was still standing there, watching her.
"Aha, so they've taken the TARDIS," the Doctor appeared behind Hank. He leaned casually against the side of the store, his hands in his pockets. "But I wonder what they've replaced it with."
"There's nothing here," Ace said. "Just a square in the dirt where it used to be, see?" she pointed and Hank joined her to inspect it.
"Oh, it has probably appeared somewhere else in town. Whatever it is, it'll be big, so we'll find it easily, I should think. Come on, Ace." The Doctor turned around and headed toward the street. He paused and glanced back at Hank. "Are you going to help us search for it?"
"Well, I don't know if I believe all this nonsense about aliens and space-ships, but something strange is going on here, and you two seem like the type to figure it out. I'll help you."
"Oh, thanks," Ace said, feeling more relief than she had expected. She really wanted him to stick around.
"But on one condition," Hank said, turning to Ace. "You have to come to the town dance tonight."
"With you?" Ace asked.
"Well, I'll already be there, helping set everything up, but if you show up, we can pretend like we came together."
"Alright, it's a deal," Ace said. She held out her hand and they shook on it. Hank winked.
"Coming, or not?" the Doctor asked. Ace and Hank followed him down the street. He looked back and forth, checking both sides of the streets. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but it had to be large, about the same dimensions as the outer shell of the TARDIS.
They spent nearly two hours searching the town from top to bottom. After the first hour, the Doctor began stopping strangers on the street and asking them if they had seen anything new or unusual recently about the size of an outhouse. Most of the people laughed or walked away quickly. He was about to start knocking on doors, but Ace stopped him to keep from further embarrassment.
"Y'know, it's about time for me to get going. I gotta go help set things up for the dance," Hank said.
"Oh, by the way, where is that taking place?" Ace asked.
"It's out at the Jackson property," Hank said. "It's just a few miles west of town. He's a shepherd and has fields of sheep, so you can't miss it. Starts at five."
"Alright," Ace said, but was distracted by a woman walking past. She had a neon pink and black plastic wristwatch on and was completely oblivious to the fact that it clashed terribly with her blue cotton dress.
"There's another weird thing, Professor," she said, staring. The woman noticed her and turned up her nose disdainfully at Ace's manly clothes.
"So, you'll be there, right?" Hank was reluctantly taking slow steps backwards, eyes still on Ace.
"Oh, yes," Ace said, nodding. "I wouldn't miss it!"
"Great!" Hank spun around and was practically skipping away.