Chapter 7

Kelly's shift started at 5pm, ended at 5am, and not long after she would be home. It was the last one for another couple of days. Brisco was glad, because the past two days she kept him confined like a prisoner to the apartment. She loaded him up with something that made him sleep through most of the first day. She claimed he had a fever, but he didn't believe her. He just seemed so tired all the time, he couldn't do much anyway even if he wanted. The second day, he had no idea how he spent it. He remembered voices. Kelly and Cal talking, arguing. He heard other voices he didn't know coming from the living room. During one lucid moment, he realized that it had to be the television. After awhile, a woman sang a soft smokey tune that soothed him.

"Brisco."

"Hmmm. Dixie."

"Brisco, that head injury must be getting worse, man. I'm not Dixie, I'm not Kelly. Come on, wake up. It's time for your meds."

"Huh?" He opened his eyes and saw Cal weaving about over his bedside.

"Crap, you're in bad shape. If you die, my sister's gonna kill me." Cal helped him sit up. "You need to take this stuff. And I'm gonna get you some Tylenol. She said I could give you some of that if your fever rose."

"What's...what's wrong with me?" This weakness and incapacity was getting very old. He was frustrated by his inability to handle the simplest things. He couldn't even shave himself, which was something he'd hoped to do alone when Kelly bought him the toiletries. She wound up doing it for him. Not only was it humiliating, but the sheer sensuousness of the act sent him into an emotional tailspin. It seemed that he hadn't been the same since, but he could hardly blame it on Kelly.

"Kel says you've probably got a secondary infection. It happens sometimes, people pick up germs while they're in the hospital. That's why she's trying to keep you at home."

"Ah." A cold cloth touched his forehead. "Thanks, Cal."

"You're welcome, Brisco. Can you try to sit up and take this stuff? Kel will be home in a few hours, and I've got to get back to work."

Brisco accepted the pills and washed them down with water. "What do you do?" He leaned up against the headboard, and Cal propped him up with pillows.

Cal smiled at him sympathetically. "I'm a detective. Look, I know that day that Kel brought you in I was acting kind of like a goofball, but...well, I was trying to deal with something. Something tragic. And no, I don't wanna talk about it." He shook his head. "I'm over it. The point is, yeah, I like to kid around, but I do take my job very seriously."

"I didn't doubt it. I just figured that you and Kelly had a close relationship, and you felt comfortable teasing each other." He wished he'd had that opportunity with a sister.

"We do." Cal's smile grew. "When she asked if I'd come over and babysit while she was gone, I didn't hesitate. She, uh...told me that you're from the past, and that you came here through some kind of time machine made out of a truck?"

"That's correct. I know it sounds fantastic, but it's true."

"Can you give me a description of the truck? Seriously, if someone out there is messing around with time, well, who knows what could happen. I mean, there's been speculation in fiction and the movies and stuff about what might happen, but no one really knows."

Brisco told him everything in detail, from his first encounter with Brackett and his friends, to the vacuum that sucked him and Comet up and set them down violently into the 21st century. All the while, Cal took notes.

"I'll see what I can find out about this. Now, why don't you try to get some rest, and I'm going to get some work done."

"I really don't want to sleep anymore."

"Okay, how about I plant you on the couch, put the remote in your hand, and a nice cold drink on the coffee table, and you can channel surf all afternoon?"

"Channel surf?"

"Oh yeah. Over two hundred channels of pure junk. It'll be eye-opening, if nothing else."

"There's a lot in this world that is 'eye-opening'," Brisco answered as he accepted Cal's help getting out of bed. He settled onto the couch, and Cal put his feet up with a pillow tucked under them on the coffee table, and as promised gave him the remote. "Do you happen to have the newspaper?"

"Yeah. It's right here." He dropped it into Brisco's lap and went to the kitchen.

Brisco scanned the headlines and again marveled at the difference between the news in his time versus now. So many more wars and conflicts. Politicians back-stabbing, well, that was nothing new, but it seemed to be on a much higher level. Murders reported in small print on the back pages, like they were an everyday occurrence and not worth the ink. The country seemed to be incohesive, which surprised him. Given all the technology for communication, he would have thought that people would be closer, not farther apart. The more he read, the more he saw on the television, the more he missed home. He wanted to go there so badly, it hurt deep in his gut. As soon as he was well he would try to find his way back.

Cal set a glass of iced tea down near Brisco's feet and took the opposite side of the couch. He picked up a slim book-like object that by now Brisco knew was called a laptop computer. Cal typed feverishly at the keyboard, stopped for awhile and read the screen, and then typed some more. When he realized that Brisco was studying him, he glanced up and smiled. "Just getting some reports done. And doing some web surfing."

"Web surfing?" He had visions of Cal sliding across silken strands of a giant spider web.

"Yeah, looking up things on the internet." His smile turned into a grin. "Wanna see what I found on you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah." Cal scooted closer and turned the screen. "I just pulled up this."

Brisco gaped at the photograph. It was him, standing in a street of a small town. He wore the badge on his lapel, his gun was safely in its holster, and he rested his weight on one hip, his hands lightly grasping the belt slung across his hips, while he gave the camera an intense look. As he studied the photograph, he tried to recall when it was taken, but he couldn't remember.

"It says this photo was from 1895. Wow, that's too weird."

"From 1895? That means I'll make it back!"

"If this little side trip in time didn't mess up what was supposed to be." He scrolled down the article. "This is a biography of your life. Pretty impressive. You defeated an entire gang of outlaws one by one, cleaned up towns all over the west, and eventually...here it is...you eventually settled down in mid to late 1893 in Sunset Ridge. You married Miss Dixie Cousins, a traveling saloon entertainer. She retired after your marriage and..." Cal shook his head. "I probably shouldn't be revealing all this."

"No, come on, Cal. What happened...happens...next?" Brisco's eyes were wide with curiosity. He grabbed at the edge of the screen. "Please, I want to know what I'm missing!"

Cal let out a long sigh. "Okay. You married Dixie and had three children together."

"Three?" His smile brightened up his whole face. "Well, how about that!"

"Two of them were twins." Cal scanned the page and found a picture of Brisco with Dixie. "Oh my god. She looks like Kelly!"

"And now you understand how hard it's been for me to stay here with her."

"Oh wow, I think you should tell her, Brisc."

Brisco winced at the shortening of his name. "Please, just keep calling me Brisco. A friend called me Brisc once. Just once."

"Oh." Cal nodded knowingly. "Okay, so how about I call you BC?"

Brisco thought about that. "Well, it's not really any shorter than Brisco."

"True, but it sounds way cooler. Sorry, man. Not that Brisco is really a bad name, but...ah, never mind." Cal set down the computer and stood. "I better go get myself something to drink before I insert my foot up to my knee!"

When he returned, he found Brisco had taken possession of his computer and figured out the back button. He clicked on another link and found more information on himself. "What is a PDF?"

"It's a document that's been scanned so it can be read online. Go ahead, click on it."

Brisco did so and found himself looking at the cover of a dime novel. He chuckled. "Oh, do I remember those. Some fella wrote a whole series of these things about me and sold them in the East. Not that any of it had a grain of truth." He shook his head. "And people believed it."

"They must have been like the National Enquirer of our day."

Brisco had no idea what he was talking about. "Say...is there a university around here somewhere?"

"Actually, there is. Why do you ask?"

'Those fellas with the time machine. One of them mentioned something about some people at the university not believing them." He snapped his fingers. "I wish I could remember exactly what he said."

"It's a small school, really. More like a satellite campus for the state system, they specialize in geology, seismology, and some other science stuff."

"Perhaps someone there knows something about time travel?"

"If so, then your boys in the truck are locals." He smirked. "I've got one of our aides looking into that truck description. If we had a plate number, that would make things easier. License plate, one of those rectangular things on the back of each car."

"Ah, the combination of letters and numbers. A very interesting concept for keeping track of vehicles. I can imagine without them it might be difficult to locate a specific car. So, if you don't have a plate, how else can you locate a vehicle?'

"Pretty much by sheer luck, Brisco. But in this case, you had a name - Brackett. Don't know if that's a first or last name, but we're running it both ways. The computer will probably give us a hit of some kind."

"These computers, they sure do a lot of work for you, don't they?"

Cal nodded. "You would not believe how many man hours are saved through these machines!"

"I suppose, when time seems to pass so much more quickly here, time is of the essence." Brisco sighed and leaned his head back. "It's no wonder everything is so frantic, and people seem to be more stressed." He brought his head back up and looked at Cal. "I wish you and Kelly could see what it's like. It really is a better way to live."

"I think it's all in perspective, my friend. We would probably go nuts." He studied Brisco with a serious expression. "You're a lawman. How about we work on this together? Figure out who these guys are and track them down."

"I'll need my gun."

"Don't worry, I'll get it back for you. I might have to take you to a shooting range and show Borland you know how to handle a gun, but the rest, it'll be a piece of cake."

"I appreciate it, Cal. Thank you."

"No problem, Brisco. It's just been pretty awesome talking to a guy who spent time in the old west."

The computer and television were forgotten as they spent the next few hours talking about Brisco's adventures and his methods for taking down the Bly gang. Now and then Cal turned to the internet to look for information on the gang and was amazed when everything Brisco told him was there in print for him to see. Not that he really doubted Brisco. It just made it more concrete. But after awhile, he could see that Brisco was tiring.

"Hey, I should let you rest. Put your feet up on the couch here, and I'l go over to the table. No, don't protest. I don't want to get into trouble with my sister."

"Understandable." Brisco stretched out on the couch and was soon asleep sitting with his back against the armrest, and pillows behind him.

Cal made himself a sandwich and parked on one of the stools. Then he went to work and dug into more of Brisco's past, the university, and anyone who might know anything about three men who took a brief trip to the past and brought back an unlikely souvenir.

Kelly came home and found Cal finishing off a pint of chocolate cherry ice cream and typing at his computer. "You look like you accomplished something" She glanced over at the couch and smiled, happy to see Brisco sleeping with a peaceful expression on his face. "Did you talk his ear off?"

"No, more like he did mine. Kel, the things he knows from the past, it was fascinating! But...he's awfully homesick. I mean, I've gotta wonder if the stress of being here is hampering his healing." He saw the look on his sister's face. She was struggling with the same thoughts, but he also detected something else. "No, Kel. Don't go there. You can't fall in love with this guy!"

"Why not? If he stays here, he's gonna need someone..."

"But he's not! He's going back, and I'm going to do what I can to help him!"

Kelly gaped at him and her hand raised as if she wanted to slap him, but not in a playful manner. "You're crazy! He can't go back yet, at least not until that cast comes off!"

"How much longer for that?"

"Four weeks, maybe less."

"Good. That'll give me enough time to track down this Brackett and his friends." A popup indicated he had an e-mail. "Hey, that's probably the answer I was looking for from Debbie." He turned back to the computer and read the message. "Yes," he whispered. Then he said, "Trust me, sis, you don't want to fall for him. He's got a girl back home. And according to history, they get married and have kids."

"So? History can change."

"Do you really want to mess with time? What if one thing you do, like getting romantically involved with Brisco, keeping him here, causes him to not marry Dixie, not have three kids, and one of those kids misses out on saving an important person's life? A whole cataclysmic chain of events could follow, altering your present, and maybe Brisco won't even be here by the time the dust settles. Maybe he dies in that accident because of something..."

"Shut up! Shut up, Cal!" She turned and hurried to her room and slammed the door on him. She knew he was right, but she couldn't escape the call of her heart.

Brisco heard every word. He felt bad about eavesdropping, but when it concerned him and Kelly's feelings, he considered it justified. Hopefully it was just fatigue that got her so riled up, but deep down he knew the odds of that were pretty slim. No, he needed to get out of this time immediately, or as soon as was feasible. Only Cal could help him do that.

Wanting and getting were two entirely different things. Kelly was right; Brisco needed to heal before he could go back to his own time. So until the cast could come off, he had a lot of time on his hands, and there was only so much television he could endure. He started spending more time with Cal, hoping that the two of them could find the mystery men with the time machine.