Chapter 7
He grabbed his phone and answered. "Yo. Hey, hey, Doc, where are you? Einstein? Woah. She was who? Yeah, I know the legend of the ravine. But you gotta... Yeah, but you... Sure, but there's... Doc! There's something weird happening with time... Sure, not over the phone, but there's another you here too. Yeah, that's what I thought. Sure, we can. See you."
He turned to the others in the room. "That was Doc. Uh, did you bring Einie with you?"
"Yes, I did. What has happened?"
"He showed up at your place, I mean Doc's. And him and Doc's Einie were acting real weird. Some lady came after him and called him back. And she tried to leave without saying who she was. But Doc called him back, 'cos both Einies listened to him. And she said her name was Clara, and she was a school teacher."
"You mean like the teacher who fell in the ravine a century ago?" asked Bess.
"Yeah, she said Clayton was her maiden name. Weird, hey Doc?"
Emmett was about to answer something, when his radio crackled to life. "Emmett, can you hear me?"
"Yes Clara, I can."
"I just had a little problem: Einie had to be let out of the train for a walk, and he ran away. I went after him, and he ran back home to your garage. In getting him back, I ran into the other you, and the other Einstein."
"Yes, I just heard it from Marty, who was called by the other me."
"Oh!" said Clara through the radio. "I assume I need not continue."
"Not really. I'll call you when I'm done here. Just don't let Einie get away again." He put the radio back in his pocket. "Where were we?"
"Uh, who exactly was that?" Marty asked with a searching look on his face.
"That was Clara, my wife."
"Your wife? Wait a minute, wait a minute, Doc, are you telling me you got married in the nineteenth century to a schoolteacher who's supposed to be dead?"
"The way I see it, if you're gonna get married, why not do it with some style? Not that I intended to beforehand, but some things just happen."
"How did you meet her?" Bess asked with curiosity.
"Ah, it was an accident. Marty and I were looking at the railroad tracks at the end of the ravine when Clara shot by on the runaway buckboard. I saved her as a matter of course, not realising who she was. She used her slightly damaged telescope as an excuse to see me and invite me to the town festival, not that I really needed an excuse. And she's a big fan of Jules Verne."
"Wow. But what were we doing, looking at the tracks? And why were we in 1885 in the first place? And why were we in 1955 again?" questioned Marty, wanting to know everything.
"The short version is: I had taken you to 2015, Biff got hold of the DeLorean and went to '55, to the very day of the Enchantment Under the Sea dance and the lightning strike, and gave his younger self a book of sports results."
"What was the deal with the lightning? You never explained that," interrupted Marty.
"Oh, simply put, I rigged a wire from the clock across the road and attached a connecting hook, like an aerial, to the back of the DeLorean. You drove down the street so that the connecting hook touched the wire the instant the lightning struck, while driving at 88 miles per hour."
"That doesn't sound easy," commented Bess.
"It wasn't. Marty only just got away from the dance in time, the DeLorean wouldn't start when Marty needed it to go, and a branch pulled the wire down. I only managed to reconnect it as the lightning struck, after sliding down the cable from up on the clock."
"On the clock?" Bess and Marty said in unison.
"Yes, I was holding onto the hands for a little while. But back to the other story. We returned to 1985 to find a terrible world where Biff had become rich and powerful by gambling thanks to the sports almanac. Sparing the details, which you don't want to hear, we went to 1955 to get the book back after he had given it to himself. Marty ended up at the dance, running from Biff's gang and trying to prevent them from harming his other self, who was playing the guitar at the dance. Biff got away, but Marty caught him with the help of a hoverboard he had acquired in 2015. Biff nearly ran him down with his car, but I flew the DeLorean overhead with a flag pennant hanging down, which he grabbed."
"How was the DeLorean flying? Did I miss something?" asked Bess,
"No, I missed something. I bought a hover-conversion for the DeLorean the first time I was in 2015. I also bought a fusion generator to replace the fission reactor. That allowed me to use common garbage rather than plutonium."
"Smart move, Doc," complimented Marty.
"Thank you. After setting you down, I circled around to make a landing. The storm had other ideas, and with a little help from the time circuits, which were malfunctioning slightly, it sent me to the beginning of 1885. I could not repair the damage to the DeLorean, so I buried it in the mine, the same one you used in 1955, and sent a letter to be delivered to Marty immediately after I left. He went to my '55 self for assistance, startling me somewhat by appearing immediately after I had successfully sent him back to the future. We quickly repaired the DeLorean, replacing the time circuits with vacuum tubes."
"Is this the short version?" Bess asked tactfully when Emmett paused for breath.
"Sorry. In brief, Marty came to get me, even though I wrote him not to do so. He ripped the fuel line in the trip back, stranding us without gasoline to get the DeLorean up to 88. I contrived to use a steam locomotive to push it. I told Clara I was leaving, and when she made me explain why, she slapped me, not believing my story of time travel. After various events almost preventing our departure, precipitated by Buford Tannen who had originally killed me, but was stopped by Marty, who was going under the name 'Clint Eastwood' because he had run into his great-great-grandparents..."
"The short version, please," reminded Marty.
"Not that we don't want to hear everything, but it is getting late," added Bess.
"Clara changed her mind and came after us, managing to get aboard the engine we borrowed. She nearly fell off due to the boiler beginning to explode under the pressure. I was forced to save her with the hoverboard. We escaped just in time. The DeLorean reached 88 just before the end of the track, and the engine was destroyed in the ravine. The ravine was named Eastwood Ravine, in memory of Marty."
"Cool. So did I come back to get you and Clara?" asked Marty.
"No, Marty. Remember he said he lived in that century until 1895?" corrected Bess.
"Yes, Clara and I build an entirely new time machine out of a locomotive. The DeLorean was wrecked by a freight train just after Marty's return, over the Eastwood Bridge, or the Clayton Bridge, as you would know it."
"Wow. So when did you mess things up?" Marty moved to the important question.
"A few years after building the new time machine, we moved out of Hill Valley to avoid disrupting the timeline. The next day, I discovered the erased photograph, so we immediately came to see what had changed."
"What was the photo?" Bess asked.
"Marty and I at the festival, posing in front of the clock just after it started. I actually gave Marty a copy when we went forward to check he was safe. The first trip in the train, however, was to 2015 to get a fusion power generator, to replace the giant capacitor bank housed in the tender, and a hover conversion, so we didn't need tracks."
"Say, I told Doc we would be over at his place, when he rang. We better be leaving," Marty remembered.
"I don't know if that would be a good idea. The shock of my meeting myself..."
"We could at least take you back to your train," suggested Marty. "Do you know enough to fix the problem?"
"Not really. The fundamental difference I observe is the absence of Jennifer, but I have no idea of what caused that."
"Can't you look up her ancestors and see what happened to them?" wondered Marty.
"I do not know who they are, but due to the presence of some Parkers in town, I expect the problem to be on her mother's side of the family."
Bess suddenly stood up. "I'd better be leaving, and Marty should go to bed, after calling Doc to say he won't be over. I'm sure you can fix this yourself."
Marty was not pleased with her sudden attitude change. "Can't you give him a break? If he doesn't fix history soon, he will be erased. And his wife too, I guess."
"Yes, and Einie and the boys."
"Boys?" Bess and Marty said, again in unison.
"Yes, Clara and I have two sons, Jules and Verne."
Marty laughed aloud, but Bess looked sombre, a frown wandering over her pretty face. Marty had no idea what her problem was. "Is something wrong?" he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder.
"Marty, did you ever think about what would happen to us if this Doc fixed history?"
"Us?"
"Yeah. Doc said you had some other girlfriend."
"Oh, yeah Bess, he did. So what would happen, Doc?"
"When the timeline is restored, everything will go back to normal. You will have no memory of this conservation. Thus it should not matter."
"But it will. I won't be with Marty any more. I'll just be... Uh Doc, what do you know about me in the timeline you remember? Or don't I even exist?"
"I don't know. There's something familiar about you, but I don't remember who you are. It might help if you told me your second name,"
"Tannen."