Chapter 14 – Exploring the Old West
Despite their lingering concern for Marty's well-being, George and Lorraine couldn't help the amusement they felt as their son once again asked for his mother after coming to in a darkened room, especially when Marty told the woman who tended to him that he'd had a nightmare about being in a Western, where he'd been chased by a bunch of Indians and a bear. George quickly realized the woman was his great-grandmother Maggie, who physically resembled Lorraine so much that people would think the two women were sisters. In fact, Lorraine's initial thought was that the woman was one of her own ancestors until the woman assured Marty that he was "safe and sound here now at the McFly farm", making Lorraine realize that the woman was someone in George's family instead.
Snapped back to the reality of his situation, Marty regarded the woman who looked similar to his mother and wondered who she was. The woman introduced herself as Maggie McFly, but sternly insisted that Marty called her 'Mrs. McFly' and not to forget the 'Mrs.'.
Clearly, Maggie was a firm, no-nonsense woman, George and Lorraine observed. Well, George had been told by his grandfather, William, and father, Arthur, what his great-grandparents were like. Maggie had been a fairly strict, but principled, woman who took no mess from anyone, while her husband Seamus had been an all-around kind and gentle soul who preferred to avoid conflict as much as possible. Overall, from what George had heard, his great-grandparents had been quite liked by the townspeople.
"I hope she doesn't be too hard on Marty," Lorraine thought with some concern.
"And what might your name be, sir?" Maggie inquired, while Marty responded, "Well, it's Mc..." He paused for a few seconds. "Eastwood? Uh, Clint... Clint Eastwood?"
"Quite fitting," George thought with approval, while Lorraine, too, felt that her son's 1885 alias was a clever one.
Maggie told Marty that he was lucky her husband, Seamus, had found him after Marty hit his head against the fence. The next scene brought Lorraine and George a sense of joy and curiosity respectively as Maggie tended to baby William.
"Aww, he's so cute and adorable," Lorraine mentally gushed.
"So that's Grandpa William," George noted. "It's amazing seeing him as an infant."
Maggie told Marty that her son, William Sean McFly, was the first of the family to be born in America.
"He already seems to like Marty," Lorraine noted happily as William's mood suddenly brightened upon seeing the teenager.
Maggie confirmed such by telling Marty "sure'n he likes you, Mr. Eastwood". Immediately after that, Seamus entered the house with a pair of dead rabbits for supper. George and Lorraine were instinctively taken aback by the scene, but there was really nothing they could say about it since Seamus was a farmer and the events in the video were in the 1800s.
"I'm not one to pry into a man's personal affairs, but... exactly how was it that you came to be way out here... without a horse or boots or a hat?" Seamus asked Marty, who replied that his horse broke down, a bear ate his boots, and he simply forgot his hat.
George and Lorraine noted that all three of those were technically true in some form. First of all, while the DeLorean wasn't a horse, the time vehicle did break down when the fuel line had been ripped by an Indian's arrow. Secondly, a bear did eat Marty's boots. Lastly, he did forget about the black fedora that he had worn during the mission to retrieve the sports almanac from Biff in 1955. The McFly couple could already tell that Seamus, despite having just met Marty, genuinely cared about their son's well-being.
George and Lorraine noticed that the water that Maggie poured for Marty and Seamus was brownish. They figured clear water hadn't been quite easy to come by a hundred years ago.
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Mr. Eastwood. I'll help you find your blacksmith friend. You can stay the night in the barn," Seamus said to Marty, while George and Lorraine appreciated the former's hospitality towards their son.
Judging by the brief look that Maggie shot Seamus, George and Lorraine realized the woman wasn't quite happy with her husband's decision to let Marty spend the night at their place. While the McFly couple figured Maggie's reaction was due to the fact that Marty was technically a stranger and she clearly wasn't as trusting as her husband, they didn't see the harm in just one night.
"And tomorrow, I'll take you as far as the railroad tracks. You can follow 'em straight into town," Seamus continued, while Marty spat out what George and Lorraine recognized as pieces of buckshot that had been left in the rabbit meat.
"I'll even give you a hat," Seamus offered, while Maggie let out a frustrated sigh.
It was very kind of Seamus to look after their son, George and Lorraine thought gratefully. On the other hand, the McFly couple felt some annoyance of Maggie's attitude.
After fetching his infant son William, Seamus told Marty that the barn was comfortable and joked that there were never any complaints about it from the pigs.
"Seamus! A word with you," Maggie curtly called out to her husband, while George and Lorraine knew exactly what she wanted to talk to him about.
"If only she knew that Marty... well, 'Clint Eastwood' was her own great-great-grandson..." George mused.
After Seamus instructed Marty to hold little William, he and Maggie headed into another room. "Are you sure you're not after bringing a curse on this house, taking him in like that? He's such a strange young man," Maggie said.
That was the same thing her mother had said about Marty in 1955, Lorraine recalled. She, herself, had thought the same about her future son back then.
"Aye, but I've just got a feeling about him, Maggie. That looking after him's the right thing to do... that it's important," Seamus told his wife. To George and Lorraine, it seemed almost as though Seamus was suspecting that Marty was somehow related to him. Not that Seamus would be wrong, obviously.
"Look how the baby takes to him. Little Will never takes to strangers," Seamus pointed out to Maggie as they observed Marty holding William.
"That's because Marty isn't exactly a stranger in the classical sense," George thought.
"It's like the baby also senses Marty's relation to him," Lorraine mused.
"It's almost as if... he's connected to us," Seamus said about Marty.
"That's exactly how I felt when I sensed that kissing Marty was so wrong," Lorraine recalled. "And it was."
"Little do my great-grandparents know..." George thought.
"Hey, Will. So you're my great-grandfather. The first McFly born in America," Marty said to little William.
George and Lorraine figured it was quite surreal and delightful for Marty to hold his great-grandfather as an infant. The McFly couple started as little William peed on Marty, whose comment about it caused George and Lorraine to feel some amusement. The scene was cute and awkward simultaneously.
The video shifted to the next day, showing Marty's arrival in Hill Valley. It was quite obvious to the McFly couple that their son had been walking for quite a while, since Marty appeared to be exhausted. Hopefully, he and Doc Brown would reunite soon.
Just like their son in the video, George and Lorraine took in the 1885 version of their beloved hometown with utter interest and astonishment. It looked like a scene straight out of a Western movie, but completely realistic and without any special effects. The sights that stood out were a sign that read 'Honest Joe Statler – Fine Horses' (which was in the same spot that Statler Toyota would eventually be), a Bath House where a bathing man asked a worker for some soap, a Meat Market where a butcher was chopping meat, and a banner up ahead that read 'Hill Valley Festival – Dance, Food, Games – Saturday Night September 5th – Proceeds to Construct the Clock Tower'.
September 5th? George and Lorraine realized the festival was most likely where Doc Brown taken the picture of him standing next to Courthouse clock. But would that still happen now that Marty was in 1885 as well? With the DeLorean's fuel line damaged, there was a good chance their son and the scientist would spend more time in the Old West than Marty, in particular, would want to.
As the video continued, George and Lorraine noticed the stares that Marty was receiving from the locals, which was obviously due to his painfully colorful outfit. The McFly couple couldn't help but think of Biff as they saw a man shoveling horse manure into an 'A. Jones' hauling wagon. It would be just as satisfying to witness Biff's great-grandfather Buford getting humiliated in the same manner.
Next was a certain sight that stood out much more than anything else George and Lorraine, along with Marty in the video, had seen so far: the local Courthouse building that was under construction! Its clock was yet to be included!
The townspeople of 1885 had no idea how important Hill Valley's premier landmark would still be even in a hundred years' time.
Marty then noticed a sign on the door of the local Marshal's office that read 'Gone to Haysville for Hanging of Stinky Lomax'. Whoever 'Stinky Lomax' was, George and Lorraine were glad that Marty wouldn't have to worry about meeting him at least.
The McFly couple were startled as a stagecoach with multiple horses rode past, nearly running Marty over as the teenager accidentally stepped in some horse manure that was on the ground. George briefly felt some anger towards the stagecoach drivers, but at the same time couldn't really blame them since they obviously didn't see Marty. Lorraine cringed inwardly as Marty stepped out of the horse manure, the bottom of his shoes covered in the stuff.
As Marty entered the Palace Saloon, George and Lorraine recognized that it was on the site of Lou's Cafe and Lou's Aerobic Fitness Center. The McFly couple wasn't fond of the three old-timers who made fun of Marty's outfit as the first one said "Take a look and see what just breezed in the door", while the second and third old men respectively commented "Why, I didn't know the circus was in town" and "Must've got that shirt off'n a dead Chinee".
"What'll it be, stranger?" Chester, the bartender, inquired. As Marty requested ice water, the trio of old-timers laughed at the teenager, while Chester told Marty to dunk his head in the horse trough if he wanted water since the saloon served whiskey.
"Marty's just there to find the Doc," George thought firmly.
"Poor Marty must really miss being at home with everything he knows," Lorraine figured sympathetically.
Just as Marty told Chester he was looking for the blacksmith, a figure entered the saloon.
"Hey, McFly!"
George and Lorraine immediately tensed. The loud, rough voice and the tone of it sounded all-too-familiar.
"Thought I done told you never to come in here..." Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen, flanked by his gang of three, paused upon seeing Marty's face.
A wave of dread and concern washed over Lorraine, while George felt uneasy at the sight of the outlaw who would shoot Doc Brown dead in a matter of days. The McFly couple had really hoped that Marty would avoid encountering Buford Tannen during the time that he was in 1885, but it was already too late.
"You ain't Seamus McFly," Buford noted gruffly as he and his gang members approached Marty. "You look like him though. Especially with that dog-ugly hat. You kin to that hay barber? What's your name, dude?"
"Just like Biff back in high school and Griff in the future, another Tannen with a gang of three no-good followers," George mused.
He and Lorraine were alarmed as Marty nearly gave away his first name, only to correct himself and firmly introduced himself as 'Clint Eastwood' to Buford, who responded "what kind of stupid name is that". One of Buford's gang members called Marty "the runt of the litter", while another gang member made fun of Marty's teeth, calling them "pearly whites" and saying "I ain't seen teeth that straight that weren't store-bought".
"As if that's a bad thing," Lorraine thought, disgusted by the way Buford's gang was treating her son.
"Take a gander at them moccasins. What kind of skins in them? What's that writin' mean? 'Neekay', what is that, some sort of Injun talk of somethin'?" the last gang member made fun of Marty's Nike shoes.
The intense anger that George and Lorraine had felt towards Biff quickly shifted to Buford and his gang. It would certainly be great if someone taught Buford a thorough lesson in humility. Speaking of which, that had already happened. A young local folk hero, whom the local ravine was named after, had eventually defeated Buford in battle, only to end up tragically killed in a locomotive incident. The folk hero's name was Clint Eastwood, just like the actor.
It was at that point a thought suddenly occurred to George. In the video, Marty was currently in 1885 and was using the alias 'Clint Eastwood'. What if Marty... that revelation would be even more astonishing than the 'Calvin Klein' one, yet George wouldn't be entirely surprised by it!
"Bartender, I'm looking for that no-good, cheatin' blacksmith. You seen him?" Buford demanded. Backing away in fear, Chester responded, "No, sir, Mr. Tannen, I have not."
George and Lorraine knew immediately that Buford was referring to Doc Brown. The McFly couple felt sympathy for Chester, not blaming the bartender for his fear of Buford, who was an extremely dangerous and unstable fellow according to the article about him killing twelve men and bragging about it.
"Tannen? You're 'Mad Dog' Tannen," Marty said with realization.
George and Lorraine tensed as Buford glared menacingly and furiously at their son, while the majority of everyone else in the saloon ran off and hid.
"He obviously doesn't like being called 'Mad Dog," George noted as he and Lorraine were greatly worried about their son's life.
"Mad Dog? I hate that name. I hate it! You hear?" Buford roared angrily at the nervous Marty. "Nobody calls me 'Mad Dog'! Especially not some duded-up, egg-suckin' gutter trash!"
George and Lorraine were overwhelmed with fear as Buford fired six shots from his gun near Marty's feet, ordering him to dance as Marty began to do so. "Come on, runt! You can dance better than that!"
Marty did the moonwalk, mumbling "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson, while Buford and his gang, as well as everyone else in the saloon, watched with taken aback looks. The trio of old-timers seemed impressed with Marty's dancing.
"Whoo!" Marty exclaimed as he did a spin and jumped on a plank on the ground, causing one of the barrels of tobacco spit to go flying in the air before landing right on Buford, its disgusting contents spilling all on his clothes.
Normally, such a scene would be quite satisfying to George and Lorraine, but their worries about what Buford would do to their son in retaliation overshadowed any positive feelings they could've felt. Sure enough, pure terror flooded through the McFly couple as Buford, with sun-hot fury in his eyes, pointed his gun directly at Marty and pulled the trigger. Marty, clearly believing his life was over, fell backwards on instinct and tripped to the ground. To George and Lorraine's immense relief, nothing happened, even as Buford pulled the trigger several more times. Thankfully, the gun was out of bullets!
As one of the old-timers advised Marty to run, the teenager wasted no time dashing out of the Palace Saloon, while Buford and his gang pursued Marty.
"Here we go again. The third time a Tannen will chase Marty through the Courthouse square," George thought, hoping that his son would escape as he did the other two times.
"Please, God, help my son and don't let those bastards catch him," Lorraine mentally prayed, since she was certain that Buford, unlike Biff and Griff, had every intention of killing Marty.
Marty ran like hell, while Buford and his gang pursued the teenager on their horses. To George and Lorraine's horror, the gang quickly caught up to their son as Buford threw a rope around Marty before using it to drag him along the dirt ground to the incomplete Courthouse building.
"This chase didn't go as well as the previous times," George mused with dismay. "How the heck is Marty gonna get out of this?"
"Oh, God, please don't let them harm my Marty," Lorraine mentally begged with great worry.
"We got ourselves a new courthouse! High time we had a hangin'!" Buford announced, while his gang members laughed and cheered excitedly.
George and Lorraine watched with utter despair as Buford threw a noose around the grunting and gagging Marty's neck. Tightening the noose, Buford hoisted Marty up so that he was dangling from the Courthouse.
"Those monsters..." Lorraine trailed off in a mix of utter horror and intense anger, while the scene made George's blood boil with extreme rage, especially as Buford's gang reveled in Marty's desperate struggle for his life.
As a figure wearing a long coat and armed with a powerful-looking rifle appeared in the video, George and Lorraine wondered who the man could be and were thoroughly relieved when he fired a shot that severed the rope that was holding Marty in the air. Marty dropped to the ground, his life saved.
The McFly couple recognized the man as Doc Brown and once again felt a wave of gratitude towards the scientist for bailing Marty out of another near-death experience at the hands of a Tannen.
"It'll shoot the fleas off a dog's back at five hundred yards, Tannen! And it's pointed straight at your head!" Doc declared, while George and Lorraine were quite impressed with the formidable side of himself that the scientist was showing towards a notorious outlaw who would shoot at anyone who so much as looked at him wrong.
"You owe me money, blacksmith," Buford growled, while George and Lorraine had no doubt it was about the eighty dollars that the outlaw would shoot Doc over in a few days.
"How do you figure?" Doc demanded, and Buford responded, "My horse threw a shoe. And seein' as you was the one that done the shoeing, I'd say that makes you responsible."
"Blaming others and refusing to take responsibility for his own problems, just like a certain other Tannen I know," George mused with disgust.
"Well, since you never paid me for the job, I say that makes us even!" Doc pointed out angrily, while George and Lorraine were in full agreement with the scientist.
"Wrong! See, I was on my horse when it threw the shoe and I got throwed off! And that caused me to bust a perfectly good bottle of fine Kentucky red-eye. So, the way I figure it, blacksmith, you owe me five dollars for the whiskey and seventy-five dollars for the horse."
The eighty dollars, George and Lorraine realized at the same time their son in the video muttered such.
"Look, if your horse threw a shoe, bring him back and I'll reshoe him!" Doc offered angrily, and a frustrated Buford roared, "I done shot that horse!"
"Poor horse," Lorraine thought with a pang of sympathy.
"Well, that's your problem, Tannen!" Doc fired back, and Buford protested, "Wrong! That's yours. So, from now on, you better be lookin' behind you when you walk. 'Cause one day you're gonna get a bullet in your back."
George and Lorraine tensed, hoping Marty would manage to save Doc from that fate.
As Buford and his gang rode off, Marty happily called out to Doc, who was surprised to see the teenager. "I gave you explicit instructions not to come here, but to go directly back to 1985," the scientist reminded Marty.
George and Lorraine were puzzled by that. Why was Doc Brown surprised to see their son in 1885? Wouldn't Doc have known since 1955 that Marty would eventually travel back to the Old West to save him from getting shot by that 'Mad Dog' Tannen? Then again, it would've been thirty years from Doc's perspective, meaning there was a chance wouldn't remember that right away.
Marty told Doc that he had to come, and Doc commented that it was good to see him nonetheless. As the teenager and the scientist hugged, George and Lorraine found the reunion heartwarming and knew that their son was delighted to see this version of Doc again.
"Marty, you're going to have to do something about those clothes. You walk around town dressed like that, you're liable to get shot," Doc advised his young friend, and Marty responded, "Or hanged."
Lorraine winced inwardly at the thought of what nearly had happened to her son, while George found Doc's comment about Marty's clothes ironic, considering that it was Doc's younger self who had provided them to Marty in the first place.
"What idiot dressed you in that outfit?" Doc asked, and Marty's response was "You did".
"How does Doc not remember that?" Lorraine wondered with confusion. "Is it like how Marty was surprised to see us after he returned from 1955 the first time?"
The video shifted to Doc studying the photograph of his tombstone with a magnifying glass as he and Marty were in the scientist's blacksmith shop. "Shot in the back by Buford Tannen over a matter of eighty dollars?" Doc read in disbelief. "September 7th? That's this Monday! Now I wish I'd paid him off."
Suddenly, George understood why Doc didn't seem to remember having dressed Marty in that outfit or seen his tombstone back in 1955. The Doc in the video was from a timeline where Marty had been in 1955 only once. Therefore, he wouldn't have memories of anything that happened after he'd been struck by lightning and sent to 1885. It was similar to how Marty had reacted after his initial trip to 1955, due to only having memories from a version of their lives that no longer existed. Speaking of which, George and Lorraine still looked forward to discussing that with Marty. The McFly couple hoped his memories of their lives would return to him if they haven't already. But even if Marty would never remember anything about the lives they knew again, George and Lorraine would absolutely be there for their youngest child every step of the way while helping him adjust to the changes he'd made back in 1955.
"And who's this 'beloved Clara'? I don't know anyone named Clara," Doc wondered. As Marty assumed Clara was a girlfriend of his, Doc responded, "Marty, my involvement in such a social relationship here in 1885 could result in a disruption of the space-time continuum. As a scientist, I can never take that risk. Certainly not after what we've already been through."
"Who is this Clara and what is she like?" Lorraine wondered, curiously. "I sense she's a lovely woman."
The local mayor, Hubert, arrived at the blacksmith shop, informing Doc that the new schoolteacher he'd recently volunteered to pick up was arriving in town tomorrow.
"Must be Clara," George deduced.
The science fiction author turned out to be right when Mayor Hubert told Doc that the schoolteacher's name was Clara Clayton. Now, George and Lorraine knew how Doc had met the 'beloved Clara', though they wondered if it would still happen now that Marty was in 1885.
"Well, Doc, now we know who Clara is," Marty pointed out, while Doc stated that the idea he could fall in love at first sight was romantic nonsense that lacked scientific rationale.
"Of course Doc would make it about science," Lorraine noted with amusement.
"Trust me, Doc, it's not nonsense," George thought back to the special night that he and Lorraine had fallen in love with each other.
"Come on, Doc, it's not science. You meet the right girl, it hits you. It's just like lightning," Marty told the scientist, while George and Lorraine fully agreed with their son.
"Marty, please, don't say that!" Doc protested, and it was clear to Marty's parents that their son's comment about lightning brought back memories to the scientist of how he'd ended up in 1885 in the first place.
"That's the way it was for me and Jennifer. We couldn't keep our eyes off each other," Marty recalled.
"Or me and George."
"Or me and Lorraine."
Lorraine and George respectively thought in unison with equal fondness.
"God, Jennifer. Damn, I hope she's all right. I can't believe we just left her there on the porch," Marty complained, while George and Lorraine shared their son's worry for his girlfriend.
"Who knows what could've happened to her on that porch," Lorraine shuddered. "Especially in that horrible reality where Biff ruined the town and everyone's lives with his wealth."
"Don't worry, Marty, she'll be fine. When you burned the almanac in 1955, the normal timeline was restored. That means, once we're back in 1985, you just have to go over to her house and wake her up," Doc assured the worried teenager.
"I guess the town would've literally transformed around Jennifer after Doc and Marty left, but she wouldn't notice it if she's still asleep," George deduced, since that was exactly what had happened in 2015 after Old Biff changed history with the stolen time machine.
As the giant machine in Doc's blacksmith shop started tooting, Doc instructed Marty to turn a valve. Like Marty in the video, George and Lorraine realized the machine was some kind of refrigerator when an ice cube, which Doc used for a glass of tea, shot out of it. It was obvious to the McFly couple that Doc had built the refrigerator himself, since just about anyone who was from the future and had to contend with life in the distant past would miss a lot of items, including a refrigerator.
As Doc was ready to go back to the future, Marty told him about the damaged gas tank, but figured it wasn't a big deal since the DeLorean had the Mr. Fusion device. Doc, however, pointed out that Mr. Fusion only powered the time circuits and the flux capacitor, while the internal combustion engine had always run on ordinary gasoline.
"I figured as much," George thought.
Doc added there wouldn't be a gas station around until sometime in the next century and, without gasoline, the DeLorean couldn't get up to eighty-eight miles per hour. "So what do we do" was Marty's question to Doc.
"I'm sure Doc and Marty will figure something out," George thought confidently.
As the video shifted to Doc and Marty using horses to pull the DeLorean, George and Lorraine utterly doubted that the plan would work. Neither of them were exactly rocket scientists, but urging a horse to run up to almost ninety miles per hour was simply not possible. Sure enough, as the DeLorean barely only reached twenty-four miles per hour, Doc told Marty that it was no use, since even the fastest horse in the world couldn't run more than thirty-five or forty miles per hour.
The plan was clearly their son's idea, George and Lorraine knew. Marty was willing to try just about anything to get back to his own time period and the McFly couple couldn't blame him, especially since they would certainly miss Marty if he ended up stranded an entire century in the past.
The video shifted back to the blacksmith shop, where Doc poured a bottle of whiskey (which Marty claimed was the strongest stuff the bartender had) into the DeLorean's gas tank, while Marty attempted to start the engine. George and Lorraine weren't exactly optimistic about this plan either. Their lack of optimism proved justified as the DeLorean's engine sputtered and a component at the back of the time vehicle blew off with a loud 'bang'.
"Looks like this situation went from bad to worse," George mused.
"What was that?" Lorraine wondered, startled by the loud explosion-like sound.
"Damn!" Doc exclaimed in frustration. "It blew the fuel injection manifold. Strong stuff all right. It'll take me a month to rebuild it."
A month? George and Lorraine knew for a fact that their son wouldn't want to stay in the Old West that long and they strongly hoped he wouldn't have to. Sure, time travel allowed one to return to the exact time they left, but it didn't slow down or pause the effects of aging on a person's body.
"A month? Doc, you're gonna get shot on Monday!" an alarmed Marty reminded the scientist, and Doc responded, "I know, I know, I know! I wish... wait. I've got it! We can simply roll it down a steep hill. No! We'll never find a smooth-enough surface. Unless... of course! Ice. We'll wait until winter, when the lake freezes over."
"Winter? That's three months from now and poor Marty will really be homesick," Lorraine mused with sympathy for her son.
A frustrated Marty protested against waiting until winter, pointing out that Monday was only three days away.
Lorraine suddenly recognized the brown poncho that her son was wearing and suddenly recalled Marty wearing it two weeks ago on the morning that the family had gone out for brunch. That gave her comfort, since it reminded Lorraine that Marty, despite his current predicament, would eventually make it home from 1885.
"What about gasoline from the other DeLorean that's buried in the mine?" George suddenly thought. "Considering that it will be buried for seventy years, Doc obviously took the gas out of the car. But, knowing him, I'll bet he used it all up on his inventions by now."
Trying to think the situation through logically, Doc stated, "We know it won't run under its own power. We know we can't pull it. But, if we can figure out a way to push it to eighty-eight miles an hour..."
At that moment, a loud whistle sounded and Doc looked outside to see a large black steam train pulling into the local station.
"Let me guess... they're gonna use a train to try to push the DeLorean up to the right speed," George deduced. "Might be their only hope of leaving 1885."
"Are they really gonna use a train? It seems quite dangerous, but if it's really the only way for them to get back home..." Lorraine trailed off with worry.
"That's it!" Doc announced eagerly, before the video shifted to him and Marty talking to the train engineer at the station. The engineer told Marty and Doc that he'd managed to get his train up to fifty-five miles per hour, while another engineer called Fearless Frank Fargo got one train near seventy out past Verde Junction.
George, too, recognized the poncho that Marty was wearing, having seen it the day after his novel had arrived when Marty returned from what they thought was the lake. That was one more thing that suddenly made sense.
Marty asked the engineer if it was possible to get a train up to ninety miles per hour, while Doc told the man that it was "just a little bet" that he and Marty had and wondered if it could, theoretically speaking, be done. "Well, I suppose if you had a straight stretch of track with a level grade and you weren't haulin' no cars behind you, and if you could get the fire hot enough – and I'm talkin' about hotter than the blazes of Hell and damnation itself – then, yes, it might be possible to get her up that fast," the engineer told Doc and Marty.
"If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything," George mused. After all, since Doc had managed to get Marty back home through the Clock Tower's lightning bolt in 1955, George was quite confident in their current plan to leave 1885.
"Tell me when's the next train come through here?" Doc inquired, and the engineer told him "Monday mornin' at eight o'clock".
Monday? That was the day that Doc would get killed by Buford Tannen, George and Lorraine noted with concern. The McFly couple hoped the fact that the train would come in the morning meant that Doc and their son could avoid running into the outlaw again.
Unfortunately, what George and Lorraine didn't know yet was that things weren't going to be quite that simple.