The story I just related is how I came to be who I am today: a man whose life is spent bestride two different points of history, in effect, two different worlds. One world, my original one, was rich in resources and poor in knowledge. The other had six hundred years of additional knowledge, but had consumed all the resources, including most of the human race. The two worlds were miles apart in terms of how people lived, yet the problems facing both were surprisingly similar.
I never dwelled on the ungodly fate of the millions upon millions of people who died as a result of mankind's stupidity, to do so was to invite madness. I also knew it was fruitless to try to change history that was destined to happen anyway. Instead, I committed myself to make the present and the immediate future a better one in both places and times.
I enjoyed the time I spent in each place, although I have to say that I felt I was accomplishing more in the future. I also felt a greater sense of urgency when it came to helping out in the twenty-sixth century. That was because I knew from reading the future's history books that a golden era was in front of the later part of the nineteenth century. There was no such guarantee for the twenty-sixth. And finally, there was a giant benefit in all this for me personally, in that I was able to satisfy my wanderlust in two different places, in two different times.
It soon became second nature to me to switch roles when I switched eras. I was as comfortable as an explorer and advisor to a queen in the future, as I was as a muleskinner and rancher in the past. I even became comfortable with the technical jargon the future employed.
It took a few trips back and forth to establish a routine that worked for everyone, but by the third trip, we had a system with which everyone (but most especially me) could live. The system wasn't rigidly structured, because I hated regimentation, but it never involved being in the past more than a month. Since time waited for me in the past, but moved implacably forward in the future, my stays in the future were not limited in that manner. Some times I stayed as little as two weeks, sometimes as long as three months.
Many of my friends in the future asked me why I wanted to spend any more time than absolutely necessary in the eighteen hundreds. My answer was simple enough, the time I was from made me what I was; my roots were there and it was my refuge from all the turmoil that the future held.
The scientists in Paradise Valley opened a second channel in time back to the early years of the twenty-first century. Through that link, they brought forward technology and finished materials. Nothing living, not even a microbe, was allowed into the valley from that era, because by that time, the Earth was well on its way to being toxic.
The team in the twenty-first century set themselves up as a small business in a building outside of Atlanta, Georgia. They used knowledge as their coin, by patenting a quick-charging, light weight, high efficiency storage battery not originally invented until 2018. The future men negotiated a contract with Ford Motor Company to manufacture the battery. In exchange, Ford had first choice of the batteries they made. With plenty of money in the bank, a steady stream of materials and completed items were sent forward to the future.
The limiting factor of how much of what could be sent through time was the capacity of the time machine. It could only move about two thousand pounds at once, and the machine could only cycle once in each direction every twenty-four hours.
My curiosity made me visit the twenty first century site. I was astounded with what I saw, as the near future was much more impressive than the distant. I had been shown videos of airplanes of this era, but to actually see an airplanes knifing through the sky was awe inspiring. I was also awed by the endless columns of shiny autos that sped at breakneck speed along black ribbon-like roadways. I saw buildings, tall as mountains and made of glass. And I saw people ... teeming masses of men, women and children in all shapes and sizes and colors.
I was impressed by what I saw, yet I felt no envy for these unfriendly people as they rushed about their business. They appeared to be as uncaring and single minded as soldier ants. Even the very air they breathed was foul and fetid. It burned my nostrils and lay thick and metallic on my tongue. One look around satisfied my curiosity and made me thankful for what I had ... and what I did not have to endure. It would give me something worse to think about the next time I spent four days looking at the north side of a south bound mule.
The medicos from the future were very interested in the plants and animals we took forward. According to them, the genes of everything, including Homo sapiens, were stronger, more resistant to disease and more responsive to their medicines. One of the things we were required to bring to Paradise Valley was the viable sperm of a cross section of ethnically diverse males. The collection of that sperm was accomplished by trickery involving Carol, Sarah, drugged liquor and hypnotic suggestion. Here is how that worked.
Carol, pretending to be a fallen dove, would lure a likely candidate to her room, where she gave him a drink of drugged whiskey. In fewer than five minutes, the subject would be unconscious. Sarah would enter the room and medically withdraw the man's essence with a special syringe. Once she had her sample, Sarah gave the man an injection of some sort of drug that made him susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. Carol then spun a story of wild and wanton debauchery into the man's head and left him to believe he was such a superb lover, she gifted him the five gold double eagles he found when he woke up.
I was always close by when the samples were collected, in case anything went awry. Thankfully, that never happened. Carol loved the challenge of luring the men to her room, and to her credit, very few ever turned her down. We conducted most of the collecting activities around Fort Collins, because of the large number of prime males serving there in the cavalry. We left many young horse soldiers with a happy false memory and a hundred extra dollars.
The initial problem with the sperm was at the other end, because Coleen and the other doctors at the university wanted to enhance the genetic composition of the sperm, which would have the affect of altering the children the sperm conceived. I didn't mind the DNA being manipulated to eliminate birth defects and hereditary problems, but I stood firm against any other tinkering. Trying to play God was partially to blame for the conditions the future folks suffered, and I was determined that the practice stop. In the end, Liz Smith backed me up on that.
The valley dwellers abolished the birth permit lottery when joining the New England coalition made new resources available to support a larger population. Plus, genetically diverse and viable sperm was now available for the asking. There was a veritable explosion of births, both in and out of the valley, as thousands of women became pregnant. For the first time in decades, the population of the valley grew.
I led expeditions out into the badlands to support the planned future growth. Our objectives were to find water and arable land, locate and assess old settlements and land fills, recover any usable artifacts, and incorporate individuals or settlements we found into New England.
Because of the way they were bred and conditioned, I had very few men volunteer for my first expedition. However, I had more women volunteer than I could take. It took considerable effort from me, and some gentle prodding from my wives, to overcome my cultural bias against using women for that sort of thing. Once I took off my nineteenth century blinders, I discovered that my new charges were as smart and motivated as any soldier with whom I had ever served.
I took twenty-four people on the first trip, and we traveled by horse and mule. I had twenty mounted scouts and four teamsters aboard two mule drawn wagons. The wagons did the double duty of carrying provisions for our trip and hauling important or interesting things back home. I started small because I was working out procedures and training my scouts as we went.
We explored and remapped a twenty mile square (four hundred square miles) section on the first ten day trip. We used old, pre-catastrophe maps as a starting point. We plotted the limits of the area to be explored on the maps and first visited any mapped old population centers. After that we simply fanned out in teams and poked around. We took copious notes and video taped or photographed anything of interest.
When we returned to New London, I sat down with my troops so we could critique the mission. I floated the idea of us organizing along the lines of a military unit. The twenty-two women and two men quickly agreed, so I took the idea to Queen Elizabeth for her approval. She loved the idea and the New England Scout Battalion was born.
I designated the unit a battalion in case we needed to expand later. For the immediate future though, I planned on a unit with about one hundred people divided into four companies of twenty-five. The companies would have four teams with five scouts each, a company commander and four teamsters who along with the commander could make a fifth scout team or act as the company headquarters. I was the battalion commander, Carol was my executive officer and Sarah was the battalion surgeon.
Since I was a poor organizer, I outlined my plan and got out of the way so Carol and the others could make it work. Within a week, they had recruited the troops we would need, organized the companies and teams, and selected company commanders and team leaders. In their spare time, and without my knowledge, they designed a uniform for themselves.
My first batch of volunteers was selected because they had a yen to do something different. That was the main reason so few men joined. The new men had the boldness bred out of them. For the second group of volunteers, we wanted more scientific professionals: chemists, biologists, and that ilk. So some men saw the expedition as a means of doing actual field research and joined us. I ended up with sixteen men and eighty-eight women. About two thirds of them were from Paradise Valley. All of the males were altered, of course, and so were about three quarters of the females.
I was slightly disappointed that Tonya was not among the volunteers, but she was head of the valley's security forces now, and could not join us. Her big Arabian friend Mona Habib did volunteer though, and at Carols urging, I made her my deputy commander. I was soon to find out that Carol had a purpose past Mona's leadership skills for wanting her with us.
Mona was a quiet and introspective person, but she was a skilled leader with excellent judgment. She was also mighty attractive to me. She had beautiful almond shaped eyes, a flawless dusky complexion and a most pleasing personality. It did not bother me that she was six feet tall and weighed a muscular two hundred pounds. It did not take long for us to develop feelings for each other, which is exactly what Carol and Sarah wanted.
When I asked Carol why she and Sarah wanted me to have a third wife, her answer shocked me.
"We don't want you to have three wives, Honey; we want you to have four. That's how many you had according to the history books," she said.
She started to elaborate, but I held my hand up to silence her. The mere mention of me being in history books made me exceedingly uncomfortable. Besides, I did not want to know how my future happened; I wanted it to be a surprise as I lived it.
Queen Elizabeth did the honors of making my marriage to Mona official, just as she had for Sarah and Carol and me.
They sprung the uniforms on me at the end of our second week back from the badlands. I had been in a planning meeting with the committee of scientists who researched and selected the areas for us to scout. We were pouring over a map of our next target area when someone came into the room and said I was needed outside.
When I exited the building, I found my command drawn up in mounted parade ground formation, dressed in uniforms that were modern and practical copies of the one I wore when I served with General Lee. They wore grey denim trousers with red stripes down the legs and matching grey tunics with red piping. The tunics were long in length, had numerous pockets and were cinched with a black web belt around the waist. A stunner in a holster and a sheathed hunting knife hung from the belts. For head gear, they wore small crowned, grey hats with a medium sized brim. I was struck speechless.
I was struck speechless again later that night when Carol, Sarah and Mona modeled the tunic without the trousers. Believe me when I tell you; the tunic was not as long as it appeared when worn with pants, especially for women as tall as Carol and Mona. And without the formidable corset like garments they wore to support their breasts, the garments were worthy of a Caliph's Harem.
"We designed this for relaxing around camp in the evenings; do you like it?" Carol asked innocently.
I nodded my head enthusiastically. What was there not to like?
We trained for another week, then moved into the badlands. For this expedition, our area of interest was a forty mile square, located over one hundred miles southeast of New London.
Our departure for our first real mission was a big event throughout New England, Paradise Valley and Casadega. A good sized crowd saw us off in New London and many more people watched us on camera. We were the first major foray into the wilderness ever attempted, and already volunteer settlers were lining up in Casadega and the Valley to take advantage of the opportunity for a new start. We made an impressive sight as we file out of town in a column of two, the White Star flag of New England whipping in the breeze.
Our trip was a success well beyond our expectations, as the city that was the focus of our trip turned out to be remarkably intact. Our scientists attributed that to a nuclear device that eradicated anything living but caused only minor physical damage. The residual radiation from the nuclear bomb had dissipated to a level easily tolerated by the future men. The town was a treasure trove of desirable artifacts and materials for recycling. And best of all, it was habitable.
After our mission, we spent two days going over lessons learned, then I dismissed most of the troops back to their regular lives and jobs. The only full time members of the Scout Battalion were ten women, all experienced ranch hands, who tended the live stock and equipment.
Part of the bounty from our trip was a good sized herd of wild horses that the ranch hands rounded up and brought back with us. The new breeding stock was most welcomed by the ranchers around New London and in the valley. The new horses also went a longs ways towards replacing the mounts we had borrowed from them.
Eight weeks after we left, we traveled back to my time. Mona was a part of us now, so she went too. Although Carol and Sarah could teach Mona most everything she needed to know, they insisted that we go back to Boulder so Mona could receive some practical experience.
"Besides," Carol said with a sly little smile, "Sarah and I could use the practice after being gone so long."
I did not raise a ruckus about going to Camille's. How could I when I was the beneficiary of their training. See, Carol, Sarah and now Mona's only exposure on how they should treat me came from what they learned from Camille. And Camille's personal belief and her livelihood focused on spoiling a man rotten. Camille taught my wives how to be charming and doting companions in public ... and wanton sex fiends in private.
We spent ten days in Boulder, two days on the road and two days relaxing at the ranch before we had to go out and collect some specimens for the future's scientists. Strangely enough, their list included a honey bee hive and a hundred pounds of seed corn.
When we were back in New London, Sarah, Lucy and Liz Smith all sprang the news on me that I was going to be a Daddy. Apparently, all three of them caught the same week!
And so time passed for me and it passed quickly, despite living twice as much of it as everyone else.
My mother died in 1873. She died not long after Curtis, the brain damaged soldier with the nightingale voice, passed away. I guess she figure that without Curtis to care for, she was free to join her Savior in Heaven. I found some solace in the fact that I had been able to spend more time with her since I started making trips to the future.
I was also thankful she saw me settled down and had a chance to play with a few of her grandchildren. By the time Mama died, Sarah had given me a boy and a girl and Mona blessed us with a son. Carol was physically young enough for children, but she said she was not ready yet and did not know if she would ever be. It was a pity that Mama never met any of her grandbabies up future-time, although I'm not sure how she would have handled how many of them there were.
After Mama passed, we stopped using the spirit cave as our time station. We replaced it with a large barn with a secret basement not two hundred feet from the new house we built.
The new house was a marvel, in that it incorporated many of the latest conveniences being used back east, but unheard of out here on the frontier. We even had an indoor privy and running water. All that and not one bit of technology came from the future.
Over the years, we became close friends with our mostly Mormon neighbors. I liked the Mormonites because they were good honest people. And of course, since most Mormon families had more than one wife, we had something in common.
Being a woman in the 1870s kept Sarah from hanging out a doctor's shingle, but she soon gained a reputation as a skilled midwife. Over a span of years, Sarah's medical knowledge slowly won her the confidence of everyone in our section of northwest Cheyenne County.
I also stayed close to my relatives and friends from before I went forward. The only conflict I really had was with my conscience, as everyone around me aged two or three time faster than my wives and I. Or they died of diseases for which cures were waiting in the future. But determining who lived in the past based on them being my kit or kin was playing God, just as the people in the future had tried to do. If it was wrong up there, it was wrong back here.
We never took anyone from my time forward, but we sure brought a lot of visitors back with us. Even Queen Elizabeth came to visit us for a couple of weeks. I did not even bat an eyelash when Carol informed me that we were taking Liz to Boulder for 'cultural indoctrination'. I was used to it by now because every woman who visited us asked to go there.
My women liked to have a good time just as much as I did. And being from the future, they were not keen on the idea that they weren't allowed in dance halls or saloons because they didn't work there. Their solution to that was for us to buy a dancehall of our own. Carol supervised the remodeling of the place and soon enough, the 'Taste of Paradise' was up and dancing.
I didn't visit the dancehall when it opened, because Mona and I were hauling a load of freight up to the south Pass mines. So the operation was in full swing when I walked in that first time. The first thing I noticed was how much nicer the Paradise was than the other joints on Front Street. The second thing was that the floosies swishing around the dance floor were women from the future. They were not just any women though; they were all members of the Scout Battalion. That is when I figured out the dancehall was Carol's clever solution to speeding up the collection of genetic material and rewarding our troops.
Although I did not need the money, I continued to occasionally haul freight. The truth of the matter is that I loved doing it and the simple life of a muleskinner out on the road added balance to the complicated life I led the rest of the time.
Mona was the wife who usually accompanied me on my freight runs. She had become a right fair teamster and could spell me when I needed a break. However, her real talent was as a shotgun rider. Mona had no compulsion against learning to use the weapons of these times, and she became very proficient with them. To go along with that proficiency, she was absolutely fearless. Her coolness under fire saved my hide on two different occasions.
Mona Habib was a member of a clan of women that value honor and integrity and Mona had plenty of both. There had been no male Habibs born since the altering of men began. Rightly or wrongly, the clan decided that the family's honor would not allow that desecration to be visited on their male. Mona and my son Ali was the first male born in four generations.
Mona was a true virgin when we wed; she had never been involved sexually with a man or woman. She said she had never been with a man because none of the future males wanted her because of her size. She had never been with a female because the thought did not appeal to her. For never having tried it, Mona took to love making as if she were meant for it. Mona was unadventurous and restrained in her passion when we were home but out on the trail she was a wildcat.
In 1875 (or 2532 if you prefer) Helena Medi Thompson became wife number four. It took all those intervening years for her to advance the time project to a point where it did not require her constant attention. She kept tabs on the project when we were in the future, but in my time she devoted herself to her passion for art. Helena was a damned fine artist. Her beautiful paintings of Wyoming landscapes ended up adorning both our state and national capital buildings.
In all my jumping around in time, I never lost my attachment to my fiddle. Well, I had a really fine violin by then. It was Italian made and the notes off the strings were each a thing of beauty, even with me doing the playing. Owning a dancehall gave me a place to play my music with a captive audience, so to speak. Carol had a four piece band that played for the dancers and I sat in with them whenever I had a chance.
I was at the dancehall sawing away on my fiddle one night during the summer of 1878, when a young fancy dressed cowboy walked in. He was escorting two women and carrying a guitar slung over his back. I watched him curiously as he walked up to the bar and spoke to Carol. I could not hear what they were saying, but Carol smiled and nodded as she shook hands with each of the women. After the introductions, Carol waved for me to join them. I nodded, finished the reel I was playing with a flourish and sauntered over to the Bar. Carol made the introductions.
"Jeremiah, this is Ty McGuinn and these are two of his wives, Connie and Belle. They just moved here from El Paso, Texas, his other wives are resting at the hotel. Mister McGuinn heard about us allowing women guests, so he paid us a visit. He is an entertainer and would like to sing a song or two and do some dancing with his wives."
I looked McGuinn over with my ex-lawman eyes as we shook hands. He looked for all the world like some gunslinger with his brace of Colts in a custom tooled holster rig, and he was dressed like a riverboat gambler. He had an honest look about him though, and his grey eyes twinkled mischievously. One of his wives was a strikingly beautiful petite blonde; the other was a very attractive Red Indian.
I took McGuinn up to the bandstand and told him to have at it. He had some songs none of us ever heard of, but once he showed us the chords, we were able to back him up. His guitar playing and singing voice were adequate, but his showmanship was outstanding. In no time at all, he had everyone gathered around the stage clapping along.
Later that night, Carol said it was a thrill meeting Ty, because some of the songs he wrote were still popular in her time. With that in mind, I learned a few of them the next time I visited Paradise Valley.
Ty McGuinn and I became good friends after that night and his wives and mine were as thick as thieves. Ty bought a large spread a few miles north of us, so we often visited back and forth. Ty and I had a few high adventures together, especially during the Johnson County War. You can read about that in a book Ty wrote titled Cheyenne.
Or hell, maybe I will write one about it myself...