As the blinding sunburst of light faded into fairy dust around him, Sam blinked. His shoulders were hunched protectively, and he stood ready to duck, since usually he landed in the middle of a crisis. . .but nothing happened. This time he didn't seem to be standing on stage, or about to parachute from a plane, or in the middle of surgery. Cautiously, he looked around.
He was apparently crossing a quiet street in some small, rural town in mid-autumn. The street was overhung by white birches gloriously laden with crimson and gold leaves. Pick-up trucks were parked in most of the spaces on the street, in front of weathered wood-frame buildings. Not far away, a medium-sized liver-spotted dog of the Heinz 57 variety, tail erect, was trotting briskly on some no doubt important business. It was the only thing moving in the otherwise placid street.
Sam relaxed, wiping the last Netherworld dandruff from his hands onto his worn, comfortable blue jeans. This was like leaping home to the family farm in Indiana. Maybe the Powers That Be had relented and given him an easy leap this time. Al kept grousing that if they didn't get a vacation soon, he was starting a time-travelers' union and going on strike. Maybe Whomever controlled their leaps had been listening.
On the other hand, maybe not.
He was almost all the way across the street when a heavy-set Indian woman, her long black hair flying behind her like a tail, darted around the corner. "Holling, look out! Stampede!"
Alarmed, Sam swung toward her, wondering why he didn't hear the thunder of approaching hoofbeats. Instead, he found himself facing a herd of enraged ostriches, long necks outstretched, feathers ruffled, charging right at him.
Diving into the back of the nearest pick-up truck, Sam Beckett hollered, "Oh, boy!"
As the herd swept past him, they all seemed to be roaring in imitation of deep-voiced lions, but with a strange hissing overtone. Cautiously, Sam lifted his head to peer out of the truck bed. The sleepy street had been transformed into a scene out of a cowboy movie, with men and women in jeans and flannel shirts boiling out of every building.
"Head 'em off at the intersection!"
"Whee-hah!"
"Sooo-EE!" shrieked someone who seemed to have confused ostriches with pigs.
Someone else picked up the liver-spotted dog and hurled it into the mass of black-and-white feathers, evidently hoping sheep-herding instincts would come to the fore. Yelping, the dog ran across the heaving backs of the ostriches and leaped off into a bush.
A burly man who seemed to be all bristling black hair thumped Sam on the shoulder. "Come on, Holling, you're the great hunter!"
"I am?"
A handful of people formed a ragged line spanning the street, but the determined ostriches charged right at them, roaring. The human fence wisely scattered, letting them pass.
Reluctantly, Sam climbed out of the pick-up and advanced on one of the stampede stragglers, hoping to take it by surprise. The closer he got, the more he doubted that this was a smart move. How could a bird get so tall? It must've towered two feet over him!
Nearby, a broad-shouldered Indian with a blue bandana low on his forehead holding back a long mane of hair tried to lasso an ostrich with his brown plaid shirt. Lashing out with one long, skinny leg, it hit his protruding belly and hurled him effortlessly through a plate glass window.
Paying no attention, other men were trying to snare birds with their shirts. Some shirts flapped over ostrich heads, blinding the birds and adding to the panicked confusion of the stampede. They ricocheted off each other, looking like Halloween ghosts who forgot to put eyeholes in their sheets.
"Shoo! Shoo!" an old woman on the sidewalk commanded, flapping her hands at the passing mob.
Sam's chosen target was almost within reach, a confused-looking giant with large white plumes at the bottom of its glossy black feathers. They reminded Sam of a woman's slip showing under her black cocktail dress. He chirped at it as if it were his sister Kate's parakeet.
"Here, boy. Pretty boy."
The ostrich rumbled a deep, sibilant threat, sounding oddly like Sylvester the Cat, and darted its head at him. Sam hastily ducked.
"Don't hurt him!" the plump Indian woman cried.
"Me? Hurt him?"
At the intersection on the other end of the main street, a pick-up blared its horn, brakes screaming, and skidded to a halt in the mass of enraged birds. Some pecked and kicked the truck, rocking its body and scraping long gouges down the red frame. Most whirled and started racing back the way they had come. Whooping, the crowd dashed after them.
Startled, Sam lunged forward, wrapping his arms around his ostrich's scrawny neck. It danced in an angry, offended circle, swinging him off his feet as if he were Ginger Rogers. Dizzily, he kicked his legs up, locking them around the bulky body. As the rest of the herd thundered past, he found himself unwillingly joining the stampede, riding an ostrich's belly.
"Lookit Holling go!"
"Ride 'em, cowboy!"
Bouncing horribly, half-smothered by feathers, Sam didn't dare let go. Clinging to the bird's belly and pretending to be a piece of tightly-fastened Saran Wrap, he caught fleeting glimpses of deadly feet with long, sharp toes. If he fell and was trampled, he could well end up sliced and diced.
This overgrown buzzard was running faster than he usually drove his car! His mount raised both stubby wings, as if planning to take off. Ostriches couldn't fly, could they? Just in case, Sam pressed himself even more tightly to the body above him, feeling the bird's heart racing even harder than his own.
Abruptly, the entire herd swerved sharply right, then back to its original path. Sam craned his head back, getting an upside-down view of ostrich rumps, passing spruce trees, and thick, graceful black legs moving in a gallop. He blinked, squinting. A stocky man in a blue plaid shirt, blue down vest, and tan Stetson darted in and out of his field of vision, astride a big black horse. Whoever he was, he seemed to be herding the birds, and successfully; their pace gradually slowed.
Weighed down by its ungainly rider, Sam's own mount sank to the rear of the pack again. When it had finally slowed to a walk, he gulped, closed his eyes, let go, and fell with a resounding thud. Startled, the ostrich swooped its little head down to peer curiously at him from eyes matted with thick black eyelashes, then it seemed to shrug and stepped over him, following the other birds.
Sam lay supine, unable to move, and didn't even have time to panic when the horse soared right over him an instant later, in pursuit of the herd.
Eventually the world stopped spinning like an out-of-control merry-go-round, and Sam found that he could breathe again. As if from a distance, he observed various boots and blue jeans pass him, some following the departed ostriches, others striding back to town. Since no one appeared to be particularly interested in him, he finally forced himself to sit up. Nothing seemed to be broken, but he could swear he heard things creak in protest.
"All right!"
"Way to go, Maurice!"
Spitting out a few stray feathers, Sam painfully levered himself to his feet. Whoever he was in this leap, one thing was sure: he had a bad back. If he hadn't had one before the ostrich stampede, he certainly did now.
Since he didn't really care about the fate of the birds, he began trudging back toward town. Was this Africa? The scenery and townsfolk didn't look even remotely African, but how else to explain those flighty flightless wonders?
Behind him, a familiar whooshing sound made his stop in his tracks, and he grinned in genuine delight when Al Calavicci stepped through the blue-and-white lit `door' to the Project. With his usual love for the cutting edge of fashion, the Project Observer was sporting slacks in an eyeblinding Rorschach pattern of blue, black, and white swirls; a white cotton mesh sweater that vaguely resembled a clean fishing net; and a white Stetson cockily tilted over one eye. Given this outfit, he had no business arching one black eyebrow and asking, "So what's with the feathers, Sam? Making a fashion statement?"
Absently, Sam brushed black feathers off his clothes, concentrating on his partner. "Are you okay?"
"According to most of my women, I'm not just okay, I'm better than average."
"Al!"
Relenting, Al said, "Come on, Sam, you know Verbena. Oh, I forgot, your memory's been Swiss-cheesed. Just take my word for it; Dr. Beeks would never let me even pucker up for a kiss unless I aced a physical first. She stuck so many needles in me that I started thinking she was a cousin of Mary Jo Liese."
Sam felt the smile congeal on his face. On their last leap, Mary Jo had almost killed Al with a demonically-cursed transfusion unit needle. He turned away. "Let's keep walking. How long has it been since I leaped?"
"A little over ten days."
"It's not usually that long between leaps, is it?"
"Nope. Gooshie was getting scared that we'd lost you, but you finally settled into the body of Holling Vincoeur. You're the owner of--"
Still walking, Sam said flatly, "You were in the hospital the whole ten days, weren't you?"
Al waggled his unlit cigar in time with his eyebrows. "On purpose, Sam! I had to do a whole lot of faking, but believe me, Cheryl Ann--my personal night nurse--was worth pulling a major boondoggle. She gave me a massage that--"
"You're still wearing bandages."
Al automatically touched his stomach. "Just Bandaids, Sam. It was nothing but an infection. I think I was scratching 'em open in my sleep. Or maybe Cheryl Ann was."
A battered, rusted-out green pick-up truck overloaded with jolly birdwatchers honked raucously as it sped past them. Sam kept walking, his head down. It only took a minute of silence to make Al squirm.
"Okay, so maybe the Guy Upstairs stretched out the time between leaps a little so I could get a rest. You know I needed a vacation."
"In the hospital."
"With Cheryl Ann, and Molly from Records, and Tina smuggling me goodies. Even Verbena was nice to me. I enjoyed every minute of it," Al said defensively. He cleared his throat, examining his cigar as if he hadn't seen one before. "Anyway, Sam, this town's called Cicely, Alaska. It's a flea-bite of a town in the middle of nowhere." He squinted in disbelief when his hand-link to Ziggy, their master computer, whistled and flashed yellow lights at him. "Get this, Sam. Cicely was founded by a pair of lesbians--"
"Nice ride, Holling!" bellowed a passing lumberjack.
"Yuck!" Al grimaced as his blue suede shoes passed through a steaming pile of fresh manure. "Good thing I'm just a hologram--that would've ruined my new shoes. What is it, moose poop?"
"Bird doo."
"Very funny. What've they got out here, man-eating condors? Hah." Nevertheless, Al glanced uneasily skyward. "So anyway, you're the ex-mayor and--"
Sam spun around, throwing a punch at Al's left side. Instinctively, Al yelped and grabbed at his ribs, but of course the fist passed harmlessly through him. No matter how solid he looked, he was actually only a hologram formed through a neurological link to Sam's brain. With an offended expression, Al cradled his ribs, wincing. Jerking away like that must've jarred them.
"They're broken, aren't they?"
"So what? I busted more ribs than this when I was going for the Golden Gloves. Not to mention when I scuffled with those KKK snakes, or the time that wrestler found me with his wife in the--well, never mind. The point is, I got some bumps and bruises last time, but now I'm fine. Quit being a mother-hen. That's Dr. Beeks' job." He pointed past the wood-frame building on the corner, which had been flamboyantly painted with the words ROSLYN'S CAFE and with a scenic vista featuring a camel posing before distant mountains, all faded with weathering, to a building boasting that it was THE BRICK and offered good food. "You own the local bar. Now, so far Ziggy's not sure what you're supposed to do here. He says the locals are...kinda eccentric...and he's not sure what's a problem and what's just normal behavior here, but we've narrowed it down to--"
"I'll figure it out. You can go back to the Project."
"Won't do any good. Holling's one tough old bird, and he's refusing to help. In fact, he almost took out one of my Security boys, so I put Lopez in there. I figure he's too gentlemanly to hit a woman, and if he tries it, she'll cream him without even working up a sweat. Me, I'm still embarrassed about that judo hold--"
Not looking at him, Sam said sharply, "Al. Just go back to the Project."
"Relax, Sam. It's gonna be an easy leap. No ghosts, no Bermuda Triangle, no cursed thingymabobs, no Mafia hit men or psychotic killers or rapists after you, just glaciers, ptarmigans, moose, maybe an occasional polar bear or oil spill to deal with." He began tapping the keyboard with his forefinger. "That's an idea, Sam, maybe you're here on an ecology deal--"
"Shut up and listen to me, Al. I don't need you here. You told me yourself, I've got five college degrees and a Nobel Prize. You should be back at the Project, compiling reports on your observations over the years, while I take care of business here."
Cocking his head to one side, Al gaped at him. "That's crazy, Sam!"
The door to the bar opened, and a teenaged girl with long blonde hair peeked out. "We need you inside, Babe. All those ostrich cowboys are pretty thirsty."
"Yeah, I'll--I'll be right there."
The girl puffed and rolled her eyes, making her bangs bounce, but went back inside. Sam glanced at Al, feeling a twinge at the hurt expression on his partner's face. "Now that the initial data has been compiled, the Project no longer needs an observer. What it needs is someone convincing the scientific community that all this is possible, and convincing the government to keep funding us. That's your job, Al, and I wish you luck with it. I'll see you when I leap home, okay?"
Al spluttered something unintelligible, eyes bulging, but Sam was already pushing through two swinging doors into the bar.
It was a working-class place, complete with pool table, jukebox, neon signs advertising beer brands, dim lights, scarred wooden tables. Stuffed birds, moose and caribou heads, and other corpses lined the upper walls, but as far as he could tell, none of the bodies were human.
When he sneaked a glimpse of his body in a fly-spotted mirror, Sam saw a hawk-nosed, dusty-haired, broad-shouldered man in his early sixties. No wonder his back hurt after wrestling with that wild ostrich.
A familiar mechanical whoosh told him Al had reappeared inside the bar, but Sam ignored him, concentrating on delivering drinks to a rowdy crowd dressed like a cross between lumberjacks and bikers. Once the blonde girl gave him a quick hug in passing. Maybe she was Holling's daughter? In a small town like this, businesses tend to be family-run, after all.
"Holling!" A elderly woman with short, straight, greying brown hair flagged him down. She was wearing a black sweatshirt that boasted she was born to play bingo. "Have you got a minute?"
Sam hesitated. "I guess."
The woman nodded toward the teen sitting with her, a round-faced youth with black hair parted in the middle but still falling into his eyes. He was wearing a black leather jacket with lots of zippers. Her grandson? Sam debated about lecturing the woman; whether he was grandson or gigolo, this boy looked barely old enough to be in a bar. "Ed and I were just discussing Maurice's odd behavior."
"Maurice...he rounded up the ostriches, right?"
Ed's head bobbed. "Exactly like John Wayne in Red River."
"But instead of accepting the congratulations and free drinks, Maurice just grunted and rode off with that sour look he's been wearing, as if he's got bad heartburn."
"But that's not it, 'cause Ruth Ann says he hasn't been buying antacids at her store or anything. Today, Maurice was supposed to do an afternoon of show-tunes on the radio, but he never showed up, and Chris had to work over. Maurice, missing the chance to play The King and I on the air?" Ed shivered. "That's positively scary."
"You're his best friend, Holling; have you got any idea what's put him in this foul mood lately?"
"Uh, no, not really. Has anyone tried asking him?"
"And set him off on one of his tirades about machismo, the Right Stuff, and pantywaist New Men?" she asked scornfully.
"Sam. Maybe this is your assignment. Find out this guy's full name."
Sam folded his arms, pretending he didn't even see the short man leaning over the table between Ruth Ann and Ed. That only provoked Al into trying to get his attention.
"I think it's thwarted love," Ed said solemnly. "Sgt. Semanski was the love of his life, and now she's 500 miles away chasing rabid bears, and he's heartbroken."
Ruth Ann gave him an exasperated look. "Maurice? Mooning over a woman?"
"Well, look at how long he was mooning over Shelly. Sorry, Holling, but it's true."
"That's Shelly over there, Sam. She won a beauty contest to get out here. Miss Northwest Passage. Cute, isn't she?" As the girl walked by with a tray of cheeseburgers and a pitcher of beer, Al leered and reached out to pat her buttocks. Of course, his hand passed completely through her. He cocked an eyebrow at Sam, waiting for a reaction.
Ruth Ann's craggy features were thoughtful as she tapped her chin with one finger. "You know, this moodiness seems to strike him every year in early September, for at least the last ten years, only it's worse than ever this year."
"You were rude to me, Sam, and ignoring me's even ruder. Come on. We gotta talk."
"Maybe it's some sort of anniversary."
Sam edged around so he wasn't facing Al. In return, Al took a big puff on his cigar and exhaled a cloud of smoke that curled around Sam's face. Since it was a holographic image of the cloud actually formed in the Imaging Chamber, it didn't stink, but it was irritating just the same.
"Dr. Fleischman!" Ed snared a passing man by the elbow. "Do you have any idea why Maurice is acting so strange?"
"Maurice always acts strange. It's one of his more irritating characteristics. I don't know why I didn't notice soon enough to keep me from taking this job in the middle of nowhere," the young man complained in a nasal New Yorkish accent.
"He seems. . .depressed," mused Ruth Ann.
Pushing up his wire-rimmed glasses, the newcomer said with finality, "The only thing that could seriously depress Maurice is losing lots of money. Hey, Shelly, can you get me a One-Eyed Jack? I'm starving."
He went on to another table, leaving Ed and Ruth Ann pondering his diagnosis. Together, they shook their heads, dismissing it.
"Sam, if you won't talk to me, I won't tell you something real important you should know about Holling."
"I'm not interested in my past," Sam announced, earning him funny looks from the two locals, which smoothed over when he added, "But maybe there's something in Maurice's past that could explain this."
"Well, you've known him the longest of anybody in town. What do you think?"
Exasperated, Al wandered over to the nearest wall and stuck his head through it. He came back excited, punching up data on his hand-link. "Shelly's cute, but, Sam, wait until you see Maggie! God, she's beautiful. And she flies a plane, too! A gorgeous face, green eyes to die for, and brains, and she's a pilot, too. If I was really here, instead of just a hologram...." Al sighed. "I'd fly out to Cicely right now and date her, but she's already spoken for in our day. And why she'd settle for that guy--"
"If I find out anything about Maurice, I'll let you know," Sam said, still trying to ignore him. "It looks like the crush is easing up a little; I think I'll get a breath of fresh air. Too much cigar smoke in here."
"Really? I don't smell any cigar smoke," Ruth Ann commented, surprised.
"Good idea. We can talk in private. This is all about that last leap, isn't it?"
His lips thinning, Sam wended his way between battered tables to the back room, where an Indian with a blue bandanna holding back his waist-length braid was cutting holes in toast, and from there outside onto a wooden porch. He picked his way down somewhat rickety wooden stairs to the asphalt back lot. It looked as if someone had hurled garbage from the porch and barely missed the open dumpster. Black and white plastic bags of trash were piled haphazardly on the asphalt, some apparently clawed open by animals, and the stench of stale beer and rotting food made his nose twitch. Unable to smell any of it, Al strolled out behind him, right through the lower wall.
"Al, you're not being a help. In fact, you're distracting me. I asked you to go home."
"No. You told me to go home; you didn't ask."
He couldn't meet Al's eyes, didn't want to see the hurt simmering there, so he bent to pick up toppled bags of trash and toss them into the dumpster. "Fine. So why are you still here?"
"This isn't like you, Sam. You won't even let me use Ziggy to help you on this leap."
"I'm not going to discuss this. Either send someone else as Project Observer, or I'll do without."
"Why?"
"Because this project isn't worth risking your life."
That was like lighting the fuse to a string of firecrackers. "How d'ya think I felt all these years, watching you get punched, chased, shot at--even raped--every other leap? Even if you somehow manage not to get yourself offed one of these days, you could get stuck forever in some stranger's body twenty years in the past if I even make one little mistake in digging up the answers or coaching you! At least I'm a hologram, and safe."
"Safe?" Sam dropped a bag and grabbed at Al's shoulder, but his hand passed through and touched the wall. Exasperated, he pointed at Al's neck, shoulder, belly. "You call those puncture wounds and claw marks safe? Those broken ribs? Ten days in the hospital? How about when that hologram ripped your arm open? Or when you got hit in the head and nearly killed?"
Al froze in place, one hand upraised, his eyes narrowing. "When was that, Sam?"
"I-I'm not sure. You were lying on the ground, and you were wearing an Army uniform, and I had to--it was a leap, wasn't it? A leap where we changed places somehow?"
His face was shuttered. "Do you remember anything else?"
"You're the one with all the answers. You tell me."
"You know I can't do that."
It was intensely frustrating to come so close to a clear memory, only to have it evaporate when he pursued it. Taking out his anger on his partner, he yelled, "So it did happen! How many times do you have to get hit to knock some sense into your head?"
Al flushed. "That's just three times out of dozens--hundreds--of leaps! Compared to all the jams you've gotten into, it's a drop in the bucket. What're the odds we're ever gonna run into more ghosts or cursed holograms or lightning bolts that strike right at the wrong--"
"It's final, Al. I'm not going to argue."
Ears could be dangerously frostbitten just by the sound of Al's voice. "If you're gonna pull rank, Sam, let's not forget I'm an admiral."
"And I'm the head of this project, the one with the guts to make an actual leap. You're nothing but the Observer. A video-camera would do a better job; at least it wouldn't keep distracting me."
As Sam flung a trash bag on top of the mountain he was building, he caught a glimpse of Al's stricken expression. He looked as white and tormented as he had been in the Netherworld, with the ghost's deadly needle-thing sucking out his life.
"I was supposed to make that leap, not you," Al whispered. "I should be in that body, not you."
"Well, you're not. Like you said, I'm the one taking all the risks, and if I don't want you interfering with my work, I don't have to put up with it!"
"You want all the glory, is that it?" Savagely, Al punched the computer hand-link. "Fine. You win. I quit."
Wheezing in protest, the glowing doorway to the Imaging Chamber flickered into existence. Al stalked through it, and the doorway vanished. If it could have slammed, it would have.
Dropping the last bag of trash, Sam put one arm against the wall and slumped his head against it. He felt the way he had felt when he was sixteen and his brother Tom died in Vietnam; when he was nineteen and his father died--sick to his stomach, every muscle clenched as he tried to choke back the sobs, wanting to scream that it wasn't true, it hadn't happened. Al had been a mix of roguish big brother and wise father to him, and this time he hadn't stood by and watched a loved one leave, he'd actively driven him away.
(But now he's safe. When I finally leap home, I can explain it to him, apologize. If he died during one of these leaps, I'd never see him again.)
Would he ever see Al again? Without Al's incredible background doing almost everything imaginable, Sam was going to make mistakes. In point of fact, if Al hadn't been there to demonstrate how to fly a jet at mach three, he'd have died on the very first leap.
(But Al will be safe, no matter what happens to me.)
At the moment, that was small comfort. Blindly, Sam thrust his hands deep into his pockets and strode away, with no destination in mind, wanting only to escape the pain. Unfortunately, he couldn't leave behind his emotions as easily as he could the laughter and music of the Brick.
A horse's startled nicker made him freeze and look up. Someone else was hiding out in this back alley, sagging against a brick wall. He blinked away a salty haze, and recognized the cowboy who'd rounded up the stampeding ostriches.
"Maurice?" he asked hesitantly.
The burly man stiffened and straightened up, wiping his face on one flannel sleeve. "Damn allergies. My eyes were watering so bad I couldn't steer the damn horse."
"Yeah. Me, too. The pollen count must be really high." Sam rubbed one eye with a forefinger. Now that he'd driven Al away, he'd have to handle this leap himself; he cast about desperately for something to say to the man he was probably here to help. "Uh, you know, you did a really great job today, heading off that stampede."
Maurice's eyes narrowed. "Easy for you to say, after that rodeo star performance of yours, showing off on that ostrich. Don't condescend to me, Holling. You think I'm not man enough to match you, is that it?"
"No! No, that's not it at all!"
"You think you can steal my woman from me, and then pat me on the head and say, `Good boy,' and I'll wag my tail and thank you?" He swung his barrel-shaped body into the saddle, gathering up the reins. "Well, I'll thank you to stay the hell away from me from now on, Holling Vincoeur, you got that?"
"Maurice, listen, I--"
It was no use. Maurice, scowling, kicked the horse around Sam and into the street. After a minute, his shoulders slumping, Sam turned around and trudged back to the Brick.
(Great, Sam. Five minutes after smashing your friendship with Al, and already you've destroyed Holling's friendship with Maurice. At this rate, you're never going to leap out of here.)
He leaned against the dumpster, oblivious to the smell. Behind him, a door opened, but he didn't care. It was only the ordinary wooden door to the kitchen. He shook his head, his face wet.
"Oh, Babe, is your back hurting you again?" Shelly's cheerful voice was full of sympathy as she began kneading his back, trying to ease the taut muscles. "Everybody's talkin' about how you rode that ostrich just like a rodeo star. Sure wish I'd seen it." Her hands slid down his back and under the band of his blue jeans, cupping his buttocks, as her voice lowered to a breathy purr. "It makes me so hot just thinkin' about it, Babe, you know? Let's slip upstairs for a quickie, okay?"
Shocked, Sam could only cross his fingers and hope that Shelly wasn't Holling's daughter after all. . . .
Leap to a conclusion.