Wildside

  “Christ, I hope we’re not stuck over here,” Rick said, putting a voice to the unspoken thought in my head. “How much food do we have, anyway?”

  Clara said, “We’ve got the survival rations in the Maule—call it two weeks or so. But we can hunt if we have to. Plenty of game.”

  I stopped by the gash, the others moved on down to the end of the tunnel. “Maybe we can dig through,” Joey said. “Ah, what am I saying. We dig through this and we’ll end up on the other side of this hill—not back on the tame side.”

  I knelt and shone my flashlight into the shallow hole scraped in the tunnel wall. A piece of metal, rectangular, about four inches long, with smooth edges, stuck out of the gash, pointing back up the tunnel, toward the wildside. It was a dull silver, like cast aluminum or tin except for a spot on its end where a streak of burgundy discolored the metal, the color of the mowing attachment’s paint.

  From the dead end of the tunnel I heard Rick say, “Christ, Joey, you really did it this time!”

  Clara said, “Don’t be any more of an asshole than you have to, Rick. Do you think anybody wants to be stuck over here with you?”

  “Don’t you?” he snapped. “Isn’t this just what you’d want? Me to yourself and Christopher in a completely different universe?”

  I flinched, but didn’t look up. I heard Clara turn and walk back up the tunnel.

  Rick said, “Hit a nerve, there, I see.”

  “Rick, shut up,” I said, without looking up. I gingerly put my finger to the end of the metal. It moved easily, pivoting in a horizontal plane until it was perpendicular to the tunnel.

  Rick said, “Stick it in your ear, Char—”

  I looked up. They were gone. Where the rock and dirt face had been was the old tunnel, the door into the barn, into the tame side, lay just beyond. The lights on the tunnel ceiling, the ones Joey had installed, were lit on that half of the tunnel, but they were still out on the wildside. In the immediate foreground was the back half of the hay mower.

  “Clara!” I shouted.

  She didn’t answer. I reached for the air horn on my harness and gave a blast, then yelled her name again.

  She came running, her shotgun pointed at the ceiling, then slowed her steps. “Oh. You got it back. Where are the others?”

  Her face was a strange mixture of relief and resignation, overlaid with the tracks of tears.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I don’t. I pushed this lever back into place and the tunnel came back, but they were gone when I looked up.”

  “Maybe they’re in the barn?” she said.

  “There wasn’t time for them to go to the barn. One second they were there—the next they weren’t.” She looked unconvinced. I snapped, “Well, then, go look, dammit!”

  She flinched.

  I dropped my voice back down. “Sorry. Maybe we better check the barn, anyway. Go ahead.”

  She looked down at the ground and blinked heavily, then nodded and started down the tunnel.

  She paused just short of where the back portion of the mowing attachment lay and pushed the barrel of her shotgun over that invisible line. Nothing happened. She took a breath and plunged on, skipping forward, then letting her momentum carry her into a run.

  I let out my breath. I was glad she’d thought to check—I hadn’t.

  Clara reached the other end and opened the barn door. I heard her call their names. “Marie? Joey? Rick?” She turned back toward me and said, “No sign of them. Where are they?” This last question ended in a plaintive wail that cut me to the core.

  Did I kill them? Did I exile them to some other universe?

  “Come on back,” I called. “I’m going to try shutting it off again.”

  She ran back, hesitating slightly before crossing the line. “How are you going to do it? Drive the tractor into the wall again?”

  “No. I’m just going to move this lever again.” I bent down to do just that, then stopped. “Uh, maybe you better go wait on the that side,” I said, pointing back toward the barn.

  “Why?”

  “Well, what if it doesn’t work? I mean, what if it does shut the tunnel down, but then I can’t get it back, after? At least right now, we have a way back home. If you wait on that side, you’ll be all right, no matter what happens.”

  Her eyes widened. “Forget it, Charlie. Throw the switch.”

  I stood. “Really, Clara. I really think you should wait—”

  “No! Now do it!” She swung her shotgun down. Instead of pointing at the ceiling it now pointed at the ground between us.

  “Okay, okay.” I bent back to the lever. This time, I watched the tunnel, not the switch. The pocket of dirt and stone that was the end of the tunnel flicked into place like a TV changing channels. There was just the tiniest flicker.

  There was a sudden short scream from in front of us, and I jerked.

  The tunnel to the barn was gone again and Rick and Marie stood before us, blinking in the light of the tractor’s headlights. It was Rick who’d yelled.

  Joey wasn’t with them.

  Clara and Marie asked the question at exactly the same time: “Where’s Joey?”

  Then Rick said, “He was standing right there.” He pointed to a spot on this side of the ‘line,’ next to Clara.

  “You mean he was standing next to us?” I said.

  “No, no!” Marie shook her head violently. “He was examining the other dead end.”

  “What dead end?” said Clara.

  I elaborated on her question. “What did you see when the tunnel went away? I mean, where were you?”

  “We were right here,” Marie said, pointing at the dirt beneath her. “Only the other side”—she pointed back toward us—”was also a dead end, sort of like this one, and we only had the light from our flashlights.”

  “There was no way out,” said Rick. “It was like we were in a pocket in the earth.”

  “Joey went over to the other dead end, to look at it closely. He was quicker than we were—we would probably be with him if the tunnel hadn’t come back.”

  I motioned them forward. “Come on over on this side, and we’ll try it again.”

  They walked over the line. “Try what again, Charlie?” asked Rick.

  “I can turn it on and off. There’s some sort of switch—that’s what Joey hit with the tractor. See?”

  When they were far enough over the line I pushed the lever. The tunnel came back and, at the same time, there was a tremendous spark followed by the smell of ozone. Joey was facing us and falling backwards. Something hit the floor with a thunk. It was the back half of Joey’s flashlight. The front half was missing.

  “What the hell was that?” shouted Joey. He was sitting on the floor, blinking. Behind him was the second half of the tunnel with the door into the barn at the end.

  Marie ran forward and crouched by his side. “Are you okay? Christ! What happened to your shoe?”

  The tip of Joey’s shoe was cut cleanly off. You could see his sock-covered toes inside. He stuck his hand in the hole and gingerly felt his toes. “Nothing, uh, missing.” He was clearly shaken. “Nothing important, that is.”

  Marie helped him stand.

  “So, we have the tunnel back?” Joey asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You uncovered a switch with the tractor. A way to turn the gate on and off.”

  “Gate?” said Rick. “Of course. It’s a gate.”

  “So what was that cave we were trapped in?” Marie said. She tapped Joey on the chest, “And how did you get out of it?”

  “I walked. When you guys disappeared, that side of the tunnel appeared.” He pointed at the barn. “I stepped over the line but you guys plainly weren’t there so I was turning around to look at the dead end again when ‘poof!'” He pointed down at his foot.

  Rick said, “The amazing Gate-amatic. It slices, it dices! It makes julienne fries!”

  Clara glared at Ri
ck, but Joey laughed.

  Marie didn’t think it was very funny either. “Would you be making jokes if it had sliced Joey in two?”

  Rick was unrepentant. “If you had rotors, would you be a helicopter? It didn’t slice him and we’re not trapped. Lighten up!”

  I interrupted. “I know what that cave was.”

  “You do?” asked Clara.

  “Look, you have these two dead end tunnels, in two different universes, right?” Nods. “When the gate is on, it connects the two tunnels—all but the last ten feet or so of each one.” I held up my two index fingers and put them together, then slid one slightly past the other so the first joint of each finger overlapped. “Well, the gate also connects the two dead end pieces of the tunnels, forming a closed pocket. When you guys were in the pocket, Joey walked through the gate to the dead end side of the tame side’s tunnel. When I switched the gate off, he was on the tame side and you guys were still on the wildside.”

  Joey shook his head. “I’m confused.”

  “You and me both,” I said. “Let’s see what we have here.”

  We dug into the wall that night, around the switch. The lever swiveled on a tapered metal arm that led back toward the barn, toward the line—the terminus between our world and the wildside.

  I scraped the dirt away carefully, using a spoon, afraid to hit other controls or fragile machinery.

  The arm thickened as it neared the terminus, a gentle curve anchored to something hidden by the dirt. I dug on and in one spoonful the dirt went from a fine, sandy soil that flaked away easily to something glassy hard and fixed.

  The lights showed me something that didn’t look any different from the dirt around it but it didn’t budge and the spoon skittered across it like it was greased. I pushed harder, and then harder, but the dirt under the spoon didn’t move. Instead, the handle of the spoon bent.

  We tried going around the smooth section, first above it, then below, then, finally, deep into the side, but the barrier went farther than the foot I was willing to dig into the wall or the two feet up or down.

  Rick did an exploratory hole on the other side and, though there wasn’t any switch, he ran into the glassy smooth immobile dirt. “Is it made out of this stuff? I’m dying to hit it with a hammer.”

  “No!” said Marie and Clara at precisely the same time.

  “I’m inclined to agree,” I said. “Whatever is here, let’s not break it, okay?”

  We packed dirt back into the excavation, mixing in a little water to stick it in place. The switch I left exposed, studying it carefully—top, sides, and bottom.

  There were no helpful messages on it like, “Made In Japan” or “Created by benevolent aliens with a sense of humor.” There were no clues from its manufacture. The pivot point was recessed and I couldn’t see what sort of mechanism was within. There were no bolts or nuts or rivets or screws or clasps or staples or even zippers. Just a lever with two positions.

  I found myself getting angry at Joey for discovering it.

  Sure, the gate was a mystery before, but I could treat it like some freak of nature—something mystical. Now I had to worry who made it (Uncle Max?), who put it there, and whether or not they’d ever come back.

  We didn’t fly the next day.

  “Ready,” called Joey, from the tunnel.

  Rick, Marie, and I stood back from the gasoline-powered generator. I would’ve preferred something cleaner, but we already had the six-hundred-gallon tank-trailer of aviation gas which we kept on the wildside and the generator could run on that. We’d just finished installing the generator in the hangar with intake vents to the outside and a tall exhaust chimney through the roof.

  We walked back to join Joey and Marie at the gateway. At my request, they’d rewired the broken power line, using heavy-duty electrical sockets on each side of the gate and a short, heavy-duty cable with plugs on each end to bridge the gap. They did the same for the phone line and the wire to the ranch gate alarm, and made up a dozen spare cables, with appropriate connectors. Joey had also rewired the lights in the tunnel so the power for each half was on a separate circuit.

  I switched my watch to stopwatch mode and nodded. Joey reached down and grabbed the short power plug and said, “Three, two, one—” and pulled it from its socket in the same instant that I pushed the button on my watch.

  The fluorescent lights on the wildside half of the tunnel flickered out and I heard the starter motor on the generator kick in, followed by the deeper thrum of the gasoline motor firing and running up to speed. The fluorescents came back on and I stopped the timer.

  “One-point-one-four seconds,” I said.

  Joey grinned. “Shall I reconnect?”

  “Sure.”

  He put the plug back in. The lights didn’t flicker, but the generator dropped back to an idle as its current load dropped, then, after thirty seconds of uninterrupted external voltage, it shut itself down.

  I looked around. We stood in a quarter circle around Joey, who knelt on the floor by the junction box. All of us were in the wildside half of the tunnel, careful to avoid the invisible line where the gate was.

  The gate switch that Joey had uncovered with the tractor was on the other side of the tunnel, currently covered by a piece of plywood leaning against the wall. I stepped over to it and moved it aside.

  “Let’s try it for real,” I said.

  Marie said, “Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

  The others looked nervous.

  “If I’m out there five hundred miles from base and the gate is shut down, I want to know that the radio and beacons will still be working. Why don’t you guys wait over there, though, just to be on the safe side?”

  Rick promptly walked six feet over the line and turned around. Marie, Joey, and Clara didn’t move.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Rick asked them. “What if the gate doesn’t come back? For all we know, it wasn’t meant to be turned on and off so much. Something might burn out.”

  Clara said, “And leave Charlie over here by himself?”

  Joey shrugged. “Can’t do that.”

  Rick said, “What about your family? Your friends?”

  Joey said, “Except for you, most of my real friends are on this side of the line, Rick. What’s more, there’s no beer over here. No alcohol.”

  Marie just took Joey’s hand and didn’t say anything.

  Clara added, “I’m waiting here.”

  Rick shook his head angrily then stared over his shoulder for a moment at the barn. “I’m gonna hate myself if the damn gate doesn’t come back on.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and walked back over the line.

  I looked down at the wall switch, but my eyes weren’t working right and I was having trouble seeing it. When I said, “Ready?” it didn’t sound like my voice at all. There was a lump in my throat and I was having trouble talking.

  “Ready, Charlie,” said Marie.

  I moved the switch, then flinched as a fat electrical spark jumped from the power cable and the lights went out. I realized I’d forgotten to start the stopwatch and counted, “One thousand and one, one thou—” Then the generator kicked in and the lights came on.

  I looked at the group, at the Wildsiders, at…my friends. “Thank you,” I said.

  Marie and Joey smiled and Clara said, “For what?”

  I shook my head. “Just thanks.”

  Rick was eyeing the switch. I turned back to it and pushed the lever back into place. The tunnel reappeared and his sigh of relief was audible even over the distant purr of the generator. When we replaced the cords, the generator shut down on schedule.

  I stood, replaced the plywood over the switch, and said to Joey, “We should build a cabinet around the generator, to cut down on some of the noise.” As the two of us walked back into the hangar I said, “You still have your radio-controlled airplane models?”

  “Well, I left them with my brother. Why?”

  “Let me bounce an idea or two off you.”
>
  The next day, the prospector arrived, a gasoline-powered mechanical gold panner. Marie and Clara were flying supplies into Moses, preparatory to our attempt to land at Cripple Creek.

  Joey, Rick, and I dumped five buckets of dirt, two buckets of sand, and two buckets of gravel into the stock tank. Then we added one pound of iron filings and two cups of assorted washers, nuts, and bolts and stirred the whole mess with a shovel while topping the tank off with water.

  The mechanical panner consisted of a thirty-foot four-inch hose, a powerful water pump, and a series of shaker trays with smaller and smaller gratings. It was about the size of a washing machine.

  I started it up and Joey shoved it down into the stock tank. Brown water spilled across the trays, which were shaking away. The lighter gravel, sand, and dirt flowed over the edges of the trays. The heavier iron bolts, nuts, and washers settled in the coarse trays, sorted by size along with a few heavier pieces of quartz gravel. The last tray, the fine one, collected the iron filings.

  When we were done, when we’d sucked the tank dry and spilled water all over the garden, the pasture, and part of the driveway, we air-dried the filings and weighed them—fifteen and a half ounces. Pretty good recovery rate. If it worked that way for gold, we’d be in good shape.

  We carefully disassembled the mechanical prospector and prepped it for flight. Clara and Marie got in before noon the next day and we refueled the plane, loaded the prospector, and Joey and I took it out, sleeping that night in Scurry. We rose the next morning with the dawn, flew on to Moses, and got back to Wildside Base before sunset.

  Clara said, “Pushing it a little close, aren’t you, Charlie? It’s not like you have a radar-vectored guidance system to bring you in at night.”

  I looked down at my feet, then looked up. “There was frost on the ground at Scurry in the morning. When we got to Moses it was still there by midmorning.” I looked at them all. “We don’t have time to waste. Get a good night’s sleep—we’re going tomorrow.”

  PART THREE

  DESTINATIONS

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CLIMB THAT?”

  Rick volunteered to stay behind.