Chapter 2
“Blake Barth? Really? That’s the name you’re using now? A cat could come up with something more original.”
Earl Blacke — the name he was last known by — didn’t wheel around, didn’t bother to answer Dante. With a pack strapped to his back and a good pair of boots, he didn’t need what Dante came to offer. What Earl needed was to decide who he was, who he was going to be, and find a purpose for himself. Dante couldn’t give that to him.
“Midlife crises don’t start until after forty in this century. You don’t hit thirty until September, so you’ve got over a decade to go until this is appropriate. Or maybe you’re getting your Zen on, huh? There’s an old television show I saw on the internet about a dude roaming the country with a bedroll searching for his Zen.” Dante yipped at Earl’s heels like a drunken miner down on his luck.
With forty years of his life to live over, Earl didn’t fret about his age anymore. “There’s nothing wrong with Zen. What do you know about it? You know less about this time and place than I do.” At least, Earl was human. Dante couldn’t claim that despite appearing like one.
“You can’t stay out here in the open, and you know it. They’ll find you, they’ll hunt you.” The concern had more to do with preserving his hide than Earl’s.
In 1888, Earl had left Northern California to escape his life gone wrong. He had ended up camping outside of Settler and had entered the rift in the woods when it burst open, not knowing what it was. It had spit him out in this century and returned his youth. The rift hadn’t let him near it since, otherwise he’d go through it now, hoping it’d give him a third lease on life.
The Cascades had faded to faint purple nuggets strung along the distant horizon. Earl headed east. He didn’t know where other than away from Settler, his past, war, and the possibility he might spill Charming’s secrets. He had promised not to, and he’d keep his vow. “The Rifters will prevent the hunters from leaving Settler.”
“So you hope. The other side will send nastier and nastier stuff until nothing can resist. They will eradicate us before we can mount an offensive. Your only choice is to leave this world.”
“Your offensive, your mounting. Not mine. Get it straight.” Earl reeled around, facing a man who could be his brother. They appeared about the same age, had the same medium athletic builds, the same cold blue eyes, the same stylish shadows of beards, and blond hair. Dante’s had more brown in it than Earl’s and had more length. Earl had more curl to his. “You’re only counting noble choices. Do you know where noble got me?”
“Here we go. Are you going to tell me about how the war used you up and spat you out again?” Like Earl, Dante wore faded blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a khaki button-down shirt. Unlike Earl, he didn’t wear a hat.
Lowering the brim of his brown cowboy hat, Earl put Dante out of his sight. “There’s no love for the soldier after battles are done. Society has no use for trained thugs and killers. The soldier forgets how to live with peace and kindness.”
Dust kicked up in a dirty cloud under Dante’s feet. He moved closer, poking Earl’s hat up, staring into Earl’s rotting soul. “Some worlds have figured out how to make the transition for their fighters. I could introduce you to their reformers.”
He shrugged out of Dante’s reach. “Just let me alone. I have to figure this out for myself.”
Dante squinted. “The self pity does nothing for you.”
“It’s not pity, it’s figuring. Something you don’t know much about.”
Arriving here with an honorable cause, Dante hadn’t given the maneuver against his peers the consideration he ought. Now the Governors of the rift would hunt him until he disappeared from all worlds. He hadn’t figured on that and had recruited Charming to get to Earl. Yesterday he had confessed he needed Earl as his general. No way would Earl agree.
Dante’s eyes rolled up toward the cloudless sky. “How do you figure that?”
“Oh, shut it.” Earl stepped around him, continuing across the dusty plains stretching between the buttes.
“Don’t you think running out on Charming repeats your old ways, the ones you want to change?”
“I did change. I did right by her.”
“Yet you’re leaving.”
“Maybe I’ll come back. I didn’t kill Earl Blacke. If for no other reason, it’s best to put some distance between me and the idiot ghost who kept calling me Bart. People might figure out who I really am.”
“It’s easy to explain the resemblance to anyone but the Rifters. Most of them already know, so why do you care? People have doppelgangers in every age. I’ve seen it online with celebrities and photos from the 1800’s. You’re running from fools gold, you fool. And you need to get this straight, you didn’t kill your other personas, you abandoned them. A distinct pattern.”
“Which is none of your business.”
“You didn’t pop out of the rift into this century on any whim, my black-hearted friend. I pried you loose from nonexistence, a place between worlds worse than any other.”
Earl shook his head. Dante was more stubborn than a miner who had found a speck of gold amid a heap of worthless rock. “And I suppose you lured me into the gate in 1888?”
Undaunted, Dante kept pace beside Earl. “No. You shouldn’t have been able to enter at all. That’s what’s special about you, why I can’t let you go.”
“You have no choice in the matter.” Earl pressed his lips firmly together, refusing to glance at Dante.
“I’ll let you have some time to sort yourself out. You’ll come round to my way of things. You have no choice in the matter.”
Oh, yes he did. Earl furrowed his brow into a snarl, directing it at the horizon and a puff of dirt. Dante had vanished, but not for long. Before he returned with more taunting, Earl would get good and lost. He veered north, picking up the pace.