Indiana Belle (American Journey Book 3) (8 page)

"I'll do that," Cameron said in a nervous voice. He wondered what other surprises waited for him. "Is there anything else I need to do?"

"No. Just walk out that door and embrace 1925."

"OK."

Bell offered a hand.

"Good luck, Mr. Coelho. I look forward to our next visit."

Cameron shook the hand.

"Goodbye, Professor."

Bell turned around and exited the scene. Unlike his wife, he did not stop in the doorway and give his guest one last look. He stepped out of the chamber and shut the door like a custodian closing a supply room at the end of a shift.

The time traveler took a breath, thought about Bell's matter-of-fact departure, and then turned toward the outer door. This was it, he thought. This was the moment of truth.

Cameron carried his bags to the door, set them down, and pondered the professor's warning about dogs. He knocked lightly on the door and waited for Fido to bark. When he heard nothing ominous in reply, he reached for the knob, turned it easily, and pushed the door open.

Cameron squinted as bright sunlight assaulted his eyes. He gave himself a moment to adjust to the light, listened again for canine killers, and grabbed his luggage. If any dogs or nosy neighbors or suspicious policemen patrolled the property, they did not announce themselves.

The Rhode Islander took a breath and stepped into the California sunshine. He started up a brick stairway that led, presumably, to Geoffrey Bell's backyard and the age of silent movies.

Cameron knew even before he reached the top of the stairs that he was in a different time. The air was cool and moist, not warm and dry. The bright sun loomed higher in the sky.

Cameron rushed up the last few steps, stepped onto a weedy lawn, and moved quickly toward a spot that offered a good view of his surroundings. He dropped his luggage, spun around, and gawked at everything he saw.

He gawked because everything he saw was different. Victorian mansions stood next to newer Craftsman bungalows. Utility poles lined wider streets and towered over shiny black Model T's that looked fresh off the Ford assembly lines.

Cameron looked for the fences he had seen coming in, but he saw none. He did not see satellite dishes, either, or riding mowers or trampolines or even swimming pools. What he did see was a scene stolen from a movie set or the pages of a history book.

Nineteen twenty-five was no longer the focus of a dissertation or even the promise of a time-traveling professor. It was the world around him.

Cameron raised his arms and smiled. He had done it. He had really done it. He had traveled to the past in the blink of an eye. The question now was where he would go from here.

CHAPTER 9: CAMERON

Linn County, Iowa – Saturday, March 14, 1925

Cameron gazed out his window and smiled as a man driving a Model T on a road that ran parallel to the tracks tried in vain to keep up with the train. He knew that someday passenger vehicles would zip past trains on these tracks, but today was not that day. Even in 1925, the Tin Lizzy was still no match for the Iron Horse.

Cameron watched the Ford as it disappeared from sight and then turned his attention to the documents on his lap. Among the items he had selected to review were the diary pages he had shown Professor Bell and the one he had not. He reread a passage that was etched in his mind.

"Edmund Fisher, a representative from West Coast Paper, visited the Post this afternoon to peddle newsprint. When I told him that my father and uncle had once passed through Truckee, he waxed poetic about his hometown and the Sierra Nevada. Mother, of course, has long had a fascination with Truckee. She insists to this day that Father and Uncle Percival discovered a time-travel formula in a cave ten miles south of that town. I did not tell her about my encounter with Mr. Fisher. I did not want to encourage her."

Cameron added the diary page to a stack of papers on the seat to his right and then pulled out a small atlas of California he had purchased in Los Angeles. He opened the thin paperback book to page 24, slid his finger across a topographical map of Placer County, and let it settle on a spot his contemporaries knew as Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Winter Olympics.

Cameron knew that somewhere in that land of tall trees, blue lakes, and challenging ski slopes lay a cave that time had forgotten – or at least cartographers had never found. Though it was not named or marked or even acknowledged in official sources, it existed. It existed just as surely as the magic tunnel below the Painted Lady and the once dead world that was now alive.

The time traveler gazed again out his window, as fields and farmhouses passed in a blur, and pondered his many obligations to Professor Geoffrey Bell. He definitely owed him the cave and the crystals and would do his best to deliver them. Whether he owed him anything else was the subject of a debate that raged in his mind.

For four days, Cameron tried to answer a question that seemed tied to his dilemma. Was time a single stream? Or was it many streams that flowed simultaneously and sometimes converged?

The question was not moot. If time was the former, then Cameron had a moral obligation to leave well enough alone. He had no choice but to pick Candice Bell's brain, let her die, and fulfill his business obligation to her distant relative. If time was the latter, however, he had options. He had the freedom to act independently and write a new script. One could not mess up history, after all, if that
version
of history had never played out.

Cameron gathered his maps, papers, and photos and returned all but one to the satchel that had been his constant companion since Los Angeles. He placed the satchel on the floor of the passenger coach, between his legs, and put a lone photograph in his lap. He never tired of studying its particulars. He knew every pleasant detail and uncommon imperfection.

Cameron started to look at the photo when he heard a giggle. He looked at the seats across the aisle and saw three college-age women return his gaze. One smiled and waved. Another smiled and giggled. The third just smiled.

All three women had boarded the train in Cedar Rapids. Attired in sequined dresses, pearls, and cloche hats, they looked like country girls headed to a flapper convention.

"Hi," Wavy said.

"Hello," Cameron replied.

"Hi," Giggles and Smiley said in rapid succession.

Cameron chuckled.

"Hi."

"Are you going to Chicago or passing through?" Wavy asked.

"I'm passing through. I'm headed to Evansville, Indiana."

"Oh. That's too bad.
We're
headed to Chicago."

"Who are 'we'?"

"I'm sorry. I'm Alice," Wavy said. "My friends are Flo and Winnie."

"Hi, Alice, Flo, and Winnie. I'm Cameron. What do you plan to do in Chicago?"

Alice grinned.

"We plan to do the things we can't do in Cedar Rapids."

Flo and Winnie giggled.

"How old are you ladies?" Cameron asked.

"Twenty-one," Alice said. "Is that too young?"

Cameron smiled.

"Oh, no. It's perfect."

The cats purred.

Cameron took a moment to assess his fan club. Alice, the prettiest, had wavy blond hair, blue eyes, and dimples that could distract a trucker at a hundred yards. Flo, the giggly redhead, was the best dressed. Winnie, the shy brunette, had a smile that belonged in an art gallery.

"Do your parents know you're headed to Chicago?" Cameron asked.

"Yes," Alice said.

"Do they know you're planning to do the things you 'can't do in Cedar Rapids'?"

"No. They think we're visiting Flo's aunt."

"So you're renegades?"

"No," Flo said. "We're Presbyterians."

Alice and Winnie laughed.

"It appears you're comedians as well," Cameron said.

Alice, the closest to the aisle, put her hand to her chin and studied the mystery man.

"I've seen you before," she said.

"I don't think so," Cameron replied.

"Are you sure?"

Cameron nodded.

"I'm positive. If there is one thing I'm sure of, it's that."

Alice sighed.

"You look just like a guy at school."

"What school is that?" Cameron asked.

"Iowa," Alice said. "We're students there."

"So are you ladies looking for a respite from college?"

"No. We're looking for trouble."

Cameron laughed.

"That's right," he said. "I'm sorry."

"There is no need to apologize," Alice said. She smiled. "You're just forgetful."

"I guess I—"

Cameron paused when a porter worked his way up the aisle and notified passengers that the dining car was serving lunch. He wanted to resume the conversation a moment later, when the porter left the car, but he did not get the chance. Alice, Flo, and Winnie got out of their seats.

"Are you getting lunch?" Cameron asked.

Alice nodded.

"None of us have eaten today. Why don't you join us?"

"I probably shouldn't."

"I think you should," Alice said.

"I don't know."

Alice raised a brow.

"We could make you."

Flo and Winnie giggled.

Cameron chuckled and shook his head.

"All right. I'll come. Save me a seat. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"OK," Alice said. She stared at him. "Don't renege."

"I won't."

Cameron smiled as the women exited the coach. He wasn't hungry or even eager to leave his seat, but he wasn't about to cross these three. Only an idiot would scorn a trio of flappers.

He lifted his satchel from the floor, popped it open, and dropped the sepia photo of his favorite flapper inside. After a moment of reflection, he closed the bag, gazed one last time at the gray Iowa landscape, and pondered the days and weeks ahead.

He did not know what awaited him in Indiana. He did not know what he would do when he got there. All he knew on the afternoon of March 14, 1925, is that he would not allow someone else, even his benefactor, to determine his course.

Cameron would examine all his options, weigh them carefully, and pick one that made sense. If that upset Geoffrey Bell, then so be it. He would assess the situation and go with the flow. He would do what he had to do, do it with conviction, and let his conscience be his guide.

CHAPTER 10: CAMERON

Evansville, Indiana – Monday, March 16, 1925

The first thing Cameron noticed when he stepped out of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot was that Evansville, Indiana, was not Los Angeles or Chicago. It was not even the Evansville he remembered visiting in January 2017. It was a smaller, grayer, quieter community that seemed as far removed from the hustle and bustle of the Roaring Twenties as the many isolated farms he had seen on the train trip east.

With his satchel in one hand and his suitcase in the other, Cameron headed south on Fulton Avenue to Riverside Avenue, a picturesque street that hugged a bend in the Ohio River. Shaped like a U, the bend was a geographic curiosity, a conspicuous curve in the 350-mile-long moat that protected the Hoosier State from the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

As he walked toward the center of town, Cameron became increasingly conscious of his status as a stranger in a strange land. Though he looked like many of the dapper men he passed on the sidewalk, he felt out of place. He wondered how long it would be before he said or did something that drew unwanted attention.

Despite these and other concerns, he remained calm and focused. He had done his homework on Evansville, even before leaving Los Angeles, and knew it was only a matter of time before he blended in with the natives in the age of Calvin Coolidge, Prohibition, and jazz.

Cameron picked up his step as he crossed Division, Vine, and Sycamore – streets with generic names – and maintained that clip until he reached the intersection with Main Street. Though he had no schedule to keep, he was eager to explore a district he had mapped out in his mind. Everything he needed to see in this town lay in the next eight blocks.

He turned northeast, away from the river, and started down Main. With each tentative step, he moved closer to a scene that looked like the set of a silent movie. Gentlemen in pinstriped suits and straw hats escorted ladies in coats and frocks into and out of shops. Men honked at pedestrians, bicyclists, and other motorists as they drove roadsters and coupes through chaotic intersections. People unwilling to travel the busy street on foot jumped onto trolleys or piled into cabs. If Evansville wasn't Los Angeles or Chicago, it wasn't Mayberry either.

Cameron glanced at a watch he had purchased in Denver, noted the time of one thirty, and crossed Second Street. He considered stopping at a café for a bite to eat but decided instead to keep moving. He wanted to see Evansville's commercial heart while it was beating in the middle of the busiest day of the week.

It wasn't long before he saw something worth seeing. Sandwiched between a cigar shop and a bank was a business Cameron knew well – or at least knew well through the product it had produced since 1850. The
Evansville Record
was the city's oldest newspaper. A fierce rival of the
Evansville Post
, it had aggressively reported Candice Bell's murder and Tom Parker's trial, using the
Post's
misfortune to sell papers and gain leverage in a competitive marketplace.

Cameron peeked in the paper's front window. He saw a receptionist chew on her nails and a man, probably a reporter, hang a jacket on a rack and scurry into the newsroom. He considered stepping inside to buy a copy of the paper when he heard a boy call out to him.

"Hey, mister, do you want to buy a paper?"

Cameron turned around.

"I do," he said. "Is that today's edition?"

The boy nodded.

"It's hot off the press."

Cameron looked at the youth, who was no more than twelve, and smiled when he saw his flat cap, bow tie, and suspenders. He frowned when he saw a cigarette tucked behind his ear.