cousin went to. We’re from a California that doesn’t exist yet, Rufus. California of nineteen seventy- six.”
“What’s that?”
“I mean we come from a different time as well as a different place. I
told you it was hard to understand.” “But what’s nineteen seventy- six?”
“That’s the year. That’s what year it is for us when we’re at home.” “But it’s eighteen nineteen. It’s eighteen nineteen everywhere. You’re
talking crazy.”
“No doubt. This is a crazy thing that’s happened to us. But I’m telling you the truth. We come from a future time and place. I don’t know how we get here. We don’t want to come. We don’t belong here. But when you’re in trouble, somehow you reach me, call me, and I come— although as you can see now, I can’t always help you.” I could have told him about our blood relationship. Maybe I would if I saw him again when he was older. For now, though, I had confused him enough.
“This is crazy stuff,” he repeated. He looked at Kevin. “You tell me. Are you from California?”
Kevin nodded. “Yes.”
“Then are you Spanish? California is Spanish.”
“It is now, but it will be part of the United States eventually, just like
Maryland or Pennsylvania.” “When?”
“It will become a state in eighteen fifty.”
“But it’s only eighteen nineteen. How could you know …?” He broke off, looked from Kevin to me in confusion. “This isn’t real,” he said. “You’re making it all up.”
“It’s real,” said Kevin quietly. “But how could it be?”
“We don’t know. But it is.”
He thought for a while looking from one to the other of us. “I don’t believe you,” he said.
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Kevin made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I don’t blame you.”
I shrugged. “All right, Rufe. I wanted you to know the truth, but I can’t blame you for not being able to accept it either.”
“Nineteen seventy-six,” said the boy slowly. He shook his head and closed his eyes. I wondered why I had bothered to try to convince him. After all, how accepting would I be if I met a man who claimed to be from eighteen nineteen—or two thousand nineteen, for that matter. Time travel was science fiction in nineteen seventy-six. In eighteen nineteen— Rufus was right—it was sheer insanity. No one but a child would even have listened to Kevin and me talk about it.
“If you know California’s going to be a state,” said Rufus, “you must know some other things that are going to happen.”
“We do,” I admitted. “Some things. Not very much. We’re not histo- rians.”
“But you ought to know everything if it already happened in your time.”
“How much do you know about seventeen nineteen, Rufe?” He stared at me blankly.
“People don’t learn everything about the times that came before them,” I said. “Why should they?”
He sighed. “Tell me something, Dana. I’m trying to believe you.”
I dug back into the American history that I had learned both in and out of school. “Well, if this is eighteen nineteen, the President is James Monroe, right?”
“Yeah.”
“The next President will be John Quincy Adams.” “When?”
I frowned, calling back more of the list of Presidents I had memorized for no particular reason when I was in school. “In eighteen twenty-four. Monroe had—will have—two terms.”
“What else?”
I looked at Kevin.
He shrugged. “All I can think of is something I got from those books we looked through last night. In eighteen twenty, the Missouri Compro- mise opened the way for Missouri to come into the Union as a slave state and Maine to come in as a free state. Do you have any idea what I’m talk- ing about, Rufus?”
“No, sir.”
64 KINDRED
“I didn’t think so. Have you got any money?” “Money? Me? No.”
“Well, you’ve seen money, haven’t you?” “Yes, sir.”
“Coins should have the year they were made stamped on them, even
now.”
“They do.”
Kevin reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of change. He held it out to Rufus and Rufus picked out a few coins. “Nineteen sixty- five,” he read, “nineteen sixty-seven, nineteen seventy-one, nineteen sev- enty. None of them say nineteen seventy-six.”
“None of them say eighteen-anything either,” said Kevin. “But here.” He picked out a bicentennial quarter and handed it to Rufus.
“Seventeen seventy-six, nineteen seventy-six,” the boy read. “Two dates.”
“The country’s two hundred years old in nineteen seventy-six,” said Kevin. “Some of the money was changed to commemorate the anniver- sary. Are you convinced?”
“Well, I guess you could have made these yourself.”
Kevin took back his money. “You might not know about Missouri, kid,” he said wearily. “But you’d have made a good Missourian.”
“What?”
“Just a joke. Hasn’t come into fashion yet.”
Rufus looked troubled. “I believe you. I don’t understand, like Dana said, but I guess I believe.”
Kevin sighed. “Thank God.”
Rufus looked up at Kevin and managed to grin. “You aren’t as bad as
I thought you’d be.”
“Bad?” Kevin looked at me accusingly.
“I didn’t tell him anything about you,” I said.
“I saw you,” said Rufus. “You were fighting with Dana just before you came here, or … it looked like fighting. Did you make all those marks on her face?”
“No, he didn’t,” I said quickly. “And he and I weren’t fighting.” “Wait a minute,” said Kevin. “How could he know about that?”
“Like he said.” I shrugged. “He saw us before we got here. I don’t know how he does it, but he’s done it before.” I looked down at Rufus. “Have you told anyone else about seeing me?”
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“Just Nigel. Nobody else would believe me.”
“Good. Best not to tell anyone else about us now either. Nothing about California or nineteen seventy-six.” I took Kevin’s hand and held it. “We’re going to have to fit in as best we can with the people here for as long as we have to stay. That means we’re going to have to play the roles you gave us.”
“You’ll say you belong to him?”
“Yes. I want you to say it too if anyone asks you.”
“That’s better than saying you’re his wife. Nobody would believe that.”
Kevin made a sound of disgust. “I wonder how long we’ll be stuck here,” he muttered. “I think I’m getting homesick already.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But stay close to me. You got here because you were holding me. I’m afraid that may be the only way you can get home.”
3
Rufus’s father arrived on a flat-bed wagon, carrying his familiar long rifle—an old muzzleloader, I realized. With him in the wagon was Nigel and a tall stocky black man. Tom Weylin was tall himself, but too lean to be as impressive as his massive slave. Weylin didn’t look especially vicious or depraved. Right now, he only looked annoyed. We stood up as he climbed down from the wagon and came to face us.
“What happened here?” he asked suspiciously.
“The boy has broken his leg,” said Kevin. “Are you his father?” “Yes. Who are you?”
“My name’s Kevin Franklin.” He glanced at me, but caught himself and didn’t introduce me. “We came across the two boys right after the accident happened, and I thought we should stay with your son until you came for him.”
Weylin grunted and knelt to look at Rufus’s leg. “Guess it’s broken all right. Wonder how much that’ll cost me.”
The black man gave him a look of disgust that would surely have angered him if he had seen it.
66 KINDRED
“What were you doing climbing a damn tree?” Weylin demanded of
Rufus.
Rufus stared at him silently.
Weylin muttered something I didn’t quite catch. He stood up and ges- tured sharply to the black man. The man came forward, lifted Rufus gen- tly, and placed him on the wagon. Rufus’s face twisted in pain as he was lifted, and he cried out as he was lowered into the wagon. Kevin and I should have made a splint for that leg, I thought belatedly. I followed the black man to the wagon.
Rufus grabbed my arm and held it, obviously trying not to cry. His voice was a husky whisper.
“Don’t go, Dana.”
I didn’t want to go. I
