Fire, The by John A. Heldt Read Free Book Online

day or two. If he wasn't careful, he might find himself stuck in the past for weeks.
    There was also the little matter about what to wear. If he returned to 1910, he would have to dress the part. Though Sarah had said nothing about his attire, he could sense that it was on her mind. He had worn a T-shirt, a windbreaker, Levis, and black Nike jogging shoes to a time when men donned straw boater hats and women hobbled in hobble skirts. If he didn't want to stand out like a ballerina at a Boy Scout convention, he would have to find appropriate clothing.
    Kevin gave thought to spending money as well. He would not be able to use credit cards in 1910 or even modern currency – at least not if he wanted to stay out of jail. He would need bills and coins he could spend and spend without drawing unwanted attention. He would have to do another inventory of Asa's cache and separate what he could use from what he could not.
    He walked into the living room and stared at a large oil painting above the fireplace. It was a local artist's rendition of Wallace in the early 1900s. He had seen the painting several times in his twenty-two years but had never given it a second thought. It was simply one of those artifacts that grandparents kept in their houses to remind themselves of glory days that were probably never as glorious as they remembered them.
    This time, however, he gave the painting its due. It looked an awful lot like the town he had seen from a distance, a town with Victorian houses, horse-drawn wagons, and Gibson girls in long white dresses. He wondered what had gone through the artist's mind when he had captured a scene that now hung prominently in a twenty-first-century living room.
    Kevin had a lot to think about on this sixth day of his first summer vacation as a college graduate. He had a lot to do. He had to plan for a field trip that would likely be far more complicated and challenging than anything he had done in Joel Smith's earth sciences classes.
    He grabbed the keys to his own horse-powered chariot and bolted out the door. He didn't know if the town of Wallace had everything he needed for his next Excellent Adventure , but he knew that, even if it didn't, he could find it elsewhere. He would do this again and he would do it right. He would return to the past and, this time, he would go back prepared.
     

CHAPTER 8: KEVIN
     
    Kevin found the clothes he needed in a Coeur d'Alene costume shop that offered everything from Roman togas to rock-star tights. He settled on a gray suit and hat that would allow him to easily pass as a dapper young man with more prospects than a time-traveling speculator with a secret cache of gold and diamonds.
    He also bought a small, woven-paper suitcase from a second-hand store. He didn't know if the lockable case was fashionable or even available to Americans in 1910. He knew only that it looked like something a traveling businessman might own and was large enough to carry the things he wanted to take on his second trip to the past.
    Kevin took care of other matters as well. He printed a PDF file containing a lunar calendar for 1910. He was confident that the solstice sun that had sent him to July 22, 1910, earlier that morning would send him to the same date that afternoon but, if it didn't, he wanted to know what he was up against. He didn't want to leave more to chance than he had to.
    At noon Kevin packed the suitcase with five pairs of dark socks, boxer shorts, a slim digital camera, a comb, a toothbrush, toothpaste, two plastic razors, a penlight, a hundred double eagles, and bills and coins from the early 1900s totaling another two hundred dollars. Whether he went to the past for a few hours or a few days, he wanted to go in style and have a little fun.
    With the exception of the camera, Kevin didn't pack any modern toys or conveniences. He didn't want to be caught with anything that could be seen as an obvious anachronism. Taking the camera was risky enough. He could just picture a