Tracks to the Past

Nicholas went to bed shortly after midnight. It was his usual time — his friends would sign off from World of Warcraft after nightly raids. Most of them worked in the morning, and Nicholas did not. He reluctantly moved back in with his parents after realizing the history degree he acquired was specific to a job he no longer wanted. It was not that he did not love history, because he did; Nicholas tried working as a teacher's assistant for a while but quit after only a short stint. Still, Nicholas felt the students he encountered did not appreciate history as much as he did. He was shocked that students had never heard of the Punic Wars, the Norman Conquest, or stuff he considered mainstream history. Who does not get excited about the rise of Alexander the Great? All kids these days care about is Tik-Tok and going viral. Nicholas was young but considered himself an old soul.

After saying goodbye to his friends, Nicholas went into the routine he had had over the past few months. This consisted of performing an in-person raid of his parents' refrigerator before stomping off to bed to scroll through the wild world of the internet. The hypocrisy in this was not lost on him.

As he walked to his room, he saw his father asleep on the couch, watching a WWII documentary in the living room. It was not surprising as Nicholas' love of history came from his dad. Nicholas could fondly remember stories of the Renaissance and Ancient Egypt as his bedtime stories. The stories were always vivid, exciting, and unbelievably detailed. It was almost as if his father had been there.

Nicholas left the TV on, and he could still faintly hear its buzzing after changing into his pajamas and settling into bed. As Nicholas fell asleep, he wondered if he was born at the wrong time. He kept thinking that he would have been much happier to have lived another time. Perhaps during the Sengoku period of Japan, or his intellect would have served him well during the Enlightenment of the early modern period.

The following day, Nicholas awoke to the sound of a deafening train horn. His first thought was that his father had forgotten to turn off the TV last night. Nicholas became irritated and frustrated to be woken up in such a careless way. Nicholas was usually patient but staying at his parent's house had given him a short fuse as of late.

As Nicholas sat up and rubbed his eyes, he could not believe what he saw. His feet were on a blue carpet with strange yellow hexagon patterned shapes on the floor, and he was on a bench of red velvet. He was alone in a train cabin, and this train was moving fast.

Before Nicholas could collect his thoughts, the cabin door slid open. A short, fat man with a curly brown mustache in a conductor's outfit stood before Nicholas, holding a clipboard, and began speaking.

"Name?"

"Huh? My name is Nicholas. Who are you? Where am I? "

"Nicholas, what?"

"Nicholas Stinchcomb, my name is Nicholas Stinchcomb. Now please tell me, where am I? "

"What does it look like?" You are aboard a train, Mr. Stinchcomb."

"Which train, why train, what train?" Nicholas struggled to turn his thoughts into questions.

"Hmmm, I do not see a Stinchcomb on my list. What period are you planning to exit the train, Mr. Stinchcomb? "

"Period? What are you talking about? Have I been kidnapped? Where exactly is this train going?"

The conductor had a somewhat puzzled look on his face.

"You don't know, do you?"

As Nicholas shook his head back and forth and was ghostly white.

"Am I dead? Did I die in my sleep?"

The conductor let out a small chuckle, but Nicholas did not see the humor in his question.

"No, Mr. Stinchcomb, it just seems like there was a mistake. It happens sometimes. You are not dead. You are aboard the "Ambassador Express," and this train travels back in time; only backward, never forward. That's a different train.

As he said this, he snorted another laugh, and Nicholas could not tell if this man was joking or being serious.

"I have no desire to go back to the past. I don't even know how I got here," said Nicholas.

"No worries, Mr. Stinchcomb. As I said before, mistakes happen. All I need is your ticket, and we will get you back to your timeline and have you right as rain."

"Ticket? What ticket?"

"Well, the ticket to the "Emissary Express," of course, but I told you about that, Mr. Stinchcomb. Otherwise, you will have to pick a moment in the past to exit. What year are you from?"

Nicholas, still pale, felt confused and nauseous. He told himself this must be a dream. He remembered thinking before going to sleep that going to a different time would be cool, but he didn't mean it.

The conductor repeated his question.

"What year are you from, Mr. Stinchcomb?"

"2022," said Nicholas.

"Well, that should just be a short ride back then since we have only reached 1920," said the conductor and began writing on his clipboard.

"I will just need your ticket, and I will get you squared away and back to where you are from."

"1920?" Nicholas looked out the window of the train. To his surprise, he did not see any cars he was familiar with but rather— two vehicles, a Ford Model A Deluxe and a Studebaker Roadster. This seemed to confirm the conductor's claims.

Nicholas regained focus and began to search his pockets for a ticket but could not produce anything resembling a ticket. He did, however, find a small key that he had no earthly idea to what it belonged.

"I don't have a ticket," Nicholas said.

"Well, unfortunately, without a ticket, Mr. Stinchcomb, you will only be able to go backward, so best decide soon where you would like to get off. The longer you take to make your decision, the further back in time this train goes."

With that, the conductor shut the sliding door. When Nicholas got up to open it again to ask further questions, he was already gone. Nicholas overwhelmed, sat down in his cabin and began to cry.

After Nicholas recomposed himself, he stood up and decided to make the most of the situation. He still had no clue how any of this happened but would play the cards he was dealt.

Nicholas left the cabin and went to look for the conductor. As he walked down the train halls, he peered into other cabins, but they were empty. Then Nicholas got to the last cabin and saw a girl sitting by herself, looking out the window. Nicholas opened the sliding door to her cabin.

"Excuse me, I hope I am not bothering you, but I didn't see anyone else on the train and was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment. My name is Nicholas, and honestly, I don't know how I got here."

"Hello, Nicholas. My name is Rebecca. I take it this is your first time on the train?"

"Yes, it is. You have been on this train before?"

"Yes, quite a few times. And I know this adventure will be a memorable one."

"Oh, when are you planning on exiting?"

"In about 5 minutes." Rebecca pointed to a clock on the wall that indicated years instead of displaying time. This clock showed the year 1885 and was slowly moving backward. Nicholas felt silly if this clock was in all the cabins; he had never seen it before.

"I am going to go see the American Frontier. It will be my first time to see the wild west in person."

"I know this is going to seem strange, but would you mind if I tagged along?" said Nicholas.

"I don't see why not," said Rebecca. Then Rebecca pulled out a similar-looking key to the one in Nicholas's pocket and blew into the end like a whistle. Except this whistle did not make a sound when she blew it, but if as by coincidence, the train started to slow, until finally, it stopped.

"Well, that was pretty cool," said Nicholas.

When Nicholas stepped off the train with Rebecca five minutes later, he was surprised to see Rebecca's clothes had changed.

"Rebecca, when did you change clothes?"

"I didn't. That is just part of the magic."

Nicholas looked down at his attire and was surprised to see a bandana around his neck, a red button-down, blue chaps, and dusty brown cowboy boots.

"Cool," replied Nicholas.

"Well, let's get moving. We have a lot to see!" Rebecca was already ten steps ahead of Nicholas, who immediately ran to catch up with her.

Several hours later, Rebecca and Nicholas found themselves in a saloon drinking warm whiskey — abandoning the part of a tourist to become locals. Nicholas forgot for a moment all the worries he had been clinging to as of late.

"This has been a lot of fun. I am still expecting to wake up from a dream any minute," but Nicholas's smile drifted away.

"What's wrong, Nicholas?"

"Nothing. Well, something, but I don't want to bother you with it."

"You can tell me. I am all ears."

"I can't believe I will never see my family again."

"Why do you say that?"

"I don't have a train ticket home."

"Oh, is that all? I've got you covered." Rebecca reached into her small clutch and pulled out one ticket among many. She held it up for him to see, then returned it to her clutch.

"You can have this as soon as we get back to the train station."

"Really, oh my goodness, how can I ever repay you?" Nicholas started to tear up. He was so relieved.

"Don't worry about it. It was nice to have some company for once; honestly, I forgot how overwhelming this can be for the first time. Let me use the outhouse, and let's get you back."

Rebecca stood up from the table and walked out the saloon's swinging doors. About 15 minutes passed, and Nicholas wondered what had happened to his new friend.

Nicholas went outside to search for his friend. He stopped at the first person he saw, a man who looked like he had been living in a pile of dust for 10 years.

"Excuse me, sir, have you seen a lady with an orange shirt and jet-black hair come out?"

"I ain't seen nothing, and I ain't seen nobody," said the dusty old cowboy.

Nicholas proceeded to ask a few more people, but nobody seemed to be much help. They did not seem willing to share anything if they had seen anything. That was until a very tall and slender leather-skinned man, made even taller by an obnoxiously big black cowboy hat, approached Nicholas.

"Are you looking for your girlfriend?"

"Yes, I am. Her name is Rebecca and..."

Before Nicholas could finish, the tall cowboy cut him off.

"I saw her. She went down that way with another feller about 10 minutes ago."

The tall man pointed to an alley that was next to the saloon. Nicholas did not ask further questions and proceeded down the alley in a rush to find his friend, who held the only ticket to his way back home. Nicholas had almost reached the end of the alley and was about to decide to turn left or right but felt something or someone hit him in the back of the head.

When Nicholas awoke, he had the worst headache. It felt like the back of his head had been hit with an ax, and Nicholas's hands were tied. Across from him sat his friend Rebecca, whose hands were also tied.

"Nicholas, are you alright?" said Rebecca.

"What the hell happened? I feel like I got hit by a truck."

"We have been kidnapped, and they are hoping to collect a ransom."

"Well, that would explain the headache. Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"No, I am fine, just a bit scared. I have been in some hairy predicaments before, but none quite like this," replied Rebecca.

"Where did the men go, and how many are there?" Nicholas said.

"I believe there are just two, and I have no idea."

The tall cowboy who had spoken to Nicholas entered the room.

"Ahhh, finally awake, I see."

As Nicholas started to come to his wits, he could feel the warm blood drip from his head to the back of his neck. He was dizzy.

"What do you want from us? We don't have any money."

"Now, you say you don't, but I believe you do, and I am happy to give your friend here a little head bruising of her own if I don't start getting the truth soon."

The tall cowboy was then beckoned by someone else in another room that neither Rebecca nor Nicholas had seen yet, leaving them alone.

Rebecca was ghostly white, then turned to Nicholas.

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before."

Nicholas could feel himself starting to sweat. Was he really going to die like this? Oh, how he wished he was back in his parent's home or in his classroom teaching history again. That's it — history.

"Rebecca, what year is it?"

"It's 1881... but I don't…."

Rebecca was interrupted as the two men entered the room. The tall cowboy and another fellow looked to have leather skin and a red bandana that covered much of his face.

The man with the bandana spoke first, with a muffled voice.

"Look, we don't want to hurt you more than we already have. We know you have money. It's obvious you ain't from around here, and nobody travels unless they have their life savings or something of value."

"I swear, sir, we really don't, but we have something better than money that I can offer," said Nicholas.

"Okay, I am listening," said the man with the red bandana.

"I can predict the future if you just tell me what day it is."

At this comment, the man with the red bandana turned to the tall cowboy and said,

"Dammit, Frank, how hard did you hit this boy? You have knocked him crazy."

Nicholas interjected, "I swear, just give me a chance. What is today, and I will tell you what will happen in the future. If I am wrong, then you can kill us both."

Rebecca gave him a stare that said, "I am going to kill you if these men don't."

Nicholas repeated himself, "Now, please, what day is it?"

"Alright, I will play along, " Frank said, "It's July 1st. Now tell us the future, gypsy, so I can hurry up and kill you and move on to someone more worth my time."

"Okay, I will tell you, but first you have to promise to let both of us go."

"I don't think you are in any place to make demands. Let's just say I will consider it. It is July 1st," Frank replied.

July 1st, 1881. Nicholas repeated this date in his head over and over. The date had to be significant. Nicholas racked his brain, but his headache made it hard to think. The tall cowboy started loading his six-shooter before Nicholas finally blurted out,

"The President is going to be shot tomorrow in D.C.; President Garfield will be shot tomorrow at the railroad station."

The man with the bandana said, "Frank, it is obvious they are just trying to buy time. Let's just kill them and be done with it."

"Well, I don't know, Charles, now I am curious to see if our little magician can pull a rabbit from his hat. I say we leave them tied up and see if our boy wonder is right." The two men bickered back and forth before concluding that they would wait.

After the two brutes left the room, Rebecca expressed to Nicolas how impressed she was with his quick thinking. Nicholas shared his love of history with Rebecca and Nicholas really got to know Rebecca as well. He also enjoyed the fact that something he used to be teased about as a child was admired by someone else. Nicholas might have even loved this girl. Perhaps he was delusional and his ego talking. Perhaps it was because he was faminshed and extremely tired. Perhaps he was still not entirely sure he wasn't having a nightmare.

It took one day for the event to occur and another day for the paper to arrive with the news. The longest 48 hours of Nicholas's life passed before the two men returned to the room. The man with the red bandana was the first to enter the room, and now his face was uncovered, and he had a sly grin.

"Now, how in tarnation did you do that?"

Frank looked more worried than impressed.

"I told you, Charles, this kid must be more of a criminal than we are to know something like that."

The tall cowboy started to cut Rebecca's ropes, but they left Nicholas tied.

"Ma'am, you are free to go."

"What about my friend? I am not leaving without him," said Rebecca.

"Your friend is staying to perform another magic trick."

Rebecca tried to object to this, but Nicholas stopped her.

"Rebecca, just go; I will be fine."

Rebecca returned to the room and went through the barn door.

The two men approached Nicholas, who was now by himself.

"Well, what other predictions do you have for us?"

Nicholas replied, "If you bring me some food, I would be happy to tell you about the future again."

Nicholas thought he could buy some time to escape, as he had been slowly working on the knot that bound his hands for the last two days.

The men did not think this was such an unreasonable request, and Frank went to get some food. While Frank was away, Charles began drinking whiskey and offered some up to Nicholas. Nicholas refused, but Charles would not take no for an answer. He continued to make Nicholas drink until he was so drunk he could hardly sit up straight. Nicholas hadn't eaten in days, and the alcohol was more potent than anything he'd ever had in his life. It basically tasted like paint thinner. Eventually, he closed his eyes for what he thought was only a second, but he fell asleep.

When Nicholas woke up, his vision was blurry, and he was sitting in a train cabin next to his dad.

Still very groggy, Nicholas said, "Dad? Is that you?"

"Shhh, go back to sleep, Nicholas. We are almost home."

Nicholas tried everything in his power to stay awake, but he could not, so he fell asleep again and woke back up in his old bedroom.

Nicholas woke up, stirred, and finally came to his dad sitting at the end of his bed.

"Dad, you will never believe this dream I was having," but Nicolas noticed a bandage on his dad's arm that he did not recognize.

"It wasn't a dream, son, and I am sorry I put you in danger. I never expected what happened to happen the way it did. I was tailing you and Rebecca and.."

Nicholas interrupted, "Rebecca! You know, Rebecca? Is she safe?"

"Yes, yes. I know Rebecca, and Rebecca is fine. I will tell you about it soon, but first, I want to show you something, Nicholas."

Nicholas' dad went to the closet and pulled out a shoebox-sized box with a lock on the front of the box.

"Do you still have that key?"

Nicholas had forgotten all about the key he had found in his pocket at the beginning of his adventure. He reached into his pocket, and, sure enough, it was still there. He pulled the key out and stared at it in shock.

"Well, go on then."

Nicholas inserted the key into the oak box and turned it. When he opened the box, he found hundreds if not thousands of golden train tickets inside.

"But how?" said Nicholas. "I don't understand."

"I have been taking Ambassador Express since before I was your age. How do you think your bedtime stories were so detailed? It is because I was there to live it. When you fell out of love with history, I knew it was time for you to ride the train. History must never be forgotten, and history teachers must do more than write books and papers. They share their love of it so others can truly understand its importance in our world. I knew you would be back for more when I put that key in your pocket. Now that your head is healed up, what do you say? How about another ride on the train? I heard the Iron Age is just marvelous."