Chapter 1 Back From The Past

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     This Morning, when I woke up, I made some coffee and then let the dogs out. I looked online for the news, and after a few minutes I'd had enough of what is happening in this crazy world of ours. After a while, when they did not return, I walked outside to see where they were, with no success. I looked into the garage and found some evidence of what they had been up to. The dogs had pawed and chewed their way into the box that held what had belonged to Crow. 

      Then, a little later, I began to worry. I was taking care of Linda’s dog, Rex while she was visiting friends in Phoenix, and I knew that I’d be in real trouble if I couldn’t find him. I began to search around the yard and into the garage where I found the mess the that the dogs had made. It was then that I received the call I had begun to dread.

    “Hi Linda! How is your visit?” My words fell from my mouth like water.

    “Is? I left Phoenix over an hour ago and I enjoyed my stay there. How was Rex? Did he behave?”

    “Yes, as always.” I wasn’t volunteering any more information than necessary, in fact I had no more information at all to give her with the exception that her Rex was missing and that I had no idea where he was.

    “You sound pretty nervous,” she announced. “What’s going on?”

    “Nah... Nothing,” I stammered. “How much time, I mean, when will you arrive?”

    “That’s a funny question to ask, and why are you so nervous? I am in Benson and I will see you in a minute or two.”

    Without thinking, I just hung up the phone. “It doesn’t make any difference. I’m kaput anyway. I’m cooked, I’m done, I’m a dead man.”

    I began rummaging through the mess the dogs had left when I found this photograph of Laurel and Hardy, an old post card with not only the great comedians themselves, but also two dogs, and the dogs looked just like Rex and Jack. 

    "That's when I heard Linda’s Jeep pull up into the driveway, and miraculously, I felt a nudge against my calf. Just as Linda walked into the garage, I turned to see Jack, and Rex with Jack's toy in his mouth. Both were wearing wildly wagging tails. 

    “There’s my boy!,” Linda purred

    Rex dropped Jack’s toy as I tucked the old card that I had found into my waist band. Linda gave Rex a good petting, and we chatted for a minute or two. Then Linda whisked Rex into the Jeep. She waved as she left the driveway with Rex sitting next to her, and drove down the street toward 4th street.

    My heart was still racing as she drove away. I pondered at all that had happened in such a short time. Then I pulled the photograph from my waistband and verified that the dogs in the photograph did seem to look just like Rex and Jack. At the same time I turned to see Jack as he walked toward me. I touched his side and looked at the card again.

   “I wonder,” I asked myself. “I just wonder.”

    I looked again at the mess the the dogs had created. Crows papers had been scattered about the garage. I hadn't seen Crow in a couple of years, and I had held a sense of dread. Now seeing his things spread out on the garage floor, the sense of loss overtook me again. Was this old yellowed photograph related some how to Crow's travels?

  I thought I was done with that empty feeling. I remember how it all happened. It's been in excess of 30 years since CrowMac was a teenager, and through some sort of bioelectrometabolic reaction, he had been transferred back into history. He would become a slave on a Virginia tobacco plantation. Later, upon his return, his story would be backed by the receipt of a 100 year old letter from a friend he had met while he was there. As an adult, CrowMac, then Crow had been identified as one of only two people who had the ability to travel back through time, but at a cost. 

    You see, I am the Mr. Mack who had adopted CrowMac and was his teacher on the Navajo Reservation. I taught him to love history, and that love would be the source of his travels as well as his troubles. And I still remember everything. I thought it odd that wherever or whatever time Crow traveled, He became just like the people of the time. He'd be dressed in the cloths of the time, and even have the color of their skin. He was just like them, and often it would be dangerous. This was especially true when he was transferred back to a time when he'd be a slave.

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