How to Stop Time(50)

They didn’t even break away to look at the photos. They knew who they were. And they knew I knew who they were too. I had to talk.

‘Listen, I’m not trying to get you into any trouble. I’m just trying to explain that it’s all right. There are lots of people like you. I don’t know your whole story, but you both look about the same age. I’m guessing you were born shortly after seventeen hundred. Now, I don’t know if during that time you have come into contact with other people with this condition, apart from each other, but I can assure you there are many of them. Many of us. Thousands, possibly. And our condition is dangerous. It has been called by a doctor in England, anageria. When it becomes public – either because we decide to tell people, or people find us out – then we are in danger. And the people we care for are in danger. We are either locked away in a madhouse, pursued and imprisoned in the name of science, or murdered by the servants of superstition. So, as I am sure you know, your lives are at risk.’

Louis scratched his stubble. ‘From this side of the gun, looks like you are the one whose life hangs in the breeze.’

Joe was frowning. ‘So what are you asking us, mister?’

A deep breath. ‘I’m just here with a proposition. Look, people here in Bisbee already have their suspicions about you. Word is leaking out. This is the age of photography now. Our past has evidence.’ As I was hearing myself, with fear slowly creeping into my voice, I realised how much I was simply parroting Hendrich. Everything I was saying was the kind of thing Hendrich said. There was something hollow to every word. ‘There’s a society, like a union, working for the collective good. We are trying to get every person with this condition, this condition they call anageria, to be part of the society. It helps people. It assists them, when they need to move on and begin being someone else. That help can be money, and it can be in the form of papers and documents.’

Joe and Louis exchanged thoughts with their eyes. Louis’ eyes were duller, less illuminated with intelligence. He looked dangerously stupid, but he was the more malleable one. The one most likely to be sold. Joe was the strong one, in body and mind. Joe was the one who held his Colt without a quiver.

‘How much money you talkin’?’ Louis asked as an insect buzzed around his head.

‘It depends on need. The society allocates budgets according to the requirements of each particular case.’ God, I really was starting to sound like Hendrich.

Joe shook his head. ‘Didn’t you hear the man, Louis? He’s tellin’ us to move out of Bisbee. And that just ain’t gonna work, see. We’ve got it good here. We have good relations with folk here. We done our roamin’, and I been all over this country since I got off the boat all those years ago. And I ain’t bein’ told to move.’

‘It will be best for you if you do. You see, the society says that after eight years—’

Joe sighed a sigh that was halfway to a growl. ‘The society says? The society says? We ain’t in no society and we ain’t ever gonna be in no society. You understand me?’

‘I’m sorry but—’

‘I wanna put a hole in that head of yours.’

‘Listen, the society have contacted the law officials. They know I am here. If you shoot me, you will be caught.’

They both laughed at this.

‘You hear that, Louis?’

‘I heard ’im all right.’

‘Best we explain to Mr Peter Whicheverhisnameis why the joke is funny.’

‘You can call me Tom. See, I’m like you. I’ve had many names.’

Joe ignored me completely and carried on with his train of thought. ‘It’s all right. I’ll do it. See, the joke is funny cos there ain’t no law that touches us ’round here. This here ain’t an ordinary town. We’ve been helping Sheriff Downey and old P.D. out for some time now.’

P.D. Phelps Dodge. I’d been given enough information about Bisbee to know that Phelps Dodge was the major mining company in the area.

‘In actual fact,’ Joe went on, ‘we helped them instigate the Bisbee deportation. You know about that, right?’

I knew something about it. I knew that, in 1919, hundreds of striking miners had been roughly kidnapped and deported out of town.

‘So comin’ here and talkin’ about propositions and your little union ain’t gonna sway us too much. The last union men we dealt with we kicked all the way to New Mexico, and we did it with the sheriff’s seal of approval . . . Now, you really do look hot and bothered. Let’s go for a little walk and cool your blood a little . . .’

It was dark now. Desert-dark.

The air was turning chill, but I was sweating and sore and aching and my whisky-sour mouth was as dry as the grave I had been digging for over an hour.

Bullets weren’t infections. They weren’t the plague or one of the other hundred or so illnesses albas were able to resist. As with ultimate old age, there was no immunity from a bullet. And I didn’t want to die. I had to stay alive for Marion. Hendrich had convinced me we were getting closer to finding her.

At least one of them had had their revolver fixed on me the whole time I’d been digging. This situation didn’t change as they beckoned me out of the hole. And all the time their two dark Saddlebred horses stayed nibbling and whispering at each other.