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  Kyle opened the tent flap and exited. Annika watched the man and his burnt shadow leave the tent.

  Standing Rock Reservation

  South Dakota

  September 24, 1890

  19:40 hours

  Timeline 003

  Kyle scanned the moonlit landscape for Padma. Campfires near tipis dotted the nighttime scene. Blended with the sounds of crickets, Kyle could hear conversations as families talked about their day, including the news of the latest strange arrival. Who was the tiny woman in black? She brought with her the same magic weapon as Red Star. The Messiah was obviously displeased with her presence. Were they enemies? Was the white woman in black a demon intent on defeating the Messiah?

  Families debated about whether the strangers were indeed sent by the Great Spirit, and, even if they were, if anyone was truly capable of defeating the massive army of the whites.

  Kyle saw that their tent was dark. He walked through the cottonwood trees toward the river. When he reached the high bank, he scanned the landscape for Padma. To his right, a few dozen yards away, he saw the orange glow of a cigarette. Padma was seated on the bank, watching the moon and starlight ripple off the slow-motion current.

  The stars brilliantly pierced the night sky. The electric dust of the Milky Way stretched across the vista. A cool breeze wafted off the river.

  Padma held her knife hand up to the moon, eclipsing it. The blue-white corona glowed between her fingertips.

  Kyle sat down next to her.

  “It’s breathtaking,” Padma said.

  “Almost as breathtaking as my wife,” Kyle said.

  Padma nodded. “So that was the perfect thing to say to me right now.”

  Kyle knew his wife needed to talk. He waited patiently.

  Padma took a draw from her cigarette and exhaled. The moonlight illuminated the smoke from her lips.

  “I want you to kill her,” Padma said flatly.

  Kyle swung his head to face Padma, stunned. Padma’s stare did not shift from the river. Kyle wasn’t sure whether his wife was joking.

  “Excuse me?”

  “She will kill us both in a heartbeat. We’re going to war against the United States Army. We can’t fight an army at the same time we’re wondering when our assassin is going to kill us in our sleep.”

  “She can’t kill us and return to her time,” Kyle said. “I’ve seen to that. She doesn’t want to be here anymore than you do. She’s an asset in the war that is coming.”

  “Convenient that your lover has a nice asset,” Padma snarked.

  Kyle was wounded. “That woman is not my lover! The woman you’re referring to is dead and decomposed at the bottom of a river in Connecticut. In case you hadn’t noticed, this version tried to kill me a few hours ago.”

  “All the more reason to kill her now,” said Padma. “If you won’t do it, I’ll have my people take care of it.”

  “Your people?” Kyle asked, incredulous. “I beg your pardon?”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m the fucking Messiah,” Padma said. “There are 3,000 people in this village—my people. And more are on the way.”

  Padma snapped her fingers. “I do this, and she’s gone.”

  Kyle didn’t recognize this vengeful woman, intoxicated by power.

  “It’s a mistake,” Kyle said. “She’s the only shot we have at getting back to our time and our lives. We can’t show up at the front door of the Time Tunnel and expect a warm welcome. We’ll be locked up the moment we do.”

  Padma was silent as she took another draw on her cigarette.

  “That’s your time,” she said. “Not mine. You want to go back with her? Feel free to leave anytime.”

  Padma put out her cigarette on the bank, got up, and walked away, leaving Kyle alone.

  Standing Rock Reservation

  South Dakota

  September 25, 1890

  07:15 hours

  Timeline 003

  Annika followed Kyle toward the two covered wagons on the outskirts of the village. The tribespeople had been warned by the Messiah to stay well away from them. The morning was overcast. A cool breeze hinted of fall.

  A train of sutures ran along Annika’s right temple. Kyle had performed the field procedure the previous night using supplies from Annika’s medical kit. Though her head throbbed with pain, Annika refused painkillers, preferring to stay sharp in her dangerous new world.

  Kyle unlatched the back panel of the wagon, swinging it down. Annika surveyed the wooden crates and barrels. Kyle jumped in the wagon and lowered a crate to Annika. He hopped to the ground, picked up a crowbar in the rear of the wagon, and pried open the crate.

  Annika looked at the contents—dozens of sticks of dynamite to be used for mining.

  “How much have you got?” she asked.

  “A thousand sticks,” Kyle said.

  “Not bad,” Annika said. “Not enough.”

  “There’s something else,” Kyle said.

  Kyle hiked up the cover on the side of the wagon. Packed in the wagon with the dynamite crates were wooden barrels. Annika read the words stenciled on the barrels: “Sulfuric Acid.”

  “Used to process gold ore at the Homestake Mine,” Kyle explained.

  “So what?” she asked. “Is your plan to dissolve the army?

  “Not exactly,” Kyle said, walking to the other wagon. He pulled up the cover. Annika read the stenciling on the crates inside. Her eyes went wide.

  “Whoa—now that is interesting,” she said. “You know you’re smarter than you look. One problem—how do you deliver the weapon?”

  “I’m still fuzzy on that part,” Kyle said.

  • • •

  A few hours later, Kyle and Annika pored over a map of the territory in their makeshift command center. Black stones with numbers represented Army regiments. White stones represented various Lakota tribes.

  Annika took a sip of coffee from a blue enamel tin cup, set it on the table, and sighed.

  “If you know me as well as you claim to, you know that I like a challenge,” Annika said. “So you should know that it’s a big deal when I tell you that something is impossible.

  “This is impossible. We’re up against 5,000 battle-ready cavalry and infantry soldiers with repeating rifles and light artillery. Their artillery can fire grapeshot canisters from well over 1,000 yards out and shred every living person in this village to bits without even bothering their cavalry to mount a horse or asking their infantrymen to ready their rifles.

  “We have similar numbers, but a fraction of the arms, no artillery, no natural defenses, no training. Add to that the fact that our troops have no unified command, with the possible exception of your wife.

  “We have your dynamite and my C4 and wireless detonators, though I don’t see how that makes a dent, even if we know where to put it. We have your secret weapon, but no way to deliver it. Have I missed anything?”

  Kyle shook his head grimly. “No. I think that’s an excellent battle assessment.”

  “The bottom line is this: We’re all going to be slaughtered,” Annika concluded. “Everyone here is going to die, just as they did in December 1890. The only difference is that a few extras are going to die with them.”

  Annika’s head snapped up as she heard the rumble of horses in the distance.

  “You hear that?” she asked.

  Their eyes met for an instant, then they scrambled for their guns. They heard shouts and yips from the Lakota tribespeople as they exited the tent.

  From their perch on the knoll, 50 yards from the village, Kyle and Annika watched as a company of some 70 cavalry soldiers trotted their horses into the village center. A flag bearer carried the company flag at the front of the column. The flag, the United States Sta
rs and Stripes with a pie-wedge cutout from its trailing edge, fluttered in the breeze. In the rear of the column, a soldier drove a wagon pulled by two bay horses.

  Annika marveled at the sight of a company of nineteenth-century Army cavalry wearing their navy-colored uniforms and sitting astride their bay quarter horses.

  “I still can’t quite believe this,” she said.

  As the soldiers entered the village, women gathered their children and disappeared into their tipis. The men grabbed their rifles. To Kyle and Annika’s astonishment, Padma walked calmly into the soldiers’ path and raised her arms, motioning the soldiers to halt. In moments, over 1,000 Lakota warriors had joined her. Takoda stood at Padma’s side.

  “Exactly what the fuck is she doing?” asked Annika.

  The company commander, a captain, raised a gloved hand for the riders to halt. The captain was in his late thirties, pale with a freckled face, bushy red mustache, and sideburns.

  The captain eyed the tribespeople nervously. He had expected light resistance—perhaps several dozen half-starved warriors. Instead, he found his company outnumbered 15 to 1. He stared at the breathtakingly beautiful squaw standing before him. Her fearless eyes were locked on his. A supreme confidence turned the corners of her full lips into a daring smile. He had never seen a woman like her before—at once irresistible and deadly. Everything about the situation unnerved him—the strange sorceress leading an army of Lakota warriors with much greater numbers and armament than expected.

  The captain looked closer at the woman’s dress. A charred hole pierced the dress over her heart. Icy terror jetted through his veins. He had heard Daniel Royer’s wild tale of a tall, beautiful, English-speaking squaw who rose from the dead after being shot through the heart. The captain had dismissed the absurd story. Yet here she was—a woman precisely matching Royer’s description, right down to the bullet hole. Was this truly the Messiah of Lakota prophecy?

  The men of the company looked to their captain for guidance. Though a wiser commander might have exercised the better part of valor and retreated, the captain, feeling the eyes and expectations of his soldiers upon him, opted instead to allow his pride to dictate the next move.

  The captain cleared his throat, collecting his composure. “By order of the United States government, I hereby order you to disarm. You will deposit your weapons on the wagon at the rear forthwith.”

  Takoda translated the captain’s order. Angry murmurs rose from the Lakota army.

  Padma replied in a loud defiant voice, “The Lakota Nation does not recognize the United States government’s authority. Accordingly, we have no intention of relinquishing our weapons.”

  The captain’s jaw dropped. The siren squaw’s English was better than his.

  Before he could respond, Padma continued, “However, I will make you a counter-offer. If you and your soldiers disarm and leave peacefully, we will agree not to kill each and every one of you right here, right now!”

  Padma punctuated the time and place of the soldiers’ fate with a strict finger, pointed toward the earth.

  As Takoda translated, a roar erupted from the Lakota army. The anxious cavalry soldiers pulled their rifles from their saddles.

  “You are ordered to lower your weapons, or we will open fire!” shouted the captain.

  The war yells from the hundreds of Lakota warriors combined into the roar of a ferocious mob.

  “Company: ready!” shouted the captain over the din.

  The soldiers raised their rifles.

  “What are we doing?” asked Annika.

  Kyle set his Marlin rifle on the ground and unholstered his MP7 machine gun, targeting the soldiers at the front of the column. “Looks like we’re going to war.”

  “Aim!”

  “Fuck!” Annika said. She ran toward the soldiers.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” shouted Kyle.

  “Hold on, wait a minute! Wait a minute!” shouted Annika, approaching the soldiers, waving her arms. “Everybody settle down.”

  The cavalry soldiers eyed the petite woman running toward them. She was strangely dressed in black, wearing a man’s clothes with a large sidearm holstered at her thigh. Kyle picked up his Marlin rifle and trailed behind her, wondering what on earth she was thinking. Padma motioned her arms down to quiet her army.

  When Annika reached the crowd, she stepped between the captain’s horse and Padma. She put her hand on the horse’s nose. The horse pinned his ears.

  “Step away from my horse, madam!” commanded the captain.

  “I am so sorry, Captain,” replied Annika. “Please forgive me. I am only trying to prevent bloodshed.”

  She turned to Padma. “No one wants bloodshed, right?” Padma glared at Annika.

  Annika turned back to the captain and smiled, batting her eyes. “Captain, sir, I believe I have a solution.”

  Before the captain could speak, Annika jerked his horse’s left rein, scissor-kicking into the air as the horse and the captain tilted to the left. Annika smacked the captain on the side of the head as he pitched off his saddle. She flipped backwards, reaching for her MP7. By the time her feet touched the ground, bullets blazed from her submachine gun at a rate of 950 rounds per minute. Before any of the soldiers could react, a quarter of the company’s soldiers had already fallen dead or wounded from their horses.

  Horses spooked and bucked amidst the screams and shouts of panicked and wounded soldiers and the whoops of the Lakota tribesmen. The Lakota warriors opened fire, cutting down dozens of soldiers. Four soldiers at the rear of the column spun their horses and galloped away.

  “If they get away, they’ll be back with help!” Annika shouted to Kyle.

  Kyle ran through the chaos, dodging horses and soldiers to find a clear line of sight. He knelt on one knee and raised his Marlin rifle, peering through the scope. He squeezed the trigger. The first soldier fell. He rapidly worked the rifle’s lever to chamber another round. He aimed and fired—the second soldier hit the ground. He fired again—three down.

  Kyle chambered a fourth round. The last soldier was well over 1,000 yards away. Kyle pulled the trigger.

  Kyle and Annika watched as the soldier galloped out of sight.

  “You missed,” said Annika.

  Kyle ducked his head, incensed. “There’s only so much of your mess I can clean up! You could have dialed me in on your plan.”

  “So you think there was a plan?” asked Annika, incredulous. “That was pure improvisation for your wife’s crazy stunt! Anyway, you could have been a better shot.”

  “I hit three rapidly moving targets with an ancient rifle at 1,000 yards. You think you could have done better?”

  “Possibly not,” Annika conceded, secretly impressed with Kyle’s crack shooting.

  Kyle and Annika turned as a roar erupted from the tribesmen, celebrating their victory. They crowded around their beloved Messiah. She raised her arms in the air, beaming in response to the adulation.

  “Y’know, I’d like to think that we had a little something to do with the outcome,” complained Annika.

  “It’s going to be a short party,” said Kyle, grimly. “They’re going to be back, and they’re going to be back strong.”

  The tribesmen turned to the remains of the battle. Dead and wounded soldiers lay scattered on the ground. Their frightened horses, snorting, eyes wide, trotted nervously through camp without their riders. The tribesmen began rounding them up.

  Kyle and Annika watched horrified as other tribesmen began shooting wounded soldiers, then stripping them of their clothes and weapons. They moved to intervene.

  Annika ran to a tribesman, standing over a young soldier, his rifle pointed at the soldier’s chest. The soldier, with blond hair and a moustache, looked at the tribesman with terror at the realization that his life was about
to end.

  Annika grabbed the warrior’s rifle barrel and kicked him in the gut, doubling him over. Snatching the gun away by the barrel, she smacked another tribesman who tried to stop her on the side of the head with the rifle butt.

  The tribesmen ran to stop Annika. Kyle ran to her side, pointing his MP7 at the warriors, its brilliant red laser star skipping across the warriors’ chests. Incensed, the warriors raised their rifles.

  “Stop!” shouted Padma.

  She walked to Kyle. Her expression was grim.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “The battle’s over,” Kyle said. “We’re not going to butcher the wounded.”

  Padma took a step forward. “I’m confused…whose side are you on? Because it sounds like you’re on the side of the white people who shot me and tried to rape me.”

  Kyle shook his head. “Does shooting the wounded make everything all right, Messiah?”

  “Fuck you!” screamed Padma. “You know they would do worse to us!”

  “Yeah, they would!” shouted Kyle. “Is that the best your people can be?”

  Padma stared at Kyle, shaking with rage, her fists clenched. The warriors awaited her order to execute Kyle and Annika. After a few moments, she unlocked eyes from Kyle and turned to Takoda.

  “We are going to treat these fallen warriors with dignity,” she said. “We are going to treat them in a better way than they would treat us. We are going to be the better people.”

  Takoda translated to the tribesmen. They grumbled as they lowered their weapons. Padma gave Kyle a final hard stare, then turned and walked away, escorted by Takoda.

  “Wow. She’s a handful,” said Annika.

  Kyle’s sad gaze lingered in Padma’s wake. He secretly wished that his wife had given her warriors the order to kill him.

  The moans of the wounded turned Kyle and Annika’s heads. Dozens of men, dead and wounded, lay before them.

  Kyle turned to Annika. “We’ll triage the wounded as best we can.”

  “We can’t treat them here,” said Annika. “They need a field hospital.”