Aaron hoped he could at least find the machine. The last time it’d botched the time warp like this, it’d taken him a week to find it and he’d been stuck with Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine on one of their lunatic crusades. At least he’d gotten some nookie with each of them. King Henry was better in bed.
“So when the hell am I?” Aaron asked, and looked for clues. It was nighttime, hot and humid, and the city was burning. Soldiers were lighting kegs at the train station, people screamed, a hospital was burning, flames shot out the windows of a bank, women in hoop skirts raced by in horse carriages, taking their straps to horses, dogs barked and ran down the street.
Atlanta, September 1864, the Confederates were evacuating the city. But where were Scarlett and Rhett, and what did they have to do with his birth?
“Hey you,” a soldier with no left eye and a right peg leg, “gimme some food, will ya? I got to have some food.”
Aaron ran in the opposite direction, down a narrow alley, and came upon the famous good-bye scene, Scarlett slapping Rhett, They were right, you aren’t a gentleman. But Aaron ignored them, jumped on wagon, took a strap to the ancient horse, who lurched forward.
“Hey,” Rhett Butler said, “you can’t steal my horse.”
Scarlett aimed the revolver for Aaron and shot, but it missed as he scampered away with Prissy, Wade, Miss Melanie, and the baby. But Aaron reined in the horse when he saw his machine nestled in a bush on Peachtree Street.
He jumped over to the time machine, pushed Start and looked back at the horse, Prissy prairie-dogging up from the wagon. He sighed in relief. “Don’t worry, Prissy, Miss Scarlett will be right back.”
Aaron turned the gears all the way to the right. Yesterday sure was one hell of a day.
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