Page 19 of Killing Time

“Not really,” I replied. “I mean, some of the picnic areas haven’t been designated yet, but the general store we passed a couple of minutes ago is still in business in my day, and that apple orchard” — I pointed at a large planting of bare-limbed trees off to our left — “is still around in the twenty-first century. Of course, it’s now part of a big national park called Slide Rock, but the trees remain, and so do those cabins.”

He spared one look for the little tourist destination. “That’s good to know. Then maybe Flagstaff has a lot that’s the same, too.”

“We-ell….” I allowed, then stopped.

Although he kept his eyes on the curving, ever-rising road ahead of us, he asked, “It’s very different?”

“Flagstaff grew a lot over the years,” I said. “But honestly, I don’t really know for sure what it’s like in the 1940s. There wouldn’t be a freeway yet, just Route 66, but I know it must be a lot bigger than Cottonwood. Everything boomed after the war when all the soldiers came home and went back to work and started businesses of their own.”

“What was the war about?”

Oh, God. There was a can of worms I really didn’t want to open, especially since I only knew the barest outlines of the conflict, which had ended almost a hundred years before my time.

“It was complicated, just like most of that stuff,” I replied. “But I suppose the simplified version is that a terrible man rose to power in Germany in the aftermath of World War I, and he joined with Italy and Japan to fight the Allies — the U.S. and England and a bunch of other countries. When our soldiers went in to liberate Germany after Hitler committed suicide and everything sort of collapsed, they found that the Germans had been systematically murdering millions of Jews and other people they deemed ‘inferior.’”

Seth was too good a driver to allow himself to be completely distracted by what I’d just said — especially since we’d just reached the series of switchbacks that would bring us up out of Oak Creek Canyon and into the miles and miles of ponderosa pine forest that surrounded Flagstaff — but I could still see the way his hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“That’s…horrible,” he managed.

“It was. I guess it was impossible to get a completely accurate accounting of everyone who died in that war, but between the millions of civilians who were killed and those who died fightingon either side, it was probably more than seventy million people altogether.”

At least, that was what I vaguely remembered reading in my U.S. history class in high school. I had to admit that I hadn’t hung on to all the facts, because even though so much time had passed, World War 2 felt somehow far more immediate and tragic than any of the other wars I’d studied.

“I can’t even imagine that,” Seth said, his tone flat.

“Neither could I. It was just too much.” I paused there and deliberately lightened my tone. “I was just trying to say that Flagstaff is probably booming right now, so I don’t think many people are going to notice a couple of strangers passing through, especially with the way it’s situated right on Route 66. They must get lots of tourists coming to see the Grand Canyon and all the other points of interest in and around the city.”

Seth gave a thoughtful nod at those words, but afterward he fell silent, clearly concentrating on the treacherous switchbacks that led us even higher above the canyon. The route was familiar to me, as I’d driven it plenty of times before, but I knew how scary it had been that first time when I’d been behind the wheel, how I wasn’t sure I could trust the car’s self-driving mechanism to guide me through without going right over the side of the cliff.

I’d survived just fine, of course, but I thought I should probably respect the very real tension Seth must be feeling as he negotiated the curving, narrow road that Sunday morning.

Eventually, though, we reached the top and began driving through the forest. No turn-off for the big parking lot where local Navajo artisans came to sell their wares, and I guessed that must have been a more modern addition to the highway.

But it was beautiful up here, a different kind of beauty from the high red rock walls and lush vegetation of Oak Creek Canyon. Even though the windows were rolled up, I couldalmost taste the tang of the ponderosa forest, feel the cool wind against my face and hear the soft murmur of the pines.

Funny how this felt so much more familiar to me than Flagstaff of 1884, even though the outlines of the San Francisco Peaks above downtown had been exactly the same as I’d remembered.

Everything else had been different, though, while this highway hadn’t changed very much, except for the style of the signage and the way the lines had been painted on the asphalt. It felt like…

…well, it felt like going home.

Only this wasn’t my home anymore, was it? I’d chosen to move to Jerome.

Because you knew you could go back to Flagstaff at any time,my mind whispered at me, but that didn’t feel quite right.

I knew why, of course. It was because I now loved Seth McAllister, and his being was so entwined with his funky hometown that I really couldn’t imagine him living anywhere else.

And that was fine. I liked being in Jerome, and I knew it would be wonderful once the two of us could safely stay in the twenty-first century and start a life together there.

Besides, it wasn’t as if Flagstaff was on the other side of the planet. A drive of an hour or so, and we could be there any time we liked.

Probably not in the middle of January, though. It would be cold enough in Jerome, thank you very much.

In 1947, there was no roundabout funneling us to either I-17 or downtown Flagstaff. No, the road continued straight ahead, and Seth gave me a questioning glance.

“Keep going,” I told him. “Eventually, this highway will intersect with Route 66, and then we’ll want to turn right and gotoward downtown. That’s probably the best place for us to find somewhere to stay.”

He nodded. “Should we get your talent going to hide both of us? I know we’re still outside the city limits, but — ”

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