"Okay," she said, fairly bursting with excitement, "what do we do? We've got him dead to rights-but how do we catch him?"
Malcolm chuckled. "We notify the uptime authorities the moment Primary opens to stake out this spot. He'll 'show up to dig up his booty one nice quiet night and they'll nail him. Meanwhile.. ." He turned off his camera, stowed his log, and said, "Keep filming, would you, Margo? I'm going to leave a nasty little surprise for our dear friend Chuck Farley, or whatever his real name might be. Let's see, now..." He sorted through his saddlebags until he found a short-handled camp spade he'd planned to use on a jaunt he'd wanted to take Margo on out into the countryside.
Instead of camping, they had something much more enjoyable lying ahead of them. Malcolm chuckled, carefully laid Chuck's wet sod aside, then began to dig. He uncovered every single plastic-wrapped case, then filled in the hole with rocks while Margo recorded the whole thing. "What I intend to do," he said, puffing for breath as he heaved the final rock into place, "is return these antiquities to the ... proper authorities. There." He tamped dirt down around the rocks until the entire hole had been filled, then settled the sod back in place, watering it from his own canteen.
Then he glanced into Margo's digitizing camera. "I am Malcolm Moore, freelance time guide, working out of Time Terminal Eighty-Six. I hereby do solemnly swear that a man known to me as Charles `Chuck' Farley acquired the antiquities in these bags, which we recorded him commenting upon as he buried them; that said Chuck Farley should be apprehended by uptime authorities for antiquities fraud; for violation of the prime law of time travel; for tax evasion on objects of immense artistic and historical/archaeological value; and potentially for kidnapping, as two residents of TT-86 are missing as a result of his actions.
"I also hereby solemnly swear that as soon as the Wild West Gate reopens, I will turn over each and every antiquity recorded here to the proper, designated representative of IFARTS on TT-86 for cataloging, copying, and return to its point of origin. I freely agree to serve as a witness at any deposition or trial should the man calling himself Charles Farley be apprehended."
He signaled to Margo to hand him her camera. She passed it over and he settled her face in the viewfinder. Her normally vivacious countenance was unusually stern as she repeated approximately the same statement Malcolm had just made, adding only-but significantly: " ... and should be charged for murder or manslaughter, should one Skeeter Jackson be determined to have died in an attempt to stop Chuck Farley's intended plans, an attempt witnessed by several hundred individuals in Time Terminal Eighty-Six and recorded by one of the tourists. This can also be corroborated by Time Tours, Inc., as Mr. Jackson `crashed' the gate in a desperate bid to stop the kidnapping of a TT-86 resident. Should Mr. Jackson's deceased remains be discovered downtime, I strongly urge whatever court may hear this testimony to charge the man known to us as Charles Farley with murder, manslaughter, or whatever charge the prosecution may deem appropriate under the circumstances. Chuck Farley is an evil, ruthless man who will stop at nothing to gain what he wants and if caught should be denied bail and punished accordingly"
Malcolm was nodding silently, pleased that she'd thought of those finishing touches. Jackson was no friend, but his action at the Porta Romae two week previously had elevated him in Malcolm's estimation by several notches of respect. Malcolm just hoped that whatever was happening downtime in Rome, Skeeter and Marcus would make it back to La-La Land safely.
Malcolm thought of Ianira and those two beautiful little girls and silently told himself that going after Farley in person and calling him out to a duel here and now in Denver would not only be suicidal, it would put Margo in desperate danger, as well. Nevertheless, his hands itched to line up Farley's bearded face in the sights of the Colt single-action army revolver strapped to his waist and squeeze off as many shots as it held.
Malcolm did not like losing friends. If Marcus and Skeeter didn't return by the next cycling of the Porta Romae, Malcolm would be ready to go through the other direction and hunt for them. Rome was a big city, but Malcolm had his sources and so did Time Tours, Inc. Losing two 'eighty-sixers--even if one were a downtimer and the other a gate crashing con man and thief-would definitely not be good for their public image or their business. Malcolm would personally make them see that, if necessary.
Malcolm smiled grimly. Oh, yes, there would eventually be a reckoning with Mr. Chuck Farley, if Malcolm had to go uptime and hunt him down, himself. He just hoped Skeeter Jackson and Marcus were still alive and able to testify when that reckoning finally came.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The sun beat down fierce as any Mongolian desert sky, and the sand underfoot was hot enough that Skeeter could feel it through the thin leather soles of his shoes-sandals that were mostly straps. Heat radiated off the arena sands, boiled off the embossed plaques of the great bronze turning posts, blinded the eye with tier after tier of stone and wooden seats and marble temples built right into the stadium itself. Sound roared down, assaulting his ears until his head ached, with the heart-freezing beat of a hundred thousand voices screaming in one solid mass nearly a mile long on each side.
Skeeter swallowed, briefly closed his eyes, and thought, If Ianira's right, then I could use a little help here, Artemis.- And Athene, Ianira says you even, beat the God of War in battle once. I sure could use some assistance. He even prayed to the Mongolian sky and thunder gods, as well as the singular Trinity of the Methodist church to which his mother had dragged him as a small boy. When it came to prayer, Skeeter wasn't too particular at just this moment Who answered, so long as They helped him get out of this fight alive. He wondered how many other prayers were winging their way heavenward with his.
He counted the pairs: twenty men, fighting in ten pairs, all at the same time. Two pairs of essedarii would be fighting from chariots drawn by a couple of horses each. A pair of laqueatores would fight one another with throwing slings-he'd seen what they could do during practice and was glad he wasn't fighting one of them. Two pairs of myrmillones in their weird, Gaulish helmets with the fish soldered on top would slash and stab it out with swords. Two retiarii were paired off against their traditional pursuers, the heavily shielded secutores with their massive, visored helmets, shields, and short swords. A duo of mounted andabates brought a dull, burning anger to Skeeter's gut. Mounted, he could've held his own for at least a little while, by running his horse in circles around the gladiator until Lupus fell down from exhaustion, if nothing else. But he didn't have a horse. The last two pairs were armed the same way he and Lupus were: the underdogs with nets and tridents, like the retaarii, with lassos as backup weapons, while they faced seasoned champions who fought nearly naked-but with a wicked sword in each hand.
As a group, they marched stolidly out across the burning arena sands to the Imperial Box, while the slam and whap of the starting-gate boxes being closed up reached his ears. A deep water moat at least ten feet across separated the fighters from the crowd, not to mention an iron fence tall and solid enough to keep an elephant from breaking through it. A few massive dents which even blacksmiths hadn't quite been able to unkink caused Skeeter to wonder if injured elephants had tried an escape through that fence.
The only hiding place anywhere out here was up on the spine, a collection of long, rectangular pedestals between the racing turns, on which stood statues of various deities, winged Victories that Skeeter hoped were smiling on him today, and an enormous Egyptian obelisk right in the center.