The Time-Traveling Outlaw Read Online Free Page A

“Here we go. Are you ready?”
    “Fuck you, pal,” Logan said.
    The man looked a little sad. “Well, not exactly ‘One small step for man’ but I guess it’ll have to do.” He turned back to the computer, typed a few more keystrokes, then hit Enter.
    Logan immediately felt something in the pit of his stomach, an unpleasant static crackling that began to grow. The pain he had felt earlier was nothing compared to what came next. Every nerve ending in his body began to light up with electric shock. He arched his back so hard, he wondered how it didn’t snap. His eyes squeezed shut and he screamed. Behind his eyelids and all he saw was bright white light. His entire body was on fire.
    And then, it all stopped.
    He was lying on the ground, warm dirt and uncomfortable sharp little pebbles prickled the back of his arms and legs. He opened his eyes, and immediately regretted it, squeezing them shut again. The sun was overhead in a cloudless sky, its harsh light burning his eyes. He held his hand over his face, and opened his eyes again, squinting this time. A strange smoke swirled all around him, all the stranger because it didn’t smell like smoke at all. An electric tang filled the air.
    He sat up, some of the “smoke” brushing against his cheeks, beads of moisture forming there. It wasn’t smoke at all, but water vapor. He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the searing light. The land was mostly flat, reddish-brown dirt as far as the eye could see, scattered with scraggly brush and the occasional mesquite tree.
    He was naked. Before they’d sent him through, he’d been wearing powder-blue prison coveralls, his inmate number stenciled just over his heart. Now his pale skin felt the heat of the sun beating down. In a way, it felt good. He'd been penned up like an animal for the past six years, only to be let outside for an hour a day. But he also knew that if he stayed out here for very long he’d be burned to a crisp.
    Logan got shakily to his feet. Going through time had been the most physically agonizing experience of his life. He was still shaken. But had he really made it? They hadn’t told him what to expect. Maybe this was all some sort of trick, some new way of torturing him psychologically that Sturgess had dreamed up. Maybe that pill was a hallucinogenic, and this was all a dream.
    If it was, it was damn sure a vivid dream. But he would’ve expected something. In 2026, the highway wasn’t very far from the prison, a short road leading up to it. He certainly didn’t see any paved roads, but as he surveyed his surroundings, he saw where the dirt was driven flatter than it surroundings. Maybe it was a road.
    Sam had told him to stay put, to not go far. But fuck that guy. Logan headed for what he thought was the road. Walking was difficult. His whole body ached. But he had to do something, figure out where the hell he was, or as the fat man had said, when.
    When he got to the edge of the road, he looked up and down its length, first in one direction, then the other. And that’s when he saw it, a coach or a wagon, approaching from the left. He held his hand up to his eyes to shield the sun. Yep, a wagon, pulled by a horse. Someone was sitting up top, holding the reins. 
    I don't know how far you meant to send me, pal , Logan thought. But this is pretty damned far from home.
    He headed up the road, toward the wagon, not particularly conscious of his nudity. And why hadn’t his clothes come through? Sam hadn’t said anything about that. 
    He staggered up the road, already dizzy from having every cell in his body electrified then shipped through time, God knew how long. And he was starting to feel the sun as well, beating down mercilessly from above. 
    Soon he heard the clop of the horse’s hooves on the dirt road, and as the wagon came more fully into view, he saw that a woman was driving. Yet the sun was nearly at her back, and he still couldn’t see her all that well.
    She was saying something to