In 1833, Abraham Lincoln, age twenty-four, lived in a wide spot in the road: New Salem, Illinois. He was busy running a failing store and, as people sometimes do, considering a run for political office.
He had a most understated response when, quite abruptly, he found himself in a strange place that was obviously not Illinois or anything like it.
I am somewhere I should not be.
Not, I am shocked by this impossible event.
A sense that, perhaps, this was not the first time.
Time. Now very much the enemy.
Lincoln had marveled, unhurried, at the vast amusement park. Carnaval Midway, it was called. So obviously from a future time. The misspelling of carnival, surely, Lincoln could safely chalk up to the evolution of language.
He didn’t consider specifically whether he was being observed. Given any consideration of the trouble all this must have taken, it would be quite the failure of judgment if he was not.
Lincoln took his time in the Gift Shop. The store held any number of indecipherable novelties, but was also strangely in keeping with its descendants. Lincoln browsed, ultimately selecting a half dozen colorful little pamphlets (self-described as booklets).
The future imposed cruel prices far beyond his means. But there was no one he could pay.
Carnaval Midway was entirely deserted.
Lincoln chose a had taken his time to pick his treasure.
The reading material was written for the common man or, in many cases, young readers.
Mines of the West (With Maps)
California, The Golden State, A History
One stood out:
Abraham Lincoln: From Prairie To Sixteenth President
A strange future, indeed.
So it had seemed. But Lincoln since learned that this Carnaval Midway was not a gift of future times. The boy had been certain: this all came from an entirely different world. That seemed just as possible as anything else. Excepting that Lincoln would one day guide the Union to victory in a Civil War.
Because Carnaval Midway had taken its leave. Vanished, entirely, along with the boy.
Along the Gift Shop’s refreshments…so much more precious now.
One man, six booklets, an empty desert…and nothing to drink.
With no better choice in front of him, Lincoln walked. Desert cold was already challenging the wool in his coat. Lincoln needed only a direction. He chose west.
But he was not alone.
“Hey! Hey, Abe. What’s the hurry? Wait up!”
Lincoln turned. A man approached from the dark, breathless and irritated.
A short, dark-haired man approached at a stumbling jog. Stumbling, perhaps, because this man, too, was clutching reading material. As big a book as Lincoln had ever seen, before or after reading the law.
“Thanks,” the man said. “Thanks for waiting. You have long legs.”
Lincoln couldn’t help smiling.
“So I have been told.”
“You’re going the wrong way,” the man said. “Sorry. Name’s Arnold Twofeather. Mr. Lucky. Anyhow, you got papers?”
Lincoln held up the gaudy, slick booklets.
“Only these,” he said. “Not enough for Mexican authorities, I suspect.”
“No, sir,” Twofeather said. “Can be mean as Andrew Jackson. No offense, but I was living a very nice life in Cherokee Georgia before being encouraged to move west.”
Twofeather shivered. Without comment, Lincoln removed his coat and placed it around the man’s shoulders.
“No, Abe – you’re the important one,” Twofeather protested, though he did not resist the coat.
“I have known colder nights than you,” Lincoln said. “And…how did you come by my name, again, Mr. Lucky?”
“Man who gave me this said to look out for an Abe.” Twofeather held up the book – barely. “It’s a heavy one.”
“What is it?” Lincoln asked.
“The future,” Twofeather said.
“Mine?”
“All of ours,” Twofeather said. “Look, first, the man wanted me to make sure you made it. We need to head south, not west. There’s a Pala Tribe outpost not too far. We just need to make sure we don’t trip and break our necks getting there.”
The sun had long since vanished and there was no moon. Lincoln allowed himself a sigh.
“Listen,” Twofeather said. “I saw it too. A huge fun park, a carnival, here one second, gone the next.” The man grinned. “Ha, looks like you grabbed books, too. Didn’t see any water?”
Lincoln nodded ruefully. “I didn’t know I would need it,” he said.
“Two more things,” Twofeather said, his teeth chattering. “You’ve been here before, you just don’t remember. And – you saw a boy, right? A tall kid, looking for his friend, a little Mexican gal. Right?”
Lincoln froze.
“He said something to you,” Twofeather continued quickly, as if Lincoln might suddenly leave him. “He said, Keep the books. No one can use them better. Right? Then he said, Don’t –”
Lincoln half smiled. “He said, Don’t make the mistakes our world did.”
Lincoln continued walking. Twofeather followed.
“This book has more in it than we can imagine,” Twofeather said.
“This is what this mystery man told you?”
Twofeather nodded. “One last thing he said. He said you would need me. No matter what, you’d need someone who was here, tonight, who could remind you. No matter what...I’m here to remind you.”
“Of what?”
“Who you are, Abe,” Twofeather said. “The man said – oh, I don’t know how to put it.”
“Try.”
“He said you are a greatman, not just good – but a good soul. But –”
Lincoln arched an eyebrow.
“But…you would be hard on yourself. You shouldn’t, you know, expect to be a saint.”
“Maintain humility?” Lincoln suggested.
“That could be it,” Mr. Lucky said. “Look, we’ve got dynamite here. It’s not just for anyone, right? You…you will know what to do.”
Lincoln considered. The boy’s expression. He was a good soul, Lincoln suspected. Someone idealistic, in the way young people are. Looking to him.”
A broke storekeeper.
Now Mr. Lucky was looking at Lincoln. Waiting.
“Well,” Lincoln said finally. “There is no shortage of injustice in the world, I think.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Lucky said, sounding almost relived. “Sounds like that other world – I guess they made some big mistakes.”
“Men always do.” Lincoln felt vague resentment. “We must trust in the Almighty. We are not tools of mysterious men passing out books in the desert.”
They had walked, proceeding cautiously in the pitch dark.
Mr. Lucky continued to talk in spite of growing hoarseness.
“You reminded me. Something else this guy said. Know what he told me?”
Lincoln continued walking.
“He told me you were right. About God. More powerful than any man. Even him.”
“I see,” Lincoln said. “I suppose he had some measure of modesty, then.”
“Hardly,” Twofeather said. “Hardly at all.”
Likely just another tyrant, professing faith in name only.
“Look,” Twofeather said, taking Lincoln’s arm and pointing. “Firelight.”
Lincoln nodded. A campfire in the distance, perhaps several.
Mr. Lucky thrust the huge book into Lincoln’s hands.
“Look,” Twofeather said. “You keep this. Your stuff, too. This ain’t a book, Abe. This is power. I’m not the right guy to hold it. I’m serious.”
Lincoln returned the massive tome to Arnold Twofeather.
“He gave it to you,” Lincoln said. “You are no less a man than I.”
“But you’re not just any man,” Mr. Lucky said. “Look, the guy – showed me. Things, pictures. If they’re another world, you’re in it, Abe. And…you’re the best of us. Best we have.”
Lincoln smiled, his dry lips cracking.
“My friend,” he said. “I shall be whatever I become.”