The light blinked back into existence once, twice…and then the darkness returned for an endless moment. Suddenly, the bright light slammed into the traveler’s face, temporarily blinding him as he struggled to adjust and reorient himself in this new place. The world spun and tilted as the inner ear tossed havoc into his brain and he thrashes wildly, ending up face-down in the dirt, lips pressed to the dusty soil and hands entwined around the vegetation in a death grip. The trials of choosing a new time and place, even with this next-generation technology, is not without its negatives, he mused.

Calm, deep breaths cleared the haze and whirling as his vision settled down and locked into place. Glancing up, he noticed only high, waving grasses blowing in a merry breeze that whistled past his temples. The man struggled to his feet and gazed about him in half-apt wonder and amusement. Spread before him was a rolling, shifting sea of golden grasses set underneath a sharp, crystal-blue sky. The cool, almost crisp wind cut easily through his thin shirt and pants, chosen more for their authenticity to the time than insulating value. That was all right, he thought as he shivered and cast about the ground with his eyes, time is short. The mission comes before warmth.

Locating a bulging, nondescript denim bag on the ground, he slung the rotund sack over his shoulder and, looking around, attempted to get his bearings. A short search on the horizon later, he found what he is after and took off at a hurried pace, plowing through the foliage in a direct path down the hill and towards a clearing.

Nearing the break in the waist-tall grasses, he slowed, searching once again, and then found his target. A small, humble two-room shack sat there at the one end of the clearing, a straw-covered barn a short ways distant and looking forlorn with its natural pate in disarray. On top of the building was a tall, solid man with sinewy muscles tightened against the pitchfork held in his sun-darkened hands. Wild hair and beard flew backwards from his face as the wind whipped it in random directions at whim. With another solid grunt heard over the entire clearing, a load of hay left the pitchfork and thumped solidly to the ground.

The traveler came within a few tens of yards of the building when its occupant glanced up and saw him approaching. A single hand raised in the air in a greeting, and the man quickly worked on disengaging from the barn, hitting a pile of hay at the bottom in an impressive dismount. He trotted towards the stranger, then stopped a few yards away to size him up.

“Ho,” he said to the traveler, glancing nervously at the man’s shoulder and the rather large burden slung there.

The traveler smiled in greeting.

“Hello,” he said. “Are you Charles?”

“I am,” said the farmer, with curiosity. “But I’m afraid I don’t know your name, Mister…”

“Smith,” replied the stranger quickly. “Just call me, ‘Smith’.” He smiled warmly again.

Charles nodded once quickly, and then leaned on the pitchfork. “What business do you have around these parts, Mr. Smith? We don’t get many visitors here in the Dakotas.”

Sighing, the strange arrival set his heavy bag onto the ground and glanced about, nervously.

“My business is with you today, Charles, and nobody else. Can I trust that no one else is here but yourself?”

“You may, ” replied the homesteader with caution. “The girls have gone into town on an errand today. But I do not understand what business you may have here. We have need of little that we do not raise ourselves and have no money to buy anything high-society,” he adds with a worried and skeptical glance at the bag.

Laughing, the stranger shaked his head vigorously.

“No,” he replied, “I am not here to sell you anything at all, nor am I here to con or otherwise swindle you. Rather, I come to help. Do you remember last week when that group of Indians came to town?”

Charles face darkened as he pressed his lips together tightly. “I do, ” he said, “but what of it? The warrior warned us of seven months of winter. I admit, I was a bit cautious at first to hear such a thing, but I’ve seen the muskrat lodges — they’re the thickest this year as I have ever seen. If it isn’t an impressive winter, I will be sorely surprised. We move into town next week, just in case such a thing comes to pass.” He nodded in the direction of a nearby hill over which a well-worn path wound.

The traveler nodded sagely as he was talking.

“This is all true and, although you may rightly have pause to believe what I am about to tell you, I know of this winter and what it brings, and the advice is well-placed. The weather will indeed turn badly and the entire town will suffer the consequences, including your family, Charles. I do not have to tell you what it means to have seven months without supplies from the trains, do I?”

A shocked look crept its way across the farmer’s face, first starting at incredulity, then to fear. He shook his head slowly.

“I know you are a godly man, Charles, ” continued the stranger, his audience now held firmly in deep concentration. “The prophet Nathan came to David to warn him of God’s law, if you recall. While I am not here to warn you against wrongdoings as in David’s case, I am a ‘Nathan’ of warning, and I bring you this knowledge, which is for you and you alone: The winter will be hard, very hard — your family will make it, but only by the skin of their teeth. One wrong move and you risk it all. I have come to help.”

Spinning quickly in place, he dug into the denim bag slumped loosely on the ground and came up with a shiny, foil-wrapped package that glinted and shined in the afternoon sun. Handing one to the flabbergasted farmer, he gestured towards it and then the sack.

“Inside these sealed packages are what we call, ‘survival energy bars‘,” he instructed. “They are a high-energy food that can sustain a man for over three days with a single package when eaten a piece per meal. Sealed in these packages, the food will keep for years without spoiling. There is enough here to get you through the hardest parts of this coming winter when food will be scarce and supplies short. Do not waste them.”

The farmer’s eyes shifted rapidly from the silvery package in his hand to the bag on the ground. Charles suddenly stiffened and looked accusingly at the man, shaking the package at him. “How do I know you’re not trying to pull something over on me? This is food? Nobody could fit enough food for three days into a package this size! And years!? Why should I listen to you? WHO ARE YOU?”

Staring at him steadily, the traveler intoned evenly, “Listen to me and listen carefully: I do not intend for you to believe me completely,” he instructed. “The story is amazing and unbelievable and the packages equally so, I realize. You do not have to take my word for it now. Keep the bag of provisions hidden in the attic of the store until winter comes and then, then you shall see the truth in my words and how much I have helped you.” The traveler sighed. “I don’t expect you to believe me, Charles, but at least take them with consideration. Feed one to an animal first, if you like, and prove that I tell the truth,” he pleaded. Glancing about, the stranger sighed again. “Time is short, good sir. I cannot stay much longer. But I need to know — do you understand the idea of these provisions?” Charles nodded thoughtfully.

“I do,” he said, finally. “Although I do not know the rhyme or reason behind your arrival today at my stead and the meaning of all this.”

“You are a reasonable man, Charles, ” replied the strange man. “I knew you would not overreact and instead think solidly about this. It is in the best interest of your girls that you do so.” The farmer stiffened.

“What do you know about my family?” he asked, quietly.

The stranger grinned. “I know much, ” he replied. “Enough to know that they are the light of your life, and many others, and it would be a shame to see them otherwise. This is why I help — I am a father, too.”

Nodding to the man, Charles bent and took the strap of the bag in hand.

“I will keep these against not having to use them at all, ” he said. “But I thank you for your generosity and kindness. ”

“Quite so, ” said the stranger. A strange beeping suddenly erupted from his arm. “The time is up, I am afraid, ” he said. “but I will leave you with the knowledge that no matter what comes, hold fast. Everything turns out all right in the end.” The thoughtful farmer nodded and bowed his head.

“For me and my family….thank you,” he said. “Where are you off to now?” he asked.

‘Mr. Smith’ smiled and laughed. “Oh, only about four hours away from here — and about 129 years.” At this, he began to shimmer brightly in the sunshine, skin and clothing waving in a flux of time and space.

“One hundred and twenty-nine…YEARS?!?” gasped Charles. “But…but that’s impossible!”

A final smile burst from the stranger’s face as it started fading from view. “Nothing is impossible,” he said, becoming only a slight haze against the prairie, “Remember that; nothing is impossible, Mr. Ingalls….”

A sudden pop was heard, and then nothing.

The grasses of the prairie shifted and hissed once more in the crisp afternoon breeze, leaving nothing but a faded blue bag and a thoughtful farmer calmly stroking his beard and gazing into the endless swells of the horizon.

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