Yesterday's Deletion

Can unlikely time travelers change the course of American history? For better or for worse?

 The sun shined high in the bright, clear sky, reflecting across the water when the waves allowed. The rolling tide smoothed the sandy surface where the beach was bare, but not around the boats secured for boarding. Standing silently on the beach were scores of natives, fettered to the uncertain future destined to befall them. The ones to initially benefit from their captivity stood around them, guarding their bounty to prevent any chance of escape.
One overly serious figure, a large man with a beard and heavy garb, who spoke deep but quietly, was the captain of this vessel. He surveyed those gathered as financial gain, contemplating a profit.  Many young males able to do hard work, young women, too, for household chores. Yes, this would truly be a good haul, he thought to himself.
Having made an assortment of journeys before, the captain was oblivious to the hard disagreeable stares coming his way from the men and women watching him and his crew in their process, the sailors feeling so richly justified in doing.
Attempts at protest brought down whips of discipline, strikes in other matters to silence any kind of obvious disapproval.
The Captain eyed his intended cargo, especially the females, and thought confidently, no doubt about it, this would be a good venture. Practically a forewarning of events to come.

A deduction would be this must be other tribesmen, seeking to free their kin from this unfortunate situation, but as nearly all those present turned to see the ones doing the yelling, a pair of unlikely figures running toward the ship, seen as two Caucasians.
The captain, crew, intended slaves and various slavers all turned to the commotion the young pair were making as they rain toward them.

There was absolutely no perceived threat whatsoever that anyone could see. No visible weapon being wielded.

As the duo came ever closer, their words were now apparent.

"Stop! Let them go! Don't do it!" one of the figures shrieked. The two people wore very similar attire; faded blue denim jeans, flannel top, a cap upon each head, strange garb none of those present had ever before seen. 
The louder figure ended the run and put hands to knees while gasping for air.
"You can't do this!" The person cried in a froggy voice. "Don't do this!"

The captain drew closer to the person as the second mysterious visitor joined them.

"Who are you?" he asked of the strangers. "How came you to be on this land? Lost voyagers?"

"You wouldn't believe us if we told you who we are," the first person gasped, "so let's just leave it that we are from America and we know of the harm that comes about from the slaves brought to our land."

"Clearly not of this locale and being so far from home, and speaking in such a broken accented language," the captain mused. "Are you missionairies in this territory of whom we knew nothing about?"

"No, just leave it we don't want to see you destroy the promise of the United States of America with all those slaves."

The other fellow now spoke. "Too many of them are brought to our country. They overrun everything, bringing violence and crime."

"We have the whip for that," the captain stated, his colleagues nodding in agreement.

"It's not enough," the first person shrieked. "There's too many of them, and they protest, learn to read and write and start overthrowing the land. Turn these people loose. They're not worth it in the long run."

"Foolish simpleton," the captain said. "We have need of labor for new lands and if we do not make the profit, someone else will, so let the wealth be ours. Return to your camp, missionary, and leave us."

"We're not missionairies. We . . . we come from another place. We've seen the damage caused by slaves, too many slaves!"

"More slaves means more prosperity for all," the captain replied. He turned to his crew. "Begin loading the cargo once more."

"No, we . . . we're telling you," the second fellow began, when once again, a beckoning in the distance was heard. This time the two new figures likewise turned to see who caused the commotion, and now, absolutely bewildered, the natives, too, were straining to see who approached.

"What summons all these visits to this shore?" the captain asked his mate.

Once again, two more figures slowly strode toward the group. This time, as they drew nearer, everyone could see they were in fact of African origin. And again, their clothes seemed to be of a different time and era, unfamiliar to those who seemed to occupy this location now. Both men were dressed in strangely sharp black suits and were calmer as they spoke.

"I bid you good day, captain," the first man spoke. "We have come to offer assistance to our two wayward youngsters who have found their way to you."

"What is this?" the captain asked.

"I am Jaheen and this is my young aide, Macario. Our friends have been disturbed with their arrival. We seek to remove them from your presence so you may continue on."

"No," the first figure shrieked. "They are from our . . . our land. They want you to take plenty of slaves there to overrun everything and everyone."

"Phyl, you must let destiny take its course. You know this."

The newly-addressed Phyl stepped toward Jaheen. "How did you get here?"

"You think the lab didn't have access to another time travel device?"

"Where is yours?"

"Right around the shrub, beside yours. We simply honed in on its location."

"You won't get away with this! We'll change the American history so there are nowhere near as many black people in the future!"

"Who will change what? You and Tom? You are not capable."

"I tire of all this, strangers," the captain declared. "I bid you all depart and let us carry on with our task."

"Captain, please! Don't do this!" Phyl bellowed.

The group continued on with the rancourous dialogue, amounting to very little that seemed worthwhile, but unseen by all, young Macario had stepped toward the assembled natives and looked upon them, unblinking. They looked back to him in his peculiar garments. He looked at hands bound by chains and ropes, then stared into dark eyes watching him. He didn't dare try to touch any of them, for fear of drawing attention to himself.

One or two of them spoke to him. He had studied ancient African languages of this era. They were asking would he help them, words no doubt never heard by any comprehensible ear from that time. He slowly made his way down each row of natives, as tho his seeing them offered them some form of hope. The understanding from Jaheen was the slaves had to reach America, but now, for Macario to see them as they truly were, removed from any hint of Americanization, he could only star in awe at them, these functioning, existing people.

"You there! Mind yourself among our cargo!" came a sudden cry from the captain. Now everyone had turned to look at him. He nodded in accordance but said nothing. Back at the front, Phyl and Jaheen continued their exchange.

"You want as many slaves as possible in America so then you will have the majority over us," Phyl scowled.

"And you honestly think you will succeed in diminishing the American slaves and you will still have the America you recall. Your prosperous nation was built on the back of the African slave."

"We'll just have to rely on white people working harder to make America what it is, but without all your race baiting," the other white man, Tom, said.

"Tom, you are a fool. Both of you are acting like fools. You cannot change what is destined to happen. If your white America is destined to fall away to a black-dominated America, there is nothing you can do about it."

Well out of earshot, Macario continued down the rows of prisoners, examining them, saying little. What could he possibly say? An approaching crewman to observe what Macario did and didn't do was drawing near.

Then Macario came to one young man who stared at him with an intensity as tho they had known each other all their lives. He spoke in a way of absolute familiarity. Macario listened to him say in his native tongue how determined he was to get away, that he would prefer death to captivity. Macario examined the young man, deducing at best, he would jump or be thrown overboard and never adapt to bondage.

"What's he saying?" the nearing sailor asked.

"I'm . . . I'm not sure," Macario lied. No sooner had he made his statement, the bound man revealed he had managed to free himself of his fetters. As the sailor was now nearly upon then, the free man made his break.

"Stop!" the sailor yelled, producing his gun.

Macario thought quick. "No! if you damage or kill him, . . . . you'll lose that labor! I'll go after him and bring him back!"

The captain called over the distance. "What happens your way, Mr. Pace?"

"A prisoner seeking to escape, cap'n" Pace replied, "getting them all back in order now" and he brought forth with the whip and began striking the bare flesh of those around him, as he watched Macario race off in the direction the escapee had ventured, not sure if there would be a return or not.

The captain proceeded with the difficult trio. "Enough of you, strangers among us. Return to where you came and leave us to our tasks."

"I agree, good captain, known for your exceptional professionalism. I shall take my young comrades and we'll leave you to your journey.

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Tom mumbled under his breath through clenched teeth. "I have had it with listening to you people say what we need to do for you!"

"You cannot change history, Tom," Jaheen told him very sternly. "Look about you. Do you honestly think any of these crewmen are going to free their slaves, their profit for this journey?"

Tom looked to Phyl, who gave an equally frustrated countenance.

Tom now looked off across the sand and spied Macario leading the naked slave back to fellow captives.

Pace shoved the returning slave back amongst the crowd of his own fellowship, while Macario stood and watched, actually stepping away with uncertainty. Tom looked at Macario, standing away from the throng of black men and women and his mind wrestled with the idea that there was any distinction among the lot.

Jaheen, too, observed Macario stepping away from the slaves, and realized he was the only one who comprehended what had occurred.

Before anyone could say or do anything further, Tom pulled the pistol from within his shirt and fired.

The first one he took out was Macario, far way, but not too far away that Tom might miss him. The anonymous slave Macario had returned screamed in protest, but was now bound in chains.

Tom then shot Pace, wounding him.

He then turned to Jaheen, who only managed, "don't" before Tom shot him at much closer range.

"Tom, no!" Phyl called out.

Ready for any such outbreak, crew members brought forth their weapons and hurled them at Tom.

A knife struck his shoulder and he cried out in agony.

Phyl caught Tom from falling to the sandy beach, and struggled to get him away. The prisoners became restless from these events, so the crew were tending to them and likewise tending to the wounded Pace.

Phyl hurried Tom away from the disarray as quickly as possible, hearing the captain command, "no," which obviously meant they were not being pursued. They had been delayed enough.

The pair raced as quickly as possible, with the profusely bleeding Tom, back behind the shrubbery where the two time devices were hidden.

"We failed, Phyl." Tom gasped. "We failed."

"We tried," Phyl answered. Phyl now removed the cap to reveal long blonde hair of a woman. "They're not chasing us," she told Tom, who was moaning from the knife wound.

"I'm going to send you back, Tom," she said, "then I got to use the second machine to return on my own."

"No, I won't go without you," Tom gasped.

"You've got to," she told him. "I've got to get those two guys, Jaheen and the other one. We can't leave anything from our present in the past. Who knows what it could alter. They've got to go back, too."

Phyl dragged the small column shaped item away from the brush, then helped Tom to lean on it. "You got to go back and get help for yourself. I'll get the two bodies and bring them all along. We can just drop them in an alleyway or something. Everyone will think it is gang related."

"Let me stay with you," Tom pleaded.

"No," she replied a tear in her eye. "You've got to go." She held him close then helped him brace on the device and slowly he faded from view.

There was a split-second of Tom reaching the present that Phyl thought she heard a sound of protest, a scream of utter horror, a loud flash from his gun firing at what he saw. She couldn't imagine what that might have been.

Phyl turned her attention to the beach, to see the ship setting sail, and other than two dead men, no one remained on the shore.

"We didn't change anything," she spoke aloud as she put her cap back on her head. She picked up the small box-like time device and carried it toward the beach. The slave ship sailed further off in the distance. She tried to make sure they were far enough away, they wouldn't even notice her on the beach.

She decided the best location for this task would be about midway between the two guys, so there she set the device. The first one she went to was Jaheen. She hoisted the rather small man up and began dragging him to the time device. She thought to herself, boy, Tom shot you good, didn't he?

Jaheen lost a shoe and once Phyl got the corpse positioned on the device, all slumped over, she returned for the shoe. Nothing of the two men must remain behind. She placed the shoe on the device beside Jaheen, then made her way to the second fellow.

Thankfully, Phyl was an able-bodied young woman familiar with hard work, but this guy was a bit stockier, but leaner than the first guy had been. She dragged Macario across the bare sand, leaving trails in the sand made from his shoes. She got the second guy situated on the time device, held him so he would balance in place, and now she looked at him.
She looked hard at the little man she had barely glimpsed earlier when he arrived.
 She lifted his head up. The skin was nearly as black as the suit and weatherworn. She grabbed the hand and it too had seen its days work time and again.

Phyl looked at the man some more, then stepped back to Jaheen, who was a lighter tone with smoother flesh, regularly conditioned. She ventured back to the previous man and began patting the chest, not finding what she was after, so she started clawing at his buttocks. She found what she was after and worked his wallet free. She opened the wallet to the license and started at the picture of Macario, a young man of bright eyes and near caramel brown, and nothing like the ebony skin on the man before her.

Phyl never took her eyes off this black man, but her mind began to race with trying to sort out what happened.

"You were the slave who ran away and that little guy ran after you, and the two of you came back, after a while. Long enough," she started, then comprehended what could be achieved in that delay, "so Tom shot you, both of you, but you are now not the same guy who wore the suit, this . . . . . Macario," she said looking at the name on the license. She took the hand holding the wallet forward and rested it on the shoulder of the dead man.

"But both of you came back," she stammered. "So if you were now in the suit and were killed when Tom shot you, then where is the real Macario? Where is the other one?"

Slowly Phyl turned her head to see the slave ship making its way to the promised land of America, with a 21st century educated black man inconspicuously on board as a seemingly random slave, that no one else knew about. Phyl's lower lip quivered when she thought of all this young man could do to change the country she was from.

At that very moment, Phyl took her hand away from the shoulder and released the wallet as it tumbled between the two corpses, lined up back-to-back, sitting on the time platform. The wallet struck the accurate button and switch, turning the machine on. Phyl stepped back in startlement at the device suddenly starting up and didn't know what to do to make it stop, but slowly the machine and its two cadavers all vanished to be returned to the present day from which it came.

Phyl was still in shock about the educated slave going to America to even grasp that she no longer had a time device in her presence and she was now marooned on this African shore. She knew nothing about the people, the language, the history of where she now resided and she gave one last look to the ship as it gradually made its way beyond the horizon.