They rode till sun lost the last gleam of sunlight and darkness wrapped its arms around the desert sky. Roderick had failed to guess how cold a desert could be. Roderick could see his breath turn into vapor from his mouth. He was breathing in cold desert air.
Stars began to appear in the dark sky in moonlight. Stars were in position which Roderick hadn’t seen before. He remembered that there was Big Dipper in the sky when he had been trapped into this loop.
“Here we are.” Juan said to freezing Roderick.
They could see a tower as tall as a four-storey house. Roderick knew they had arrived to there from behind because they couldn’t see the clock. Even though the tower was still far from them, Roderick was delighted to see it.
This captive turned out to be more honest than the crazy Sheriff. He thought.
“Sheriff calls others a p****, but he is also one. He’s too scared to play with time.” Juan said.
He doubted the remark on Sheriff’s courage because he had seen him kill more than twenty KKK gangsters.
“Or perhaps he doesn’t want to break the law.” Roderick said, but captive did not mind listening to him.
When they got closer to the tower, they got down from their horses. Juan said, “Follow me. And walk carefully.”
“Is anyone guarding it?” Roderick asked.
“No, but be careful.” Juan said and started to walk in front of him as he was measuring his steps. Roderick felt weird by walking like it. Juan felt weirder because of something because he stopped walking altogether.
“What now?” Roderick questioned.
“Someone is tampering time from there.” Juan said.
“How did you find this out?”
“I was counting my steps. After I said six, I said nine. Time has been forwarded by two seconds.” Juan said.
“Maybe you are bad at math.”
“Really? Then show me your math skills. Really? Then show-“
“Alright.” Roderick walked by counting steps.
Roderick also paused.
“Did you also reach to nine from six?” Juan asked.
“No, I went from two to five.” Roderick answered.
“Why would anyone tamper just two seconds? And why on such irregular interval?” Juan wondered after realizing time hadn’t gone back in a while after Roderick’s counting.
