Ranch

Retired major general Ariel Sharon was practically neighbors with Judith Margolies. It took a scant half hour for her to be driven from her kibbutz of Yad Mordechai to his home at the Sycamore Ranch a little to the east of Sderot.

She was driven by Colonel Yehoshua Saguy. He was the chief intelligence officer of the 143rd Reservse Armored Division. Saguy was also the first stepping stone in a bridge that Judith hoped would lead to the Prime Minister. Certainly she had exhausted every other avenue, and now, on the very brink of national catastrophe, she was near despair.

Neither Judith nor Saguy were in uniform, as they were not in a duty status, but both had brought their Class Bs in duffle bags they stored in the boot of the colonels car. Judith, who was twenty-six years of age chronologically, chose not to wear the long-sleeved minidresses that she normally affected. They were quite popular in 1973, even in Arab countries. Instead she wore somewhat more conservative attire, as she was to meet a married military man who was her own age in terms of calendar time. But she would not be able to disguise how she looked to be two decades younger than she was.

The Sycamore Ranch had all the olfactory ambiance of your run-of-the-mill sheep farm, but Judith did not even crinkle her nose. After all, there was livestock at Yad Mordechai too. The general was expecting them. He was sitting on his porch sharing tea with his wife Lily when Yehoshua drove up, and rose to greet his visitors. Despite their non-duty status both the colonel and lieutenant colonel Margolies saluted the general out of respect, then Yehoshua drew near to shake his superior officer's hand. There was real affection between the two men. Sharon said, "Yeshi, you have brought arm candy with you, and you never spoke of her!"

"It is nothing like that, sir," the colonel said with a slightly embarrassed grin. "This is Sgan Aluf Judith Margolies and she, or rather what she has to say and to show you, is the reason I have come."

Judith bowed her head to affirm what the colonel said. Lily Sharon came down from the porch to join her husband, who was genuinely confused. He said, "I knew you looked familiar, I have seen photos but I assumed they were from the Second War. So youthful you still are! How do you manage to do it?"

"Time travel, sir," said Judith, with a completely straight face, and just for a moment Sharon believed her. Then he decided it was a delicious joke and broke into his characteristic laugh. If Judith was B'nei Elohim she would not have spoken so, even as a joke.