A Question of Time d-7 Page 9

  Returning to the little house, Jake noticed something he must have somehow missed the first time through this morning. A note was lying on the large table in the main room.

  The message was very short, printed in pencil on the back of an old envelope:

  Jake: I've gone fishing.

  Love,

  Cammy

  Love, huh? Jake thought about that word, and then he thought about all the other words of the message individually. Then he let the paper fall back on the table. Suddenly he was hungry. He opened the door of the electric refrigerator and was glad to find some food available.

  There were tired-looking apples and a couple of oranges, and some other less interesting things wrapped up in wax paper. Two unopened quart bottles of beer, and a few six-ounce nickel bottles of Coke. Cheese and ham and bread, leftovers from the making of yesterday's sandwiches. There were also some eggs in a cardboard carton, but Jake didn't feel like trying to cook.

  He made himself a breakfast sandwich of ham and cheese, adding a little mustard, and continued to look around. So far this morning he was quite successfully keeping his big problem, the fact that he was lost, in the back of his mind. Without thinking very much about the problem directly he had almost convinced himself that once he set about getting back to camp in daylight, when he was rested, he'd have no trouble finding the right route.

  In kitchen cabinets Jake discovered cloth bags of rice and beans, heavy paper bags of flour, a small bin of potatoes. Higher up, three or four shelves were packed with cans containing what looked to him like just about everything edible.

  The smell of coffee led him to a pot, keeping warm on the stove, and he found cups on a shelf and sugar in a jar. Things were looking up. At last, having eaten and dosed himself with caffeine, he took a deep breath and went outside.

  Now when Jake, fed and rested, looked around him calmly and rationally in full daylight, the little canyon appeared to have nothing particularly remarkable about it. Not as scenery in the Grand Canyon went. There was no reason why a man shouldn't be able to get home from here. Puzzled more than ever, now unable to fully credit his disorientation of the night before, Jake once more started downstream along the faint riparian path.

  In morning brightness, with birds singing, the side canyon held no surprises. The only trouble was, he couldn't distinguish his memory of the canyon as he'd come up it looking eagerly for Camilla, from that of the twilight canyon he'd hiked up and down during his abortive attempt to leave.

  At least Jake was soon able to confirm that the changes had not been only in his imagination. Consistent with his experience at twilight, Jake this morning needed only a few minutes to walk down to within sight of the Colorado. If this river was indeed the one he'd known for four months by that name. This was last night's transformed torrent complete with unexpected rapids, not the Colorado he'd followed down here yesterday from camp.

  Detouring slightly, he stopped to look at the place where he seemed to remember Camilla shooting the peculiar bear. The remains of the beast were still there, and something had been chewing on it during the night. What was left was starting to draw flies and ants.

  Jake stood there for some time looking at the mess. When he closed his eyes and opened them again, it was still there.

  In broad daylight the peculiar landscape along the big river was no less strange than it had been at nightfall—in a way it was even stranger now, because now Jake could see the unfamiliar formations all too plainly.

  Still gazing at these geographical impossibilities, his mind a numbed blank, he heard a sound, and saw Camilla, dressed mostly in yesterday's clothes, approaching him from a little way downstream along the river-bank. Against the morning sunlight she was wearing a woman's broad-brimmed gardening hat. She really had been fishing, and was carrying the proof, a rod and line, and three fair-sized trout by a willow twig threaded expertly through their gills. The fish still had enough life left in them to twitch their tails.

  "Good morning," Camilla said tentatively, as if she and Jake were two people who barely knew each other. And maybe, he thought, that was the truth.

  "Morning," he responded.

  "I caught some fish for breakfast."

  "I've had mine. Thanks for the coffee. I'm going home. Back to camp. Come with me if you want. I expect I can find the way in daylight. If not, you can show me."

  Her face fell and her voice became hushed. "I wish to God I could do that, Jake."

  He stood looking at her, not knowing what to do or think or say.

  "Jake?" She put a hand on his arm, almost timidly. "Walk me back to the house, sweetie, before you go. I have to talk to you."

  Again he let her lead him. The thought crossed his mind that it wasn't any good pretending that he could do anything else right now.

  Back at the house, Camilla immediately got to work cleaning the fish, working outdoors, on a rough wooden table just outside the kitchen window. A calico house cat, acting about halfway tame, appeared from somewhere and took a keen interest in the proceedings.

  Wielding a small cleaver, Camilla expertly whacked off a fish head. Then she took up a sharp thin-bladed knife and began to gut the slippery body. Her face looked grim, but Jake didn't think it was because of the messy work.

  Jake said: "Go ahead and talk."

  "I'm sorry…" she began, then didn't know how to continue.

  Before she could say anything more Camilla began to cry. With the fish in one hand and knife in the other, she couldn't deal with her tears very well, and wound up wiping her eyes on the sleeve and then the shoulder of her man's shirt.

  Jake's heart sank, feeling sorry for her. Whatever that old bastard had done, he had done now to both of them…

  The cat, its interest now concentrated in the fish guts Camilla had thrown to the ground, was getting itself entangled in pink and yellow strings.

  All these tears weren't doing Jake any good. To get Camilla talking rationally again he asked her: "What'll happen if I hike upstream along the creek instead of down?"

  "Same thing. I mean you won't be able to get nowhere." As Camilla got more upset, Jake noticed, her grammar deteriorated.

  He said: "Eat your fish for breakfast if you want. Then I want you to come away from here with me. Or anyway we'll give it a good try."

  She hesitated. Then she said: "All right," in a defeated tone, and resumed her work.

  When the trout were cleaned Camilla took them into the house and dipped them in flour, then fried them with a touch of bacon grease.

  She tried to persuade Jake to eat at least one of the fish; presently he gave in, thinking he didn't know when his next meal might be. No doubt about it, the fresh-caught trout was good.

  Still there was no sign of Edgar, in or around the house. Neither Camilla or Jake had mentioned him.

  When breakfast was over, Camilla started to scrub out the frying pan.

  "What do you want to do that for? Let the old fart clean up after you for once."

  Again, as if she were only humoring Jake, she said: "All right." She ran some water in the pan and left it soaking in the sink.

  Then the two of them went outside again, Camilla carrying the shotgun with her as before.

  This time Jake led the way, upstream along the creek, in silence. There were places, away from the creek, where the little cliff down which the waterfall came tumbling didn't look too difficult to climb. Before he left the creek to start climbing he remembered to refill his canteen.

  Climbing after Jake, Camilla, on reaching a difficult place, handed up the shotgun for him to hold.

  Jake accepted the weapon and looked it over. Everything seemed in order. "Edgar won't care if I have a shotgun, huh?" He reached down with his free hand to pull Camilla up beside him.

  "He won't mind that, no." Her voice was sweet and soothing.

  Jake stared at her and shook his head.

  Soon they had reached the top of the small cliff. There were no more cliffs in sight above this one, no more
big climbs, only a jumble of rocks, all sizes up to that of a small house, stretching away in every direction, across terrain that on the large scale was generally level.

  He wanted to go east, of course, but still the way was practically blocked.

  Jake persisted, and a few minutes' additional clambering brought him all the way atop a minor rise that had to be the absolute rim. But this rugged height was as impossibly close to the house as the river was close to the house in the opposite direction. As if the great depth of the Canyon had not yet been established, and the rim were no more than a few hundred feet above the Colorado.

  Standing here on this version of the South Rim, and looking in the general direction of the morning sun, Jake could see for miles. It wasn't very much like the South Rim he'd known for the past four months, and there was no sign of Canyon Village in the distance. For all he could tell from here, this strange and unnatural landscape before him was totally uninhabited.

  He made a tentative attempt to do some exploring, at least, to the east. But the tilted slabs of rock that so obviously blocked his path simply continued to do so, and no hidden pathway became apparent. He was effectively prevented from traveling in that direction. The creek had disappeared—it must, thought Jake, have its source under some of these slabs. He could try looking for that source. But he was going to get some answers first.

  He considered trying to go west instead, then circling around. But going west across this field of jagged rocks was no more feasible than going east. There had to be some better way.

  Carefully Jake descended from the little rise, and made his way with difficulty, climbing over tilted slabs, back to the top of the waterfall-cliff.

  Camilla was waiting for him there, just where he'd left her.

  He set down the shotgun and took her by both arms—not a hard grip, just firm. Very firm. "All right, tell me. You knew that once I came up Deep Canyon I'd—I'd get stuck here, in this—this place. That's when it happened, isn't it?"

  Camilla tried to pull away, but Jake wasn't letting her do that. So she relaxed and said: "That's when it happened, when you came up the canyon with me. Jake, I'm sorry—but I couldn't help myself. I had to do something."

  His breakfast was turning to lead in the pit of his stomach. "You mean you knew once you brought me here, I couldn't get out?"

  "I had to bring you, Jake. Because I needed you."

  "Needed me for what?"

  Her voice dropped. "To get out. To get away from Edgar. He thinks I brought you here to be his helper, because he told me he needed a helper. But that wasn't why I did it. The real reason was, with two of us here, I figured we could find some way to get out."

  He kept on staring at her, in silence.

  Camilla tried to smile brightly. "Besides, now I love you, Jake, I couldn't let you go. You know you can have me anytime you want. It's great. I like it when you do it to me." She did her best to give her hips a sprightly wriggle.

  "That's what you need me for?"

  "No, but I like it. Do it to me now. We can go in the house, or do it right here. There's nobody to see. Nobody anywhere—" Camilla's voice broke on the last word, and she was weeping again.

  Jake stared at her for what felt like a long time. He had an impulse to take her in his arms and comfort her, but the thought of what she'd done to him, trapping him here, kept him from doing that.

  At last he said: "Right now there's a couple of other things I want to do first."

  At Jake's request Camilla took him on a tour of the cave where the old man worked at night. He had her turn on the bright lights in the cave, convincing himself that Tyrrell wasn't sleeping in there somewhere.

  Then Jake's interest centered briefly on the lamps themselves. "Where'd these electric lights come from? I never saw anything like 'em."

  "Edgar says…"

  "What?"

  "He told me once he got them from 'sometime past 1990.' Those were the words he used. I told you time runs funny down here."

  "He was just sayin' that," said Jake without conviction. "Making up a story to have a little joke."

  "Maybe," said Camilla, after a pause. "You know where he says we are now? Where all the canyons are not as deep as they ought to be, and with all the peculiar animals?"

  "Where?"

  "Edgar says: 'About one million BC.' And then he laughs." Her voice caught. "I don't know if he means it or not."

  Maybe, thought Jake, that idea about being a million years in the past was something that needed thinking about. Well, if so, he wasn't up to the task right now. Instead he went into the cave again and wandered the several chambers and alcoves, which took up at least as much room as a small house. He stared at everything by Edgar's bright electric lights, but being able to see clearly did nothing to clear up the mystery. Trying to get a better idea of what the old man was up to here, Jake looked at the long workbench, the pits in the floor, the fragmentary carvings, so many of the latter that some must have been started and abandoned.

  Camilla had come back into the cave too and was following him around in silence.

  "Where's old Edgar now?" Jake demanded of her at last.

  "Sleeping."

  "You told me that a couple of times already. What I'm asking now is where he sleeps."

  Camilla did not reply.

  "You think I'm just going to stay here—wherever this is—and work for that bastard because I can't find my way out? And every time you shake your little ass at me, I'll forget everything else?"

  "No, Jake. Like I told you, I brought you here because I was desperate, I needed you to help me. I want out of this as much as you do. More, I've been here longer." Again Camilla seemed to be on the edge of breaking down.

  "Old Edgar thinks I'm going to work for him, because I don't have any choice?"

  After another pause Camilla said: "You want to know the truth? I don't think old Edgar really cares much if you ever do any work or not. But he'll make you work, to keep you busy, so you won't spend your time thinking up ways to give him trouble. And he doesn't need me as a model anymore. Not really. But still h-he won't let me go."

  "Why not? If he doesn't need us, what's he keeping us here for?"

  She wouldn't, or couldn't, answer.

  "What's he want us for?"

  Answering appeared to cost Camilla a great effort. It was as if she were putting her deepest fear into words. "I think he wants—our lives. In some way."

  Jake felt a chill. "What do you mean, our lives? For what?"

  "I don't know. It's just a feeling. But for now we're all right. So you can just make up your mind to stay here for a while. With me. The old man won't ever bother us during the day. You can work for him a while. I've worked for him, he's not that bad." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Then together you and I have to figure out something. Find a way for both of us to get out of here."

  "A way? Like what?"

  "That's what we've got to figure."

  "I want to talk to him."

  "Not now, he's sleeping. Believe me, you're not going to talk to him now."

  "At least you can show me where he sleeps." Camilla sighed heavily. "All right. You're not gonna believe me, but all right."

  Chapter 7

  Bill Burdon, leaping recklessly downhill along a barely perceptible trail, intent upon pursuing into darkness what had appeared to him as two striding figures, managed to stay creditably close to his quarry, the rearmost of those figures, for the first sixty yards or so. At the start Bill had confidently expected to be able to gain ground, but this hope proved embarrassingly futile.

  Summoning up his best authoritative sergeant's voice, he cried for his quarry to stop.

  But if his command to halt had any effect at all, it was the very opposite of what had been intended. The single speeding form still visible ahead of Bill did not look back, but seemed to accelerate. Now Bill was definitely losing ground.

  Some twenty seconds into the pursuit, that pacing figure reached the level of the loweri
ng mist and vanished completely. Bill could still hear brush crackling and rocks sliding under his quarry's feet; a few moments later he plunged into the fog himself, and was forced to reduce his own speed, as even the ground immediately ahead of him became almost invisible.

  Bill flicked on his flashlight. The beam set a small volume of fog aglow, and revealed something of the slanted earth just before his feet, but was of no help to him in locating his quarry.

  And now the sounds of the other's passage had faded completely away.

  Bill slowed to a fast walk. Examining the ground carefully with the help of his flashlight, he was able to identify and follow a faintly visible path, winding downhill among rocks, blackbrush, and prickly pear. Here and there traces of snow persisted from the last fall, evidently several days ago. Looking for individual tracks, of course, trying to find anything like a footprint on a surface composed almost entirely of hard rock, would have been foolish, especially in darkness.

  For a few more minutes he continued down this trail, pausing several times to listen for movement in the darkness ahead. He disliked having to use the flashlight at all, but there hadn't been any real choice.

  At last, when even with the light he could no longer convince himself he had a trail to follow, Bill came to a halt. He snapped off the flash.

  Whoever he had been chasing might very well have managed to get away, he decided, but he wasn't quite ready to give up. Again he started downslope, moving more slowly and cautiously now, alert for any sound or spark of light in the murky depths ahead.

  Whatever human presence had vanished in that direction was remaining neatly concealed, or else was by now so far ahead that Bill might as well give up. As far as he could tell, he might be entirely alone on the whole damned canyon wall. Again he regretted not having been able to get a good look in daylight at the lay of the land. Well, he hadn't had the chance to look around, and that was that.

  His little two-way radio was buzzing in his jacket pocket.