As soon as I had the poultice wrapped up tight and felt confident it wouldn’t fall off as she walked, I told her we were leaving. We were going to follow the base of the foothills until we couldn’t see where we were going anymore. I didn’t want to take a chance the creatures in the clearing weren’t going to climb the rocks and seek us out. I wanted to put as much distance between them and us. I’d be a fool to think they were going to leave us alone.
She didn’t like the idea of us moving, but I think that’s because the pain had started to settle in. All the same I told her, staying where we were was inviting trouble, and I’d learned long ago, it’s better not to look for trouble.
The sun was slowly setting when we finally made our climb up into the rocks. I wanted to be up high enough so that the creatures would be deterred by the idea of such an arduous climb. I thought the rocky terrain would be too much of a challenge for them and they’d simply give up and go back to their tunnels.
I was counting on it.
I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of staying in the rocks, either. There were tribes in the Vandals that we’d encountered, and I wasn’t about to think things would be different here. The last thing I wanted was a rock slide forcing us off a cliff face and burying us on the rocks below.
We’d put a lot of distance between where we were, and where we were now; the only thing I had to judge the distance by was the bending, twisting, river across an ever-widening plain. The sun was setting, the shadows of the rocks lengthening, darkening, the trees becoming darker shadows against a twilit sky. I held my hand out for her, both of us mindful of our steps, relying on each other in case one of us should slip on loose rocks, or maybe a piece of slate slipping out from underneath us.
It was hard work. I scraped my arms and legs on rocky outcrops; the buckskin pants I was wearing did little to protect me. Finally, I saw a small copse of trees below. There was a stream trickling down the rocky face, pooling in a small depression before spilling down a small cliff and into a stream below us.
“This is where we want to stop for the night,” I said.
“Here?” she said. “We must have passed a dozen of these little places along the way. Why is this one so different?”
“Well, for one thing, there’s water.”
“I’m willing to concede that point,” she said, settling down on the rocks and pulling her boots off. She sat back, letting the air wash over her toes as she looked at the small trees and their wide fronds. I could see her taking everything in around us, nodding. She was wearing the fur jacket Jaleen made for me, and it was too large for her.
“Well, if there’s water, there’s going to be game as well, isn’t there? We haven’t eaten all day. We’ll need to eat or else we’ll lose our strength. You don’t want to be struggling for a handhold and not having the energy to reach out for an outcropping because you haven’t eaten for three days.”
“Three days?”
“I’ve gone without food for five days. It’s not something I recommend, but it’s something that happens from time to time.”
“What else is there about this spot that attracts you?”
“The overhang; the trees. I like that we can cut tree branches and lay them down to make it comfortable. We can tie the tusker hide up to keep the wind out, or the rain, if it rains, which is always a possibility. It’ll keep us warm because we can’t have a fire. In the morning, I can go out hunting and maybe find us something to eat. Then we can make a fire.”
“You’ve really thought this out,” she said, putting her boots back on.
“It’s the difference between living and dying,” I said. “Out here, if you don’t have the means, you’ll die.”
“The means?”
“Food, water, weapons.”
I drew my sword and she jumped, perhaps she was thinking we were about to be attacked, I don’t know, but I smiled and shook my head.
“I’m just going to cut some branches down for us to lay on,” I said. “We’ll use that spot over there,” I added, pointing at an overhang I said we could drape the tusker hide over. A few large-sized rocks would hold it in place. There was a dead tree trunk and I thought we could tie one side of the hide to it, closing everything off. The space was at least ten paces deep and about half as high.
In a short time I had the floor of the little space filled with leafy fronds. I’d cut the leaves off the larger branches, and the leaves let off a fragrant scent when I cut into them, so that soon the entire area smelled of citrus. I found four large sized rocks and walked them to the overhang, struggled somewhat to get them into place, and then set about tying one side of the hide to the dead tree.
“It’s not very warm,” she said, crawling out of the space.
“It will take a while for our bodies to warm it up,” I said. “But at least we won’t freeze.
I was exhausted with all that had happened today, and no sooner did I lay my head down than I was sleeping.
*
“What the fuck!” I said, sitting up and looking around. It was too dark for me to see anything, but I could hear the soft, rhythmic sound of someone asleep beside me.
That has to be Jen, I told myself.
I don’t understand. What’s going on? Who’s going to explain this to me? If I’m here with her, then where’s Helen? Was she lost somewhere in time? Is that what Jen meant when she said she was lost for a bit? And if I’m in this man’s body, where’s mine? Am I laying in the storage room? Am I dead?
Is this what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life?
Where’s Jimmy? She said he was lost, too.
And she lost her bracelet. Now what? Is she locked into this time, or will someone come and get her?
I needed answers, and I needed them now. I reached over and shook Jen slowly. She stirred, rolled over, muttered something to me and went back to sleep.
“Jen,” I said, and pushed her this time.
She was awake immediately.
“Ricky?” She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked at me in the darkness. “You came back.”
“I never left,” I told her.
“I don’t know what that means,” she said slowly, dropping whatever she was wearing off her shoulders. “I didn’t believe you when you said it would get hot in here.”
“I never said that,” I said. “That was the other guy. What’s his name?”
“Whittle.”
“What the hell kind of a name is that?”
“I don’t know, why don’t you ask his father, Zard.”
“What is this place?”
“Well, it certainly isn’t Kansas, like you said the other time. But it could be.”
‘Don’t speak in riddles. I’m in no mood for riddles right now, let me tell you.”
“This is the year 2358, according to your calendar. According to the calendar of this time, it’s unknown. In the year 2163 the super volcano known to lay underneath Yellowstone, erupted. The eruption lasted three weeks, plummeting the entire planet into an Ice Age. At the same time, however, the seismic activity caused the tectonic plates off the Pacific coast to shift. This is about two hundred years after those events.”
“And why am I here?”
“I told you, the bracelet you were wearing was meant for your father’s genetic code, as his son, you share that same genetic code to some degree.”
“So it activated, thinking I was my father.”
“Exactly.”
“And we’re here because this is where my father lived his life when he was here?”
“From what I know, yes.”
“From what you know?”
We were quiet for a time. I could hear the wind outside the dark enclosure whistling against the tarp covering the opening.
“Why are we in the mountains? The last thing I remember we were underneath a boat.”
“It was a raft. Whit made it out of tusker hide.”
“Tusker hide? What’s that?”
“An elephant.”
“Why would there be elephants here?”
“The continents have shifted. Nothing’s like it was from your day. All those zoos had animals that are free to roam the land. Like I said, it’s been two hundred years, and most of them don’t have any natural predators. There’s a lot of hybrid animals. Lions and mountain lions, bisons and water buffalo, and those big lizards.”
“What big lizards?”
“I don’t know what they’re called.”
“Where are they from?”
“Well, some were living here, and some in Africa. Some were in the oceans, and swam here.”
“Crocodiles,” I said.
“That’s it! Big, ugly things.”
“Okay, so I’ve got where I am figured out, I mean, where in time I am,” I corrected myself. “Now, how about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re not the Jen I remember. Why?”
“You see how you’re not you; you’re a mind trapped in a different body?”
“That’s what you are?”
She nodded. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could see her figure in the dark. She was wearing a fur jacket that she’d pulled down from her shoulders. Maybe she was thinking I wouldn’t be able to see her in the darkness?
“So which one is the real you? This one, or the one I knew in the past?”
“They’re both me, just different sides of the same coin.”
“Very funny,” I said.
“What?”
“That’s what Dad always said. And speaking of him, where is he?”
“He’s with Helen, as far as I know.”
“Which is where?”
“You don’t know?
“I’m sorry, your friend Whit never told me.”
“You don’t know anything he does?”
“Should I?”
“Frankly, yes,” she said.
“Why?”
“When I was in Jenny’s mind, I was still able to communicate with my future self. I knew everything she was thinking, which wasn’t a lot, by the way. I didn’t like her, but I couldn’t change her either. I was told not to, in fact.”
“When did you take over her mind?”
“1985.”
“Why then?”
“That’s when he was put into the home.”
What a cool concept! Love time travel stories.