A Question Of Time by Fred Saberhagen (best electronic book reader TXT) 📗

      But Bill’s radio remained silent, despite the fact that they tried several times to call him back.

Chapter Six

      Numbly Jake followed Camilla uphill through heavily gathering darkness, treading the path beside the nameless little stream whose voices chanted only nonsense. She was leading him back, Jake knew, to the place where the side canyon widened into a kind of amphitheater. Back to the neat little house standing not far from the strange cave.

      Jake’s companion led the way in silence, now and then pausing to look over her shoulder at him, as if she wanted to make sure he was still with her.

      In a few minutes they were standing once again in front of the small log house, whose neat windows showed no lights behind their curtains. There was plenty of light in another place, forty or fifty yards away, at the foot of one of the surrounding cliffs. An electric glare poured from the cave’s low entrance, as wide as a garage door. The glare was growing steadily brighter and brighter against the coming night. The generator, whose housing was now invisible in the background dusk, droned on as before, making noise that was barely perceptible through the voice of the waterfall. Nearer at hand, intermittent clinking and hammering sounds from the direction of the cave indicated that the old man must be still at his labors, though for the moment at least he was out of sight.

      Jake jerked his head in that direction. “You say old Edgar is to blame for my troubles. He’s the one who can show me the way out of here. The one who can let me go.”

      Camilla bobbed her head, and whispered, as if she feared old Edgar might hear her even against the noises of the generator, and the stream, and the racket he himself was making. “He can. He could. But—”

      Jake had already turned his back on her, starting toward the place where the old man banged fanatically on rock. Camilla grabbed Jake by the arm.

      “No!” she whispered fiercely. “Don’t mess with him tonight. Not while he’s working. Stay with me tonight, and—and get some rest. You don’t want to try to walk back to your camp tonight anyway. Tomorrow you can talk to Edgar. That’ll be plenty time enough.”

      Jake hesitated. The truth was that he did feel as if he’d hiked a hundred miles today. He was almost swaying on his feet.

      “Come get some rest,” Camilla coaxed him again. “And I’ll fix you something to eat.”

      Giving up for the time being on the idea of a confrontation, Jake let her lead him to the little house, where she held open the neat screen door for him to enter. Despite all the strangeness that engulfed him, and his weariness, Jake retained enough capacity for surprise to notice how nicely the place was fixed up inside. He thought it could almost be in the middle of a suburb somewhere instead of here in the wilderness.

      It was a really small house, not a shack. Camilla after opening a couple of windows clicked a wall switch and an electric lamp came on, revealing the main room, furnished with rustic chairs and tables. A large, new-looking rug covered much of the floor of broad planks. Under the windows at one side was a kitchen sink, complete with faucets—indoor plumbing was more than anyone had back at the CCC camp.

      Crossing this main chamber, Camilla led Jake to a door that opened into what seemed to be the only bedroom. There she gestured for him to sit down on the only bed. Another door on the far side of the bedroom remained closed. Maybe, he wondered, a real bathroom?

      Sitting on the bed, which softly squeaked beneath his weight, Jake looked around him. An ordinary dresser, with drawers. No mirror on the dresser, or anywhere else. Several pictures decorated the whitewashed walls.

      He asked: “Where’s the old man sleep? What time does he turn in?”

      “Don’t worry about him,” Camilla assured him positively. Bustling about almost maternally, she fluffed pillows and turned down covers. “He won’t turn in till dawn, and he never comes in the house.”

      “He doesn’t?”

      “No. You can go to sleep.”

      Sleep was tempting, but for the moment Jake just sat stupidly, watching a mouse scamper along the neat baseboard right in front of him. He felt too tired to think.

      Camilla had retreated briskly to the main room, where she struck a match and was now kindling some kind of brighter flame with it. In a few moments she re-entered the bedroom and set down a lighted kerosene lamp on the small table.

      “No electric light in this room,” she explained apologetically. Now, with more light, Jake could see stains on the neat whitewashing of one wall, up near the ceiling, as if a roof leak had been neglected.

      “Are you hungry?” Camilla was asking him.

      “Not any more.” Then Jake burst out, pleading, demanding help: “Tell me, what’s going on?”

      “Right now,” said Camilla, “this is.” She turned away to close the bedroom door firmly, and then turned back. Then, standing right in front of him, she began to undress.

* * * * * *

      Jake woke up several times during the night. On each occasion he alternated between wondering whether he was going mad, and deriving considerable comfort from the warm presence of Camilla sleeping at his side. Once Jake got out of bed and wandered naked from one dark room to another of the small house, looking for the shotgun. For some reason it was preying on his mind. He found the weapon at last where Camilla must have left in, in the main room, leaning casually in a corner. Jake put his fingers on the cool metal of the double barrel, and then decided to leave the shotgun where it was.

      He checked the door leading outside, and discovered that it was unlocked. In fact, as Jake now discovered, there appeared to be no way to lock it.

      Holding the