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

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 riverbank. Against the morning sunlight she was wearing a broad-brimmed woman’s 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 housecat, 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