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

      “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 travelling 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 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 him 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