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

to tell with the dark glasses still covering her eyes, but he got the feeling she was hoping he would understand—something, whatever it was—without her having to spell it out for him.

      But he wanted to hear her spell everything out, tell him just what she wanted from him. “So this fella disappeared from human society.”

      “That’s how he puts it.”

      “And when was this?”

      “About a couple of years ago. A few months before I met him. That’s what he tells me.”

      “Maybe he disappeared, but he still socialized enough to get acquainted with you.”

      “I let him pick me up.” Camilla gave a sudden, nervous little laugh. She let go Jake’s hand and sat up abruptly. “I don’t know how to tell it. Let’s get dressed. It’s a long story. I’ll take you to see where I live. Maybe that’ll make it all easier to explain.”

      So far, it didn’t sound so awfully complicated to Jake. He said: “I’d rather look at everything you’re showing me right now.” But Camilla was already on her feet, brushing sand from her sweaty skin, picking up her clothes. Jake sighed and went along.

      By the time he was dressed again, Camilla was already busy packing up her easel and stuff. “Give me a hand,” she pleaded. The down-canyon breeze was freshening, trying to make off with some of her sketches, though she had them weighted down with small black rocks.

      “Sure.” Jake corralled sheets of drawing paper which were on the brink of making an escape, and stuffed them under his arm, trying not to crinkle the papers too much. Now that he really thought about it, it wouldn’t have been believable that she lived all the way up on the Rim, and carried all this junk up and down with her on a fourteen-mile round trip every time she wanted to go sketching.

      They had Camilla’s art materials bundled up for transportation when, as if struck by a sudden thought, she demanded of Jake: “You didn’t tell anyone you were meeting me today, did you?”

      “Hell no. Tell those guys there’s a good-looking girl down here? Think I want an expedition following me out from camp?”

      “No, I didn’t think you’d want that … Jake, the creek water’s safe.” He had started to drink from his canteen.

      He shrugged and drank from the canteen anyway. “I can refill before I head back.”

      “Oh my God. You know what? I packed you a lunch and then forgot all about it!” Suddenly it was as if Camilla at the last minute wanted to delay taking Jake up to where she lived, and was thinking up ways to delay that trip. As if she was getting cold feet about something.

      Jake had also forgotten about food, but at the mention of it he was suddenly hungry. If Camilla wanted to postpone his tour of her living quarters, it was all right with him.

      Or maybe, Jake thought, she wanted him to be a thoroughly contented man before she took him there. From somewhere she brought out a metal lunchbox with flowers on it, like something a little girl might have carried to school, and opened it to reveal sandwiches neatly wrapped in waxed paper, and fruit, and a vacuum bottle she said held lemonade.

      The bread turned out to be home-made, the sandwich filling cheese and ham. Sitting on a rock, Jake ate and drank with a good appetite. All the better, because by now he had thoroughly resigned himself to missing evening chow. Not that he would have minded missing a few more meals, in a cause as good as that of getting laid by this girl.

      “You’re not eating anything,” Jake commented, chewing. “Want one of these?” He held out a wax paper packet.

      Camilla shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”

      Jake shrugged. He thought vaguely that maybe she was dieting—though with a figure like hers he didn’t see any need for it.

      He asked: “So, how long have you been living in this mysterious place up-canyon?” Being diplomatic, as he thought, he didn’t say with this mysterious guy.

      Camilla started an answer, but broke it off. Then with seeming irrelevance she asked: “Have you ever been up on the South Rim?”

      He nodded. “Sure. When I first came to the Canyon, four months ago, they drove us in that far in a bus from Flagstaff, then marched us down the trail on foot—ever see our camp, up river at the foot of Kaibab Trail?” Jake took another bite of sandwich.

      Camilla nodded.

      Jake went on: “In four months I only been up out of the Canyon a couple of times, for a weekend. You have to ride a mule up Bright Angel trail, or else hike up. And each time we passed through the little village on the rim.” As he recalled, there had been about half a dozen buildings in view, including the railroad station where the Santa Fe spur line ended. And of course the big log hotel, with a few more structures scattered back among the trees. “What about it?”

      “I came in that way too. With Edgar, after he picked me up in a bar in Flagstaff.” Camilla paused there, looking at Jake from behind her dark glasses as if she were daring him to comment on this admission. He didn’t.

      She went on: “One of those houses up there on the rim is the one he used to live in. He used to have different models all the time, until he finally married one of them. For all I know his wife and his kid are still living there. You have to get over a little west of the head of Bright Angel Trail to see the house, and you might easily miss it even from there.”

      She was, Jake decided, harping on Edgar Tyrrell and his house because she was having a hard time deciding how to approach whatever it was she really wanted to explain. This decision was harder for her than the decision she had made when she took off her clothes.

      She added wistfully: “I’ve never seen that Rim again.”

      Then,