Traveller - L.W. Samuelson (free e books to read online TXT) 📗

with a dictionary in hand. He looked up any words he didn't understand.

For the next two days, Traveller studied English. He used the translator as he watched television to become ever more familiar with the language. He became enthralled with a soap opera called General Hospital.
On Wednesday he tired of T.V., so he read the set of encyclopedias. He opened each volume randomly to read the entries on the pages. Once he opened a book to an article about mountain lions. There were also called pumas or catamounts. He liked the word catamount. It meant cat of the mountain. The article stated that the cat could weigh up to two hundred and fifty pounds but an average one weighed a hundred thirty-six pounds. They hunted deer and other animals at night or during the gloaming hours of dawn. He had to look the word gloaming up. It meant twilight. He didn't know what twilight meant so he looked that up too. It meant the time between sunrise and full night when the sun couldn't be seen but it still lit up the horizon. It was a time of silhouettes and shadows. Traveller wondered if there were any mountain lions in the area around Pomerelle prowling around in the gloaming dusk, the time between sunset and full night. The dictionary said that twilight refers to both times of the day.
Traveller arranged his bed in the cargo hold. He crawled under the space blanket, soon finding himself in the gloaming part of sleep, a time of dreams and visions just before deep sleep arrived.
Early Thursday morning, Traveller awoke with a cold heaviness on his chest. When he made a slight movement, a rattling sound ensued. “Lumination,” he commanded the ship’s computer to light the cargo hold before holding the blanket up. He found himself face to face with his new friend, Fangs. The snake’s head stood erect with its white fangs bared. He held the rattler’s eyes until it quit rattling. It dropped its head then slithered up Traveller’s chest and across his face before diappearing into the back of the hold. Jesse would have freaked out he thought.
Traveller pulled himself out of the blankets. He got his day pack ready filling it with water containers, syntho-wafers, and one of the red fruits Jesse had given him. He included his scanner, the laser, and Tim’s mess kit. That was nice of Tim he thought as he placed it with the other tools. I miss my friends. Fang’s not much company. He’s too grouchy.
Traveller dressed in Levis and his new flannel shirt. He donned his down coat before opening the doors to the gloaming sunrise burning red on the eastern horizon. The trees loomed black against the morning sky, the air was biting cold. He grabbed the stocking cap from the pocket of his coat and pulled it over his ears where he felt the bite of the morning air. In the other pocket he had placed an electronic head lamp found on a search through the cargo hold. With it on over the cap, he stepped out.
Traveller activated the light. He walked west staying on the ridge. The sun arose behind him clearing the trees as he turned north toward what the sign said was the Thompson Flat Campground. A stream ran alongside the road that led north into the trees.
The headlamp beam caught the gleam of two eyes and the movement of a head. A female deer and two large fawns looked up from where they were drinking water. They seemed unconcerned until he approached too close and then they trotted back into the trees.
Traveller got his scanner. He followed the water until the light turned green. He took the mess kit from his pack before straddling the creek to scoop mud from its bottom. Again he used the unhandled half to get the gravel, pouring small amounts of dirt into the handled part and sluicing it. This time he had a beacon of light that the gold would reflect off of. It immediately bounced off of several gold glitters. Traveller picked the slivers out and placed them in a medicine bottle Jesse had given him. He worked the stream for over two hours in the chilled morning air finding several small flakes but no sizable nugget. The cold seemed to intensify turning his hands numb and useless.
He gave up prospecting to follow the road into the campground. He walked past many sites before finding one with a small stack of firewood near the cement pit. Traveller lifted the metal grate before gathering pine needles, small twigs, and larger pieces of deadwood he pulled from underneath the live branches of the surrounding trees. He placed the needles and twigs in the bottom of the pit and then criss-crossed the larger branches across the top of the kindling.
Next, he checked the Forest Service garbage can chained to a nearby tree. He pulled a brown grocery sack full of paper from the black plastic liner and placed it on top of the thatched branches adding more wood on top. The fire flamed on the first match. In minutes his hands were warming against the orange and yellow tongues of combustion.
Traveller was dozing with his feet on the warm cement when he heard a vehicle approaching. A green truck with a uniformed driver came into view as it rounded a bend in the road. It pulled up beside the campsite.
The man inside rolled his window down. “How are you this morning?” he asked.
Traveller forgot himself. “Boni bon bon,” he replied.
“Excuse me?”
The alien turned blue, “I am fine.”
“Are you sure? You look like you’re freezing to death.”
“I was until I built a fire.”
“How did you get here? I haven’t seen another vehicle up here since last weekend.”
“My friends dropped me off.”
“Where are they?”
“They went back to Idaho State University.”
“And left you here?”
“Yes, they are coming back this weekend.”
“It’s supposed to storm tomorrow. They might not make it back.”
“My friends are the best in the universe. Of course they will come back.”
“I’m going back down the mountain. If it snows hard enough you’ll be stuck here until they plow the roads. Are you sure you don’t want a ride?”
“I’ve seen pictures of snow. It won’t kill me will it?” Traveller asked.
“What an odd question. You’ve never actually seen snow?”
“No, I just got here from Russia.”
“There’s no snow in Russia?” the ranger asked increduously.
“Not that I know of.”
“I always thought Russia was one of the coldest countries in the world.”
“What does that have to do with snow?” Traveller asked.
“You’re joking, right?” the ranger asked. “Where are you staying?” He was becoming suspicious. The more he looked at Traveller the more suspicious he became.
Traveller didn’t say anything as he wondered what to tell the man in the uniform. Finally, he decided to change the subject. “Are there any mountain lions up here?” he asked gettiing up to move as close to the ranger as possible. He put a hand on the man’s arm looking into the ranger’s eyes to convey trust.
The ranger forgot his question to answer Traveller’s. “I’ve never seen one, but they have all kinds of pictures of mountain lions down at Ward’s store.”
“So there are mountain lions around. Where is Ward’s store?”
“Yes, but they steer well clear of humans. They are very shy unless they get too hungry. To get to the store you take the Albion highway south to the Malta junction. It’s right at the T in the road. ”
“What happens when a mountain lion gets too hungry?”
“They have been known to attack humans. Mostly children or someone by themselves.”
“I will be careful then,” he said patting the man’s arm. “Well you can go now.”
The ranger started his pick-up. He did what Traveller suggested without really knowing why.
When the ranger left, Traveller opened the grate of the fire pit, stomped on the dying coals, and then doused them with water. He stirred the ashes with a stick before dousing them again. When he was satisfied the fire was out, he walked rapidly into the trees, heading east.
Breaking into a nice easy lope, he quickly made it back to his space pod. Traveller jumped in when the door opened. The second he hit the pilot’s seat, the thrusters were ignited so that the ship lifted. When it got above the trees, he engaged the engine and flew east.
The Forest Service ranger spotted the white ship as it emerged above the trees. He stopped his truck, got the binoculars out, and scoped the horizon. The white oblong ship turned blue making the sky shimmer before it disappeared. It wasn’t until then that the ranger realized that the man at the campfire hadn’t said where he had come from.

Traveller elevated well into the sky flying due east. He accelerated. Within minutes his ship had intersected the Albion highway. He turned right heading south until the road ended at the T intersection described by the forest ranger. Circling above, several buildings could be seen. On the side of one of the buildings facing the highway, a big white sign with black letters said ‘Ward’s General Store.’
To the north of the store, a hill dotted with silver cedars rose up. Behind it, a small depression with several pines trees surrounding it suggested that it would make a great place to park. He glided over it, hovered, engaged the thrusters, and then landed the spaceship.
He put his parka on over his flannel shirt before opening the door and stepping out. Traveller walked over the hill then down the other side into the yard behind the store.
The place appeared to be abandoned, but on the other side of the store he spotted a man sweeping the porch.
“Hello sir,” he said startling the bearded man with a greasy grey jacket on.
“Where’d you come from?” he inquired.
“I walked here from the north,” said Traveller.
“What can I do for you?”
“The U.S. Forest Service ranger told me you had photographs of mountain lions on your counter. Can I see them?”
“Sure,” he said. “Come on inside.”
Traveller followed the man into the store. Its dimly lit interior contained a few groceries, a pop machine, and a display of VHS video tapes. “They’re under the glass over there,” the man said.
Traveller hurried to the counter where he found several photos of catamounts, as he liked to think of them. One showed a tawny cat staring fiercely down from a tree; another had one of the mountain lions sunning on a rocky ledge. One shot showed a cat ripping meat from a deer carcass.
“How did you get so close? Traveller asked the man.
“I didn’t. They were taken with a telephoto lens.”
“Where can I find a mountain lion?” he asked.
“Some of those were taken on Jim Sage Mountain. You just take a left at the intersection and head back toward Malta. You’ll come to a sign a few miles up the road and then you turn right. Are you okay? You look a little blue.”
“I am well, thank you.”
“Do you want a ride somewhere? Where’re ya parked?”
“No, I walked here from the north.”
“Well, I’ve got a pickup to work on. If you don’t need anything else, I’ll lock this back up and git to work.”
“Thank you for the directions,” Traveller said.
Traveller waited until the man disappeared inside of his garage. When he was inside, the alien walked northeast, quickly covering the quarter mile between the hills and the man’s shop. The storeowner waited inside then came back out to see where his