A Question of Time

Jake relaxed a little. 'That's all right.'

'And some day before you die I may even let you go... but that isn't likely, now you've seen my operation.' Folding his arms, the elder stared athim judicially.

'What do you mean, you may let me go? What the hell are you talking about?'

No answer,

Jake locked eyes with the old man for a few moments; it was a grim and confident glare that Jake faced, and if he hadn't been two or three sizes bigger and maybe forty years younger, it might have frightened him. Yes, the old guy was crazy. No use talking to a crazy man. Too bad, five dollars a day would have been good pay—but Jake wasn't going to try working for a lunatic. No job here. No wonder Camilla wanted out.

Jake sighed, and stood up a little straighter. He looked at Camilla, feeling sorry for her. She avoided his gaze. Yes, no wonder she was frightened, and wanted to get away.

He said: 'I'm going, then. You coming with me, kid? I think you'd better.'

She still looked timid. Standing in the shade, she held her hat in front of her in both hands, and kept turning it round and round. Her voice when she finally spoke was small. 'Jake? I'm sorry, you can't go. You really can't.'

'Who says I can't?'

No one answered him. 'Watch and see,' Jake added. 'I think you better come with me,' he told the girl in a softer voice. Only now did he start to think about the complications that would result if Camilla did come with him. There was nowhere to take her but the camp, and Jake couldn't really predict what would happen at camp tomorrow if he showed up with a good-looking redhead in tow, after being AWOL all night—but it would be interesting. She sure as hell wasn't going to be allowed to move into camp with him. His days with the CCC would probably be over, and he'd have no job at all. But right now he thought it would be worth it.

Camilla hesitated only for a moment, then, rather to Jake's surprise, she said: 'All right.' Somehow, given her sudden timidity as soon as the old man appeared, he'd expected her to choose staying here with a sure meal ticket, even if Mr. Tyrrell was more than somewhat cracked.

Jake looked at the old man to see how he was taking this defection. There seemed to be no need to worry. The rock-dusty figure stood with its arms folded, regarding the two young people with a gaze rather more amused than angry.

So it didn't look like there was going to be any real trouble. Jake relaxed a little. 'Hey,' he asked the old man, gesturing: 'Where'd you get these lights?' The lamps on their poles really looked like something out of Buck Rogers, or almost. When Jake listened for the sound of the generator, he thought maybe he could hear it droning in the background, barely audible above the steady noise of waterfall and rapids.

'Somewhere beyond the nineties,' the old man said. 'I couldn't be quite sure.'

'Huh?'

The old guy didn't bother trying to explain. Instead he turned back into his quarry-cave, returning his attention to whatever strange tasks he needed the lights to help him with. Standing among the strange white shapes that his tools had called forth from the deep rocks, the old man picked up a steel chisel and a hammer, and looked ready to carve away some more.

Camilla, talking to Jake and sounding resigned rather than eager, repeated: 'I'm ready.'

Tyrrell turned to look at her over his shoulder. 'Better take a gun,' he suggested. 'Just in case.'

Jake, not sure that he had heard correctly, gave the old man an intent look.

But Camilla only nodded and turned away. She walked over to the little house, went in, and a few seconds later came out again, carrying a shotgun, but nothing else. She held the weapon casually on her shoulder, as if she were familiar with it.

'I'm ready,' she said to Jake. 'Let's go.' It was as if she had no real intention of taking leave of the old man at all, or he of her. It was just as if she expected to be back here in ten minutes.

Jake looked from her to the shotgun, to the old man. Tyrrell was once again busy with his own tasks, ignoring the young people.

Looking back at his girl, Jake nodded.

Moments later Jake, with Camilla silently keeping close behind him, was descending the side-canyon trail, going back toward the river, following the little creek whose name he had never learned. Behind him, for a little while, Jake could still hear the faint clink of the old man's tools on rock; he was ignoring their departure.

Fifty yards downstream, Jake, puzzled and unsatisfied, stopped and turned to ask his companion: 'Why did he suggest you ought to take the gun?'

Camilla stopped too. 'For protection.'

'Against what? There's no animals in the Canyon that'll hurt a person. Except a rattlesnake, and you don't need a gun for them. Mountain lions stay clear.'

She didn't answer.

'Not protection against me, for God's sake?'

'Oh, Jake. No, no, not against you. Not against any person.'

Jake shrugged, turned, and resumed his walk. Trudging downslope amid deepening shadows, descending now and then a natural step or two of rock, he pictured how he and Camilla were going to be spending the night without bed or blankets, under the stars. He grinned at the prospect; tonight two were going to sleep a hell of a lot warmer than one, whatever might happen to them tomorrow.

They'd followed the side canyon back down toward the river for perhaps half a mile, Camilla keeping silently just behind him all the way, until they passed the place where he'd always found Camilla waiting for him. Immediately after that, Jake Rezner realized that neither the trail nor the canyon itself looked as familiar as they ought to, considering that he'd climbed up the same identical path this morning. It wasn't a question of possibly having got onto the wrong trail; no way in the world they could have done that. There was only one side canyon coming up from the river to the old man's house and workplace, and only one path running down the middle of that canyon, right beside the single tumbling, babbling stream.

Only now Jake could not escape the feeling—more than a feeling, it was a certainty—that the path had changed. So had everything around him.

Jake kept moving, listening to the rushing water. But for once a stream's voice made no words in his mind.

Five minutes after Jake first began to sense a wrong-ness about the trail, he found himself emerging from the mouth of the little canyon, his steps slowing to a halt on the shore of the broad racing river. There was only one big river within five hundred miles, so this had to be the Colorado. But at the same time it couldn't be. In this river, vicious rapids frothed and raged, extending at least fifty yards upstream and down from the inflow of the creek.

On both shores of the river the mighty buttes and walls of the big canyon towered over Jake, just as he had seen them before—

No, not like he had ever seen them. Now something was wrong with the walls and mesas and promontories of the big canyon too. Even its overall shape was indefinably wrong. Maybe it wasn't really deep enough. And the rocks and the soil were the wrong color. The sun was lowering now and the light had changed, sure—but what had happened went far beyond any possible effect of changing light.

Jake turned around uncertainly. 'Wait. This—'

Camilla was still holding the shotgun casually on her shoulder, like someone who had experience with weapons. She stood watching him and waiting.

Jake let his verbal protest die away. He had to. Because there was no way to express in words the full extent of the wrongness that surrounded him. The shapes of the cliffs were all false, and though they were still high, they were no longer nearly high enough. And how had he ever managed to follow the Colorado downstream from camp to this point? He'd done that. Of course he had. But now, the way upstream on this side of the river was completely blocked.

Night was approaching quickly now. Jake had the feeling that even the sun was sinking faster than it ought. But there was still light enough for him to see the landscape. It wasn't the onset of dusk that was making everything look crazy. The whole landscape had really altered, so much that he thought he was going mad.

Again, this time wordlessly, he looked to Camilla for help. She had nothing to say either, but only stood gazing at him calmly and sadly, as if these weird changes in the world, and his reaction to them, were no more than