Detour to Otherwhen ©
by K Pelle
Chapter 9
I only knew the three old men were native-shaman by the ceremonial gear they wore, but for some reason I couldn't identify just what tribe they were from and that surprised me. I had a broad knowledge of the paint and beading patterns which distinguished one prairie tribe from another, but try as I might I couldn't place what tribes the three old men represented. They were dressed in heavily beaded buckskin robes, and wearing war paint on their faces, but as I studied the patterns painted on their skin and the beading on their robes, I frowned in confusion. The patterns and symbols those old men wore were completely unknown to me.
On top of that, the more I studied those old men, the more I felt that they were a danger to us. For some inexplicable reason it seemed as if they radiated dislike, even hatred. The huge dog at my side growled louder as they reached the far side of the fire ring, causing the trio to hesitate, then halt their approach. I'll probably never know why, but right then I thought of the fiddle, in fact it was almost as if that fiddle had called to me, so I stepped over to scoop up that shiny black case in my free hand. Now I had the hatchet in one hand and the fiddle in the other, but for some unknown reason I suddenly felt much stronger and far braver.
"Just what do you want." I barked, trying to make my voice sound as stern and unyielding as possible.
"We know of you, wolfman." The strongest looking shaman of the three spoke in a strangely guttural accent and a thin quavering voice as the mysterious chanting died away. "I come in protest and bring the grandfather of my grandfather's grandfather to beseech you not to do what you set out to do. We ask you not to dig in the hills and valleys of our lands, disturbing the peace of those who have walked this region even before our tribes were formed. We beg that you allow the bones of our distant ancestors rest in the soil and stones where they lie."
"You have been told untruths, old man. We come to learn of our families, not to disturb the graves of your ancestors. We come seeking no bones, we only come looking to find discarded tools, broken weapons and abandoned campsites." Anna called from behind me. "We seek the worn baskets, shattered tools and broken knives which our own ancestors cast aside as broken and useless. Even then we will not remove those things we find from this land. We wish only to see their crafts with our own eyes, hoping to record where our ancestors lived and what they left behind so that we can treat those places and the objects of our ancestors' crafts with reverence."
"Foolish woman child, do you think you can sort through the mixed and muddled leavings of time so easily?" The second oldest looking figure croaked weakly, yet I knew everyone could hear him clearly. "The grandson of my grandson's grandson has called me forth from my rest to argue that our ancestral hunting ground be left in peace, untroubled by those who would disturb our rest. He has asked and you have refused. I do not ask, I demand that you go from this place and leave our bones covered by the soil of more summers than men can count. If you disturb those broken weapons and steal those lost tools, how will we, your ancestors, hunt and gather food in the afterlife? I, who once lived and hunted in these hills, demand that you leave my bones and those of my brothers in the protective grounds where they lie."
"Oh come now, old man, do you expect us to believe you to be dead? I can see you and I don't believe in ghosts. Besides, I'm not like these others. My family came from Europe and Africa, not North America." Ellen spoke quietly, but firmly.
"You are mistaken, child. You too had ancestors who walked the frozen tracks and marched though the fluttering grasses and stony mountain trails of this land, yet as every hunter knows, a path reaches in both directions. Some chose to walk far upon that path and so came to remain in this new land, but some brothers lost heart and returned to the lands where their ancestors had been born. Now mock me not, for if you ignore my demands, I shall call upon the oldest and wisest of our medicine men, whose father was chosen by the sun that brightens our sky. Before you stands a being from the farthest past of this land, an ancestor who has such power that he commands the water, the winds, the skies and even the very sun with his words and charms." And with that the old spook pointed to the central shaman, an even older and frailer appearing figure.
We stood there trying to look adamant, even while we felt a strange power flowing in our direction from those three old figures. Still, we all held ourselves proudly, bearing their enmity, turning it aside. They stared at us and we stared at them. It was an impasse, with neither side willing to give way to the other. Then the outer two figures of the trio turned and faced the third, each reaching out to that frail old form, each placing a hand on a quivering shoulder. That frail, twisted shape seemed to grow and strengthen at their touch, seeming to draw vitality from the others. That weak, skeletal frame seemed to expand and fill out, until it attained the shape and form of a larger than life size warrior/shaman, becoming an ancient appearing, yet immense figure.
His face contorted into a frown of concentration and his eyes bored into mine, taking on an intense gaze that rivetted my full attention upon him and him alone. Quietly, almost silently, he began to chant, uttering sounds that mimicked the noises of nature; water flowing over stones, birds winging across the sky, dry leaves rattling against brittle branches and snow blowing in the winter wind.
I heard the oldest medicine man's chant and saw the look on his face, yet I found myself frowning, concentrating, trying to understand, trying to find meaning in those sounds. In only seconds though, I realized that something peculiar was happening. Somehow I had been captivated, drawn into a trance by his reedy voice. His mimicked sounds of nature became antiquated wording which was just as strangely mesmerizing. Yet even though I knew I was being ensorcelled by the spell of his voice, I couldn't seem to break that thrall.
I listened closely to the old shaman's words, trying to translate what he was saying, but also wondering why the other men believed him to be a charmer of the water, the winds and the skies. As you can probably guess, I wasn't a true believer in the old faith, so I suppose I was looking for a way to debunk the old man and expose him as a fraud, at least to myself if no one else. Still, there was something in the way he stood and in the words he spoke that seemed to increase his stature and charisma. Somehow his strange sounds seemed to mimic words, yet I couldn't quite understand what he was saying no matter how hard I tried. I knew I should move, knew I should break the pattern of his chanting sounds, yet I was unable to do anything of the sort.
Suddenly, although I was certain his language hadn't changed, I found I could understand the old shaman's words. Perhaps his language really had changed, or perhaps my brain had shifted gears, I don't know which. At the moment I was more worried about the words he was using – words that seemed to be pronouncing a curse upon us.
". . . from the past, the time when the buffalo ran free, and none placed poles and threads of metal in the long grass to bar their way. Forget that world, quietly lying under a long lost sun, and in your search, avoid travelling the world beyond the footprints of your first ancestor to walk this land. Go too far, to the time when the sun will flee the summer sky for long times each year, and the walking ice of the longest winter will return to devour you, sucking the warmth from your shivering bones. You may not travel to the time when the ancestors of the men of the prairie hunted these hills and valleys in the longest winters and sheltered behind the steepest hills to hide from driving snows. Instead we shall send you to another time, to the opposite ends of the world you thought to seek, there to find the truth of a world yet to come. Go to that age beyond the setting sun, to that world in a new day of our time and see the ways of your children's children's children and see them living in the welcome shelter of these protective hills . . ."
Then he slipped into a different chant, once more speaking a language I couldn't understand. Yet as I listened, his voice sounded clearer and stronger, but at the same time the sounds he made grew more outlandish and more incomprehensible. After a moment he began to make strange gestures with his hands over the ground at his feet and the ring of stones which had surrounded our campfire only a short time before.
To my surprise, a glowing haze rose from the drowned ashes of the fire that I'd extinguished, but although that glow flickered and flared like a flame, it was no ordinary bonfire. Instead the fire ring was filled by a glowing flickering haze which acted nothing like normal flames should – it wasn't even the colour of a real fire. Instead of burning red, orange and yellow, it pulsed and shuddered in shades of dull blue and washed out green. The flames didn't act like normal flame either, for the glow had a distinct shape as it overflowed the fire ring, growing into a flattened bubble, quivering and trembling in time to the old man's voice. Unsteadily it grew as he continued to mumble nonsense sounds, each sound causing a waver or wobble in that expanding glow. Each flare inducing its spread until the bubble of light encircled the three old shaman in its blue-green shimmer.
Yet it didn't stop there. Instead it ballooned outward, becoming a halved sphere which inundated the grass and soil as it crept toward me, yet I had no feeling of heat from what now seemed to be a large blaze. I took heart in the fact that it enveloped those old witchdoctors and they didn't flinch, it seemed to have left them untouched. No grass or twigs touched by that glowing hemisphere was ignited, nothing even smouldered. The only change seemed to be the blue and green shades which flared over the surfaces inside that radiance as it expanded, flowing closer and closer to me. I wanted to flee, but couldn't seem to make my legs work. I did tense as the glowing shape wobbled closer, and yet even when it touched, then enveloped me, it didn't singe my flesh. That flickering, flaring bubble of phantasmal light was neither hot nor cold. There was no sensation of any kind as it touched and flowed over my skin, so I ignored it, hoping it could do little harm. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see it flow onward, continuing until it surrounded the women. Once past them, it seemed to move faster as it flowed round the tents, the camper, the quonset hut, the smaller buildings, the corral, even the horses. And still that flickering haze moved onward, flowing and expanding, until it was climbing up the canyon walls and out across the valley floor. It didn't stop, moving faster and faster as it raced up and down the valley's length, lighting the whole valley floor, rushing up the steep canyon walls to the nearest hills, then arcing up and across, forming a dome high above our heads.
Soon though the flickering slowed and calmed, leaving behind a faint blue-green glow over everyone and everything. Now only flickers of light ran along the tops of the nearest hills, then danced, leaping across a vague dome which arced high overhead. Gradually all the sounds that had been so clear under the evening sunset seemed to fade away until all I heard were the muted syllables of the old reprobate's voice. That's when I realized the glowing light wasn't as harmless as I had believed for I was being held in some sort of constraint that squeezed in upon me. It surrounded me from head to toe and although I struggled to move, I felt weak as a kitten, nearly unable to force my body to function.
I had to fight to draw a breath, flex a finger or even blink my eye lids. There was an instant when I came close to panic, suddenly fearful of what could happen to us if we were all helpless, then my temper roused and anger filled me. I was convinced that the old shaman meant to harm or even destroy us, so I resolved that I would find some way to break his spell's thrall and prevent him from succeeding. Somehow I had to stop him from carrying out whatever feat he sought to accomplish. Willing myself to fight the bonds that held me, I struggled to lift a foot, even managed a slow and painful shift, a tiny step toward the old reprobate. I felt as if I was swimming in molasses, struggling against the power which gripped me as it fought against my every motion. Straining mightily, I managed a second small step in the old man's direction, but at the same time I fought to lift the hatchet which I held in my hand. Slowly, grimly, my heart pounding at the effort I was using to fight the thrall of the old shaman's curse, I managed to take a third shuffling step, then another. Those steps were tiny, each only inches from the last, but I was moving forward.
I felt, rather than heard the old man's reedy voice rise in response to my movement, but now I was moving slowly toward him. As I moved, instead of increasing in strength, the bonds around me gradually weakened, only slightly, but enough to encourage me to try even harder. Although attacking an old man went against every grain of my training and culture, I felt that striking directly against him was the only way to foil his enchantment. At the same time I grew convinced that by using his dark and ancient spells, he wanted to banish us, sought to send us to some strange form of hell, some weird destination out of his worst nightmare.
I had only managed to make four or five short, shambling steps when I saw the old shaman slowly stretch his hands toward the fire and heard his chant change once more. Now his voice altered, becoming a wailing dissonance, a bawling rant of anger and frustration, verging upon panic. I'll never know why, but I paused in my fight to move forward, instead concentrating on lifting my only weapon, my camp hatchet and as I lifted it, I managed to screw my lips into a twisted grin. Just as my weakened arm managed to raise the hatchet to a threatening position, his voice took on a ululation of success. That was when I saw a blazing clump of orangish-yellow fire erupt from the circle of stones, a pulsing flare, magically levitating out of the sodden ring of ashes and stones. That flaring blob lifted, then flowed in response to the motion of the old man's hands, tightening and becoming spherical as it moved. His right arm swung back, then forward, as if he had cast that sphere toward me, yet he had never touched that ball of living flame. Still, he had put an immense effort into that throw for he slumped again, showing that he was nearly exhausted.
I felt positive that flaming ball was meant to destroy me and perhaps all of our group. I was convinced that sphere of flame was dangerous and that I had to protect everyone, but the only weapon I had to use was my hatchet. There was no time to shift to a solid stance, nor to grip the hatchet properly. I didn't even have time to set myself and I knew I wasn't capable of moving quickly. Yet even though I was moving as if I was fighting while submerged in molasses, I was still able to raise that hatchet to meet the oncoming roaring glob of flame. To my astonishment I managed to strike that blazing orb, and it clanged off the steel blade, making the hatchet ring as if it had struck solid stone. That flaring sphere rebounded, but my strike had been neither true nor solid, instead it had been a slow motion sweep of desperation and utter futility. Simply an attempt to salve my ego as I sought to do whatever I could to redirect the shaman's attack, but even that small effort had been immensely tiring. I was left in doubt that I could move quickly enough to protect anyone if the old geezer made another attempt on our lives.
Yet even while I was feeling those negative thoughts, that ball of fire was arcing up and away from me. At first, instead of being deflected away from anyone's grasp it seemed to be flowing in an arc toward the old shaman, definitely not what I intended or wanted. I tensed then, fearful of what he would do if it returned to him. Could he control it and if he could, I wondered what his next attempt on our lives would be?
For some reason I felt the need to hold the fiddle then and dropping the hatchet, I managed to claw open that dead-black case, then pull out that old fiddle and the ancient bow. Somehow, although I was fighting against that feeling of creeping lassitude, I brought the fiddle to my chin and the bow to the strings. The sounds I brought forth were weak, wavering, almost spastic – not music, simply noise of with a strange haunting quality. I was almost certain those sounds would do little against this shaman's spell, but right then that was all I could do and all I could think to try to do, harmless and ineffective though it might be.
And yet that globe seemed to react to the sound – it flickered and flared in time to my faltering tempo. And surprisingly I felt strength flow into my hands as I played, then that glowing sphere stopped falling in an arc that would bring it to the shaman. Instead it now rose higher, dancing and jittering to the wild notes my hands drew from that old instrument that had come out of my family's past. I have no idea what music I played, for it was no tune I'd ever heard and it was not pleasant to my ears, filled as it was by strange squeals, squawks and dissonances. I had no conscious control over my arms or fingers, nor the fiddle and bow, some ancient urge from deep inside my being was in control and my body was just the tool it used to express itself. Yet that strange flickering flare either danced to – or fled from that sound, but it was moving and it was moving higher upward so I was happy to continue, because the further that raging blaze was from me, the better I felt.
The same can't be said for the old shaman though, he had fallen silent, his mouth gaping open and his eyes staring widely as he traced the path of that soaring ball of fire. Strangely, his face now wore an expression of sheer dread, as if he was facing a fate worse than death, as if he had no choice of action and no possible escape. He wasn't reacting as I would have expected, but then neither was that flaring sphere. It was drifting upward now, up and away from him, jigging and jouncing in time to the weird notes of that old violin, but always straying upward, jerkily rising over his head and silently jerking and jolting as it lifted toward the sky. Slowly it rose, seemingly fluttering freely above everyone, and that flaring reddish orange ball still lifted, seeming to creep now as it rose toward the shimmering, blue-green bubble of light that still formed a dome high overhead.
Then the stuttering red flare and that blue-green bubble of arching light touched, mingled and . . . a crack much like the world's loudest thunder resounded then, a sound so loud it stunned the ear and boggled the mind, so violent it caused the very soil underfoot to shudder. That raw sound was accompanied by a brilliant flash of light, bright purple light that seemed to burn into my skin, through my flesh, then behind and beyond my stunned body. For a brief instant the whole valley and everything in it was brilliantly illuminated by that intense purple flare.
At that instant I was once more totally immobilized, frozen in place, unable to even twitch a muscle. I desperately wanted to turn, yearned to check on the safety of the rest of the group behind me, but I couldn't. I couldn't even swivel my eyes to check on them with peripheral vision. I was utterly unable to move, not even so much as blinking an eyelid. That flare of light and wall of sound had struck me, passed through me, paralysed me, but then paralysis was instantly followed by utter blackness and complete silence . . .
I was left alone, surrounded by . . . Nothing!
It seemed as if I was immersed in impenetrable blackness and complete silence, constrained by total immobility, all the while wondering and worrying about my companions. I could feel no sensations of any kind, no sights, no sounds, no smells, no tastes, nothing – nothing at all, other than my racing thoughts. I couldn't even feel the beating of my heart. It was as though I was suddenly in sensory limbo, where no sensation existed except thought and even that was being whittled away by fear. There were no sensual experiences of any kind, not even a sense that time was passing, yet thoughts and fears raced through my mind, so time must have passed, mustn't it? Didn't thought take time? If so, hours must have passed, or was that days – weeks – even months? There was no way for me to estimate the passage of time, for I had no references of any kind . . . I was in limbo.
One question came to mind again and again – was this death? Had I died? Had we all been killed? Was this purgatory, or some other form of perdition, some horribly twisted form of hell? Were my own thoughts, fears and terrors all that I had to look forward to experiencing? How long would this horror last? Would this state of affairs last forever?
Then miracle of miracles, I felt my heart beat once . . . then a long wait before it beat again and after what seemed a slightly shorter time, it beat once more. Eventually, after an almost endless period, I was able to draw a deep, delicious breath of cool air. I still couldn't move freely, but I could use my diaphragm, so . . . I could breathe! Now I felt assured that I might live. Then, although it was quite dark, I realized that I could see once more, yet I still could not move my eyes. I couldn't turn my head, in fact it felt as if hours, or perhaps days, maybe even weeks passed before I could even blink my eyelids. Yet slowly, after what felt like eternity, my other senses seemed to be returning, but slowly, oh so slowly. Eventually I could smell and the first scent I detected was the acrid odour of wet ashes and stale coffee, then weakly, the scent of grass. Since I'd been standing near our fire pit before all this started, I leapt to the conclusion that I was still near the drowned coals of our sodden campfire and the area where someone had cleared back the tall grass so we could have a fire. Then despite the darkness which surrounded me, by concentrating on my peripheral vision I could just make out the feeble glow of the dying sunset. Using those two hints as clues I was somehow certain that I hadn't moved from where I had been standing.
After what had just happened, I would have sworn that nothing would ever surprise me again, only then something began which I simply couldn't understand in any way. By the time the old shaman had started his ceremony the sun had set fully and darkness was falling, but now, quite impossibly, the sun was appearing once more. Even more unbelievably it was rising from the same point where it had set, backtracking on itself, seeming to move in the wrong direction. Unable to turn my head or move my eyes, I could only see the sun peripherally, yet I as much as I could, I watched in disbelief as it slowly rose above the western horizon. Then it seemed to float across the sky, gradually gaining speed as it travelled toward the eastern horizon. Incredibly, the sun set in the east at the point where it should have risen. The light slowly faded as the sky gradually darkened, became black enough for me to see stars, then astoundingly, it lightened again. Once more the sun rose in the west, but now it hurried across the sky, moving ever more rapidly as it sped across the sky, then set in the east. It seemed to be racing as it disappeared, but after a very brief period of darkness, it was back, still accelerating as it flashed overhead, still moving the wrong way as it crossed the sky. Unbelievably, it didn't slow, didn't stop. Instead it moved still faster, disappearing in the east, reappearing in the west, and it happened faster, then faster still, until it was a flickering blur that shifted north and south, following the reversed variation of its normal seasonal shifts. The session of speeding blurs was upsetting, but that was far from the worst effect I witnessed. Even worse was an interminable period when sun spun past so rapidly that my whole view was little more than a bleak shade of shimmering grey. It was neither night nor day but only an extended session of featureless grey that flickered slightly with tiny glimmers of weak light. For what felt like eons, the world seemed to be caught somewhere between darkness and light, yet was neither one nor the other.
My mind searched in wonder for any reference in my education or my beliefs for a situation such as this, but I couldn't think of any explanation other than an old Catholic priest's twisted tales of purgatory. Yet, I somehow doubted that this limbo in which I found myself would fit within the teachings of any of the catechisms which I'd been taught as a child and had long since forgotten. I knew what I was thinking was only a futile attempt to rationalize the situation, but it did accomplish one thing, it allowed my mind to stay busy as time passed . . . or did time pass? I really don't know, because the world I knew ran in minutes and hours, dependent on the periods of day and night. Yet now I seemed to exist in a place where there were no days, no nights, only a period of dim twilight that lasted and lasted, seemingly for weeks . . . perhaps months . . . maybe years? I had no means to measure that interminable time I spent in limbo!
Since I didn't sleep, or eat, or drink, or even move. I should have died of thirst or starvation. Yet somehow I existed. Somehow I survived. While I was pondering the reason why I hadn't perished, things must have begun to change once more, only I didn't recognise those changes at first. It wasn't until I was again seeing periods of daylight and dark, watching the sun as it slowed in its crazy, backward arc, that I began to hope I might live to once more see normality. However I was not privileged to see the sun come to a full stop and reverse its course. Gradually it slowed, until on its last pass, the sun barely crept past as it set beyond the eastern horizon. Then the light around me slowly dimmed to near darkness.
At that point there was another flare of actinic light; a brilliant, red tinged flash that wiped out any chance of seeing anything for several seconds. I was pitched into a blackness as deep and dark as ink. Was it a repeat of what had happened before or was it the opposing end of the flash we had seen previously . . . the period at the end of my sentence of terror? Would I have to relive that nightmare of being immobilized for an interminable time? I wanted to fight my way free of my bodily imprisonment, yet there seemed to be nothing I could do.
Then my sight returned. Again I saw a sheet of blue tinged flame spread outward from the same position where the ball had vanished, and I watch as it expanded amazingly fast. When the shock of the exploding flame hit me, I felt a hint of the heat pass over me, through me, then it was past me, behind me. However, this time other things happened and my situation changed. At the same instant the explosion sounded, the ground seemed to drop away from beneath my feet. I felt myself plummeting downward, but instead of being unbalanced by the blast, I fell straight downward, and everything around me seemed to be falling at the same rate. I'm uncertain how long that fall lasted. Seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? Forever? Or was it no time at all? Perhaps it all happened as a period outside of time – a millennia of weightless terror? Once again I could not move. Once more I was helpless. Once more I was paralysed, unable to do so much as blink, yet much changed. Change takes time, doesn't it? I can no longer say that I know if it does or does not.
All I know is that the limbo I was in didn't seem to last as long as time itself, but perhaps that was simply psychological, for then I had something outside of myself to consider. I had a twentieth century education and I knew the sun could not appear to travel backward. In order for that to happen the world would have to reverse the direction of its orbit around the sun and I knew that was utterly impossible. I had been educated to understand the effects of momentum, the concepts of motion, acceleration, and mass which in combination become the force called momentum. I had studied the effects that change of any one of those three factors wrought on both of the others. I knew beyond any shadow of doubt that the reversal of the earth's motion around the sun was impossible. The momentum of such a massive object was so great that any such attempt would destroy the earth – and possibly most of the solar system. I also thought that I understood entropy and knew beyond a shadow of doubt that it was an irrefutable one way effect which could not be changed, could not be modified – it could only be accepted and endured. I'd been educated to examine my world using the scientific method of cause and effect, yet what had happened was unequivocally massive in scale and a complete reversal of all laws of physics. It seemed that I had been an unwilling witness to the cancellation of the effects of momentum and the reversal of entropy – which I knew to be utterly impossible. Yet I was forced to believe what I had witnessed with my own eyes.
Somehow, impossible as it seems to be, I felt I had seen time pass in the reverse direction to its normal flow.
I didn't understand how or why it had happened at that time and I most assuredly don't understand it now.
Somehow, during the time that I was falling, several things that were outside of that slowly fading image of a bubble of light began to change. Nearby objects faded to a blue-gray, as if the only illumination came from that slowly fading sphere of blueish glow that now surrounded us in a semitransparent wall of light. Then the light seemed to fade completely and the shadowy world slipped into complete darkness. Again time seemed to pass before I felt a strange quiver, then a sudden sharp shock as the fall seemed to come to an end. I heard the leaves and branches of the trees that grew nearby sigh, almost as if a breeze had gusted past them. I knew that sound, that sudden quivering sensation since I had lived in an earthquake zone and like any earthquake, that shock must have passed through and shaken everything. An instant later, seemingly from deep underfoot, I heard a rumbling sound as if the earth itself was finally protesting what had happened, but even that sound faded away quite quickly.
However, other sensations were also flooding into my mind. Along with that shock and sound of the fall, light returned to my surroundings and along with that appearance of true light, all my senses seemed to have returned to normal. When normal light reappeared and my falling motion ceased, I wobbled, but managed to stay on my feet. In fact I barely staggered before recovering my balance, but now I could see, and it didn't really seem that anything had changed – no that's untrue, the sun was rising, not setting, so in some fashion time had changed. Yet I seemed to be in the same valley, near the same buildings, standing in the same long grass, and across the valley I could see the same trees and the same bushes.
Then, as if by magic, the world around me came alive with the scents and sounds of false dawn. Suddenly I could move. I spared the three old shaman only one short glance, just long enough to see that they were slowly crumpling like wet dishrags, then I spun around to see if the rest of my friends were okay. All of them were staring, blinking, and acting as if they had just wakened from a deep sleep, so they barely responded when I asked if everyone was alright. I got a couple of mumbled "Yes"s and two nods, but none of the women looked to be in ill health, only thoroughly confused and deeply shaken, as if they too had struggled to understand what they'd witnessed.
Since the entire group seemed to be alive and well, even if they seemed somewhat groggy, I spun back toward the fallen trio of old men. Still holding the fiddle in one hand and the bow in the other, I began to stalk toward them threateningly. I didn't move far though, instead I checked my motion and stared at them in astonishment, bewildered that all of them slowly crumbled to the ground in strangely contorted positions. Only the central figure held his head up and glowered at me, but even he wasn't moving well. He managed to croak one short sentence in a language which sounded something like mangled Na Dene. I tried to translate it, but my Na Dene is far from perfect, so I may have gotten some of his words wrong and missed or didn't understand several others. Still for what it's worth – roughly translated into English – what I thought I heard was; 'Sky metal tomahawk ~~'~~~ twisted ~~~ snare backward ~~~~ ~~~~~ bird sound weapon ~~~~ defeated ~~~ ~~'~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ fire ~~~~~ word ~~~ ~~~~~~~ magic.'
Then he crumpled fully, collapsing flat on the ground along with the two other figures, and from that point on all three old men ignored me. Instead, each one seemed to be writhing in agony, but that torment only lasted for a few seconds before they sagged back, surrendering to whatever fate had decreed. Seconds later I knew I was staring down at three corpses, their eyes now gaped blindly, dull, vacant and lifeless. I stood perhaps ten paces away from those old bodies, fixated by the rapid changes that happened to them, thoroughly repulsed, yet unable to tear my eyes away. I was astonished at what transpired, wondering how flesh could melt from bones as their bodies appeared to waste away before my eyes. I didn't have long to solve that puzzle though, for in a short while they looked like nothing more than starvation victims, skeletons with leathery skin and fragile bones. Then they shrank even more as the last of their flesh and skin disappeared, leaving only contorted skeletons lying before me. While I stared in horrified fascination, even those twisted bones began to crumple, as if those three ancient fossils quietly evaporated. There was no sound, no smell, no vapour, no smoke, yet even their beaded buckskin costumes deteriorated and disappeared before my eyes. Soon nothing was left of the three old men, nothing but their sturdiest decorations and their knives, rattles and other gewgaws. Soon even those decorations began to lose shape and change, rotting – no – vaporizing before my eyes. In a short time nothing was left to tell that men had ever lain there. They had no grave, only three black, vaguely humanoid shaped silhouettes burnt into the green grass and sandy soil, resembling nothing so much as forsaken and abandoned shadows of fallen men.
I stood there in shock, unable to believe what I had seen. I don't know how long I would have stood there and stared silently at those blackened patches of ground, but for Bruno, who got my attention by bumping his head against my hip. I glanced down at him, then just as I rested my hand on his shoulder in reassurance, I felt a brief spell of vertigo as the ground once more shifted underfoot. As I mentioned previously, I'd been through an earthquake before, in fact more than one, and this felt no different than those had. There had even been a booming sound as everything around me shook and rattled.
I heard both Mimi and Fran cry out. Glancing in their direction, I knew they'd felt the earth shift under their feet from their postures and tense attitudes. I quickly scanned our surroundings, and decided that since we were on a level area we were fairly safe, then I looked up at the cliff which rose above us, wondering about the danger of an avalanche. Almost as confirmation of my suspicions, there was a rattling roar and a resounding rumble from the direction of the hills across the valley and some distance away. Although I glanced toward the sound, I saw nothing amiss, so my gaze swung back to the hillside above us.
Instead of seeing any immediate dangers I found myself staring in surprise and wonder that so little had changed. And yet, there was something about our surroundings that felt strange, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. It was almost as if the very air I was breathing had changed, become clearer, cleaner in some unfathomable way. I slowly swung my gaze full circle, but I couldn't really point out whatever it was that felt different. At first glance, the valley looked the same as it had before, but as I lifted my eyes to the farther hills, I gasped in surprise. Other than the cliffs and hillsides directly facing the edges of our valley, all the more distant hills looked strangely different. The more distant hills seemed rougher, less eroded, and most of the distant trees seemed to be different in shape and colour than what I remembered seeing when we'd arrived. The area immediately surrounding us seemed the same as it had been earlier, so the valley might be unchanged, it was the distant landscape which appeared to be slightly strange. That sort of change made no sense, not unless the whole valley had been shifted to some other place or time, and I knew that was impossible.
That was impossible, wasn't it? Only . . . after what those three old shaman had caused with their weird words and strange fires I was no longer certain what was possible and what wasn't.
Now I'd read many science fiction stories and recalled a story about people that had shifted from one time and place to another, but that was fiction, this was fact. I couldn't believe that the whole valley had been physically moved and we were now somewhere other than where we had been and yet . . . I recalled the old shaman's chant and his threat of throwing us into a different time. Then I recalled that the sun had spun past the earth in the opposite direction and I wondered – had we been banished into the past? For an instant my gaze shifted back to those blackened marks that had been burnt into the soil and I shivered. I couldn't help but wonder if there was any possible way that old shaman could have sent us back to the time of our ancestors.
"Aw, no, can't be." I grunted to myself, then resolved that in order to preserve my sanity I had to think about other things.
I shifted the fiddle and bow to one hand and returned both to the case, then I turned and purposefully strode toward the others in our group.
"Where did those three old shaman go? What happened to the time, it was evening, now it's morning? But more important, where are we at, and what happened to cause that weird light show and all that other rigamarole?" Anna demanded.
"To put it simply, I don't know," I answered, quite shortly. "I think that old shaman set out to destroy us or get rid of us by casting a spell that would shift us somewhere else, but it seems like his plan backfired on him in some way."
"But how did he move the whole valley? We just ain't in the same place now as we was before," Fran waved her arm toward the distant slopes. "Everythin' near us seems the same, but the far off hills look different. More important though, why'd the sun move across the sky the wrong way?"
"I don't know, but did anyone else notice any of the words that the old geezer used?" Mimi stared at me. "I couldn't understand most of what he said, but I think he was cursing us, doing his best to send us away. Then either his spell went wrong, or else Joe did something to change it, because I saw the old man's face – he was as surprised as we were. When Joe batted that fireball away as if it was nothing, he was astonished, you could see that in his face. Then when Joe played that fiddle . . . well, the old crock seemed to grow terrified. From what that old kook said as he started chanting I think he was trying to send us into the future, but afterward . . . I think he said Joe turned his spell inside-out, which would mean that between them, they sent us into the past."
"Mimi, you know that's impossible. This isn't science fiction!" Ellen scoffed emphatically. "Even I know you can't travel in time, that only happens in science fiction and fantasy stories."
"I'm not so certain of that," Anna looked puzzled and pointed at a distant hillside. "Now that Fran pointed it out, I can see that details in the shape of those hills is different than it was before, those slopes aren't as eroded as they were before that old nut showed up. The trees and bushes around us in this valley and even the nearby slopes look the same, but as Fran said, those further hills are different."
"Well, something strange sure happened," Mimi barked. "When this whole thing started the sun had just set and it was getting dark, but now the sun is just rising. If nothing else, we've been screwed out of a night's sleep and that's weird, because I don't feel like it. Usually if I miss a night's sleep I feel totally wasted, but now, although I feel tired, I'm certainly not as worn out as I'd be if I stayed awake all night. Right now I just feel as if I've had a real long day instead."
"Look everyone, let's all calm down, then take a few minutes to check out where we are and make note of what changes we can see. I don't know about you, but I want my binoculars and a couple of other things before I go wandering around," I cocked my head toward the quonset hut. "For the time being I think we're going to have to assume that the old shaman did manage to shift us somewhere else, somewhere dangerous. I don't think anyone should wander very far without being armed."
"Armed? What would anyone be armed with?" Mimi asked instantly. "You don't have any guns along, do you?"
"Yes, I do and in case you're wondering, I have legal permission to have them in camp. Before we came on the trip, I called the local game warden and was told that there might be bears and cougars in the area where we were planning to camp. He warned me to bring along some sort of protection, so I approached the RCMP and got permission to bring along bear-spray, as well as a couple of shotguns. Besides, since Fran works with the native police, she can legally carry a gun, so I'd be willing to bet she has a pistol, or maybe even a shotgun, packed away in her kit. On top of that being armed doesn't just mean carrying a gun. If you remember, before we left home I asked everyone to bring along a decent sized camping or hunting knife. For now I want everyone to carry that knife at all times, and any group who is going to be away from the immediate area should carry either an axe or a hatchet as well."
"We can do better'n knives and hatchets. I've got both a shotgun, and my service pistol." Fran said quietly. "Tom should have weapons in his car too, even if I can't see us needin' 'em."
"I'm sorry Fran, but the idea of carrying an axe or hatchet when a group is away from camp still applies. You can't use a gun to chop wood if you need to make a fire." I frowned at her.
"Oh, I thought you meant we'd need it for protection. I ain't so happy about everyone carryin' guns."
"Oh? Well Fran, if you don't think we need to carry guns, what do you make of that?" Ellen asked quietly, handing Fran a pair of binoculars and pointing at a clearing near the top of one of the distant hillsides on the far side of the valley. "If you look up there you'll see a pair of wolves stalking a deer and their doing it in the daylight. You wouldn't see that at home, not unless you were a helluva long way from civilization."
"Holy shit. There really are two wolves stalking a deer and they're out in the open, bold as brass." Fran almost whispered as she looked through the glasses, her voice suddenly quiet. "Forget about checkin' things for now. Just climb in the cab of the truck and stay there until we can . . ."
"Take it easy, Fran." Ellen interrupted and rested a hand on Fran's shoulder. "Those wolves won't bother us, at least not while they're hunting and especially while they're that far away. That doe is all they're interested in at the moment. Besides that, there's no way they can get all the way over here and down into the valley before we could do something about the situation."
But, those wolves were all the proof I needed to know that we were no longer where we had been. That hill couldn't have been much more than a mile or two from us, and I was certain no twenty-first-century wolf would have stalked a deer that openly, especially since the sun had just risen. In fact modern wolves wouldn't have completely ignored a group of people who were as close as we were. Even a coyote would have been somewhat leery of us at that distance, but I might be wrong there, many coyotes had become acclimated to modern humans while wolves never had.
"Shit! That old shaman was prattling about ancestors. I wonder if . . ." I paused, realizing that I might say something which would frighten the others, but even what I'd said might have been too much.
"You've got to be kidding us if you think you can make us believe we've travelled in time," Ellen argued.
"Well, this certainly isn't the same place we were yesterday, or whenever our before was," Mimi said quietly. "There were no clumps of trees on the upper part of the hillside where those wolves are now and there sure as hell are some now. That slope was covered with grass and rocks, but there were no trees there at all; it was just as bare of trees as the banks along the upper edge of the valley."
"No, but the shape of the hillside is similar to what it was, and the canyon wall seems to be the same, only it might just be what Joe started to say, maybe we really have gone back in time. Use the glasses to look at the face of that distant hill over there and check it against this photo," Anna pointed at a hillside that we could see by looking above and beyond the corral, then down at the screen of her laptop – which she'd brought out of the camper. "Look at this photo I took of Mimi when she was at the corral with the horses just after Fran arrived. While you're looking, check out the hillside in the distant background. It's definitely the overall outline of the same hill, but see how the whole north slope of the hill is a different shape in the picture? Sometime in the future a huge landslide is going to break free on the side of that hill, then after thousands of years of erosion it will look just like it did when I took the picture. On top of that, if you look closely at the picture you can just make out a road climbing that hill, but there's no sign of any road there now."
I glanced at the photo, then while everyone else was checking the picture, I wandered over near the quonset hut where my cellphone had worked. There was no signal on it though, no signal, no bars, no contact of any kind, so I headed over to the Jeep, then retrieved a shotgun and shells from where I'd left them. It only took a moment or two to load the pump shotgun with a full magazine of double ought buck before I rejoined the others.
"Oh, thank-you, Joe. Now I feel safer," Anna said as she noticed the shotgun, which surprised me, then she completely astounded me. "Just so you know, I can shoot a shotgun and hit what I'm shooting at too, so count on me if we need to stand guard at night. If we do, I'll take a shift."
"Umm, why are you telling me? You're supposed to be in charge of this whole trip."
"Not any more I'm not. I'm stepping down, because I don't think this is an archaeological expedition any more. I think this is a case of survival of the fittest, so since you're the outdoor fanatic and the hunter, I think you're the natural choice to lead us," she frowned seriously. "Besides, I know how good you are at planning things and I think our lives are going to depend on having the best person in charge. What do you think Fran?"
Fran paused in thought for a moment, then looked at me before she answered. "If I thought we was still dealin' with that gang from town, I'd argue, but we ain't. Besides, you might be right and we really might'a been shifted some way or other to somewhere else. None of them far off hills look right and I heard that old guy makin' weird threats, just like ever'body else did. I think we got troubles and it's gonna take some real smarts for us to make it out o' this alive. I've seen Joe thinkin' on his feet and he's damn smart, so I say he's the boss and I'll back him up, unless anybody else has got some better ideas."
"You don't think there's any way to go back, do you?" Ellen looked at each of us in turn.
No one else spoke, so I answered, "Well, I'm not positive, but I think we're stuck, and I haven't a clue where or even when we are. Still, I'm betting that our guns, the truck, the Jeep and all our other high tech toys are the only ones around. I tried my cell phone and got nothing, then when I was getting the shotgun, I tried turning on the radio in the Jeep, but all I could find was static and not much of that. I don't know where or when we are, but so far there are no obvious signs of civilization."
"Well, I can take a guess at the geological time span by looking at the shape of the surrounding hills and I suppose I might as well give you the bad news," Anna sighed. "The present contour of those hills isn't all that much different from what it was when we arrived and set up camp, but that's only because erosion is slow. If man and his machines aren't involved, it takes a long time to change the scenery. Considering the difference in the erosion of the distant hills, we could be thousands of years in our own past. There are a few geological signposts we can check to narrow down the time frame, but that isn't something we can do on the spur of the moment."
She paused for a few seconds, then continued. "You have to understand, the Cypress Hills is a very special place. This was the only extended area on the Canadian prairies that withstood the advance of the glaciers in the last ice age. Up until sometime between twelve and fifteen thousand years BC, these hills were surrounded by a massive glacier. That icesheet caused some of the landscape shapes we see now, so we're not as far in the past as the last period of glaciation. In fact if we were within a few hundred years of the glacial recession, the overall climate would be far cooler, which would mean the trees on those hills couldn't exist as they are. Just from the extent of the tree cover, I'd say we're a minimum of two or three-thousand years after the glaciers retreated. Which means we've only been shifted a very short distance into the past, at least geologically speaking – perhaps as little as five or ten thousand years."
"Five or ten THOUSAND years?" Ellen whispered.
"Yes, give or take a few thousand years, but geology isn't an exact science, not without masses of research and tons of equipment, so there's no way I'll ever be able to give you an exact date. After all, I can't very well take a sample of the vegetation and carbon date it without a lab full of equipment – which I don't have," Anna answered, in a matter of fact manner. "There are one or two geological clues that could help me date the time period better than that, but to find out more will take some research and perhaps some excavation. The easiest method of dating how far we've been displaced might be the societal influences of the time period. In other words I may need to study the local native population to find an approximation of the time period and that will only yield a rough estimate, not a factual date. The native peoples of the Canadian prairies had a very slow rate of change in their culture, so even that sort of study wouldn't be immensely beneficial."
The rest of us just stared at her. What Anna was implying was that we had been banished from all that we ever knew, yet she was treating it as if we'd only stepped out to get groceries. I know I'd been one of the first to propose the idea, but it hadn't really sunk in until she made that pronouncement, then based it on visible evidence. Both Fran and I'd had the same wild ass idea, something that I'd had a hard time believing myself. She'd taken that wild idea as a theory and examined the evidence, then had provided visible proof that the theory was correct. She seemed to be taking the situation calmly, but the effect on the rest of us was a feeling of shock.
I'm not sure why, but I knew Anna was right. We were now isolated in the distant past and nothing would ever be the same. We would never see our friends or our families again and our former way of life was simply gone. We were completely alone in a strange world, an older world, in which there was virtually no technology.
Suddenly I came to the realization that I'd been made ringleader of this crazy circus and I knew I had to stop everyone from harping on that idea for too long. I knew I couldn't let anyone get too homesick and the only way I could think to counter homesickness was to keep everyone busy.
"Okay, so we're here. I can't think of any way to change that, so unless anyone else has an idea of how to travel through time, we'll have to make the best of the situation. If we are in the distant past, then we have an advantage over all the people around us, just from the knowledge and technology we've brought along. We have guns, tools and machines that won't exist for thousands of years. We have trained dogs, horses that are broken to ride and there are even cows in this valley, as long as they didn't disappear when we got shifted. The trucks and stuff like that don't mean much though, since we won't be able to travel far without roads. Besides that, they won't run long before they burn all the fuel in the tanks and there's no way to buy any more fuel here. However, even when they no longer run, we'll still have the metal in those vehicles and we can turn that metal into tools or weapons. What I'm really saying is that although we may not be as comfortable as we were, we're in great shape as far as survival is concerned." I paused and looked around at everyone.
"Look at the talent we have available to us. We have Ellen, who knows a lot about native plants. She knows how to use them and she worked on a farm, growing plants for food. We have Mimi, who is excellent at unarmed combat, a decent hunter, a good worker and she's good with animals. We have Anna, who knows about geology, archaeology and just about anything concerning the development of civilization, but on top of that, she's an excellent teacher. We have Fran, who is a trained EMT, who can function as our nurse or even our doctor for many of our health problems. She can also back up Tom, who is a trained police officer and probably has several talents I don't know about. And finally I'm a jack of all trades. I know how to do metal work, carpentry, electrical stuff and I've worked on a farm. Like I said, we're in great shape." I paused and managed to smile at everyone, but that changed to a frown. "Talking about people being in shape, Fran, could you tell me how badly Tom was injured?"
"Oh, he got a few bruises as well as some scratches and scrapes from the accident, but more than anythin' else, he's wore out, plumb exhausted. He ain't had much sleep for the last week or so, but he'll be back on his feet tomorrow an' just as good as new in a few days."
"Okay, thanks. That's good news, because I hate to see anyone hurting badly. Now, I know you need to keep an eye on him, but I'm going to have to suggest that we all do some work today." I frowned then. "Mimi, Ellen and Fran, I want you to stay here at the quonset hut instead of going out and wandering around. I'd like you to start sorting the supplies that we brought with us, because we have to know what we've brought with us and what other things we need to try to collect right away. Mimi and Ellen, you might start sorting the supplies that are in the trailer and the Jeep, but keep an eye open for uncooked seeds that we can use to grow food crops. I think we're going to need to start a garden soon and if we're going to have a decent one we'll need to set some of those seeds aside now to save them for planting instead of using them for cooking. Fran, I'd like you to consolidate all of our first aid supplies and perhaps you can work with Ellen on how to extend those supplies by using natural remedies. I think it would be best if you three keep Brindle and Curly here with you, just in case. Anna and I will circle around the camp and while we're out, we'll run a quick check on the horses. I'd leave Bruno with you too, but I think he'd be paying more attention to us than he would to being a guard dog, so we might as well take him along with us. Okay?"
"That's fine with me, but before you leave us, I think we better get Tom's weapons out of his car." Fran suggested. "If you're going to be away from the main camp, I want all the weapons at hand."
"Oh, good point. I looked for them when I was there trying to use the radio, but didn't see them."
"Well, Tom kept his riot gun out of sight, but I know where it is." She smiled slightly. "His sidearm is with him, but he'll have spare ammo in the car."
While we were finding Tom's scattergun, Anna and the two girls had decided they'd need to keep a lot of the supplies off of the floor so they wouldn't get damp. They had started emptying the barrels of tools, then using some of the lumber to make a big table of sorts. When Fran joined them, I caught Anna's eye and motioned that we should leave, but we paused just before walking out of the building.
"We'll see you gals in a little while." I looked back and made sure I caught Mimi's eye. "It might be wise if one of you hung out here near the door to keep an eye on things while the two of us check the perimeter of the camp. You can still work, but it would be smart to pay close attention to the two dogs; they'll raise a fuss if anything strange happens. We shouldn't be gone all that long, but stay close to the building just in case there is a problem."
"Could someone go into the camper and make coffee in a while? We should be back in less than half an hour, then I think we should all take a break, and have something to eat while we discuss the situation." Anna suggested.
Mimi and Ellen just nodded, then Mimi came toward us, calling Curly and Brindle to her. Anna and I hadn't walked fifty feet from the big steel shed before Bruno was at my side just as I expected.
Now I have to admit, the idea of going for a walk wasn't just to check to be certain that we were safe from another attack, it was also so I could calm myself. I had to find some way to get a handle on the situation, and Anna seemed to be the calmest of the group. By walking and talking with her, I was going to try to get an idea of what had happened and what to expect. Let's face it – I was lost. In fact, to this day I have no idea what had happened, how it had happened, why it happened or even who our attackers had been. The only thing I felt relatively certain of was that we had shifted in time and we were now alone in a strange world. We'd been banished into the depths of time, for reasons I couldn't understand and certainly couldn't explain.
Right then I felt quite distracted and very uncertain of myself, but I knew I couldn't let my feelings show to the others, not even Anna.
And on top of everything else I was wondering what had happened to Chuck, Maybelle, lil' Jo, Johnny and Fawn. I hadn't seen hide nor hair of them since they had gone for their early evening ride and I was certain they should have been back by now. I'd been very careful not to point out that they were missing, because I was afraid of the reaction of the others if they were worried about that. Once our group had a bit of a handle on our situation I'd be able to bring up the subject of Chuck and his family and if necessary we could look for them.
For the time being I thought it was bad enough that I was worried that some of our group was lost, perhaps even killed by the shaman's mob – I didn't dare mention them, at least not for now.