A Question Of Time Fred Saberhagen (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

main one from both north and south. Some of these tributary gorges had names: Zoroaster Canyon, Bright Angel Canyon, Travertine Canyon, among others. Most were dry most of the time, but in spring those on the north bank ran with snowmelt from the high North Rim. And the rangers who had been here for years said that summer rains would turn all of them on again. Greenery had established itself along certain of these watercourses, showing that their flow was continuous, fed by springs.

* * *

      Jake’s steps—and his pulse—quickened as he came at last to the familiar mouth of the particular side canyon that he wanted. If this one had a name, he didn’t know it. Its entrance was a lovely, inviting place in contrast to the stark, dark, almost eternally shaded rock by which it was surrounded. From a narrow opening the ravine, its floor green with shady vegetation, went curving up into the towering south wall. The stream issuing from this side canyon was only a trickle, up to Jake’s ankles when he splashed in, but steady, and felt as cold as the Colorado itself. Here at the entrance the bed of the stream, flowing between natural pillars that in Jake’s imagination made carven monsters, offered the only place to walk.

      A few yards up the side canyon the footing became easier, and a little trail appeared, paralleling the stream. From here on Jake really had to climb, now and then mounting gigantic stair-steps of tumbled rock. His boots squelched water for a while but the dry heat quickly dried them.

* * *

      Half an hour after entering the side canyon, Jake was clambering up the last—for a while—of the series of steps. Then, on an interval of almost level ground, he moved forward among cottonwoods and willows Here the narrow canyon bulged out a little on both sides, having at this point ascended to a softer layer of light-colored rock that Jake had learned was sandstone. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, letting out a silent sigh of great relief. Fifty yards away he could see and recognize a human figure, that of a young woman who wore jeans and a man’s work shirt. Camilla was there, almost exactly where he’d pictured her, waiting for him.

      Today she had perched herself on a handy ledge of sandstone, deep within the shadow of the enormous cliff, not far from where the creek came down over a series of ledges that made a waterfall. Even at this distance Jake could see the startling pallor of her skin; he’d mentioned that to her last Sunday, and she’d told him how badly she burned if the direct sun got at her.

      Camilla’s reddish hair, lovely, long, and curly, stirred in the breeze that today as usual was moving down the side canyon. Even though she was sitting in the shade, dark glasses shielded her eyes, and she had one hand raised to shade them further as she turned her head to look for him—as if, despite the waterfall, she might have heard Jake approaching.

      Just as on the last two Sundays—could their first meeting have been only two weeks ago?—she had her easel set up in front of her, and her drawing tools and papers scattered about on nearby rocks.

      Jake waved an arm in greeting, got an answering wave, and moved forward, trotting now despite the heat. Camilla got up from her ledge of rock and came a little distance toward him, stopping just within the shadow of the cliff.

      Despite the dark glasses, which pretty effectively concealed her eyes, he thought there was something odd in the way she looked at him today. Maybe it was the angle of her head. Whatever it was caused him a moment of uncertainty, of shyness. He stopped just close enough to Camilla to reach for and clasp her outstretched hands.

      “Hello.” To Jake’s own surprise his own voice even sounded shy, as if this were the first time he had ever spoken to this girl, or touched her. Last week she’d kissed him for the first time—a single kiss, gentle and quick—as he said goodbye.

      “Hello, yourself.” Camilla’s husky voice was just as he’d remembered it—almost, he thought, with a deep sense of the incongruous, like Mae West’s. She was about six inches shorter than Jake, and yeah, she was really built as nicely as he remembered.

      She added, with a wistful tone: “I was afraid you weren’t going to make it.”

      “Hell, I’ll make it. I always do, when I say I will. I was worried you wouldn’t be here.”

      “And I told you I’d be here.” She paused, looking at him, and with the dark glasses it was hard to tell what she was thinking. “Didn’t I?” She paused again. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

      Something was different about Camilla today, as if she’d come to some kind of a decision. The kiss was everything Jake had been imagining, hoping and praying for, for the last week. Ten seconds into it, his right hand moved up for her left breast.

      She let him get far enough to discover that under the man’s shirt there was nothing on her skin but a little sweat, before she broke off the kiss and pulled away. The rejection was not violent, but it was firm.

      “No,” she said, in a suddenly uncertain voice.

      Jake turned away and looked around. He turned in a complete circle. He had the sudden feeling that every rock in the walls of the narrow canyon, and every plant along the stream, was somehow watching them.

      Now he was facing Camilla again. “Why the hell not?” His objection came out rougher-sounding than he’d intended.

      She shook her head, making her red hair bounce. “Not yet.”

      “Then when?”

      Camilla said: “Maybe after I know some more about you. Don’t you want to know about me? You don’t even know my last name.”

      “I don’t care what your last name is. Tell me if you want.”

      She was quiet. Upset, maybe, though not at him. Still pretty much in