Time Trails #2
It was bright enough that he could keep on travelling if he wanted to but he was bone weary from his days on the trail, and knew Joe, who was old, would have to feel just as bad if not worse.
Upstream, to the north, he saw the flashes of light that meant another thunderstorm would come in the night yet there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
He could only hope that it wouldn’t be enough to flood the canyon again and wash another mystery up at his feet.
“I hope I find the son of a bitch who did that to you, Tom.” Rand took another draw from the bottle, stuck the cork back in and sunk below the surface.
He felt the water gently wash over him and marvelled at the peacefulness of the river, compared to the raging torrent that must have carried his friend downstream.
Finally, out of breath, he stood in one powerful motion, slinging water from his head in a big arc.
At the same instant, he felt something slam into him, with a white flash of light.
Rand staggered back and fell once more beneath the surface of the water.
Shay felt her body falling and spun her arms wildly to catch herself but there was nothing to grab on to.
Whatever happened had to have occurred while she was in transit and it had knocked her off course.
How far and how much was yet to be determined.
She landed face first in the sand and quickly pushed herself up, coughing and gagging as the sand got in her mouth and nose.
She instantly realized she was not alone and drew her weapon.
A horse stumbled up from the sand and shook itself clean.
Shay quickly checked her arm display. She’d been caught in a time current, the very thing she’d come here to stop. She was off course by nearly a month, too late to stop the beginning of the rift they’d discovered.
It was also bad news for anyone caught in the aftershock of the rip.
“Your life just got a lot shorter,” she said to the horse that blinked at her as if it were trying to decide if she were real or not.
“Sorry,” she added. “Wrong place and wrong time for both of us.” She checked her display again.
She needed to get her bearings and report in.
She had six hours before she could jump again, she might as well make good use of her time.
Shay took a moment to look around. Even thought it was dark, the full moon illuminated the area enough to discern landmarks.
She was in the middle of a deep canyon that was littered with huge boulders.
As long as it didn’t rain she should be safe from flash floods.
A shallow yet wide river assured her that she would not die of thirst as long as her sanitization kit held out.
“At least I didn’t land in the water or on the edge of the cliff.
” Topher must have seen the rip coming and made sure she had a safe landing, if that was what you could call it.
Her med stats would show that she survived but she still needed to check in.
T.T.E.A. protocol required that she call him first, just in case there was someone around.
In this period of time, the locals didn’t take kindly to weird things like time travel.
There were plenty of accounts of T.T.E.A.
agents being accused of witchcraft, and even one case of an agent dying at the hands of hostiles during the six-hour gap between jumps.
“This is five-one calling base,” she said. She touched a finger to her jaw where her link was planted so there was no possibility of losing it. There was also a remote in her arm panel and she tweaked it while she waited for Topher to confirm.
Nothing but static. Since they were in a time before any signals bounced through the atmosphere there had to be some sort of damage, possibly caused by her rough landing. She’d have to wait for Topher to solve it on his end. Her target was still in range so she decided to make for it.
“Better make sure the wolves are at bay.” Shay programmed her display for scan.
She was confident she could handle anything that came at her with one shot from her PR37 but it was nice to think she wouldn’t have to use it.
The thought of disrupting the life of anything or anyone in the past was disturbing to her.
The horse was already a victim of the rift.
She’d hate to think of anyone else falling prey to it.
A blip showed up on her screen. An animal caught drinking at the river?
She checked the display and then looked in that direction.
The light on her screen showed a significant body mass lying in the river.
“Oh no.” Shay realized the blip was human and had to be a man by the size of it.
She wasn’t dressed for interaction. And she certainly didn’t want to have to explain who she was and what she was doing here.
Still she couldn’t go off and leave him to drown.
He’ll die soon enough if you don’t fix it . . .
This area was supposed to be deserted, populated with nothing but rattlesnakes and scorpions. Sure there was a possibility of a random hunting party but still . . .
She heard him. There was a splash and she turned and looked at the river.
Moonlight danced off the surface, giving it a surreal look, as if she were staring at an abstract painting.
She caught a movement in her peripheral vision and watched as a man pulled himself up with the help of the rock.
It was too late for her to move, too late to hide so she stayed where she was and hoped to hell that he was dazed and confused enough not to ask too many questions.
Any other problems that arose could be easily solved with a stun blast from her PR37.
In the exact moment that his eyes found her, Shay realized he was naked.
He stood in the moonlight as if he were carved from stone, the only movement the water sluicing down his body, trickling into the grooves and dips that gave sharp definition to his muscular frame.
She could not help but watch the water’s trail in fascination, from his wide shoulders, over his smooth pectorals, into the ridges of his stomach, before trickling into the V that split his lean hips.
After a long moment, in which she forgot to breathe, he moved, his long legs churning through the water.
“What in hell’s sweet behind just happened?” His voice was more like a growl and it wakened her from the trance his appearance had placed upon her.
Shay levelled her PR37 straight at him. “Don’t take another step.”
He barely spared her weapon a glance as he kept on moving. He raised a dark eyebrow. “Are you planning on shooting me with that?”
“Yes I am,” Shay said indignantly.
He stopped when he got to her and stood, with his arms crossed, imperious and impervious, dripping, and totally oblivious to the fact that he was naked.
He towered over her, intentionally she was sure of it, and stared down at her with eyes that lost their colour in the moonlight.
His dark hair was plastered against his forehead and curled over his ears.
Once more she felt as if she were looking at a statue that was carved from stone.
“Well?” he asked.
Shay didn’t get where she was by being intimidated. She stuck the point of her weapon in the middle of his chest, right in the indentation between his pectoral muscles.
“I could blow a hole clean through you. It would cauterize instantly and give you time to think about what the hell just happened while you lie here and die.”
“It wouldn’t be any stranger than anything else that’s happened to me lately,” he snapped and walked away.
Shay stared after him. She’d seen more than her share of weird during her time at the T.T.E.A., but this was the first time anyone had ever been so cavalier about her presence. Especially when she’d had a weapon stuck in his chest.
His very nice chest. She had to admit the view of him walking away was as nice as the one from the front, if not nicer. The man was definitely fit. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. He was all cowboy . . . long, lean and hard in all the right places.
Get over it . . . Now was not the time to think about how long it had been since she’d been with a man. She had a job to do. “What do you mean by strange?” Shay suddenly realized what he’d said. Did he know something?
He was talking to the horse now, stroking its nose, using soft soothing sounds to calm it.
The horse leaned into him. She found his state of undress very annoying for some reason.
The guy acted like he was in his bathroom instead of the middle of nowhere.
Come to think of it, the middle of nowhere probably was his bathroom and would be hers too before too much time passed.
“Oh hell,” she said.
“At least that makes some sense.” He gave the horse a last comforting pat and walked behind a rock beneath an overhang of the cliff. “Where did you come from?” He pulled on a pair of well-worn jeans.
“I’d rather not say,” Shay said. “What did you see?”
“I’d rather not say,” he quipped. He walked back to the river and picked up a bottle that lay along the bank.
“At least one good thing has happened today,” He held up the bottle as if it were a great prize, then removed the cork and took a long drink.
He held the bottle out to her as he walked past. “You look like you could use some too.”
“Er . . . no thanks.” Shay followed him back to the rock and watched in astonishment as he lay down on his back and placed a hat over his face. “What are you doing?”
“Getting some rest. I don’t know about you but I’ve had one hell of a day.”