Chapter 12
Cal thought quite a bit about the Rankins. He had asked Libby if they were an average American family. Her response had been amused. If there was such a phenomenon, she’d told him, they probably fit it.
They interested him perhaps because he saw several parallels between them and his own family.
His father, though no one would ever have confused him with big, beaming Jim Rankin, had always had a love of nature, unspoiled land and family trips.
Like the other boys, Cal and Jacob had spent a good deal of time sulking, whining and rolling their eyes.
And when the chips were down and the limit was reached, it had always been Cal’s mother who had laid down the law.
Families, it seemed, were consistent over time. It was a comforting thought.
They had had their fire and brandy when they had returned to the cabin. Then, because Libby was always one to organize, they had gone up to her machine to finish the report.
They would need three copies. The first for the capsule, the second for the ship—and Cal—and the third for Libby.
He’d had to admire her style when he’d read over what she’d done.
There was no doubt in his mind that the scientists of his time would find Libby’s report both concise and fascinating.
The rest was largely technical, and though he knew she couldn’t understand the calculations he was feeding her, she typed them out.
They’d spent hours over it, refining, perfecting, taking long periods when she would question him on the social, the political, the cultural climate of his time. She made him think about things he had taken for granted, about others he had casually ignored.
Yes, there was still poverty, but shelters and programs provided the very poor with a roof and a meal.
There was still conflict, but all-out war had been avoided for more than 120 years.
Politics were still argued over, babies were still cuddled.
People complained that the skyways were too crowded.
As far as Cal remembered there had been four, or it might have been five, women who had held the office of president.
The more questions he answered, the more she thought of. They fell asleep tangled together in bed in the middle of one of his answers.
They finished the time capsule late the next morning, filling the airtight steel box Libby had bought in town with what seemed most pertinent.
One copy of the report was wrapped in plastic before they set it inside.
Libby added one of her mother’s woven mats and a clay bowl her father had made when she’d been a baby.
They added a newspaper, a popular weekly magazine and, at Cal’s insistence, a wooden spoon from the kitchen drawer.
She added one of the two pictures she’d taken of his ship.
“We need more,” Libby muttered.
“I wanted this.” He held up a tube of toothpaste. “And I was hoping for some of your underwear.”
“Yes to the first, no to the second.”
“It’s for science,” he reminded her.
“Not a chance. We need a tool. We’re always very pleased when we find a tool on a dig.” She rummaged through a drawer and came up with a screwdriver, a small ball peen hammer and a pipe wrench. “Take your pick.”
He took the wrench. “How about a book?”
“Terrific.” She dashed into the living room and began combing the shelves. “I want popular fiction, something written in this era. Ah . . . Stephen King.”
“I’ve read him. Terrifying.”
“Horror transcends time, as well.” She brought it into the kitchen and placed it in the box. “If they do any tests, they’ll be able to date all of this material. It will back up your story. Come on outside, we’ll take some pictures.”
Because he got to the camera before her, Cal claimed his right to take the first shots. He snapped the cabin, Libby and the cabin, Libby beside the Land Rover, in the Land Rover. Libby laughing at him. And yelling at him.
“Do you know how much film you’ve used?” Blowing out a breath, she ripped open another pack. “This stuff averages a dollar a shot. Anthropology’s a fascinating field, but the pay’s lousy.”
“Sorry.” He moved to the front of the cabin when she waved with the back of her hand. “I never thought to ask. What’s your credit rating?”
“I have no idea.” She took a shot of him standing, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his borrowed jeans.
“We don’t do things that way now. At least I think credit rating means something else.
Now it’s a matter of what you’re worth, or what you make.
Annual salary and that sort of thing.” She was enough her parents’ child that she rarely gave it much thought.
“Why don’t you unstrap your cycle and sit on it in front of the cabin? A now-and-then sort of thing.”
He obliged. “Libby, I don’t have any way to pay you back, in your currency, for all of this.”
“Don’t be silly. It was only a joke.”
“There’s a great deal more I can’t pay you back for.”
“There’s nothing to pay back.” She lowered the camera and weighed each word carefully. “Don’t think of it as an obligation. Please. And don’t look at me like that. I’m not ready to be serious.”
“We don’t have much time left.”
“I know.” She hadn’t understood everything he’d dictated to her the night before, but she knew he would be gone before the sun rose the next day.
“Let’s not spoil what we have.” She looked away to give herself a moment to regain her balance.
“It’s a shame this model doesn’t have a timer.
It would be nice to get a couple of pictures with both of us in them. ”
“Hold on.” He walked around the side of the building, returning a few moments later with a garden hoe.
“Sit on the steps,” he told her, then proceeded to strap the camera to the seat of his cycle.
He leaned over, checking and adjusting until he had Libby in frame.
“Got it.” Pleased with himself, he jogged over to sit beside her.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Smile.”
She already was.
He used the staff of the hoe to press the button, grinning when he heard the shutter click. The print slid out.
“Very inventive, Hornblower.”
“Don’t move.”
He retrieved the first print, settled back beside her and pressed again.
“One for you, one for the box.” He set both prints aside. “And one for me.” He tipped her face up to his with his finger and kissed her.
“You forgot to take the picture,” she murmured many moments later.
“Oh, yeah.” His lips curved against hers as he poked with the hoe.
She took the first print in her hand and studied it. They looked happy, she thought. Happy, ordinary people. It meant a great deal to her now, and would mean even more to her later. She continued to hold it as she rose. “We’d better go bury the capsule.”
They strapped it on the back of the cycle so that Libby was sandwiched between it and Cal’s back. When they reached the stream, he slipped off and frowned at the shovel she handed him.
“This tool is very primitive. Are you sure there’s no easier way?”
“Not in this century, Hornblower.” She pointed down. “Dig.”
“You can have the first turn.”
“That’s all right.” She sat on the ground and tucked up her legs. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you.”
She watched him put his back into it. What would he use, she wondered, to dig it up again?
How would he feel when he opened it? He would be thinking of her, she knew that.
And he would miss her. She hoped he would sit in this same spot and read the letter she had tucked into the box.
She’d made certain he hadn’t seen her put it in.
It was only a page, but she’d put her heart on it.
She cupped her chin in her hand, listened to the water’s music and remembered every word.
Cal. When you read this, you’ll be home.
I want you to know how happy I am for you.
I can’t claim to understand what it was like for you to find yourself here, away from everything familiar, separated from your family and friends.
But I wanted you to know that in my heart I wanted you to be where you belonged.
I don’t know if I can make you understand what the time I’ve had with you has meant to me.
I love you so much, Caleb. It overwhelms me.
There won’t be a day that goes by that I won’t think of you.
But I won’t be unhappy. Please don’t think of me, or remember me that way.
What you gave to me in these few days is more than I ever imagined, all I ever needed.
Whenever I look at the sky, I’ll picture you.
I’ll still study the past to try to understand why man is what he is. Now, having known you, I’ll always have hope for what he can become.
Be happy. I want to know you are. Don’t forget me. I wanted to put a sprig of rosemary in the capsule, but I was afraid it would only turn to dust. Find some, and think of me. “Pray, love, remember.”
Libby.
“Libby?” Cal leaned against the shovel, watching her.
“Yes?”
“Where were you?”
“Oh, not very far away.” Glancing down, she lifted a brow. “Well, I knew a big strong man like you could dig a hole.”
“I think I have a blister.”
“Aw.” She rose to kiss the tender skin between his thumb and forefinger. “Let’s put it in. Then you can watch while I cover it up.”
“Good idea.” The moment the box was in, he handed her the shovel. Libby eyed it, then the pile of dirt that had to be replaced.
“Four women presidents?”
He stretched his tired back. “Might have been five.”
With a nod, Libby began to shovel. “Cal?”
“Hmm?” He was giving serious consideration to a nice, lazy nap.
“The questions I asked before, those were the big ones, the sweeping ones. I wondered if I could ask you something more personal.”
“Probably.”
“Would you tell me about your family?”
“What would you like to know?”
“Who they are, what they’re like.” She tossed dirt into the hole in a steady rhythm that Cal enjoyed. “I’d like to imagine I knew them a little.”