Katie Watson Mysteries in Time Box Set

by Mez Blume

  No sooner had the thought entered my head than I heard her walk up behind me. Couldn’t she just give me one moment’s peace?

  Imogen stood there waiting for me to stop smashing nuts. I could tell she wanted to say something.

  Whack! I brushed another pulverised walnut shell onto the dirt, then looked up.

  With a glance towards Wattie who was preparing the fish he’d caught for dinner, she leaned in. “I say let’s go back and find those peddlers.”

  “What?” I was all ears now and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’re joking, right?”

  “No. Listen to me. This could be our ticket home!”

  I hadn’t seen Imogen this excited since the time she’d found a Wi-Fi hotspot at a gas station on the way to Tennessee. She was actually serious. And insane. “You heard Wattie. He says they’re untrustworthy. They probably shouldn’t be on this land—they’re not even Cherokee!”

  “Of course, we have to believe every word Wattie says, don’t we?”

  “No,” I said defensively. “But obviously he knows a lot more than we do about Cherokee Country. That’s why he’s our guide, and we should do what he says.”

  “You know what I think?” Imogen said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I think Wattie just wants what’s in it for him. You heard him at the Governor’s. He forgot all about us!”

  “Never mind Wattie,” I argued. “You didn’t trust those men either. You told them to scram even before Wattie got involved.”

  “That was before they told us about the time-travel potion.”

  I sighed. “Even if that was really time-travel potion, which I highly doubt, we couldn’t just leave now, just like that.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why not?”

  “Because… because I still think… we’re here for a purpose. We’ve got to find a way to help the people in Nickajack. They all believe we can do something.” The words sounded pathetic as they spilled out of my mouth.

  Imogen gave me a look that made me feel like I’d shrunk to half my size. “Good grief, Katie. Isn’t it time to grow up? You’re not a hero; you’re a twelve-year-old girl. You can’t change history.”

  I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

  “Besides,” she pressed, “once we get back to our own lives, it won’t matter what happens to them. They’ll all be in the past. Dead.”

  The word struck me hard, like a punch to the stomach. Imogen had said the very thing I had fought so hard to avoid thinking about for the past four months. Before I could stop them, tears flooded my eyes. I got to my feet, walnuts spilling off my lap in every direction, and exploded. “You are the most horrible, selfish human being I have ever met. You don’t care about a single person but yourself. It’s no wonder your parents sent you away so they wouldn’t have to deal with you.”

  Imogen’s mouth opened. I thought she would shout back, but she just shook her head with a wounded look in her eyes and limped off into the pine grove.

  I watched her go, thinking vaguely about the danger that might be lurking among those trees, but my blood was still pounding through my temples with hurt. Let her look after herself, I thought, and turned away.

  When it came time to bed down, Imogen made a show of picking up the end of her mat and pulling it to the other side of the fire, as far away from me as she could get.

  Suit yourself, I thought, pulling the deerskin up over my shoulder and rolling onto my side to face the creek rather than Imogen’s back. I could just as easily ignore her as she could me.

  I didn’t sleep well that night. I dreamed I was tied to a stake. Lieutenant Lovegood, with a smug smile on his stony face, lit the pyre with his torch. But the flames licking my ankles burned icy cold instead of hot. When I looked up from the flames, Imogen was beside me, looking right into my eyes as if begging me for help. With a choked gasp, I sat up, still breathing fast. It had just been a nightmare, not like the dream about Ramona.

  It wasn’t real, I whispered. Everything was quiet except the burble of the river. There was a soft glow in the lower sky that meant it must be nearly dawn. Smouldering embers were all that remained of the fire. I shivered as the dewy morning air touched my shoulders and pulled the deer skin up under my chin. Reluctantly, my eyes wandered over towards Imogen’s mat, off on its own.

  She must be freezing, I thought. After all, she’d left all the blankets behind. My stomach lurched. It wasn’t so much hunger as my conscience prodding me. I should never have said what I did to Imogen. She might be selfish and spoiled, but she couldn’t have known that her words would cut me so deeply. I had no idea that what I said about her parents would hurt her that way. Maybe there was more to Imogen’s story than what met the eye. Who knew? What I did know was just how frightening it was to be stuck in the past without much hope of a way home. Could I really blame Imogen for being just a bit desperate? For wanting to snatch at the dim ray of hope those peddlers had offered her?

  I got to my feet, taking the deerskin with me, and tiptoed over to Imogen’s mat. “Imogen,” I whispered, taking a step closer. Something was off. I went right over and looked down. The mat was empty.

  Kneeling down, I laid my hand on the mat. There was no warmth at all. She hadn’t been in bed for at least several minutes. My eyes darted in every direction. I listened intently for the sound of a crackling pine straw. It was so horribly silent, all except for the voice in my head that told me exactly where she had gone.

  23

  Hands Tied

  With the feeling of a stone sinking down into the pit of my stomach, my eyes turned where I hadn’t dared to let my thoughts go: down the road to the old walnut tree where we had encountered the peddlers.

  Wattie came to my side with a small lantern held above his head. The moment I’d awakened him and told him Imogen was gone, he had sprung into action like a well-trained soldier. He had immediately suggested we each search the road in different directions. Now as we met back at the starting point, he shook his head. “Nothing. You don’t think she …?”

  With a sickening feeling, I nodded. “Last night she told me she wanted to go back to the peddlers’ cart. She wanted … something she thought they had.” I paused, trying to piece together what could have happened to Imogen. “She didn’t run away,” I said at last. Imogen might be selfish and as temperamental as a mule, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d seen enough of this wilderness to know better than to turn herself loose in it without a guide.

  “That only leaves one alternative,” Wattie answered hesitantly. “We need to track down those peddlers before they sell her off to the highest bidder.”

  My eyes widened with the horror of what he’d just said. Sell her? That possibility had never entered my mind. “But they were old men and drunk,” I protested, willing myself to hold out hope. “We can outrun them.”

  “We go back and get our weapons,” Wattie said. “Then we return to the place we met the peddlers to look for any signs of struggle.” Wattie could see how anxious I was. He reached out and gripped my shoulder. “We’ll track them as far as it takes until we find her.”

  With shaking hands, I turned my little quiver upside down. The blowgun, darts and little vial of venom fell out on the ground along with the folder with Ka-Ti’s painting inside. “Oh no!” I breathed as the painting shifted out of its leather cover onto the mud. I reached down to gather it up and discovered more painted pages fanning out across the ground. How had I not noticed before? It wasn’t just one painting, but a whole portfolio. Carefully, I turned over the top painting – the one of me on a black horse. What I saw made a painful lump grow in my throat. The painting showed two girls with arms linked. One of them looked just like me and the other was, without a doubt, Imogen.

  Like the thud of a falling tree, it hit me. All the time we’d been in 1828, I’d been thinking of Imogen as a problem… just the accidental tag along on my journey through the cave painting. I had to help Nickajack because it was my purpose. I had to be the one to solve th
e mystery of the Uktena stone … it all came down to me to get us home again. Even after all the times she’d proven herself – like the time she saved me from Lovegood’s bullet, or when she persuaded those guards to let us into the Garrison.

  All the time I’d been resenting Imogen for not pulling her weight, she hadn’t been to blame. When had I ever included her or asked for her help?

  I should’ve known! Great detectives never solved mysteries alone. Even Sherlock didn’t go it alone. He needed Watson. But instead of working together with Imogen, I’d ignored her, keeping my thoughts about the stone to myself. And—the realisation stung my conscience more than anything—had I only shared the painting with her, it might’ve given her enough hope that we were getting close. She might never have felt the need to do something so desperate as chasing after those peddlers.

  I looked down at the painting again. It was so clear now. This wasn’t just my story. It was hers too. Ours. All the time I’d been wishing for Sophia, I’d missed the friend right beside me. Well, I wasn’t going to ignore Imogen anymore. Whatever it took, I would find her and tell her how sorry I was.

  There was no sign of the peddlers’ camp except ashes and cartwheel ruts in the mud. With his bow in hand, Wattie squatted low and made zig zag patterns as he searched every inch of ground. After a few minutes, he straightened up, holding something invisible between his thumb and index finger.

  “I think this is one of Dilli’s,” he said, apologetically.

  I ran over to see the thing he’d found: a long, bleached blonde hair, dark brown at one end. I gulped to keep from being sick. So they had taken her.

  “With a kidnapped hostage, they may be avoiding the roads. We need to know which way they left the clearing. You check for signs on the south and east. I’ll go west and north, back towards the road.”

  “Got it,” I said, trying to sound in control while my heart beat itself into a frenzy.

  Once out of the clearing, I tried zig-zagging the way Wattie had done, looking for some clue, maybe a footprint or wheel rut. I hadn’t got far when I heard a piercing yelp from behind me followed by shouting. My breath caught in my chest as I spun around and ran back to the clearing, just in time to see someone disappear behind the walnut tree. As quickly as my wobbly legs could take me, I shot off towards the tree, but my foot slid in what must’ve been a mule patty, and I fell with a wet smack onto my back, knocking the air out of my lungs.

  As I lay there, chest heaving, world spinning, I could hear voices on the other side of the bushes. “William McKay, you’re under arrest.” I recognised Lieutenant Lovegood’s flat, cold voice immediately.

  Wattie answered, his voice cold with spite. “Arrest for what?”

  “For threatening to start an uprising against the Governor of Tennessee.”

  Sucking in shallow breaths, I crawled on my hands and knees to the base of the walnut tree, peering around its trunk. “No,” I breathed. Lovegood’s posse of two had dismounted from their horses and were tying Wattie’s hands behind his back with thick rope.

  “You’re lying,” Wattie spat.

  “I have the warrant right here,” Lovegood said, unscrolling a piece of paper and giving it a flick. “Now where’s the girl?”

  I nearly choked.

  “What girl?” Wattie growled.

  Lovegood chuckled as if it were all a game. “The red-headed one.”

  “She ran off,” Wattie said in a carrying voice and turning his head ever so slightly in my direction. “I haven’t seen her since I left the Garrison.”

  He was warning me not to give myself away, but it was all I could do to stay hidden. To do nothing.

  “She’s probably been et up by a cougar,” the scruffy officer holding Wattie’s ropes said. The other man laughed.

  “Enough!” Lovegood shouted. “I’ll take him back to the Garrison. You look for the girl.”

  “And if we find her? Can we take her and sell her like them peddler boys got to do with the other girl? The English one?”

  “I want her brought to me,” Lovegood responded in a commanding tone. “At no cost can she be allowed to reach Nickajack. If she’s on the road, I’ll find her. I’ve got business in the Injun village tonight.”

  Imogen was being sold and Wattie arrested under false accusations. I wanted to scream. To fight. But I couldn’t do either. With my fists clenched, forcing myself to stay quiet, I watched Lovegood lead Wattie away.

  24

  Alone

  I was alone. How had this happened? Imogen kidnapped. Wattie arrested. The Governor behind all of it. And there I was, the only one left free, in the middle of the woods and completely helpless.

  There was Wattie’s family, but they were all back in Nickajack, miles and miles away, and Lovegood’s men would be patrolling the road.

  Stay calm. Think of something. I tried to force my panicked brain into cooperation. The canoe. It was a wild thought, but it was the best I had. The canoe was too big for just one person to operate, but if I could just manage to get it back up Chickamauga Creek and into the Tennessee, at least the river would be flowing in my favour. Maybe with the help of the current, I could paddle back to Nickajack through the night and be there by the next evening. Which will be much too late, the voice in my head jabbed. I didn’t have time to argue with it. I took off running to the creek.

  As I skidded to a halt in what had been our camp, my heart sank from ground floor to basement. Someone had already been there. The furs, the mats, the cookery knives and kettle, everything that had been of any value was gone. The rest had been thrown aside. But the canoe …

  They’d found it too. Whoever took it must have watched us cover it. The camouflage vines and branches were strewn all over the ground. With my hands clutching the sides of my head, I peered down the creek. Somewhere, right that minute, someone was making a getaway in my last hope.

  “Thieves!” I said out loud and gave the water a kick with my mud-spattered moccasin. I’d never make it to Nickajack now. I ran muddy hands through my hair trying to think. I hadn’t a clue where Imogen might be, but I knew Lovegood’s men were taking Wattie to the Garrison. If I followed, there was a chance I might just find Imogen too. It was as good a next step as I could come up with.

  The first thing to do was to cover my head. Lovegood’s men would be looking for a girl with red hair. Looking around, I spotted the cloth Ka-Ti had wrapped around her paintings. I brushed it off and tied it around my head, carefully tucking away any straggling pieces of hair. There was nothing then but to choose my path. The road must lead back to the Garrison. Lovegood had gone in that direction. But it would be risky if anyone should be riding past.

  My other option was to follow the creek back up to its meeting point with the river. I would not likely be seen among the reeds and pussy willow, but one look at the murky, swamp-like waters made taking my chances on the road seem a much more tempting option. Besides, the road would be quicker.

  No sooner had I made up my mind than I heard the sand-grinding sound of wheels coming from the right. The peddlers was the first thought in my mind, and I raced to the edge of the road to wait and see, squatting down behind a mulberry bush. But it was only an old man driving a cart full of pumpkins. Probably taking them to the Garrison to have them cooked up for the Washington delegates the Governor had said were on their way.

  The Garrison! This could be my ride, I realised with a flutter of excitement. But I’d have to act quickly. I squatted down on the ready as close to the road as I could get without being seen. At least the farmer didn’t appear to be in too much of a hurry. He was leaning back, giving the reins an occasional flick and singing ‘Turkey in the Straw’ to nobody in particular.

  I counted out the clop clop, clop clop, clop clop rhythm of the horse’s hooves as he trotted past, then leaped onto the road, grabbed the wooden side of the cart and hoisted myself up. A few pumpkins rolled down the pile to knock me on the head, but I had made it! I was officially a stowaway, I thought
with a sense of pride.

  I must have heard at least eight different verses of ‘Turkey in the Straw’ before the pumpkin cart rolled up to the gates of Hiwassee Garrison. The farmer pulled the cart to a halt. “Fer the Gov’ner’s harvest banquet,” I heard the old man drawl, and my heart took off. Supposing the guards wanted to search the cart? There was no running now. I folded my legs, kept my head down and pulled the biggest pumpkin I could get my arms around into my lap, hoping to my very bones those guards wouldn’t take any notice of me.

  A second later, the cart was moving forward again, the guards returning to their watches without so much as a glance in my direction. I let out a chestful of air, then hastily pushed the pumpkin off my lap and slid off the cart onto the sandy courtyard, just outside of the stables. But the courtyard was much busier than it had been yesterday, and there was a pretty regular flow of people in and out of the Governor’s headquarters. If I could just find a way to blend in.

  Two ladies brushed past me, giggling and with their arms full of baskets piled with linens which they carried up the steps of the brick building. They disappeared inside.

  I spun around. Where had they just come from? A drying line of linens gave me my answer. There was an open covered area just before the stables that appeared to be the Garrison laundry.

  I took quick stock to make sure no one was watching, marched over and seized an empty basket, quickly filling it with sheets and tablecloths from the drying line. With my best effort at acting natural, I perched the basket on one hip as I’d seen the other maids do and bee-lined across the courtyard in the direction of the mansion. But instead of ascending the stairs, I veered right and floated over towards the stone shack prison.