Shrugging, and thinking maybe the man he had talked to was not in complete control of his mental faculties, Garison walked up to another person. "Excuse me—" was all he got out before the woman, with a look of great fright, dropped her bundle and darted into a nearby building with a sound something like the yelp of a frightened puppy.
Puzzled, Garison picked up the packages and took them to the door the woman had gone through. Just as he was about to set the packages on a stoop of warped boards, a man stepped out, holding what looked like an axe handle in his grasp. He was a good four inches shorter than Garison but twice as broad in the chest and with a stern countenance. He commanded, "You be gone, Mister."
Garison quickly stepped away from the packages and said, apologetically, "I didn't mean to scare the woman, sir. I'm just trying to find a wire."
"What kind of wire?" the man demanded gruffly.
"A wire. You know, a telephone."
The man eyed Garison as if deciding whether he ought to hit the stranger on general principles or ignore him. Deciding mostly on the latter, the man said, "Stay away from me wife," and slammed the door.
Garison shrugged and turned back to the street to find it almost deserted. Only a few men stood at doorways, in postures obviously designed to protect whoever was in the building behind them. It was obvious that Garison was the object of their contempt and fright, but there had been no clue so far as to why. Garison smiled his most endearing smile and said, loud enough for all to hear, "I don't mean to cause any trouble. I just want to make a telephone call and get out of here."
When no one said anything in reply, he walked over to the next person down the street. Before he could ask for assistance, or anything, the man had retreated inside his house and a bolt of some kind had obviously been thrown. Only a slight rustling of the curtain in the front window indicated that anyone was inside.
Garison was met with the same response at the next few houses but finally, at the end of the street, were three men who didn't seem inclined to run. The downside, Garison quickly saw, was that they all held something in their hands that could be used for protection—or offense. One held an axe, the other a hoe, and the third an implement Garison didn't recognized but guessed could be quite effective if used as a weapon.
Garison repeated, "I really don't want to cause any trouble. I just want to find a telephone and then I'll be on my way."
The middle man, who appeared to be the spokesman for the trio—and, thus, the whole town—said sternly, "We've nought by that name here, so you can just go about your business elsewhere."
"Do you know where I might find a phone?" Garison asked. He was trying to sound as friendly and harmless as he possibly could, but he couldn't believe that no one had even heard of a telephone. Had he somehow landed in some pocket of the world that had been by-passed by civilization for the past two centuries? If so, he knew some anthropologists who would love to have him show them this valley. He had heard of people who—due to religious belief—shunned technology, but he thought they had all been outlawed by the state. If this were such a village, he reasoned, it might explain their hostility to him. Such a village probably wouldn't allow him to exit, however, for fear he would tell someone their whereabouts.
The spokesman said, "We've never heard of such a thing and, if it's a tool used by the likes of someone like you, that's probably for the better."
Garison started to take a step towards the edge of town, but his curiosity got the better of him and he asked, "What do you mean 'the likes of me'? Do I look like someone you've seen before or something? Why are you all looking at me like—like you are? Do I resemble someone you know?"
The man with the unknown implement interjected, a tangible note of fright in his voice, "What decent man would be seen dressed such as you? Be off with you! Go back to whatever strange place it is you come from!"
Garison looked at his clothes once more but could not imagine what they were talking about. Was it because he was apparently the only man in town wearing short sleeves? With a shrug he started to turn around, then asked, "Can you at least point me towards another town? Maybe they'll have what I'm looking for."
The leader pointed to where the road Garison had come in on went out the other end of town and said succinctly, "Mount Vernon is that way."
"Thank you," Garison nodded. Following the man's directions took him right through the three men, but he kept his head up and tried again to be casual. Nodding to them as he passed, he went through their ranks silently. For their part, they merely glared at him and made it clear he was by no means to deviate from his present course or turn back.
When he was out of earshot, Garison let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding and mumbled, "I've got to tell someone about this place!"
Excerpt from A Fitch Family History by Maureen Fitch Carnes
Darius's reasons for staying with the Cherokee were not based solely on the inconvenience of traveling in the winter. He is conspicuously reticent to mention in his diary—which was, after all, the official journal he was keeping for General Washington—the thing which he seems to most want to talk about.
Darius mentions very early on that, upon entering the village with Bear, he is introduced to Bear's sister, a beautiful young maiden whose Indian name meant White Fawn. While Darius does not mention any overt desire or love for the young woman early in his writings, the mere fact that she appears so often in intentionally casual references makes it obvious that she was often in his thoughts. Years later, Darius finally wrote what he had apparently wanted to write from the beginning:
One of the first people I met in Bear's village was his younger sister, White Fawn. When I bore him into the village on the cumbersome travois, White Fawn was the first to rush up to him and offer aid. I knew immediately she must be either his sister or his sweetheart for it was with great affection that she threw her arms around him and wept for joy at his return.
Not knowing which she was, and fearing the latter, I found myself immediately jealous of Bear. White Fawn was little older than a girl (I later learned she had just passed fourteen summers) but she immediately captured my heart. Slight of figure and with only a handsome face—not one to be thought of as a beauty—she had an infectious cheerfulness that enchanted me. Behind her innocent smile there was always something that made one think mischief was going through her mind.
Darius was pleased to learn that White Fawn had not yet been pledged in marriage to any man—though she was easily of age for a betrothal. He soon learned it was not for lack of suitors, but due to the fact that her father was dead and she was under the "protection" of her uncle. White Fawn's uncle, Running Bear (Darius refers to him in his writings as "Lazy Bear"), was a greedy man and had rejected all suitors until they could provide sufficient goods for his own lodge. Running Bear saw it as a no-lose situation for he would either become rich, or retain a slave.
Chapter Six
Just as he was beginning to think the people he had just met had intentionally sent him off into the wilderness to get rid of him, their directions were proven true. Garison followed the well-worn cart path—which gave evidence of far more traffic than it had on the other side of the previous town—for what he guessed was about five miles before sighting another town.
The town looked much like the last one, at least as to the level of industrialization. Rather than being a true town, however, it seemed to have been a mere settlement which had sprung up on the edge of an estate. A cherry orchard was visible, as was a "country lane" leading up to a residence bigger than any he had yet seen, though not as large as Garison's house in the canyon.
Still, Garison was beginning to worry. If this were some sort of pocket of early industrialization which had never advanced, or even one of the State's weird experiments in social engineering, it was on a grand scale. Not only did it obviously cover several miles, he had not in all that distance seen any telephone wires, macadam roads, or even an airplane's vapor trail in the sky. Neither
was the other tell-tale sign of modern habitation present: garbage. He had not seen an aluminum can or an old tire, or even a discarded candy wrapper. In short, he thought, things were far too pristine for even a communist science project. No, not pristine, he corrected himself. For their were old bones, and bits of discarded hide that were apparently unfit to be made into anything. There was garbage, but not industrial garbage.
As Garison came near the town, he was greeted with the same sort of fear he had encountered at the last village. People who had been working, walking or playing happily moments before took one look at him and panicked. Mothers hustled their children inside, husbands postured for protection of their wives, and those few who didn't back cautiously through their doors and shut them stood quite warily. Again, axes, hoes and even mops were held in defense.
Garison walked up to the first person he came to that didn't run away—a short, overweight man with a lop-sided cap on top of a lop-sided head—and, feeling like a broken record, said, "Is there anywhere about where I might find a wire?"
The man eyed him suspiciously, obviously taking great care to inspect Garison's clothing, and replied, "What kind of wire?"
"Telephone wire," Garison replied, already afraid of where he guessed this conversation would go.
The man was curious, despite his obvious desire to have nothing to do with the stranger, and asked, "And what would you use tele—that kind of wire for?"
Garison had a sinking feeling that trying to explain what one used telephone wire for would be a fruitless effort, so he shrugged and said with a smile, "I'll ask someone else."
He started to turn away, but the man said gruffly, "Stranger?"
Garison turned back and asked, "Yes?"
The man had drawn himself up to his full height of six inches below Garison's hairline and struck a stern pose as he said, "I don't know how they dress where you come from, Mister, but around here we obey certain rules of propriety."
Completely confused, Garison looked at his own clothes again, then asked, "Excuse me?"
The man fingered Garison's shirt and said, "Perhaps they dress like this while working at sea—or wherever it is you have come from—but around here we expect a man to be covered when he walks out in public."
Guessing that no good could come of arguing, Garison slipped on his jacket and asked, "Is this better?"
The man put his hands on his wide hips and said, "It's a start."
Garison looked at the man for a moment, hoping to receive some clue as to what else he could do. When no clue was forthcoming, he decided to try snapping up the front of the coat, even though the sun and the walk were already making him sweat. When he had snapped all but the top two fasteners, he asked with just a little sarcasm in his voice, "Is this better?"
"Much." The man relaxed and introduced, "I'm Shariff Purdy. And who would you be?"
"Garison Fitch." He offered his hand and was a little surprised when Sharif Purdy took it.
The sharif had strong hands, calloused from hard work. He still didn't smile, though, as he said, "We have a quiet, friendly town. We welcome strangers but we expect a certain decorum from them." It crossed Garison's mind to briefly be amazed at such an articulate vocabulary coming from one with Purdy's appearance. The sharif continued, "Now, I've never heard of this kind of wire you're asking for, but if someone in town has any, I imagine they will sell it to you. Feel free to ask around, but don't you go bothering or pestering anyone or I will hear of it."
"I wouldn't think of it," Garison replied truthfully. Thinking outloud more than anything, Garison complimented, "I have the feeling that if the sharif doesn't know about telephones, no one else will, either."
It was the wrong thing to say, for it gave Sharif Purdy the idea that Garison might be looking for something illegal. Perhaps this tele—whatever—was something Purdy had better learn about before he discovered it the hard way.
"Besides," Garison mumbled, "No one seems very keen on talking to me, anyway."
Garison walked down the street, smiling and trying to make eye contact with anyone who would look his way, but no one was having any. While a few had stuck their heads out of doors or windows and watched as Sharif Purdy provoked with the stranger, none seemed willing to do so themselves. Many who had stayed outside while Garison talked with the sharif scurried for cover as he came near.
For his part, Garison was wondering what he should do next. Should he keep traveling down the road, meeting paranoid people in town after town, hoping that someone somewhere would know what a telephone was and where he might find one? While it was not an attractive prospect, he was running out of ideas on what else to do. What if he had landed in some country entirely without telephones? What then? And, try as he might, he could think of no English speaking countries thus effected. Certainly there were no such regions on the east coast of North America.
Garison stopped in the street momentarily as another hypothesis came to his mind. What if, he thought, rather than passing through dimensions I have somehow passed into some other plane of reality? A plane where English had developed, but the people were somehow two hundred years behind the people in his own. He had read theories that such planes might be out there, but he had never found any scientific warrant for their existence. They were the talk of science fiction writers and theorists so far out of the main stream they couldn't even see the water. Still, he reminded himself, there were a lot of people who thought the same about him.
Garison saw a bench in front of a nearby building and went and sat down on it. He put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands as he tried to figure out what to do. He told himself that he had just stumbled into some isolated valley or the world's most elaborate test of social engineering, but the feeling in his gut would not let him believe such thoughts. This was something else entirely.
He was disturbed from his reverie by a voice saying, "Feet up."
It took a moment for the voice to register on him at all and he raised his head with a, "Huh?"
The sun was behind the source of the voice and cast a halo through the speaker's blonde hair and placed her entirely in silhouette. With a broom, she repeated in a pleasant tone, "Feet up. I'm trying to sweep."
"Uh, OK," Garison mumbled as he lifted his feet. She stepped a bit to his left just then and he got a look at her face. It was a pretty face, with pale, blemish free skin and deep green eyes. She wore a smile that was pleasant to look at and warming in its touch.
She said, "I don't believe I've seen you around here, Stranger."
"Uh, no. I'm from—I'm from out of town."
She looked at him and smiled genuinely. She asked, "Whereabouts? We don't get many visitors around here."
"La Plata Canyon," he replied instinctively.
She thought a moment, then told him, "I've never heard of it. Is it near Boston? or down in the Carolinas?"
"Neither, really," Garison replied with a sigh. Finally, she had mentioned places he had heard of, though he knew the Carolinas as Stalinland. "Carolinas" was a name belonging to the old British Americas. Had he perhaps landed in an alternate reality where the British Americas hadn't fallen to the Russians? That still wouldn't explain the lack of telephones, he thought sullenly. To finish the answer to her question, he said, "It's out in Marx—on the other side of the Rocky Mountains from Cherry Creek."
She shrugged and shook her head, "I'm afraid I've never heard of those places. And here I thought I knew my geography quite well. What with studying maps and—" she stopped as if she had been about to say something she would rather not be known.
It suddenly occurred to Garison to ask, "Tell me something, why are you talking to me?"
She looked unreasonably hurt by the question and he quickly added, "I mean, no one else will. How come?"
"How come they won't or how come I will?"
"Either. Be kind of nice to have an answer to something, even that."
She shrugged again and replaced a lock of hair that had fallen across he
r eyes. "I uh, I didn't realized at first that you were a stranger. I couldn't see your face and..." she let the sentence trail off as if unsure where to go with it.
He nodded, but after a moment said, "Just being a stranger doesn't account for the looks I've been getting. People look at me like—I don't know what. Like they're afraid of me. Do I look like an outlaw from these parts? Maybe someone who used to live here and no one wanted to see return?"
The strange note in his voice, as of anguish or despair tugged at her heart and she said, "You really don't know?"
"No, I don't."
She made herself smile what she hoped was a comforting smile and said, "To begin with, it is true that we don't get many strangers around here. Especially not one dark as night, big as a tree and—" she stopped short, biting her lip.
"And what?" he asked quickly.
With a genuine smile, she told him, "And wearing the strangest clothes I have ever seen in my life."
He looked down at his clothes for the umpteenth time and then back up at the young woman. "What's wrong with my clothes?" he asked honestly.
Laughing an infectious chuckle, she returned, "What's wrong? What's right? You have on a jacket of the oddest cut, and pants like a sailor's and, well, I have never seen shoes like that in my life."
"You've never seen tennis shoes?"
Shaking her head but still smiling, she replied, "If those are tennis shoes, then, no. I have not. They look something like mocassins, but not much."
Garison was somewhat disturbed by the fashion review, but found the young woman utterly charming. He looked her in the eye and asked, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Certainly."
"Where am I?"
She hesitated, but finally replied, "Mount Vernon."
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time Page 5
