Chase reached for the two-way radio. Maybe Dan could get the chopper grounded for a while. Daniel was right. The noise was definitely distracting. Just as he pulled the radio from his belt, movement along the rocks caught his eye. The radio fell to the ground at his feet, and Chase sprinted to where some shrubs covered, what looked like, a small outcropping in the rocks.
“Daniel,” he called over his shoulder. His heart beat wildly in his chest. He skidded to his knees, his eyes focused on the small foot that protruded from between the rocks and vines. How had he or Daniel missed seeing it? They’d been standing here for the last ten minutes or more. Impatiently, he yanked at the greenery, shoving it aside. Daniel rushed up beside him.
A young boy, wearing denim shorts and a khaki boy scout shirt that was smeared with dried mud, lay under the bush. His legs were scraped raw, and one of his shoes was missing. Dirt streaked his face.
Chase scrambled up close to the child, and held two fingers to his neck. There was a definite pulse. The boy moaned, and stirred.
“Search and rescue was all over this place, how could they have missed him?” Chase muttered.
“Perhaps he hasn’t always been in this location,” Daniel offered. “He does not appear to be badly injured or otherwise harmed, so perhaps he’s been on the move.”
Chase leaned over the boy. “Can you hear me, kid?” he asked. The boy moaned again.
“Cameron,” he whispered almost inaudibly.
Chase strained his ears. “Is that your name?” He reached his hands under the boy’s body with the intent to lift him away from the rocky outcropping. His eyes fell to the boy’s hand, which clutched firmly around something that looked oddly familiar. A jolt of adrenaline shot through Chase.
“Daniel?” he said, disbelief in his voice. He reached for the boy’s hand, and removed the object from his grip. Reflexively, Chase’s other hand groped at the pouch around his neck. He expelled a quick breath of relief, then held the object that had been in the boy’s hand out to Daniel. Their eyes met.
“There are two time travel devices?” Daniel’s voice was uncharacteristically unsteady. They stared at each other.
“That’s what the elder wanted me to find and bring back,” Chase whispered incredulously, his eyes drifting from Daniel to the unconscious boy. “These boys found another vessel.”
Chapter Thirteen
Chase’s hand shook when he radioed Dan to tell him that they had found one of the boys.
“What about the other one?” Dan’s voice broke through the static.
“Daniel is searching the area right now.”
“How is the boy?”
“He’s unconscious, but seems to be okay otherwise.”
“I’ll be there as quick as I can. I see your location on the GPS.”
Chase turned off the radio. He stared at the snakehead in his hand, then pulled the one from his pouch. There was no question that what the boy had found was a time travel device. To anyone else, it would look like nothing but a petrified snakehead. But if someone touched the eyes accidentally, like the boys obviously had done . . .
This had to be what the elder had been talking about, what he had been sent to the future to find. Somehow, the boys had found or dug up this device that the Sky People must have hidden somewhere in this canyon. The elder had been absolutely correct that it would be detrimental if someone else got their hands on the device.
The boy on the ground stirred, and moaned again. Chase slid his arm under the kid’s neck, and raised his head. The boy’s eyes fluttered open.
“It’s gonna be okay, Cameron. Help is on the way,” Chase said quietly, and held his canteen to the boy’s lips. He drank eagerly.
“My name is Julian,” he rasped. “Cameron . . . where’s Cameron?”
Chase’s forehead wrinkled. “We’re looking for him right now.”
“There is no sign of the other boy.” Daniel came up beside him. He’d been scouring the riverbank for the other missing boy.
Chase raised his head to look at him. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” His eyes locked with those of his father-in-law. Daniel nodded almost imperceptibly.
“Julian. Do you know what happened to Cameron?” Chase adjusted the boy’s head in the crook of his arm, lifting his upper body slightly off the ground. The kid stared up at him, confusion and fear in his eyes. Slowly, he shook his head.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “We heard Mr. Kahan, our troop leader, call us all back to the picnic area, that it was time to go.” With trembling hands, he lifted the canteen to his mouth, and gulped more water. Chase steadied it for him.
“Where were you when Mr. Kahan called to you?”
“By the river. Cam, Bryce, and Joel were with me. We were throwing rocks over the cascades. Bryce and Joel went back to the picnic area, but Cam wanted to see how far across the river he could hurl some rocks.” The boy lifted tired eyes to glance from Chase to Daniel. Chase nodded for him to continue. Julian slumped against Chase’s chest, and swallowed several times.
“We took turns to see how far we could throw. I was about to toss what was in my hand, when Cam stopped me. He grabbed my arm, and pointed at what I was holding. The rock looked like a snakehead, with shiny red eyes. The next think I knew, I woke up in a meadow with mountains all around me. Cam wasn’t with me anymore.” The kid gulped in a breath of air. “Everyone was gone.” His eyes widened.
Chase swore under his breath. He’d felt as dazed and disoriented a year ago when he’d time traveled. Only, he hadn’t traveled to a completely different location.
“Then what happened?” Chase asked.
Julian shook his head. His eyebrows furrowed, as if he tried to remember. “I called for Cam, but there was no answer. I thought I saw a man standing off in the distance. I tried to get up, but I was too dizzy to move.”
“A man?”
Julian laughed, as if he was embarrassed. “He looked like an Indian you’d see in a cowboy movie.” He glanced up at Daniel, and his eyes widened. Nodding his chin up at him, he said, “He was sort of dressed like you.”
“Was he old?” Chase asked.
Julian shook his head. “I couldn’t tell. Maybe. I didn’t really see him that well. Next thing I remember, I’m looking at you.” His eyes returned to Chase.
Chase cleared his throat. “Well, Julian, you’ve been missing for nearly a week. I think you’ve just become really disoriented.”
“A week?” The boy’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “I thought it all just happened.”
“Your mind is playing tricks on you.” Chase smiled. “It’s a good thing we found you when we did. The park rangers will be here soon, and they’ll take you to the hospital. Everyone’s been really worried about you.”
“What about Cam? Where is he?”
“We’re gonna find him, too. Can you sit up on your own?”
Chase helped the boy to a sitting position, then stood. He glanced over his shoulder at him, then walked out of earshot, motioning to Daniel to follow him.
“I’d lay odds that Cameron is still somewhere in the past,” he whispered.
“Those are my thoughts as well.” Daniel nodded. “Cameron was holding Julian’s arm when they first time traveled. They must have separated somehow, and Julian came back.”
Daniel gave Chase a look that told him he wouldn’t like what his father-in-law was about to say. “I will remain with this boy. You will find the other one.”
“Me?” Chase’s eyebrows rose. “Wouldn’t it be better if you went to find him? You’re a much better tracker.”
Daniel placed his hand on Chase’s arm. “The elder gave this task to you, Chase. You must find the boy and bring him back. Then you can return the time travel device – both of them – to the Sky People.”
Chase clenched his jaw. “Dan will be here soon with a med evac team.”
“You must go now, Chase. I will let Dan know what has happened if he arrives before you return.”
Chase turned the snakehead he’d taken from Julian in his palm. He stared at it, then at the other device the elder had given to him. He held it out to Daniel.
“In case I don’t come back,” he said, meeting Daniel’s questioning eyes. The older man held his gaze, then took the snakehead from him, and stuffed it into his own pouch. “Who knows where or when this device will take me.”
Chase walked along the river and up the canyon’s incline a short distance, out of sight of where Daniel stood over Julian. It would be easy to convince the boy that what he had experienced was due to disorientation and being missing for five days. Witnessing Chase disappear into thin air might not be as easily explained.
Inhaling a deep breath, he closed his eyes and touched the eye of the snake, bracing himself for the dizziness that was sure to sweep through him when he arrived wherever he was going. Hopefully, this new device worked the same as the other one. When he opened his eyes again, he sat in a lush green meadow, just as Julian had described.
Chase waited for his head to clear, then stood.
“I really need to give up time traveling,” he mumbled.
He scanned his surroundings. Nothing looked familiar. The vegetation, the trees, even the snow-capped, jagged mountains that surrounded this valley, all looked different than anything he’d seen in the Yellowstone area. He inhaled a deep breath.
A sudden wave of dread washed over him. What century was he in? He knew nothing about this second time travel device. What if it had hurled him further back in time than the other device? He glanced at the snakehead in his hand.
It took Julian back to where he went missing. It’ll bring you back, too, Russell.
The air was infused with the rich smell of grasses and wildflowers, but it took a deeper breath to really fill his lungs with enough oxygen. Where the hell was he?
He didn’t waste time to contemplate his whereabouts. The quicker he could find Cameron, the faster he could get back to the future, and from there, back to the time and place where he and his family really belonged. Chase’s hand reached for the tomahawk strapped to his hip. He silently thanked Daniel for the weapon.
The grasses around him were bent and trampled, and Chase had no trouble following the narrow trail that lead through the meadow, and up a sparsely forested incline. Spruce trees covered the steepening landscape, the vegetation giving way to large granite-looking boulders littering the hillside.
Chase kept his eyes on the ground, following the tracks through the pine needle covered undergrowth. An overturned stone, drag marks through the nettles caused by the tip of a shoe, a freshly broken twig on one of the trees - all signs that someone had recently come through this area. A year ago, Chase would have never even noticed any of it. Reading these signs had become second nature to him over the last year. Judging by how easy it was to follow the trail, it was someone who had no experience in covering his tracks, or wasn’t concerned about discovery.
“Where the hell are you going, Cam?” Chase spoke out loud. Why would the kid have chosen to climb this steep hill through the trees, instead of staying put in the open? Wasn’t a boy scout supposed to be smarter than that?
He’d just hauled himself over a sizeable boulder, when the sight before him froze the blood in his veins. A jolt of adrenaline rushed through him, and Chase yanked his ax from his belt. Not ten yards away, a cougar crouched, ready to spring at its prey. Flashes of déjà vu rushed through Chase’s mind. He’d already lived through a similar scenario once before. Without thinking, he threw his tomahawk. The startled cougar roared, and leapt to the side, then swayed on its legs. The sharp ax blade lodged in the cougar’s ribs, and the cat dropped to the ground.
Chase ran at the large cat, his hunting knife already in his hand.
“Not again,” he ground out through gritted teeth.
A low rumble and gurgle escaped the cat’s throat, and then it went limp. Chase stared at the dead predator, then sheathed his knife. Visions of an Indian covered in blood, his eyes filled with terror just before he died, swam before him. He’d been too late to save Hawk Soaring, but not this time. He whipped his head around to where he’d caught a glimpse of a small body cowering against some rocks just before the cougar would have attacked him. He rushed to the boy’s side, and fell to his knees.
“Are you all right, Cameron?”
The kid nodded, his eyes wide and on the cougar. “That Indian was about to help me,” he said, his voice a bit strained.
“What Indian?” Chase frowned. He glanced over his shoulder.
“He was just there.” Cameron pointed up the incline. “He’s gone.”
Chase shook off the chill that swept down his spine. “There’s no one there, Cam.” He held out his hand to help the boy to his feet. “Time to get back to your scout troop, though.”
“Who are you?” Cameron asked suspiciously.
Chase grinned. “I’m here to take you home.”
Almost reluctantly, the boy reached for Chase’s hand. “There was an Indian. I’ve been following him since I woke up in that meadow.”
“I think your mind is playing tricks on you, kid.” Chase tried to sound as if he was blowing him off. Before the boy could say another word, he tightened his hold on Cameron’s hand, and touched the snake’s right eye with his thumb.
Chapter Fourteen
Chase lifted Emily in his arms and held her above his head. The baby smiled down at him, and drool dripped from her mouth. Chase laughed, a warm feeling dousing his insides, and he hugged his daughter close.
“We’re going home, Emmy, and you’re gonna be all right,” he whispered to his tiny daughter.
The color of her skin had never been rosier, and she’d never been more alert and active. A week had passed since her return from a two-day stay at the hospital in Bozeman, and all tests indicated that the cells that had been implanted in her heart were doing their job. The hole had already shrunk in size, according to the ultrasound Jana had performed that morning.
Chase was eager to return to the nineteenth century. He’d done what he came here to do. There was no doubt that he’d found what he needed to bring back to the elder, and his baby girl would grow up healthy. For the last two weeks, he’d remained on self-imposed house arrest, so he wouldn’t run into any more trouble. Time to get home. A good elk or bighorn hunt was what he needed to calm his restlessness.
“We’re going to miss all of you,” Jana said, glancing from Sarah to Aimee, to Daniel and then to him. She and Aimee hugged for, what had to be, the thousandth time in less than a few minutes. “It’s been like having a family reunion.”
“Yeah, but best to get these time travel devices back to where they belong,” Dan said, shaking Daniel’s hand. “Before they fall into the wrong hands.” His eyes clouded with sudden anguish. Clearly, he was thinking about his own experience with time traveling, and what had nearly happened when the snakehead had fallen into the wrong hands because of him. “It’s been great to have you guys around, but I do hope that this will be the last time we see this time travel device.”
Chase handed Emily over to Sarah when the baby began to fuss.
“She’s certainly found her appetite,” he beamed. “I think she’s hungry again, Angel. She’s trying to play catch-up.”
Sarah smiled at him, a secretive, almost shy smile. “I’d better feed her one last time before we leave,” she said softly, and disappeared with the baby down the hall and into the bedroom they’d occupied since coming to the future. Chase didn’t have time to think about that look on Sarah’s face. His eyes met Dan’s.
“Somehow I have to wonder if we’ll ever see the end of it,” he scoffed. “It’s just a good thing that those two kids don’t seem to have realized what happened to them.”
After time traveling back to the Sheepeater Canyon with Cameron, a medical team had extracted the boys and they’d been flown to the hospital in Bozeman. Dan had accompanied them, and been present when they were questioned as to what ha
d happened. Their story that they had been in a completely different location than the canyon was dismissed as disorientation and hallucinations due to having been lost in the wilderness for nearly a week. Cameron insisted that he had seen an Indian who had beckoned him to follow him after he’d been separated from Julian, and that he’d seen a cougar that one of his rescuers had killed.
“Well, hopefully no one starts believing those kids’ stories,” Chase said.
Dan shook his head. “Highly unlikely. According to the shrinks, they simply lived through a traumatic ordeal. You know kids and their imaginations.”
The doorbell rang. Jana moved to answer it, but not before Aimee and Daniel headed for their own bedroom. Daniel had maintained a low profile as well, and had become more restless with each day that he spent cooped up in the house. His striking similarity to Dan was not something easily explained, since Dan didn’t have any siblings.
Chase looked out the window toward the mountains. He’d be back in the nineteenth century shortly. It was where he truly belonged. Women’s voices reached his ear from the front door. A jolt of adrenaline shot through him. Slowly, he turned. Jana entered the kitchen, a wide-eyed look on her face. A woman followed close behind her.
“Mom?” Chase rushed forward.
“Chase? Oh my goodness, it is you.” Tears filled the woman’s eyes, and her arms flew open. Chase pulled her into a tight embrace. His mother had always been a good deal shorter than he, and Chase nearly lifted her off the ground. Her entire body trembled in his arms.
“What are you doing here, Mom?” he whispered against her hair, holding her close. How had she even known he was here?
“I thought I’d never see you again,” she sobbed. She clung to him, and cried against his chest.
“It’s all right, Mom,” Chase murmured. Millions of thoughts raced through his mind. How was he going to explain his appearance, and that he had to leave again? He’d already written a letter to her, telling her everything. He’d meant to give it to Dan to mail once he was gone.
A Yellowstone Promise: Yellowstone Romance Series Novella Page 9
