Tag Against Time (2 page)

Tears blurred Tag's vision. He reached up and wiped his eyes. Worry nagged like a canker sore. Could Walker lead his people out of the death-filled canyon and guide them to a
new home on the Hopi mesas far to the northeast? What were the odds that anyone would survive such a long journey in
A.D
. 1200 and something?

It's still not too late
. Tag looked toward the cave's opening.
I can climb down to the village and tell Walker that I've changed my
 . . .

“My son, now is the time for you to do that which you were sent to do.” Great Owl's words filled the cave as if they were thunder.

Tag whipped around searching the cave even though he knew he was alone. Was Great Owl seeing his thoughts? Would Great Owl watch his every moment through time? The assumption gave Tag a curiously comfortable feeling. But what did Great Owl mean? “Now is the time for you to do that which you were sent to do.” What was he supposed to do? What could he do? Confusion compounded Tag's apprehension.
How will I ever know?

Lightning flashed outside. Its brilliant light illuminated the cave for a split second. The paho seemed to absorb the light and its power. Tag felt a strange and wondrous energy radiating from it.

“You must think good thoughts—positive thoughts; our great creator, Taawa, will guide your steps.” Great Owl's words were thunder. “Place the holy paho on the shrine.”

Tag's heart beat against his ribs as if it was trying to escape. Whether he wanted to or not, Tag knew he had to walk into the future. His time with the ancient ones was over. The rock shrine sat on a natural shelf protruding from the cave's wall. Tag took a deep breath and held it.

Good thoughts, happy thoughts—pepperoni pizza, juicy hamburgers, curly french fries
—
soft, clean beds, flushing toilets, hot
showers
. Tag placed the holy prayer stick on the shrine.
Mom, Dad
 . . .

A dazzling, blue light filled the cave. In the same instant the cave exploded with thunder. The deafening sound echoed through Tag's head, piercing his brain with pain.

Total darkness consumed the cave. The air felt heavy with age, decay, and death. Thunder vibrated through Tag's body. He slumped to his knees, gasping for air. None would come.

The cave swirled and twisted in time . . .

The cave ceased twisting and turning. Time stopped.

Tag tried to get his leaden eyelids open, but couldn't. His head throbbed in pain as warmth thawed his cold body. The rocky floor of the cave gnawed at his back. He managed to roll over onto his side. The glaring light beat against his closed eyelids. Tag fought to bring his mind into focus.

I'm still in the cave, but where—no
, when
am I in time?
He knew it could be anywhere from
A.D
. 1250 to infinity.
But when?
Fear and uncertainty again began building in the pit of his empty stomach. Had he been wrong in leaving Walker and the ancient ones? His stomach knotted in hunger.
No
, it growled. Tag's mind agreed even in its unfocused, floating state. Although he had made lasting ties with the ancient ones, his true bonds were with pizza, computers, and running water. Tag's heart interjected; Mom and Dad. Living with the ancient ones made him realize how much a part of his parents he was.

Before his journey back into time, he resented the long hours his father, a field archaeologist, spent studying, “dead Indians.” Pain thundered through his head.
How could I have been so childish?
Tag now understood his father's deep-seated desire to learn about the ancient ones and help preserve their culture. He could hardly wait to apprise his dad about what it was really like to live with those who held his fascination. The stories he had to tell!

If I ever see Dad or Mom again
, Tag's mind focused sharply now. Tears stung behind his closed eyes as his heart merged with his mind. His mom's freckled face, her smiling brown eyes, and wild curly hair, flashed through his mind. Tag clenched his eyes tighter, trying to see her face better. A baseball-sized lump filled his throat. “You're a twelve-year-old going-on-twenty,” her often spoken words resounded through his memory.

I might act twenty, but I'm still a kid!
his heart screamed.
And I want to go home!

Hot tears burned his check. Great Owl promised that he could try more than once to get back.
But how many times? Two, three, five, twenty-five?

The cave's floor was getting harder by the second. He had to move or petrify lying there. It was time to face reality, whatever or
whenever
that was. Tag forced his eyes open. Sunlight washed the cave. The air felt uncomfortably warm.

The paho lay on the stone shrine. “Remember, my son, the paho only has power when the moon illuminates the passageway of time.” Great Owl's words echoed through Tag's mind as he struggled to his feet. His bones cracked as if he had lain in one position for years. He groaned. The groan echoed off the cave's close walls. Tag jumped, looking
around. Realizing what had happened, he laughed. The sound bounced around the cave, laughing with him.

Tag reached for the ancient paho, his key to time. “I'd better keep this with me every minute. If I lose it, I'll never make it home.” His words repeated themselves as he reached for Walker's backpack laying nearby.

“Walker of Time, where are you walking now? How many of your people are walking with you?” Tag whispered, wrapping the prayer stick in its buckskin. An ache rose in his throat. Walker's handsome, reddish-brown face, with its high forehead, and dark, slanted eyes streaked across Tag's memory. Would he ever know what happened to his friend? He chuckled. “I know. I know. It's rude to ask so many questions. It's not the Hopi or the ancient ones' way to ask questions.”

Tag noticed the small natural basin below the shrine that had been formed by years of water seeping through the limestone. When he left Walker, it was half full. Now, it held only a fingertip of water.

“Proof! I have gone through time.” A surge of excitement shot through Tag. “But how much?”

His voice echoed back the question. Maybe he was back in 1993 already.

“Let's go find out.” Tag answered himself. He placed the prayer stick on top of the pack.

“Go find out . . . Go find out,” his hollow echo tolled through the cave.

Like an oven being opened, hot dry air blasted Tag as he stood on the narrow ledge in front of the cave. He gazed down into the rocky, six-hundred-foot canyon. “I can't believe it,” he whispered. “Things are even worse than when I left.”

The drought that baked the ancient ones' crops in the fields and dried up their limited water supply had worsened. What little sage and bee grass that had been growing on the canyon sides were gone. Cacti were the only living things now, and they even looked wilted beyond revival. The rugged crags and crevices of the canyon stood hostile and barren in the glaring sun.

What else had changed? Deadly silence permeated the canyon. Tag looked down the sheer, ten-foot-cliff he'd have to descend to get to the village. The memory of his close call the first time he climbed down it, sharpened his apprehension.

Obviously, I'm not back to my own time. I don't have to go down, I can just go on into time
.

A raven's shrill cry echoed in the canyon.

“Now is the time for you to do what you were sent for,” Great Owl's words replaced the raven's call in the scorching air. Goose bumps rose on Tag's arms.

He plopped down on the ledge of the cliff, letting his long legs dangle in midair. The heat from the limestone seared through his jeans.

The old proverbial hot seat
. Of course, he had to go down into the village. The part of him that was his father, the archaeologist, the lover and studier of peoples, wouldn't allow him to take the easy way out. He had to see, to experience what the village was like now, whenever that was. He yearned to be a part of the living history of Walnut Canyon so that he could tell his father all about it.

By the look of things, Tag had a gut feeling that the vandals and pothunters had not yet done their dirty work of destroying and stealing time. His heart thundered at the thought of grave hunters looting his friends' graves.

“I know the human vultures will come,” Tag's voice was low and intense. “But I will protect the ancient ones' home and whatever they left behind!” Even as he spoke the words, his mind questioned how.

Looking up into the cloudless sky, he whispered, “Great Taawa, God of the ancient ones, please help me find a way.”

He adjusted the pack on his shoulders and eased himself, legs first, over the edge of the cliff. Tag searched with his feet for the first notch chiseled into the face of the cliff.
Where is it?
His heart pounded in his ears. His foot slipped into a toehold, and he lowered himself down, balancing in the notch while feeling for the next toehold with his other foot.

Tag rested his body against the face of the cliff. His fingers clung to mere cracks. He gazed down. The sheer wall below looked about a hundred feet high. Sweat poured into his eyes. “Don't look down!”

Tag aimed his eyes straight ahead at the multicolored limestone. He blinked to clear his eyes and took a deep breath. “Don't be such a wimp. Even if you do fall, it won't kill you.” His halfhearted words died against the wall. He lowered his foot, feeling for the next notch. “Just break a leg or something,” he mumbled, turning his head to the other side.

Two black bulging eyes glared back at him. A whiplike tongue lashed toward his face.

Tag jerked away from the bulging eyes and lashing tongue inches from his nose. His scream filled the canyon as his right foot slipped out of its toehold. He clung to the wall, feet flailing in the air. Sweat ran into his eyes. His nails broke. The wall became a blur as Tag plummeted downward.

I'm dead
 . . .

One foot—two feet, the skin on his cheek peeled off. Blasts of pain shot though his arms as they banged against the limestone. He slammed down into a heap at the base of the cliff.