Tag Against Time (9 page)

“There is something for you to do here,” Great Owl's voice whispered amidst the devastation.

The hair on Tag's neck stood up. He wiped his teary eyes with the back of his hand. “But what?” His question blew away in the breeze.

The next group of ruins looked better. The long, continuous walls that made up five homes stood intact, although the T-shaped doorways were no longer recognizable. Tag crawled over the debris and through the gap where the first doorway had once stood. Decay singed his nose. Large pieces of yucca mats lay in a pile with pottery sherds and tin cans. Small brown corncobs lay in a heap in one corner. A once-neat pile of yucca cordage used for rabbit snares lay scattered nearby.
Whose house was this?
Tag searched his memory.
Scar Cheek's or Fawn's?

Tag started to climb out through the irregular opening.
He spied something wedged in between the rock slabs.
What?
Tag picked it up.
A dynamite fuse! Someone blew the doorway out to have more light to pothunt!
His anger exploded. Walls that took hours of tedious and strenuous work to build had been blown apart in seconds by greed. He stared at the steep ledge below the house and realized why the stone slabs from the wall now littered the hillside.

“How can man be so stupid?” Tag screamed. He hurled a broken slab as far as he could over the edge of the path.

Tag touched the smooth, empty trough of Littlest Star's metate, surprised that someone hadn't blown it apart, too. The front wall of Littlest Star's house still remained intact. Hope swelled in Tag's heart.
Maybe Great Owls' home is okay too!

The destruction was random. Many of the walls had gapping holes, while others stood strong and whole. Tin cans, bottles, and yellowing newspaper littered the doorways. Tag knew he should stop and get a date off one of the brittle newspapers, but the uncertainty of the state of Great Owl's home spurred him on.

“Yes!” Both Great Owl's and Morning Flower's adjoining home showed no significant damage. Crawling inside Great Owl's house, Tag saw that it was cleaned out right down to the bare limestone floor. Not even a pottery sherd remained.

“These two ruins were excavated some thirty years ago, back in 1885, by Richard Stevenson.” The gravely voice, coming from just outside the doorway startled Tag. “Everything found in these ruins is on display at the Smithsonian Institution back in Washington D. C.” The voice had a definite New York accent. “Everything that is, but the handprints in the mud plaster. You can see these
ancient prints best in the ruin on the right. Go ahead and go on in. Watch your head, please.”

It would be only a matter of seconds before someone came into Great Owl's house. Tag pressed himself against the corner of the front wall.

A child's voice screeched, “The ghost boy!”

“Don't be ridiculous, dear.” A large, flowered bonnet poked through the T-shaped doorway. “That's only a story—
ahhh!
” The woman's head disappeared.

A man's head and shoulders reappeared. “Come out here, boy,” his gravely voice ordered.

Tag gulped down his heart and crawled out. An elderly man, a middle-aged woman, and two small children hiding behind the woman's long full skirts, stood on the path.

“What are you doing in there?” Deep lines molded the long face of the man, in his late sixties. He wore denim pants, a long-sleeved shirt, high black boots, and a sagging felt hat.

Tag tried to sound innocent. “Looking around like everyone else.”

“Don't remember you coming out with this group.” The man stared over his wire-rimmed eyeglasses at Tag.

“He's not with us, Mr. Pierce,” stated the woman. She folded her arms across her ample chest, “And I certainly don't want him with us. Heaven only knows where he came from and
what
he brought with him.” She swung around almost knocking down the little girl still hiding behind her skirt. “Come children. Let's go on.”

Mr. Pierce pondered Tag. “How did you get out here, boy?”

“Walked.”

“Good long jaunt from town,” Mr. Pierce rubbed his stubby chin. “Been here before?”

“A couple of times. My dad was . . . is, an archaeologist. The ruins are great, aren't they? Sort of like walking back into time and all.” Tag moved. “Well, I got to be going.”

Mr. Pierce blocked his path, “You must be mighty interested in dead Indians to come clear out here from town alone. Maybe, I can persuade Mrs. Ayer to let you ride back with them.”

“No thanks.” Tag nonchalantly dusted the dirt from the front of Sean's shirt. “I want to spend more time in the canyon, you know, just looking around.”

“What's your name?”

“Tag.”

Mr. Pierce inspected him up and down. “You're mighty skinny. Been a while since you ate?”

“Years.”

“You go on up to the ranger cabin, and tell Mrs. Pierce to feed you. I'll be up after Mrs. Ayer and her children have seen enough. You need a place to sleep, too? Our front porch is a lot safer than sleeping out in the open with the bears.” He moved to one side.

Tag hurried passed him. “Thanks, Mr. Pierce. I'll be happy to work for food and a place to sleep.”

“Just you mind your manners around Mrs. Pierce. She's a bit persnickety about all the pleases and thank yous.”

Tag trotted up the path. As soon as Mr. Pierce was out of sight, his first thought was to escape. He darted in the direction of the cave. His stomach growled in an angry response to his flight. “Quiet!” Tag put his hand on his empty stomach as he ran along. “I'll feed you at the next stop in . . .”

A cold breeze lashed Tag's face. He jerked to a stop. Tingling sensations ran up and down his spine.

“My son . . .”

“I know—I know!” Tag interrupted Great Owl's voice in the sudden cold breeze. “There is something I need to do here.” He shrugged his shoulders, took a deep breath, and started back down the path. “I just wish you'd give me a little more help here, like telling me what it is I am supposed to do!”

Tag knew he could find the ranger cabin. It wasn't far from where the Visitor Center would stand in the nineteen-nineties. In the future, special ranger-guided tours would take a limited number of tourists to the old cabin, but he had walked there many times from his parents' trailer. It was one of his favorite getaway-to-be-alone places. What would it be like now, in 1916? His stomach twisted and growled in hunger. He sure hoped Mrs. Pierce was a good cook.

As Tag passed the destruction of Singing Woman's home, new determination thundered through him.

“I'll make them listen this time!” he vowed.

The wind whispered in the trees, “How?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Pierce,” Tag took the tin plate heaped with scrambled eggs and thick slices of homemade wheat bread. His mouth watered at the aroma. “Thanks for letting me clean up also.”

“You are more than welcome. Sit there on the front porch and eat,” Mrs. Pierce said in a thick southern accent.

“Yes Ma'am. It looks delicious.”

Mrs. Pierce was a good number of years younger than her husband. Her long dark hair was twisted in a tight knot on the top of her head. Her clear blue eyes inspected Tag openly. “It's just eggs. What did William think I would feed you at this time of day? That man is always sending hungry stomachs my way. Guess he remembers his own blue belly being empty all through the War Between the States.”

Shoveling in the eggs, Tag nodded.

“You're pretty young to be out on your own. What are you? Fifteen or sixteen? But then, fifteen was plenty old for our southern boys to put on the gray and die.” She reached back and adjusted the strings to the white apron covering her long, calico dress. “My daddy was but eighteen when he fought at Antietam. He lost both of his younger brothers in that battle. Well, eat up, and if you want more, just holler.” The screen door slammed behind her.

What would she do, if she knew I was only twelve?
Tag started in on the crusty bread.
It pays to be tall after all
.

Tag studied the log cabin as he ate. It wasn't very big, maybe two rooms. He knew that eventually additions would be added making it four rooms. A large garden grew on the east side of the cabin. An unhitched buckboard wagon stood by the corral in the back, while three horses rested in the shade of ponderosa pine trees at one end of it. Another horse, hitched to a two-seated, open carriage, waited patiently near the corral. An outhouse peeked through the scrub oak and pine trees beyond.

Tag tried to remember how long the cabin served as the
first ranger station.
Wasn't it 1930 or 40 something?
He looked toward the rim of the canyon to where the Park Service Visitor Center would be someday.
Will there be anything left for people to visit by then?

Uneasiness snaked through Tag remembering Great Owl's words as they parted hundreds of years ago. “There is much your people must learn from the mistakes of my people. If your people are going to survive, they too must learn to live in peace and harmony with each other and with Mother Earth.”

Frustration piped through Tag.
But no one listens to a skinny kid from nowhere!

He heard the Ayer children's laughter. They appeared through the trees chasing each other. Mr. Pierce and Mrs. Ayer strolled behind. Mrs. Ayer stopped short when she saw Tag on the steps. “Henry and Gretchen, get into the carriage. Thank you, Mr. Pierce.” She glared at Tag, shook her head, marched over to the carriage, and heaved herself up. “Please tell Mrs. Pierce good-bye for me.”

The children stared at Tag as the carriage rolled by. “See, I told you. Ghosts do too eat,” said the boy, pointing at Tag.

“Seems you have become the legendary ghost boy.” Mr. Pierce eased himself down next to Tag and chuckled.

Tag set the empty plate down. “Ghost boy?”

“Story has it that some thirty years ago, local ruffians were digging in the ruins when a tall, thin, curly-headed boy appeared out of nowhere. The mysterious boy beat up the ruffians, broke one of their ankles, and then just disappeared into thin air with a huge clap of thunder. That nasty break caused poor old Horace to limp ever since.” Mr. Pierce took off his hat and drew out a red bandanna from his pocket. “Many people claim to have seen the ghost boy drifting in
and out of the ruins just after dusk.” He wiped his high forehead. “Some say he's searching for his family who abandoned him here, but others say he's the guardian spirit of the canyon sent by some Indian deity.”

“People really believe that?”

“Yup.” Mr. Pierce smiled and put his bandanna back in his pocket. “Course, I don't refute it none. The stories tend to keep people out of my hair after sunset, especially Horace.”

The sound of wagon wheels and voices drifted through the trees. “Another group is coming, and I haven't even rested up yet. More and more people come each summer. We had right near four hundred last year alone. Why, some people are even driving horseless carriages clear out here.” Mr. Pierce shook his head. “I don't know why any man would want such a loud, smelly contraption. Now you take those black Tin Lizzies made by that New Yorker, Henry Ford. Everyone is buying them, but with gasoline costing a whole quarter a gallon it is too expensive for anyone to fill up the tank! Good thing too, because when you go up a steep hill, likely as not, the gas tank under the front seat slops all over your boots. That's not my idea of progress. No sir. Just give me a good team of horses and a sturdy wagon any day.”