The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time (16 page)

When Sarah came down the aisle and Garison saw her wedding dress for the first time (as was proper), his shaking became worse. Fearing his friend would pass out, Franklyn put a steadying hand on Garison's shoulder and quietly reminded him to bend his knees before they locked permanently. It helped, but Garison was still awe-struck.

Sarah looked radiant to one and all, as only a woman on her wedding day to the man she loves can look. Her smooth skin seemed to glow, and her blonde hair—which fell in a single braid half-way down her back—was wreathed with a halo of dried white flowers one of Mrs. Clives' children had held on to for a special occasion. Her dress was of linen, white as linen got in the eighteenth century. It was a simple dress, but somehow elegant. If Sarah had ever given the illusion of being angelic, she now appeared positively heavenly.

There were tears of joy at the wedding, though not always for the traditional reasons. Besides those who just naturally cried at weddings, there were a few mothers who wept that Garison Fitch wasn't marrying their daughter and a few men who cried because the veil of prejudice had suddenly slipped from their eyes and they realized what a beautiful woman they had ignored for the last two decades. James Kelough shed the most tears, remembering how he had shunned Sarah's childhood crush on him in favor of...he couldn't even remember who he had thought at the time more worthy of his attention than Sarah. Now he was attending a wedding stag—with no prospects in the near future—while the girl he had shunned walked down the aisle as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Following the wedding, there was a large reception at the building that served as the town hall. Everyone came, it seemed, including all of Mrs. Clive's children and grandchildren and even the Washington family—owners of the large estate that the town had sprung up around. There was cake and cider and even a little dancing when the Kelp family showed up and began to play. Everyone had a good time but the show was stolen by Garison and Sarah, whose countenances made it clear to all who saw that they were truly, deeply, in love—and anxious to get on with being married.

"Such a strange coat," Hansen, the tailor, commented as he shook Garison's hand in the receiving line. "Does the style have a name?"

"Just a leather jacket," Garison replied with a shrug.

"Fine work, though," Hansen added. "May I have a closer look at it sometime? I would like to try my hand and making one like it."

"Sure. Just come by and get it one day."

Hansen nodded appreciatively, then waited anxiously for his chance to kiss Sarah's cheek. Sarah was already tired of the custom, and her cheek was on the verge of getting chapped, but she smiled through it all. Mostly, she was ignoring everyone who came by and just basking in the glow of being married.

It hadn't fully sunken in. For so long, she had been a nobody, or an outcast. Now, here was this wonderful Christian man who loved her so much it made her embarrassed just to think of it. And she loved him just as much.

She looked up at him then, standing a full foot taller than she, laughing as he was saying something to Finneas and receiving the well-wishes of a few others. It was hard to associate this man with the tired, sad, and maybe scared, man she had first met that day in front of the tavern. She wondered why he had even noticed her, but she was thankful he had. Then she laughed to herself as she realized he had noticed her because she had told him to pick up his feet.

“What?” Garison asked, seeing the laughter in her eyes.

“Just remembering sweeping,” she replied, a playful twinkle accompanying the smile. “I’ll explain later,” she whispered.

Garison had cast more than a few glances at his new bride during the reception, wondering why she had married him. To him (though he was not alone in this sentiment) she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Woman, he corrected himself. Now twenty years old—and ten years his junior—she was definitely a woman. The thought made him blush, but it also made him anxious for the reception to end.

When the reception ended and the sun had set, the town followed along behind the hand-holding couple as they walked down the lane to their new house. Those members of the Kelp family band who played portable instruments helped the crowd serenade the newlyweds all along the walk. As Garison picked up his new bride and carried her across the threshold, their friends, neighbors, and a few other people stood outside and caterwauled what was supposed to be a love song or two before shouting a few well wishes and going on to their own homes. Their presence was appreciated by the newlyweds, but not so much as their departure. It could not have come a moment too soon.

As they lay in bed late into the night, Sarah reached out a hand to stroke her husband's chest. It was a muscled chest with little hair and she liked the way it felt beneath her fingers. He smiled up at her and said, "I know I've said this a thousand times today, but I love you, Sarah."

There was a lamp, turned low, on the bedside table and in its dim light she could just barely make out the clock on the dresser, which had been a present from the Clive family. After peering at the time, she said, "Actually, you haven't told me very many times this day."

"Then I had better tell you over and over to make up for these minutes I have lost, hadn't I?"

"Yes, you should," she smiled in return. After sharing a kiss, she said, "Now, Mister Fitch, tell me some more about La Plata Canyon."

He laughed himself, for it had become a joke that he would finally tell her about the other love of his life after they were married. He had told her some things here and there, but had never really described the canyon. He thought a moment, then said, "La Plata Canyon is the most beautiful place in the whole world. And I have traveled over quite a distance in my days.

"The La Plata River comes out of the San Juan Mountains and cuts its way through the smaller range we called the La Platas. The San Juans are big, majestic mountains you can see from the tops of the La Platas, sitting in the distance and looking over the La Platas like proud but stern parents and grandparents. La Plata Canyon's really more of a valley than a canyon, but I have just always heard it called a canyon. Anyway, it is filled with wild flowers in the spring and—all year 'round—the evergreen pines and firs cover the slopes of the mountain all the way to timberline. They keep their leaves all year round and the green peeks out from between the boughs of covered snow in winter and seems to always remind you that spring is not too far off. And there are aspen, a tree with a white trunk like a birch and pale green leaves that turn the most vivid golds and oranges in the autumn."

"What is timberline?" Sarah interrupted. She had learned so much from Garison in the previous months that she wanted to learn even more. He had taught her to never be afraid to ask questions, so she frequently interrupted to ask. He had opened a world for her she never knew existed and it was like getting the advanced schooling she had never had. Of course, even he admitted that some of his talk was of a world that didn't yet exist so some of it was schooling no one else in the world had yet had.

"It is a place on a mountain where the altitude is so great and the air so thin that trees and plants cannot grow in the great numbers they do at lower altitude. Also, such factors as temperature, water, and other things prevent the abundance of fauna you'd find elsewhere. There are tender lichens that cling precariously to the rocks in some places, though the extreme temperatures and other factors make their cycle of growth sometimes only a few days a year. Their tenacity is unbelievable!

"It's like a magical land up there above the timber line. It's like a fantasy world that only a few ever experience because even for those with the opportunity, it takes work to get there. And each little peak you see in the distance is like it's own person, with a history and story different from all the other peaks. And you want to know the story of every peak and know that you couldn't learn them all even with a lifetime to try. Up there, one can see for miles—from one peak to another. And you can see down into the valley below you for distances you would think impossible if you've never been there to look. It's the sort of view normally reserved for the eagles.

"Way back above my house, there was this trail that sometimes ran above timberline. I mean, almost all of it ran above timberline, but it disappeared in some places. Washed out by time or wind or something, I guess. I only explored parts of it, but I have a thought that it stretched for miles, to the north and south. At one time, I heard a legend say, it was like a highway for a people known as the Anasazi, or maybe even people before them."

"Ana—what?"

"Anasazi. They were the ancestors of some of the savages—the Indians—who live out in the western lands today. They lived in mud houses built high up in cliff walls. They seem to have been farmers, too, for even in my day someone would find evidence of an ancient plowed field, or even a clay jar that still contained wheat or corn. And not wild stuff, either, but crops that had obviously been bred and harvested over time and with care. They were not just crude tillers of the soil, but people with some skill and science in the matter."

"What happened to these people?"

"Nobody knows for sure. Maybe they were wiped out by another tribe, or maybe they had a famine or some other natural disaster. Or maybe they were just swallowed up by another tribe and we haven't found the history that records such a merger. My people didn't delve much into archeology—the study of ancient peoples—but what studies had been done seem to indicate the Anasazi just suddenly were no more. Whatever happened to them, they left beautiful cliff houses near my house, and at other sites in the area—though many of them were located in what I knew as Texas and Japan, and if those places had been much explored I never heard. Some of their cliff houses were built in places I couldn't imagine building in with modern equipment, let alone with primitive tools and no machines. They must have climbed up sheer cliffs with rope ladders and carved their homes from the rocks somehow. I'll have to show you those houses some day, too."

"I can't wait."

"But anyway," he continued, gently caressing her thigh as she had touched his chest, "I used to walk along this trail a few miles from my house. Then I'd take this little side trail—I think it was a game trail—down onto a little bench on the side of the mountain. There was a little hollow amongst the rocks and trees there where the snow melt formed a little pool. I used to go there and just sit and think for hours. Sometimes, if I stayed still and quiet long enough, I would see a marmot or a deer come up and drink at the pool. They would sometimes stay there for quite a while. I guess they somehow knew I wouldn't harm them. You know, I had some of my best ideas sitting by that pool."

"Did you think of your machine by that pool?"

"Some of it," he nodded. "I first started thinking about interdimensional travel back when I was in high school, when I was nine." He chuckled, "Mainly, I was trying to think of a way to get out of going to grammar class. Anyway, it was some time later that I started seeing how it might be accomplished. I did some of the later sketches and drawings of my machine while sitting by that pool. I did figure out how to make the power regulator when I was sitting there one day."

She smiled at him as she saw the light in his eyes. Sarah told him, "You speak so wonderfully of these things. I hope I will one day see them for myself."

"I hope so, too," he told her. As an idea popped into his head, he told her, "Perhaps even if we can't get there, one of our grandchildren will be one of the first explorers to see La Plata Canyon."

It was another night much like that one that she asked, "I bet you had many friends back there in your La Plata Canyon."

"Not really," he shook his head. "Just two really."

"Come now—"

"Seriously. I knew a lot of people, but I didn't have any close friends."

"So who were the two?"

"Man named Charlie Begay was one. He was an Indian. Not like the ones you're thinking of. He was from a tribe called the Navaho. I helped get his son into college. Really bright young man. His father could have gone to college, too, but he had to support his parents and went to work instead."

"And the other? The other friend, I mean."

"Tex. He was quite a guy. Saw him the day before I left." He grimaced slightly, then added, "I never thought, at the time, that I'd never see him again. There was so much we talked about that day that I would like to have spoken more of. To learn more of."

"Why? What did you speak of that day?"

He had been getting out of the pilot's chair, making one more check of the machine before the "flight", and had just selected for a hard copy. The printer began to generate a pile of paper containing the pertinent data and Garison scanned it with an expert eye, tuned through years of practice—and months devoted to this particular project—to spot the smallest discrepancy.

Tearing off the printout while paper was still being spewed, Garison walked over to the "engine housing" and removed the cover. Glancing back and forth between the machine and the printout, Garison visually inspected everything he could reach without having to dismantle the entire device.

"Looks good," he muttered. Standing up, he glanced at his watch and said, "All I need now is fuel." His watch told him it was just now nine o'clock and he knew there would be no way to get the fuel he needed before noon. Still, he thought, that should leave him enough time to complete the experiment in the afternoon.

Fuel had been one of the main considerations when locating in La Plata Canyon for the San Juan Mountains were rich in uranium. In a colossal breech of both protocol and good common sense, the director of the uranium processing plant often traded Garison processed uranium for work. This not only served Garison quite well, but the work done for the director served that man as well. It was another instance of Garison exploiting the inefficiency of a totalitarian state where graft was as much a rule as any law written in the books.