C.E. Murphy - Mountain Echoes

The timeline was not that flexible, and I knew it. If I managed something like that I would end up returning to a future that was nothing like the one I’d come from. Alternate worlds. I knew the potential for them existed: I’d seen too many of the paths I hadn’t taken roll out before me to doubt it. And much as I’d like to see a world where American natives rose up as a major power, I didn’t want to lose the life I had, either. The timeline would have to remain as it was.

I fell into the creek about then, and despaired for my white leate ianme to doubher coat.

The creek turned out to be more of a river, in this day and age. It snatched me up and tossed me downstream. Another arrow or two came flying my way, but they had a sense of “Yeah! And stay away!” about them, rather than real threat. I got knocked and buffeted around, shields keeping me from any dangerous injuries, and after a while hit a shallow enough stretch that I was able to fling myself out of the water. Dripping and battered, I scrambled out of my coat and held it up to see how badly damaged it was.

It wasn’t torn, scraped, stretched, bruised or marked up. In fact, although I was soaked to the skin and had water pouring from my hair into my eyes, it wasn’t even wet. The only water on it was where my hands clutched its shoulders, and there, it beaded and rolled away. I boggled at it, then turned the Sight on, searching for an explanation.

Apparently the coat was taking on the properties of superhero outfits, which never seemed to get shredded when heroes ran off at supersonic speeds or got shot up by the moron of the week. It had some shielding of its own, a faint shimmer of gunmetal. My subconscious evidently did not intend to let another Morrígan shred the coat’s sleeves again, or indeed to allow my clumsiness to soak and ruin the leather. I was deeply, deeply grateful for my subconscious, and also very slightly resentful that it didn’t think the rest of me was worth keeping dry. Especially since I couldn’t think of a way to use the magic to dry myself after the fact. At least I wasn’t coated in glitter anymore. Muttering, I put the coat back on and looked around, trying to get my bearings.

Morrison and I had come into the valley close to its southern end. The village site had been closer to the northern end. I was somewhere in the middle now, and Aidan was nowhere to be seen. Neither were the wights, which was something, at least. Not a good something, but something. I wished I knew what year it was, then straightened up. Renee?

It is before the time of tears.

Before the time of tears. The Trail of Tears. The Cherokee had been forcibly relocated in 1838, but they were the last of the Five Civilized Nations to be moved. The first had gone in 1831. But the people I’d seen didn’t look like they’d had any European contact. They were isolated, so it was possible they’d just been overlooked, but I asked how long before the time of tears?

She sighed. I supposed eternal bugs were not deeply concerned with the piddling details of human history. After some consideration, she said, The sickness has only begun to come, which I thought might narrow it down to somewhere in the late 1600s, but could be as early as 1493, for all I knew. I still said, “Thanks,” out loud, then sighed as deeply as Renee had. “I don’t suppose you know where Aidan went.”

My sister is distant. The path between us is dark. She is ill. Perhaps dying.

My heart went into triple time. “Does that mean Aidan’s dying? Raven?” He was the expert on life and death, after all. He klok-klok’d a couple of times and gave a shiver of wings, leaving the impression that no, it didn’t necessarily mean Aidan was dying, but it meant Aidan was certainly not well. I restrained myself from saying I could’ve figured that out without help. I tried to calm my heartbeat, and put the question of Aidan aside for a moment.

“What about Morrison? Renee, did he... Did we... Did everything in this valley slide come loose from time?” It had sure felt like ire could’vt. I wasn’t at all certain things beyond the valley hadn’t also come loose, but that was more than I could deal with right now. Renee nodded complacently and I let go a shuddering breath. Morrison was here somewhere. He was not dead, lost, eaten or any of the other potential bad things that could have happened in a time slip. I just had no way to contact him.

I couldn’t help taking my phone from my pocket and checking for a signal, just in case. There wasn’t one, of course, nor was there any other sign of life from the damned thing, because it, like me, had gotten soaked in the river. I wished for a cup of rice, then realized I had salt in my backpack. Wet salt, which would do me no good.

My stomach clenched with sudden hope. I also had the shotgun and a small pack of live ammo. I slithered the holster off, checked the gun over, then unloaded the packed salt ammo and replaced it with shotgun cartridges. I didn’t want to go hunting. I just wanted to make a really big, very modern noise in a quiet preindustrial valley. If Morrison was out there, he could respond in kind. And then if he had any sense he’d stay put. Actually, if I had any sense, I’d stay put, because Morrison clearly had a lot more woods know-how than I did, but it was pretty much a given that I had no sense. I raised the shotgun, sighted, and blew a hole the size of my fist in a hickory tree about twenty feet away.

The report sounded roughly like the fall of Jericho. It would have been loud even in the modern day, with the distant but discernible drone of airplanes and car engines as part of the background noise. Here, now, with nothing but the wind and birds, it was terrifying, and that was speaking as the person who’d caused it. I staggered a bit with the gun’s kick, lowered it, and rubbed my shoulder.

An answering pistol shot cracked the air. I howled triumph, thrusting the shotgun at the sky like a rebel leader, and did a dance of relief. Then I packed everything up, slung the coat and pack on, and headed south along the riverbank. Maybe Morrison would think to come down to the water. It was the easiest meeting point for two people who had no way to communicate.

I’d gotten almost no distance at all when another sound ricocheted through the valley. It wasn’t nearly as loud as the gunshots, but much steadier and quite sharp, like rocks being knocked together. I stopped, ears perked, and listened.

Dat dat dat dat. Brief pause. Dat. Longer pause. Dat. Another longer pause. Dat. Another longer pause. Dat, brief pause, dat, long pause. Dat, long pause, dat dat. Considerably longer pause. Dat, long pause, dat dat. It went on like that while I stared helplessly up the mountains.

Of course Morrison knew Morse code. Of course he did. Of course he would try to communicate with me that way. Except I knew the same two letters in Morse code that everybody else in the world did, S and O, dot dot dot and dash dash dash, and that was the sum total of my knowledge. He banged out an O, but one letter out of several was not enough to illuminate his meaning. Feeling helpless, frustrated and remarkably uninformed, I started down the river again. Morrison kept banging away for a while, including a pause long enough to suggest he was wiping the slate clean and starting over, and then did the whole thing a second, then a third, time. Then he went silent, either waiting for my response or assuming I’d understood and was doing as he’d instructed.

Or possibly murdered holy ent silrribly by natives led to his location by his activities, but I was fairly certain murdered horribly would be accompanied by at least some gunshots, so I stuck with my previous assumptions and made my way south as fast as I could. At least I might be able to get some sense of where we’d been, and head up the mountain from there, hopefully to locate him. I’d pick up some rocks of my own when I thought I was far enough south, and start playing Marco Polo.