"Greetings Worshipers of the Sun!"
A handsome man with a swirl tattoo on his cheek that resembled the burning orb replied to Quentin in a language Shelby had never heard before. “Sorry,” her lover whispered to her, frowning. “I think my translating device is experiencing technical difficulties. Must have gotten some sand in it. I'll do the talking."
"All right. They certainly know how to sneak up on people. Um, hello there.” Shelby smiled and waved lamely as the crowd continued to press forward. “We come in peace."
What could she do to make them understand that she didn't mean them any harm? She didn't speak their language, and they certainly didn't speak English or Spanish, which she knew a little from her semester abroad in Costa Rica. In fact, it would be four hundred years or more until Columbus and his ilk would encounter the Cahokians’ descendents. The arrow tips inched closer. She jumped into Quentin's arms and laid her head on his shoulder.
"Don't worry.” He stroked her hair. “We're safe. They're friendly. We've met before."
"Good. You're part of the family then?"
"Sort of. They assumed the first time I was here that with my black hair and dark eyes that I was an envoy from a distant tribe. But I think they're surprised by your fair skin and blue eyes.” A lone warrior took a step closer to them. “I think they find your blonde hair a bit of a distraction, too."
She took a long breath and timidly raised her head. “Distraction? Like in they think I'm a golden sun goddess and they want to worship me? Or do they want to take out my beating heart as a virgin sacrifice?"
"Don't act so uncivilized, Shelby. The Mississippians don't remove hearts from virgins. You're thinking of the Aztecs."
"Oh. Sorry."
"And the Mississippians culture is very conservative in its sexual mores in spite of the skimpy clothing. Plus, you don't qualify as a virgin, remember?"
She chuckled nervously. “Right. I guess you can put me down then. Can we take a tour of the village? Is that allowed?"
Quentin patted her backside as she regained her feet. The warriors quickly straightened up and allowed a fiercely proud individual with a high forehead and large hook-shaped nose to gain entrance into the circle. A multitude of glossy pink, coral and white shell beaded necklaces draped the man's neck and shoulders. Shelby admired his crown-like headdress and matching cape made entirely of falcon feathers. No doubt, this person held power.
"Chief, it's great to see you again.” Quentin grasped the older man's forearms and nodded his greeting. “Happy Spring Equinox. Is it time to check the calendar?"
The regal man nodded and guided Quentin away from the circle of his bodyguards. Shelby attempted to keep up with her lover, but a spear-carrying warrior indicated she was to wait. She silently followed the pack, keeping several respective paces behind the royal entourage. What else could she do? Apparently rigid social hierarchies and male chauvinism existed everywhere and in all times.
A crowd formed about the chief. Or was he more of a priest? It appeared to be the latter considering the reverent awe and respect his noble subjects paid him as he passed by. Dressed in equally intricate beaded neck ornaments and patterned feather headdresses, they joyfully followed their leader through an opening in the wooden stockade, marching toward a circle of towering red cedar poles located to the west of Monks Mound.
Leaving the inner walled city, thousands of what Shelby assumed to be the common folk, the farmers and hunters with their wives and children, converged at the large circle. The commoners’ dresses and loincloths seemed rather plain by comparison, devoid of decoration. Very few were decorated with the rare shells, beads and feathers that the nobility flaunted.
"So the French didn't invent haute couture after all.” She smiled at her entourage. “Where are we going?” No one said a word, but continued silently toward the circle of cedars. Suddenly the name Woodhenge popped into her mind.
Yes! Everyone was heading to Woodhenge, a sun calendar archeologists had uncovered at Cahokia similar to the ancient stone varieties found in England. From the damp chill in the air and Quentin's greeting, she concluded they were to witness the first dawn of spring, a most sacred time for a culture whose very existence depended on the cycles of rain and sunlight to bring in their immense harvests of corn.
She laughed and clapped her hands. “Oh wow! I'm actually in Cahokia, a place people have been puzzling over forever. I bet any anthropologist would pay a million bucks to stand where I'm standing and discover how this city and culture worked."
The crowd stilled. The priest halted upon reaching the center of the sacred circle and raised his arms toward the heavens. Shelby did her best to reach to Quentin, but the strongmen surrounding their beloved leader did not allow it.
Damn it! Too short. She jumped, trying to catch a peek of the ceremony over their heads to view what was to happen next.
As the golden globe of the sun peeked over the horizon's edge its weak light lined up perfectly with the pole the priest stood facing. Shelby turned around with the crowd and gasped in delight. The sun's rays lined up perfectly with the entrance of the straw-roofed palace atop of Monks Mound.
What a feat of engineering! It was all the more remarkable because she realized the Cahokians didn't possess a backhoe—or even a written language. If the priest lived at the top of the great dirt pyramid, was it any wonder the commoners thought he had mastered control of the sun's rising itself?
"Another good year for the commodities market,” Shelby said to a stone-faced bodyguard standing next to her. “I mean think of all that excess corn you guys grow. I remember my history teacher telling us how the Cahokians probably bartered their surplus with tribes from the Mississippi headwaters down to the Gulf of Mexico and far parts east and west of the river. Cahokia was the Wall Street of the New World ... I mean you didn't find all those pretty ocean shells on your necklaces and earbobs in these parts. You guys are great traders. I'd love to learn some of your business secrets."
The warrior continued to stare silently at her. Suddenly the wind began to howl. All eyes turned to the solar calendar. The sky had turned an ugly shade of gray-green. An onrush of clouds instantly obliterated the warmth of the rising sun. The women and children began to wail in terror. The warriors turned to face their priest, hopeless, stricken expressions etched on their tattooed faces.
Green skies weren't a good sign. Shelby gulped. What kind of shelter did they have to use in case of tornados or hailstorms? They had to have something, right? They were sitting ducks standing along the Mississippi bottomland. Maybe the mounds had storm cellars?
"Bad weather on the first day of spring. Who would have thought?” She forced a chuckle and smiled up at the warrior closest to her. They had coped with violent weather changes before, hadn't they? “Don't worry, the skies will clear up later today and the big celebration can continue then. Bad weather happens a lot during Mardi Gras, and everyone thinks the parades will be canceled, but people still manage to have a good time. You'll see"
"Time to go now, Shelby!” Quentin yelled above the agitated crowd. He struggled to break through the circle of bodyguards but found his forward movement thwarted.
"So soon?” she shouted back. The strongmen huddled about their priest-leader and cast angry glances at her. She felt desperate to get to Quentin. After all, he held their ticket out of here.
"Yes, we need to leave. I miscalculated a bit on the date. The climate is changing."
Shelby smiled weakly at the archers. The common folk and minor noblemen had scrambled away from the rapidly approaching storm. “No kidding. I think we're under a severe thunderstorm warning at the very least."
"I'm not talking about the weather. I'm talking about the society here. They're not happy campers.” He hurled himself against one of the guards, but muscle and spear prevented him from breaking through. Slowly the warriors marched the chief and his two captives back toward the stockade.
"I thought you said earlier we'd be safe here, that th
e Cahokians didn't practice human sacrifice.” Shelby hoped against hope that she hadn't misunderstood him.
"They don't—most of the time. But the Mississippians do take their sun ceremonies very seriously ... and you're an outsider."
"We both are, Quentin. Oh ... You mean because of my hair color?"
"Yes. They think you've stolen the brilliance of the sun and have brought a curse on them. You'll ruin their crops for the coming year if they don't get rid of you."
"Uh-oh.” She gulped hard. “Hit your magic button on your key chain and freeze these dudes and then let's get the hell out of here."
"I can't.” He patted his short's pocket, an expression of shock and bewilderment growing on his face. “I really can't."
Shelby felt her heart in her throat, the blood pounding in her ears. The bodyguards were dragging them along at a more rapid pace now, dragging them to their deaths. “Why can't you?"
He gulped. “I dropped my time device somewhere along the trail to the sun circle."
* * * *
Shelby had always wondered what it must have felt like to be bound hand and foot and tied to a large earthen mound altar with a high priest intoning an hour-long blessing over a ceremonial flint knife—and now she knew firsthand.
"Thanks a lot, Quentin. I want my money back on this trip. Pre-dinosaur times were infinitely safer by comparison."
"Leave it to human beings to make things really dangerous.” Quentin forced a laugh in a vain attempt to hide his apprehension. They had bound him as well and tossed him to the ground next to the platform, next on the sacrifice schedule. “I suppose we should feel honored in a way. They usually reserved cutting off the hands and heads of only feared enemies of the people. Common people are ordinarily strangled and thrown into a pit."
"Lovely.” She closed her eyes and tried to will the frightening scene away. “Still, I should take some solace in the fact that I was the first person of European descent to ever visit this city. You'd think some archeologist in the twentieth or twenty-first century would have found my bones under a burial mound somewhere in the area and remarked on how unusual a specimen I was. I mean I'm fairly short, but I stand a good half-foot taller than most of the women here. And I suppose the facial characteristics of my skull would look different compared to Native Americans. They have such lovely cheekbones and those distinctive hook-shaped noses."
"That they do...” Quentin's words trailed off. “I know where it is!"
The priest's chanting continued. Even a Latin mass didn't take as long. Shelby sighed. “Where what is, Quentin darling, love of my life and cause of my imminent death?"
"The key chain with my surfboard. It's hanging off the necklace of that bodyguard standing to your left. See it?"
Shelby lifted her head from the platform and gazed over at the warrior Quentin had indicated. Sure enough, the key chain dangled from the well-built bodyguard's neck.
"Wonderful,” she said, sighing. “At least we know now that it isn't lost. You think maybe the Cahokians learned how to use it to time travel and that's what became of their civilization? That explanation certainly would clear up a few mysteries for the historians of my age."
"Anything is possible, but then the Time Cops would have tracked them down by now and they wouldn't be here. Their entire time line would have been erased as punishment.” Quentin rolled over closer to the warrior holding the key chain only to be kicked in the side. “Umph! I don't think I'll be able to wrestle it from him. Sorry."
"It's okay. I'm a bit tied up at present myself."
The only thing worse than the sun priest's incessant chanting was the howl of the storm outside of his straw-thatched palace. Rain came sideways in the violent winds. The ominous portent of gray-green skies dominated the shelter's opening. Perhaps her remains weren't found at the site because they had been blown miles away by a twister?
"Heavens above!” Shelby cried. “I know what became of Cahokia now. A tornado must have driven them away. Only the mounds and the foundations of their buildings remained. It would explain the sudden evacuation of so many people in a short period of time."
Quentin smiled. “Good deduction. You truly are a Chosen One, Shelby. It's been an honor to time travel with you."
The priest stopped his chant and nodded. The warrior on her left cut the leather thong on her wrists in order to stretch out her arms for the sacrifice of her hands. “It's not over yet, Mr. Doom-and-Gloom."
The second Shelby felt the ropes loosen she quickly sat up and grabbed a hold of the key chain with her mouth, yanking it from the warrior's neck. He leapt back as if he had been burned. Her tongue must have hit the start button. The surfboard began to expand, too, frightening the high priest and his helpers into the corner.
"Woo-hoo!” she cheered. “Hold onto your hats, sun worshipers! You ain't seen nothing yet."
The time corridor exploded open in a wild flash of light and a kaleidoscope of colors—green, gold, purple, fuchsia and blue, millions of times brighter than any spring sun. Screaming in mortal dread, the assembled Cahokians fled the palace, slipping and tumbling down the muddy slopes of Monks Mound.
"Amazing. You're simply amazing,” Quentin murmured.
Shelby grabbed the knife dropped by the high priest and cut her ankles free then hopped down to undo Quentin's bindings. “Aren't I so? Come on. Let's get out of here before they steel up enough courage and manpower to come back and finish what they started."
Chapter Eight
"Where the hell are we now?"
Quentin flinched. In the aftermath of their first time “hops” together he didn't blame Shelby for sounding cynical and wary. He hated telling her he didn't know where the hell they were now since they'd evacuated Cahokia on an emergency time corridor and not a standard one he'd pre-programmed. Most likely they had probably traveled to a nearby physical location, but they were a few centuries down the road from 1100 AD. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Wherever they were, it couldn't be any more dangerous than their last two vacation spots.
"I'll be damned...” He blinked as the glow of the time fabric condensed into a small singularity and gradually faded away revealing their present circumstances. Rows of red brick buildings lining one side of a cobblestone street stood silent in the bright moonlight. The sound of barge horns on the dark river nearby and horses clopping along mostly deserted streets echoed in the narrow lane. The acrid smell of smoke—wood and coal and charred metal—scented the river-dampened breeze. “I think we're back where we started from. We're back in St. Louis."
"I'm home?” Shelby stepped away from the rapidly shrinking surfboard and looked about the sleeping neighborhood. “I think you're right. We're in St. Louis. But where are we exactly? Why is it so dark? What's wrong with the street lamps? And why don't I see any cars?"
"Because they haven't been invented yet?"
He quickly glanced at his chronometer. He tapped it once, twice. Strange. It blinked straight zeroes then bounced back with a reading. An eerie sense of déjà vu passed over him. Quentin hadn't experienced a jump in the time line like that since the day he was caught and prosecuted for his supposed crime. Someone or something was on to him possibly. But there was no sense getting Shelby upset about an unknown threat when his chronometer might very well just be acting up because of a stray particle of sand wedged in the display.
Quentin flashed a reassuring smile at his lover. “Maybe we'll meet the city's founding father, Pierre Laclede?"
Shelby strolled down the street, carefully stepping around a puddle of equine excrement. “I don't think so. This architecture is from the mid-nineteenth century.” She laughed and clapped her hands together. “Cool—I can see my own house when it was brand spanking new!"
"Not in those clothes you won't.” He sidled up next to her and slipped an arm about her waist. “While I think you look incredibly sexy in butt-hugging jeans and a clingy T-shirt, I don't think a proper Victorian lady would dress so provocatively."
&nb
sp; She blushed. “You're right. I can't go about dressed like this and neither can you. You wouldn't happen to know of an all night tailor shop in this century, would you? Or do you have a whole wardrobe of clothes squished in that capsule that contains your beach items?"
"I'm afraid not.” He kissed her quickly and squeezed her ass cheeks for good measure. “Sorry, I travel light. I usually don't stay long enough to have to dress to fit in with the culture. And in the twenty-first century ... Well, you seemed to like the idea I removed my pants at the drop of a hat."
"Ain't that the truth?” She giggled. “I suppose it's been like what, eight hours our time since we last got it on? Maybe we could check into a hotel for the night and do some clothes shopping in the morning?"
"You two,” a gruff voice barked, cutting into the darkness behind them, “stay where you are and put your hands up."
Quentin gulped and slowly turned his head. Oh, shit...
"Who are they? Why are we in trouble?” Shelby whispered, slowly raising her hands.
"Don't turn around yet. We're surrounded by men dressed in what appear to be blue wool uniforms with big brass buttons that say ‘U.S.’ The guy talking sports a big hat and is sitting on a horse, a nice bay-colored stallion. There are approximately a dozen enlisted men in blue wearing caps and carrying rifles that are pointed right at us."
"They're wearing union uniforms?” She sounded optimistic. “That's okay then. In the mid-nineteenth century Union troops held the city under marshal law to keep the Confederates out. So whatever year it is exactly, all we have to do is tell them we support the Union and we're safe."
"Escort the prisoners to a holding cell,” the officer barked at his troops.
"Yes, Captain."
Shelby gasped as rough hands grabbed her by the shoulders and tore her away from Quentin's side. He spun around to rescue her but was immediately restrained by a beefy, bearded backwoodsman-type. The soldiers filed around their prisoners and marched them behind the captain on horseback.
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