HIDDEN MICKEY ADVENTURES 2

by Nancy Temple Rodrigue

  “Wolf?”

  When he realized all he had just thought through had been only in his mind, he had to say something out loud. “Yeah, I think that would fix things. I haven’t figured out the ‘how’ part yet. But, I see that we really need to do it.”

  “We?” Kimberly became alarmed. “You are not taking Lance or Peter back there after what I just heard!”

  “Mom!”

  “Kimberly!”

  “Wolf!”

  “Lance!”

  “Quiet!” Wolf had to yell when everyone started to talk at once. At his unexpected outburst, they all looked at him, stunned into silence. “Now that I have your attention,” he began with a frown, “I think it’s imperative that all three of us go back. Since I do turn into a wolf, I can’t accomplish anything that would need to be done. I’d probably get shot and skinned before my fur dried….” He broke off when he saw by the look on Kimberly’s face that he hadn’t helped his case any. “Hey, a talking wolf in any time period is not a good thing. Let’s focus here, guys. Alone, I can’t do what would need to be done. Period. I think we can all agree on that, right?”

  His question forced all of them to either agree or disagree. But they knew he was right.

  “So, that being decided,” Wolf continued, “I will need help. As Lance and Peter were there before and this impacted some sort of timeline, it only makes sense that they have to go back. Plus, they know the house and the people better than anyone else I could take. The way I see it, up to a certain point, the exact same actions have to be taken by all of us. Understand? And, because you know what’s coming, you’ll be in a better position to prevent it.”

  Kimberly knew what he said made sense, but she still didn’t want her son and husband to face those dangers again. She had one more argument. “And what if you don’t go back? Is there any harm in letting things stay as they are? There seems to be only a few things affected by all this. And, it’s still Disneyland.”

  “I’ll admit that’s a good point, Kimberly.” Wolf went over to the far wall in the office to stare at the photograph of Kimberly’s father, Walt and himself. It was the only picture in existence of the three friends. “But, I know in my heart that this is not the Disneyland that should be. Walt’s Mansion did get built. We are his Guardians. It is our job to protect his legacy and make sure everything proceeds as it should.”

  “I’m a Guardian, too.” Peter really wanted to go back. “Well, half a Guardian until I get older…. But I want to do what I can to make things right. Mom, I’ll have both Dad and Uncle Wolf looking after me. Just like before. I came back fine last time. It’ll work that way again. Right, Uncle Wolf?”

  There was a slight hesitation that Kimberly caught in Wolf’s reply. “Yeah, right, Peter.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking of me, Wolf.” Kimberly had a hard time getting the words out over the sudden pounding of her heart and the dryness of her mouth.

  He walked over to face her and put an understanding hand on her shoulder. “I’ve known you since you were born, Kimberly.” His reminder was said in such a quiet voice that she had to strain to hear him. “I wouldn’t do anything to harm you or anyone that belonged to you. You know that. We’ll keep him safe.”

  Her green eyes flashed at him. “You’d better.”

  After he gave her a brief nod, Wolf turned to leave.

  Peter jumped to his feet to follow. “Are we going now, Uncle Wolf?”

  “Already?” Kimberly’s eyes got wide. She knew she would never get used to the idea of her son and husband going through time with Wolf—nor would she like it.

  Wolf gave a smile at the eager look on the boy’s face. “Not yet, Peter. I need to talk to my father. I have to figure out how to get back before all this happened. Time has already kept going back there. I’m just hoping he’ll be able to help me.”

  “I’ll shut down the Frontierland River again.”

  “Doka.” Wolf raised his hand as he headed for the door.

  “See you later, Wolf.” Lance was a little surprised and immensely pleased with himself that he understood what Wolf had said.

  “Can I go to the River to watch?” Peter hoped in all the excitement that they would forget he was grounded.

  He was met with an instant chorus of three voices. “No!”

  The Island – 1850

  Mato looked at the sodden mass of fur on the water’s edge and poked it with the toe of his boot. The mass didn’t move but he did hear an unmistakable growl. “You going to lie there all day, Misun?”

  “Don’t ‘little brother’ me. I’m not in the mood.” Head drooping, Wolf slowly pulled himself out of the water and sat heavily on the rocky ground. This last passage, so soon on the tail of the others, left him weak and irritable. He was too tired to even shake the muddy water off of his coat. “What year is this?”

  Mato wasn’t expecting that and didn’t know how to answer. The calendars in Wolf’s other world didn’t mean much to the tribe. He shrugged—a gesture that went unnoticed by the wolf. With a look at the trees for inspiration, he answered as best he could. “Summer.”

  “Not helping.” The huge black head slowly shook side to side to clear the aftereffects of the vortex. He could still see the swirling pink flashes behind his closed eyelids.

  The Shaman had been away from camp when he heard the commotion that always announced the arrival of his youngest son. When he hurried back to the village, he went over to Mato and gave an inquiring look.

  Mato pointed at his brother. “He wants to know what year this is.”

  “Why?”

  “No idea.”

  “Tell him it is summer.”

  “I already did. He growled at me.”

  “I’m sitting right here.” Wolf growled again. “I can hear you.”

  “See? He did it again. He’s getting so irritable in his old age.” Mato gave their father an amused smile.

  “Wóciciyaka wácin.” The wolf opened one eye to look up at the Shaman and ignored Mato’s remarks.

  “What did you want to talk to me about, Sumanitu Taka”

  “My traveling. I need to do something I haven’t done before. I was hoping you could help me.”

  A look of irritation changed the features of the Shaman’s face for an instant. With an imperceptible sigh, he motioned for Wolf to follow him to the rocky overhang where he told his stories.

  Mato stayed behind as the wolf got to his feet. “You want me to come, too?”

  Now that their father was out of range, Wolf gave a vigorous shake of his coat to send muddy water over his brother. “That’s for kicking me.” Without a backward glance, Wolf trotted over to where their father waited.

  “Woglake.” The Shaman commanded Wolf to speak with a regal sweep of his hand.

  Wolf bit back his first inclination to bark like a dog. He figured the joke wouldn’t go over very well. “I came back so soon because I need help….” Wolf started his explanation but was cut off by Mato’s arrival.

  “Quickly? You call two years quickly?”

  Wolf’s mouth dropped open, stunned. “Two years? I was just here two days ago with Lance and Peter! How could it be two years?”

  “Who are Lance and Peter?” The Shaman’s wolf headdress tilted downward as he spoke, his eyes hidden.

  “I don’t believe this! You seriously don’t remember them?” Wolf’s heart started pounding. How could this happen? “I asked you to check on the mansion in New Orleans, Mato. It was burning when we left.”

  Mato and the Shaman began to laugh. “We’re just messing with you, Wolf. That’s for drenching me with dirty water.”

  When Wolf’s ears flattened backward and he bared his teeth at his brother, the Shaman stepped in. “All right. Enough, you two. Sorry, Sumanitu Taka, we couldn’t help ourselves. It was just too easy.”

  Wishing he had a stout stick—or Mato’s leg—in his jaws to snap in half, Wolf mentally counted to t
en. He should have known they would try something. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourselves. I have a very real problem and was hoping my family could help me.”

  The two men made a visible effort to control their faces. “All right.” His father was the first one to seem reasonably composed. “We’ll listen and try to help. What do you need?”

  Wolf looked from one face to the other, but they gave every impression of being serious. He hoped he made the right decision to come back. Not knowing what else to do, he just got on with it. “When we got back to our time, we found some things had changed. A restaurant that had been gone for decades was back and the Mansion that had been there for over forty years was completely gone. What’s even weirder is that only Lance, Peter and I knew about the changes. No one else had ever heard of the Mansion. Everyone seemed to think everything was as it should be—including Kimberly, Lance’s wife. It’s baffling.” He went silent and looked out over the placid river. In that moment of silence, he could hear the knocking of a woodpecker deep in the forest and the splash of a beaver’s tail over at the dam. The peace of their surroundings sunk in and calmed him as it always did.

  The Shaman’s voice interrupted his moment of calm and brought him back to the problem. “You say no one else realized anything was different. Are you sure it isn’t as it should be? Perhaps what you think is correct is wrong.”

  Wolf’s head swung back to his father and he nodded. “We discussed that possibility. But, I know in my heart that things aren’t right. They have to be fixed.”

  Mato had been silent after his joke. He didn’t think any more levity would be appreciated right now. “Do you have any idea what may have happened?”

  Wolf nodded again. “We have a theory. We think we inadvertently caused the problem when we interacted with the family that lives in the mansion. When Peter and Lance were in the attic they remembered a lot of candles were left burning when they fled.” His left shoulder raised in a shrug. “That’s the only thing we can come up with. The family was outside fighting us. If it was the attic that caught on fire, they may have been too late to put it out.”

  “But why would that affect your time? You once told me that it was the changes made in your time that affect us, not the other way around.”

  Wolf looked back out at the river. It was all so confusing and hard to describe. His mind drifted again as the green water flowed past the village and around the bend. It would be so easy to stay here and run free through the forest. There would be no rent, no utility bills, and no job to go to. His family was here. His nephews were growing up. He could teach them even more about hunting. His father would be happy to have both his sons nearby as he got older.

  His silent musings went back to when he was young. Traveling through the vortex had started when he was in his teens. Once he figured out he would only be in human form if he didn’t travel backward through time, he kept on the move. Locations would change when people started to realize he didn’t age like they did. It was a lonely life interrupted by familiarity only when Wolf visited his father and brother. He had lived through history, meeting some famous—and some infamous—characters along the way.

  It had been in the early 1950’s when he came back to California and met Walt Disney. There had been an instant bond between them, and Wolf felt he could build a life in the growing town of Anaheim. Walt had taken Wolf’s unexplained absences in stride and admitted him into a small circle of confidantes. Wolf eventually became the second Guardian of Walt’s legacy. Kimberly’s father had been the first.

  As Wolf continued to stare at the river, he began to feel the weight of all those years that had passed since he first met Walt. It was an important job that he had to do. Walt had relied on him then and Wolf wouldn’t let him down now. His visits to his family had become more frequent since his father had gotten older, but Wolf knew he would always go back to his other life. And now that life was broken and it was up to him to fix it.

  His father and brother had remained uncharacteristically quiet as Wolf worked out his mental demons. Mato—better than his father—knew how Wolf felt about his other life. He had seen some of the wonders of that world and knew Wolf would never stay in the village with his family. They waited patiently for Wolf to tell them what he needed.

  “I don’t understand everything either.” Wolf finally pulled himself back to the present and turned to face his family. “I just know I have to make it right. I know what’s supposed to be there.”

  “How can we help with that?” The Shaman voiced the question all three of them wondered.

  Frustrated again, Wolf shook his head. “I don’t know. What I’m thinking is that the mansion in my time disappeared when the mansion here burned down. Long story.” He gave a sigh and kept talking before they could ask about it. “I feel I need to go back in time before the fire started and somehow prevent it. I just don’t know how to do that.”

  “You’ve never done that.” Mato scratched his head as he thought out loud. “You come back to visit here, but it’s always later in time than when you were here last. Is it even possible?”

  The Shaman realized both his sons now looked to him for the answer. Like his son, he, too, had been deep in thought about the past. Whenever Wolf mentioned his strange ability to disappear through time, he would be forced to remember the rogue wolf that had bitten his wife and caused all of this. Tahca had only lived long enough to name their newborn son Wolf. Mato had to have been about five or six winters at the time. Angry and grieving, the Shaman had gotten a hunting party together to track down that wolf. It had tried to open a vortex to escape but the Shaman’s arrow dropped it in its tracks. Before it died, the eerie blue eyes had turned directly to the Shaman and the wolf had whispered to him. “Doksa ake waunkte.” I will see you again later. He had skinned the beast and still wore the hide as a cloak to remember his wife and what he had lost. Now his son, infected by that monster, needed his help with more traveling. When he turned to look into the same blue eyes that were now his son’s, he knew he had to focus on the current problem. “I think it’s possible. I’m just not sure how.”

  Mato joined in as he thought about his own journeys through the frightening vortex. “Whenever I went through the portal in the river, I always came out here, near the village. Is it the same with you? Have you ever gone through different places and still came out here?”

  Wolf could see where Mato was leading. “No, I always use the same portal to come here. There are many different openings in Disneyland that go to different places and different time periods. You,” he nodded at Mato, “used a couple of them to rescue me. But each time I use any portal, time has advanced on the other side. It has never been earlier.”

  Mato was deep in thought. “What if you found another doorway to come here? Have you ever looked?”

  Wolf shrugged. “Never needed to. When I wanted to come here, I came through the river.” He stopped for a moment. “There was that one time I came through with Wals. Remember? We came out in different places along the river and at different points in time. He thought he was here for a whole year before we met up.”

  “You don’t need a year. It sounds like you only need a few days.”

  Wolf gave his father a nod. “Yes, that’s exactly what I need. So, how do I come back here two or three days ago?”

  “I think you need to look for another portal on the river.” The Shaman motioned for them to follow and walked to the edge of the river. He then pointed toward the east. “You always come out somewhere along this part of the river. What if you tried to call the storm after you passed the beaver dam? Closer to the small mining town in the other direction?”

  “I’ll need help.” Wolf turned to his brother. “I can’t go waltzing into Rainbow Ridge and ask to see a newspaper or ask the miners if they know anything about the Gracey’s house. Someone has to go with me.”

  Mato let out a groan. “I was afraid you were going to ask that.”

  �
��Will you help me?”

  Mato looked to the older man for approval. When he received a slight, reluctant nod, he turned back to his brother. “Yes, I’ll go with you. You might have to help me with some of the English words. Other than briefly looking for Peter, I haven’t been back to Rainbow Ridge in years.”

  “Are you ready now?”

  “Let me go tell my wife. She’ll have to keep an eye on Pahi and Chapa or they’ll do exactly what your Peter did—follow us.”

  When Mato hurried off, Wolf turned to his father. “I know how you feel, but thanks for your help.”

  The Shaman laid a hand on the wolf’s head. “You are my son, my youngest. If it’s important to you, I’ll do what I can to help. You know that.”

  “Mato will be back soon—and unharmed.”

  The hand on Wolf’s head lightly grabbed one of the silver-tipped ears and gave it a playful tweak. “He’d better be. It will be interesting to see if this works. I would hate, though, for Mato to be two or three days different than the rest of us. Is there any danger of that happening?”

  “I think I can always bring him back through the regular portal. At least,” Wolf’s mouth opened in the wolf version of a smile, “he won’t come back as a bear!”

  “That would be awful. Imagine having two of you that way.” The Shaman gave a fake shudder and pulled the wolf skin closer to his body. “That isn’t why I called him Mato, you know. He was named after the bear because of his strength, not body hair.”

  “I’m sure he appreciates that.” Wolf chuckled as he looked for his brother. “Here he comes—thankfully without his sons. We’ll see you later, Father.”

  “Doka, Sumanitu Taka.”

  Wolf’s Mustang came to a screeching halt in front of the Brentwood’s house. Lance came out of the front door before his friend could reach the steps.