Tag Against Time

by Helen Hughes Vick

  Tag stared up into a fat, square face that looked somewhat familiar. “Let me go!” Tag tried to squirm away from the whiskey-barrel-round man.

  The man took an awkward, limping step to counteract Tag’s tugging. He shook Tag like a weed. “I’m tired of you rotten brats snooping around my . . .” He stopped shaking Tag and stared at him. His dark, beady eyes squinted. His mouth flopped opened. His triple chins jiggled like Jell-O. “It’s—it’s you! You’re the little rat from Walnut Canyon!”

  14

  You’re the dirty little kid that broke my ankle thirty years ago. Because of you, I’ve been a cripple all these rotten years!” Horace roared and raised his hand to strike. Tag pulled back. Michael dove against Horace’s mammoth legs and bounced off to the ground. Horace tottered, cursed, and struggled to stayed on his feet.

  Tag jerked away.

  “Come on!” Michael cried as he flew by. Tag followed. Chen was sprinting a few feet ahead of Michael, his bundle of laundry bouncing up and down with each step.

  “Go get him, Junior! Don’t just stand there like a dunce. Go get that stinkin’ rat!” hollered Horace.

  Tag swung his head around to see Horse Face following with his flab flopping in time with his pumping legs. Tag whipped his head back around. Michael and Chen were nowhere in sight.

  “Great, just great!” Tag growled, running even faster.

  “Tag, Tag!” Michael’s voice whispered as Tag ran past a narrow alley between two buildings.

  He turned and saw Michael crouching next to a stack of wooden crates piled high against the building.

  Michael waved. “Hurry!”

  As Tag reached the crates, Michael disappeared behind them. “Hurry, before Horse Face sees you!”

  Tag crouched down beside the crates. Michael’s head and shoulders now protruded from a narrow hole at the base of the building. He disappeared into the dark opening. “Be sure and slide the crate over the entrance.” He sounded like this was an everyday occurrence.

  “Just shut the door behind you, he says,” grumbled Tag, trying to slide the heavy crate over the low, narrow aperture. The crate slid into place and darkness swallowed everything. Tag’s heart raced. “Michael!” He heard a match strike and a small light penetrated the claustrophobic darkness. Chen’s and Michael’s faces stared over the candle.

  “Don’t you know how to fight any better than that?” demanded Michael, one hand on his hip. “You’ll never last a day in Flagstaff with a punch like that. Pa better teach you some good old Irish swinging and jigging.” He pointed his thumb at Chen. “Tag meet Chen. He’s only nine, but Chen can read better than anyone in all eight grades at school, Horse Face included.”

  Chen bowed from the waist. “Honored to meet you, Mr. Tag. Thank you for helping me.” The shadow of the candlelight swayed and danced with his movement.

  Tag bowed the best he could in the already crouched position he was in.

  “You lead the way, Chen. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get lost.” Michael grabbed Tag’s shirtsleeve. “Watch your head. When the Chinamen dug this, they didn’t plan on anyone as tall as you using it.”

  Tag bent his shoulders over more as the tunnel’s ceiling dipped lower. The candle cast just enough light to make Tag nervous. The walls of the narrow tunnel were braced here and there with lengths of lumber. The ceiling had even fewer supports than the dirt walls. Tag’s palms started to sweat in the dark, cool, but stifling, air. Visions of being buried alive blurred his already poor vision. He stumbled forward and bumped into Michael. “Sorry.”

  “You’re not afraid of small dark places, now are you?” Michael teased.

  “No.” Dirt pelted Tag’s face as his head scraped the top of the tunnel. He brushed the dirt out of his eyes and mouth. “When was the last time the mine commission inspected this tunnel?”

  “This isn’t a mine! You’re worse than a greenhorn,” Michael snorted. “It’s just an old tunnel that the Chinamen dug under the street so that they can get from one end of town to the other.”

  “It might be easier if they just used the sidewalks.” Tag’s back ached from hunching over. His chest felt like big hairy bats were flapping around in it. How could he be doing this?

  “Not safe,” Chen’s voice came from ahead. “Too dangerous.”

  “This tunnel is safer? Why can’t you use the streets like everyone else?”

  Michael answered in an intense rush. “Prejudice is why. Plain and ugly prejudice, and I hate it. And I hate the people who keep it alive, like Horse Face and his whiskey-smelling father. The fools blame the Chinamen for the town’s fires way back in 1886 and ’88. If you ask me, they just want a reason to be mean.” Michael yanked on Tag’s sleeve. “Bigotry, pure and simple, is what it is.”

  Tag’s feet got tangled up again. He bumped up against the side of the tunnel. Dirt trickled into his shoes. If only he could see better. No, maybe it was better if he couldn’t see. He didn’t want to know what was crawling or slithering in this dark hole. “How much further?”

  “Not far. We’re under Brannen’s Store. Aren’t we Chen?”

  “Mr. O’Farrell’s building is not far now.”

  “Your pa knows about the tunnel?” Tag asked.

  “Oh, sure. He helped provide the lumber for the beams. He’s the only white man that knows about the tunnels. Pa says he knows all about hatred and bigotry.”

  “Does your ma know you use the tunnels?”

  “Grace be saved and heavens no, and don’t you go telling her either.” Michael sounded nervous. “The tunnel takes a jut to the left here. Watch your . . .”

  Tag clunked his head. Dirt showered down around him. He gritted his teeth and stifled the scream swelling in his throat. He felt like an old man all hunched over with time. His heart raced and sweat poured into his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered under his breath.

  “You best stay right close or you’ll stray off into one of the smaller tunnels that branch out under the other streets. You’d never find your way out. You’d spend the rest of your days wandering under the streets of Flagstaff.” Tag didn’t appreciate the tone of Michael’s voice.

  They traveled in silence for what seemed like an eternity before Michael stopped without warning. Tag bumped into him.

  Sunlight burst through the tunnel’s entrance almost blinding Tag.

  “Slide the crate back where it belongs,” Michael instructed Tag as he emerged from the tunnel. “Hurry before anyone sees you.”

  Michael waved to Chen, disappearing into the back door of the building across the narrow alley. Tag couldn’t read the sign over the door, written in Chinese characters. “Come on, before my pa leaves.” He rushed toward a door near the crates. “Wait till Pa sees you!” The door slammed behind him.

  “O’Farrell and Sons, Surveyors,” Tag read the words painted on the door. His knees started shaking. Please, Taawa let this be the right thing to do. Tag put his hand on the brass doorknob. Please don’t let Sean ask too many questions. He pulled the door open and slipped in.

  The small back office overflowed with desks, chairs, and a long table piled with books, rolls of papers, and maps. A medium-sized man was hugging Michael, while another man sat at a desk nearby. Tag sat down in a chair close to the door. Neither of the men noticed him.

  “Michael T. you look like a gopher! Where have you been?” The man ruffling Michael’s dusty hair also had curly copper hair and intense blue eyes. He was in his early twenties.

  “Patrick is right, Michael T.,” said the other man sitting at the desk. He was the mirror image of Patrick. Both men, dressed in dark pants and white shirts, had loosened their ties. Their faces left no doubt of their devotion for their younger brother. “If you go home looking like that Ma will whomp on you good.”

  “I’ll just sweet-talk her,” Michael bragged, hoisting himself on to the desktop next to his brother. “Jonathan, you know Ma won’t do nothing to me. Where is Pa?”

  “He’s gone.
We just got here a minute ago ourselves. Train was late,” Jonathan said, picking up a paper from the desk. “I was just reading Pa’s letter when you came barreling in.”

  “Pa can’t be gone! We need him.”

  “Relax, Michael T., and listen,” said Jonathan. He began to read: “My plans have changed. I have to track someone down, and it may take a while. Meet me at the Babbitt Ranch tomorrow at ten. On your way, stop by the house for Michael T. He’s going with us.”

  “I’m going with you. I can’t believe it!” Michael cried, bounding off the desk. “I’m going for two whole weeks! No wood to chop, cows to milk, no barn to clean, no weeds to pull for two weeks!”

  Tag slipped out the door without being seen. His heart felt like lead as he leaned against the closed door. Sean wouldn’t be home for fourteen days. How and where could he stay for that long? Horace and his son could come looking for Michael and him any minute.

  Tag checked both directions before leaving the doorway. He needed to hurry if he was going to walk back to the canyon before dark. Just the thought of the five-mile hike made Tag tired.

  The door to the Chinese laundry flew open, startling Tag. Chen waved at him. “You leave?”

  Tag nodded and walked on.

  “Michael is not going with you?” Chen fell in pace with Tag. He had changed his tunnel-soiled pajama-like pants and long tunic top into clean ones. His scrubbed face and hands made Tag feel even grittier and dirtier. “How far you go?”

  “Oh, just a couple of hundred years,” Tag shrugged his shoulders and added, “I’m just walking out to Walnut Canyon.”

  Chen tugged on Tag’s arm pulling him back toward the laundry’s door. “Come. Come with me, please.”

  “Thanks, Chen, but I have to go. I’m in a hurry.”

  “I help you just like you help me. Mr. Sitgrave pick up clean laundry. Then he go to his ranch. Walnut Canyon not far from his ranch. Mr. Sitgrave very nice, has big wagon. I ask him to give you ride.” Chen held the laundry door open.

  15

  Tag lay against the fifty-pound bags of flour and beans in the back of the buckboard. He was grateful for the ride, but even more thankful that Mr. Sitgrave suggested that he sit in the back. The thought of polite conversation overwhelmed him. His eyes closed as the wagon rocked him to sleep.

  “Remember my son, the paho only has power when the moon illuminates the passageway of time,” Great Owl’s words roared like thunder through his uneasy slumber. He jerked straight up, panting in fear. Great Owl’s warning vibrated in his drowsy mind as the wagon’s endless jarring shook his body. If he waited for Sean’s return, he’d have to wait an additional two weeks to go on into time. What could happen in that much time?

  The wagon lurched to a stop, throwing Tag against the flour bags.

  “Thanks,” Tag called, watching the wagon roll away. Tag stretched out his stiff legs. It wouldn’t take long to walk the half mile to the canyon. The sun hung low in the sky, and the air was cooling fast. The pine trees cast long shadows.

  As Tag walked, he sorted through his thoughts and fears about staying. Could he risk staying four weeks or more? Would Horace come to the canyon looking for him? Could he keep his anger and mouth in control, or would he blow it all?

  Please Great Taawa, help me know what to do, Tag prayed, or get Great Owl to give me some help, at least.

  The roar of an automobile cut through the silence of the evening. A red sedan appeared through the trees, bumping along the rough road on its wooden wheels and narrow tires.

  “I told you there wouldn’t be any trouble. Old man Pierce never really checks,” a man’s voice boasted over the engine’s noise. As the automobile passed, the two men in the front seat tipped their hats. The women in the back held huge picnic hampers.

  Tag’s cheeks burned. “It’s useless—totally useless! No one can stop them all.” He kicked a rock in his path. His toe throbbed as the rock sailed away.

  Tag didn’t stop at the rubble of Singing Woman’s house. He forced his mind not to think about the fresh garbage and the obvious damage done that day.

  A wave of homesickness crashed over Tag as he sat down in front of Great Owl’s home. He leaned against the rough wall and closed his eyes. Weariness ate deep into his bones. He just wanted to climb into his own soft bed and hear his mom’s loving voice telling him good night. He needed his dad to walk into his bedroom and sit down on the bed next to him. Tag ached to tell Dad all he had experienced with the ancient ones and now with the Coltons. If only he could.

  “It is totally useless. I can’t change a thing!” Hot tears burned his face. “I’ll never get back to my own time.”

  Go, my son, go on into time, Great Owl’s voice sang in the trees’ evening song.

  Goose bumps covered Tag’s arms and legs. Great Owl was right. It was time to move on. He had done all he could for now. If he hurried, he wouldn’t have to scale up to the cave in the dark. Tag got to his feet. He touched Great Owl’s sturdy rock wall and wondered if he would ever see it in one piece again. If only just this one home could be spared.

  Someone on the path behind sent Tag’s heart hammering. He whirled around.

  “Trumount Abraham Grotewald!” The thick brogue was unmistakable, but Sean was barely recognizable. His red hair was now white, as it poked out from beneath his black bowler. He sported a white mustache along with many distinguishing wrinkles. “When I spoke to the Coltons this afternoon, I knew it had to be you. I looked all over Flagstaff for you. When I couldn’t find you there, I knew there was only one other place you could be.”

  Tag panicked. Sean would stop him from leaving. He sprinted up the path.

  “Stop, son. I won’t hurt you. You know that!”

  Tag turned and waited. Sean hugged him close. “It’s good to see you, son. I knew you would come back someday.” Sean stepped back and adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. “I know it’s impossible, but you haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Yes, but the canyon has,” Tag’s voice was tight. “I thought you, of all people, would do something to help protect it.”

  “I have, along with a good many others. We’re doing what we can, but it takes time while . . .”

  “While more and more vultures come to the canyon to load up baskets of artifacts and cart them off, but only after they dynamite the ruins open so they can see better!” Tag stalked off.

  “I care about this canyon as much as you do, young man. The only difference is I’ve stayed around to help do something.”

  Tag whipped around. “What is the use? No one listens to me!”

  “But they did, son, they did!” Sean swept up to Tag, “Major Powell and James Stevenson listened. ‘Laws’ you said, ‘pass laws.’ The Antiquities Law was passed in 1906.” Sean held his broad hand up. “I know, the looting is still going on, but it’s not as bad as before. You even convinced Michael Riordan. He’s writing articles about Walnut Canyon and its preservation for magazines and journals all over the country.” Sean put his hands on his hips. “Why there is even a Catholic priest in Flagstaff, Father Cyprian Vabre, who preaches from the pulpit that this is a holy place that shouldn’t be defiled. Through the people Father Cyprian knows in Washington, including President Theodore Roosevelt himself, along with a lot of work from the rest of us, the canyon was made into a national monument.”

  “1915, of course,” yelped Tag, grabbing Sean’s arms. He danced around. “How could I be so stupid? Walnut Canyon became a national monument on November 30, 1915! But there wasn’t anyone to really enforce the laws and take care of the parks and monuments except the Forest Service. And then in 1916—this year, the National Park Service was—or will be created within the Interior Department!”

  Tag swirled Sean around. “With the Park Service things will change and get better here and in Mesa Verde, Bandelier, Chaco Canyon, Yellow . . .”

  “What?” Sean pulled Tag to a stop. He studied Tag’s face in the fading light. “I learned long ago not to question things th
at have no easy answers; the needless deaths, the glorious births. But boy, I have to ask. Who are you?”

  “I’m just a kid who wants to be an archaeologist when he grows up—an archaeologist with something to study. I wish I could explain everything, but like you say, there are no easy answers and the answers are beyond comprehension even for me.” Tag touched Sean’s shoulder. “I don’t know if we’ll ever meet again, but I will always remember you, and appreciate what you and all the others are doing right now for the future. Thanks.” Tag turned to leave, then stopped. “Sean, it’s really important that the Coltons move to Flagstaff. It’s more important than you can imagine. Can you work on them some more?”

  Sean smiled and nodded. “From what the Coltons told me this afternoon, you’ve already convinced them to move here. They asked me to watch for some property for them.”

  “Yes! The Museum of Northern Arizona is on its way.” As his cry echoed around the canyon walls Tag exclaimed, “Thanks again, Sean. Tell Michael T. good-bye for me. I’ve got to go now.”

  “Go where, son?”

  Tag started up the trail. “Not where. When?”

  16

  Whatever time-frame I’m in, things have improved, even though I’m freezing! The bitter air nipped at Tag as he stood in front of Singing Woman’s dwelling. He wrapped his arms around himself for warmth. The clear sky glimmered a winter crystal-blue. Tag stamped his feet to warm them. He surveyed Singing Woman’s house, now clear of garbage and rubble. Much to his amazement and joy, the front wall stood, partially reconstructed. He stooped to inspect the masonry that reached his knees. This is great. Even the mud is almost the same color as the original. Looks like whoever did this used many of the original rock slabs.

  Standing up, his head throbbed with the pain that he now knew accompanied walking time. The headache got more intense each time he regained consciousness after laying the paho on the shrine. Maybe it hurts more the closer I get to home! Things certainly look more like 1993.