Tag Against Time (15 page)

Tag let his mind drift back over the afternoon's events. Now, it all seemed like a hazy dream.
It's just been too easy
.

When the commander of the CCC camp had taken his eyeglasses off to inspect him, he reminded Tag of his own grandfather. His watery blue eyes were stern, yet kind. His
army uniform, unlike his dish-round face, was wrinkle-free. Short, sparse white hair lay perfectly on his head. Daniel had said the commander was about ready to retire from the military.

The commander folded his thin hands on his large desk and leaned forward. “So, young man, you want to join the CCC? I suppose Daniel filled you in on all of the details. Do you know anything about paving roads, building split-rail fences, or masonry work?”

Tag shook his head.

“But he knows all about archaeology, sir,” Daniel spoke up from Tag's side. “His dad is an archaeologist.”

“An archaeologist?” The commander sat upright in his straight-backed, wooden chair. The small office matched the commander—neat, organized, no frills—yet warm and comfortable.

Tag nodded again. His stomach started doing acrobatics.

“Does he know where you are?”

Shifting from one foot to the other, Tag tried to think of a truthful but acceptable answer.

The commander's eyes and voice softened. “The depression has been hard on everyone, even archaeologists. That is why President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the New Deal with all of its programs, including the CCC. There is no shame in it, son.” He leaned forward in his chair. His voice took on an official sound again. “You'll have to fill out the proper forms. We'll need to know where your folks are so part of your pay can be sent to them, and it will take a few days to process it all. If you are willing to work, you can stay here till it's official.” He smiled at Tag. “I can't guarantee how long this camp will be open, with the war and all, but
there are other camps you can transfer to, if needed. Corporal Spier will get you the paperwork. Daniel, go get him a field jacket from the supply hut. I'll make sure they issue him the rest of the uniform tomorrow.” The commander stood up and stretched his hand out.

Tag took the warm, firm hand. “Thank you, sir.” He saw an unnamed sadness, or was it weariness, deep in the commander's eyes.

“Son, stay as long as you can with the CCC. You are too young to be fighting now. This war will drag on for many years, I'm afraid. There will be plenty of time for you to fight, later.”

Under the cold, suspicious eye of Corporal Spier, Tag had filled out the paperwork. Spier, in his mid-twenties, hovered over Tag's shoulder like a vulture. His tenor voice twanged as he read and pointed his long, bony finger at each word. He watched everything Tag wrote down. “Seventeen? You don't look a day over fourteen, if that,” he stated, when Tag filled in his age. The phone rang. Spier answered it, making his twanging voice deeper. Tag hurried to finish the forms.

On the line that required his parents' name and address, Tag wrote in his grandfather's name and farm address in Kansas. It was strange to think that his dad hadn't even been born yet. Were his grandparents even married yet? Tag fought to keep from smiling. The address would work because Grandpa grew up on the farm. Anyway, it would take at least a month or so before Spier, or anyone else, realized the error.
I'll only stay a day or two. Just to check things out
, Tag told himself while finishing the forms. He slid the completed papers across the desk to Spier. Still talking on the phone, Spier glared at him, and Tag hurried out the door.

Now, walking beside Daniel with a cold January wind whistling through the field jacket, Tag wondered if he was doing the right thing in even staying for a night. Things looked like they were going well. now. His ancient friends' homes were being restored and cared for better than anytime in the last six or seven hundred years. Why had Taawa plopped him into 1942? Or, was it Great Owl who controlled his time-walking? What was he to
do
here? Or
learn?
The thought shook Tag's mind.

“Do you think the war is going to last a long time like the commander said?” Daniel's question intruded into Tag's uneasy contemplation.

Tag answered without thought. “August 1945.”

Daniel grabbed Tag's arm, pulling him to a stop. “August, 1945. How do you know?”

“I—I don't know. I'm just—just guessing.” Daniel let go. Tag tried to say something, but it felt as though his racing heart blocked his windpipe. They walked in silence, the cold ground crunching beneath their feet.
When am I going to learn to think before I spout off?

“This is the only complete piece of pottery we have found in the ruin that Daniel is rebuilding now.” Ranger Beaubien, still in his ranger uniform, minus the tie, handed Tag a fist-sized bowl. They stood around a high, long table in the center of the small tin building. A strong, bare light bulb dangled on a wire from the ceiling, casting harsh shadows over the work table, where artifacts lay in boxes.

Tag held the smooth, plain brown bowl in his palm. Warmth seemed to radiate from the unimpressive bowl.
Singing Woman's wrinkled face swirled in his memory. This was her bowl, the bowl she ate stew from. Tag felt a sudden closeness to the ancient ones. A closeness that he hadn't felt since leaving the kind and loving people of so long ago. Singing Woman's soft voice seemed to whisper from the bowl. “Remember us as we were, people just as you are. Tell them our story, my speckle-faced son.”

“It is really a find, considering the extent of the looting over the years.” Beaubien sat down on a tall stool next to the table.

Daniel nodded. “It makes you stop and really think about the people that lived here.”

“I can almost see a woman dipping her fingers into the bowl, eating corn and squash stew from it.” Tag cradled the bowl and looked up at Daniel with a smile. “Of course, the grasshoppers in the stew made it crunchy.”

Daniel laughed.

Beaubien rubbed his ear. “You are probably right. I'm sure that they ate anything they could find, especially towards the end of their stay here.”

“I wonder if we will ever know why they left.” Daniel took the bowl from Tag. “There are so many things we don't know about them.”

“But there is a lot we do know.” Tag picked up an arrowhead from a box on the table and turned it over in his hand. He knew that his hump-backed friend, Arrow Maker, had knapped the projectile with his steady hands. The stone knife Arrow Maker gave Tag still lay at the bottom of the pack on his back. “We do know that they hunted and grew crops on the rim of the canyon. They got their water from the stream at the bottom of the canyon. The ancient ones traded with
people from many areas, not just from the Southwest.” Tag looked at Daniel, who still cradled Singing Woman's stew bowl. “But I think most important of all, is that they were just like you and me. They laughed and cried. They had mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers that they loved and worried about.” Tears clouded Tag's eyes. “And they just wanted be happy and live in peace, too.”

The days slipped by one by one. Tag didn't question why he was there but placed his trust in Taawa to guide him. He settled into the comfortable, daily routine of the CCC camp. The camp, built at the foot of Mount Elden, was four miles east of Flagstaff. The camp's seventeen portable buildings included barracks, a bathhouse, kitchen and mess hall, garage, supply hut, offices, and living quarters for the officers. Tag bunked next to Daniel in one of the four prefabricated barracks. Each day as the war engulfed the world, more bunks lay abandoned as the young men of the CCC chose to enlist to fight for their country.

Five days a week, weather permitting, Tag rode in a military truck with other young men to Walnut Canyon. At Ranger Beaubien's request, Tag was assigned to the reconstruction crew. He worked side by side with Daniel, rebuilding his friends' homes.

On snowy days, the CCC Boys stayed at the camp cleaning the barracks and doing other odd jobs. After finishing what work there was, they gathered around the small, dome-shaped radio that stood on a wooden table in the corner of the barracks. Tag found himself strangely drawn to the crackling radio that provided the entertainment and companionship that television bestowed in the future.

In the late afternoons, he enjoyed the antics of,
Jack Armstrong: The All American Boy
. In the evenings, he gathered with the others to listen to
Fibber McGee and Molly
. Everyone laughed at their shenanigans, always waiting for the moment when, much to Molly's dismay, Fibber would forget and open the door to his famous closet, and its contents spilled out in a never-ending torrent. How could he have thought television was the ultimate, Tag wondered, as the creaking door of
Inner Sanctum
lured him into a world of intrigue and suspense. How could mere words and sound effects create such vivid pictures in his mind?

The cold snowy January days stretched into an unusually warm February. Tag worked beside Daniel, rebuilding the ruins. Daniel was correct. The work was hard, but rewarding.

“Just a bit more water,” Daniel stirred a mixture of sand, mud, and cement in a deep wheelbarrow with a shovel. They were on the narrow pathway in front of Singing Woman's home. “Whoa, that's enough.”

Tag set the water bucket down and squatted on the ground to rest. He watched Daniel working with the thick mixture. Daniel's skill in blending the mortar to the right consistency amazed Tag. He had tried a dozen times himself to make mortar, but with little success. Now he just let Daniel have the privilege. “Just one more batch should do it, don't you think?” Tag said, studying Singing Woman's dwelling. It had taken longer than he expected to finish, due to snowy days and the extra work of restoring another ruin when its two-man crew enlisted. But now, the front wall of Singing Woman's home rose within two feet of being completed. Pride rose within Tag's chest. He, himself had built a good portion of the thick wall.

“I hope so,” Daniel answered. “Ranger Beaubien said that they are ready for us to start work on the next ruin. They finished excavating it yesterday.”

“You mean Arrow Maker's house?”

Daniel laughed and leaned his shovel against the wall, “You and your names. I bet you'd make up names of people who lived in every ruin here, if we let you. Your imagination is really amazing.” Daniel picked up a trowel and scooped up some mortar from the wheelbarrow.

“Imagination nothing! Judging from all the stone chips they found on the ledge below the house, it is obvious that a stone knapper lived there.”

Daniel reached up and spread the light-colored mortar onto the top of the unfinished wall. “You're right, of course. The way you piece things together is uncanny. Even Ranger Beaubien thinks so.” Daniel picked up a flat limestone slab from the pile stacked nearby. He heaved it up and onto the mortar. It landed with a soft mushing sound. Daniel aligned the slab and scraped off the excess mortar. “You make everything here come so alive, like the old blind woman you made up. I can almost see her sitting where you are right now, weaving her yucca mats.” He turned and shook his head at Tag. “And you don't think you have imagination?”

Tag picked up his trowel. Scooping up mortar with it, he said, “Most people just see the ruins, the mud-and-rock cliff dwellings. They don't really realize that the men and women living here hundreds of years ago were just like people today. People need to know that, if we are going to learn anything from the ancient ones.”

“You need to come back here and be a guide after the war.” Daniel scooped more mortar onto his trowel.

Tag eased a slab onto the wall. The mud squeezed out beneath and around the sides of it. He scraped off the excess mud with fast sure strokes.
The war
. The words echoed through Tag's mind.

Everything everyone did and thought about revolved around
the war
. The front page of the daily newspaper reported the war in grim details. Just last night, radio newscaster Lowell Thomas told the country that thirty-five countries were now involved in the fight against Japan, Germany, and Italy. General MacArthur's struggle to hold Bataan in the Philippines dominated all news. Each day, the number of casualties and men missing in action appeared at the bottom of the front page.