A Flash in Time: A Novel

A

Flash

In Time

© 2016 by Michael K. Shay

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Shay, Michael K., 1951- author.

Title: A flash in time : a novel / by Michael K. Shay.

Description: Santa Fe : Sunstone Press, 2016. | Summary: "When

fourteen-year-old Zach Walker goes to Bluff, Utah on a hiking trip he

slips back in time to the land of the Ancestral Puebloans where his life

changes forever"-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016026532 (print) | LCCN 2016040009 (ebook) | ISBN

9781632931412 (softcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781611394832

Subjects: | CYAC: Time travel--Fiction. | Pueblo Indians--Fiction. | Indians

of North America--Idaho--Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S495 Fl 2016 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.S495 (ebook) | DDC

[Fic]--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016026532

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Preface

Utah, Utah, Utah. For the past twenty years, I’ve returned to the canyons of southeastern Utah every spring and fall. Deep orange chasms slash juniper-covered mesas there, but the incredible scenery is not all that draws me. Those magnificent canyons protect the secrets of the Old Ones—Ancestral Puebloans who lived in the area for thousands of years.

The characters and the story in these pages are products of my imagination. We can never know for sure how the People lived or what they hoped for and dreamed about. Nevertheless, I have tried to stay close to what we can infer about the Old Ones. For example, while no one living has ever witnessed a snake dance in an Ancestral Puebloan village, I’ve used ethnographic observations made in a Hopi town during the early 1900s to inform the description of the ceremony Zach attends.

By the time this story takes place, the Ancestral Puebloans were leaving the canyons near Bluff. When severe drought hit the region in the late thirteenth century, the People abandoned their cliff houses and moved on. Some probably relocated to the Hopi Mesas, southwest of Bluff. Others may have migrated to emerging pueblos in what is now New Mexico. No one knows for sure, but the oral histories of the Puebloan people make it clear migration has always been core to their existence.

Today, the land is much the same as it was when Aqua’s people lived there. The canyons are still deep and dry. Comb Ridge continues to present a major obstacle to overland travel, as it did for the Ancestral Puebloans. Though eroded, the hand and toeholds they cut to scale its cliffs are still visible, and in some cases, useful. And yes, piercing eyes pecked into smooth sandstone walls of a remote canyon near Bluff, really do watch desert travelers ascend the ancient staircase. You can even see the road the Old Ones built on the mesa above, when the light is just right.

Of course, Bluff didn’t exist when the Ancestral Puebloans lived in the area, but today, it serves as an excellent base for adventures on Cedar Mesa and Comb Ridge. Now, as one hikes the canyons there, the Old Ones reveal themselves in the ruins of their homes and kivas; in their spectacular rock art; and in artifacts from their daily lives. Discovering those footprints from the past creates a special bond between the explorer and those who came before. I return to the canyons year after year to experience that connection across time.

One of the best places I know to learn about the Ancestral Puebloans is Edge of the Cedars State Park in Blanding, Utah. The museum there houses an extensive collection of Puebloan artifacts. Rangers provide excellent interpretation and offer many authoritative publications for sale. The park even has a reconstructed kiva, similar to the one where Grandfather wove on his loom and Zach met Roy. For the reader who desires to learn more about the Old Ones, the Edge of the Cedars is an excellent place to begin.

1

Utah Bound

Trapped in the passenger seat of Uncle Jack’s old Blazer, I said goodbye to my spring break with Kyle at the Idaho border. The sign there said, Welcome To The Land of Famous Potatoes. Pretty lame if you ask me!

Kyle had invited me to his family’s cabin on Mount Hood for a week of snowboarding, but Mom told me we couldn’t afford the lift tickets.

If you don’t want to go to your sister’s gymnastics tournament in Seattle, you’ll just have to go hiking with your uncle Jack, she’d said.

Maybe now’s a good time to tell you—he’s not my real uncle. He was Dad’s road trip buddy back in the day. They traveled the country together before Dad became a doctor and Uncle Jack a middle school principal. National parks. Desert highways. Utah. Utah. Utah. Even after wives and kids, they returned to Utah every spring and fall.

I nibbled a strawberry Pop-Tart as Uncle Jack pulled off the freeway onto some country road outside of Boise.

Takes a little longer, but we avoid the city traffic, he said, unzipping his black fleece vest. Better scenery too.

Great, I croaked, studying my reflection in the mirror on the visor. Puffy green eyes. Long tangled blond hair. A big frown. It’s a long drive from Portland, Oregon to Bluff, Utah, and I was definitely not having fun.

I cut the sound in my headphones. I hate hiking you know.

Uncle Jack moved into the passing lane and crept by a big hay truck. That’s not what you said when your father was around. He told me you begged him to take you to the canyons every year. Said he was gonna do it too—after you turned twelve. I was looking forward to it.

I slumped in my seat and sulked. I was nearly fifteen now and the closest I ever got to Utah was a t-shirt Dad bought me at Kodachrome Basin State Park. Had a man with horns holding a snake by the neck with a message plastered on the front: All Who Wander Are Not Lost. Don’t you believe it.

A few miles down the bumpy highway, Uncle Jack tapped the brakes and slowed. He pointed outside my window. Do you think he’ll catch it? he asked.

I cut the sound in my headphones again. What?

That coyote chasing the rabbit out there—thought he might get his lunch. He tossed his ratty old Tillie—his adventure hat, on the dash. Crows’ feet crinkled the corners of his eyes when he smiled.

I studied his tan weathered face. His gray hair was thinner on top than the last time I’d seen him. Dad always said you see stuff other people miss, I said.

Everybody looks at the world in his or her own way, he replied. Me, I walk slow and look for the little things. Shelf was always rushing ahead, scouting routes through the cliffs.

Yeah, I thought with a shiver. The cliffs. Shelf was Uncle Jack’s nickname for Dad. Shelf Walker. On account of how Dad liked to walk the high shelves on the canyon walls.

I was ready to pee my pants by the time we hit Glenns Ferry. Uncle Jack pumped some gas while I hit the restroom before grabbing a couple of subs. Then it was back onto the freeway.

When we took the cutoff for Salt Lake, just past Burley, Uncle Jack popped a CD into the dash. Cranked the sound up so loud it drowned out my headphones. He called it roots music. Sounded dangerously close to country to me!

A couple hours after dark, Uncle Jack turned onto a dirt road leading into the sagebrush. He pulled behind a big pile of gravel and shut off the engine. Our motel, he said, as the motor sputtered to a stop.

Finally, I replied, rolling out of the Blazer with an aching back.

It didn’t take long to set up camp. Uncle Jack dragged a couple of folding chairs out of the Blazer and set them up with the cooler between them. I plopped into a chair and opened a soda, while he fired up the Coleman on the tailgate and boiled some water for our supper.

We sat in the dark—no campfire. Uncle Jack poured hot water into cups of powdered black bean soup and dropped a bag of hard rolls into my lap. He called it minimalist. I called it starvation.

After supper, Uncle Jack stowed the stove on the roof of the Blazer. Then he unrolled a thick green pad onto a plastic tarp he’d spread in the dirt. Looked like something he’d pulled off a lawn chair in his back yard.

Join me? he asked. There’s plenty of room.

Nope. Your snoring would keep me awake.

Your old man always said that too, he replied. But I think he was more afraid of the snakes and scorpions than my snoring.

Snakes? Scorpions! I hustled to the Blazer as he slipped off his battered black tennis shoes. Slammed the hatch tight and searched the inside to make sure no vermin had slithered in. Then I crawled into my sleeping bag and watched stars pop into the jet-black sky. I tried to text Kyle before sleep stole me away, but service was poor at the gravel pit.

We pulled back onto the highway before sunrise. I ate a granola bar and drank Red Bull as we rolled down the lonely road. Uncle Jack sipped hot coffee while the sun crept into the morning sky.

As we dropped down Sweetzer Summit near the Utah border, Uncle Jack mowed his face with an electric razor. The highway rolled on and on. Up and down. Up and down. Finally, we pulled into some little town to gas up.

Time for a real breakfast, Uncle Jack said as we left the Texaco and zeroed in on Main Street. He parked in front of the local diner and we headed inside.

Nothing like small town cafes, Uncle Jack crowed in a booth by the front window. Bad coffee, eggs, and bacon. Life is good.

I studied the greasy, laminated menu. Mostly meat. Don’t these people know I’m a vegetarian? I complained.

Uncle Jack scanned the diner over his wire-rimmed glasses. He smiled when he spotted the glass case by the front counter.

Have some pie, Zach. Enjoy the journey.

I put the menu down. That’s what Dad always said.

Yep. Learned it from me.

I stared into his smoky gray eyes. I never understood what he meant.

Uncle Jack looked back to the menu. It’s not that complicated, Zach. You know what? I think I’ll order some hash browns too!

That fresh-baked cherry pie almost made me smile, but it took forever to get out of the café. Uncle Jack insisted on a second cup of coffee with his peach pie.