Read Online Ricochet Through Time (Echo Trilogy Book 3) by Lindsey Fairleigh - Free Book Online Page B

hats while many of the women tied their hair back with brightly patterned headscarves.
    I passed by wooden racks of drying fish, cookfires and roasting spits, lean-tos containing looms or bushels of harvested cattails beside baskets and mats in various states of done-ness, stopping to speak to each person I saw along the way. I asked them if they spoke English, and if they did, then if they knew of a man named Heru—or Marcus or Horus. I struck out, big-time.
    As I neared the longhouse, I couldn’t resist the chance to take a peek inside. One of the few things I knew about the history of the Squamish people and the Port Madison Reservation was that this longhouse—called “Old Man House”—had been burned to the ground, supposedly as a preventative measure to stop the spread of infectious diseases. It was iconic—the largest longhouse in what was, in this time, the Oregon Territory—and stood on land that archaeological records showed had been occupied continuously for thousands of years. I couldn’t skip the chance to see this historic sacred communal space firsthand. It was against my nature.
    I was maybe a dozen steps away from the central doorway when Tex rushed out through it. I stopped in my tracks and blinked in surprise. I’d expected him to come back out the same way he’d gone in.
    He planted himself directly in front of me, hands on his hips and face stern. “Didn’t I tell you to wait at the canoe?”
    “I thought I’d ask around while I waited for you.” I tried to step around him, but he sidestepped to block me.
    “The Collector was just here yesterday. We can’t afford to waste any time lollygaggin’ around here iffen we’re to have any chance of catching up to him.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “We?”
    Tex shrugged, then pushed past me and headed back down the beach toward his canoe. “I got business with him anyway, so it ain’t no skin off my back.”
    I jogged after Tex.
    “Assumin’ you’re still interested in utilizing his services,” Tex said as he trudged along. “Otherwise, I’ll just leave you here to wait for a trader to ferry you back to the city.”
    “No,” I said, catching up to him. I fell in step beside him. “I want his help.” I needed his help. Tracking down Marcus truly was a matter of life and death.
    “Best be on our way, then,” Tex said with a nod.
    We neared a group of three women sitting on more of those cattail mats about halfway down the beach. Several woven baskets were spread out between them, all filled with salmon or their discarded heads and guts, and a wooden rack with three horizontal bars was set up beside them, cleaned fish hanging up to dry. They hadn’t been there when I’d passed this section of the beach on my way up. They glanced our way as we approached, though their knives continued to work, cleaning and gutting with remarkable efficiency.
    The oldest of the trio, a middle-aged woman wearing a long, red-and-black-patterned skirt and a white blouse, stood as we passed, pointing her knife in our direction. Well, more in Tex’s direction than mine. She said something to Tex in her native tongue.
    Tex stopped and turned to her, his hands once more migrating to his hips. “It ain’t nothing to you who she is or what her business is with me.” He turned to continue on his way, but I lingered a moment before following.
    The woman’s face darkened, her eyes narrowing. She said more in that incomprehensible language, all gibberish to me except for “Collector.”
    Tex froze, only a few steps away. “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” Under his breath, he muttered, “Superstitious, primitive, backwards people . . .”
    The Squamish woman let out a string of angry words and reached for me, her strong fingers latching onto my arm. I recognized three syllables: Netjer-At. It was the ancient Egyptian name for my people, translating to “god of time.”
    “Now you listen here,” Tex said. “The Collector