Read Online Tag Against Time by Helen Hughes Vick - Free Book Online

Sean and the others without meeting up with Kern? Was being with the men an even greater risk?
    Once or twice, Tag thought he heard something as he raced up the path to the cave. Each time he swung around, but he saw nothing and hurried on.
    Sweat poured into his eyes as he scaled up the cliff.
Why doesn’t this climb get easier?
    Tag heaved himself over the ledge and lay catching his breath.
I made it!
    He pulled up into a kneeling position. Opening the pack, Tag fumbled for the paho. Walker’s flashlight rolled against his fingers. Tag hurried toward the cave’s entrance. He felt the buckskin at the bottom of the pack. Tag pulled out the paho and began unwrapping it.
    â€œGood thoughts, happy thoughts,” he said.
    Someone grabbed Tag’s shoulder and jerked him around.

10

    Kern’s foul breath blasted Tag as his fist flew towards Tag’s face.
    Tag ducked and jammed an elbow into Kern’s stomach. Sticking his foot in back of Kern’s, he shoved. Kern fell backward in a cloud of dust. Tag raced through the cave’s entrance.
    Good thoughts, positive thoughts
. Tag lunged toward the shrine with the outstretched paho.
Please Taawa, don’t let Kern come with me!
    The cave exploded with thunder.

    Air finally found its way into Tag’s lungs. He took gulping breaths. Pain hammered his head with each breath, and his thought processes began working again.
    â€œKern!” Tag forced his eyes open. His own shrill voicepierced back through his head as it bounced off the cave’s wall. He jerked up.
    The cave was empty.
    â€œThank you,” Tag whispered. “It doesn’t matter
where
I am in time, as long as Kern’s not with me.”
    The air in the cave was warm. It felt like late July or early August. Tag stretched out his cramped legs. His back creaked. He felt centuries old. “I guess I am,” Tag said, getting up.
    â€œI am . . . I am . . .” his words echoed around him.
    Tag wrapped the paho up in its leather again. He opened the pack and placed it inside. “It could be 1993.”
    â€œ19 . . .” His echoed abruptly died.
    Tag felt his scalp tighten, “But something tells me it’s not.”
    â€œNot . . . not . . . not . . .”
    Tramping out of the cave, he started climbing down the cliff as the echo resounded within the walls of the ancient cave.
    â€œNo!” Tag’s words bounced off the canyon walls and back into his face as he stared at the pile of rubble that was once Singing Woman’s house.
    As soon as he had hiked down the main trail, Tag realized things had deteriorated. He had virtually followed a path of graffiti, rusty tin cans, beer bottles, and litter to Singing Woman’s home, but he wasn’t prepared for the destruction before him.
    He scrambled over the pile of limestone slabs. Nothing remained of Singing Woman’s belongings except numerous pottery sherds strewn all over the ground. Tin cans and broken glass bottles circled the fire pit, and half-burnt logs spoke of recent fires. Names and dates scrawled in glaringblack paint, or carved deep into the limestone, covered the back wall and the low roof.
    Tag pivoted, surveying the destruction, still not accepting it. His knees shook and his empty stomach twisted in fury. “They didn’t listen. No one did a blasted thing to help!”
    Rectangular rock slabs shot out from under his shoes as he climbed out of the rubble of Singing Woman’s home. Many of the bricklike slabs littered the steep side of the ledge in front of the ruin.
How did they get so far down the hill?
    Tag’s surface emotions, the anger and frustration, urged him to go back to the cave.
It’s useless. You can’t change history
. Yet the archaeologist, deep within him, demanded that he see the full extent of the damage. Homesickness welled up in his chest. He wished he could crawl into his