Come Down In Time (A Time Travel Romance) (17 page)

On the last leg of her trip, she
turned left onto a dirt road. There was nowhere else to go. This had
to be it. The woods were thick on either side of the road and it was
hard to see the sun. After about a mile on that road, she came to a
clearing. The afternoon sun shone down onto a cabin and a garden
area. Corn stood tall, reaching for the light. Jamie got out of her
car and walked up to the cabin.

Lela opened the door before she
got there.

“
How’s Darma?” Jamie asked.

“
She’s doing fine now,”
Lela said. Jamie followed Lela inside the little cabin. A stacked
rock fireplace was in the middle of the room, dividing the living
room and kitchen. It was dark. Several fans were placed strategically
around the room, blowing warm air. There didn’t seem to be any air
conditioning.

Darma was sitting on the floor
watching “Sesame Street.”

“
Hey, Darma,” Jamie said. She
walked over to the girl who was looking up at her. “Is it okay if I
check your chest?”

Darma nodded. Jamie sat on the
floor beside the little girl and put her stethoscope to her chest. It
sounded good and clear. She checked Darma’s pulse, which was
normal.

“
It’s looking good, Darma,”
she said. Darma had already turned back to the TV.

Lela was sitting on the couch and
Jamie sat beside her. “Lela, Darma has said some things to me that
are meaningful,” she said.

“
She’s always saying stuff,”
Lela said. “My husband says her ancestors are speaking to her. I
hope he’s right.”

“
I’ve been through some
strange times,” Jamie said. “Darma seems to know about that.
She’s told me I need to go see someone named Blackbird in the
clouds.”

The door opened then and a tall
Native American man stepped into the room.

“
Dr. Walters, this is my
husband, Chancy,” Lela said.

Jamie shook his hand. He was a
handsome man with sleek black hair that came to his collar.

“
Dr. Walters is asking about
someone named Blackbird who lives in the clouds,” Lela said to her
husband. “Darma told her about him. Do you know what she’s
talking about?”

Chancy walked over to the
refrigerator and pulled out a beer. He looked at Jamie. “You want a
beer?” he said.

“
I think I do,” Jamie said.
She needed a beer to clear the dusty dirt from her throat.

Chancy brought her the beer,
which he had opened in the kitchen.

“
It’s been a long time,”
Chancy said taking a swig of beer. “But I remember someone name
Blackbird when I was a child in the mountains. I remember my aunt and
mother talking about him. I think he was very old.”

“
Do you know how I can go and
see him?” Jamie asked. She hoped she didn’t sound as desperate as
she felt.

“
He might be dead,” Chancy
said. “I think he was old when my mother was a child.”

“
Can you help me find him?”
Jamie said. “I really need to find him. I’ll pay you to take me
there.”

Chancy looked hard at Jamie then.
“You say Darma mentioned him to you?” he asked.

“
Yes. Darma knows things about
me that she couldn’t possibly know. She told me I need to see
Blackbird. The dream weaver.”

“
Drama talks to the ancestors,”
Chancy said. “I believe what you are saying. Let me think for a few
minutes.”

Chancy got up from the couch with
his beer and walked outside.

“
He’s going to think,” Lela
said. “That’s what he does when he needs to clear his head.”

Jamie and Lela watched Big Bird
and Ernie for a few minutes. Jamie was on pins and needles waiting
for Chancy to come back in. But she had to wait.

After what seemed like an
eternity, Chancy walked back inside. His beer bottle was empty. Jamie
looked up at him with expectancy.

“
I think I might be able to
help you,” he said. “We’ve got to go see my grandmother. She
lives in the clouds with my mother. If anyone knows about Blackbird,
she will.”

“
When can you go?” Jamie
asked. “We can take my car.”

“
I can go on Saturday,”
Chancy said. It was Thursday, but Jamie had no choice but to wait on
Chancy.

“
Okay,” she said. “I’ll
come pick you up. What time?”

“
Nine should be good,” he
said. Jamie shook his hand and headed toward the door. As she was
walking out onto the porch, Darma called after her. “Tommy’s
waiting,” she said.

Chapter
Twelve

Jamie could barely concentrate on
her job at the clinic on Friday. Nate asked her more than once if she
was all right. “Just tired,” she told him.

“
If you want to go back to
Buddy’s ever, I’m game,” he said. Jamie realized that she could
probably get something going with Nate in this timeline, maybe even
get engaged to him again. But that was not her goal.

She slept fitfully Friday night,
then drifted off about five. She woke up with a start at seven fifty.
She was going to be late. She washed her face and brushed her teeth
and put on jeans and a green cotton top. She rushed out her front
door and got in her car.

She navigated the roads to Lela’s
cabin more easily and didn’t get lost. She pulled up into the dirt
drive right at nine. Chancy was sitting on the porch smoking a
cigarette. He stubbed it out in the yard and walked over to her.

“
I was thinking you could
drive,” Jamie said. “Since you know where we’re going. Besides,
I’m a little nervous.”

“
No problem,” Chancy said. He
opened the cabin door. “We’re gone, Lela. Bye bye, Darma.” He
shut the door and walked to Jamie’s car. She handed him the keys.

“
It’s going to take a couple
of hours to get there,” Chancy said.

They drove north, up and up into
the misty mountains. Jamie asked Chancy about Darma and her asthma
and Darma and her visions.

“
The asthma’s hard on us,”
he said. “We love Darma so much, it hurts to see her struggling to
get her breath.”

“
I know,” Jamie said.

“
It seems like she has her
visions around the time she has asthma attacks. I don’t know why.
But as soon as she could talk, she started saying things. My mother
said she’s talking to the ancestors. I’ve decided that’s true.”

Chancy’s Native American
culture was one that Jamie knew little about, even though she was
one-quarter Native herself. She had grown up separated from her
culture. Her mother had met her father in North Carolina, where she
had grown up, and she had moved with him to his land in Tennessee.
Jamie wished now that she knew more about her heritage.

Chancy drove until they had
crossed the Tennessee line into North Carolina. The atmosphere had
taken on a decided hazy feel. Chancy drove down back roads, turning
this way and that, until he finally stopped at a cabin.

“
This is where my mother and
grandmother live,” he said. He got out of the car and she followed
him up to the cabin door. Chancy opened the door without knocking.

A Native woman about her mother’s
age looked up from the stove. “Chancy!” she said. She walked over
to him and hugged him. A mother’s love never ended, no matter how
old a child got to be. No matter how far away they moved.

“
Where’s Grandma?” Chancy
asked. “We’re trying to find Blackbird. I figure she knows where
to go.”

“
She’s in the bed,”
Chancy’s mother said. “She’s feeling very tired these days. But
you can go back and talk to her.”

Chancy’s mother followed Chancy
and Jamie into a small room. An old woman lay back in the bed,
propped up on several pillows. She was watching a tiny black and
white TV. When she saw Chancy, her face broke into a huge smile and
she held out her arms. Chancy gave her a hug.

“
Grandma, this is Dr. Walters,”
he said. “She’s trying to find Blackbird.”

“
Oh,” Grandma said. “I
haven’t heard that name in a while.”

“
Is he still living?” Chancy
said. Jamie hoped so with everything in her being.

“
I haven’t heard that he
died,” Grandma said. “If he’s still alive, he is very old.”

“
Can you tell me where he
lives?” Chancy asked.

“
I can tell you where he used
to be, the last time I saw him. That was a very long time ago, when
your grandfather died. You weren’t born yet,” she said.

Chancy sat on the edge of his
grandmother’s bed and she told him the way to Blackbird. Jamie
couldn’t really hear them very well. Chancy kept nodding as his
grandmother talked. When she stopped talking, he stood up.

“
I’ll see you soon, Grandma,”
Chancy said leaning down to give her a kiss.

“
Good luck, grandson. And good
luck to you,” she said looking at Jamie.

“
Thanks,” she said. “I need
it.”

They walked back through the
kitchen. “Mama, I’ll see you soon,” Chancy said, giving her a
hug. They got back in Jamie’s car and Chancy drove for a few
minutes, taking several turns. And then he pulled the car over to the
side of the dirt road.

“
We’ve got to walk from
here,” he said. Jamie got out of the passenger side and walked over
to Chancy. He was at the edge of the woods. “It’s this way,” he
said. Jamie couldn’t see anything but trees, one of them a large
oak, but she followed Chancy into the woods. She couldn’t see any
kind of path, but Chancy could somehow.

“
I used to come here when I was
growing up. I didn’t realize Blackbird was living up there in the
woods. I would go all the way in until I saw a cabin, but that’s as
far as I ever went. I didn’t know who lived there.”

Chancy walked and held aside
branches for her when they leaped out. They walked for fifteen
minutes and Jamie was beginning to wonder if Chancy really knew where
he was going, if they were lost in those woods.

“
We’re here,” Chancy said.
Jamie looked around and it took her a moment to distinguish a cabin
in the thick woods. It was buried deep. There was a feeling of
silence coming from the cabin as they walked up to it.

Chancy knocked on the weathered
door. Jamie stood beside him and felt like she might faint. Blackbird
had to be there, had to be alive. If he wasn’t, she had no more
hope for returning to Tommy.

They stood there for a minute or
so. Chancy looked at Jamie. He knocked again and was reaching his
hand for the rusty doorknob when the door opened. A Native man with
wrinkles on his face like folded parchment stared at them. His hair
was white and braided in a long braid that reached his waist. He was
wearing a plaid shirt and faded blue jeans. The old man looked at
them with brown eyes that passed through her soul.

“
Blackbird?” Chancy said.

The old man gave the slightest of
nods to Chancy. He opened the front door and walked into the cabin.
Chancy and Jamie looked at each other, then followed Blackbird into
his cabin. It was one room. There were two chairs in front of a small
fireplace. There was no couch. A bed was on the furthest wall and it
was covered in blankets. There was an area that looked like it might
serve as a kitchen, with a tiny sink and countertop. Jamie didn’t
see a refrigerator.

“
Sit,” Blackbird said to
Jamie, motioning to a worn rug on the floor. It looked like it had
some sort of zigzag pattern, but it was so faded it was hard to
distinguish. The color seemed to be a worn red, but Jamie couldn’t
say for sure. “Sit.” He looked at Chancy. “You wait outside,”
he said, pointing at the door. Chancy hesitated.

“
It’s all right,” Jamie
told him. “I’ll be fine. Do you mind waiting?”

Chancy shook his head. He smiled
at Jamie for the first time on that strange trip. “I’ll be out
there,” he said.

Jamie sat on the rug and
Blackbird sat down in front of her. She couldn’t believe that the
old man could still sit on the floor. But he did, and he seemed
comfortable.

They looked at each other, Jamie
and Blackbird. They gazed into each other’s eyes for longer than
Jamie had ever looked into anyone’s eyes, but she wasn’t
uncomfortable with it.

“
The ancestors have sent you on
a journey,” he said.

Jamie didn’t know how she had
started her journey, but she nodded. “Yes,” she said. She looked
over at the fireplace and noticed that a tiny fire burned there, with
a cast iron pot hanging over it. It was blazing hot in the late
summer, but the fire seemed contained with its own heat.

Blackbird got up with amazing
ease and walked to the fireplace. He took a pouch that was hanging on
the bricks surrounding the fireplace and reached his hand in. He
threw some of the contents into the pot. He stirred it with the
wooden spoon that was already in the pot.

Jamie watched Blackbird and
didn’t speak. After a moment, Blackbird reached for two cups on the
crude mantle and dipped into the liquid. He carried a cup to Jamie,
which she accepted from his gnarly hands. He sat back down in front
of her with his own cup.