Coronado Dreaming (The Silver Strand Series) (20 page)

The two martial escorts then left the stadium by one of six gates around the periphery, identical to the one that we were behind.

Giddeon quickly undid the complicated knot on the rope latch of our entryway, and swung it open.

“Come on… I want a closer look.”

Hesitantly, I followed him, not bothering to close the alternate gate behind us. We made our way into the middle of the open expanse and I looked around. The crowd was hushed… it seemed to me as if it was an anticipatory hush. After a long minute, or, so, another one of the gates swung open.

My eyes grew wide as two male lions slowly made their way into the arena. A cheer went up from the people in the stands.

One of the animals let out a huge roar, much to the delight of the spectators, turned, and came in our direction. The other lion followed. Then, from the still open wooden barrier came a female lioness… smaller, but, somehow, more menacing. She trotted to catch up with her companions.

I glanced to the man standing erect in the center of the ring. He showed no fear. A look that can only be described as mild curiosity was there upon his face. The lions came closer, and, to my surprise, showed no interest in their offered meal. The largest male went straight over to Gid, who was standing about ten feet away from the man. The other two came towards me. The male on my side of the man was hesitant, but the female was more inquisitive; she sniffed the air at my knees, a rumble in her throat.

Tentatively, I reached out my hand and let her smell of me as best she could. Then, I passed my fingers through her jaws, briefly feeling the outline of her fur, teeth and tongue. She, like Boris and Melody’s cat, seemed to understand. The lioness turned and gave her companion a look; in a few seconds, he cautiously approached me.

He was old and had a limp, but the power in his forelegs was evident.

Even though I knew I was insubstantial, it was still very disconcerting being so close to that much dangerous muscle and sharpened claws. He gave a half-hearted roar, and then began to sniff, also. I buried my hand in his mane and did my best to ‘scratch’ him behind the ears… the female came in closer, as if jealous of the attention I was paying to her friend.

I looked over and saw that Giddeon had completely won over his cat. The huge male was trying to mark him with the scent glands on his cheeks… and my subconscious was having the time of his life. He was grinning from ear to ear. The lion finally gave up his quest to rub against Gid, and began to roll in the dirt at his feet. My two lions were similarly entranced. The big, crippled male sat slowly on his haunches, as if arthritic, and then stretched out prone in the dust and settled onto his side. I gave him a pat and turned my attention to the female. She attempted to reach a paw behind my back and bring me closer to her. Eventually, she abandoned that approach and began to roll on the ground in front of me, also. I sat down right between them and took turns giving them ‘strokes’.

After a few seconds, I looked up to see the prisoner standing over me. His eyes were hypnotic, and I found it hard to look away. He crouched down, gave the female lion a tender rub on the shoulder, and then stood back up. The man turned, and very slowly made his way to the gate from which he had been forced to enter. Only then did I notice the silence. I could actually hear the wind blowing past in little gusts, kicking up dust as it swirled in the arena at his feet.

The guards, with a look of veneration on their faces, opened the wooden barrier and allowed him passage.

__________

With a flash, we were back in the Italian market. Giddeon was ecstatic.

“That was awesome! Totally radical! Those lions were huge!!”

“I’ve never been that close to one, before… I’m surprised my underwear is still clean!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, we weren’t in any danger. You should know that by now,” he said, with a grin plastered on his face.

“Whew! Old habits die hard… my sympathetic nervous system was kicked in, big time,” I admitted. “The guy that was supposed to be lunch was cool as a cucumber, though… lucky for him, we were there!”

Giddeon said, “Yeah… that was lucky… wasn’t it?”

Something about his hesitant inflections perked my interest.

“Who was that guy? What did he do to get thrown in with the lions?”

Giddeon looked off for a moment, as if seeing the scene before him, again. The wind blew his light brown hair back away from his suntanned forehead. He then looked at me with those deep, blue eyes, and answered,

“That, was Daniel.”

Back on the boat, Boris seemed diminutive, even though he was big for a Domestic Shorthair. He was quite interested in my clothes and hands, and sniffed and sniffed like he had never done before. Finally, he meowed, went over to the far end of the couch and lay down. He stared at me with his big, unblinking, yellow eyes; Giddeon was seated at the small table.

“Correct me if I’m wrong… but, didn’t we just tamper with a timeline or something?” I inquired.

“Hard to say,” he replied while looking around and closely inspecting our domain. After a few moments, Giddeon added, “Everything here seems pretty normal.”

I found his answer unsettling and furled my brow. “Isn’t what we did against some kind of rule?”

Gid shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t recall signing a contract… anyway, since everything here is exactly as we left it, we must not have affected ‘reality’.”

We obviously hadn’t affected his use of ‘air quotes’.

“So, we didn’t crash their system?” I asked. “Those lions would have eaten him, otherwise. You saw them… seems to me like we ‘interfered’.” I added my own finger quotes for emphasis.

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“You don’t sound too convincing,” I observed. “What made you want to go in there? Didn’t you know the lions could see us… they are cats, you know?”

He shrugged, again. “Actually, I didn’t know if they would be able to, for sure. And, I wanted to go in there because it just felt so… right. Like that was the way it was supposed to be.”

My eyebrows went up on my forehead. “You’re saying all of this was meant to happen? We’re the ones who saved Daniel over two thousand years ago?” I inquired with a bit incredulousness straining my voice.

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” he replied.

I blew air out of my cheeks.

“That’s pretty darned mysterious. I get hit in the head by a golf ball so me and my subconscious can go back in time to keep a saint from being eaten by lions? Sheeesh! Come on…”

“All of this talk is making me hungry.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “Aren’t you just the least bit concerned that we’ve violated some type of commandment?”

“Thou shalt not time travel?”

Boris meowed, again, as if moderating our discussion. I shook my head, blew air out of my cheeks, once more, and gave up. After about ten seconds of silence, I asked,

“What are you hungry for?”

“Cheesecake. At the Cheesecake Factory.”

“For lunch?”

He grinned. “Life’s short… eat your dessert first.”

__________

I have to admit… the cheesecake was delicious. The waitresses were exceptionally cute, although, of course, we had no interaction with them since we were invisible. Giddeon had strawberries and red cream over a huge slice of vanilla. I went with chocolate syrup on top of chocolate. When we finished the pieces, we washed them down with ice cold glasses of milk. All in all, it was a very satisfying lunch.

I was still concerned about the events of that morning, so Giddeon pulled up a Bible from another plane of reality and had me read the story of Daniel. There was quite a difference between what we had taken part in and the actual story. For one thing, it wasn’t supposed to have been in an arena… it sounded more like it had taken place in a cave filled with lions. The king of
Babylon
had Daniel thrown in with the cats and a large rock rolled over the entrance of their lair for one night.

Apparently, the king was testing the strength of Daniel’s god, but, the entire time was much concerned over Daniel’s fate, because they were friends. To the king’s relief, the next morning his buddy was unscathed. I inquired about the vast discrepancies.

Giddeon wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Can’t say for sure… either the Bible version contains a lot of exaggerations, or we were in a parallel ‘story’.” Air quotes, again. I nodded, feeling somewhat reassured that at least we hadn’t affected the ‘normal’ world in which Melody lived. Then, as he was sometimes prone to do, Giddeon abruptly changed the subject.

“Have you ever been to a rodeo?”

“We’re not going to the 1800’s, are we? I think I’ve had enough time travel for one day.”

“Nah… something much more mundane. There’s a movie out down at the IMAX all about ‘em. It’s supposed to be pretty good.”

I thought it over and decided that I could definitely sit in a theater for part of the afternoon. I didn’t really want to play golf in normal gravity, that day, anyway.

“Sure… sounds good.”

The movie didn’t start for 15 minutes, so Gid and I walked down towards the Prado Restaurant to check out the area. It was sunny, as usual, so we stayed under the covered walkway as we went. Lots of families were out; kids were everywhere in abundance. I realized that for some schools it must have been Spring Break… I was beginning to lose track of time, over there.

Everyone around us looked happy. Street singers and magicians did their things, trying to coerce a few dollars from the pockets of people passing by. Dogs on leashes met nose-to-nose for the first time, and wagged their tails before being coaxed along by their owners.

We cut through a parallel passageway and stopped to look in the windows at some of the historical exhibits about
San Diego
; we didn’t tarry, however, and made our way back outside and continued our stroll. Upon arriving at the restaurant, we peered around. It was a very nice setting for an establishment. I had never eaten there, before.

“We’ll have to come here, sometime,” I said.

“Sure. Just let me know when.” We went out into the sun and he pointed across the way. “You’ve never been to the Air and
Space
Museum
, either. Put that on your list.”

“Okay.” We turned and began our walk back, this time on the open concourse. “Hey, Gid… do you really think I’ll make it back to the other side?” I asked. I was a bit concerned that with Daniel, my ‘mission’ may have been over.

“I’m not a betting man, but I would say yes.”

“Why?”

“It just feels right.”

I dug my hands in my pockets, not totally satisfied with his answer.

“Nothing else? No glimpses of Christmas Future?”

“You can’t really depend on those. An infinity of scenarios is created each second.”

“Humph,” I grunted.

We passed a pair of young women… a freckled red-head in a baseball cap, and an African-American with dreadlocks. Both had on very short shorts. Giddeon turned his head and watched them as they went by.

“What about your Italian girlfriend? Wouldn’t she get jealous?” I asked.

“Just looking.”

I almost made the comment that that was all he could do, but I kept it to myself. Hopefully, he didn’t hear it, anyway.

“Have you ever been to a rodeo?” I questioned.

“Oh, yes. I go to the Calgary Stampede every year. Been doing that since you were sixteen.”

“I’ve never been to
Canada
.”

“You should get out more when you get back.
Coronado
’s great, but there are a lot of other nice places in the world, too.”

“Okay… but, so far you want me to devote myself to music, writing and traveling. Anything else?”

“Probably need to learn another language or two… and, calculus.”

“When will I sleep?”

“You’ve been asleep for almost a year… that should hold you for a while.”

“Good point.” We had reached the theater. Gid opened the door and we went inside.