The Time Travelers, Volume 2 (33 page)

Strat looked up at the peak of the Pyramid, five hundred feet above. The sky around those bronze stones was blue as a child’s paint box. There had Strat knelt and asked Time to give Annie back to him.

In a few short weeks, a new century would arrive: the twentieth. Its first decade would belong to science and science alone. And here was Strat, abandoning rational thought, pretending Time was a power to move souls.

It might even be that Father was correct, and Strat
had
lost his sanity when he believed in the existence of a girl from another time.

At the dig, men were running back and forth and gesticulating. He could tell Dr. Lightner and Miss Matthews apart by their great height and he could tell his father by his great width.

Strat walked behind the Sphinx, briefly blinded by the shock of shadow. Usually when he stood by the Sphinx, the past overwhelmed him, but now he felt only the future. Future hovered around the great paws and blew sand on its back. Future gnawed its face and chewed its broken nose.

In Father’s presence, he thought, my future is also broken, swallowed in the desert of his hatred. But I will not flinch from it. I will not run.

He squared his shoulders. He would not go slouching and timid into his father’s presence.

The sand across which he trekked sucked at his boots and the wind tore at his face. The blue sky turned slightly yellow as the sand whirled across it.

The members of the dig saw Strat coming and they grew silent and still. Strat had the appalling thought that it was not his father of whom he must be afraid, but his companions. How could that be?

The visiting scholars, the French attaché, the Egyptians, the college boys … all in a row, staring at him. They looked like a firing line. Strat wanted to bolt, but kept his stride even and his face calm. He wondered what his father would say to him, after two years with no word between them.

But it was Archibald Lightner who spoke. “You lied to me, young Stratton. You claimed mere estrangement
from your father. In fact, you are an escapee from an asylum, where you were incarcerated for the safety of your neighbors. You attacked and badly hurt an innocent physician who dedicated his life to helping his desperate patients. Most wretchedly, you kidnapped an innocent girl and defiled her to accomplish your escape.”

That he could be accused of hurting Katie! Katie whom he loved as a sister! And that anybody could call Dr. Wilmott a dedicated innocent physician! The man was a monster who had delighted in torturing the helpless, smiling as they suffered.

Anyway, Strat had just hit him over the head with a lamp. Far from being badly hurt, Dr. Wilmott gave chase himself.

“And
now
,” cried Dr. Lightner, “you have defiled my excavation!”

Strat could not believe that statement. What of his contribution to the dig? His photographs, saving for all time the accomplishments of the entire group?

“You stole that gold sandal,” accused Dr. Lightner. “You squirreled it away in your own bag. You who travel so lightly, burdened only with lies, no doubt planning to run away and continue your life against society.”

The insult was too deep to be borne. That he would take a possession belonging to another man? Never!

The wind rose higher, engulfing them in dust, drying their throats and hurting their eyes, making them hotter and angrier.

At last the father spoke to the son he had not seen in
two years. “I had you found,” said Hiram Stratton. “I hired a detective. I plan to bring you back to America to stand trial for kidnapping and attempted murder. I considered the possibility that you were attempting to become a better person and thus deserved mercy. But I arrive to find you are a common thief.”

“Father, I stole nothing. I never have. Nor did I hurt Katie in any way.”

“I stand here as future patron to this excavation,” thundered his father, “and this is what I must deal with first. The low base treachery of my own son.”

Patron? Impossible. His father had never shown generosity. Unless, of course, he got something in exchange. And what might that be? The Stratton name on a museum wing? Strat doubted that his father had ever entered a museum.

“You stole the gold,” said his father. “Nor can you deny it. You hid it deep inside your own miserable pile of clothing.” Gladly, he waved the gold sandal as proof.

Strat, aghast, looked at his former friends. They met his eyes steadily and with contempt. “I found it,” said the boy from Princeton. “Hidden among your clothes.”

How could it have gotten there? It could only be that he had some enemy; some person in this very company who wished to destroy him.

His eyes sought understanding, and found it immediately. Miss Matthews, head and shoulders above the gloating bulk of Hiram Stratton, was staring out into the desert, cheeks red, chin high and eyes wet.

She stole the sandal, thought Strat, and made it look as if I did. She must be the detective Father hired. Father paid her to make me a thief.

Poor Dr. Lightner, in love with one who betrayed people for a living. There was no point in accusing her. Father paid so well. Impossible for truth to override that much money.

He faced his father again, and saw in his father’s hand, almost invisible in the grip of that fat thumb and forefinger, the tiny envelope in which Strat kept Annie’s lock of hair. It was the only possession Strat could never replace. Father, too, was a thief, having taken it from Strat’s Bible, where it lay pressed when he did not keep it against his heart.

He made the error of showing that it mattered. Father, quick to see the weakness of others, opened the envelope and shook out the contents. The wind, which swirled around knees and raced, dust-laden, through shirts, now whisked away the silken tresses of Annie’s hair and flung them out across the sand.

Strat’s heart opened as if a wrench had been applied, turning until his valves burst and his heart broke.

“It is my belief,” said the French attaché, stepping forward, “that you are also a murderer, young Stratton. Tell us how the two young men fell from the Pyramid.”

“I thought it was an accident!” cried Dr. Lightner’s Yale aide.

“Surely it was just carelessness,” said one of the Germans, who had little use for the standards of the French.

“It was the work of ghosts,” said an Egyptian.

“You heard Mr. Stratton,” argued the French attaché. “In America, the boy tried to kill. In Egypt, he succeeded.”

Just so had false accusations landed Strat in the asylum. His father was an expert at arranging the lies of strangers. Strat thought of Annie, who had saved him once. The wind increased, so that the sand it flung was painful to bare skin. All of Strat was raw: heart and hope. There was no Annie to save him this time, and he would never have wanted her here. She was the very reason Father had had him locked up, and Father would recognize her. He trembled to think what Hiram Stratton, Sr., would do to her. Desperately, Strat revoked his plea to Time.

“We will lock him up,” said the French attaché grandly, looking forward to having an American behind bars.

“No,
we
will lock him up,” said a British army officer, appalled that the French might have any power in a British protectorate.

“No,” said Dr. Lightner decisively. “This has occurred in my establishment and it is my choice to put the young man under house arrest. He will not be shackled nor placed under lock and key. He will not be handed over to Egyptian authorities nor British. I wish to give you the opportunity, young Stratton, to demonstrate that you are a man of honor. Should you run, it will be proof of guilt. An innocent man has nothing to run from.”

This is like a witch hunt in Old Salem, thought Strat. If I am innocent, I will be taken home to be punished. If I am guilty, I will be taken home to be punished.

But the gentlemen of Egypt, France, Italy, England, Germany and America, to whom honor was everything, awaited his response.

“I give you my word,” said Strat quietly. “I am under house arrest. Under house arrest I will stay.”

C
amilla forced herself to look at the young man Katie had asked her to honor. Instead, Camilla had wronged him. The son was innocent of all charges, past and present. Far from avenging her own father, Camilla had sunk to the level of Strat’s father.

She must find a way to save Strat. If nothing more, she owed Katie that.

But a curious thing was happening. The boy seemed to have forgotten his accusers and his witnesses. He had turned slightly, and was staring toward the Pyramid, looking at once both bewildered and excited. He took a quick shocked breath and held it, his shoulders high and motionless.

Camilla, too, looked toward the Pyramid. She caught a glimpse of shining gold, half-seen, as through gauze. There was a rasp of shoes on sand and a girl’s laughter, half-heard, as through a door. It was Time, leaving its ghosts and passing on.

Camilla did not faint, but she lost strength and balance. People cried, “Are you all right?” and said to one
another, “It’s the heat. Put her in the shade. Put a wet cloth on her forehead.”

Hiram Stratton, Sr., having lost his son’s attention, grabbed Strat’s arm. When Strat jerked free, all the men jumped forward to prevent a fight. Or perhaps to encourage one.

Miss Matthews was walked into her tent by Dr. Lightner, for only he was tall enough to take her arm. Dr. Lightner ducked beneath the tent flap and set her gently on the edge of her cot. Anxiously, he fanned her face with the brim of his canvas hat. Through the tent opening, she could see the broken nose of the Sphinx.

To every tourist the Sphinx was a mystery that must be plumbed. All paused before it to cry, Who are you? From whence do you spring?

Who am I? thought Camilla Matthews. I who rejected my gender, my family, my honor and my faith.

Egyptians had worshiped the Nile and the sun, their kings and their mummified cats. How strange and marvelous were all religions: the eternal need to find greater substance.

Camilla had shrugged over greater things. Immersing herself in low and ugly deeds, she had created a low and ugly situation. “Oh, Dr. Lightner,” she said desperately. “I must confess that I have done a terrible thing.”

“Nonsense,” he said roundly. “Here. A damp cloth will cool your thoughts.”

Pressing the comforting cotton against her burning eyes, Camilla made her confession. “I set young Mr.
Stratton up for this crime. I took that gold sandal. Yes, it was I. I placed it in the young man’s trunk so you would blame him. He is innocent.”

Relief washed over Camilla. At last, she had done a good thing. She might be flung out of camp or thrown onto the next ship. She even might be the one sent to prison. But at least Strat would not suffer at her hands. She risked a humiliated glance at Dr. Lightner.

But he was regarding her with great esteem. A soft smile crossed his face. “Nothing,” said Dr. Lightner, “is so beautiful as a woman who sacrifices for a man. Miss Matthews, how kind and generous is your feminine heart. You wish to save the boy from punishment. How I respect you. But no one will believe that trumped-up story. Your truthfulness and honor are visible to all who have met you.”

It had not occurred to Camilla that she would not be believed. “Truly, sir, it was my doing. I committed the act.”

“Now, now. You have enough troubles merely enduring the great heat. Ladies should not be here at this time of year. As for the theft of the sandal, it is too much for your feminine sensibilities to accept that some men are evil and do evil things. I think it best for your sake to remove you to Lady Clementine’s abode. She delighted in your company, as of course do I, but her villa is better for you than this hot and dusty encampment.”

“But you must explain to everyone, Dr. Lightner, what really happened. Especially it must be made clear
to the French, who have jumped to dreadful conclusions.”

“Dear girl, we know what really happened. Young Stratton is his father all over again. I fear he does not deserve your assistance. One day he too will clench a cigar in his teeth, looking and smelling like the smokestack of his factory. He too will burn down that factory in order to get his way.”

Camilla gave a little cry and hid once more behind his handkerchief.

“You know of that fire?” His arm had gone around her shoulder and she felt the comforting heat of his body. “That factory burned when I was in America raising money for this expedition,” he told her. “Innocent people died in that fire. I’m told there was no investigation. Mr. Stratton simply paid off everyone involved.”

Not everyone, thought Camilla. I wonder if Mama would have accepted his money, if he had offered it, to keep us in school. I accepted money from him. Passing it through Mr. Duffie’s hands does not cleanse it. I am a sinner with my hands dipped in Stratton money.

Oh, there were too many moral problems here, and she without her church. “I do not think young Strat is like his father,” she said. Tears filled her eyes, she who was supposed to be like a man and never weep. She could not help quoting Katie. “I think he is a good and decent and generous boy.”

She was talking as if she really were a decade older than Strat, but in fact she was two years younger.
Remembering that she was only seventeen made her want to behave seventeen, and weep on Dr. Lightner’s shoulder, and be taken care of. But that was not her lot in life, and she must not weaken.

Dr. Lightner burst out, “How touched I am by your tender heart! No matter what your height and frame say of boldness and strength, in fact you are gentle and full of love. Willing to sacrifice so that a young man might go free! Oh, Miss Matthews.”

Camilla had completed the task of making him fall in love with her, weeks ahead of schedule. He was too good for her and she must walk away from him, but perhaps she could use the trap she had set for Dr. Lightner to undo the trap she had set for Strat.

“Honored sir,” said Camilla shakily, “might we discuss a way to extricate the boy from his father’s grasp? Such a wicked man does not tell the truth. I believe Hiram Stratton lies even about his son. I believe there were no such events as the kidnapping and the attack. Please. Let us conjure a way to set Strat free.”