"I shouldn't count too heavily on Michael's ability, Dorcas." And her skepticism was punctuated by the second shot.
As she waited to learn the outcome, Chloe turned all the sleeping bags, furs, and blankets on their branches. Malenda led the way, holding back branches as Michael staggered under the burden of a limp Rayda.
"She fainted," Michael said as he laid the unconscious woman down by the fire. "She managed to stay conscious and hang on to the branches until I shot the bear." His eyes met Chloe's in mutually felt contempt.
"Two shots?"
"It did take two. Tough old bugger," said Michael. "Fensu and Destry are dressing the carcass." He unslung the rifle and extended it to Chloe.
"The rifle must now be cleaned," Chloe said, gesturing Michael to that task as she bent to examine Rayda.
Dorcas was already beside the woman, sponging away blood. "Nothing deep. Nothing to swoon over," said Dorcas.
"She's had a terrible shock," murmured Malenda.
Dorcas made one of her noncommittal sounds.
"Thee surely sustained the same shock, I think," Chloe remarked dryly as she began to smooth comfrey paste into the scratches. Blood drops formed on the deeper punctures but most of the gore was due to shallow scratches where Rayda had scrambled through briars and up the tree.
"The bear didn't come straight at me," Malenda said in Rayda's defense.
"Did thee manage to pick any berries before this tragic occurrence?"
"Yes, we did," and then Malenda faltered, looking warily at Chloe.
"Then thee may return to that labor and be sure to return also with Rayda's pail as well. Full, if at all possible. There are several more hours of daylight."
"Oh, you're impossible, Chloe!"
"If I truly were, then all this," and Chloe's sweeping gesture included the cave, its shelter and supplies, "would have been unavailable in Rayda's hour of crisis." Rayda groaned. "It will take Fensu and Destry time to dress the bear carcass. You will have their company in the berry patch. Gooseberries will go well with bear stew. Away with thee now!"
In fact, the gooseberries and johnnycake were the better parts of the evening meal. The bear had broken its winter's fast on a diet of fish, and its stringy meat was so tainted by that flavor that even Dorcas's fine hand with seasoning could not disguise the taste. Rayda, her hands bandaged and her legs smeared with comfrey paste, moaned from her sleeping bag that she couldn't possibly eat the flesh of the beast that had nearly killed her. A solicitous Malenda fed her pieces of the johnnycake and ripe berries. Fensu was the only one who had eaten heartily of the stew, smacking his lips with a courtesy that Chloe would have preferred he did not practice. When the men set to scraping the bear hide, Chloe settled herself on her stool outside the cave with the latest patch-work. Sewing did much to tranquilize her after the day's frustrations. Nor did she relish sitting inside on such a bright evening, particularly if she had to listen to Rayda's moans and Malenda's compassionate chirpings.
The current quilt Chloe was working in the Flock of Geese pattern, its patches cut from garments of former occupants of the cave. She had noticed over the years that blues, grays, and browns were the predominant shades of the rural past, while the vivid lighter primaries and curious virulent pastels seemed rampant in most city-futures. Chloe began a new square; the last of Issaro's red tunic triangles and Douglas's plaid patterned shirt were offset by Fanel's gray shirt. The gray was the finer material, to be sure, but of a similar weight to Douglas's and Issaro's. She did have to take care to match textures. She would have preferred good stout linsey-woolsey or calicoes, for the artificial fabrics of the futures puckered and stretched, thus ruining the look of the finished quilt. Still, one had to make do with whatever was to hand. No one complained about the look of the patchworks when they warmed a body during the intense and bitter cold of time storms.
They had been so lucky these past five shifts, like the goose triangles, all headed in the same direction - spring. The gray intervals had alternated between intense heat and dreadful cold.
Chloe set the final stitch into the square, but now she stopped, looking intently at the pattern, remembering with a sudden clarity the people whose discarded garments had been set to this new purpose. And she discerned an astonishing order in that purpose. There was, in truth, a pattern to the time shifts that had nothing to do with the varying intervals of storm and lulclass="underline" it had to do with having been at each point, of remembering when it had been in past or future. She didn't need Issaro's calculations: all she had ever needed was her own recollections, placed in an orderly fashion, like the patchwork pieces, to see the pattern of shifts.
Suppressing her internal excitement, Chloe began to sort through the completed squares, identifying the fabrics, the people who had worn them, the cultures that had produced them. Time was like an enormous circular well. The planet Earth was a plumb weight suspended from a long cord, jerked up and down the well, hitting first one side of the well and then another, jounced up and down by the irresponsible hand that had initiated the time fracture. She was mixing her similes and metaphors but she knew what she meant. And she knew where she was.
First light tomorrow, she could in all conscience send Michael, Destry, and Fensu on a trip down the south river. They would find, she was now certain, a small but not primitive settlement where the south river joined the mightier torrent that flowed southeast to the sea. She would give Michael sufficient ammunition to reassure him. He'd never know. In this time there were few animals left: that poor specimen of a bear proved that to her. There would, however, be those skilled in medical treatments and she could, in conscience, dispatch Rayda to them, once Michael and Destry had returned. She rather thought that Fensu would find this time to his liking and disappear. Savage the man was, but not without cunning and perception. Malenda would go with Rayda. That would seem eminently logical and not the least bit unnatural in Chloe. Michael and Destry could stay on if they behaved but she could forgo their company. Edward might stay on another shift or two. Physically he had limited usefulness but his mind was sharp and she had not yet learned all the wisdom he had spent so much time storing in his head. Dorcas could abide. The babe would not be born for another four months. Chloe smoothed the next patch with careful fingers. The next time shift would bring them closer to Dorcas's original time. The woman would be more content there and undoubtedly find another husband.
Well pleased with those dispositions, Chloe sorted through the patches in her basket, for colors that would combine well in the next Flock of Geese square!
The Greatest Love
written in 1956
"You certainly don't live up to your name, Dr. Craft," Louise Baxter said, acidly emphasizing my name. "I trust your degree is from a legitimate medical college. Or was it the mail-order variety?"
I didn't dignify the taunt with a reply. Being a young woman, I held my Cornell Medical School diploma too valuable to debase it in argument with a psychotic.
She continued in the sweetly acerbic voice that must have made her subordinates cringe. "In the fashion industry, you quickly learn how to tell the 'looker' from the 'putter.' It's very easy to classify your sort." I refrained from saying that her sort - Cold Calculating Female posing as Concerned Mother - was just as easy for me to classify. Her motive for this interview with her daughter's obstetrician was not only specious but despicable. Her opening remark of surprise that I was a woman had set the tone of insults for the past fifteen minutes. "I have told you the exact truth, Mrs. Baxter. The pregnancy is proceeding normally and satisfactorily. You may interpret the facts any way you see fit." I was hoping to wind up this distasteful interview quickly. "In another five months, the truth will out."