The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time by Samuel Ben White Read Free Book Online

children centuries ago?
    "If, and I hesitate to even admit to such a possibility, these creatures really did once roam these lands, where are they now? Somewhere back in the woods, might I one day find one of these hairy elephants still living?
    "Somehow, I feel that chasing after this mythical beast is not the mission General Washington sent me on, but it is an idea that has my interest."
     
     
    Chapter Five
    Garison was exceedingly glad when dawn began to finally break over the meadow. While the first rays of sunlight seemed to increase the volume of the birds' warbling, it was gratifying just to be able to get up and face a new day.
    Garison was awash with conflicting feelings as he used a little of his water to clean up, then changed into fresh clothes. His joints were stiff from sleeping on the ground and the cold, but the water from the stream—which he had decided (for no empirical reason) was not poisonous—refreshed him and prepared both his mind and body for the day ahead as he splashed it on his face. On the one hand, his machine had proven to be a remarkable success in the realm of world travel, but it seemed to be an even more remarkable failure at what it was built to do. All that was left was to, as the saying went, go back to the drawing board.
    The first step, though, was to get somewhere with a telephone and find a way to get transportation back to the canyon. The element of this plan that most irritated Garison was that to do so would mean to somewhat expose his machine. He reminded himself that no one would have the slightest idea what it did, but he still hated the thought of people finding out about its existence, for that could only lead to questions. And what if someone started wondering how he had gotten all the way from the western slope of the Rocky Mountains to the east coast of the Soviet Americas without having booked airplane passage or anything? Then, they might further wonder why he couldn't get back the same way. How would he explain that?
    Try as he might, Garison could see no signs of industrialization—or even habitation—in any direction. He had thought that, with the light of dawn, he would be able to spot the smog that would indicate a city—or, at least, the smoke of a chimney. The east coast was, after all, almost one solid city from its northern tip to the Shenandoah valley and he found it hard to believe that there was no sign of humanity around him.
    Of course, he reasoned, maybe his calculations had been way off and he wasn't anywhere near the east coast. What if that salt smell he was detecting was because he was near the Pacific Ocean? As the idea hit him, he realized how cautious he would have to be. If he were near the Pacific Ocean, then that would mean he was in the Japanese Americas. If that were true, he was on enemy ground and had better be more careful than he had ever been in his life. Capture, with Japan preparing for war (if the rumors were true), could very easily mean his summary execution as a spy.
    Still, he had to get moving and the best course he could think of was to follow the stream. Even in a society with plumbing (which most of the Soviet world had) cities and individual homes were still located near water. It was a necessity and a holdover from the days before easily accessible plumbing. And traveling downstream, he knew, would increase his chances of finding people as people tended to converge at the same points streams converged and became rivers and rivers converged to become...he let the thought die there because he wasn't sure where to go with it.
    Keeping the stream in sight, Garison stayed back in the woods in the hopes that, when he did come upon people, he would see them before they saw him. The going was fairly easy in the woods, moreso than it would have been in the pine forests of the La Platas, but what continued to strike him most was the absence of fences. Quoting from Lewis Carol, Garison muttered, "Curiouser and curiouser."
    He