Chapter 11

© Copyright 2009 by Elizabeth Delayne



The next morning, Jamie got on the bus to find George reading the morning paper and Cameron blearily watching cartoons on the television. Cameron had spent the night on the bus, sleeping in the bunk instead of the hotel room, either to keep Tyler company should he need it or to get away from George’s rumored snoring. As much as Jamie liked Cameron, she suspected the latter.

George wore a pair of reading glasses and looked over the rims at her. “Morning.”

Jamie nodded and went to the cabinets, still hypersensitive to the wired mike that ran through her shirt and was clipped to the band of her shorts. Coffee was already dripping into the programable coffee pot as she carefully thought about what she should say, if she should say it.

Finally, she simply needed to know. “Seen Tyler this morning?”

“Up–in the shower,” Cameron’s voice cracked with sleep.

She heard him then, the rustle in the small bath. The bath door opened and Jamie pulled down a second mug. Tyler stepped out, dressed in cargo shorts and a t-shirt, and somehow still looked like a model.

And very much like the old Tyler.

He rubbed his wet hair and walked over as she held out a mug of coffee.

“Morning,” he said.

“You sleep well?”

“Good as new,” he winked at her, then looked back at George. “It’s a brand new day, isn’t it?”

“Brand new,” said George. Jamie got the feeling that George had come into talk to Tyler after she had gone to bed.

All she would have to do is wait for the show to play and she just might find out what was said. If she decided to watch the show. That would mean she would have to watch herself.

And there was that question again—what in the world was she doing on this show?

Tyler sat down at the table with his coffee and George handed him a section of the paper. This had become one of their little morning rituals. She supposed it was part of Tyler to fit in with whoever he was with. She supposed it might make an interesting study to compare him across the seasons and could quite possibly make an excellent research topic for George.

Of course, it had probably been done unofficially on some message board somewhere.

Her grandmother probably even opened the first discussion.

Jamie sat down across from Tyler in the seat by the window and savored the coffee. By the time Felicity and Thessa made it on the RV, she was halfway through her second cup.

George leaned over toward Jamie. “Looks a little strained,” he whispered. “Don’t you think?”

Jamie just shrugged, even though she agreed. She hadn’t gotten Felicity’s label of mother for nothing.

“Neither one of them handles the morning well.”

“So you came early to escape,” Tyler said across from her. His eyes danced with laughter.

“I like my coffee.” She took another long sip as Tyler and George laughed.

“What time are we do ...” Thessa stopped and frowned, “whatever. I don’t even know what it is we do.”

“Not a lot to do until someone tells us,” Tyler stood and started to rummage through the cabinet, then dropped down and pulled out a skillet. “A production assistant will come aboard, spill the beans.”

“So we just sit here and wait? We don’t have to figure out what comes next.”

“Not yet,” he set the skillet on the stove, pulled out bacon, eggs, some milk and cheese, then reached back in and took out some ham, green peppers, then red. “Anyone want some eggs?”

He looked back, caught Jamie’s grin.

“What? I’m hungry.”

And he cooked, which she hadn’t seen him do, not on this scale. He fixed them all an omlette, settled down on the sofa with his own, and dug in—like a teenage boy at the end of a game.

Still, he was finished, and Jamie and Felicity had started on the dishes before they were joined by Bob and an intern. They were headed out of the ghost town, down the mountain called Cleopatra. Tyler was back to reading his paper with George. He passed Jamie his section of the paper, took another from George, as George folded the paper to begin the crossword puzzle.

A routine.

A rut.

Jamie smiled to herself. She was in heaven with her rut.

Thessa settled on the sofa with her mp3 player, her eyes closed as she tuned the world out. Cameron had settled into some video game full of grunts and explosions.

And Felicity managed to pace, even as the bus moved.

“You guys aren’t nervous?”

George shook his head, tapped his pen as he frowned over his puzzle. “We do what we can, when we can.”

“You’re all so calm.”

George looked up. “On the contrary, we’re all channeling. Thessa goes into her music. Cameron into video games. I do the New York Times crossword puzzle.”

Felicity stopped at the table, considered his words as she looked at each of them. “What about Jamie?”

George looked up from the puzzle, studied her. Jamie lifted a brow. Waited.

“Jamie’s channelling.”

“Not very well,” Tyler mused from across the table. “You can see the worry lines there between her eyebrows.”

She had to resist the urge to rub them away. “I do not have worry lines.”

“You sure about that—“

”I don’t see them,” George shook his head. “I think you deal with the waiting better than any of us. Must come from having to set it aside for the operating room.”

Tyler snagged one of her hands and turned it over. He shook his head. “I was sure I’d find sweaty palms.”

“Would you quit–“ she laughed and tugged her hand back before she could think about how it felt in his. “It’s the back side of my knees. I used to sit down in the ER after a long stressful day—and you could see the sweat marks when I stood up.”

“And when you’re in surgery?” George asked.

“In surgery you I block it out,” she said. “But it’s there. And ...”

“What?” prodded Tyler.

“You leave it at work. And you go home. Have a good life.”

And the words made her think of her grandmother. How she’d prodded, nagged ... nearly forced Jamie into this trip.

“What about, Tyler,” Cameron had set aside the game, was focused now on their conversation. “You forgot to analyze him.”

“Oh, he’s clever. Too practiced. Tries to hide it all. You’d have to know about his first few years. His first year as a leader. He’s obviously had a melt down before.”

Not at all uncomfortable with the statement, Tyler grinned and held up his mug of coffee. “We all have our ways to cope. Never start a day without a good bit of prayer and a good bit of coffee.”

“Excellent coffee,” George lifted his mug, tapped it to his.

Felicity shook her head. “Coffee will only make me more wired.”

“Can’t have that,” Thessa murmured under her breath.

Jamie looked at Tyler and bit her lip, tried very hard to keep the smile at bay.

Seemed like the morning ritual of roommate squabbles wasn’t over yet.



They were taken east to a place called Montezuma’s Castle. When they spotted the sign on the turn off, George looked it up on the internet, found that it wasn’t a castle at all.

So they weren’t surprised when they arrived to stand beneath the ancient cliff dwellings, like a towering hotel carved into the walls of the earth. They weren’t surprised, but it didn’t stop them from feeling the awe. Jamie stood at the bottom, snaping pictures with her camera. Her brother, she thought, would get a kick out of this. Maybe she could talk her parents into coming down, camping out. They’d camped before, long ago, when she’d been younger.

She’d have to wait to tell him, to describe it all. She wanted to share this part with him now.

And that was the hardest part.

“Could you imagine, living up there like that?” George studied the ancient architecture, with an almost boyhood wonder in his eyes. “It seems so ... metropolitan. For the time.”

Thessa grimaced, “I like my air-conditioning. A little rugged.”

“I would have thought you would have loved the climb,” Cameron studied the steep wall. “How on earth did they get home each night?”

“I’m telling you. Way too much trouble,” Thessa told him.

“But for the time,” George shook his head. “If I had to live somewhere back then ... why not here?”

“Seriously?” Thessa turned around and looked at him over her sunglasses, her arms crossed. “Your wife’s going to see this you know. Your kids. Are they going to agree with you, that you’d want to make that trek every day? That you would really enjoy it.”

George let out a breath of laughter and shrugged sheepishly. “Maybe not. But what’s wrong with wishing you were the king of person that would enjoy it?”

When Tyler jerked his head to the side, a motion for her to follow, Jamie did. They took the tourist path up, a long winding paved path, explored a little of the terrain, stopped at the well and studied the miniature construction of the inside of the structure.

As they stood at the safety bar at the top looking down, Jamie took a moment to watch him, much as she had George. But there was something different, something more.

“You’d really do it.”

He looked over at her, squinting a little in the sunlight. “What?”

“George wishes he was the kind of guy to do it, but you would. Repel over. Climb down. Whatever it would take to get down there.”

“Why not? It’s the only way to really see. Why visit if you can’t explore?”

“I suppose so,” she looked down, frowned a little as she thought about the climb up or down, it didn’t matter. She just couldn’t figure it out.

“Besides, the questions really not if I would. Would you?”

She let out a shaky laugh. “Are you kidding me? I like my feet firmly planted on the ground.”

“You think you do. You like to tell yourself you’re the safe girl. And yet you’re here,” he turned, leaned his side against the bar, watched her now. “I think you would. I think you want to.”

“Unless it’s a challenge, I don’t think we’ll find out.”

He laughed, but she saw in his eyes that he was working it all out in his head. It occured to her then that he had connections most people did not. There was a chance, if he put the effort into it, that he could get whatever he wanted.

And wouldn’t the cameras, the producers, love that?

She held up a hand, shook her head. “Don’t go getting anyone to do anything to make it happen.”

“Who says I could ... but if I could, would you do it?”

“Tyler—“

”I’ve learned one thing on this odd journey of Unwheeled, and it’s to take advantage of the opportunities to do what you wouldn’t normally get the chance to do. That most people wouldn’t get the chance to do.”

Jamie took in a slow breath, but even as she rolled her eyes, she considered the possibility. Why not? she wondered. If they could, if she could ...

Did she really crave the adventure her grandmother said she did?

Whatever her answer would have been was cut off when they were summoned back to home base by an intern that had been sent up the long trek to bring back those on both teams who’d wondered up. They headed back, but the question of opportunities remained between them.

And she had to wonder why she trusted Tyler enough to let him pull her along.

They gathered at the base, both teams combined to form a semi circle. The cameras already moved around them with practiced ease. In the valley that stretched in front of the cliffs the challenged had been set up. There assignment, announced by Alani Corsivo and her counterpart host, Bryson Lee, was to search for the seven cities of gold.

Or piles of jumbo golden wooden blocks pieces that they would use to build a tower of gold.

They were to follow their individual flags that would lead them to their pile, construct their part of the tower, and come back to connect them all together.

As fast as possible.

And the tallest tower, that could stand on it’s own, would win.

A physical challenge. Jamie looked around at the wooded area at the base of the cliffs. A challenge where she wouldn’t have Tyler as her guide.

They were all, partially at least, on their own.


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