Astral Years

Neal never told anyone about what had happened or his belief about where Joanne had ended up—except me. At the time he was overcome with guilt but couldn't bring himself to fess up. He didn't see how going to the authorities would change things in any way. At school she was listed as missing. Police and search parties had looked for her without turning up any leads.

Neal never went back to her house. He'd always considered himself a coward for not coming forward, but he didn't see how it would have done any good. And who would have believed him? That he'd showed her how to cross time and she'd gotten lost in the future?

I met Neal in the Corps, in Iraq. He enlisted upon graduation, in June 1996, wanting to put the incident with Joanne and the town of Salem behind him. I was assigned to his unit upon my arrival in Iraq from Camp Lejeune, in December 2003. Company B, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines. He was a staff sergeant. We became buddies because I'm from Oregon too, from Portland. That nightmare in Iraq forged a life-long bond—even if one of us didn't make it back.

Our company was siphoned into the vortex known as the second battle of Fallujah, Operation Phantom Fury. Technically I was a combat photographer and reporter, but we were all trained to fight, and we all did that time. Marines suffered 76 killed and 560 wounded. On the first day of the second week of combat, I was wounded, shrapnel in the leg. Neal pulled me to safety, and was killed two days later.

One night before that fateful battle, he confided in me, telling me he'd never talked about the high school incident with anyone before. He related the story about Joanne and the day they both time-traveled at Bush Park. I listened while trying to maintain my objectivity, in spite of my healthy skepticism about such matters of the paranormal or however you'd call it.

In high school, Neal was, as he described it, a mediocre cross-country runner on the South Salem team—not the slowest, but never placing first. This was his second year on the team. He was tired of chasing the love of his life—Joanne—who had dumped him after two months of backseat sophomore romance for a senior from North Salem. Tommy was a star receiver on that school's varsity football team. Neal then devoted free time to gathering intel about him, learning that he was a popular ball player, but known as a hot head. He'd been suspended during a game for threatening a referee. And word had it that he was a womanizer, not surprising for a popular football jock. That information only made Neal feel more protective toward Joanne, even though she'd stopped taking his calls at home and was obviously avoiding him at school.

The home cross-country route was in Bush Park, in central Salem, starting on the southern Leffelle Street side. Runners ran a few hundred yards across Phillip's field, then into a stretch of woods, across Pringle Creek, bearing left to continue parallel to Mission Street with the McCullough Stadium on the left, took a sharper left up the Soapbox Derby track, and then another half mile across Bush Park paralleling High Street under the majestic old oak trees to the finish line.

Pringle Creek was an offshoot of the Willamette River, running diagonally across the eastern part of the park for a quarter mile through the lightly-wooded section, before exiting through a culvert underneath Cross Street. It was shallow and slow-moving, never more than a couple feet deep and even shallower in most places. Minnows and crawfish populated the shady habitat. The running trail brought the runners down to the approximate center of the creek where a small wooden bridge traversed the water. Runners could choose to either cross at the bridge, which option included the possibility of bunching up among runners, or veer to the left and splash through in good old-fashioned cross-country style. Most of Neal's team members preferred to splash through. Anyone crossing on the right side of the bridge would be disqualified.

To the right of the bridge the trees grew a bit thicker and sunlight was more scarce. There was a corroding chain link fence originating in that part of the creek and running a hundred yards to the street. A few fading wooden signs posted along the fence said, "Danger." Neal had never given any thought as to why the signs were posted—he'd never had any reason to explore that part of the creek, and the thickening vegetation made it uninviting. The fence must have been decades old, judging from its advanced state of disrepair and numerous gaping holes.

But one day in late September, his black lab, Rosy, made the decision for him to cross there. They were walking through the park on an overcast Saturday afternoon. Neal was ruminating about Joanne and her treachery with Tommy. He periodically threw a red rubber ball out fifty yards for Rosy to retrieve. As they neared the creek he wrested the ball from her salivating jaws and threw it again into the woods. The ball bounced twice, landing in the creek, with Rosy in close pursuit. She followed the ball as it was carried by the water, down to the wooden bridge where it ran under the bridge and continued. The dog hopped up on the bank, ran around the bridge and back down into the water. Neal's eye followed her as she approached the old fence and the first Danger sign. She continued after the ball until, seconds later, he lost sight of her.

"Rosy! Come on, girl. Rosy!"

No customary joyous barking. Silence. Neal made his way to the creek bank where he should be able to see her, but nothing. When he passed the sign he felt an odd disturbance in the air, almost like a magnetic field. He continued along the bank, low-lying brambles piercing his jeans to scratch his legs. The going was much more difficult because that part of the creek wasn't maintained and cleared by the park service. He searched for Rosy along the stretch of the creek, avoiding the water. No sight of her, and no response to his repeated calls.

He returned to the place near the sign where he'd lost sight of her. The creek was a bit wider but shallow; too wide to clear it with one jump. He called again, "Rosy!" and jumped over, hitting the water with his left foot before bounding up onto dry land. When clearing the creek, he felt a swooning, almost like he was going to pass out. He went down on all fours to the ground, but after a moment his head cleared.

Standing back up, he noticed that the weather had changed and it was now a warm sunny day. But not only that. Before, the trees and bushes had been losing their leaves in fall mode, but now it seemed like they were in full bloom. In the distance he saw that people in the park were dressed in spring clothes. Something was seriously off.

He called for Rosy and she came after the third call. He hugged her.

"Where'd you get off to?" He walked through the woods to the edge of the park at Mission Street until he came to a newspaper stand. Through the plastic window he read the date on the Statesman Journal: April 5, 1996. What? The world had advanced by seven months!

His first thought was to immediately cross the creek back to the other side to reverse the time glitch. He was about to do so when he had an idea. Joanne's house on 13th street was only a few blocks from here. Why not just walk over there, see if he might find her hanging out? He set out, Rosy leading the way, thinking through the consequences of his time travel discovery.

He was approaching Joanne's house. No one was in front. He walked around to the small alley to approach the house from the back. When he was yards away from the garage facing the alley he heard voices arguing. He concealed himself behind the edge of the wooden garage and approached cautiously. He could hear clearly now, Joanne was arguing with that football jock and they were really getting into it. He peeked around the corner, thankful that bushes along the side of the garage were tall enough to conceal him.

"We're not going to have this baby, Joanne! It would ruin me!"

"I can't abort it, it would kill my parents. We're Catholic."

"Listen, don't you know what would happen if word got out? I've been picked for a full football scholarship to Michigan. That'll all be down the drain."

Neal was embarrassed to be witness to such an intimate discussion. He was about to turn and sneak away when the argument turned violent.

"Maybe I haven't been clear enough."

Tommy pushed Joanne, causing her to trip and stumble backwards, falling to the ground. Neal had forgotten about Rosy until he saw her rushing forward to confront the aggressor.

"Rosy, come back here!"

Joanne was facing away from him. Upon seeing Rosy, Tommy looked up, in Neal's direction. "What the fuck?"

Rosy was back at Neal's side and he sprinted away, running full speed for two blocks until he had to slow and catch a breath. He and Rosy went back to the park and the creek, crossing at the same point again. He was relieved to discover they were again in crisp September weather.

"Whew, Rosy, that's a relief. We almost … we could have … who knows what might have happened if we couldn't get back?"

The ramifications were too much to puzzle through. Would he have just disappeared from this time slot but continued life in the other one, picking up where he left off? How was that possible? What about his parents, his family? School, all the tests, cross-country? How could he just disappear and then reappear and nobody notice?

Neal called Joanne at home that night. After an awkward greeting, he said he needed to see her, there was something really crucial she needed to know about. She tried to brush him off, but because he was so insistent, and because Bush Park was so close to her home, she agreed to meet him there the next day.

The following afternoon after school, on an overcast day, Neal met Joanne at the wooden bridge. He'd left Rosy at home. His chest tightened when he saw Joanne. She was wearing a thin brown leather jacket with tassels, and her long brown hair flowed down her back.

He prefaced his remarks with, "Now what I'm going to tell you will sound incredible, but I need to tell you because your safety and future is at stake."

"Oh, come on, Neal, what's going on?"

"First just tell me, are you and that guy from North Salem still dating?"

Her eyes widened with surprise before she responded in anger, "Is that what all this is about?"

In halting words, Neal explained what he and Rosy had experienced the day before. Her response, after listening impatiently: "You are so full of it! I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! What a waste of time, coming over here to meet you."

Neal walked her over to the place in the creek where the fence started.

"Look, I'm gonna show you exactly where we went over, and if you don't want to believe me you can see for yourself. Just experiment, humor me, you've got nothing to lose."

"Oh sure, I'm going to just jump across the creek and I'll be in the future?"

"That's right, so jump over right here."

Neal walked the few feet to the point where he and Rosy had crossed. But Joanne balked.

"It's too wide here, I'll get my feet wet."

On impulse she ran a dozen yards further downstream, past the dilapidated chain link fence until she came to a spot in the creek where the creek bed was dry sand, the water being diverted to one side.

"I'll cross here."

By the time Neal could shout, "No, wait, don't …!" she had already run across. She disappeared on the other side into what seemed like a liquid envelope which closed behind her, leaving only the usual trees and shrubs visible. Neal was tempted to run after her, but hesitated. She'd deviated a good bit from his last crossing. There was no way of knowing how far into the future she had wandered.

He decided to play it safe and waited for her to return. She'd probably turn right around and come back after she'd had a chance to verify what he'd told her about the time shift. A few minutes went by with no sign of her. Neal paced back and forth anxiously, hands in his pockets, wondering what he should do. He'd give her an hour, then decide.

An hour came and went. What if she'd been beaten to death by that jock Tommy? What if, in the future, she was now happily married with kids? What if she'd joined the Air Force, as she had once suggested she'd like to do, and was stationed in the Arctic?

He couldn't just do nothing while the love of his life was in possible peril. He decided to play it safe and go back to the exact point where he'd made the second crossing. He remembered a little white pine on the opposite side of the creek there. The idea was to return to Joanne's house, just as he'd done before. If she were there, it would at least mean that no harm had come to her in this crossing, wouldn't it? It would have to mean that she'd made it back into the present day, so that next summer she could be happily living her student life at home and fighting with Tommy.

He leapt across the creek, landing with his left foot in the water just as he had last time before making the bank. He emerged into hot, humid weather, just as before. Good, everything was working as he had calculated. When he made it to the newspaper dispenser, he saw that the date was now July 1st, 1996. So there had been a slight deviation of a week, but still pretty much on track. He hastily walked the three blocks to Joanne's house, wishing he was wearing a t-shirt and shorts rather than the jeans and long sleeve shirt and jacket he had on.

He came to the house on 13th Street. A car was parked in front. He decided not to hesitate and just go to the front door and ask for her. He rang the bell and heard chimes ringing inside. A woman whom he presumed was her mother came to the door.

"Yes?"

"Hi, sorry to bother you, I'm a friend of Joanne's. Is she home?"

The woman's face seemed to crumble with emotion. "Are you joking? If you're her friend you'd know."

"Know what?"

"Do you have any information about what happened to her? We haven't seen her since last fall!"

"But … I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Stop coming around here, I can't take it anymore." She closed the door in his face.

He stood there a moment, in shock. He turned to survey the street and houses, then walked slowly back in the direction of the park. If Joanne had been missing all that time, then it meant she hadn't made it back across the creek, and even if he'd waited there all day or all week she wouldn't have reappeared. Something in the more distant future must have prevented her from making it back. She'd been kidnapped or killed or … it could even be something more mundane, like a change in geography or the structure of the park. Maybe in the far future a volcano had erupted right there in the park, blocking her access to the portal; after all, the nearby Cascades were volcanic with still active cones like Mount. St. Helens. There was no way of knowing how far into the future she'd arrived, but he knew it was too risky for him to try to go after her at that same crossing point—he had too bad a feeling about trying it.

He went to the creek and meticulously chose the same spot to cross back over. Again the odd feeling of dislocation, head spinning, and then clarity, and he was back in the fall. Good. But no sign of Joanne.

He got his bike and headed back home. What should he do? If he told people what had happened, even went to the authorities, there was no way they'd believe him. But he could lead them to the creek, they'd see for themselves.

What if Joanne never turned up? Was he responsible for her disappearance? Could they charge him with murder, even? No way of knowing. They didn't teach you in school about what to do if your girlfriend disappeared while time traveling and you were the one who put her up to it.

My enlistment was only for two years. In March 2005 I returned to the States with a Purple Heart and a gimpy left leg that I'll never be able to run on again. One of the things I resolved to do, while trying to live past the events of Fallujah, was to research Neal's story. I remembered where he said he lived, his descriptions of Bush Park, of Joanne, and the one hobby he had—he collected Native American artifacts. He was proud of his collection of a number of arrowheads, elk bone spearheads and obsidian knives he'd found in the nearby Cascades during camping trips.

After detoxing for a few weeks at my little home in Portland, getting my bearings and thinking about what to do with the rest of my life, I made the hour drive down to Salem on a pleasant spring day. I took the exit off of I-5 onto Mission Street toward the park. I pulled left into the stadium parking area and found Pringle Creek as he'd described it, running its course into the woods. But following it along, I soon came to another parking area, this one belonging to a new Annex of the Capitol Building's legislative offices that was under construction. The smell of tar from the blacktop was still strong. Construction crews were working on the building that would become the annex. A simple query indicated that the building and parking lot had been a controversial project. There had been demonstrations against the encroachment of the city's buildings into the park and the disturbance of the creek bed under the steel and concrete. In fact the parking lot was laid just adjacent to the wooden bridge that Neal had described. Downstream from the bridge there was no further trace of the creek, it was all covered up by the asphalt.

Could the explanation of Joanne's disappearance be as simple as that? Had she crossed over into a time after the parking lot was built, at least ten years in the future, making it impossible for her to return? If, as Neal had said, she'd crossed over about twenty yards down from where he'd crossed, the time difference could be substantial enough.

I walked back to the car, appreciating the beauty of the park. Joggers and cyclists and picnickers were out, lending the place a very friendly and cheery atmosphere. Too bad Neal couldn't be here to show me around and share his high school stories with me.

I next drove the few blocks over to High Street and to the entrance to the Salem Public Library to do some research. I asked the pleasant-looking woman at the reference counter, perhaps in her fifties, whose nametag read Maria, where I could find information about the history of the park.

"Do you have some ID I can see?"

"Sure." I showed her my Oregon driver's license.

"Wait right here, Andrew," she said with a big smile. After a few minutes she returned with a history of Salem that was published in 1965, an immense oversized volume featuring maps and illustrations. I carried it to a table in the reading room where I could study it. I discovered that the park, ninety acres in size, was the original site of the historic Bush House, the owner being the founder of the Oregon Statesman newspaper. Older references to the original inhabitants of the land, the Kalapuya Indians, indicated that the Indians had considered that area, which later became the eastern side of the park, including Pringle Creek, as sacred and taboo to outsiders. I wondered why.

Maria was still at the reception counter.

"If you don't mind my asking, how long have you lived in Salem?"

"My whole life, we're in Southeast Salem."

"Have you heard any unusual stories about Bush Park?"

She smiled. "You mean like is it haunted?"

I nodded. "Or anything else mysterious?"

She paused, eyes toward the ceiling in memory recollection mode.

"There was something, and this will date me, but back in 1965. I remember it because I was in grade school. A group of three girls, from another school, disappeared there. As I recall, it was in the fall, yes, around Halloween, which only made it spookier. There were these kids playing down by the creek. Then one of their classmates who had been with them had gone over to the ball game at the stadium and when he came back he couldn't find the other three. He alerted the police, and the park was searched with dogs, and by police on horseback, but those little girls never did turn up."

I noticed one of the library volunteers, an older gentleman behind the counter, was listening intently. I dropped my voice.
"Any idea where in the park they were last seen?"

"For sure, because me and some classmates went over there later to check it out. I was ten at the time; that would put me in 5th grade. Our parents were telling us all to stay away, but we went in a group of five of us. It was over by the creek that the boy had last seen the three girls. By the time we went over there, the city had erected a chain link fence around the place that they'd gone missing. Something about maybe quicksand in the creek bed. Later, in middle and high school, we had a lot of ball games and class events down there, and the fence was still up as long as I remember it."

"What about the lost children?"

She shook her head. "Still lost to this day."

I thanked her and returned the book. "Would you have records, newspaper clippings or anything about what happened?"

"You can do a search of the Statesman Journal, all the old microfiche files have been scanned and uploaded for digital search now. Make yourself comfortable at that station over there."

"Oh, that's very kind, thanks."

She turned back to her computer.

"Sorry, and one more thing. Does the library have a collection of high school yearbooks?"

"Why yes, you can head toward that far wall and at the end of the aisle, turn left; two rows down you'll find them."

"Great."

I took a seat, logged on using the password indicated in a printed note next to the keyboard, and went searching. I found three articles about the incident, two from the Statesman Journal, and one from the Oregonian. As Maria said, the search for the students had never turned up any missing children. Various possible explanations had been posited for what happened to the children, including a group kidnapping, but time travel wasn't one of them.

After an hour I gathered my notes. I stopped at the Men's room to take a leak, then went in search of the North Salem High school yearbook for 1995. I found the yearbooks where Maria had suggested I look and pulled the 1995 volume.

The spring of that year when the photos were taken, Joanne had been a junior. She'd gone missing before the senior photos of 1996. Still, I found a black-and-white photo of an attractive teenager with long brown wavy hair; a slightly big nose; and big eyes that pulled you in with a dreamy distant look. I could see how Neal could have been captivated by such a demeanor, and I was only looking at a two-dimensional photo.

I gathered my things and headed for the door. On the way out, the volunteer who'd been eavesdropping earlier gestured to me. He followed me out the automatic door. His nameplate read 'Roy'.

"I may have some information about that area in the park and the creek, but I can't really talk here. Can you meet me after work, at Nobles Tavern on Center Street?"

"Yeah, I guess, what time do you get off?"

"I'm here until four, so meet you over there 4:30?"

"Sure thing."

In the meantime I decided to drive over to the address that Neal had mentioned for Joanne's house. Maybe I could talk to the parents or siblings. I drove up Commercial Street to Market, took a right and down a few blocks to 13th, then took a left and within two blocks I was there. I double-checked the address in my notes, scratched my chin, checked the address again, and got out of the car, to stand and stare at the remains of a house that had been devastated by fire. All that remained was a shell and charred ruins.

A teenage boy was watching me from the porch of a house across the street. I walked over to him.

"Excuse me, I'm just wondering, can you tell me when the fire was?"

He nodded without standing up. "Yeah, that was last year in the winter, in the middle of a snowstorm, so maybe six months ago?"

"Anyone hurt?"

"The lady and her grown son, they were all that lived there, both died. The snow made it hard for the fire trucks to get here on time."

"Oh, what a shame."

The fresh April breeze and spring sun were a stark contrast to the image of a house burning in the snow.

"Did you know a girl named Joanne, used to live there?"

"Yeah, she was older'n me. I was about six when she ran off."

"She ran off?"

"That's what they said. What my older brother said, she had a fight with her boyfriend and took off. Maybe went to Alaska or New Mexico or somewhere. Nobody knows."

Everything was sounding just like what Neal had told me. I reflected again on the photo of a dreamy girl who guys would fight over.

I met Roy at 4:30 at Nobles Tavern. He was already seated outside when I arrived. He suggested we move inside where we wouldn't be disturbed. We took a booth in the back. Studying his face, he must have been pushing 70. He was bald on top, with a thin frame, slow moving as if cautious about everything around him.

I started. "Thanks so much for reaching out to me. I can use any information you'd like to share."

He looked around the place to assure himself no one was listening.

"What's your interest in the park?"

I didn't have anything to hide. I summarized briefly my friendship with Neal, what Neal had told me about the creek and his experiences ten years earlier, and about what he was afraid had happened to Joanne.

"So you didn't know her?"

"No, I went to school in Portland. I'm really just following up out of respect to a brother-in-arms."

"I can shed some light on things. First of all, get ready to suspend disbelief. The phenomenon your buddy described is real. It's as ancient as the land."

"Whoa, that's intriguing. How do you mean?"

He was about to reply when the waiter came for our orders. I asked for a Deschutes IPA, and Roy ordered the dark lager. He waited till she was out of earshot to continue.

"As background, I'm part Kalapuyan Indian."

"I'd never guess it, you look pretty pale-face to me."

He laughed. "The line is pretty diluted by the time you get to me. I'm one-sixth, on my father's side. My mother was Scottish and Irish. But still, I took an interest in my father's family's heritage, learned as much about the culture and the old legends as I could. I've traveled around the State quite a bit, studying the various tribes and their histories."

"I know there's a lot of history here, it's just that we didn't get much about it in school and I chose to do other things with my extra-curricular time, like chasing skirts."

"I'm with you there, young man, let's drink to that."

We clinked bottles, smiling.

He continued, "The stories about time travel are true. They've been documented around the country by different tribes. The shamans are always the holders of the sacred knowledge. I've followed up on legends about some of the tribes here in Oregon. There are several sacred sites where time travel and astral projection was practiced as a way of prophesying the future. There's a site up on the eastern slope of the Cascades, not far from the town of Sisters. There's a site out by the hot springs on the Deschutes River. And the third one I've come across is right here, in Bush Park."

"So you mean, there's some kind of documentation that the Indians here actually saw the creek as a sacred place?"

He paused, as if wondering how much to divulge. "I'm the documentation. My father's family were shamans going way back. For generations they met in the park annually, where there is a portal to the future. They'd have their last pow-wow there, always in September, time of the equinox. Up until the encroachment of the white man, and the tribes were practically wiped out and forcibly resettled to the reservation in Eastern Oregon."

It was a familiar refrain. "How exactly were they wiped out?"

He took a long pull on his bottle, shook his head with a frown on his face.

"In the early days of the Oregon trail, when white settlers first started coming to the valley, that is in the 1830's, it's estimated we were around 15,000 up and down the valley in the Confederated Tribes. But by just 1849 there were only 600 left, and they were uprooted and forced to relocate to the Grande Ronde Reservation, in the desert on the other side of the mountains. It's the same old story; a combination of war, massacres, and diseases, small pox and measles, like that. Imagine how it must have felt to the natives, like the apocalypse."

"That's desert out there, where that reservation is. These tribes that had lived here in this lush valley would have been miserable over there."

"Tell me about it. But one of the worst things the white man did, was deny their religious practices, declare this area off grounds. They insisted there was nothing spiritual about this place, that it was just a watershed for grazing cows and sheep. They fenced off the sacred water, denied there was anything to all the legends. And now they've managed to pave it over."

"With the new Annex to the State legislature!"

"That's right. Talk about paving over paradise. Only they paved over the ancient gods."

"I wonder, would you have time to show me around? Down by the creek, I mean?"

"Nothing to see now but a parking lot. But sure, I can point out a few things to you, little that I know. Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, that would be great. When's best for you?"

"Let's say around noontime, I'll meet you by the wooden bridge there. But bring a gun."

"What?"

"I'm just joshin' with you. I'll have something for you tomorrow."

The next morning, before I met with Roy I dropped by the Police Department on Liberty Street. When asked under what authority I thought I had the right to examine police records, I showed my military ID with my reporter's ID from the Stars and Stripes together. Even though I was no longer active, the sergeant on duty, also a veteran, accommodated me, putting me together with a trainee named Caroline, who showed me where to sit and pulled files for me.

First I looked for the incident involving Neal and Joanne. We found a file that indicated a fruitless search had been conducted in September 1995 for a Joanne Whalen, involving dogs, horse-mounted patrols and scout cars. But the search had centered around her last known whereabouts, the high school. True, the school is only a few blocks from Bush Park, but since the search wasn't centered on the park, any lingering trace of her scent near Pringle creek could have easily been passed over during a routine sweep of the area on horseback. After forty eight hours the hunt had been called off.

I asked Caroline to search files for 1965, the year when, according to the librarian, several children had disappeared near the creek. After some digging a file was located, marked "Incident at Pringle Creek"—September 20th. Maria had said the disappearance of the school children had happened around Halloween, but it was a long time ago—maybe she was misremembering, and September's not too far off. But aside from the file folder, the file was empty. I wondered who might have wanted to make the incident disappear.

I met Roy in the parking lot at Bush Park, in view of McCulloch Stadium near Mission Street. I followed him as he walked me over to where Pringle Creek makes its entrance into the wooded northeastern sector of the park.

"Here you can see, we have a run of the mill, everyday creek. We can walk along and follow its course most of the way. Let me know if you have any odd feelings while we walk along."

I walked beside him. "What do you mean, odd feelings, like some kind of magnetic pull or something?"

"Sure. You wouldn't want to fall into the slipstream, now would you?"

Roy laughed when he saw the expression on my face. "Just kidding."

The creek was shallow, lightly meandering. We were able to follow a footpath along the creek most of the way, while off to our right through the trees was the official path that was broader and well-cleared. We came to the wooden bridge that crosses over, and within view in front of us were construction vehicles that were putting the finishing touches on a parking lot. Beyond the parking lot were construction cranes marking the spot where the new Annex building was going up.

"Here we are, we've come to the point of the monstrosity."

We stopped and looked at how much of the creek bed had been paved over. Roy touched my shoulder.

"I'll let you in on something. The tribe has sued the city over this project, that they didn't follow the right procedures. They didn't give the tribe advanced notice, didn't hold the required environmental impact studies, didn't hold community outreach meetings, give the public a chance to respond. So many violations, it's almost a slam dunk we'll get this project reversed."

"Wow, that's interesting. But what good will it do for the creek? For the tribe?"

Roy nodded, watching the construction vehicles in the distance.

"Here's the thing. The court didn't grant the restraining order that the tribe asked for, which would have blocked the construction in the first place, so the city went ahead with the parking lot. But the case is winding its way through the appellate level, and pretty soon we should see a reversal. Don't be surprised if the city is forced to tear all this out. Then over time the creek will revive. Now come back this way."

I followed Roy back twenty yards in the direction we'd come.

"Now let's do an experiment. Ready to get your feet wet?"

"I guess."

We were back a few yards on the other side of the bridge. I followed Roy's example as he stepped back and forth across the stream a few times, moving closer toward the bridge.

"Now it's on this side where the cross-country course always ran, still does. You can see the worn path right here coming down from the field and over the creek. You feel anything unusual?"

I was trying my best to be receptive to some kind of astral pull, whatever that might be, but I didn't sense anything. "Can't say as I do."

"That's right. But now come over here."

On the other side of the bridge, toward the parking lot, we continued to cross the creek several times. And finally I did sense something—at first a strange feeling on my skin, on my exposed arms and neck and face. Then it felt like when you step through a spider web, definitely a sensation on my face that was quite noticeable. As we crossed back and forth a few more times before being blocked by the new blacktop, I felt what I'd have to describe as the sensation of a magnetic pull on my whole body. When we were blocked by the construction, Roy said, "Now let's experiment here, come on up."

We stepped onto the blacktop and the sensation went away. We walked back and forth, up and down a few times, but the feeling didn't return.

"You see, this is what we're complaining about. There's definitely something spiritual here, however you want to call it—part of the water, or the combination of the water and the creek-bed at this particular location, that's been blocked by all this tar and concrete and crap. Here at the edge of the blacktop, where the creek is now obscured, I bet that's where your friend Neal first went across, and then moving in this direction toward where the construction work is happening, that would be where the time travel becomes more pronounced, where the creek is moving downstream."

"Any theory on what would cause this portal, or whatever you call it?"

"Not really. It's like asking what causes the mountains and the oceans. Sure, science can describe them, theorize about their geological age and whatnot; but the question is, what lies behind these natural forces? That's beyond our level of comprehension."

I had to admit that I didn't have any answers, it was all still new to me. "Have you ever taken the leap? I mean, before this project blocked it off, did you ever cross over the stream here?"

"No thanks, I'm not that brave. Last thing I need is to end up in the far future, in some post-apocalyptic world where there's no running water or working toilets, or where some big creature wants to eat me."

"What if you could go back in time? Like even visiting the tribe, back before the advent of the white man? Wouldn't that be something?"

Roy shook his head. "From everything I've heard, you can go forward and then return to the present, but I haven't heard anything about going back in time to before contemporary events. But who knows? There's so much we don't understand, and science hasn't bothered to investigate. Just old Injun legends, they claim."

"But you believe them?"

"Sure do. But people aren't studying this stuff seriously—like the archeology departments at the major universities, they're studying relics and artifacts, not processes, and we're talking about a mystical process. Just because we can't comprehend it now doesn't mean it's not real."

"I guess so. But you'd think science would be interested in studying the process behind it!"

"We're talking Western science here, which is Euro-centric. They don't even acknowledge the power of their own shamans, like in Central Europe and the Ural Mountains and so on."

"Seems like something's gotta happen to wake them up, to take the issue seriously."

"That'll be the day."

"But why, for example, wouldn't a whole construction crew just disappear into the future, if they're working right here?"

"That's something peculiar I've found out about this spot and the other mystic Native American portals, again unconfirmed. Apparently the water didn't always work for the Indians either. In fact the waters' powers seem to be pretty selective."

"What do you mean?"

"It had to be at a certain time, like during the September equinox, and even then it wasn't always active. The shamans passed down the knowledge over generations as to when to find it and when to not bother. We've lost all that in the civilizing effect of our great American experiment, as they call it."

I wondered if that was true, and decided to find out.

I made a stop at Willamette University, which campus is just a good stone's throw from Bush Park. By studying the school's catalog I learned that a Professor Cadbury taught Native American studies in the anthropology department. Upon inquiry at the administrative office I learned that he'd be in later in the afternoon. I decided to return after one more visit.

I pulled out of the university parking and drove down Liberty Street to the southeast part of town, finding Neal's former house on Stanley Street. The neighborhood was a pleasant one of mostly modest ranch houses, with lots of evergreens like Colorado Spruce and Douglas Fir, all of which thrive in the rainy climate. I found the house on the corner with a Ford sedan parked in front. I rang the bell, setting off a large dog's barking, and after a moment I heard footsteps.

A thin woman came to the door and I recognized Neal's features in her face. She had a black lab behind her trying to push past her to reach me. "Rosy, stay back now!"

"That's alright, I like dogs."

She let the dog through to me and I petted the actual Rosy from Neal's story—the time traveling dog, now a few years older, with a greying snout.

"I'm sorry to bother you ma'am, but are you by any chance Neal's mother?"

"Why, yes, I am, can I help you?"

"I'm a Marine, retired, PFC. I was with Neal in Iraq. I meant to look you up when I came back to the States."

"Oh, please—won't you come in?"

She invited me in to the modest living room. On the fireplace was the folded flag, which no doubt had been presented to her by the honor guard at the time of Neal's funeral.

"Where is Neal buried?"

"He's right here, the cemetery up on Commercial Street. We could have buried him in the Veterans' Cemetery outside of Portland, but I wanted to keep him close to home."

I heard the pain in her voice and realized how much of my own grief I'd been burying inside.

"That makes sense."

"Excuse me, I'll be right back. I think we can have ice tea on the picnic table."

"That'll be great. I won't take up much of your time."

"Oh, don't be silly, I'm so happy to have a friend of Neal's visit."

She went into the kitchen.

I waited at the picnic table, which was placed under an old maple tree in the middle of the quarter-acre yard. The yard had high wooden fences on three sides. Beyond the fence stood similar ranch houses and pleasant trees. Rosy stayed with me, demanding my attention. I enjoyed scratching her back and jowls. She looked like she was grinning at my show of affection.

When Neal's mother returned, I shared with her how close friends we had been, hinting at how much we'd been through together, and how he'd actually saved my life. I slowly worked around to the purpose of my visit.

"He told me about a girlfriend, Joanne, that kind of, I guess you could say she broke his heart?"

She paused, probably thinking about how much she wanted to share. "Neal never brought her around, but he did mention her a few times, and then of course I learned about the search for her when she went missing."

"She was never found?"

"Never. Disappeared without a trace. After that he didn't mention her again. Just kept to himself and his cross-country and classes until he enlisted the next spring. He said he wanted to get away and see more of the world."

I doubted that he'd had the hellish fighting of urban warfare in mind when he made that decision. She asked, "Did Neal mention his collection of Indian artifacts?"

"Yes, he did brag about it."

She showed me his room, which was still furnished as though Neal were coming back. On the wall was a poster of Hendrix at Woodstock. On a table next to his bed, and also affixed to the wall above the table, was mounted a collection of Native American antique arrow heads, spear heads, a spear, and numerous bone daggers.

"This is a pretty impressive collection."

Her face brightened. "Did you ever see in his possession, over there, a knife that would have looked right at home here?"

"How do you mean?"

"One of his favorite items was a knife made out of that volcanic stone."

"Obsidian?"

"Yes. It was very distinctive, because of the smooth polished black blade, with a leather handle, in a deer skin sheath, and with a lovely turquoise stone set in the base of the handle."

"I can't say as I noticed that."

"I thought maybe it was with him when he died. He always carried it with him in his pack at school, like an obsession. He loved showing it to classmates, explaining its origins. I'd like to return it to the collection."

"Would you happen to have a picture of it?"

She thought for a second. "Why yes, I do, hold on."

She rummaged in his closet until finding a box, from which she pulled a copy of the Statesman Journal from 1993. There was a color photo of a younger Neal, standing in front of his collection and proudly displaying an obsidian knife.

"It's just one of those personal interest stories that the papers like to run."

I examined the photo closely, and could see the distinctive turquoise stone in the base of the handle. I studied the face of my fallen buddy, still a boy when the photo was taken. Again I silently thanked him for his swift reaction in Fallujah that kept me alive.

"Tell you what, I can follow up with his unit, see if anyone laid hands on it."

Returning to Willamette University, I found Professor Cadbury sitting in his office, dressed in summer casual attire, working at his laptop. When he saw me standing outside his door, he was welcoming and invited me to have a seat opposite the desk. A Navaho rug was hanging on the wall behind him, and various native artifacts, clay animal figurines, were on shelves.

"I don't get many visitors this time of year, everyone's out hiking the Pacific Trail or surfing in the ocean!"

I introduced myself, gave a bit of background to my research about Bush Park, explaining the personal tie to my deceased buddy from Salem. He listened carefully. "How can I help?" "My question is, there seems to be something mystical or spiritual going on at the park, and I'm told there are other spiritual places in the state of Oregon, where the native Americans or the shamans participated in some kind of time travel, or astral travel connected with their prophesies?"

As I spoke a wry smile came over his face.

"You're familiar with psilocybin? Shrooms?"

"Well, not directly, but I know about them. Kids at school used to indulge in them."

"They're as much a part of the landscape here in Oregon as the Native Americans once were. That's how the shamans achieved astral projection, if you will—not by walking into some kind of sacred stream or hot springs."

"So they did time-travel?"

He laughed. "I'm not saying they did, I'm saying that maybe they believed they did. I've been to a few of the sites in Eastern Oregon where they believed the hot springs were a portal to another dimension or to spiritual enlightenment. Of course in Eastern Oregon some of the tribes used peyote, from the cactus, to achieve a mystical state. I'm of the opinion they would have had the same experience just sitting in their wigwams while drinking their mushroom or peyote tea, as they did by 'wading in the water' so to speak."

"But you can't rule it out?"

He paused, again with that skeptical smile. "Listen, if you told me there are blue fairies living in the flower bed outside this window, I wouldn't be able to disprove it. But I might ask you if you've been eating shrooms. In science we look for the simplest explanation of something first, rather than the most unlikely. We know that the tribes here in the Valley used psilocybin, and on the other side of the Cascades, peyote, just as the natives used peyote in Mexico. And in South America there are other substances, like ayahuasca in the Amazon, that gave the shamans the power of prophesy and even astral projection. For me, finding that a psychotropic agent has been ingested is a simpler explanation then the proposition that someone actually entered a stream or hot spring and came out in a different dimension."

"Interesting. But I've been down to Pringle Creek, and I definitely felt something strange when I was at the location that they say was sacred."

"And did you travel in time?"

"Well no, but that part of the creek is now covered with a parking lot."

"Sorry to be a skeptic, but I haven't heard of any incidents in modern time that can be verified, of anyone actually pulling off time travel—and at least living to tell about it."

I had run out of people to talk to, leads to run down. There was still the mystery of what had happened to Joanne. Her image, that photo from the yearbook of the dreamy teenager, haunted me. Where had she ended up? Maybe she was still alive in some future or alternative world, living a normal life. Maybe she had simply disappeared in our time dimension back in 1995, running away or even being abducted and carried off. Or maybe she had simply gotten lost somehow, which is easy to do in the thick Oregon woods.

I didn't know where I stood on the issue of whether Native Americans had actually practiced time travel or astral projection as part of their shamanistic rituals. The skeptic in me still said, Come on, really? But Joanne's unexplained disappearance, coupled with the kid in me who still wanted to believe in magical powers, kept arguing for the other possibility.

Months later, in mid-summer, I was enjoying a coffee at my favorite Ethiopian coffee shop in Portland, reading an old sci-fi journal I'd picked up at the used bookstore, when my cell phone rang. It was Roy, calling with the news that the tribe's demand that the parking lot be removed, and further work on the Annex be halted, had been granted.

"Roy, that's great news. Congratulations!"

"They're going to tear out the blacktop next Monday. You want to come down and take a look?"

"Sure, I'll be there." I figured, why not? Maybe a resolution to the story after all. Was I in for a surprise.

I brought coffees for both of us and we met at the wooden bridge at Pringle Creek in the late morning. Bulldozers were already at work, but we could see it would take a while until the creek and the adjacent land behind it had been cleared of the heavy tarred blacktop. And even once the area was cleared, it would take some time for the creek to recover from all the asphalt and aggregate, the polymers and antistripping agents that are added to the concrete. The creek would have been bulldozed over before the asphalt was laid, so it would have to be dug anew to allow the water to flow again. We decided to take a walk back through the field toward the western side of the park.

"I've been thinking what you said about how quickly the population of the Kalapuya was diminished after the arrival of the white man."

"More like decimated. And to think, it hadn't been that long before, around 1805, when the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived in what is now Oregon up on the Columbia. When they were coming down the western slopes of the Rockies in Idaho in the early spring, they were starving, and the Shoshone took them in and saved their asses. Then when they arrived at the Pacific, the Chinook saved their asses again, showing them where to camp and where to hunt and providing trade and provisions during the exceptionally harsh winter. But less than fifty years later all of the native tribes were almost completely wiped out."

Roy's voice was bitter with the pain of generations.

"So much for gratitude and European enlightenment."

We agreed to meet at the end of the day to check on the progress at the creek. By that time, the heavy blacktop and asphalt had been hauled away, but the creek was a complete shambles; nature uprooted, crushed, devastated. Barely any trace of water. We could see it would take some to time to heal and for the creek to renew itself. I thanked Roy for thinking of me, and we pledged to meet again sometime in the future.

"I'll invite you up to Portland, Roy, show you around. Have you been to the Chinese garden there?"

"Not yet, but I've heard about it."

"I think you'd enjoy seeing it. I'll be your guide and we can drink tea in the traditional tea house there."

"That'll be my pleasure, young man!"

The skeletal remains were discovered some months later by curiosity-seekers who were exploring the creek bed after the rubble had been cleared. According to the police report filed in the case, the deceased person had been buried under several strata of mud and stone, and the badly decomposed corpse had been dislodged by the bulldozer that was reconstructing the creek bed. The incident was reported in the Oregonian, and a week later I met with the county coroner to inquire about the body.

The Marion County Coroner's office was on Center Street less than a mile from the Capitol building. The coroner was an Asian American, Lucy Kim. She seemed happy to greet me, and after I explained my background and interest in occurrences at the creek, and asked whether she could share the results of her autopsy and investigation, she answered, "Why not? My results may interest you, and no one has told me to keep a lid on things."

She explained that a comparison of the deceased's remains with dental records of known missing persons had been able to close the door on one mystery—the disappearance of Neal's girlfriend, Joanne Whalen. The coroner concluded that it was in fact her remains that had lain for decades under the creek bed.

"The police consider this just a typical old unsolved missing persons case finally solved. They say the student had wandered away from South Salem High School in 1995."

"And you don't agree?"

"They haven't seen my report yet, because I haven't typed it up. The remains, when delivered to me, were in a very bad state of decay, with a lot of mud and debris encasing the rib cage. The first order of business was the dental comparison. But after I cleaned the body up, take a look at what I extracted from the body cavity."

She showed me an evidence baggy which held an object clearly in the shape of a knife. She let me hold it. When I turned it in the light it became clear, I was holding an obsidian knife, with a rotting leather handle. And on the butt of the knife was imbedded an ornate turquoise stone. She asked me the rhetorical question.

"Does this look like the case of an unsolved runaway to you?"

That pretty much wraps up my part of the story. Joanne had been found. It didn't look like time travel or a mysterious portal had been involved in her disappearance, although I guess that was still a possibility. Maybe she leaped into the future, and Neal was there waiting for her when she returned, and a fight broke out. Although the simpler answer is that the argument, or fight, or just downright jealous murder of Neal's first love happened without any time travel involved. An argument led to a flair-up of passion and Neal lost control. After the murder he joined the Marines and went to war to assuage his guilt.

I didn't see any reason to share my discovery with Neal's mother, or anyone else, for that matter. Neal was gone, a hero who laid down his life for his fellow soldiers, including me. Let sleeping dogs lie.

The discovery certainly seemed to weigh against the likelihood that time travel or some astral projection through a portal or whatever had actually occurred. And I wasn't one to start experimenting with my own body to try and prove or disprove Roy's theories of sacred waters and how, at just the right time of year, under the right conditions, one could cross into a different time dimension. I was ready to move on to a piece I was researching about the background and ramifications of the Mount. St. Helens volcanic eruption of March, 1980.

The creek was opened up, cleaned up, rehabilitated, and life went on. Until September the following year around the time of the equinox, when a group of school children on a day trip in Bush Park had a picnic in the field, in view of Pringle Creek, and five of them decided to explore the creek. And were never seen again.

THE END

Bio: Jonathan Worlde's mystery novel Latex Monkey with Banana, was the winner of the Hollywood Discovery Award with a prize of $1000. Recent short fiction appears in The Raven Review, the 2020 anthology Ghost Stories of Shepherdstown, and in Cirque Journal. He is also a traditional country blues performer under the stage name Paul the Resonator, whose CD is Soul of a Man.

E-mail: Paul Grussendorf

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