As if in tangled ball, the thought stream of Louie, twisted and warped by the false reasonings and interpretations fed to him in childhood, seemed clearly revealed to Cal. Again a change in concept of relationship to reality, the schematic of forces visualized, the untangling, straightening of thought.
Louie scrambled to his feet, a rueful grin on his face.
"Sorry, Cal," he said. "I must have gone nuts there for a while, shock and all. I'm all right now. Don't worry anymore about me. I'll get on back to the rest."
"Sure, Louie. See you there," Cal agreed.
A rearrangement of relationships, and Cal walked out from behind a bush to approach Jed and Tom.
"You must not have gone all the way to the top," Jed said when he looked up and caught sight of Cal. "It's just barely past noon, I reckon. Didn't expect to see you back until nightfall."
"I took a short cut," Cal said with a grin. "Little past noon," he continued, as if musing with a thought. "About the same time of day that everything happened a couple of weeks ago."
"Yeah, about the same time of day," Jed said, and looked at him curiously.
Tom had arisen to his feet and was staring at Cal curiously, sensing a difference in the E. Now Jed felt it too, and looked at Cal with puzzlement on his face.
"There's something important about it being around this time of day, Cal?" he asked.