The Third Circle
Chapter 13
Part
III - St. Louis
Chapter 14
They met Danny at the hotel restaurant at eight thirty in the morning. He had gotten there before them and already had a table. They sat down and ordered, and then John handed Danny forty-five hundred dollars in an envelope.
"Here it is, Danny" he said.
"Well," said Danny, looking in the envelope. "I don't know what to say. Thanks."
"You're welcome," Claire smiled. "We're partners."
"Partners," Danny said, and they all shook hands.
"I'll head out for the bank right after breakfast," said Danny, "If it's okay with you, I want to get started right away fixing the place up, and I'd like to call my folks this morning."
"Good idea," John said. "Also, check around and find a good local attorney we can trust and arrange an appointment for the three of us. We have some business to take care of before the meeting."
"I'll check around," Danny said.
"Also, I want you to find a reputable drilling company, and have them come and make some cost estimates. Oklahoma City would probably be the best place to look."
Claire handed him some rough sketches. "These are the areas of your property where we'll want them to start drilling," she said.
"Sounds good," said Danny. "So, are you guys going to be around?"
"I'm not sure," said John. "We'll be in touch. We'll get messages at the hotel." He took one of Claire's sketches and wrote down the room number. He realized gratefully that Danny had never asked what their last name was, and he didn't now. They had to establish some legal identification to form the corporation, and it wouldn't be under the name of Cameron.
Danny said good-bye after he finished breakfast and hurried off to call his folks and go to the bank.
"So, where do we start?" Claire asked when he had left.
"At the newspaper office, I suppose. But we shouldn't both do it at the same time in the same place. It could be suspicious at County Records, or if someone started checking for some reason."
"So, one of us needs to have been born in a different town?"
"I'd say so."
"Well, why don't you go first, here. If we can get it all done today, we can rent a car a drive to Oklahoma City. I'll do it there."
"How far is that?"
"A couple of hundred miles, I think. I saw it on the map yesterday."
"Are Hertz or Avis around yet?"
"Probably not," Claire laughed. "But I'm sure people rent cars nowadays."
"Well, if not, we can buy one. We need to go to the Silver Dollar, too, and collect on our bet from last night."
"This is so crazy. I feel like ..." she started giggling.
"What?"
"I was going to say, I feel like time has stopped. It has! I feel like the weekend should be over and we should be going to work. This is so incredible! A free vacation! We aren't even using up any sick days!"
"I know!" John laughed. "It feels so great!"
"I do miss Marie. I feel like I should call her or something."
"Mmm. Wish we could."
"But it's still 11:30 Sunday morning where she is. I keep tripping on that. Time is passing here, but not there."
"We left there."
"I know. Check this out. Say someone stole one of our time watches, right? They move all over, skipping through the centuries, and finally find the 'home' switch and press it, right?"
"Yeah."
"They would get to our house the same instant we do when we go back. Regardless of when we go back."
"What a weird and horrible thought! That could be an unpleasant experience, depending on who it was."
"Okay, here's something else. When we transported back to Danny's farm from 1966. We didn't take off our clothes, right?"
"Right."
"So, they stayed behind."
"Uh ... right."
"So, if they stayed behind, lying by a mesquite tree in 1966, how come they were still in the hole in 1946?"
"Well, because they didn't stay behind. They stayed ahead. I mean, on the ground by the mesquite tree is just where those clothes finally ended up."
"But they couldn't end up there, because we dug them up again in 1946 and did something else with them. They're still in our hotel."
"Hmm. Well, they would have ended their lives on the ground by the mesquite tree in 1966, but we, uhh, changed out minds. How's that? We preempted their destiny when we dug them up again in 1946."
"Right. Sure."
"The clothes have two lives, now." He made a mad scientist face that sent Claire into stitches.
They took a cab to the Silver Dollar and had the driver wait while they collected their money, which was just under forty thousand after George did a fancy formula that Claire and John didn't understand. John put it in their briefcase.
They went from the Silver Dollar to the newspaper office. It wasn't in the same place as it would be twenty years later. They were directed to the research department, and a clerk led them to the archives where they kept old editions. The clerk left them, and they began reading obituaries, starting in 1910. They were looking for babies who had died.
Claire found one first, a baby boy who had died of small pox at three months old. She showed John, and he read it out loud: "Jesse Allen Hartman, born July 22, 1911, died September 19, 1911, beloved son of Mr. and Mrs. Clyde Hartman of Amarillo. Memorial services at the Hartman home on Sunday ..." He stopped reading. "This is no good," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, I just realized, it's too close to home. What if the Hartmans still live here, in Amarillo, and I start using this name?"
"You're right. Well, we can check the phone book and see."
"Not good enough. Maybe they have an unlisted number. Or, maybe little Jesse had a sister or somebody who got married and still lives here under another name. Or some other relative. This is a small town. I'm afraid we better go somewhere else, far away."
"I guess you're right."
"Besides, you know what? It has to have been named 'John,' because Danny already knows me as John. He'll think it's pretty strange if I set up the corporation under a different name."
"Oh, God, that means I have to find a 'Claire!'"
"I guess this is going to be harder than I thought. We should have thought this through more. We have to get to a big city, I'm afraid."
"They must have some out of town newspapers going back to 1910 somewhere in Amarillo," Claire said. "The public library."
"Even so, we would have to wait too long for the birth certificates to come in the mail and get our social security cards. I don't really want to sit around here and wait for that."
"We don't have to wait here. I mean now. We could transport while we wait. Maybe zip backwards and check out the real cowboy frontier." Claire suddenly started laughing.
"What?"
"Oh, I'm just laughing because we're getting frustrated at the limitations we still have. It's like when I'm transferring a big file on my computer. Millions of bits of data are being copied in seconds, and still I'm impatient, wishing it wouldn't take so long."
John smiled.
"You know what, I saw an ad in the newspaper that said you could charter a plane, 'anywhere, any time.' Let's just pick a big city and go."
John nodded. "Why not?"
They taxied back to the hotel. Claire took out their atlas.
"Denver is big, but not far enough away," said John.
"How about St. Louis? We wanted to go there anyway. Where they made Mr. Walker's stove."
"How big is that?"
"Over a million," said Claire.
"Sounds good."
Claire found the flying ad in the paper and called the phone number. They could charter a private plane for St. Louis for a hundred and fifty dollars, and leave within three hours. She made the reservation, and they packed a few things. John prepaid their room for two weeks, and called Barton's house, leaving a message for Danny with Virginia that they would be out of town for a few days, and that he should make the appointment with the attorney for late the following week. They had just over two hundred and twenty thousand dollars in currency. They left two hundred thousand in the hotel safe, and took the rest with them in the briefcase.
They
caught a cab for the airport, and by two o'clock they were in a blue and
yellow, eight-passenger Beech 18 climbing out of Amarillo with a pilot
with bright red hair named Gus Lineweaver.
St. Louis
Chapter
14
Gus Lineweaver had joined the Army Air Corps in 1942. He had flown a Republic P-47D Thunderbolt during the war, which was, he told Claire and John, the largest single engine fighter plane in World War II, and the sweetest besides. He had named it Anna Sweet Thing after the girl he had hoped would wait for him back in Amarillo, but instead of waiting, she had married a veterinarian and moved to Tulsa. He had named his little Beech 18 Anna Sweet Thing II in hopes that she would come to her senses and change her mind one day and come back. He had bought a big banner with flaps that he could let out of the tail of the plane. The banner read: "I love you Anna PLEASE COME HOME," and sometimes he would fly his Beech from Amarillo and fly the banner in the skies over Tulsa all day.
He had been offered commercial airline jobs since the war ended, but had turned them down and started a charter service because he wanted to stay independent and wait right there in Amarillo for Anna to realize that the veterinarian had been a mistake.
They landed in St. Louis at nine o'clock that evening. Claire and John said good-bye to Gus as he was tying down the Beech in a private plane section of the airport. They carried their luggage to the terminal and got a Yellow cab and checked into the Missouri Grand Hotel, right on the Mississippi. They used the name of Lodge. Claire asked the concierge to send up a few bouquets of flowers.
Their suite, like the carpet of their roomette on the train, had a worn, red, velvety, floral, Georgian feel, and smelled like smoke. There were Cézanne prints on the walls, and bay windows that faced the river, and a verandah. When the flowers came, Claire rearranged them and put them out. John turned the radio on low volume. Peggy Lee was singing, "I Don't Know Enough About You." They sat on the verandah in the warm, late evening, swatting a few mosquitoes and watching the lights of occasional tugboats and steamers on the river below. Room service brought fresh fruit and cheese.
"I have to get a camera," said Claire, breaking a long silence.
"They're awfully primitive, aren't they? Big black boxes, no automatic flash or light meters and all that?"
"Actually, no, they have some pretty snazzy stuff by now, if I remember correctly from a class I took once on the history of photography. I just have to start taking pictures of some of this. In fact, I'd like to do our fantasy here of taking pictures of old farm equipment rusting in fields. Plus old abandoned houses and fallen down barns and sheds, like Danny's. Old gates and doors. Fences. This is just so rich."
"That sounds like fun," John smiled. "But how will we get them back?"
"What do you mean?"
"How will we get the pictures back home? Through time?"
"I'll just bury them. Somewhere."
"They'll last?"
"Oh, sure, if light and moisture can't get to them. I'm not sure about the negatives, but I've seen lots of original photos older than 1946."
"Then we can publish the book we've always talked about. Only it will be really good because it will be authentic period stuff."
"The 1940s: A Retrospective. How's that for a title?"
"Great!"
"Maybe I'll start keeping a journal, so there will be a narrative with it."
"Sounds like a best seller to me. Hey. We could even drive back to Amarillo from here and do that."
"Really!" She squealed and came over and climbed on top of him. "Let's do it!"
He
kissed her. Then he yawned, and it made Claire yawn too. John turned the
radio off, and they undressed and crawled in between silk sheets in the
brass-railed bed and made love and fell asleep to the night sounds of
the river.
The next morning, they had elegantly served poached eggs, toast, and figs in a terrace restaurant in the hotel overlooking the river, read the morning Post-Dispatch, and then got a cab to the newspaper's office. They went through old obituaries for most of the morning before they found John's new identity.
Jonathan Luce Banister had died of diphtheria in St. Louis in 1914 at two months old. He had been born on April 17, and had died on June 28, which was the same day, according to the paper's front page, that the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian Nationalist.
They searched for another hour to see if they could find a 'Claire,' but they couldn't. "I can wait," Claire said cynically. "I don't think women are expected to have much identification anyway nowadays."
"But what if we get separated?"
"We won't," she said, clinging to his arm as they left the newspaper office.
"How do you know?"
"Are you mad at me?"
"No I'm not mad at you!"
"Yes you are. I can tell."
"I just thought," John said, trying to quiet his voice, "that we should hurry up and get you some i.d., just in case."
"We can look in Oklahoma City if we drive back to Amarillo."
They couldn't find a cab outside, so they took a city bus to the County Courthouse and found the records office. John told the clerk that all of his identification had been lost in a fire, and he needed a duplicate of his birth certificate. He gave Jonathan Luce Banister's name and birth date. The clerk asked them to have a seat, and they sat down nervously to wait.
"The police will appear any minute," Claire whispered, "demanding to know why you are impersonating that baby."
"I know," John said. "They'll find the hotel keys and search our room and want to know where all of that money came from."
"They'll take our time watches and lock us in jail."
"We'll have to call Danny to come and bail us out. Is my time watch still in your purse, by the way?"
Claire felt in her purse. "Yep."
"Mr. Banister," the clerk called to them. They came back to the window. "Here you are." She handed him the certificate. "That will be twenty-five cents. Take this bill and pay the cashier at window number three."
"Thank-you very much," John said.
Claire took the photocopy of the birth certificate from John and looked at it. "Kind of creepy, huh? Look. He was born at three in the morning." She gave a little shudder and handed it back to him, and he folded it and put it in his wallet.
After they paid the twenty-five cents, they left the Courthouse and walked to the Office of Social Security in the Federal Building nearby. Along the way they passed an exclusive looking clothing store with beautiful window displays. It was called Rodgers and Downs, Ltd., and they decided they might return later to buy some nice things.
At Social Security, they had to take a number and wait for a representative. When John's number was called, he presented his birth certificate and told the officer that he had never applied for a social security card because his parents were Republicans and hated Franklin Roosevelt and didn't believe in social security. Now they were dead, and he had decided he wanted to join up. The officer admonished his parents, gave him a lecture on his civic responsibilities, and gave him a form to fill out. John sat down and filled it out, giving his address as the Hotel Charlotte in Amarillo. He brought the form back to the man, who told him that the card would be mailed out, probably within ten days. John asked if he could get the number before that. The clerk gave him a phone number to call, and said they would probably be able to give it to him by early the next week.
Their next stop was the Missouri Department of Motor Vehicles. John filled out the application form for a driver's license and presented his birth certificate. The clerk told him what they already suspected, that he would need a car to take the driving test, and while John took the written test, Claire went outside to see if she could find one.
Under a cement canopy, a few people sat lined up in cars to take the driving test. An elderly woman in a white 1930s Desoto captured Claire's attention. She reminded Claire of many of the ageless grandmothers who smiled out from so many photographs that Claire had seen when she was studying portrait photography. Claire approached her. "Good afternoon!" she smiled at the woman through the half-rolled-down window.
"Hello, Dear," the woman said, rolling the window down further. "Certainly is a warm day."
"It sure is. Are you taking the driving test today?"
"Why, yes, I am," the woman said. "You know, I forgot to renew my license, and a policeman stopped me and told me I had to come and take this foolish test again. Can you believe that?"
"Oh, that's terrible," Claire said. "You know something, I have a problem, and I wonder if you could help me. My husband needs to take the driving test, too. He's inside taking the written test now."
"Oh, I had to take that, too. I failed it the first time, but they let me take it again. My husband died last year, you know."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, our problem is, we don't have a car. If you would be kind enough to loan us yours so he could take the test, we'll give you a hundred dollars. It means a lot to us."
"A hundred dollars! Oh, my! How peculiar. Well, is your husband a good driver? I mean, he wouldn't wreck my car, would he?"
"He's a wonderful driver, Mrs. ..."
"Oh, Mrs. Wheaton. Helena Wheaton."
"How do you do, Mrs. Wheaton. My name is Claire. Claire Banister."
"Oh, well, how do you do, Claire. You're very nice. Did your husband forget to renew his license, too?"
"Yes, he did. And someone stole our car, so we don't have one."
"Oh, my, that's dreadful! I tell you, the crime in this city is getting to be just I don't know what!"
"Isn't it the truth," said Claire.
"Well, I could certainly use a hundred dollars, you know. I suppose if your husband is careful ... I take very good care of this car. It's my old Bessie. My husband bought it used during the Depression. Do you think the Depression is coming back?"
"No, it's not, Mrs. Wheaton."
John came out and joined Claire at Mrs. Wheaton's window. He had just barely passed the written test because many of the laws were different. Claire introduced him, and said that Mrs. Wheaton had been kind enough to agree to let John use her car to take the test.
"That's very nice of you, Mrs. Wheaton," said John. "We are very appreciative."
"Did you have trouble with that foolish test, too?" Mrs. Wheaton asked him.
"I did," said John. "The laws are ... so complicated."
"Oh, say, aren't they? I had to take it two times. And that book they give you to study doesn't make a bit of sense a'tall. Do you folks have any children?"
"I have three daughters," said John. "They're all grown up."
"I have a fourteen-year-old daughter," Claire said.
"Oh, that's wonderful."
"Her name is Marie," smiled Claire. "I wish I had a picture with me."
"Oh, I do too. I had a son, you know, but he passed on."
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Claire said sadly.
Mrs. Wheaton moved her car forward. They were second in line now. "It was years ago," the woman said. "I would ask you to sit in the car, but it's probably cooler out there."
"That's very kind of you," said Claire.
"It's very generous of you to let us use your car," John said.
An examiner approached them, and Claire and John waited on a bench under the canopy while Mrs. Wheaton took her driving test. She returned in a few minutes, a bit shaken and upset, but she had passed the test. John helped her out of the car, and then she and Claire waited on the bench while John took his test. It felt strange to John, shifting gears on the steering post, and the car had no turn signals, and it felt awkward signaling with his arm.
While he was gone, Claire gave Mrs. Wheaton five twenty dollar bills. "Well, I declare," said Mrs. Wheaton. "I feel strange taking this money, but you know, it's like an answer to a prayer. I have a sister in California who is very ill, and I wanted to go out there on the train and visit her, but I didn't know how on earth I was going to afford it. My poor husband didn't leave me very much at all to get by on, you know, and times are so hard. I said a prayer just this morning, that if somehow God could provide that I could go and see my dear sister, I would be so grateful. And then, here you came. I declare, it's a miracle."
"Well, Mrs. Wheaton," Claire said, patting her on the knee. "I must say that it's an honor to be an answer to your prayer. We are grateful that you would let John use your car. I hope your sister will be all right."
When John returned with the examiner, he parked next to the canopy, and Claire and Mrs. Wheaton walked over to join him as he got out. He had passed the test, and the examiner gave him his temporary license. The permanent one would be mailed to Amarillo.
"Do you folks live nearby?" Mrs. Wheaton asked.
"Well," said Claire, "actually, we're going to the Grand Hotel, downtown. There's a car rental place near there."
"Oh, well, get in and let me drive you. It's on my way, and the busses are such a nuisance."
"Oh, we'll just call a cab," said John.
"I wouldn't hear of it," Mrs. Wheaton said, getting into the car. "Now, you two just let me take you. I insist." She reached across the seat to open the passenger door.
"Well, that's very kind of you," John said, glancing at Claire. Claire smiled, and they walked around the car and climbed in the big front seat of the Desoto.
Mrs. Wheaton pulled out on to the street, humming. John felt a little nervous, but the woman was in fact a very good driver.
"This is very nice of you," said Claire, rolling her window down to get some breeze.
"It's too warm a day to have to walk," said Mrs. Wheaton.
The words struck John as strange for some reason, and he glanced at Claire.
"Honey," said Claire, "Mrs. Wheaton is going to California on the train to visit her sister. Where exactly in California does your sister live, Mrs. Wheaton?"
John suddenly noticed that it had become overcast outside. He had recollections of how swiftly afternoon summer thunderstorms could develop in the Midwest, but he couldn't believe that the clouds could have come up so quickly.
"Los Angeles," Mrs. Wheaton said. "It's a hellhole there. All pent up in this little one bedroom bungalow."
John turned to look at the woman, suddenly alarmed and not sure why. Something in her energy had shifted. And the car was accelerating. She was going too fast.
Mrs. Wheaton turned and looked at John. "My son's name was John, too," she said. "He died when he was only two months old, of diphtheria." She smiled. John hadn't noticed how bad her teeth were. He was close enough to feel her breath on his face when she spoke, and it was cold. He stared at her eyes. They were familiar eyes. They turned back to the road, and Mrs. Wheaton smiled.
It wasn't an old woman. It was the staring man!
The car was going dangerously fast now, and it was rapidly getting darker outside. John looked at Claire, terror filling him, and he saw his terror reflected in her eyes.
John turned back to Mrs. Wheaton. "Stop!" he shouted. He reached over with his foot to try to get the woman's or man's or whatever it was's foot off the accelerator, but it was frozen there. John found the brake pedal with his foot and pushed it, and it went all the way to the floor without resistance. The car continued to accelerate. He grabbed at the steering wheel, trying to force the hands away that gripped it, but the body of the person next to him was like granite, cold and immovable. Suddenly, it was as if they had driven into a tunnel. They plunged into total darkness. The car kept going faster and faster, like the unrelenting acceleration of an airplane taking off down a runway.
Claire felt her consciousness spinning through the darkness, felt her cells begin to shift. She struggled with the door handle, but it wouldn't budge. In panic, she groped around in her purse and found the time watch. She fumbled in the darkness with the dials, spinning them wildly, her fingers trembling. She clutched John's arm, felt for the lever on the side of the watch, and pressed.
Claire and John sat naked in sweltering heat on a parched, deserted knoll. They could see the Mississippi River meandering a quarter of a mile away. There was a grove of cottonwood trees alongside it just below them. There was no sign of life anywhere, except for a lizard, perched on a rock studying them.
"My God," John whispered. He gripped Claire's hand. It was trembling.
"I guess so!" Claire shuddered.
"Nice move!" he said.
"I've never been so scared," she said. "I knew she looked familiar when I first saw her."
"This is really a drag. Where are we? When are we?"
"I have no idea. It was pitch black. I couldn't see the watch. I just hit buttons."
"Does it say where we are? Won't it still read where you set it?"
She raised the watch, clutched in her hand, to read the dial. Her hand was still shaking. "Jesus Christ," she whispered. "1317."
John looked at the watch in disbelief, and then scanned the empty horizon. "1317." He whistled.
Claire got to her feet. The lizard darted from the rock.
"Europeans aren't even here yet," John mumbled. "Columbus hasn't even sailed yet."
"Hasn't been born yet," Claire added. "This is really awesome."
John stood up. He slapped a bug on his shoulder. "I'll bet she was doing eighty miles an hour. I thought that if we transported from something that was moving, we'd carry the velocity with us. Guess I was wrong."
"Well, you're the scientist, but speed is connected to time, right? Wasn't that Einstein's or somebody's deal? Whatever speed was there wouldn't be here. Or something."
"Or something, yeah. Whatever it is, thank God!" John laughed nervously.
"So, where from here?"
"Wait here. I'll see if I can find a taxi."
"Be serious!"
"Well, maybe we could amaze some Sioux. I think they live in this neck of the woods."
"Oh, wow," said Claire. She scanned the horizon again more carefully.
"The guy. Our 'friend.' He apparently knows everything we're doing. Like he's watching us all the time or something."
"And it's almost like he's ... playing with us."
"Yeah, but for keeps! Plus, I guess he can assume any shape he wants. This is not good."
"What the hell does he want?" Claire asked angrily.
"He wants us out of wherever we are. Wants us ... out of time."
"That's the place he is trying to take us. The place where there is no time. I've got to get out of this heat. Should we just go back?"
"Of course. I mean, all of our stuff's at the hotel. All our money. It's interesting here, but it's going to be hard getting clothes, finding a cab and a hotel, I think."
"But if we go back right here, where we landed, we're going to end up sitting in the middle of some street naked in St. Louis. You know, I love seeing you naked, but this thing with the clothes is really a pain in the ass."
"Wouldn't our clothes be there? Lying on the street in this same spot?"
"No, they probably stayed in the car."
"Oh, of course. Which went where? I'm not even sure it was a real car. Just an extension of him or something. The brake didn't work.
"Neither did my door handle."
"It was fine when I was taking the driver's test, but ... oh, shit, I just realized, I have to go through all that again unless I can find my wallet when we get back."
"Well, they'll mail the social security card and drivers license to Amarillo. When you get those, you won't really need the birth certificate again."
"True, but we won't be able to rent a car to drive back like you wanted."
"We can take a cab."
John smiled.
"Maybe someone will find your wallet and turn it into the police or something. People were more honest about things like that in the 40s. But, like I said, the first thing I have to do is get out of this heat. How about let's get down to the river to those trees. We can hang out until the middle of the night, two or three in the morning, and then transport back. When we transport, we end up at around the same time of day as when we left. The hotel is on the river. It can't be far. Remember those boats docked in front of the hotel? We should be able to find something to at least wrap around us and then get up to the room somehow."
"I guess that sounds better than going back right now and walking around downtown naked in broad daylight."
She began gingerly making her way toward the river, and John followed. The dry brown grass pricked their feet, and the closer to the river they got, the worse the bugs became. They entered the grove of trees, and the grass became green and soft. Swarms of the biggest mosquitoes they had ever seen descended upon them, and they broke into a run toward the river to get away from them, swatting themselves. A multitude of startled birds arose around them.
As they reached the water's edge, with Claire still in the lead, they heard an enormous rustling at the river bank, followed by a rapid series of slapping sounds. Claire had reached the shore. She screamed, running too fast to stop, and plunged into the water amidst scores of beavers, some as big as large dogs. The animals scattered, swimming away from her in all directions. Once in the water, she immediately sank in mud up to her thighs. She was clutching the time watch in her hand, and she held it high in the air and screamed again. "The watch!"
John was right behind her. The mud had brought her to an abrupt halt, but her momentum was carrying her forward, and she was trying not to fall over head first in the river. John had instinctively drawn back at the flurry of beavers. He ran into the water behind her, saw her falling forward, and grabbed her torso, himself sinking to his knees in mud. He pulled her backwards, sitting down, water up to his chest, and she sat down on top of him. "It's okay," he said. "You've got it." He covered the hand that held the watch with his own.
"What were those?" She cried.
"Beaver," said John. "Hundreds of them. We scared them."
"We scared them? Jesus!"
"See? There's their house right over there." He pointed to an immense beaver lodge near the river bank. He cradled her, slapping mosquitoes on her neck and shoulders as they sank back further into the warm mud. She was scratching herself frantically with her free hand, holding the watch awkwardly up in the air with the other.
"What, you don't think it's waterproof?" John asked.
"That's not funny!" she said angrily. "I have no idea. Why didn't you ask the Genie?"
The mosquitoes, which seemed as big as horse flies, massed around them, and John was slapping his head and shoulders as well as Claire's. They both rolled to their sides and submerged their bodies, working their feet out of the mud, Claire keeping the watch above water. They treaded their way further out into the river. John scooped mud from the river bottom and began rubbing it on their bodies, especially their heads and shoulders, to soothe the bites and help protect them from further assault.
"Oh, shit," said Claire. "Look!"
John glanced toward the river bank. An enormous, brown grizzly bear and two cubs stood at the edge of the water watching them.
"Bears swim, right?" asked Claire.
"Yep," said John.
"Maybe if we swim way out they will leave us alone."
They both looked across the water. The opposite bank looked like it was a half a mile away.
"Can you swim and still keep the watch dry?" John asked. "That current looks pretty strong." He could feel the strength of it even though they were still in fairly shallow water.
"I don't know," she said. "What a mess!"
They both noticed the snakes at the same time. At first they looked like a school of fish. They both screamed at once. One brushed against Claire's arm. "Oh, my God," she cried. "Are they poisonous?"
"I have no idea. Let's get the hell out of here."
"I'm with you," she said, fumbling frantically with the watch. "August 27th, right?"
"Right."
She spun the dials, grabbed John's arm, and pressed the red lever.