The Third Circle
Chapter 19
Part IV
Walker Creek
For someone from 1995 with a passion for taking photographs of old farm equipment rusting in fields, the road from Oklahoma City to Amarillo in 1946 was a gold mine. Claire and John traveled at a snail's pace. The first two hundred miles to Springfield took two days. John was pulling over every fifteen minutes, and Claire was in and out of the car setting up her tripod. She photographed old horse-drawn rakes, reapers, hoes, plows, harrowers, balers, threshers, mowers, combines, and buggies. She photographed drills, windmills, tractors, trucks, sheds, barns, fences, bridges, and gates, some from a dozen different angles.
"The people of the 1940s," Claire wrote on the creamy white sheets of the journal she had bought, "like the people of today, wore historical blinders. They lacked appreciation for the castaway things that we would, in retrospect, marvel at and prize." Enlarging on the idea, she wrote, "They also, perhaps like people of every era, lacked the consciousness that they were creating the future in their present, that in each act, in each person they touched, in each conversation, they were forging the world we have inherited from them. The web of cultural life in which we live today has been woven not only by what they said and did, but by what they chose not to say and do, and by what they chose to cast aside. In this, nothing has been wasted, except, for them, the opportunity to know that they were not alone."
John was not bored. As rich as the material was for Claire, just as rich for him were the conversations he had with the natives, people whose permission they felt obliged to ask before entering fields, driving down private lanes, and opening gates. Most of the people, of course, were confounded that anyone would want to bother taking a picture of whatever rusty, obsolete, or weathered object had captured Claire's fancy. Claire, too, engaged the people they met in conversation, asking them what they thought about their lives and about the world. A farmer named Bert Langford got down from his new gray tractor and chatted with them for nearly an hour. He had been pulling a road grader over his lane. He had a gray stubble beard, wore blue denims and steel-rimmed glasses, and had painted a sign on his barn that read "May God Bless our Soldier Boys and Railroad Men." His wife Hazel joined them and invited them into the house for iced tea and fresh lemon pie.
"Many of the farm houses," Claire would write in her journal, "were better kept than most city houses, fresh painted, surrounded by white barns and sparkling new grain elevators. White chickens pecked on clipped, green lawns."
Although the Oldsmobile had a very adequate air conditioner, they stopped so often that the heat became a problem. More than once they expressed regret to one another at not having initiated the project in the Spring or Fall. On the other hand, the parched aridity of the late August landscape gave a tone of mournfulness that Claire thought fitting to the pictures in her mind's eye.
In the mid-afternoon heat of the first day, they left the main road at the little town of Lebanon and detoured twenty-five miles north on State Highway 5 to the Lake of the Ozarks. They rented a cabin on the water near Camdenton and swam until dusk, and then slept to the sound of crickets and frogs. They left at dawn the next morning, and early that afternoon they stopped at a County park outside of Springfield and swam in a delightful public swimming pool in a grove of trees.
John made an effort to secure all of the local maps he could along the way. When they were not available, he sketched his own. As Claire shot photos, he busied himself with the maps, making notes describing where they were, what Claire was photographing at that spot, and what development, or lack of it, lay in the vicinity. He often had the impulse to step behind a tree and transport twenty years or so ahead for comparison, but he wouldn't have been able to assure that he would return to the same moment that he left, and that could cause complicated problems. They resolved that they would make the same trip again years later with the maps he was developing as a reference.
When he wasn't working on the maps, he delighted in watching Claire. She moved with such artistry and grace, gently stepping and bending this way and that to catch the light she wanted, the proper angle. Her body seemed to him to be transparent, and he felt he could see her spirit move within and through her. He believed that true love lies in perceiving the grace in another. And the grace he perceived in her permeated his own spirit and filled his senses. When she thought she had achieved the picture she wanted, she would turn toward him and wave, or clasp her hands, her face filled with joy and laughter, delighting him. He would wave back, and come to her, and kiss her, and help her disassemble the equipment and carry it back to the car.
They stayed in a motel in Springfield, and Claire bought more film, and the next night, Sunday, the first of September, they reached Tulsa. The countryside had become less settled, and subjects that caught Claire's interest fewer apart. As they neared Tulsa, they began to see more evidence of oil production, and John became more fastidious in his mapping. They checked into a motor court when they reached the town, found a city park, and swam in the Arkansas River. It was a short swim because of all the mosquitoes.
They thought about Annie, who had left Gus Lineweaver to marry a Tulsa veterinarian, and about Gus flying over with his "I Love You Annie" banner. They brought cheeseburgers to the cabin and borrowed a radio from the office and listened to Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, and the great Sunday night radio lineup again. Claire became overwhelmingly lonesome for Marie.
The next day was Labor Day, and Claire was up and out at first light taking pictures of buildings in town. "In one way," she would write in her journal, "how sleepy and natural a thing were the 1940s, and how innocent. Things were laid effortless, side by side, never forced, while children ran unattended in the early morning streets, chasing after dogs."
They made Oklahoma City by noon and checked into a downtown hotel near the civic center. They got a city map at the desk, and had pastrami sandwiches for lunch at a pub style bar and restaurant next door. John asked the bartender if he knew where they could place a serious bet on a baseball game that night, and the bartender gave them the address of a tavern on the east side of town. They drove around Oklahoma City for a couple of hours, making notes on their city map, and ended up at the east side tavern, which turned out to be a dive called Arnie's.
They got there just before four o'clock, and the place was nearly filled with oil field workers celebrating Labor Day. The smell of oil and sweat wafted through the dingy tavern, along with sounds of rowdy laughter, shouted curses, honky-tonk music from the juke box, and the slamming of huge glass beer mugs and dice cups against the bar. They found two stools at the end of the bar, and John arranged the bet with one of the several bartenders, a skinny man named Reggie.
A large and burly man rudely shouldered his way to the bar next to Claire and ordered a beer. "Well, Baby," he said drunkenly to Claire, eyeing her up and down. "Nice to see some quality decorations in here for a change."
"I'm not decorations," Claire said.
John felt butterflies. Red lights went on. The guy was big, and mean looking.
"Why, sure you are, Sweetie," the man smiled, pinching her buttocks. By reflex, she elbowed him sharply in the ribs, and he winced, and then a dark scowl spread over his face.
John stepped around behind her and grabbed the man's forearm. "That's my wife, friend," he said.
The thick forearm flew from John's grip, and before John could react, the man's fist plowed into his stomach. John groaned and doubled over, the wind knocked from him. The man hit John in the face with a hard uppercut, and John went sprawling backward. Claire grabbed a beer bottle from the bar and swung it at the man with all her strength, but he grabbed her wrist, checking the swing. The beer bottle flew out of her hand over his shoulder and landed on the bar. The man held her wrist fast, and put his other arm around her waist and pulled her tightly against his body. "Want to dance?" he asked her, snickering.
John, blood streaming down his chin, flew at the man from behind and clamped his arm around the solid neck in a hammer lock. The man let go of Claire and shook John loose, hurting him with his elbows. "You little toad," the man snarled, spinning around and grabbing John's shirt collar and cocking his arm, aiming his fist at John's face.
"That's enough, Michael," a calm voice said.
The man grimaced at the voice and turned. A short, stocky man walked up to him and, with lightning speed, buried his fist in the big man's stomach. The man dropped to his knees, doubled over and gasping for air.
"I'm sorry," the short man said to John and Claire. "Michael's a real lout. No manners at all."
John, trembling with rage, fought to keep himself from attacking the wheezing man on his knees in front of him. Claire, sensing his fury, touched John's arm. "I'm okay, Sweetheart," she whispered. "You're bleeding." She took a cocktail napkin from the bar and dabbed at his chin. "It's okay. It's over."
John started to settle down, trying to focus on Claire, then turned to the short man. "Thanks," he said.
"Better get out of here, Michael," the short man said to the man on his knees, "before this guy kills you."
The man took hold of a bar stool and tried to stand.
"Apologize to the lady first."
"I ... I'm sorry, Ma'am," the man wheezed to Claire as he got to his feet.
"Apologize to the gentleman too, Michael."
The man looked darkly at John. "Sorry," he whispered.
The shorter man grabbed Michael's shoulder and flung him roughly against the bar. "No, I mean really apologize, Michael. You have offended this fine man's honor, and rudely accosted his wife. Now, apologize like a man."
The man winced. "I'm sorry, sir," he said loudly to John. Then he made his way sheepishly through the crowd that had gathered around to watch.
"You look like you could use a drink," the short man said to John. "Can I buy you one?"
"No, but I'll buy you one," John said, exploring his chin gingerly.
"Marcus Crawford is my name," the man said, extending his hand.
"John Banister." John shook the hand. "My wife, Claire."
"How do you do," said Claire. "Thanks for the assistance."
The man shook his head. "It wasn't anything. Give me a Schlitz," he said to the bartender. "Where you folks from? And what are you doing in this place?"
"On our way to Amarillo," said John. "Came in here to bet on the game tonight."
"Who do you like?" Marcus asked.
"The Browns," said John.
"Me, too," Marcus said.
"You work in the oil fields?" John asked.
"Yep. All my life. Came up here from Galveston last year. I ran an operation down there for the government during the war. Got tired of fighting with them bureaucrats and politicians. They actually wanted to bring me back to Washington. Put me behind a desk. Can you believe that? Anyway, I quit and came up here. Working for wages again."
"Want a job?" Claire asked.
John flinched and looked at her. She glanced at him with a quick nod and smiled.
"Doing what? Bodyguard?" Marcus smiled.
"Running an oil operation," she smiled back. "Over on the panhandle."
"The high plains," said Marcus. "That's desolate country. They say a man can find God there because there isn't anything else!" He laughed a hearty laugh.
"It's new development," said John.
"However much you make here," Claire said, "we'll double it. You're in charge of operations. We've got a manager, nice young cowboy, but he doesn't know anything about the business. We need a pro."
"Hm," said Marcus.
"Why don't you let us take you to dinner and we'll talk about it," John said.
"Well, that's an offer I won't turn down," Marcus smiled.
Claire and John went back to their hotel to shower and change clothes. Claire bought some Bactine and Band-Aids in the hotel gift shop, and tended to the bruise on John's chin.
They met Marcus in a downtown restaurant that he had recommended, and had a prime rib dinner even better than the one they had had in St. Louis. Marcus agreed to come to Amarillo the following weekend, all expenses paid, to meet Danny and look at the project. They went into the bar after dinner to listen to the end of the baseball game on the radio. They didn't tell Marcus how much they had won.
In the morning, Claire and John drove back out to Arnie's to collect seventy-five hundred dollars against four thousand they had bet on the baseball game, and then went to the library and began looking through old newspapers.
"Bingo," said Claire, after the first hour of thumbing through obituary columns. "Close enough." She handed the paper to John.
Clara Ingram Jennings, according to the report, had been "suffocated by the family cat" in her crib in December of 1915. She was barely a month old.
"How awful," John said, reading the short piece. "Right before Christmas."
"I know. And it says they put the cat to sleep besides. Well, at least Clara didn't live in vain." She turned to him. "'How do you do, John Banister. I'm Clara Jennings. My friends call me Claire, though. Want to get married again now?'"
John laughed. "Well, we can sure make it legal, at least."
"Relatively legal," Claire smiled.
They left the Olds in the parking lot and walked five blocks to the County Courthouse, passing the State Capitol building on the way. "Look at that," said John, pointing to oil rigs pumping on the lawn. "We're getting sort of a late start. We should be here a few years ago."
"Don't be greedy," said Claire, hugging his arm and giggling. "There's plenty of everything to go around."
He smiled and kissed her.
Birth certificate replacements were ten cents more in Oklahoma City than they had been in St. Louis. They took the copy of little Clara's to the nearby Federal building, which housed the Office of Social Security. Claire told the clerk, clutching John's arm and smiling bashfully, that she had just found out that women were expected to have social security cards as well as men. John poked her gently in the ribs, and she giggled. The clerk politely gave her the application form. She filled it out and asked that the card be mailed to her in care of General Delivery at Grand Central Station in New York City. They expected that they wouldn't be staying in Amarillo long enough to receive it there.
Then they walked back to the parking lot and got the Olds and drove to the Oklahoma Department of Motor Vehicles. There were no lines, and Claire had her temporary driver's license in less than an hour. She asked that the permanent one be sent to New York as well.
"Well, that was easy," said John after the examiner had given her the license.
"Let me drive," said Claire. "I'm street legal."
They were on the road before noon, and drove straight through to Amarillo, stopping for only a few photos. Claire finished the film in both cameras on the outskirts of town, and posted all of her film from the trip for processing with the desk clerk at the Charlotte Hotel when they got there. They checked for mail. Jonathan Banister's social security card had come, as well as the photographs Claire had taken with the Kine in St. Louis. There was also a message from Danny. He was eager to talk to them.
They went up to their room, and Claire sat on the bed looking through the St. Louis prints while John called the number Danny had left, which turned out to be Barton Childress's house. Danny and Barton were out, and John left a message with Virginia to have Danny call. Then they fell asleep on the bed looking at the pictures.
They slept for an hour before Danny awoke them, calling from the lobby. John told him to come on up.
He was very glad to see them, and Claire felt he was probably afraid they had abandoned him. "Where you been?" Danny asked.
"We had some business come up in St. Louis," said John.
Danny had a list of foreclosed farms in the vicinity of his own, with the price of buyback for each, and he had a bid for twenty-five thousand dollars from the Morrison Petroleum Development Company in Oklahoma City that included lots of seismic tests and blasting on his own property.
"We don't need any of that preliminary stuff," said John. "We want them to start drilling right away, at the locations we showed you on the map."
"Well, I told you I don't know nothin' about this oil business," said Danny apologetically.
"It's not your fault," Claire told him. "It's probably a normal thing for them to include." She laughed. "It's just that we aren't exactly 'normal' people."
Claire told Danny about Marcus Crawford, that he would be coming on Saturday, and that they hoped he would be willing to take on all of the technical aspects of the project.
"So, what will I be doing?" Danny asked.
"Running the corporation," John said. "We're going to have a lot more than oil going on."
"So, pardon me for asking, but who are you guys, anyway?"
Claire and John had in fact had conversations about what they were going to tell Danny regarding who they were. If he thought them a bit strange now, what was he going to think as the years went by and they disappeared, leaving behind instructions for him about land and stock investments that would net millions of dollars to the corporation they were going to form on Friday? What would he think about not having any way to get in touch with them for all those years? They had at one point considered telling him the truth. They still hadn't ruled it out. Would Danny believe them? If so, could he keep the secret? And, of greater interest to them, did it really matter if he could or not, for who would believe him?
"Well, Danny," said John, "we are two very lucky people with some special talents for knowing how things are going to work out. We've worked hard all our lives, have come into a little money, and want to use it to build something. I've asked you to please trust us, and I hope you can continue to do that."
"Well, sure I can," Danny smiled.
Then Danny told them with sadness that his parents had called him just that morning, and had decided not to move back. His mother had told him that they didn't want to stand in Danny's way, but that they didn't want to come back to see their homestead turned into an oil field. They said they wanted to remember it as it was. He took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to John. "So, here's what's left of the two thousand," he said. "I decided I won't be fixing the place up. I'm sorry I already spent four hundred of it before I found out. I spent it fixing the windmill. That old system had quit pumping water, and I figured without water, there's nothing. Anyway, I'll pay the four hundred back as soon as I can earn it. You can take it out of my wages, which I guess we haven't talked about yet."
"Oh, Danny" said Claire. "I'm sorry about your folks. That must be a big disappointment for you."
"I guess, in a way, yeah. But it's okay. I can understand it. I mean, all the neighbors are gone, their friends over the years. Ma's getting up there in years, and it would still be hard for them out at the house. I don't know. Hell, it was just a dream, I guess. Life goes on, you know?"
"You keep this money," John said, handing the envelope back to him. It's your wages for what you've done so far, and good faith money for going along with us."
"Well," said Danny, "that's sure very generous."
"You're going to be paid two ways," John told him. "First will be a base salary, say twelve thousand a year to start, as CEO."
"CEO?"
"Chief Executive Officer."
"Sounds like the Army."
"It's not."
"Sounds like a lot of money, too. What all do I need to executize to get that?"
Claire laughed. "We'll give you a list. Fun stuff. You'll have lots of experts to help."
"Then," said John, "you'll also get paid in shares of stock in the corporation, over and above the salary. A percentage. You can do what you want with the stock, either sell it, or reinvest it back in the corporation."
"Sounds big time. So, why me?"
"Because," said Claire, "you showed up at the right time and the right place. And we are honored to have you to do this with us, because you are an honest, caring, bright, and trusting person."
Danny blushed. "You guys sure talk strange, you know that?"
They both laughed. "It's because we're honest people," said Claire.
John said, "Your folks gave all they had to your land and your family. You gave all you could to your country. Now it's ... " John smiled. "Now it's your day in the sun, so to speak."
After Danny left, they called Gus Lineweaver at home. They made arrangements for him to pick up Marcus Crawford in Oklahoma City on Saturday. They also had another task they wanted to do before they finished setting up the corporation and going on to New York. It was Wednesday, and they wanted to get it done before the appointment with the attorney at two o'clock on Friday afternoon. They asked Gus if he could fly them back to St. Louis the next day. He said they could leave as early as they liked. They said they would meet him at the airport at noon.
They had an early breakfast in the hotel restaurant, and while Claire paid for breakfast, John went outside the hotel and found a cab. He gave the driver fifty dollars and gave him directions to Danny's farm, and asked him to drive up there and wait for them.
Claire got the Olds out of the hotel garage and met John in front. On the way to the farm, John made notes on a map of all of foreclosed properties from the list Danny had given him.
The taxi was in the driveway when they got there. They left the Olds parked in front of the house, told the cab driver to wait for them, found the old shovel, and walked up to the mesquite tree. The empty plastic bag was where they had left it, but John had brought another just in case. They used the old one, carefully wrapping some clothes they had brought, the keys to the Olds, and their wedding rings, and buried the bundle in the hole.
Then they took the cab back to town and out to the airport, meeting Gus just before noon. They took with them only the clothes they were wearing, three thousand dollars in cash, all the maps John had made, photocopies they had made of both Jonathan Banister's and Clara Ingram Jennings's birth certificates, the new plastic bag, and the time watches.
They got to St. Louis around six o'clock in the evening. They paid Gus, and got a cab to the Missouri Grand Hotel. Their suite wasn't available, so they stayed in a regular room. Claire called room service and ordered sandwiches.
They checked out early in the morning and took a taxi to the cottonwood tree west of town where they had transported before. The cabby left them, and they buried their clothes, the maps, the birth certificates, and the money, and set the watches for a Tuesday in early May of 1976. They held hands, and John pressed the lever.
When the darkness passed, they found themselves in a light drizzle of rain. It was a bit chilly, but not nearly as cold as it had been in their trip of April, 1975. They easily dug the bag up, dressed, and, within ten minutes, caught a ride back to St. Louis with a trucker named Harry. He was hauling a load of airplane parts from Dallas to Pittsburgh. He asked how they came to be out in the middle of nowhere in the rain.
"Well," said John, "we got a lift out of Springfield, but the guy started drinking pretty heavy and weaving around, so we got out."
"Oh, yeah, you do see a lot of that," smiled Harry.
Harry had been driving the country for thirty years, and told non-stop little stories about places he had been, except that he had been so many different places, and been through the same places so many different times, that he had a terrible time remembering the names of any of them. So, at the beginning of each little story, he would struggle mightily to recall the name of the place where such and such happened. He would point, slap his head, point again, grab John and shake him as though he expected him to remember, slap his forehead and point some more, and finally remember. He had them in stitches by the time they got to St. Louis.
He dropped them just before the bridge over to Illinois. They found a cab and went to a used car lot and bought a 1957 Chevrolet for four hundred and ninety-five dollars. They drove to the costume shop John had found the last time they were here in 1975. He bought some powder, spirit gum, and another gray mustache. He and Claire powdered their hair in the car, and John glued the mustache on, and they drove the Chevy to the Department of Motor Vehicles. They both looked a fairly respectable sixty years old. They registered the Chevy, and John took the driver's test for the third time and passed. Claire passed two points higher, which, she said, entitled her to drive.
They had planned to rent a car, but they had fallen in love with the Chevy, so while they had lunch and bought some clothes and inexpensive luggage, they had a mechanic named Roscoe at a Chevrolet garage check it out. He replaced the fuel pump, installed a new muffler, and pronounced the car safe and sound. By three o'clock, they were out on Highway 44, again heading back to Amarillo.
They made the trip in two days this time. They bought local maps along the way, and John made voluminous notes in a journal comparing the 1946 maps with the ones from twenty years later.
Claire became melancholy. She was saddened that so many of the places she had photographed a few days earlier were gone. "In the years to come," she would later write in her journal, thinking it a good introductory piece for her book, "these noble things would be rudely snatched away, supplanted with things that appeared, by comparison, superficial, hasty, convenient. In place of the old rusting castaways of the 1940s would be newer versions, less stately, less noble, and more complex, but they would end up just as rusty and just as abandoned."
They arrived in Amarillo late on Wednesday evening and checked into the same Holiday Inn where they had stayed in 1966. They were up most of the night finishing the job of committing to memory the notes in the journal. Claire shared with John the nuances of her mnemonic techniques for memorizing things.
They were up again at dawn. They got the Chevy and drove down to the railroad tracks. There was a hobo jungle near the depot, and they pulled over and parked. Claire was driving, and she waited in the car while John got out and walked down toward the tracks.
A middle aged man and woman with a small child sat in the midst of tractor tires that had been leaned together against wooden crates. A tattered piece of canvas was draped over the tires to form a makeshift house. John walked to the space they had made for a door.
"Morning," he said.
"We ain't doin' no harm here," the man said.
"That's true enough," John said. "Say, you see that Chevy parked over there?"
The man leaned toward the opening and looked out. "Yeah," he said.
"Well, that's my wife inside. She and I don't need that Chevy any more. If you'll ride with us up the road a piece, you can have it."
"Say what?" he asked.
"Well, if you don't want that nice old Chevy, we'll just leave it along the road up where we're going. The police can have it, I suppose."
"The police? Nah. What's wrong with it?"
"Nothing. We just don't need it any more. That's all. Got a little cash we don't need either. Come on. My wife's in the car waiting. Bring your family if you like."
"Oh, Charley," his wife spoke. "I don't think so."
"How much money?" asked the man.
"I don't know," said John. "A few hundred."
The man stood up. John stuck his hand out. "Name's John," he said.
"Charley Michaels," said the man, shaking John's hand. "Come on, Maggie. Or you gonna stay here all day?"
"I'm staying here," she said. "Don't you go off getting yourself kilt now like ol' Bob Kern did over in Phoenix."
"Come on, Ma'am," said John. "Come meet my wife, Claire. Bring the little girl. It's safe. I promise."
"It's a boy!" said Maggie.
John looked closer at the bundled child. "I'm sorry, Ma'am," he said. "What's his name?"
"Andrew," she said, pulling the child closer to her breast.
"Well, bring Andrew there and come along. We'll stop for breakfast along the way. Going up near Miami, up the panhandle there. You know where that is? My wife and I need to get up there, and then you can have that nice old Chevy there. Runs real good. Just drove it in from St. Louis. We don't need it any more."
"Why not?" Maggie asked.
"We got an Oldsmobile where we're going. That car over there's an extra one. We got lucky. You seem like nice folks. Don't want to just leave it for the police to find. They'll likely sell it for five hundred dollars or something."
"Come on, woman!" Charley said harshly. "Don't be lookin' a gift horse, now."
She reluctantly gathered up her child, poking around the little canvas house as though looking for things she needed to take with her, but nothing was there. They followed John to the car. He opened the door for them and they climbed in the back seat.
"Claire," said John, "This is Charley Michaels and Maggie, and their son, Andrew. They're going to ride with us and take the car."
"He ain't my son," said Charley.
"How do you do just the same," Claire smiled.
Charley and Maggie nodded. She clutched the child protectively. "Where are you from?" Claire asked over her shoulder as she pulled out.
"Been up around Denver," Charley said. "My brother had some work up there, but it fell through."
"Times is hard," Maggie said meekly.
"What sort of work do you do?" John asked Charley.
"Oh, I done carpentry mostly. Fell off a ladder and hurt my back coming up on two years ago. Can't hardly stand to work."
Maggie started sobbing quietly.
Claire pulled over at a diner and parked, and reached back and patted Maggie on the knee. "Let's get some breakfast," she said.
They all went in the diner and, through an awkward silence, had sausage and eggs and pancakes and coffee. Andrew, who looked pale and confused, ate half an egg and a bite of hotcake and drank some milk and fell asleep. John paid the bill, and the awkward silence continued as they drove to where Danny's house had once stood. The last few miles, Claire and John became preoccupied with the positions of the properties they had marked that had been foreclosed, and looking for signs of petroleum activity.
"He's dead, now." Maggie spoke the words softly from the back seat.
John looked back at her in alarm. Maggie began weeping softly, gently rocking the child in her arms.
"What?" said Claire.
"He's dead."
Claire pulled over. She got out and opened the back car door on Maggie's side and touched little Andrew's face with her hand.
"Ooooh," Maggie moaned, stroking the child's hair, "he's dead now."
Charley touched the little boy's arm. "He's been sick," he said to Claire and John, as if by way of apology. "He warn't my son."
Claire sat on the edge of the back seat and put her arm around Maggie to comfort her as she gently rocked Andrew's body and wept. John and Charley watched helplessly.
"Got to find us a nice cemetery," Maggie finally said.
"Why, Maggie, there ain't no cemetery hereabouts," Charley said.
"But we got to find one," said Maggie.
"We'll leave you with the car just up ahead," Claire said gently, "and give you some money. You can go on and find a cemetery."
"Yes,
Ma'am," Maggie said.
They had trouble finding the spot where Danny Leland's house had been. Then Claire and John realized that the mesquite tree was gone. There was a refinery nearby that had not been there in 1967, and more oil rigs had been added. They identified the general area where Danny's house had been, and parked the Chevy alongside the road.
"This is the end of the line for us," John said. He took all the cash he had in his wallet and handed it to Charley in the back seat. Charley held it in his hand and stared at it. John found the title to the car in the glove box and signed the back of it and handed it, along with the registration, to Charley. "She's all yours," he said, and got out.
"What you'all gonna do way out here?" Charley asked, concerned.
"Some folks are picking us up just over there," said Claire, pointing vaguely. "You don't worry about us. We'll be fine." She got out.
Charley opened the back door and got out and shook hands with John. "Mighty obliged," he said.
Claire opened the back door on her side. Maggie had wrapped Andrew in her tattered shawl. Claire touched the woman's shoulder. "You go on and find a nice cemetery," she said. Maggie looked at her and nodded.
"Good luck to you," John said. "You too, Maggie. We're very sad about Andrew"
They waved, and then crossed a barbed wire fence with a "No Trespassing" sign. When they looked back, Charley had climbed into the driver's seat. He was sitting there with the door open, staring at the money in his hand. Maggie was still in the back seat, holding Andrew's body. Claire and John turned and walked on, and then they heard the car start. They turned around again, and the Chevy rolled slowly out on to the highway and headed north. Claire and John waved.
It took them a few minutes to agree on the approximate location of the missing tree. They set a time watch for Thursday, September 5, 1946, the day they had left. Before they transported, Claire looked out over the landscape. There were a few people and vehicles around the refinery in the distance. "It won't look like this after tomorrow, will it?" she asked.
"What do you mean."
"This will be different after our meeting with the attorney, after we formalize the corporation. It won't come out this way, with those people down there. It will come out a different way, with different people."
"Hmm. I guess so," said John. "Different, but the same."
"It's like we're ... stealing lives."
"Well I guess you could look at it that way. We're stealing from some and giving to others. But you said in Oklahoma City that there's plenty of everything to go around."
"You're right. I did." She took his hand. "Abundance. I forgot for a moment. I'm sorry. Let's go for it." She smiled at him.
He pressed the lever on the watch.
They were naked, thirty feet from the mesquite tree. They could see the
Olds parked in front of Danny's house. They walked gingerly over the rocky
and scorching terrain to the tree. They dug up their things, dressed,
and drove the Olds back to Amarillo.
Claire ordered a typewriter and typing paper sent to their room. She set it up, and they spent the day typing the development notes they had memorized. It was the first draft of the list they would leave Danny and the attorney. It instructed him to buy, over the next several years, specific parcels of real estate in and near St. Louis, Springfield, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Amarillo. It was specific about which parcels were to be used for oil development, and which ones were sites for commercial or residential development.
They fell asleep at eight o'clock, exhausted. John dreamt that he was fruitlessly moving and shifting and repositioning small, flat squares of something on a smooth, white, sticky surface, trying to solve a puzzle whose point kept eluding him. Danny Leland was above and behind him somewhere, watching with fascination. Suddenly, John became aware that the surface upon which he was working was moving. It was flesh. A naked back. He pulled his hands away in disgust. The body to whom the back belonged rolled over. At first, John's fear in the dream was that it would be the body of little Andrew. But it wasn't. It was the staring man. The eyes were hollow orbs of darkness.
John awoke in terror. He leaned up on his elbow, looking at the room bathed in pale moonlight, feeling the strong presence of the staring man. He imagined he saw the form of the man sitting in a chair across the room in the shadows. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, and stared into the shadows in the corner of the room, his heart pounding.
"Are you there?" He whispered into the silence.
"Hmmgph," said Claire, swinging an arm over and smacking him on the shoulder, resettling herself and beginning lightly to snore.
John stepped quietly out of bed on to the floor and moved toward the dark form in the shadows.
It
was only his own shirt, thrown over the back of the chair. He crept back
under the covers and lay for a long time staring at the ceiling before
he finally fell asleep again.