The Third Circle
Part
II
The Staring Man
Chapter 7
Chapter 7
For the first few miles of the taxicab trip to Los Angeles, Claire and John talked in whispers in the back seat about the encounter at Angelo's. "I can't believe how great you looked," said John. He kept kissing her face. "You are amazing!"
"You are amazing. I was sitting there trying to figure out how to get them to take us back to the hotel so we could get the time watches and get away. But when that guy kicked you the second time, I just flared up inside. I had to do something."
"I lost it when that guy started to strangle you. Did you know I was making a move?"
"I guess I sensed it. I mean, I wasn't even thinking about the gun. God, you were great with that shoe stretcher!"
John was holding the briefcase on his lap. He opened it and Claire took the leather satchel out of her purse and emptied the currency into the case. They ran their fingers over it. "A hundred and ninety thousand dollars," Claire whispered. "Just like that. Do you think we're safe? How hard will they try to follow us?"
"I don't know. I wonder what they're telling the police."
Claire smiled. "They're probably telling them how they unlawfully fix horse races for a living and got attacked by tourists in a shoe repair shop with a shoe stretcher and got their gun stolen."
They started giggling.
"I don't want to carry this gun in my purse. What should I do with it?"
"Let's just put it in here with the money for now."
She took the revolver from her purse and dropped it in the briefcase, and John snapped it shut and put it on the seat beside him. "I think we better keep one of these watches with us all the time," Claire said, "in case we need to get out of here. I sure wouldn't want to die back here."
"No one would know." John shivered.
"That's right. Well, I did leave a note for Marie."
"You did?"
"Yeah. If we get back, no time will have passed, right? We can just throw it away. But if we don't, like you said, no one would ever know. We will have just disappeared."
Farms, orchards, and open fields bordered the road to LA There were a sprinkling of small settlements, mostly farm houses, and an occasional filling station where later would sprawl a megalopolis of smoggy, congested, and malled suburban belts. Claire longed once again for her camera. They stopped at a roadside fruit stand called Queen's Ranch. On the roof was a giant, beaming, wooden farmer with a hoe. They bought the best apricots, peaches, and strawberries they had ever eaten. Claire bought some fresh flowers.
The two-lane road turned to four as they crossed the summit of the San Gabriel Mountains and descended toward a hazy, languid, and nearly smogless precursor of Los Angeles. They got to the LA Depot with two hours to spare before their train to New York. John gave the cab driver another hundred-dollar bill, even though the fare was only forty-four dollars. They checked their luggage. John had one of their time watches in his pocket, and they left the second one in the briefcase, which they carried with them.
They played penny arcade machines with soldiers and sailors and teenagers across the street from the depot, and John bought some comic books and more magazines. An hour later, they were in a sleeper suite aboard the Super Chief bound for Chicago, watching the scattered, sprawling city slowly turn to desert out the picture window.
The roomette was comfortable and well worn, with gray metal walls, a small separate bathroom, and a smaller closet. There were large brown armchair seats facing each other, and a red carpet with a faded floral design. Years of tobacco smoke permeated the compartment. Overhead was a sleeping berth, accessible by a ladder fastened to the wall.
The conductor came through for their tickets, and then a porter brought their luggage. His name was Rudy, and he explained how everything worked in the roomette. He told them where the dining car was and the hours it was open, and where the club car was. He was heavy set, jovial, very kind, and eager to make them feel comfortable. When he asked if they needed anything, Claire asked for a vase for her flowers, and John asked for a set of dominos.
"I didn't know you liked dominos," Claire said after Rudy left. She climbed on top of him and kissed him.
"When I was about four years old, I went on a long train trip with my parents."
"I remember. You told me about that. From Idaho to Chicago."
"I don't remember hardly anything about the trip, except that I had dominos, and my parents would leave a domino on the floor outside the roomette door so I could tell which one was ours."
"Oh, how sweet," she teased him. "So, are you going to leave a domino outside our door?"
"Yep," he smiled.
"I love you so much," she kissed him.
Rudy returned with the vase and dominos. John tipped him and locked the door, and Claire fixed the flowers and put them on a ledge beside one of the seats while John took out the comic books and magazines he had bought. They sat together in one of the armchairs, with their feet up on the other one, and looked through the stack.
"That one," said Claire, pulling one out and pointing to the cover. "Read that to me."
The name of the magazine was Incredible Tales of Escape, and the dramatic sketch on the cover was of a horrified woman alone on a boat in a storm. The picture was an illustration for the feature story, and was captioned "Flight from Tampico." John opened the magazine, thumbing past advertisements for such things as how to grow muscles, seed clouds, see through walls, kill rats, and raise miracle vegetables, until he came to the first story.
"'Flight from Tampico,'" he read, "by Anna Ethel Howe."
"Wow, a woman author. Great!"
"One of their 'regular contributors,' it says here."
"I'll bet it's some male writer on their staff."
"Likely so," John smiled. He read:
The lights were coming on in the Casa la Victoria, twenty miles north of Tampico Bay, on the East Coast of Mexico. Francesca, in her robe, was on the prowl, smoking it up with her Pall Malls, being unsettled by what those two young women had done. Raphael had hired them, of course, to open up these old rooms and clean and dust, rooms which Francesca now entered, one by one, turning on lights, checking closets and dressers, kneeling to peer beneath beds. Soon, one of Raphael's army -- the domestic one -- would follow, or perhaps Raphael himself, turning out the lights, spraying the Pall Mall smell away with the aerosol.
"I'm surprised that aerosol is already invented," said Claire. "We should ask Rudy for some for this smelly roomette."
John smiled and continued:
Raphael, ghostlike on Francesca's trail, as always.
Covers had been stripped from the beds. Fresh sheets, scented pillow cases, toasty blankets aired out and turned down. The two young women had done all this and much more besides.
Apparently, they were all coming, even now in the air, in busses or autos, on passenger boats or trains, descending like a web, being drawn along threads toward some center. Yes, indeed. Home again home again!
Claire kicked her shoes off and snuggled against John's shoulder. "Mmmm, nice," she purred sleepily. Maybe a woman did write this."
John read on:
And here was Carlotta's room, Carlotta the five-year-old, who, in her frightening intensity, had grown into the gaunt and shadowy person who had filled this room all those years, covered these walls with something translucent which even now Francesca tried to touch, press her hand against, feel the true texture of.
The veiled Carlotta.
Francesca walked to Carlotta's old walnut bureau and checked all the drawers. Panic rose. Here, beneath a sweater or shawl, she might discover a small box with which she could sit, there on the bed, and in which the essence of Carlotta might be found, accidentally left behind.
"Aha," said Claire. "An elephant box with a ruby ring. I'll freak if she finds a ruby ring."
John chuckled.
But no box was uncovered. Whatever Carlotta's essence was, she had taken it away with her to Cuernavaca, leaving behind in this room only the veil.
"Wow," said Claire. "'The veiled Carlotta.' Hey, this isn't bad stuff. What's the writer's name?"
John thumbed back. "Anna Ethel Howe."
"All right, Anna!"
John continued:
Clever Carlotta. The last to leave.
Francesca paused in the hall, leaned out there as though listening, heard the ticking sound of some heating vent contracting in the darkness of the house, heard the storm blow the rain against a pane somewhere, recalled where she had left her cigarette. Raphael would be furious if she burnt the place down, especially now, tonight, with everyone on their way, having to find rooms in hotels in Tampico and the bother with feeding everyone.
Claire laughed softly and snuggled closer to John. The train swayed gently, and the wheels clicked softly on the tracks beneath them as John read:
Francesca dropped her cigarette in Carlotta's toilet and lighted another one, licking her lips and wetting the end first. In Roberto's room she stood for a while in the darkness. The converted sewing room was only to have been little Roberto's room until Carlos left. Carlos's room was much larger and had its own bath. But when Carlos left, and the planned move was attempted, Roberto screamed and screamed. Nobody wanted Carlos's room, least of all Roberto. Roberto, the seven-year-old, screaming and screaming, sometimes right at her, baleful screams like a roomful of glass shattering way down inside her soul somewhere, not a crying boy at all but a screaming boy; yet, mercifully, the screaming had stopped with the room thing.
"If you decide to take up sewing again," Raphael had told her after Carlos left and the decision was made to leave Roberto where he was, "you can always do it in Carlos's room."
No, Francesca guessed wryly, she wasn't likely to want to take up sewing again. Then or now!
There was movement in the room, in the darkness: her hand, Francesca's own hand, the glow of the cigarette tip making circles, large ones, in the darkness spinning spinning, this is where it's all beginning, like a quilt unpinning, pinning...
"Francesca."
"Yes?"
Silence.
"Yes? What?"
She reached for the light switch, flooded the room: Roberto's bed, Roberto's drawers, Roberto's table, Roberto's window, open a bit, the wind trying to get at the curtain. Francesca backed out of the room, wandered, found the third floor, turning on lights.
Consuelo's room, all flounce, with the crib set up. My God, that crib! -- what had those women done? Well, the baby would come, naturally. Raphael had said as much. And also the Alejandro person, the husband. After all, there was plenty of room. Consuelo, the ten-year-old, up and with a husband, and the baby whose name was? -- not Carlos, of course -- Pablo, or some name like that. Consuelo was quite the one, all right. If anyone could, Consuelo could. And would! Smiling, Francesca checked the room. The two cleaning women came under her scrutiny now. Up inside the lampshades is where you can always tell. Dust. Not a lot, but Raphael would need to see that something was done.
Down the hall was the door. The secret door. A mortal chill ran through Francesca as she stood in front of it, grinding her cigarette out on the floor and lighting another as she stared at the brass door handle. That was the room where the vieja stayed, the old woman, hidden away all day and all night doing who knew what in there in the darkness behind that door. Francesca leaned forward to see if she might catch the sound of some rustling of skirts as the old woman moved about inside, but there was only silence.
"Francesca?"
She hurried on down the hallway, muttering a curse at the voice in her head, and came to the next room -- Carlos's room. It was the nicest in the house in some ways, she had always thought. She walked to the window in darkness, pulled the drape aside, and looked down across the verandah, shadows in the rain, the open gulf beyond. Carlos had always kept his drafting table here against this window, keeping company with the friendly old willow tree growing there up through the stones of the verandah, glistening and whipping about now in the storm, being haughty with the wind, loving it, and Francesca had an urge to run down and outside, tearing her clothes off, running boldly through the slapping rain all the way down the beach to Tampico, whipped and glistening like the willow. Rain can't destroy you, you know. There isn't ever enough of it. She would keep her red slippers on just the same.
Then the strangest thing happened. As though beckoned by this very thought, the rain stopped!
As haughty as the willow, she thought, and began laughing, laughing, laughing. For here, in Carlos's darkened room, she and the willow and the rain had suddenly become one, wills joined, in some strange irony which, for one precious instant, made Francesca's soul quiet.
And from that quiet, she had the vision of something sweet and dreadful, something on the other side of the house, exquisitely destructive, coming now toward them. She ran from the room to find a window that looked out on the opposite side of the house, on the driveway, over the high stone walls that girded the Casa la Victoria. There was such a window, in the third floor sitting room, but by the time Francesca arrived there, the feeling had vanished. Emptiness overcame her. The driveway was lifeless.
She crept downstairs. Raphael stood in his darkened study, silhouetted by moonlight. It seemed that he had been looking out at the rain, too. Terror suddenly clutched Francesca. It had suddenly become dark everywhere. Raphael not only stood in darkness. He had become darkness. Like she and the willow and the rain, he and the darkness had become one, transfixed. She suddenly knew, with perfect knowledge, that her vision of him as he was now, transfixed in darkness, would remain with her the rest of her life.
How long would that be? she wondered.
She had to get out of here.
And then the emptiness engulfed her. Yes, it was true. No young women had come here to clean. No fresh sheets or scented pillow cases. No family was coming. No baby. No children had ever lived in this house. Only she, Francesca, and the vieja, locked away, and Raphael's army, and Raphael, now become the darkness.
"Jesus!" said Claire, stirring.
"I know," said John. "This is actually not bad stuff."
"Scary shit," said Claire. "Don't read any more. I want to make love."
They climbed the little ladder to the upper berth and melted into one another to the pleasant swaying of the train, and then lay silently for awhile, gently caressing one another, staring out the window at the desert.
"So, how does this work, exactly?" Claire asked after a long silence, looking away from the window and resting her head on her elbow. "Things are going along however they're going along in August, 1946, and we show up, right?"
"Right," said John.
"Our presence here changes things. Rudy. Angelo. Those three guys. The cab driver. Old Mr. Walker. What if we have changed their lives forever?"
"I..."
"Say we had killed one of those guys. He wouldn't have been killed if we hadn't gotten the genie and come back here. Would have gone on and lived his life, maybe fathered children, done whatever. So, we take him out, and all of that changes. It never happens. History gets changed."
"Right."
"Well, we don't even have to do anything as dramatic as killing someone. Who knows? Just tipping the porter might alter the course of his life. Maybe just our presence here is changing history. We're taking up space that wasn't here before."
"Maybe there is more than one reality," said John. "Parallel realities, or something. Rudy has two lives going on at once now: one in which we show up, and one in which we don't."
"Hm. Yeah. Come to think of it, I read in some metaphysics book once that if you come to a crossroads in your life, and have two possible choices, and you make a choice, some other part of you makes the other choice and lives it out."
"There it is. An infinite number of alternate realities, all going on at once. This is only one."
"A different one than the one that happened here the first time. When we weren't here."
"Yeah. Or something like that."
"So, we are creating a whole new reality -- everyone we touch here."
"We better be careful!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, no matter what we do, we are creating something new, and I mean that's pretty heavy. Seems like a lot of power. A lot of responsibility."
"Yeah, but, in a way, it's no different than our other life. Our 'real' life. The one we left."
John reflected on this. "I guess not," he said. "But how come it feels different?"
"I don't know. Maybe because ... maybe because it feels here like we're intruding on something that already is, something that already has an integrity apart from us, or something."
They lay in silence for a while longer. Then John said, "I feel like that in our 'real' life too, sometimes. Like an intruder."
"I do, too," said Claire. They were in silence again for a few moments, and then dozed off.
When they awoke, the desert was bathed in moonlight.
"We missed dinner," said John, looking at his watch. "It's almost midnight."
"Maybe we can get a sandwich in the club car. Or Rudy will probably get us something."
"Club car sounds nice. I feel like exploring anyway," he smiled. "Let's go change some history."
"You look like a mad scientist when your hair is messed up like that," she giggled.
"I am a mad scientist." John made a grotesque face, and Claire laughed hysterically.
They got dressed, brushed their hair, and locked their roomette. Claire laughed softly as John left a domino on the floor.
Rudy was reading a magazine in a small compartment at the end of the car with his door open. He beamed at them when he saw them. His body shook when he smiled, like he was so glad to see them that he couldn't contain himself. "Stepping out?" he grinned, nodding.
"Yep," John smiled.
"Well, you folks have a good time."
"You have to stay up all night?" asked Claire.
"Oh, I'll be snoozing a bit," Rudy beamed, waving his hand at her.
"My husband left a domino by the door so we can find our way back."
John poked Claire in the ribs, embarrassed.
"Oh, is that right?" Rudy asked, perplexed. He leaned out of his small compartment and looked back. "Well, he sure did. That's a fine idea. That way you won't get lost. Like ... who were those kids? Hansel and Gretel!"
"See you later," John smiled. They walked forward through another sleeping car, through the darkened dining car, and into the club car.
Three sailors sat at a corner table playing cards, drinking, and laughing. In a booth across the aisle from them, a middle aged man wearing a gray tweed suit appeared to doze. A young couple sat in another booth, holding hands and talking in whispers, and across from them a young, blond headed cowboy sat in a lounge chair with a drink in his hand, staring out the window. Claire and John walked to the bar at the far end of the car and sat on stools. The bartender, seated behind the bar, seemed to have been dozing. He stood up abruptly when they approached and rubbed his eyes. He was tall and slender, and wore a white starched waistcoat. "Evening," he said.
"Sorry to wake you up," said Claire.
"No, Ma'am," he replied apologetically. "What can I get for you'all?"
"Anything to eat?" asked John.
"Peanuts, sandwiches, pie, that's about it, suh."
"What kind of sandwiches?"
"Roast beef, ham, that's about it."
"Roast beef," said John. "And a coke, please."
"Same," said Claire. "Any potato chips?"
"Potato chips? No, afraid not, Ma'am." He pulled two sandwiches from a refrigerator. They were on paper plates covered with waxed paper. He put two bottles of Coca Cola on the bar. "A dollar fifteen," he said.
John gave him five dollars. "Keep the change," he said.
"Mighty obliged," said the bartender, surprised and grateful. "Where you folks from?"
"Los Angeles area," said John.
"Uh huh. Goin' on in to Chicago?"
"New York," said Claire.
"Oh, on to New York. That's nice," he said.
"Where are you from?" John asked. The sandwiches were soggy, and the lettuce was wilted.
"Oh, me, I'm from Chicago myself."
"I'm John, this is Claire."
"Oh, pleased to meet you," he said.
"What's your name?" Claire asked.
"Why, Ben."
"Hi, Ben," said John. "So, did you lay over in LA?"
"Oh, no, sir, we just got in and then turned right around and now we're heading back. Then I'll get my four days off and then we'll do 'er again. Six days on, four off, that's the way she goes, yessir."
"Do you have a family," asked Claire.
"Oh, I sure do, Ma'am, yes, I got three young ones and the wife."
"What's your wife's name?"
"Why, it's Peggy, Ma'am. Peggy."
"Hey!" one of the sailors called out rudely from the end of the car. "Can we get some more drinks here? Doubles."
"Yes'suh," Ben called back. He put three plastic glasses on a tray and filled each with ice. He pulled the cellophane cover off the tops of six tiny bottles of Four Roses whiskey, unscrewed the caps, and filled the glasses. He excused himself and carried the tray over to the sailor's table. John turned, surveying the car. The cowboy still stared morosely out the window. He seemed frozen. There was nothing to be seen out there except reflections from inside the car. The young couple were still whispering and holding hands. The sleeping man had awakened and was staring at John. When John met his eyes, the man oddly held the stare, expressionless. A darkness about the man gave John a chill. He averted his gaze, and the man turned to stare out the window. John turned back on the stool to speak to Claire.
But she was gone.
John turned quickly on his stool to face the club car. Claire was nowhere to be seen. Ben was returning with a tray of empty glasses from the sailor's table, weaving skillfully back and forth with the rocking of the train. John stood up and moved to the end of the bar, walking down the narrow aisle between the bar and the car windows. There was a women's rest room. The door was closed. It was strange for Claire to have left to go to the rest room without having said anything to him. He tapped on the door. There was no answer. He tried the door. It was unlocked. He opened it and looked inside. It was empty.
He hurried through the connector to the next car. It was a coach car. It was dark. He moved through the aisle between sleeping passengers. He returned to the club car, panic rising. The man who was staring at him would have seen her leave, would have seen which way she went.
But, when he got there, the man was gone.
Ben was behind the bar again. "Didn't care for the sandwiches?" he asked apologetically. Both sandwiches were barely touched.
"My wife," said John. "Did you see her? Which way did she go?"
"No, suh, I didn't see her leave," said Ben.
"Anyone here see my wife leave?" John called out. He heard the quiver of fear in his voice, and it startled him. The sailors turned and looked at him blankly, drunken half-grins on their faces. The cowboy turned and stared at him and shook his head. The young couple looked at him in confusion.
"I said, did anyone here see my wife leave! She was sitting here just a minute ago!" He lowered his voice. "I ... I didn't see which way she went. She ... she's not..." he pointed back toward the rest room.
"I didn't see her," said the cowboy.
The couple shook their heads and stared at him for a moment, then looked away. The sailors shrugged and went back to their card game.
"That man," said John, raising his voice again, "who was sitting there." He pointed to the window where the staring man had sat. "Did anyone see where he went?"
"I didn't see no one there," said the cowboy.
The couple glanced at him and shook their heads again. The sailors ignored him.
Suddenly, the people in the club car seemed like props in a movie, utterly detached and indifferent. John was an intruder in this world, a world in which no one cared about him, even if he needed help. A horrible flash from his childhood came to him. His mother had taken him to Puget Sound in Washington the summer after his father had died. John was six. He had somehow, alone, gotten in a rowboat and navigated it away from the dock. It had drifted out a ways into the sound, and John didn't know how the oars worked. He was struggling with them, terrified because he couldn't swim, and two older boys in an outboard motor boat passed by him slowly. He called out to them for help. He remembered his exact words: "Hey, you boys in the boat! Will you help me?" They had looked at him with indifference and kept on going. They didn't understand how frightened he was. Or, worse, they did understand and didn't care. He was that terrified now, and he saw the same expressions of indifference on the faces in the club car. He had never felt more alone.
He turned back to the bartender. His voice was trembling. "The man who was sleeping there when we came in." He pointed. "Where did he go?"
"Wasn't no one sitting there," said Ben.
"Yes there was!" said John. "Right there." He pointed again. "You were sleeping yourself when we came in. Maybe he didn't order anything."
"Maybe not," Ben admitted. John was alarming him.
The man couldn't have passed forward, by the bar, because John had gone that way and would have passed him on his return to the club car. He must have gone out through the dining car, back toward the sleeping cars. But Claire couldn't have gone out that way. John would have seen her leave, because he had been looking in that direction at the time. Besides, she wouldn't have just left. John's panic increased, and a wave of nausea swept over him. His mind raced, a jumble of confusion. He couldn't separate the staring man from Claire's disappearance. They seemed connected. Perhaps the mobsters at Angelo's had followed them, or somehow found them. The staring man was one of them, and another one had nabbed Claire right off the stool, and taken her ... where? And why hadn't anyone seen it happen?
He went forward again down the narrow aisle alongside the bar and checked the women's rest room again, and this time checked the men's room. They were both empty. The connector to the coach car had a large window that was open, and John stood for a moment staring out into the warm, moonlit desert. If Claire had transported herself, which was the only way he could really account for such a sudden disappearance, then she was alone in the desert along the railroad tracks behind them. The Genie had said that the time watches made adjustments for altitude, but did they make adjustments for velocity? Maybe she had hit the ground at seventy miles per hour! Maybe she was dead! John forced the thought out of his head.
He moved in desperation through the coach cars of the darkened train, looking in every seat at sleeping people, checking every rest room and lounge. He ran into a porter and described Claire and asked if he had seen her. The porter shook his head. At the locked door of the baggage car, John turned back, checking each coach car again.
When he returned to the club car, the sailors had grown rowdy, and the young couple and the cowboy had gone. "Did she come back here?" he asked Ben. "Have you seen her?"
"No, sir, she didn't come back here," Ben said helplessly.
John was sure that the only way Claire could have disappeared so quickly and completely was to have transported herself. John's time watch was still in his pocket, and he didn't think she had taken the other one from the briefcase. They had stashed the briefcase in a compartment in the toilet of their roomette. Not knowing what else to do, he walked quickly back through the empty dining car and through the first sleeping car to see if the watch was gone. Or maybe she had somehow gotten past him and returned to the roomette.
Rudy's compartment door was still ajar, and he was sitting in his seat snoring. John hurried to their roomette. The door was still locked. He opened it and walked in. Claire wasn't there. He got the briefcase out and opened it and rummaged through the currency. The other time watch was there. John sank down in the seat, feeling dazed and helpless. Claire would never just leave him like that without a word. His heart was pounding, and he felt like he was going to throw up. He felt his panic turn to hysteria, and he forced the feeling back.
He walked outside and awakened Rudy. Rudy beamed, but grew quickly sullen when John told him that Claire had disappeared. John told him that he had searched the entire train, and Rudy said he would call the conductor. The train had a security officer, and he would find Claire. He told John to go back to his roomette and try to relax. He told John everything would be all right.
John walked back to the roomette. He paused at the door.
The domino was gone!
He got down on his hands and knees and searched the floor around the door. Rudy wouldn't have taken it. He turned to ask him, but the porter had already gone forward to get the security officer. John slowly rose and walked into the roomette and sat down.
"Claire?" he said into the emptiness. "Claire, I love you so much. Oh, my God, I love you so much." He began to weep, and then broke into deep, uncontrollable sobbing. He had never felt so alone. He couldn't go home without her. She might be somehow lost, and not be able to find her way back.
Then he felt a flutter pass through his heart. Sometimes at night just before he went to sleep, when he lay in bed with his eyes closed after Claire had rolled over to go to sleep, he would sense that she had turned back toward him, leaning up on her elbow, and that her face was inches from his. He would open his eyes, and it would be true. There her face would be, smiling down at him, close to him. That feeling suddenly came to him now, that Claire was there, beside him.
And then she was beside him, her arms around him, hugging him tightly, kissing his face.
"John, John, Sweetheart, I'm here, I'm right here," she said.
"Oh, God," he said, surrounding her with his arms and squeezing her, clutching her to him. "Oh, my God, Sweetheart, where were you? I was so scared! Where did you go?"
"I ... I don't know. Some ... dark place. I was looking at this man in the club car, and then I started to ... started to fade somehow. I thought I was fainting."
He kissed her face.
"Everything grew dark. I couldn't find you. It was like I was dreaming, but there wasn't any dream. I don't know how to explain it. It was like something was with me. Something awful. I was being drawn somewhere, pulled ... I fought it. I'm not sure how."
Rudy, the conductor, and a man in a rumpled suit came to their roomette door.
"She's fine," said John. "I found her."
"Nice to see you, Ma'am," said Rudy.
"I'm sorry for the trouble," said John. "She ..."
"I was asleep." Claire pointed to the berth above them. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
"No bother," said the conductor. "Glad you're safe. That's the important thing. You folks have a nice evening." He tipped his hat, and they left.
John closed and locked the door. Claire sat on the seat across from him and took his hands.
"You fought it," he said.
"Yes. I don't know. I just started focusing on you, and then I thought about Marie, and I felt myself disappearing into some void. Something happened ... like I started going deep inside myself to see if ... this sounds crazy ... to see if there was anything left of me or something. I found my grassy place, that grassy place I sometimes go inside myself? Then I started to come back somehow. I could feel my body again, and I remembered I was on the train, but it was like I wasn't really there. Then you were there. I followed you back here, but you didn't see me. I heard you talk to Rudy. I picked up the domino. I wanted to let you know I was here."
"What do you think happened?"
"I don't know."
"The man ... the man you were looking at."
"He was the man who was asleep when we came in. He woke up and just began staring at me. He looked familiar somehow. He just kept staring at me, and ... that's the last thing I remember."
"He stared at me, too," John said. "Then he looked away, out the window. I turned and you were gone."
Claire shivered. "Gone."
"Like you just disappeared. I went looking for you in the rest room. When I got back, the man was gone too. And you know what else? No one in the club car had seen him. At all! It was as if he was invisible."
"To everyone but us?"
"But ... why?"
"I don't know. But I do know that this is too heavy. I'm incredibly tired. Too tired to think about it anymore tonight. I feel like I've been pulled through a knothole."
He moved across to sit beside her and took her in his arms. "The important thing is, whatever happened, you're here now. I was crazy, I was so afraid, I didn't know what had happened to you. I love you so much!"
She
felt tears on his face, and she held him tightly. Then they undressed
and climbed the little ladder to the upper berth and fell asleep to the
smooth rocking of the train.
At nine o'clock the next morning Claire and John dressed and left their roomette. Rudy appeared quickly in the aisle, almost as though he had been waiting for them. He shook, as though laughing inside, and gave them a huge smile. "Dining car closes in an hour," he said. "You got plenty of time. I'll get that compartment straightened up right away."
"Where are we?" Claire asked.
"Oh, you missed Phoenix early this morning." He checked his watch. "We 'bout three hours out of Phoenix, yep. Soon be in New Mexico."
"Where do you get off?" asked Claire. "Chicago?"
"That's right, Ma'am, Chicago."
"You live there?" John asked.
"I surely do. Lived there for fifteen years now."
"You have a family?" asked Claire.
Rudy broke into a beaming proud smile. "Well, my wife and I have four boys, yes Ma'am. Four boys. And my wife's mama, she lives with us too. It's real nice, yes Ma'am."
Claire smiled. "That's wonderful, Rudy."
"You folks go on and have a nice breakfast, now."
Claire and John had to wait in line for a table in the dining car. The events of the previous evening seemed like a dream, as did the staring man, for whom they couldn't help searching in the morning crowd. When it came their turn in line, they were seated at a table across from the cowboy who had seemed so morose in the club car the night before. He greeted them a bit warily, and John realized how strange his behavior must have seemed.
"I see you found your wife all right," said the young man as they sat down.
"I did indeed, thanks," said John. "She had gone back to our compartment. I hope I didn't startle you."
"Nah," he said, waving away John's concern with a forkful of scrambled eggs.
"Where you headed?" asked John.
"Back home, I reckon. Such as it is."
"Where's that?" Claire asked.
"Miami."
"Oh, Miami," said Claire.
The boy smiled. "Miami, Texas, that is. A little nothing of a town a ways outside of Amarillo."
"That sounds kind of romantic," said Claire.
"Romantic? Well," he smiled wryly, "that ain't exactly the word that comes to mind. You'd know if you seen it. Nothing much there but dust devils and dead dreams."
"Wow," said John.
"Yep, she's a heartbreaker, all right. I tell you, I get so pi ... sorry, Ma'am ... I mean angry at these politicians talking about sending all these here millions of dollars over to them Europeans when things is falling apart right out here in this country. I mean, I go over there to fight the Nazis and save them Europeans, right? -- while my own Mama and Daddy get foreclosed right off the land they poured their hearts into for forty years. That seem right to you?"
"That doesn't seem right," said Claire.
"By the way, I'm John." John extended his hand across the table. "This is my wife Claire."
"Danny Leland." He shook John's hand.
A waiter came. Claire and John were starving. They ordered honeydew melon, orange juice, and ham and eggs.
"You coming from LA?" John asked, pouring coffee from a hottle.
"Yeah. My ma, she has a sister over there. That's where she and my daddy went after they got foreclosed. My little sister and little brother too. It's a hellhole there. All pent up in this little one bedroom bungalow. They had nowhere else to go. I been ..." he paused as though he might choke up. "I been trying to set things right, with the mortgage and all. I saved up all my pay when I was overseas, but it ain't enough. And this here twenty dollars a week unemployment the Army gives you. Even that's about to run out."
"How old are you, Danny?" Claire asked.
"Twenty-one last May."
"So what are you going to do now?" John asked.
"Rodeo, I s'pose. That's about all I know how to do, 'cept grow soybeans and cotton, and God knows there ain't no money in that. I'll rodeo," he said again with greater resolve. "Save up, and get the farm back for the folks. Who knows? Maybe we'll strike oil some day."
"Oil," said John.
"Yeah, a few folks got lucky to the south of us and found oil under the dust." He finished his breakfast and lit a Chesterfield. "It's like my Ma used to say, though. The good luck seems to hit all around while the bad luck hits smack in the back yard."
John glanced at Claire. She gave him a "maybe" with her eyebrows. John turned back to the cowboy. "Might like to take a look at this farm you're talking about, Danny. Anybody living there now?"
"Hell, no. It's all pretty run down. Bank likely don't know what to do with it."
"Whereabouts exactly is it?" John asked.
"Oh, it's a good piece north and east of Amarillo. Up in 'Dust County', we been callin' it."
"You get off the train in Amarillo?" John asked.
"Yep. Supposed to get in this evening. Big rodeo there Sunday. That's why I had to come back."
"What event do you do?" John asked.
"Broncs. So, Where you folks headed?"
John looked at Claire again. "Well, we were going on east," Claire said, "but, if you don't mind, we would sort of like to take a look at the place, Danny."
"What place? The farm?"
John nodded.
"Don't see why. Ain't nothing much to see, that's for sure."
"But you don't mind?"
"Got my old Chevy pickup parked right there at the station in Amarillo. Can drive on up there if you want. Be too dark when we get in, though. Have to head up there in the morning."
After breakfast, Danny went back to his seat in the coach car to take a nap. He said he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Claire and John went to the club car for more coffee. Ben was behind the bar, and glad to see them reunited. They ordered their coffees and found a booth and discussed Texas.
"Ever been to Amarillo?" asked John.
"Drove through once," she smiled, "but it wasn't 1946."
John smiled. "I wonder if we can get a refund on our tickets."
"Doesn't matter, does it? We'll just tell Rudy we changed our plans, and buy tickets again in a couple of days. May as well," she laughed. "We've got lots of money."
"And lots of time." John chuckled. "I think we have company, too."
She looked around to see whom he was talking about.
"I mean the man last night who sat over there. The invisible man."
"You think he'll be back?"
"He might not even have left," John whispered. "Maybe he's still here."
"Don't say that. I'm really scared. I thought this was supposed to be our 'day in the sun.' What's this shit about, anyway?"
"I don't know. He scares me, too. What did you mean when you said you thought you recognized him?"
"I did. I've seen him somewhere before."
"Somewhere ... here?"
"I'm sure of it. I've been trying to remember where, exactly. You know where I think it was?"
"Where?"
"The day we rode the city busses around, on our tour. That second day. We pulled up to a bus stop, and he was sitting on the bench, as though he was waiting for the bus, but he didn't get on. He stared at me then, too, through the bus window. But we pulled out right away."
"So, he's following us."
"But why? And who is he?"
"I guess if we knew the answer to either of those questions, we'd know the answer to the other one. I don't think I told you, but when he was staring at me ... I looked away. I was afraid of something, I guess. But you didn't look away, did you?"
"No."
"Well, I don't know what it means. If I hadn't looked away, maybe I would have disappeared, too. And I'm not sure I'm as strong as you are. I'm not sure I could have come back from wherever it was he took you."
She reached across the table and took his hands.
Early that evening, they had dinner in the dining car, and then said their good-byes to Ben. John slipped him a hundred dollar tip. While Rudy carried their luggage to the forward connector, John left him a two-hundred dollar tip in the roomette, under the box of dominos.
At 8:30, they stepped off the train with Danny in Amarillo, Texas.
They made plans to drive up to see Danny's farm the following morning. Danny went to stay with a rodeo friend in Amarillo, dropping Claire and John at the Hotel Charlotte, an ornate, turn-of-the Century monument to the American cattle frontier. There were throngs of people in the lobby. It was Friday night, and the clerk said the hotel was full because of the Rodeo on Sunday, but John gave him a hundred dollar bill, and the clerk said they did have one suite they kept reserved for special guests.
The suite was decorated in a rich burgundy, with polished oak walls and a brass bed with a canopy. Claire had brought her flowers from the train, and put them on a little table by the window, ordering two dozen more mixed flowers from the bellboy. John turned on the radio, and they got into bed and listened to "The Haunting Hour" and "Mr. and Mrs. North," and fell asleep in the middle of Fulton Lewis Junior. John woke up at midnight and turned off Guy Lombardo and went back to sleep.
Danny met them in the hotel restaurant for breakfast the next morning, and then they set out for his old home. The pickup was a cream colored 1935 Chevrolet. Danny said he felt guilty about it, because he had bought it for seventy-five dollars when he was sixteen from money he'd made that year riding rodeo and hauling wheat, and, had he known how things were going to turn out, he would have given that money to his folks instead. When Danny was overseas and his mother wrote to him about the foreclosure, he wrote back and told his dad to sell the truck. Selling it would have allowed them to keep the farm a few weeks longer, but his dad wouldn't sell it because, his mother wrote, Danny had earned it.
Danny drove them north and east for nearly two hours. The wind swept dust back and forth across the two-lane road ahead of them in a dry and scorching heat. The countryside was flat, vast, and withered. There were towns that were no more than wide spots in the road. Occasional oil rigs peppered the flat expanse.
Danny's wasn't the only abandoned farm. There were several others, and, as they passed them, Danny told the stories of families he had known growing up who had had to leave.
Danny started to choke up when they approached his own house, a quarter of a mile off the paved road. Claire, sitting between Danny and John, rested her hand gently on his arm. "Makes me want to cry, too," she said, wiping a tear from her cheek, "and I didn't even live here."
Danny stopped in front of a dilapidated, wind-blown farm house, as gray as the landscape around it. There were a few pieces of ancient farm equipment here and there, a fallen down windmill, and an old barn with a sagging roof. Danny turned off the ignition, and they sat quietly for a moment. The only sound was the relentless wind, and an occasional creak of the old windmill.
"Wish I had my camera," Claire whispered.
"Is the house unlocked?" John asked.
"Sure," said Danny. "Ain't even no key that I ever knew of."
John reached across Claire and put his hand on Danny's arm. "Danny," he said softly, "I'm going to ask you to do something. I want you to trust me. Now, Claire and I are going to need to have a very important discussion, and to look around a bit. I want you to leave us here for a few hours. Leave and come back. Will you do that?"
"Well, sure," Danny said. "I mean ... sure."
"Good," said John. "I know it may sound strange, but we need to be alone. See you in a few hours?"
Claire and John got out of the truck and watched while Danny drove back up the dirt road to the highway, turning north.
"We could have done this differently if these gismos were calibrated for more precise time," Claire said. "Let's go in the house and see what we can find."
They found what they were looking for in an upstairs bedroom. It was a sheet of tough plastic. "Thank God," said Claire. "It has already been invented."
They found a shovel in the barn, and began looking for a good spot. Behind the barn, a small hillock interrupted the flatness. They walked a ways to a mesquite tree and stopped and turned around. They could see for several miles across the prairie, which was unbroken except for three oil rigs and one derrick between them and the horizon. John dug a shallow hole behind the tree. They undressed and wrapped their clothes tightly in the plastic, along with several hundred dollars in currency and their new wedding rings. John put the bundle in the hole. He covered it up and tossed the shovel as far as he could back toward the barn.
John held a time watch in his hand. They set it for the middle of August, 1966. Then they held hands tightly, took a deep breath, and pressed the red lever. They were plunged instantly into darkness.
"Bingo," said John when the darkness passed.
"I guess so!" whispered Claire, looking out over the valley.
They stepped from behind the tree, which was twice the size it had been a moment before. The house and barn were gone. A scattering of oil rigs pumped for as far as they could see. There was some traffic on the paved road in the distance, but there were no buildings in sight, nor activity near them. The gusty wind seemed to continue uninterrupted through the time change.
They stooped down in the intense heat and began to dig with their hands where they had buried the clothes twenty years before. The soil was crusty and hardened, and it took nearly a half hour with sharp rocks to uncover the plastic bag. The clothes inside were remarkably well preserved. They put them on, and their rings, and walked out to the highway.
They established landmarks of where they were so they could find the same spot again, and then hitched a ride in a tanker truck that drove them all the way to Amarillo. The radio played country music. The driver, a middle-aged man named Chester, had lived in Dalhart, Texas, all his life. If he was curious at all as to what they were doing in the middle of nowhere, dressed in twenty-year-old clothes, he never said so. He had been driving oil trucks since high school. He was proud to be from Dalhart. He asked them if they knew that the very first country song ever recorded was "The Prisoner's Song," by a man named Vernon Dalhart. He said he owned an original cut of it. On the flip side was a song called "The Wreck of 97." He did finally admit that, as far as he knew, Vernon Dalhart was no relation to anyone who ever lived in Dalhart, Texas, but it was an important connection for him all the same.
He let them off near the center of town. They bought a map, a newspaper, and some different clothes. They looked for the Hotel Charlotte, but it was gone. They checked into its more modern version, which occupied the same spot. They showered and changed, and called a taxi.
John dropped forty dollars on the front seat of the taxi and asked the driver to just drive around awhile.
"Mind the music?" the driver asked. He had his AM turned on low. The Troggs were singing "Wild Thing."
"Fine with us," Claire said. "Just give us the grand tour." She opened the map on her lap and they marked it with notes showing shopping centers and housing developments that looked like they had been built in the last twenty years. There were military installations that hadn't been there before. John lost interest after awhile and started browsing through the newspaper. When Stevie Wonder began singing "Blowing in the Wind," Claire whispered, "It sure doesn't look much like the revolutionary sixties out there."
"Yeah," John whispered back. "I don't think the sixties hit here until the late seventies. If at all. They're here, though," he said, flicking the newspaper. He read her some news stories. The Beatles had just arrived for a U.S. tour. A Massachusetts legislator was trying to have them banned from their Boston appearance, calling them "four long-haired creeps." In other news, a foreign minister from Denmark said that "There is no military solution in Vietnam. Neither side can win. Everyone should just go home."
"Wow," said Claire. "History's small voices."
The war was just beginning. Two US bombers had gone down in North Vietnam the day before.
"Who's the President now?" asked Claire. "Johnson?"
"Yep," said John. "Here he is. He says his greatest desire is to be 'the President of peace. But,' he says, 'so long as aggression in Vietnam continues, we will not turn back.' It also says here that three US fighter bombers attacked a US Coast Guard cutter by mistake yesterday. Killed two and wounded five others." Two days earlier, the article pointed out, the US had accidentally bombed the village of Truong Thang, killing 28 and wounding 114.
"I sort of remember that," Claire said.
"That's enough news for me," John said, laying the paper aside and looking out his window. "I came through here in the early seventies, come to think of it. 1971."
"You did? Amarillo?"
He grew distant, then nodded. "New Years Eve. There was a woman ... I've told you about her ... Joanna."
"She's the one you fell so much in love with when you and Carolyn were separated."
"Yeah, Carolyn and I had just moved back to LA The marriage was falling apart. So many marriages were falling apart, all around us. 'Wife swapping' was the 'in thing.'"
"Ugh," said Claire. "I remember that."
"Carolyn was seeing other people. I was seeing other people. But we were still living together, on and off, in and out. It was such a crazy time. My poor kids were so confused. I was drinking a lot. Anyway, I was 'home for Christmas,' such as it was, and Joanna had flown to Wichita, Kansas, to spend Christmas with her parents."
"You told me about that. And you went to get her."
"I surprised her. Just showed up. I got to ... missing her so much right after Christmas. I had an old 1965 Volvo. I packed a bag and drove to Wichita. She was glad to see me. We started back, and halfway through Kansas the muffler went out on the Volvo. It was so noisy we had to inch along. We stopped at every garage and filling station, and no one had any Volvo parts, even in Dodge City. We made it to Amarillo on New Year's Eve and checked into a motel. The next morning I woke up early. Joanna was asleep. I went out looking for a muffler. It was crazy. I don't know why I thought I could find one on New Year's Day. Anyway ..." he paused and looked out the window. "When I got back to the motel, she was up and dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed. She was crying. She ... she thought I had left her. It bummed me out so much. That she would think I would abandon her in the middle of nowhere when I loved her so much."
Claire looked out her window. They were passing the train depot. There were stock loading chutes and corrals. The taxi was keeping pace with a slow-moving, westbound freight train. The Loving Spoonfuls had started singing "Summer in the City." Claire watched a man and a woman with back packs trotting along beside the freight. They tossed their packs inside an open boxcar door and then jumped in. They didn't look like hobos, or hippies, or modern day homeless people either. Some combination of the three. Someplace in between. Two people trying to get somewhere other than where they were. Another "Incredible Tale of Escape," Claire thought to herself. She looked around to see if John had noticed them.
He hadn't. He was looking out his own window. "We found a muffler the next day," he said, "and drove back to LA, straight through without stopping, without speaking very much. Something had changed. It had ended."
"You still love her?" Claire asked absently, looking back out her window. The freight train was slowly picking up speed, leaving them behind.
"What kind of question is that?" John asked. "It was almost twenty-five years ago."
She shook herself out of her reverie. "It's only five years from now," she smiled. "Hasn't even happened yet." She reached over and took his hand, then slid closer to him. They both saw the taxi driver staring at them oddly in the rear view mirror. John got a slightly queasy feeling.
They had the driver drop them at the newspaper office. Napoleon XIV was singing "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Ha."
They spent the rest of the day looking through old editions of the Amarillo Globe, making notes about local real estate development and price trends. Then they walked back to the hotel.
They ordered dinner from room service and watched Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on television. There was more news about the ill-fated Coast Guard cutter. There was also news about a huge civil rights march planned in Chicago. The protest was for open housing. Martin Luther King supported it but couldn't be there because he was in the hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, with a virus. Senate action on the Civil Rights Bill was being called for by Mike Mansfield. Everett Dirkson was opposing it in the House.
"The Rifleman" came on, and then "Ozzie and Harriet." Next was "I've Got a Secret," and then "Leave it to Beaver." They fell sleep in the middle of "Bonanza." Claire woke up to Johnny Carson, watched a few minutes, and then turned it off. She walked to the window. It was still hot outside. A wind had come up. She wondered how the couple on the westbound freight were doing.
The next morning, they hired another taxi to drive them back to where Danny Leland's farm had been. Claire made more notes on the map during the trip, and memorized all that she could from them. It was almost noon when the puzzled driver left them at the isolated roadside where the tanker had picked them up the day before.
They walked to the mesquite tree and squatted down behind it next to the hole. They set the watch for the day they had just left in 1946, held hands, and pressed the lever.