The Knights of the Cornerstone

by James P. Blaylock

  “Your problem is that you don’t know funny when you hear it,” Taber said to him. “You’ve got the sense of humor of a catfish. Anything else?” he asked Calvin, pouring coffee into a mug. “Couple of fried eggs? Kitchen’s closed on weekdays unless something’s going on, but we can rustle up something easy. Sandwich, maybe? BLT? Bag of chips?”

  “I’ll wait,” Calvin said, settling down on a bar stool and having a look around. The ornately carved, leafy table that had sat near the window last night was nowhere to be seen. He noticed that the cabinet where his uncle had stowed the broken glass decanter and the rest of the strange Communion things was apparently not locked. Next to it were some wall shelves with books and stacks of jigsaw puzzle boxes and board games. “When did my uncle show up?” he asked. “I was looking all over for him this morning.”

  “Early, I guess,” Taber said. “Long before we got here. Lymon’s up with the sun, usually. What’s going on? Nettie’s all right?”

  “She’s fine, actually. Uncle Lymon got a call from Iowa. I don’t know how urgent it was.”

  “Iowa?” Whitey said. “Warren Hosmer?”

  “That’s right. Do you know him?”

  “You won’t find anyone out here in New Cyprus who doesn’t, except a few of the new folks. He was Grand Master in his day, but he gave it up years ago. Moved back to Orange City, Iowa, to be near the kids, but he’s always kept his hand in. When was that, Miles?”

  “I make it early eighties, so they’d be grandkids he’s living near now. I was new here then, that’s how I remember. He was going into recruitment, he said. And he sent a few good people our way, too. He’s a persuasive man when he gets started. You don’t want to argue with Warren Hosmer.”

  “Not me,” Calvin said truthfully.

  “Should we wake Lymon up?” Whitey asked. “What did Hosmer want?”

  “Not much except to say that he was ‘going under.’ Those were his very words. He said they were turning up the heat back there in Iowa. I got the impression he thought there was some kind of general threat, but I don’t know what.”

  “Well,” Taber said, “I don’t see waking Lymon up over that, but you’re free to if you want. There’s always a general threat, and if Hosmer has already made himself scarce then there’s nothing we can do to help. To tell you the truth, we’re a little worried about Lymon. He didn’t look so good this morning, although he told us not to call Doc Hoyle, and we said we wouldn’t. He was walking like he’d been hit in the gut. Whitey and I have got to get going into Bullhead to take care of barge business, but if you can hang around for a while …?”

  “Sure, I can stay,” Calvin said. “I’ve got nothing going on, and Aunt Nettie wanted me out of the house. She’s cleaning the place up.”

  “Is she? She must be feeling her oats,” Whitey said. “That’s good. That should pick Lymon’s spirits right up. It’s been months since she’s been out of that chair of hers. She’s either there or in bed.”

  “You might want to check in on Lymon later on,” Taber said. “Make sure he’s all right. He says it’s nothing, but then that’s just what he would say. Doc’s number’s on the desk in the office. Give him a call if you think you should. There’s no harm in getting him over here while he’s still sober.”

  “Sure,” Calvin said. “Anything need doing?”

  “You could sort the pieces in those jigsaw puzzle boxes,” Taber said, and then laughed.

  “Or not,” Whitey said.

  The two men went out, and Calvin got up to have a snoop around. He went behind the bar and had a look at the bottles and the barware, and then wandered over to the shelves and looked over the books, but they were mostly Readers Digest Condensed from thirty or forty years ago, titles like The Seagulls Woke Me and Up the Down Staircase and Sail a Crooked Ship—books that struck him as being curiously innocent now, and attractive for that reason. Condensed or not, he could easily imagine working through some of them to while away the idle New Cyprus hours.

  He stepped across to the closed-up cabinet, thinking that it looked like a seriously old piece of furniture, very plain—no carvings except the Templar cross, evidently hand-cut into each of the upper panels in the frame-and-panel doors. The wood smelled of age and lemon oil. He had no business snooping around inside the cabinet, or anyplace else for that matter, but he pulled on the iron handle anyway, glancing back first at the room where his uncle was resting. The cabinet door stuck just a bit before it scraped open. Inside lay piles of folded tunics and sashes, with table linen on a shelf below. There were more books, but not casual reading—more of the sort that his uncle had in his library at home. There was no broken glass on a silver platter.

  There was a shuffling behind him, coming from the office, and he hurriedly shut the cabinet door. Uncle Lymon appeared in the doorway of what must have been the office, looking rumpled and done in, the usual cheerfulness gone but of his face. He seemed weary and pained and ten years older than he had yesterday.

  “Why don’t we call the doctor?” Calvin asked him. “Miles tells me the number’s right in there on the desk.”

  “Miles will tell a man anything,” Lymon said. “I know what ails me. It’ll pass, or else it won’t. Anyway, I took some aspirin just now.”

  “Aunt Nettie’s feeling pretty well. She’s cleaning up a storm.”

  ‘That’s good to hear.” It appeared as if he meant it, because he nodded and looked shrewdly at Calvin, then made an effort to pull himself together, standing upright and letting go of the doorjamb. “Grab us a couple of 7UPs out of the fridge, will you? It’s time we had a little chin wag.”

  “Sure,” Calvin said, walking around behind the counter by the food window and opening the refrigerator. His uncle sat down at one of the tables and Calvin carried the cans over and took the seat opposite, popping open the sodas.

  “Here’s to your coming out to New Cyprus,” Lymon said, raising his can.

  “Cheers,” Calvin said. He set the can down and waited for his uncle to get started. It was plain that he had something on his mind.

  “Let’s cut to the chase,” his uncle said. “By now you realize there’s a certain amount of … activity … going on with the Knights.”

  “I guess so,” Calvin said. “I mean, with the box and Bob Postum and all. I hope I haven’t caused any problems.”

  “Not at all. Not at all.” He sat thinking for a moment. “You might have walked into one, but you didn’t cause it. You know that your father was a Knight?”

  “Was he? I didn’t know that. Did he go to meetings and all that?”

  “No, except when he came out here for a visit,” his uncle said. “We kept in touch, though, and he did work for us now and then. Some of the members fly under the radar like that. It gives them a certain leeway.”

  Calvin nodded. Now that he knew, it made as much sense as anything. His father had a few mysteries hovering around his life, strange comings and goings, mainly, and abrupt disappearances, but Calvin had always assumed the reasons for them were mundane, and his mother had promoted the idea. “I almost forgot,” he said. “Hosmer called in this morning after you left. He said to tell you that he’s gone under and that things were heating up. He said to let Shirley Fowler know. I went into town and left a message on her phone, but I didn’t talk to her directly.”

  “Good. That was the right thing to do, although you’ve got to watch yourself, going into town alone like that.”

  “So I discovered. Tell me something about Cousin Hosmer, unless you don’t want to, of course. Is he … ?”

  “He’s the sanest man I know.”

  “Well, that’s interesting, because he suggested that Dad had been murdered. He didn’t say how, only that ‘they got to him somehow.’”

  His uncle considered it. “There’s a good chance they did. Hosmer wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t think it was true.”

  Calvin was stunned. “Are they still around?” he asked. “Hosmer seemed to think that I had to wa
tch out or they’d get me, too.”

  “Like I was telling you last night, there’s no reason for them to bother you. You’re a courier. You’re free to head back home and go about your business and keep your nose out of it. Thing is, you don’t want to know too much. Too much information and you reach a sort of critical mass, and then you’re drawn inside whether you like it or not.”

  “I’m maybe already there. I ran across Bob Postum in town. He offered me money for bringing him the veil.”

  “ ‘Or else,’ I suppose he said. That’s typical. A man that can be bought thinks that all men can be bought. And if they can’t be bought, then they can be threatened.”

  “That was the gist of it. Maybe you’re right about me not wanting to know too much, but since I had a hand in bringing the veil out here, and since Dad was a part of it, there’s one thing I would like to know.”

  “Shoot.”

  “It’s not Aunt Iris’s veil, is it?”

  “No. We figured you’d be better off thinking it was. Turned out to be a good idea, too, when Postum cornered you out there at the Gas’n’Go like that. We didn’t want you knowing anything at all.”

  “I’m okay with that. I’m glad to have brought it out, whatever it is.”

  “And we thank you for it. Your father thought it was worth the trouble himself, and I can tell you it’s been plenty of trouble over the years.”

  “Can you tell me what it is?”

  His uncle went pale all of a sudden, grasping his stomach and doubling over. His eyes drifted shut, and he breathed through his open mouth.

  “Let’s call that doctor,” Calvin said, standing up and turning toward the office, but Uncle Lymon waved his hand and shook his head. He was already recovering, or pretending to.

  “It’s not necessary,” he said. “Just a little heartburn. I’ll drop around and see Doc Hoyle myself. We don’t need to make the man put his shoes on. Sit down until I have my say.”

  Calvin did as he was told, and his uncle continued. “The point is,” he said, “you heard what I said about knowing too much. I don’t suppose telling you about the veil qualifies as too much, but it puts you closer to the center. You might be wise to make like the three monkeys, no matter who you’re talking to. This is one of those cases where what you don’t know won’t hurt you.”

  “I heard that same kind of thing from Lamar Morris today, after he threatened to pull a gun on me.”

  “I’m not surprised. He’d be a little leery of strangers.”

  “He suggested I go home.”

  “He’s a sage.”

  “But I honestly went in there to look at Fourteen Carats stuff. Then I saw a photo of Bob Postum on the desk, and he had another photo of the old quarry on his computer screen, and I got hasty and said something that tipped him off. He opened his desk drawer to give me a look at the gun.”

  “An ounce of prevention, to his way of thinking.”

  “We got along all right once he figured out which side I was on.”

  “There’s the problem. You’re already thinking about being on one side or the other. Lamar Morris has you figured out. Bob Postum has you figured out. The only one who doesn’t have you figured out is Calvin Bryson.” He sat silently for a moment and then mopped his forehead with his sleeve and started up again. “I don’t mean to be talking like some kind of Dutch uncle, even though that’s what I am. But while I’ve got you here I’m going to admit that Nettie and I thought it was a shame about you and Elaine. We only met her the once, but we liked that girl. Things fall apart, though, if you let them, and sometimes even if you try like crazy to stop them.”

  Calvin nodded, surprised at the sudden change in the direction of the conversation. His uncle was looking at him seriously, as if he had something important to say and not much time to say it.

  “Seems to me some people live alone because it’s easier to be apart than to be a part of something,” he said. “You take my meaning?”

  “Sure,” Calvin said.

  “I thought you did. You like doing for yourself. That’s a very independent state of mind, and that’s okay as far as it goes. It just doesn’t go very far. You’ve got your books and whatnot, your folks’ house out there in Eagle Rock. You can while away the days till kingdom come, and you’ll never have to get up in the middle of the night to get the person you love a glass of water. And there won’t be anyone to fetch a glass of water for you, either.” He sat in silence for a moment, and then said, “I apologize for horning in, but I owe it to your dad to ask you what you think you’re doing, burying your talents under a bushel like this. So Elaine wasn’t the one. All that means is that the one is still out there.”

  “Sure,” Calvin said. “I guess so.”

  “Don’t get on your high horse here,” his uncle said. “I told you I was going to Dutch uncle you, and now I’m doing it. What I mean to say is that living apart can be like slow poison. Drunks and dope addicts and zealots live apart, even when they’re married. Everything else is secondary to the drink and the dope or whatever else they can’t live without. And the longer they live apart, the more they want to stay that way. When you live outside the fold, you can let your own shortcomings roll right along, like a snowball. It’s restful for a time, but then one day that snowball will bury you, and you won’t see it coming, because you’ve lost sight of who you used to be.”

  Calvin nodded, but kept silent.

  “Sermon’s over,” his uncle said. “Sorry it sounded like one. Some kind of fit came on me. You’re free to tell me to mind my own business.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” Calvin said, the ready-made phrase sounding as hollow as a Ping-Pong ball. It was hard to argue with anything his uncle had said. Calvin’s books were ideal companions. The conversation was always perfect and most often perfectly predictable, and paper had no expectations. He wasn’t still in love with Elaine by any means, but the memory of the past months still worked on his mind like a hot griddle. He was afraid to touch it, and maybe he was afraid of the idea of another hot griddle in his future. He wondered suddenly whether it was Bob Postum that he feared or whether it was Donna. What exactly was he anxious to avoid? A bullet, or another romance … ? Calvin sat back in his chair and took a sip of his 7UP. Sun shone through the windows, illuminating the floor, and he watched the dust motes moving in the light.

  “Now it’s your turn,” Lymon told him. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well,” Calvin said, “you said Morris was a ‘sage’ for telling me to go home. Postum gave me the same advice, except with an incentive. After that little talk just now, I’m not sure what you think about it.”

  “Safest thing would be to go home. But if I really thought that way, I wouldn’t have agreed with Hosmer to call you out here in the first place. If a person always chooses the safest route, and never goes out of his way, sometimes he doesn’t end up anywhere worthwhile.”

  “You agreed with Hosmer to have me bring out the veil?”

  “Yes, I did. But if that was all of it, I wouldn’t have been bending your ear these past ten minutes. You want more of my thinking?”

  “That’s why I asked.”

  “Then I’ll just say it. What I mean to do is talk you into staying on. You’re custom built for the Knights. You might not think so, but you’re no judge of character, especially your own. You sell yourself short. Nettie and I have pretty much done our part. We’re short-timers now. We’ve got no kin but you, and our house, like always, goes to the Knights when we pass away. If you were a Knight, it would go to you as next of kin. Think about that. It’s in the Cornerstone Resolutions. This isn’t the kind of thing I could make clear over the telephone or in the letter. By coming out here you’ve got a small look at what it means. Why don’t you poke around New Cyprus a little more. Get a better idea of things. But bear in mind the cost. You’ll be all-in if you decide to join. You live in New Cyprus and you’re a citizen of New Cyprus. You’re not an independent contractor.”

/>   “I’ll bear it in mind,” Calvin said. “What exactly happened to Dad? Do you know?”

  “Exactly? No. He had the cancer, just like Nettie’s got it, but my guess is poison. They claimed responsibility for his death, but there’s always the chance they were lying.”

  “Why didn’t they just leave it up to the cancer? He was nearly gone anyway.”

  “They’re big on statements. They wouldn’t have made such a dangerous one, though, except for the veil, which had just recently come into play. But they didn’t get any closer to it. It was out of your dad’s hands by then anyway.”

  Calvin considered this—his father’s leading a double life. But what could his father have told him about it that was sensible? “Son, I’m a secret member of a secret society that traffics in secret magical stuff. …” “We keep sidetracking away from the veil,” Calvin said. “What is it?”

  “Fair enough. It’s what you’d call a religious relic.”

  “Like a piece of the true cross or something? Saints’ bones?”

  “Like that. People throw pieces of the true cross on the table when they mean to belittle the whole idea of relics—with good reason, too. Most of it is fraud. Enough pieces of the true cross have been sold over the years to build a hotel. But that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a cross, and that there aren’t pieces of it out there somewhere. I know for a fact there are. There’ve been princely sums paid for relics a whole lot more mundane, and I mean princely. The money Postum offered you is chump change, whatever it was.”

  Calvin laughed. “You’ve got that right. He made the offer after he called me a chump. But whose veil? Mother Teresa? Joan of Arc?”

  “A woman named Veronica. She’s a tentative saint. Legend has it that when Christ collapsed from pain and fatigue while carrying the cross to Golgotha, she stepped out of the shadows and blotted His face with her veil, and in so doing she assumed His pain and weariness. The image of His face remained on the veil, which became a holy relic.”