He seemed tired to Claire as he sank into the chair, but his eyes shimmered with intelligence behind the thick lenses. “At last I was able to wrest my briefcase and ID from the grip of Madam Librarian,” he said. “I can once again prove that I am August Stevenson.”
“I didn’t doubt it for minute,” Claire responded. “What did you find?”
August seemed to withdraw into his shell, turning as cautious as a lawyer. “I’d like to test the ink and the paper, if you can persuade Harrison to let me take the journal from the library.”
“It will be difficult,” Claire replied. “The manuscript is here at the discretion of Jonathan’s mother, who doesn’t want it to leave the center. I could give you a photocopy to take with you if you want to study the handwriting further.”
“I’d like that,” August said. “Based on a preliminary examination of the handwriting, comparing it to the earlier writing, I will say that I do believe the journal to be the work of Jonathan Vail. The way the letters float above the line is a sign of vanity. The loops of the L’s, the carelessness of the capital C, the curlicues in the Ws, the sloppy punctuation—all are indications of Jonathan’s unreliable temperament.”
“Thank God,” said Claire.
“It means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
“A lot. What did you think about the places where the writing got larger? Could that have been the work of someone else?”
“I don’t believe so. It’s Jonathan’s script, albeit in an exaggerated form. In my opinion it is the writing of Vail under the influence of a drug, quite possibly a hallucinatory drug, considering the time in which it was written. I may never be able to date it exactly, but I believe the journal was written in the sixties by Vail and only by Vail. Personally, I always considered him a fiction writer even when he wasn’t under the influence of drugs. It’s easy to be self-serving and sensitive in a memoir and a coming-of-age novel. He had a rebelliousness that matched the times, but what did he actually do, other than mouth off and disappear? Whether you and the investigators take the content of this notebook as truth or as fiction is up to you. I would believe him when he says he had rice and beans for dinner and that he disliked his mother, but as for the rest of it…”
“May I submit your preliminary finding to the investigators?”
“You may. I will prepare a full report for the center.”
“And the briefcase?”
“That will require further investigation. I have taken photographs and measurements. I was able to find a few microscopic grains of pollen in the seam, which I will try to locate and date. I presume that no one minds if some pollen leaves the library?”
It was a rhetorical question, and he didn’t wait for an answer. “I will be in touch when I have completed my investigation. Should I submit my preliminary findings to Harrison before I leave?”
“Of course,” said Claire.
August pushed himself out of his chair and picked up his briefcase. She led him down the hallway and discovered, with a certain amount of pleasure, that Harrison had left for the day. She bade good-bye to August, retrieved the notebook from the Anderson Reading Room, and locked it in the safe for the night.
******
When she got home she went to her courtyard, sat down on the banco, and thought about what August had said while she waited for her datura to bloom. It was the end of the season, and the only reason this datura was still blooming was that it had a sunny, sheltered spot. Datura was a member of the deadly nightshade family, and its seeds were hallucinogenic and poisonous if not prepared properly. Claire knew that it grew all over the Southwest and as far east as North Carolina. Most likely it grew in Utah, too. Even if it didn’t, Jennie or Jonathan could have brought the seeds or another hallucinogen into the canyon. A hallucinogen would explain the exaggerated handwriting and the description of the canyon walls slipping and sliding like La Sagrada Família. It could also explain what had happened to Jonathan: he might have been poisoned or fallen while under the influence, and Jennie was too involved to want to admit it. Tim might have taken drugs, too, but at least that would show up in the autopsy.
August had pretty much established that the journal was authentic, even if he hadn’t completed his report. Claire knew that what he initially saw in a document tended to be supported by further analysis. The fact that the journal was authentic would support Tim’s story and increase the likelihood that there really had been a duffel bag. Where had it gone? Claire wondered. What was in it? Was Jennie lying when she said she hadn’t seen a duffel bag, or had Jonathan brought it into the cave without her knowledge? Claire wished she had some way of establishing Jennie’s veracity. Not trusting her added confusion to this investigation.
Datura was a night bloomer. The flowers opened when the sun went down. It was an event as predictable and magical as the full moon rising at sunset, but it always filled Claire with awe. New Mexico was known for its brilliant sunlight and spectacular sunsets, but she loved the velvety nights here almost as much as the days.
The shadows in the courtyard deepened. The datura prepared to bloom. It turned trumpet-shaped when it opened, about six inches long. At the moment the petals folded around each other and were the color of parchment, tinted lavender at the end, but when the flower opened it would be white satin. Now the shape was protruding and male. Once it bloomed it would turn receptive and female. In the morning, the spent flower faded, drooped, and became male all over again. The role reversal was part of the plant’s mystery. Even without hallucinogenic properties, it was magical. Georgia O’Keeffe celebrated datura in her paintings—and rightly so, Claire thought.
She had always been aware of datura in the desert, but this was the first time she’d had the opportunity to study one up close in all its phases. Her plant could be a volunteer, a seed that had blown into her courtyard from somewhere else, a gift of the wind. With no attention from her, the vines had extended four feet into the courtyard and three feet up the wall. She knew she should cut it back, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it; the flowers were too beautiful. When she thought of all the plants she had fertilized, watered, sprayed, and coaxed to bloom, this one was a wild and beautiful gift. If she was ever going to have another relationship with a man, she’d want to see how he’d react to her datura. She wondered if John would appreciate the beauty. Her ex-husband, Evan, had considered it a noxious weed, and when one tried to establish itself in their yard in Tucson, he yanked it out.
In the summer the plant was full of flowers, but tonight there were only two buds, possibly the last flowers of the season. Claire couldn’t see the sun from where she sat, but she could feel it drop behind the west mesa. The temperature fell, as it always did at nightfall in the desert. The antennae at the end of the buds began to quiver. A moth came out of the shadows and hovered, waiting for the blossoms to open. Bees buzzed and competed for space. To actually see a flower bloom seemed so miraculous to Claire that she never quite believed it would happen. She was astonished, as always, when the flowers burst open, white as wedding dresses, releasing a lush, delicate fragrance that drove the bees to distraction.
Chapter Nine
JENNIE HAD TOLD CLAIRE SHE WOULD CALL when Lou Bastiann had read the journal, but the call actually came from Lou himself. Claire had known nothing about him before she read the journal, and all she knew now was that he was a fan and a vet. He had never assumed the legendary status of the other figures in the Vail history.
He cleared his throat as he introduced himself. “I’ve read the journal,” he said. “I’d like to get together with you to talk about it.”
“All right,” Claire agreed.
“There’s a bar I’ve been to called Tom’s, near the university. Do you know it?”
Claire had never been to Tom’s, but she knew where it was, and she agreed to meet him there after work. When she arrived, there were a couple of cars in the parking lot and a motorcycle with Missouri plates. Inside, it took a minute for her eyes to make the
adjustment from the late-afternoon sun to the darkness. During that time she stood in the doorway feeling exposed, visible to whoever was in the bar before anyone else was visible to her.
A voice came out of the shadows. “Claire?” the man asked.
“Lou?”
“That’s me.” He grinned, and Claire saw that he was missing a tooth. By now her eyes had adjusted well enough to take a good look at Lou Bastiann. He was her height. A few years older—or he might have lived a harder life. He had a middle-aged spread, a pasty complexion, and a gray beard, yet his arms were muscular and strong, as if he was a laborer or worked out with weights. He wore a black T-shirt, black jeans, and motorcycle boots. It was a uniform of sorts, but Lou’s looks were average enough that they would have adapted almost as well to a business suit. Tom’s had a sawdust floor and a long bar that, at the moment, was empty. The mirror behind it reflected no one’s face. Lou led Claire past the bar to the table in the back where he’d been sitting. He held his left leg stiff as he walked, which made her wonder if he had been wounded in Vietnam.
There were a couple of empty Miller Lite bottles on the table. “Care for a beer?” he asked.
“I’d prefer a white wine.”
He went to the bar to get it.
“I envy you,” he said when he returned. “Keeping the archives for Jonathan Vail. What an interesting job!”
“It hasn’t been so wonderful lately.”
“Yeah. Jennie told me about the grad student. That’s a tough one.”
Lou Bastiann had restless eyes that lit briefly on Claire before roaming around the room. A ray of sunshine had come in through a window and was spotlighting the dusty floor. Lou’s eyes went to the light but didn’t linger. They were dark brown, almost black, the color of a butterfly that Claire saw occasionally in her courtyard.
“It’s always good to be back in New Mexico,” he said. “The light here. It’s like nowhere else in the world.”
Claire sipped at her drink, a house wine, most likely cheap Chardonnay. It would take a couple of glasses before it started tasting good. “Do you come to New Mexico often?”
“Whenever I can. I like to go to the Vietnam Memorial in Angel Fire for Veterans Day. Have you ever been?”
“Yes, but not on Veterans Day.”
“It’s a powerful ceremony, a way of remembering the guys who didn’t make it back.”
“You were in Vietnam when Jonathan disappeared?” Claire asked, while trying, unsuccessfully, to place him in one of the two categories of Vietnam vets she knew: the ones who were destroyed by the experience and the ones who showed no ill effects. Lou had an unfinished quality. He wasn’t a street person, but he didn’t look as if he’d settled into a comfortable middle age either. Her impression was the jury was still out on his life.
“Yes,” he said. “Jonathan was my hero. I was in boot camp when A Blue-Eyed Boy came out. It took a while for that book to become popular, but I read it immediately. I was full of doubts about the war, but when I got drafted I went. That’s what people did in Missouri, where I come from. Jonathan, he was free, living in the desert, protesting the war. That was what I wanted to be doing, and I also wanted to be a writer. It made me feel good that someone was living the life I wanted, instead of going off to Vietnam to dodge bullets. I wrote him, and he wrote me back right away. His letters kept me going. I didn’t have a girlfriend back home or a family to write to.”
“Do you still have the letters?”
“Sure do,” Lou said, taking a sip of his beer.
“The center would love to have them.”
“I’d hate to part with them, but I’ll tell you what…” Lou grinned. “I’ll leave them to the center when I die.”
“Did you become a writer?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What do you do?” Claire asked.
“I’m an auto mechanic. It was hard for me to write after the war. Besides, I knew I could never write anything as good as A Blue-Eyed Boy. Tell me something. What do the scholars at UNM think of A Blue-Eyed Boy? Has it held up over time?” His eyes stopped on her face and lingered there until Claire answered the question.
“It is still considered a classic.”
“I’m glad,” Lou replied. “And the journal? What did you think of the writing there?”
“In all honesty, I don’t think it measures up to A Blue-Eyed Boy. But it is a journal, not a novel. It was written in the canyons under difficult circumstances, possibly under the influence of drugs.”
“Jennie said it was found in a briefcase?”
“It was.”
“Could you tell me what it looked like?”
“It was pretty dusty after being in the cave all this time. It was made out of a thick gray hide I couldn’t identify. It had a zipper. There was a pouch inside.”
Lou put his beer bottle down on the table with a thump. “Damn! That pleases me. I sent Jonathan that briefcase from Vietnam. It’s made out of elephant hide, and I bought it on Tu Do Street in Saigon in 1966. 1 was in army intelligence then, under shallow cover, which meant I wore civilian dress and wasn’t allowed to carry a weapon. I bought a .38 on the black market and kept it in that pouch. When I got shipped out to Hue, I didn’t need the briefcase anymore, so I sent it to Jonathan.”
“Did you also send him a duffel bag?”
“No. I don’t know anything about a duffel bag. The rangers are investigating, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“How’s it going?” His butterfly eyes had begun to wander again. Claire wondered if they would be so restless if he hadn’t had several beers.
“They haven’t found anything new as far as I know.”
“Do you think it will hurt Jonathan’s reputation to publish the journal as it is?”
“That’s not my decision to make.”
“But if it were?”
“I think it’s a historical document that should be published word for word. If I could, I’d keep the dust, the careless handwriting, the grammatical errors, everything. I believe Jonathan’s fans and scholars will accept the imperfections. But Ada Vail owns the rights, and whoever publishes it has to honor her wishes.”
“Ada Vail’s heart is made out of concrete. What does her husband think?”
“There’s no way of telling. He’s had a stroke, and he doesn’t speak anymore.”
“I think if Jonathan were here, his choice would be to publish it as is, don’t you? It’s an expression of what he saw and felt at the time. He’d want you to do everything you could to keep the journal intact.”
“There isn’t much I can do.”
“You’re his archivist, aren’t you? The person responsible for preserving his legend?”
“Yes, but I’m not his publisher, and I don’t own the rights to his work.”
“Sometimes people can do more than they think they can,” Lou said.
“I’ll try,” Claire told him, “but I can’t make any promises.”
“Well, it has been great to meet you.” Lou stood up and gave her a firm handshake with a palm that felt rough and calloused. “Thanks a lot for your time.”
“You’re welcome to come to the center and look at the Vail papers whenever you like.”
“I may just take you up on that,” Lou said.
They walked out to the parking lot together. Lou put on his helmet, got on his motorcycle, and drove away while Claire was still inserting her key in her ignition. By the time he reached Central, she was wishing she’d asked how she could reach him.
******
The next morning she called August Stevenson and reported what Lou had told her about the briefcase.
“That’s consistent with what I’ve discovered so far,” he replied. “I consulted a leather expert and determined that the hide is elephant. Considering when the journal was written, the likely source would be southeast Asia, in particular, Vietnam. Elephants are endangered now, and the hide can no longer be legally sold, but that wasn’t
the case in the sixties. Briefcases like this one were common. GI’s bought them on Tu Do Street as souvenirs. I haven’t had a chance to do it yet, but a pollen analysis would date it and establish for certain where it came from.”
“I don’t think it will be necessary,” Claire said, mindful of how tight Harrison was with the center’s money. “I think you have enough information to submit your report now.”
“I’ll get it in the mail this afternoon,” August replied.
Claire thanked him and hung up. Knowing Harrison would be out of the library all day at a conference, she went to his office, opened the safe, put on a pair of white gloves, and took out the briefcase. It made sense that the weathered gray hide was elephant. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of that herself. She unzipped the zipper and slid her hand inside the pouch that Lou had described. She had once held a Ladysmith .38 that her friend Madelyn kept for protection; it would have fit comfortably in this pouch. Saigon had been an elegant city. She could imagine a younger, smoother Lou Bastiann strolling the streets, clutching the elephant-hide briefcase with his weapon inside.
Chapter Ten
HARRISON RECEIVED AUGUST’S REPORT and set up a meeting with Claire and Ada Vail in the food court to discuss it. Claire arrived at twelve-fifteen, the appointed time, but when she got to the cafeteria, Harrison and Ada were already sitting at a table in the window eating. She felt a flash of annoyance. Had he done this to embarrass her or because he wanted to talk about her to Ada before she arrived? Ada was jabbing her fork at Harrison to make a point when Claire walked up to the table. He noticed her approach and stood up, a courtesy Claire could not remember having received before. She attributed this display of good manners to the presence of Ada Vail. Harrison’s and Ada’s plates were full, but Claire had lost her appetite.
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