So Cold the River

by Michael Koryta

  Can I ask you something off topic?

  Pause. No response from Bradford.

  Are you going to talk to me only when I’m looking through the camera?

  In his memory, clear as anything, Eric recalled the old man smiling here. On the screen, his mouth didn’t so much as twitch.

  That is one wicked sense of humor.

  “No, no, no,” Eric said. “He was talking. He was talking.”

  But he wasn’t talking. Hadn’t said a word, hadn’t moved a muscle. And there in the background was Eric, gibbering along, carrying on a conversation with no one, sounding like… a crazy person.

  “I’m not crazy,” he said. “I’m not. You were talking, old man, you were talking and I’m sure of it, and I don’t know why this piece-of-shit camera won’t show it!”

  He was half shouting now but through clenched teeth, and he got to his feet with the camera in his hands, his eyes still locked on the display. He could see himself on the screen now, the green bottle in his hand. This was when Campbell had gotten upset. When he’d moved, grabbed Eric’s arm, and started to talk about the river.

  What?

  Well, I thought it was plenty cold. When I touched—

  Eric’s voice cut off on the audio then, and he remembered Campbell had interrupted him, but it didn’t play that way. Instead, it sounded like he’d just cut himself off in midsentence. The man in the hospital bed had not moved or spoken.

  What, then? What are you talking about?

  “He talked about the river,” Eric said. “The cold river.”

  But talk he did not. Only Eric spoke. Responding, according to the camera, to utter silence.

  What river are you talking about?

  What river? I don’t understand what you’re talking about, sir.

  Mr. Bradford? I’m sorry I brought the bottle.

  Mr. Bradford, I was hoping to talk to you about your life. If you don’t want to talk about West Baden or your childhood, that’s fine with me. Let’s talk about your career, then. Your kids.

  All Eric’s voice. Not a single whispered word from Campbell Bradford. The video went blank then, the recording over, and Eric was left standing there in the hotel room with the camera in his hands, staring at a blue screen.

  Crazy, a voice whispered in Eric’s mind, you’re going insane. Truly, literally, out of your mind. Seeing things that aren’t there is one thing, but you had a conversation that wasn’t there, buddy. That’s the sort of thing that only happens to—

  “I didn’t imagine shit,” Eric said. “Didn’t imagine a single damn thing. It was all real, and I don’t know why this thing won’t show it.”

  He rewound, played part of it again, saw the same thing he’d seen before, and now his heart was thundering.

  “Bullshit,” he said. “It happened, and the camera was on. So why didn’t you record it, you piece of shit? Why didn’t you record it!”

  The video played on, no voice but Eric’s audible.

  “Fuck you,” he told the camera, his voice shaking. “It’s you. It’s your fault.”

  That had to be it—the camera. The thing was… not broken, but what? Evil, that was it. This camera was evil. Because Eric knew he’d had a conversation with Campbell Bradford, knew it as surely as he knew his own name, and he knew he’d seen the train and spinning leaves last night, and yet those things had not been recorded and that left no other option but that this shitty camera was corrupt, malevolent, evil…

  He lifted it above his head and smashed it on the edge of the desk. A crack appeared on the casing but the rest of the camera stayed intact. Well-built, sturdy. Thanks, Paul. He lifted it and smashed it again. And again.

  By now he was shouting, not words so much as guttural oaths as he lifted and smashed, lifted and smashed, lifted and smashed.

  He didn’t stop until the casing was shattered and the carpet was littered with plastic shards. Then he dropped it to the floor, breathing hard, and kicked it, sent the camera rolling across the floor, leaving a trail of broken pieces in its wake.

  “There you go,” he said softly, and then he fell back onto the bed, dropping his head to his hands as his chest rose and fell in deep, fear-fueled breaths.

  Part Two

  NIGHT TRAINS

  15

  THERE’D BEEN ELEVEN CANS of Keystone Ice in the fridge when Josiah got home Friday night, and he drank nine of them before falling asleep sometime in those silent hours before dawn. He fell asleep out on the porch, could remember that the wind had been starting to stir right toward the end and he’d had a notion that it was time to go inside, but alcohol-induced sleep crept on and held him down with heavy hands.

  Dreams came for him then.

  In the first one he was in a city, on some street of towering buildings unfamiliar to him. Everything was a dusty gray, like an old photograph, and the wind howled around the concrete corners and swirled dust into his eyes. The dust was painful, made him wince and turn away, and when he did, he saw that the cars lining the street were old-fashioned, every last one of them, roadsters with headlights the size of dinner plates and long, wide running boards.

  There was no one on the sidewalks, no one in sight, but despite that, he had the sense that the place was bustling, busy. A powerful, impatient humming noise contributed to that impression, and then he heard a steam whistle ring out loud above it and he knew that a train was near. He turned back again, into the wind and the dust, and now he could see the train coming right down the sidewalk toward him. He stepped back as the locomotive roared up and went by in a blur that lifted more dust into his eyes and flapped his clothes against his body. The huge metal wheels were going right over the sidewalk, no rails beneath them, grinding off a fine layer of concrete, and Josiah knew then where all the dust was coming from.

  He had his hands up, shielding his face, when he heard the locomotive slow, and the cars that had been flying by began to take shape, corrugated doors and iron ladders and couplers like clasped fists of steel. All a dirty gray; nothing in this world had color. Then he turned to his left, looked down at the long snake of train cars yet to come, and saw a splash of red on white. The red was in the shape of a devil, with pointed tail and pitchfork in hand, the word Pluto written above it, all this on the side of a clean white boxcar. As this car approached, he could see there was a man leaning from it, hanging out of the open door of the boxcar with just one hand to support him and waving with the other. Waving at Josiah. The man wasn’t familiar but Josiah knew him all the same, knew him well.

  The train was at a crawl now, and Josiah stepped closer to it as the Pluto boxcar approached. The man hanging from it wore a rumpled brown suit with frayed cuffs above scuffed shoes, a bowler hat tilted up on his head, thick dark hair showing underneath. He smiled at Josiah as the steam whistle cut loose with another shriek and the train shuddered to a halt.

  “Time to be getting on,” the man said. He was hanging out of the boxcar right above Josiah now, almost close enough to touch.

  Josiah asked what he was talking about.

  “Time to be getting on,” the man said again, and then he removed his hat and waved it at the locomotive. “Won’t be stopped here forever. You best hurry.”

  Josiah inquired where they were bound.

  “South,” the man told him. “Home.”

  Josiah admitted that he wouldn’t mind heading home, didn’t know this place, didn’t like much about it. How was he to be sure the train was heading home, though? Home was a place called French Lick, he said, home was Indiana.

  “This is the Monon line,” the man said. “The Indiana line. ’Course we’re going to French Lick. West Baden, too. Best be getting on now.”

  Josiah said, As he recollected the Monon hadn’t carried a car in upwards of forty years. That got the man smiling as he set his hat back on his head and the whistle blew.

  “Could be so,” he said. “But if there’s another way of getting home, I don’t know it.”

  He shifted then,
stepped back into the boxcar. Something splashed and Josiah looked down and saw the man was standing in water now, had soaked his shoes and those frayed pant cuffs.

  “Best be getting on,” the man said again, and the train began to move, water sloshing out of the boxcar and splattering the sidewalk. “I told you, we don’t stop here forever.”

  Josiah asked whether the man was certain they’d be headed in his direction.

  “Of course,” the man said. “We’re going home to take what’s yours, Josiah.”

  The train was pulling away, and Josiah started walking after it and then broke into a jog and still wasn’t fast enough, and then he was running all out, his breath coming in jerking gasps. He got too close to the train, though, and the force of the cars thundering by spun him and he stumbled, and then that dream was gone and he was into another.

  Out in a field this time, a field of golden wheat turned blood red by sunset and bent double from a stiff wind. Shadows lay at the opposite end of the field, a row of trees there, and above them the dome of the West Baden Springs Hotel rose mighty and shining into the sky. It was time to head over there and get to work; Josiah knew that and knew he’d have to hustle because this was a mighty long field and that wind was pushing hard against him, making the walk difficult.

  He leaned into it, walking hard, but the sun was sliding away fast and the moon was rising beside it at the exact same tempo, like someone pulling a clock chain that was attached to both. The dark fell fast and heavy and the hotel dome gleamed under the moon and the wind was colder now, so cold, and yet Josiah didn’t appear to have gotten anywhere at all, had just as much of the wheat field ahead as he’d always had. As the dark gathered, he could make out a man at the tree line, the same man from the train, wearing his bowler hat and with hands jammed into his pants pockets. He was shaking his head at Josiah. Looked disgusted with him. Disgusted and angry.

  The second dream faded and heat replaced it, an uncomfortable black warmth that eventually roused Josiah from sleep. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the sun was up and shining off the windshield of his pickup truck and right in his face.

  He rose with a grunt, stumbled forward and leaned on the porch rail, felt the old paint flake under his palm. A dull throb came from his face, and only then did he remember the previous night, the white guy with the scruffy beard and the black kid with the blisteringly quick left hand. He felt around his eye with his fingertips, knew from touch alone how it must look, and felt the anger that had chased him into sleep return.

  The beer had left his mouth dry, but his stomach was settled and his head was clear. Hell, he felt good. He’d taken a punch to the eye and then tied on a good drunk and slept sitting upright in a plastic chair, but somehow he felt good. Felt strong.

  The phone started ringing, and he went inside, picked it up off the table, answered and heard Danny’s voice.

  “Josiah, what’n hell you’d take off for last night?”

  “Wasn’t feeling so hot. Needed some sleep.”

  “Bullshit. I heard you went to Rooster’s and got knocked in the face by some—”

  “Never mind that,” Josiah said. “Look, you done crowing over your twenty-five hundred yet?”

  “That what got you upset, that I had some luck? Downright shitty, Josiah.”

  “That wasn’t it. I’m asking, though, you still feeling big about it?”

  “Feeling happy is all. Took a little beating later on, lost about eight hundred, but I still got more than fifteen of it left. That ain’t a bad night.”

  “No, it ain’t. But is it a good enough night? It all you need?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Josiah turned and looked out the window, out into that sun-filled day.

  “Time’s come to make us some real money, Danny. Time’s come.”

  16

  AN HOUR AFTER ERIC played the video, he was still staring at the wreckage that remained from his camera, trying to understand what in the hell was going on, when his cell phone began to ring.

  It was Claire. Calling him even though he’d told her he would not be available for a few weeks. He held the phone in his hand but didn’t answer. He could not talk to her now, not in this state. A minute after it stopped ringing he checked the message, and the sound of her voice broke something loose inside him, made his shoulders sag and his eyes close.

  “I know you’re in Indiana,” she said, “but I just wanted to check on you. I was thinking of you…. You can call if you want. If not, I understand. But I’d like to know you’re all right.”

  A week ago, he’d have bristled. Check on me? Like to know if I’m all right? Why would I not be? Just because you’re not here, I’m not going to be okay? Today, though, sitting on the hotel room floor surrounded by his broken camera, he couldn’t muster that response. Instead, he called her back.

  She answered. First ring.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey. You got my message?”

  “Yes.”

  Silence.

  “Well, I didn’t want to bother you. It’s just that you hadn’t really said anything about where you were going or when you might be back, so—”

  “It’s fine. I should have explained more. I’m sorry.”

  She was quiet for a moment, as if the phrase had surprised her. Probably it had.

  “Are you okay?” she said. “You sound a little off.”

  “I’ve been… Claire, I’m seeing things.”

  “What do you mean, you’re—”

  “Things that aren’t there,” he said, and there was something thick in the back of his throat.

  Silence, and he braced himself for the scorn and the ridicule she’d have to levy now, the accusations. Instead he heard a door swing shut and latch and then a metallic clatter that he recognized so well—she’d tossed her car keys into the ceramic dish she kept on the table by the door. She’d been going out, and now she stopped.

  “Tell me about it,” she said.

  He talked for about twenty minutes, gave her more detail than he’d planned, recalled every word Campbell Bradford had said about the cold river, described the train right down to the gravel vibrating under his feet and the furious storm cloud that came from its stack. Through it all, she listened.

  “I know what you’re going to say,” he said when he was through recounting the story of the man in the boxcar. “But it’s not booze and it’s not pills and it’s not—”

  “I believe you.”

  He hesitated. Said, “What?”

  “I believe that it’s not booze or pills,” she said. “Because this has happened before. You’ve had visions like this before.”

  “Not like this,” he said. “You’re thinking of that time in the mountains, but—”

  “That’s one of them, but there were others. Remember the Infiniti?”

  That stopped him. Shit, how could he have forgotten about the Infiniti? Maybe because he’d wanted to.

  They’d been looking for a new car for Claire, back in California when things were good and the job offers were rolling in, and had gone to an Infiniti dealership to test-drive a red G35 coupe she’d liked. The car was brand-new, and she hadn’t wanted to spend that kind of money, but Eric was feeling cocky and flush and insisting cash wasn’t an issue. So they’d taken the car out, the two of them in front and a paunchy salesman with effeminate hands wedged into the back, jabbering on about the car’s amazing and apparently endless features: navigation, climate control, heated seats, pedicures, tranquilizers, a hand that came right out from under the dash and powdered your balls when you needed it. His voice was grating on Eric, but Claire was driving and it was her car to choose anyhow, so Eric had leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment.

  He swore, even hours later, that he’d heard metal tear. He believed that in his heart. He’d heard the jagged, agonized rip of metal from metal, a sound that belonged at junkyards or disaster sites, and jerked up in his seat and opened his eyes to see the windshield sp
lintered and spider-webbed, turned to Claire and saw ribbons of blood spreading across her forehead and over her lips and down her chin as her neck sagged lifelessly to the right.

  He’d gotten out some sort of gasp or grunt or shout and Claire had hit the brakes and turned to him as the guy in back finally shut up, and then Eric had blinked and the freeway spun around him and then he focused again and could see that they were all fine, that the car was intact and the windshield was whole and Claire’s face was smooth and tan and blood-free.

  The excuse he manufactured at the time—something about a sudden stomach cramp—had satisfied the salesman but not Claire, and when they got back to the lot she pulled him aside and asked him what was wrong. All he’d said: Don’t you even think about buying this car. He couldn’t tell her any more than that, couldn’t describe the way her face had looked in that terrible flash.

  Five days later, she’d brought him a copy of the Times as he drank coffee at the kitchen table, dropped it in front of him and pointed to an article detailing how a music executive’s daughter had wrapped her fresh-off-the-lot Infiniti G35 around a utility pole, doing about a hundred and ten. The car was red and had just been purchased from Martin Infiniti, the same dealership they’d visited. Eric had finally told her, told her what she already knew. Then he’d tried to convince her it could easily be a different car.

  “I actually forgot about that,” he told her now. “But even that can’t touch what I’ve been seeing lately, Claire. That conversation with the old man, and then the train… they felt real. During those moments, they were absolutely real.”

  “But in the past you’ve had psychic—”

  “Oh, stop, I don’t want to hear that word.”

  “In the past you’ve had odd visions—better?—that have been very real, too. You’ve been able to connect objects or places with things that had happened or were going to happen. So why wouldn’t you believe this is similar?”