Ann didn't speak till they'd left the building, clomped the quarter-mile to Cameron's car, and slumped into their seats.
"Any ideas why Taylor would go to all the effort to manufacture that book and set up the clues? This is more than a game to him," Ann said.
Cameron stared out the window. A sick game.
"I'm guessing you'll be keeping your date with Taylor tomorrow morning."
That's right! Taylor was going to teach him to fly-fish.
"Absolutely. He'd better be ready to catch much more than fish."
CHAPTER 42
Cameron got up Thursday morning with fishing on his mind. He was the hook. Taylor Stone was the trout.
They reached the trailhead to Whychus Creek at five o'clock, meaning Cameron had lurched out of bed at a horrendous time, but Taylor said they had to get to the river early if they wanted to catch any rainbows. This didn't jell with Taylor's penchant for dropping his flies on the river at all hours of the day, but Cameron didn't argue the point. It was the perfect place to confront him about his creation of a Book of Days, and if getting up before God was awake was the price, so be it.
Here there would be no distractions. Nowhere for Taylor to walk away to. And Cameron had written down the details of what they'd found under The Sail & Compass the night before, so if he needed to be reminded of anything, he could access it in an instant.
By six o'clock they'd tied their first flies and Taylor had coached him on the fluid back and forth motion needed to cast correctly. The hole Taylor had chosen was no bigger than a large inner tube. Cameron only hit the spot two times in ten casts, and bites from the brown trout under the translucent water eluded him, but he loved it.
The only sound was the rush of the river as it meandered its way through the stones, and the smooth swish of their rods through the air.
"Slow down," Taylor said, "you're not going to whip the fish into submission by casting like that. Let the fly settle on the water and then take it back up after a two count."
Cameron slowed down.
"Much better."
After he caught and released his first trout, Taylor said, "How many years were you and Jessie married before her accident?"
"Too few." Cameron drew back his rod and made a perfect cast into the hole. "Five."
"You were with her when she died?"
"Yeah." Cameron slogged through the water back to the rocky beach and set his rod down. "All the clichés you hear on the radio and see in the movies were bottled up in her like love-lightning. Being with Jessie was like opening that bottle in every moment."
"I know that love."
"You and Tricia?"
Taylor shook his head. "I love Tricia and don't deserve all the things she's done or tried to do for me." He cast five more times before he continued. "I'm talking about Annie."
Finally he would get the story on Annie.
"Ann was named for her as you know." He stopped casting and drilled Cameron with his eyes. "I'm not sure how I feel about you falling for my niece."
"I'm not falling for her."
Taylor adjusted his U of O hat. "Uh-huh."
Cameron rammed his hands into his back pockets and didn't answer.
"Annie was all grace and toughness. Pretty as all get-out but could run faster than half the boys growing up. Vanishing from my life almost thirty-three years ago, you'd think my memories would have faded, but Annie was the type you never forget."
Taylor finished releasing the fish he'd just caught and set it back in the river. It spurted away, disappearing downstream. "Of course not being able to let go of her makes for a pretty heavy burden to carry, you know?"
Cameron knew. "How did Annie die?"
"In a car accident." This time Taylor cast eight times. "Like you, I loved the old muscle cars. And I found a favorite. When I looked at the horses under the hood of that beat-up Mustang, I knew I was the one to tame her." Taylor turned and stared at him. "You understand, don't you?"
He nodded.
Taylor yanked back on his rod, a rainbow trout dangling on his line, and pulled it in. "I bought that beauty two summers before the accident happened. That car was my passion." Taylor trudged back to shore and set his rod down. "It took me the full two years to restore it. Ran as smooth as a maple seedling twirling to the ground when I was finished."
Taylor stopped talking for so long Cameron thought he'd fallen asleep standing upright. When he spoke again, his voice was like smoke in sunlight, and he could barely make out the words.
"The morning after I'd finished it, I had to go somewhere and Annie asked if she could take the car for a drive. Of course I agreed; I'd restored the car for her."
He sat next to Cameron and rubbed his face. "A 1970 Ford station wagon with three high school juniors inside ran a stop sign going like a whirly-wind and T-boned Annie. They say she probably died instantly."
Cameron shook his head.
"Are you all right?"
"Remember me telling you I restored a '65 Mustang and gave it to Jessie for Christmas one year?"
"I do."
"She only drove it once." He breathed deep and imagined he smelled the water, a pure crystal smell with no imperfections. "On the way to the airstrip. On the day she died."
Taylor put his arm around Cameron's shoulder. "Life is funny the way it puts certain people together, isn't it?"
Taylor stood and waded into the river, the water swirling around his waders. He cast in perfect rhythm, nothing moving except for his right arm.
He was a good man, a friend even, but he'd hidden the truth. It was time to confront the lie. It was time to find out exactly what Taylor knew.
"I want to talk to you about why you created a Book of Days."
"I suppose it's time, isn't it?"
"We found the hidden door."
"I thought you might." Taylor continued casting.
"Why go to all the trouble to create that elaborate set of clues and a false book? Why did you do it?"
"I had to. It was the only way to convince anyone searching for a real book that the Book of Days was only an idea." Taylor glanced back at Cameron. "I expected they would follow the clues I'd laid out, find the symbolic book, and prove to themselves the book didn't really exist. It wouldn't be a good thing for most people to find the real book."
He gathered up his rod and smiled at Cameron. "And then you came along out of nowhere, knocking over apple carts every which way, and tracked the thing down. Well done."
Cameron stared at him. "What did you just say?"
"Yes, I did say 'real book.'"
"Are you telling me—?"
"But as smart as you were, you must extend a great deal of credit to Ann, don't you think? I don't believe you would have gotten where you did without her."
"The book is real?"
"She was an interesting twist to the puzzle." Taylor shook his head. "Having a niece show up after all these years is a definite mind bender."
Taylor turned and sloshed out of the river till he reached a boulder the size of a small ottoman and sat on it. "That stone around your neck, can I see it?"
Strange. Someone else asked to see it recently, hadn't they? "Sure." He lifted it from around his neck and handed the stone to Taylor.
Taylor studied it. "I'd lay odds these markings are Native American."
Suddenly the memory of his climb two days before surged into his mind. "Grange!"
The image of Grange studying the stone just as Taylor had filled his head. The questions about why Cameron wanted to go to the place of stories. The directions . . . He'd told Cameron exactly how to find the place. What was it called? Time Stories? The Stories of Time?
"He told me how to find it." His heart beat picked up.
"He must have liked you. And trusted you. He's probably been watching you since you got here." Taylor nodded. "Grange is a good man."
"You know, don't you? You know what they are. The Stories of Time and the Book of Days are the same thing, aren't they
?"
"Yes." Taylor handed the stone back to Cameron.
"Why did you lie to me?"
"I'm sorry, Cameron, forgive me. I had no choice."
"We always have a choice."
"What did Grange tell you?"
"He said few are chosen to see the stories."
"True."
"And you were one of the chosen." Cameron tossed a rock into the swirling water.
"Yes, to my eternal regret."
"Do you care to explain that?"
"After I found the book, I used it." Taylor slid his reel down to the river rock at his feet. "I used what I saw."
"You're telling me the Stories of Time truly do tell the future?"
Taylor nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me the truth?"
"I wanted to tell you. I did." Taylor rubbed his face and sighed. "I did try to tell you in my own way."
"When?"
"In the park, when I showed you the arrowhead shadow pointing the way to the book. I've wanted you to find it for a while now."
Oh, wow. The memory swished through his mind. That's right. Taylor had tried to show him.
"But I couldn't go any further than that. I swore I wouldn't ever put someone in the position to go through the regret I've lived with for thirty-three years."
"It all comes back to Annie, doesn't it?"
"I found the book when we'd been married for two years. We had the same type of relationship you and Jessie had." Taylor shook his head. "Perfect. Even after we were married, I loved backpacking through the mountains around here by myself for days at a time. A part of me has always been built for solitude.
"One early morning in July over thirty years ago, I explored an area of the mountains I'd never been to. I came to an opening in the rocks and somehow I stumbled through them to the prettiest slice of earth you'll ever find.
"There it was lying out in front of me like a mirror. As I gazed at it I saw the past, saw the present, then I saw the future. A future where my dad would lose his legs in a logging accident the next afternoon.
"Annie was out of town and I couldn't reach her so I came home and told my sister-in-law about what I'd seen and she never doubted me."
"Ann's mom?"
"Yes."
"She told me I had to save my dad. I agreed." Taylor rubbed his face with both hands. "I was supposed to wait for Annie to get home the next afternoon, but I left her a note saying I'd gone to see my dad.
"So I tried to stop the accident. And I did; my dad never lost his legs. People wondered for years how I knew that tree would fall the wrong way. But what I set in motion . . ."
Taylor stopped and swallowed as tears seeped onto his cheeks. "What I did caused Annie's death in the moments after my father lived."
"Because she didn't go to Bend with you."
Taylor nodded.
"So you made a book and created a series of clues—"
"I realized if I could create something that people would have to work to find, I could end it right there. In the case of Jason, it worked. I don't think he'll ever figure out . . . But you, it seems you're one of the chosen."
Cameron didn't know what to believe. Was it real? Was it another part of Taylor's game?
Taylor turned to him. "You didn't tell me your wife asked you to use the stone to find the book."
Cameron frowned at him.
"You're wondering how I knew?" Taylor said. "Grange told me."
Taylor tossed a rock into the river. "Don't you think it's time to come clean?"
"About what?"
"About why you're forgetting pieces of conversations. About why you didn't start your search for the book right after Jessie died. About why you didn't think her story was more than the jumbled thoughts of a dying woman until three weeks ago."
"Because . . ." There was no spin he could put on an answer that would satisfy Taylor.
"Why didn't you remember what Grange told you?"
Cameron watched the river rush around and over the rocks, as if it knew exactly where it wanted to go. Where it needed to go.
"I'm losing my mind. My memories flit in and out of my brain like sparrows. Eight years ago my dad died of the disease, and the last thing he asked me to do was to find the book for him. His dying wish. I thought he was talking nonsense.
"Then two years ago I started noticing my memory wasn't as sharp as it had been. Little things like reading notes I'd just written and reading them as if for the first time. Not remembering if I'd brushed my teeth or not. Telling my partner the same thing three times in one morning.
"Then I started losing memories of Jessie. What we'd done, where we'd gone, important conversations we'd had."
"I'm sorry." Taylor looked at the sky. "Okay, God, I get it."
He turned and stared at Cameron for a long time before nodding twice. "I am going to do something I swore I would never do for the rest of my life."
"Return to the Book of Days?"
"Yes." Taylor massaged the back of his neck. "And take you with me. But I should warn you. You might not like what you see."
CHAPTER 43
I'm taking him to see it." Taylor sat in front of his workbench and stared at a map of the Three Peak wilderness as he spoke into his cell phone.
"When?"
"Tomorrow morning."
"Do you feel at peace with that choice?"
"Yes." Taylor paused. "Your counsel helped."
"I'm glad. Is there anything else I can do?"
"I need you to be ready for Jason if he tries to follow us." Taylor ran his finger along the route Cameron and he would take.
"You believe he'll try?"
"I'd be surprised if he didn't. His skills with knives and guns are far greater than mine. And I have little doubt he would kill to possess the book."
"I agree. Do not worry. I will look out for you and Cameron."
"Thanks, Grange."
"Yes, my friend. Yes."
Cameron didn't speak as Taylor drove up the rutted logging road, only a hint of gray dawn painted across the sky toward what he said was the genuine Book of Days.
Cameron hadn't set his alarm the night before. He'd never gone to sleep. He'd considered telling Ann about his conversation with Taylor and his claim that the book was genuine, but what if it wasn't? What if it was another one of Taylor's games? Or nothing more than a beautiful spot in the mountains where Taylor felt God gave him impressions that seemed real?
Sure, Taylor's story of saving his dad seemed like proof, but what if it was nothing more than a hunch he'd acted on?
But then again, Cameron had his dad's story to go on as well as Jessie's to bolster his belief. It didn't seem as if both of them could have hallucinated about the same thing. And then there was Grange and the stone.
He sighed. His brain was exhausted from trying to analyze everything he'd gone through over the past two and a half weeks.
Something Taylor believed to be God's book was up there, but what would a book be doing in the middle of the mountains? Sure God's book would be rainproof—it could be anything proof—but it didn't make sense. Was it in a cave? Was it two thousand feet thick? Logic wasn't helping and Taylor stayed mute about the book's description.
At least he hadn't let his emotions leapfrog on him. He'd shut down any hope of seeing anything more than a stunning setting hidden in the mountains.
"How could my dad have seen this thing when he was a kid?"
Taylor shrugged. "It's a long hike, not a hard one. He probably was up in the mountains with his dad or a friend, who knows?"
"And how did Jessie find it?"
"Think about her childhood if you can. Did she ever mention Girl Scouts or—"
"She was a Girl Scout. She talked about them doing a lot of things outdoors, taking trips—maybe she even told me she came down here . . ."
"There you go."
Cameron stared at the ponderosa pine trees rushing past and thought about the last time he saw his dad. "You must find the book.
Everything will make sense to you then."
I'm ready, Dad.
"Is the book real?"
"I've told you it's real. You don't need to hear me say it again. You need to choose to believe or not."
"How much longer?"
"Probably an hour before we reach the trailhead and a good three hours of hiking before we get there."
"Will you tell me anything about the book?"
"You'd like a preview?" Taylor grinned.
"Yeah."
"It's possible that some people have seen the book and not known it."
"How can you see the book and not know it's a book?"
"You'll see." Taylor paused and grinned again. "I hope you'll see."
"What does that mean?"
"You'll see."
Cameron frowned. "Stop saying that."
"You will."
Ten minutes later they turned onto a dirt road that wasn't even one car wide. Branches scraped the sides of Taylor's truck as they inched along the narrow road, but he didn't seem to notice.
When the trail ended, Taylor threw the gearshift into Park. "Let's go."
He led Cameron up what looked like a game trail. After an hour and a half of steady climbing, Taylor heaved himself up onto a large slab of granite.
Cameron joined him and looked out over the forest below them. The only sound was the pounding of blood rushing back and forth through his veins, the air as still as it had ever been since coming to Three Peaks and the scent of dry pine needles filled his nose.
A hawk screeched high above and behind them.
"How did you find the book?"
"I was praying." Taylor shifted on the rock and stretched out his legs.
"Praying?"
"Like I told you on the river, I wanted to go someplace I hadn't been before and chose this trail. I came up for some reflection, some alone time with God. I wanted to figure out where my life should go. Where Annie's and my life should go."
Taylor stood and took a long draw from his water bottle. "As I hiked along pouring my heart out to God, I reached a spot where I got an impression to stop. So I stood in the silence for a few minutes. I looked around and suddenly got this feeling I should walk toward what looked like solid rock. It wasn't a voice in my head, just the thought that I should walk right up to it. So I did, my nose inches away from the wall. That close I saw it wasn't rock. It was an optical illusion. Nature's way of hiding an entrance that was there the whole time.
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