by Mike Sirota
But without question it was there.
Paul turned and looked around. The falling snow brought the forest alive. Glancing up, he felt disoriented. Sagging branches seemed to bend toward him, like warning fingers.
He was getting crazy again, he decided, and went inside.
It took him only a couple of minutes to turn the dying embers into an ample blaze. After this experience, he would find some use for the fireplace in his condo. There had to be one or two cold nights in Laguna Hills during the winter.
With clothes dripping all over the cabin, he returned to work in earnest for the first time since before Gail’s visit. Satisfied with his output, he quit at twelve-thirty. He ate a ham and cheese sandwich from Arthur Tyler’s bag—there were two sandwiches, another piece of Black Forest cake, and a bar of Ghirardelli milk chocolate; Arthur Tyler would be the death of him—and climbed into bed with Trails of Promise.
The brief remainder of John Thorburn’s diary was anticlimactic, except for one thing. After reaching Sacramento, most of the families went their separate ways. But Thorburn, in one of his briefest entries, reported the violent, accidental death of the youngest Hardman child. He was not specific.
John Thorburn’s final entry was his proud proclamation of being a “new Californian.”
Paul closed the book with an unsatisfied feeling.
Sunday, December 8
The snowplow worked through the night. Paul remembered coming half-awake a few times and listening to it, usually distant, once closer. Other than that, it remained still. The storm had ended. He figured they were getting a jump on the morning.
But at dawn the nor’easter had returned to its full fury. Paul stayed in his cabin all morning and worked well, in spite of the light flickering off and on. He finally moved the desk over to the side window.
At noon he heard someone on the front porch. Did anything deter the staff? This time he was determined Nora Hardman would stop in for a couple of minutes. He opened the door, leaning a shoulder against it.
“Bring it inside,” he called. “Hurry!”
Someone in a dark hooded coat stepped into No. 11. Paul shut the door and looked up.
The handyman stood there, holding a carryall. He offered it to Paul as he peeled back the hood.
“Here’s yer lunch,” he said in a gruff voice.
Paul took it. “Thanks.”
“What’d ya think, I was Nora?” the man asked.
“I guess so.”
“She’s workin’ in the kitchen today. They sent me instead.”
“Sorry you got stuck with it. You can stay and warm up if you want, Mr. . . ”
“Name’s Landry; Joe Landry. Maybe for a minute or so.”
“Go over by the fire.”
Landry shook his head. “Right here’s good enough.”
Paul put his lunch on the desk and moved some papers around. Landry stood near the door, sullen, watching him.
“So, how long have you worked at the colony, Mr. Landry?” Paul finally asked, wishing the man was gone.
“Long time,” he replied. “Mos’ my life, I suppose.”
“Do you like it here?”
“Somethin’ to do, someplace to be.” He pulled up the hood. “I gotta go.”
Landry exited quickly, hardly letting in any of the storm. Paul watched through the window as he walked away. Despite the force of the wind, he moved easily. When he was gone from sight Paul resumed his work.
At one-thirty, with the storm easing, Paul trudged through the snow to Big House. A football game in the day room seemed a fair alternative to a missed afternoon in a casino. He had work to do in the library afterward, which would fill the time until dinner.
And when the ritual was done he would go to Gail Farringer’s cabin. Admittedly, it was the one thing he anticipated above all else.
He joined other residents in front of the big screen. A 49ers-Falcons game became a rout for the Bay Area team by the third quarter, but the game between the Chargers and Seahawks remained in doubt until the final minute. A few wagers on the former gave Paul a profitable afternoon.
Robert Kingsley, the artist, lost five dollars to him. Paying him, he said good-naturedly, “An extra day here and already it’s costing me!”
“What do you mean?” Paul asked.
“I was supposed to leave this morning.” He gestured toward a window that overlooked part of the circular driveway in front of Big House. “Fat chance. Walter said they don’t even bother clearing these roads until after a storm is over.”
“You could be stuck here for days!”
“Walter thinks it’ll end tomorrow, so I’m hoping for Tuesday morning. I can live with it.”
“Hope that doesn’t happen later this month,” Paul said. “I’m cutting it fine, trying to get my kids right before Christmas.”
Kingsley shrugged. “Good luck.”
Jane Tyler oversaw a study hall crowd of one as Paul arrived. Mary Sherman sat at a corner table, enclosed in a fortress of thick leather-bound books. She waved Paul over.
“Quite a collection, I must say!” she exclaimed, gesturing around the room. “Nothing like it in St. George.”
“Have you been at it long?” he asked.
“All blessed day. Didn’t realize it was this close to dinner till you came in and I looked at my watch.”
Jane Tyler shushed them with an admonishing finger. Mary suppressed a laugh, winked at Paul, and sank behind her literary bastion. Paul gathered what he needed and sat down at a nearby table.
By the time he was done, Mary had said good-bye and left. There was still half an hour until dinner. Paul thought about returning to the day room. Instead he wandered over to the section of John Thorburn’s works and began thumbing through some of them. He read a sentence here, a page there, not sure what he was expecting to find. Nowhere did Thorburn make more than a passing reference to being stranded in the Sierras.
“Interested in our founder, are you, Mr. Fleming?”
Jane Tyler appeared from a narrow aisle between rows of tightly crammed shelves. Paul nodded and said, “I just finished reading his diary. Oh, I read it before, of course, in school.”
“Of course.”
“Maybe you can answer a question for me.”
“About John Thorburn? Anything.”
“It’s something he wrote.” Paul extracted a copy of Trails of Promise, found the January 4 entry, and read it aloud. “Do you have any idea what they saw?”
“Oh, that. Yes, certainly I know. After all, Noah Tyler saw it too.” She paused.
“What was it?”
“The Indian. It was the Indian who brought them the food and helped them survive while they waited for the rescue party.”
“But according to Thorburn he didn’t show up until the next day.”
“It was the Indian, Mr. Fleming. He came upon the cabins late in the afternoon. In those years his people had not seen many whites. He watched them and knew they were in trouble, but he was too frightened to help. So he returned to his village and told the chief, who sent him back the next day with supplies. That was what happened.”
“But how come Thorburn made no mention of it?”
“It was that very evening when some of his people started showing symptoms of the illness. As leader he was preoccupied with their wellbeing, and his diary was secondary. He didn’t write again until the following night.”
It made sense, Paul thought. Sort of. In any case it seemed to put Jane Tyler on the defensive. Maybe it was time to be done with the matter.
“Well, thanks for enlightening me,” he told her.
“Consider this, Mr. Fleming,” she said, persisting. “Although John Thorburn’s reputation for thoroughness is well warranted, I can tell you that many things on the journey from Missouri were not chronicled. Oh, I suppose they weren’t that important. But if all the stories handed down to us were put on paper, Trails of Promise would have to be published in volumes.”
“Than
ks again,” Paul said, sliding the diary back onto the shelf.
The librarian nodded curtly and returned to her work. Paul picked up his briefcase and started for the door. He knew she was watching him. Even as he went out into the central hall he could feel her gaze.
He wondered what button he had pushed in the prim, bookish Jane Tyler.
He looked at Nancy Thorburn’s painting. Was he the only artist-in-residence so fascinated by it? People walked past and glanced at it, as they did with all the objets d’art in the hall’s eclectic collection. To them it was just one more.
Despite its size he thought that by now he’d isolated each brush stroke on the canvas, every puff of frosty air, the cracks on the wagon wheels. Then he would discover something new.
Like now.
In the background on the far left, amid a hazy, almost surrealistic pine forest, stood a figure. Unmistakably a man; dark, but not a silhouette, because there were features. They were so minute as to be barely seen by the naked eye. Paul leaned closer, studying it.
“You want to borrow my specs or something?”
He jumped. Mary Sherman stood next to him, smiling.
“Jeez, I had no idea you were there!” he exclaimed.
“Sorry about that. Great painting, huh? I noticed it the first day.”
I’m glad someone else appreciates it.”
“Been watching you for a minute. The way you were looking at it reminds me of an old Rod Serling story.”
“How’s that?”
“It was about this Nazi-in-hiding. Seems that he’s fascinated by a painting of a fisherman in a rowboat on a calm mountain lake. He stares at it endlessly, even wills himself into it a couple of times. When the Israelis finally catch up with him he decides that now he’ll stay in it forever. He sneaks into the museum at night, not knowing the exhibits have been switched around. So instead of the fisherman he becomes a concentration camp victim consumed by flames for all eternity.”
“I remember that,” Paul said. He nodded toward the painting. “Can’t say I’d like to be part of this one. Come on, I’ll walk you to the dining room.”
“I stopped in there before,” she said. “Looks like it’s you, me, and Michael again.”
Paul shook his head. “That’s impossible, it’s never the same.”
“Trust me, the little name cards are in the same place.”
Mary was right. They were back at the first table. At six-thirty, instead of the grand procession, Walter McClain hurried in alone.
“Ms. Thorburn won’t be joining us tonight,” he said. “Oh, it’s nothing to be alarmed about. A slight cold, that’s all. She sends her regrets and hopes you all enjoy dinner.”
Gail Farringer was not there. She had never been late, and only one time had Paul arrived before her. Perhaps, after the anticipation, tonight wasn’t going to happen. He tried not to think about it.
During the first course he asked Mary, “So what were you up to with that formidable-looking stack in the library? Or is your new project a secret?”
“Not as much as yours!” she replied good-naturedly. “Actually I’ve been kicking around a few ideas. The one I like most is a study of the Mormons during the gold rush. You know, their involvement in it, their influence. They played a big part in the opening of the West and all, but you don’t hear about them as much in the context of the forty-niners. Thought it might be interesting, and I’ve already come up with a few colorful characters.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Michael said.
“Likewise,” Paul agreed. “I take it you enjoy research?”
“Love it!”
“It involves a lot of detective work. Do you ever think of yourself as one?”
“Are you kidding? My heroine is Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote.”
Paul thought for a moment then said, “I have a proposition for you.”
“Well, I’m old, chubby, and married, but what the heck!”
Michael nearly choked on his salad. Paul grinned then recited from memory John Thorburn’s entry of January 4, 1846. He explained his curiosity over the events of those couple of days, as well as the unsatisfying explanation offered him by Jane Tyler. Mary was interested.
“Too many holes in that,” she finally said. “Right off the bat, if it was an Indian, the only way they would have spotted him was if he wanted to be seen, which is doubtful. But even if it was, there’s no way he could’ve gotten back to his village, gathered up supplies, and returned by noon the next day.”
“Why not?”
“I’m sure the Indian was a Washo. This was their hunting ground then. The Washo made their camps—lots of little ones—mostly on the eastern slopes of the Sierras, the Nevada side, although there were some who stayed in California during the winter, on meadows down toward the foothills. Either way it was a long trek, especially at this elevation with all the storms that had hit. You said it was late afternoon when they supposedly saw him?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“Then the daylight was almost gone. That cinches it, because he wouldn’t have traveled at night. He would’ve just camped nearby.”
“How come?” Michael asked.
“Monsters. Creatures of darkness, whatever. The mountains swarmed with them, so the Washo believed. They hid behind the trees, lurked under the surface of every lake and stream. No, that fellow would have stayed put. Even his proximity to the white devils would have been preferable.”
“So the question still remains, what did they see?” Paul mused. “And why did they pass that story down?”
“It’s a mystery, that’s for sure,” Mary said.
“Why don’t you ask Walter?” Michael suggested. “He seems to know everything. Or better yet, Harriet Thorburn?”
Paul shook his head. “We’ll get the same story. I would bet on it.”
“I agree,” Mary said.
“Besides, talking about it really set that woman off. No, we need another approach. Mary—”
“I’m way ahead of you, dear boy. Do some research into the Thorburn party incident, some textbook sleuthing, if you will. Find out if any funny business went on up here.”
Paul smiled. “I wouldn’t get so melodramatic. But that’s the idea. I’m aware that the ordeal of the Thorburn party was overshadowed in history by the Donners. Still, anything written on it would more than likely be here.”
Mary rubbed her hands together. “This’ll be fun. It may take me a couple of days, since I’m still doing my own work.”
Paul nodded. “Sure, no problem.”
“Well, I wish you two luck,” Michael said. “Since I’m leaving Tuesday, I won’t be around to hear the ending.”
“It keeps snowing like this,” Mary said, “you’ll be around way past the ending!”
With the matriarch absent, Walter McClain dismissed the hall half an hour earlier than usual. Paul said good night to the others. He lingered until everyone was gone then stopped in the kitchen to heap more praise upon the appreciative Arthur Tyler. An even heavier bag became his reward.
Snow fell lightly as Paul hurried across the parking area. The thermometer outside the service entrance read 16°, but the wind had died down. Salt crunched under his boots as he quickened his pace. The plow had been busy, for the path was clear except for a dusting of the new powder.
He could feel his heart pumping as No. 13 loomed ahead, and he knew it was not from the exertion. Smoke curled from the chimney. Good, she was there.
Someone walked toward him on the footpath.
He had not yet turned off for the cabin. He slowed, waiting for whoever it was.
The handyman.
They both approached one of the tree lights. He knew it was Joe Landry even before he saw the man’s face.
“Working late?” he asked.
The scowling man nodded. “Makin’ sure it was clear all the way to your place. The other guy sometimes only does half a job if you don’t watch him.” He pointed at the b
ag. “Musta been real nice to Arthur, huh? That crazy bastard.”
“Well, good night,” Paul said, walking off.
Landry shrugged. “Yeah.”
Ten yards up the path, Paul glanced over his shoulder. Landry stood there, watching him. Paul walked on until he could no longer see No. 13. Then he stopped and waited, the frozen night clawing at him.
Gail wanted it this way. She had asked him to be sure no one saw him going to her cabin. Before, he would have only done it for her. But when he’d seen the handyman, he’d known it was what he wanted too. He didn’t know why. He only knew that, for them, it was the right way.
For now.
A minute later he started back slowly. Soon he could see down the footpath. It was empty. But he continued to look around until he stood in front of the cabin.
Turning, he strode to the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sketch number five.
Gail stepped back to have a better look. Still not perfect, but it had always been hard to please herself. Maybe something about the turn of the mouth… Anyway, she hoped he would like it. She laid it face down on the desk.
He stood at the door now, tapping urgently. For a moment she hesitated, afraid. Not of him but of what she had to do, what she had never done before.
What she had never spoken of. To anyone.
She knew she could talk to Paul Fleming. And she had to do it, because the Dream would kill her if she didn’t.
She opened the door to the frozen night. Paul looked behind him then hurried in.
“Hi,” he said. “It’s cold out there.”
“I saw what you did with that man,” she told him. “Thank you.”
“You weren’t—”
“—at dinner, no. I wasn’t. There was something I had to do.”
He held out the bag. “I brought you this. Right from the kitchen of Chef Tyler.”
“That was nice of you. Take your coat off and warm up by the fire.”
He looked around. “If it wasn’t for your things I’d swear I was in my own cabin. The only obvious difference is that you’ve got the Remington.”
“I like your Wieghorst better.”
“Where is your work? I’m interested to see what you do.”