Reaching the perch, he sat down and scanned the beach below. In the distance lay the shore, the endless banks of salt undulating out toward the sea. The wrecked freighters in the settlement were grouped together like ships in a small port. Ignoring them, Ransom looked out over the wide bed of the river. For more than half a mile it was overrun by dunes and rockslides. Gradually the surface cleared to form a hard white deck, scattered with stones and small rocks, the dust blown between the clumps of dried grass.
Exploring the line of the bank, Ransom noticed that a small valley led off among the rocks and ravines. Like the river, the valley was filled with sand and dust, the isolated walls of ruined houses built on the slopes half-covered by the dunes.
In the slanting light Ransom could clearly see the line of footprints newly cut in the powdery flank. They led straight up to the ruins of a large villa, crossing the edge of a partly excavated road around the valley.
As Ransom made his way down from the bluff he saw Philip Jordan emerge briefly behind a wall, then disappear down a flight of steps.
Five minutes later, as Ransom climbed the slope to what he guessed was the old Negro's secret grave, a rock hurtled through the air past his head. He crouched down and watched the rock, the size of a fist, bound away off the sand.
"Philip!" he shouted into the sunlight. "It's Ransom!"
Philip Jordan's narrow face appeared at the edge of the road. "Go away, Ransom," he called brusquely. "Get back to the beach." He picked up a second stone. "I've already let you off once today."
Ransom held his footing in the shifting sand. He pointed to the ruined villa. "Philip, don't forget who brought him here. But for me he wouldn't be buried at all."
Philip Jordan stepped forward to the edge of the road. Holding the rock loosely in one hand, he watched Ransom begin the climb up to him. He raised the rock above his head. "Ransom…!" he called warningly.
Ransom stopped again. Despite Philip Jordan's advantages in strength and years, Ransom found himself seizing at this final confrontation. As he edged up the slope, remembering the knife hidden in his right boot, he knew that Philip Jordan was at last repaying him for all the, help Ransom had given to the river-borne waif fifteen years earlier. No one could incur such an obligation without settling it to the full one day in its reverse coin. But above all, perhaps, Philip saw in Ransom's ascetic face a likeness of his true father, the wandering fisher-captain who had called to him from the riverbank and from whom he had run away for the second time.
Slowly, Ransom climbed upwards, feeling with his feet for spurs of buried rock. His eyes watched the stone in Philip's hand, shining in the sunlight against the open sky.
Standing on a ledge twenty feet above the road, apparently unaware of the scene below, was a thin, long-bodied animal with a ragged mane. Its gray skin was streaked white by the dust, the narrow flanks scarred by thorns, and for a moment Ransom failed to recognize it. Then he raised his hand and pointed, as the beast gazed out entranced at the distant sea and the wet saltflats.
"Philip," he whispered hoarsely. "There, on the ledge."
Philip Jordan glanced over his shoulder, then dropped to one knee and hurled the stone from his hand. As the piece burst into, a dozen fragments at its feet, the small lion leapt frantically to one side. With its tail down it' bolted away across the rocky slopes, legs carrying it in a blur of dust.
As Ransom clambered up onto the road he felt Philip's hand on his arm. The young man was still watching the lion as it raced along the dry riverbed. His hand was shaking, less with fear than some deep unrestrainable excitement.
"What's that-a white panther?" he asked thickly, his eyes following the distant plume of dust vanishing among the dunes.
"A lion," Ransom said. "A small lion. It looked hungry, but I doubt if it will come back." He pulled Philip's shoulder. "Philip! Do you realize what this means? You remember Quilter and the zoo? The lion must have come all the way from Mount Royal! It means…" He broke off, the dust in his throat and mouth. A feeling of immense relief surged through him, washing away all the pain and bitterness of the past ten years.
Philip Jordan nodded, waiting for Ransom to catch his breath. "I know, doctor. It means there's water between here and Mount Royal."
A concrete ramp curved down behind the wall into the basement garage of the house. The dust and rockfalls had been cleared away, and a palisade of wooden stakes carefully wired together held back the drifts of sand.
Still lightheaded, Ransom pointed to the smooth concrete, and to the fifty yards of clear roadway excavated from the side of the valley. "You've worked hard, Philip. The old man would be proud of you."
Philip Jordan smiled faintly. He took a key from the wallet on his belt and unlocked the door. "Here we, are, doctor." He gestured Ransom forward. "What do you think of it?"
Standing in the center of the garage, its chromium grille gleaming in the shadows, was an enormous black hearse. The metal roof and body had been polished to a mirrorlike brilliance, the hubcaps shining like burnished shields. To Ransom, who for years had seen nothing but damp rags and rusting iron, whose only homes had been a succession of dismal hovels, the limousine seemed like an embalmed fragment of an unremembered past.
"Philip," he said slowly. "It's magnificent, of course, but…" Cautiously he walked around the great black vehicle. Three of the tires were intact and pumped up, but the fourth wheel had been removed and the axle jacked up onto a set of wooden blocks. Unable to see into the glowing leatherwork and mahogany interior, he wondered if the old Negro's body reposed in a casket in the back. Perhaps Philip, casting his mind back to the most impressive memories of his childhood, had carried with him all these years a grotesque image of the ornate hearses he had seen rolling around on their way to the cerneteries.
Cautiously he peered through the rear window. The wooden bier was empty, the chromium tapers clean and polished.
"Philip, where is he? Old Mr. Jordan?"
Philip gestured offhandedly. "Miles from here. He's buried in a cave above the sea. This is what I wanted to show you, doctor. What do you think of it?"
Collecting himself, Ransom said: "But they told me, everyone thought-all this time you've been coming here, Philip? To this… car?"
Philip unlocked the driver's door. "I found it five years ago. You understand I couldn't drive, there wasn't any point then, but it gave me an idea. I started looking after it, a year ago I found a couple of new tires…" He spoke quickly, eager to bring Ransom up-to-date, as if the discovery and renovation of the hearse were the only events of importance to have taken place in the previous ten years.
"What are you going to do with it?" Ransom asked. He opened the driver's door. "Can I get in?"
"Of course." Philip wound down the window when Ransom was seated. "As a matter of fact, doctor, I want you to start it for me."
The ignition keys were in the dashboard. Ransom switched on. He looked around, to- see Philip watching him intently in the half-light, his dark face, like an intelligent savage's, filled with a strange childlike hope. Wondering how far he was still a dispensable tool, Ransom said: "I'll be glad to, Philip. I understand how you feel about the car. It's been a long ten years, the car takes one back…"
Philip smiled, showing a broken tooth and the white scar below his left eye. "But please carry on. The tank is full of fuel, there's oil in, and the radiator is full."
Nodding, Ransom pressed the starter. As he expected, nothing happened. He pressed the starter several times, then released the handbrake and played with the gear lever. Philip Jordan slowly shook his head, only a faint look of disappointment on his face.
Ransom handed the keys to him. He stepped from the car. "It won't go, Philip, you understand that, don't you? The battery is flat, and all the electrical wiring will have corroded. You'll never start it, not in a hundred years. I'm sorry, it's a beautiful car."