Laboriously he righted the cart, gathered up the spill, and trudged across the field to the railroad.
The dropped walking stick was a marker.
His small treasure was left there for finding, laid out along the railroad right-of-way for the frightened family or any other traveler who might pass that way. He put the matches and the medicines atop the largest carton and then covered them with his overcoat to protect them from the weather. Chaney spent only a little while scanning the distances along the tracks for sight of a man — he was certain his shouting and his cursing would have frightened away anyone in the area. As before, he was alone in an empty world. From somewhere in the timber he heard a bird calling, and he would have to be content with that.
In the late afternoon hours when the thin heat of the sun was beginning to fade he pulled the empty cart up the hill and through the gaping hole in the fence for a last time, stopping only to retrieve the crowbar. Chaney didn’t dare look back. He was afraid of what he might find — or not find. To suddenly turn and look, to discover someone already at the boxes would be his undoing — he knew he would behave as before and again frighten the man away. But to turn and see the same untenanted world again would only deepen his depression. He would not look back.
Chaney followed his own trail through the verdant grass, seeking the beginning of the paved road. Some small animal darted away at his approach.
He stood at the edge of the parking lot, looking at the abandoned garden and thinking of Kathryn van Hise. But for her, he would be loafing on the beach and thinking of going back to work in the tank — but only thinking of it; perhaps in another week or so he’d get up off his duff and look up train schedules and connections to Indianapolis, if they still existed in an age of dying rails. The only weight on his mind would be the reviewers who read books too hastily and leaped to fantastic conclusions. But for her, he would have never heard of Seabrooke, Moresby, Saltus — unless their names happened to be on a document coming into the tank. He wouldn’t have jumped into Joliet two years ahead of his time and found a wall; he wouldn’t have jumped into this dismal future, whatever year this might be, and found a catastrophe. He would have plodded along in his own slow, myopic way until the hard future slammed into him — or he into it.
He thought he was done here: done with the aborted survey and done with the very quiet and nearly deserted world of 2000-something. He could do no more than tell Katrina, tell Seabrooke, and perhaps listen while they relayed the word to Washington. The next move would be up to the politicians and the bureaucrats — let them change the future if they could, if they possessed the power.
His role was completed. He could tape a report and label it Eschatos.
The mound of yellow clay claimed his attention and he followed the gutter through the grass to the cistern, wanting to photograph it. He still marveled at finding a Nabataean artifact thrust forward into the twenty-first century, and he suspected Arthur Saltus was responsible: it had been copied from the book he’d lent Saltus, from the pages of Pax Abrahamitica. With luck, it would trap and hold water for another century or so, and if he could measure the capacity he would probably find the volume to be near ten cor. Saltus had done well for an amateur.
Chaney turned to the grave.
He would not photograph that, for the picture would raise questions he didn’t care to answer. Seabrooke would ask if there’d been an inscription on the crossarm, and why hadn’t he photographed the inscription? Katrina would sit by with pencil poised to record his verbal reading.
A ditat Deus K
Down there: Arthur or Katrina?
How could he tell Katrina that he’d found her grave? Or her husband’s grave? Why couldn’t this have been the final resting place of Major Moresby?
A bird cried again in some far off place, pulling his gaze up to the distant trees and the sky beyond.
The trees were in new leaf, telling the early summer; the grass was soft tender green, not yet wiry from the droughts of midsummer: a fresh world. Gauzy clouds were gathering about the descending sun, creating a mirage of reddish-gold fleece. Eastward, the sky was wondrously blue and clean — a newly scrubbed sky, disinfected and sterilized. At night the stars must appear as enormous polished diamonds.
Arthur or Katrina?
Brian Chaney knelt briefly to touch the sod above the grave, and mentally prepared himself to go home. His depression was deep.
A voice said: “Please… Mr. Chaney?”
The shock immobilized him. He was afraid that if he turned quickly or leaped to his feet, a nervous finger would jerk the trigger and he would join Moresby in the soil of the station. He held himself rigidly still, aware that his own rifle had been left in the cart. Oversight; carelessness; stupidity. One hand rested on the grave; his gaze remained on the small cross.
“Mr. Chaney?”
After the longest time — a disquieting eternity — he turned only his head to look back along the path.
Two strangers: two almost strangers, two people who mirrored his own uncertainty and apprehension.
The nearer of the two wore a heavy coat and a pair of boots taken from the stores; his head and hands were bare and the only weapon he carried was a pair of binoculars also borrowed from the stores. He was tall, thin, lanky — only a few inches less than Chaney’s height, but he lacked the sandy hair and muscular body of his father; he lacked the bronzed skin and the silver filling in his teeth, he lacked the squint of eye that would suggest a seafarer peering into the sun. He lacked the buoyant youthfulness. If the man had possessed those characteristics instead of lacking them, Chaney would say he was looking at Arthur Saltus.
“How do you know my name?”
“You are the only one unaccounted for, sir.”
“And you had my description?”
Softly: “Yes, sir.”
Chaney turned on his knees to face the strangers. He realized they were as much afraid of him as he was of them. When had they last seen another man here?
“Your name is Saltus?”
A nod. “Arthur Saltus.”
Chaney shifted his gaze to the woman who stood well behind the man. She stared at him with a curious mixture of fascination and fright, poised for instant flight. When had she last seen another man here?
Chaney asked: “Kathryn?”
She didn’t respond, but the man said: “My sister.”
The daughter was like the mother in nearly every respect, lacking only the summer tan and the delta pants. She was bundled in a great coat against the chill and wore the common boots that were much too large for her feet. A pair of binoculars hung around her neck: he felt closely observed. Her head was bare, revealing Katrina’s great avalanche of fine brown hair; her eyes were the same soft — now frightened — delightful shade. She was a small woman, no more than a hundred pounds when free of the bulky boots and coat, and gave every appearance of being quick and alert. She also gave the appearance of being older than Katrina.
Chaney looked from one to the other: the two of them, brother and sister, were years beyond the people he had left in the past, years beyond their parents.