Patriotism and hunger mixed with memory and newspaper articles to trace the figure of the old man. White appraised him. He was the one man of the trio of White, Sweet, and Larr who had cast his life a straight arrow from the instance of that flashbulb's pop almost 40 years ago. He had been sheriff once but now he was an aging congressman, sagging but manicured and cultivated.
The crowd surged toward him.
"Watch it, you drunk!" a hungry-looking young man muttered as he bumped into Mr. White on the way to the depot.
"Shut up," his friend cautioned. "That's the feller who's funding the fair."
"I don't care," the other man said, but they both made no more of it and moved eagerly past him.
Mr. White ignored this and stood in the middle of the street with his hands in his pockets, watching the congressman raise his arms above his hoary head and then descend the train's steps with the assistance of his aides. He wondered how a man shoots straight as an arrow from the past to the future without a trace of the flesh he's torn through to get there. Ruminations clouded into his head, temptations to do or say or act upon things, and he wondered if he should fulfill them. But in the end he turned on his heel and headed home.
*
The next day dawned pale purple-and-yellow like an iris petal. Light like diluted watercolor pushed between the town's few buildings and highlighted the backs of two women sitting side-by-side at the drugstore's dining counter. One back was broad and overflowing and the other was trim and erect.
Birchola stood lazily on one foot behind the counter and swept her lanky hair back from her face and asked sullenly, "You ladies gonna order anything else?"
They answered in the negative.
"Would it kill you to cheer up?" Birchola’s manager yelled at her from between the pharmacy shelves.
But the two ladies ignored the exchange. The large one, who wore a floral dress, was gingerly attending to the corner of a piece of apple pie like a cat playing with a mouse before it kills it. The other woman, Atalanta, directed her eyes blandly at her coffee.
"I wonder why he's back?" the large woman said.
Atalanta stirred her coffee to break up her face in the ripples.
"He used to like you," the large woman continued. "He always thought he liked that tall, willowy gal, but everyone could tell he liked you. I'm surprised he hasn't come by to check you out."
"People outgrow things," Atalanta said.
"Well, sometimes not," the other woman said. "You take my cousin Irene..."
But Atalanta interrupted. "He's come back because he's weak – because he's in trouble again," she said. "Because no one else will have him. There's got to be a better reason than that for a person to come back."
"I'm sure the stories aren't..."
Atalanta lifted her head from her coffee turned to look the other woman straight in the eye. "They're all true."
The large woman flushed and recoiled. "Oh my..!"
"I deserve better than to protect him from his own poor judgment – again." Atalanta said. She put some change on the counter and stood up.
The large woman looked at her. "No hard feelings, hon – see you at the shop later today? We need your help arranging flowers for a funeral. Lord knows the other gal would mess it up."
Atalanta nodded, opened the drug store door, and departed.
*
The same day Mr. White received a postcard from the Professor. Its colorful satin front boasted "Greetings from Sioux City, Iowa!" and displayed an obelisk, Indians, the Missouri River, and a classically-styled municipal building. It was postmarked from a week ago and had been discolored here and there with drops of water. The message was brief but written in a strong hand:
This country is bigger than I ever imagined. Am having a wonderful time! Please do not forget our museum project. I hope to see you in a few weeks. Sara sends her best regards. Regards, Josef Wilkenson, aka "The Professor."
Ernest put down his coffee and scanned it, then handed it to Otto.
While Otto read it over White said, "That reminds me, I want you to go with me on a hike tomorrow. There's a plot of land on my back acres I want to look at as a possible museum site. It will be a day hike – I'll tell you what to pack."
Otto nodded. He received the extensive list of hiking essentials later that evening. He also saw two brand new packs set out by the back door in the mudroom, and two sets of hiking boots – one exactly his size.
Otto admired his new boots as he stuffed what White insisted were indispensable items into the two packs. He made sure to make his employer's load lighter than his own.
The next morning after a big breakfast they set out, slinging their packs to their shoulders. "This way," White said, leading them across the car-trampled back yard, past the dormant tractor, and then diving into the tall tan field and toward the trees beyond. Otto followed.
In the cool of the morning a mist hung over the lowest parts of the meadow and flowed across the cow path like a ghost. Distant birds trilled briefly in the high darting distance. Mr. White propelled himself with a fine walking stick and Otto did the same – they both had walking sticks that were veterans of many an Alpine jaunt. White’s had a hawk’s head on it; Otto's, a camel's. They walked down through the first low cool pasture that marked the mere edge of White's land and put the farmhouse quickly behind them.
Down at the far end the land sank into a creek bed fringed by stunted trees, and they crossed the creek and then rose up the terrace of the other side. The land rose in rock-strewn steppes tangled with spindly brush. They crested the last of these and pushed through a grove of trees into daylight. Now the land before them was composed of several green, smooth, undulating hillocks that rose calmly and persistently. White strode on vigorously ahead. It took a good half hour to surpass and conquer these. At the top of the last smooth hill, they acquired a vista of the land for several miles around. White pointed out some landmarks of his boyhood – an outcropping of rock from which a cold spring poured, a dark crease of a valley in the distance where a sawmill had operated, and a shadow two hollows over where three cabins and a subscription schoolhouse had been set up and then abandoned, now disintegrated into ruins like spoiled stacks of hay.
"I saw an ancient Indian gathering sorrel there once. His face looked like a landslide. We both felt guilty about seeing each other."
They pressed on with their march and reached a stand of thin tall trees and pushed through these into a wide clearing that held level for about 100 yards before cascading down to the slow green river a mile or so ahead.
"This will be the spot," Mr. White said. "This is it – I remember. When I was a boy I used to come here to get some quiet. You could hike up here to see the river down below like a tame green giant and just hear the sound of it, chattering softly, if you paused and listened."
Otto rested his hands on his hips. "It is a wonderful view," he admitted.
"Let’s go down a little further," White said. "Where this level breaks, at those rocks in the distance, is a place I imagine as a second tier or grotto."
Otto agreed, and the two of them continued their trek. But a moment later Otto put his hand on White’s shoulder and stopped him.
"I hear voices," Otto said.
Mr. White cocked an ear, and he too heard a low stream of chatter, sounding faintly and repeatedly.
"Unpack my pistol," he said.
The ‘pistol’ was of an antiquated dueling variety and lay underneath layers of useless supplies that White had insisted they pack, and so it took Otto some time to find it. By the time he had it he noticed that White had gone on ahead and was out of site. Otto repacked quickly and took off running toward the stand of rocks.
He saw White crouched down behind a boulder, and his employer motioned Otto to his side. Otto knelt beside him, and they looked past the rocks to see a group of six drab khaki tents with a spent campfire in the middle. And about twenty yards beyond that he cou
ld see a band of people standing in the grass. It was the saddest lot of humanity he had ever seen. The men had hollow, stubble-smudged cheeks and piercing eyes. The woman wore drab clothes and lank hair. But oddly enough the expressions on their faces were calm, even happy, and they were raising their arms and legs like wind-blown scarecrows in some droning chant and dance.
In the center of them stood a gaunt man in a threadbare and dingy white suit. He had a lean, care-worn face and salt-and-pepper hair that had gone too long since its last cut. He was, in fact, the poor man’s Mr. Perfect Otto had met at Maye Weather’s party. His big eyes were set in sagging purple sockets and had a jangling electricity to them.
"Continue chanting the prayer!" the man called to the throng. As they chanted in a circle he walked behind them like a drill sergeant and continued speaking. "Now that the calisthenics have purified us we'll fan out and continue the search for our treasure. God made the Spaniards lose it centuries ago so we found find it now, when there are folks in need."
They nodded.
"I want to thank you for your faith, and for following me on this journey. I do believe we’ll be rewarded, not just because we’re hungry, but because we have learned to love one another in the classless, asexual way the angels envy. So let's begin."
He clapped and the men and women dispersed like wind-blown rags, their faces serene and detached from their bodily weariness. They scattered and floated about the fields like dandelion puffs, peering for some sign of whatever it was their master sought.
Once the last of them had drifted out of sight, the leader sat down on a log near the campfire and took a sandwich out of his pocket. He munched it and looked over a yellowed paper while he did so. He held it near to his face and traced it with his finger.
White walked up silently behind him and snatched the map away from the man's hands. The Mock-Perfect rose and spun to face Mr. White, his eyes widened with shock and rage, but he fell slowly back down when he saw Otto with the pistol.
"I know you," White said harshly. "I saw you at the party, pretending to be me. A charlatan theosophist."
"An honest theosophist."
"A manipulator and a trespasser. What have you got these poor souls hunting up for you?"
The man said nothing.
With Otto on the watch, White took his eyes off of the imposter and appraised the document he'd snatched. He scowled and held it out to Otto. "It's a crude map of the valley," he said. "These things have been floating around since as long as I can remember, each 100% guaranteed to be authentic and purporting to show where some lost Spanish gold is hidden. They are artificially aged and sold to some poor unsuspecting sap." He turned to the man. "Where did you get this?"
"The spirits, in their wisdom, and judging me sufficiently enlightened to deserve such knowledge, revealed at last to me..."
White scowled and stared at him, and Otto vaguely waved the pistol. So the man answered again.
"I won it in a poker game."
"Yes, and it’s worth less than the paper the playing cards were printed on. And you conned these poor souls with all your spiritualistic blarney so you’d have a little help you scouting for this ‘treasure’?"
The man's face reddened. "No sir, no!" he thundered. "That part is no con. Whatever we find we share, and we share because we deserve it. They are my colleagues in a genuine movement that sees an opportunity for truth in this time of despair. I have started the Church of the Deserving Misfortune. If we suffer, it's because we deserve it, but the first step to reversing this is to scrutinize our lives until we can honestly realize how spiritually wretched we are and that we need a higher power to help us – like the higher power that let me find this map. Then we pray and pray and pray and live good lives until something happens and our fortunes reverse again."
"And what if they never reverse?"
"Heaven counts," the man replied.
White turned to Otto. "The man knows his theology."
"Also, each follower goes and sells cards outlining our spiritual precepts. That way my believers are actively recompensed for their ministry. It also encourages folks to stake out new territories to evangelize." He handed Mr. White one of the cards. It had a sitting, soft green Hindu-looking figure at the top with the words "Prosper Now" beneath it, followed by an enumerated list of precepts that combined reincarnation, calisthenics, an herbal purgative, Bible verses sifted mostly from Proverbs, and Yankee thrift. Astrological symbols crawled up and down the borders.
"Designed it myself. I saw it in a dream."
White said nothing. Some of the haggard followers noticed the interaction between White, Otto, and their leader and called to the others. From various corners they came and gathered around the three men.
White cleared his throat and raised his voice and spoke to them. "I’m sorry to tell you but your map’s a fraud. They manufacture these things all up and down the valley and sell them to suckers. It’s a legend, like El Dorado."
"What’s the harm in looking?"
"No harm, but you’re never going to find it. I can just by looking that this map was made not five years ago. Trust it if you want, but you’ll only end up cold and wet and hungry."
Some of them looked to their leader.
The man's face fell. "I suppose he might be right on this one."
"Well then where’s that leave us?"
White looked at the haggard band with their hollow faces and sunken eyes.
"Take down their names and addresses," he said to Otto. "Write a note on my behalf to the hotel manager – put them up there for the night, then give them each a little cash to get them on their way."
"How much cash?"
"I don’t know – a per diem."
"A dollar? Five dollars? Fifty cents?"
"Look, I don’t know – a per diem! You know, whatever it would cost to stay in the hotel one more night and buy a train ticket out of here or else another meal or two."
"Very well."
Many of the hollow faces turned up and tried to catch his eye and thank him, but it embarrassed White and he turned away. Some ran after to thank him but he would not hear it – he just shoved his hands in his pockets. His whole mind and body felt disturbed. He stared at the ground and kept walking robotically away.
The group re-coalesced around Otto and White disappeared back over the hill.
*
Otto did not return to the house until late that afternoon, and he found White seated in the living room, staring absently at the empty fireplace. Otto threw his pack down a little rudely but soon recovered his manners.
"So, is that going be a good site for your museum?" Otto asked.
"What?" Mr. White asked. "Oh yes, I suppose. As good as any," he answered.
"Very good. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get cleaned up."
"Of course," he said. He moved his eyes from the fireplace to the table beside him and tapped out his pipe.
"You know, Otto, when I close my eyes I see all those men and women from the hillside stretched out in front of me like a string of paper-dolls. But they are paper dolls of skeletons."
Otto grunted and told him he’d get supper on as soon as he’d washed the hike off his body. White closed his eyes and looked at the fireplace and saw the paper dolls in his mind’s eye. He puffed and blew smoke and found he was seeing bones and heads and sockets in its curls. He looked at them with an intellectual detachment until some part of his brain made one of the faces look like his own; this surprised him, and he found this trick of his subconscious curious and amusing.
Chapter 11
In the coming days Otto was gone more and more from the household, and Mr. White found himself making some progress on the plans for his museum, though not as much as he’d have liked. He was more interested in finding out what Otto was up to, though he was too proud to ask.
"There's some bill of lading in town for you at the telegraph office," Otto shouted as he came slamming in through the back screen door one eveni
ng. "Some delivery in regard to the fair you have me planning. I told them I'd get you to sign it tomorrow."
Mr. White nodded. "You know," he said, "I think I may just drive in and sign it tonight. I need a drive to jog my mind."
"They’ll be closed."
"Well, call someone and make sure it’s open. They’ll open it for me."
Otto grumbled.
And so after dinner White climbed into his car as the sun was lighting the sky pink and white, and he wheeled off into town beneath the waning day. He enjoyed the feeling of the cool air on his temples. He parked then walked through the deserted streets to the Western Union office by the depot where a somewhat perturbed pigeon-gray man was waiting for him. White signed a few forms, slid them back to him, and then stepped back out into the evening’s draining color. He heard some laughing voices rising and falling occasionally, and he decided to obliquely follow their sound. He found himself walking along a street parallel to the main street and town square. The storefronts were closed. In the distance Mr. White could hear a band rehearsing for the weekend's dam ceremonies. He decided to angle to the town's square.
He walked up to one end of the square and saw a sign promoting the lake. It was to be an opal paradise, a feat of strength for leisure, a playground foretelling prosperity.
His thoughts were interrupted when he turned and saw a pack of men in the clothes of workers gathered on the front steps of the hotel. Ben Sweet was among them. Sweet had been a peer of White's since childhood, heir to a drygoods business on the decline. His face hung leering and sour.
"Gentlemen," he said to the men who surrounded him, "May I introduce the distinguished Mr. Ernest White."
Ernest tipped his hat and some of the men behind Sweet laughed.
"Mr. White and I are old friends. "Our fortunes have taken different paths, but that don't override a bond of courtesy and familiarity."
"Ben, you're drunk," Mr. White said.
"What if I am? These are happy times and here you come back to fret old wounds."
"I just came back to study."
"Hah!"
White just stared at him. "I don't think you ever said you're sorry, Ben. That's the starting place, for me."
Ben moved up close to him. "Sorry for what, Ernest? For having the guts to stick with this town? For taking some money so I could take care of my family? For not turning tail and running away?"