The second dream faded and heat replaced it, an uncomfortable black warmth that eventually roused Josiah from sleep. When he opened his eyes, he saw that the sun was up and shining off the windshield of his pickup truck and right in his face.
He rose with a grunt, stumbled forward and leaned on the porch rail, felt the old paint flake under his palm. A dull throb came from his face, and only then did he remember the previous night, the white guy with the scruffy beard and the black kid with the blisteringly quick left hand. He felt around his eye with his fingertips, knew from touch alone how it must look, and felt the anger that had chased him into sleep return.
The beer had left his mouth dry, but his stomach was settled and his head was clear. Hell, he felt good. He’d taken a punch to the eye and then tied on a good drunk and slept sitting upright in a plastic chair, but somehow he felt good. Felt strong.
The phone started ringing, and he went inside, picked it up off the table, answered and heard Danny’s voice.
“Josiah, what’n hell you’d take off for last night?”
“Wasn’t feeling so hot. Needed some sleep.”
“Bullshit. I heard you went to Rooster’s and got knocked in the face by some—”
“Never mind that,” Josiah said. “Look, you done crowing over your twenty-five hundred yet?”
“That what got you upset, that I had some luck? Downright shitty, Josiah.”
“That wasn’t it. I’m asking, though, you still feeling big about it?”
“Feeling happy is all. Took a little beating later on, lost about eight hundred, but I still got more than fifteen of it left. That ain’t a bad night.”
“No, it ain’t. But is it a good enough night? It all you need?”
“What do you mean?”
Josiah turned and looked out the window, out into that sun-filled day.
“Time’s come to make us some real money, Danny. Time’s come.”
16
AN HOUR AFTER ERIC played the video, he was still staring at the wreckage that remained from his camera, trying to understand what in the hell was going on, when his cell phone began to ring.
It was Claire. Calling him even though he’d told her he would not be available for a few weeks. He held the phone in his hand but didn’t answer. He could not talk to her now, not in this state. A minute after it stopped ringing he checked the message, and the sound of her voice broke something loose inside him, made his shoulders sag and his eyes close.
“I know you’re in Indiana,” she said, “but I just wanted to check on you. I was thinking of you…. You can call if you want. If not, I understand. But I’d like to know you’re all right.”
A week ago, he’d have bristled. Check on me? Like to know if I’m all right? Why would I not be? Just because you’re not here, I’m not going to be okay? Today, though, sitting on the hotel room floor surrounded by his broken camera, he couldn’t muster that response. Instead, he called her back.
She answered. First ring.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey. You got my message?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Well, I didn’t want to bother you. It’s just that you hadn’t really said anything about where you were going or when you might be back, so—”
“It’s fine. I should have explained more. I’m sorry.”
She was quiet for a moment, as if the phrase had surprised her. Probably it had.
“Are you okay?” she said. “You sound a little off.”
“I’ve been… Claire, I’m seeing things.”
“What do you mean, you’re—”
“Things that aren’t there,” he said, and there was something thick in the back of his throat.
Silence, and he braced himself for the scorn and the ridicule she’d have to levy now, the accusations. Instead he heard a door swing shut and latch and then a metallic clatter that he recognized so well—she’d tossed her car keys into the ceramic dish she kept on the table by the door. She’d been going out, and now she stopped.
“Tell me about it,” she said.
He talked for about twenty minutes, gave her more detail than he’d planned, recalled every word Campbell Bradford had said about the cold river, described the train right down to the gravel vibrating under his feet and the furious storm cloud that came from its stack. Through it all, she listened.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he said when he was through recounting the story of the man in the boxcar. “But it’s not booze and it’s not pills and it’s not—”
“I believe you.”
He hesitated. Said, “What?”