He turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Arlen waited until his footsteps were no longer audible, and then he opened the envelope. Inside there was nothing but a sheet of stationery with a telephone number.
Rebecca didn’t answer his call. It was a boardinghouse, evidently, and the woman who took the call went wary as soon as Arlen asked for her.
“Tell her it’s Arlen Wagner,” he said, and something changed in the strange woman’s voice, and she went away for a time, and then Rebecca was on the line. At the sound of her voice, Arlen closed his eyes.
“You’re okay,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“It made the papers at first, but then it went away. I wanted to come back, but you’d told me not to, and so—”
“You did the right thing. You should never come back here. Barrett didn’t open the envelope either. Nobody saw it but me.”
He was talking low because there were people passing nearby, but no one was interested.
“Paul’s safe?” she said.
“He’s safe, and Solomon Wade’s dead. Tolliver, too. And Tate McGrath.” The weight of it was settling on him now as he put it into words for her in a way it never had when he’d explained it over and over to the police. The memory of the Springfield bucking in his arms and the feel of the mud on his face and the damp heat of the marsh and the whispers of dead men in his head…
“Will you come?” she said.
He laughed. It was all he could think to do. Then he said, “Yes. You better believe I’m on my way. Soon as they let me out of this place, I am on my way.”
The smile left his face then, the first smile he’d worn in many a day, and he added, “I’ve got to make a stop first. Shouldn’t take long, though.”
“A stop where?” she said.
“A place I used to call home. There’s something I’ve left unsettled too long. Then I’ll move on. Did you make it all the way?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m in Camden.”
“How is it?”
“Lonely,” she said. “But when you get here, that will change.”
“Seen any snow yet?”
“Not yet. But the wind’s already cold. At night, it’s quite cold. You have no idea how much I love the way it feels.”
“I’m glad,” he said. “And I’ll see you soon. Just a few days. Like I said, there’s just the one stop.”
He and Paul left Tampa together. Arlen’s legs were steady beneath him, but they didn’t last long. He tired quickly, and figured he would for a time to come. Barrett drove them to the train station and shook their hands and said they were welcome in Corridor County anytime.
“It’ll be different,” he said. “I can promise you it will soon be a very different place.”
“I’m certain it will be,” Arlen said. “All the same, don’t look to see me again.”
Barrett nodded, tipped his fingers in a salute, and drove on.
They could take the same train as far as Nashville, and then they’d have to part ways. Paul was excited about the Carnegie school, had plenty to say. More talk than they had miles. Arlen sat back and listened to him and thought of another day and another train and at one point he had to make as if he’d fallen asleep because he didn’t want to respond any longer, didn’t want Paul to hear the thickness that had come up sudden and firm in his throat.
They had time to kill in Nashville between trains, Paul headed on to Pennsylvania and Arlen bound for West Virginia for the first time in almost twenty years. On to Maine, then, on to the town called Camden.
They were sitting there in the station sipping Coca-Colas when Paul turned to him and said, “I know it’s always been true, Arlen.”
Arlen looked at him and frowned, and Paul talked on, hurrying now, the words tripping over one another.
“What you can see,” Paul said. “I believed it from the first because I trusted you, but then I didn’t want to believe you anymore, I was scared to, and I didn’t know what to think of the world if something like that could be true, and—”
Arlen said, “I know.”
“But I’m so sorry. You were trying to keep me from harm, and I just—”
“Stop,” Arlen said. He was watching people wave good-bye from the platform as a train departed the station, and the sight allowed a memory to slide in and bite him. A picture of the train he’d ridden to join the war, all the other boys, older boys than he, hugging their parents long and hard on the platform while he sat alone at the cold window and watched.
“Listen,” he said, looking Paul in the eye, “it’s mighty hard to believe in a thing you can’t see with your own eyes. I’ve had my struggles with it. I don’t fault you for a thing. And I don’t know what to make of this world either, most times. Been a long while trying to figure it out. You just take the days as they come and keep your mind open, hear? That’s all you have to do. All you can. Don’t always try to be the smartest fella in the room, all right? Because in the end, even the smartest of us don’t know much at all. If there’s anything I’m sure of, it’s that.”