Chapter 20
The lumberyard. And the Prairie Schooner Hotel.
He drifted quietly through the empty streets.
d.a.m.n fool. A quiet rage began to build, taking its place beside the ancient pa.s.sion.
Corey's town.
Even now, after twenty years, a good marriage, two sons, after Ginny, he could still see Corey's cool smile. Still recall the gold bracelet on her right wrist, the long white scarf, the soft press of her lips.
My G.o.d.
Three months, they'd had. Somehow, Lasker had known from the start that he would not be able to hold her.
In retrospect, he recognized that he knew almost nothing about her. Nothing that mattered. She laughed easily and she had luminous brilliant eyes and dark brown hair cut in bangs. He knew of no book she had read, nor had he any idea of any political opinion she held. She liked rock. But then, almost everyone did. She enjoyed Jets games in Winnipeg and the science museum. (How had he forgotten that?) It ended suddenly. Without warning. There's someone else. Is there any phrase in the language that plunges a more painful shaft into the ribs?
Her town.
Harley's Deli.
The post office at the corner of Stutzman and Main, where she'd held a clerk's job. (He'd picked her up here one evening during a whiteout, after she'd worked late.) Chip Leonard's place off Twelfth, where they'd celebrated her nineteenth birthday.
The walking trail along the Red.
The high school. The tennis court. The old Roxie Theater (still there, but long closed).
Her house.
(The house number, 1621, was still mounted beside the front door on a plaque that featured a Victorian carriage.) He floored the pedal, and hurried away, scattering leaves.
He dreamt of her that night.
It had been a long time. She rarely appeared now. But the pattern was similar: Corey was young, dazzling, the way he remembered her. They were on the front porch at her house. It was a summer night. (He had never known her in summer,) And she told him how happy she was to see him again.
When he woke, the gray early morning light leaking through the blinds, he lay a long time without moving.
Hal Riordan, who owned the Fort Moxie lumberyard, was waiting for him beside the boat. Hal had been old when Lasker was in school: his hair, gray in those days, had gone completely white. He was tall and glacially slow, a man who would not go to the bathroom without due consideration. "Something really odd here, Tom," he said.
"h.e.l.lo yourself, Hal." Lasker grinned. "What's the matter?"
"Take a look where the mast is joined to the cabin roof."
Lasker did. He saw nothing unusual. "What about it?"
"It's all of a piece. The mast should have been manufactured separately, I would think. And then bolted down. Everything here looks as if it came out of a single mold."
Lasker looked again. Riordan was right: there were no fittings, no screws, nothing.
"It's a joke of some kind," Lasker said. "Has to be."
"I suppose." Riordan pushed his hands into his pockets and pressed the toe of his shoe against the hull. "Pretty expensive one."
By 8 a.m., there was a yardful of people again. More than the day before. "You ought to charge admission," suggested Frank Hall. "You got people coming in from Drayton now. By tomorrow, they'll be here from Winnipeg and Grand Forks."
Hall was an import specialist with the Customs Service. He was easygoing, bearded, wide shouldered. His wife, Peg, had arrived with him and was helping Gin set out coffee again. Ginny caught his eye and shook her head. This was costing too much, her eyes said. We're going to have to do something.
"What do you make of it, Frank?" Lasker asked.
Hall looked at him, looked at the boat. "You really don't know how this got here, Tom?"
"No." With some exasperation: "I really don't."
"Okay, then: this boat is some sort of homebuilt job."
"How do you know?"
"Easy." He pointed toward the stern. "No hull identification number. It should be in raised lettering, like the VIN on your car. It's not there."
"Maybe this was built before a hull number was required."
Hall shook his head. "They've been requiring them for twenty years."
Lasker spent the morning cleaning out the boat's cabin. Several of his visitors offered to help him, but Lasker was beginning to suspect he might have something valuable, and wanted to be careful. Anyway, there wasn't room for more than one
Padded benches were set along both bulkheads. Lasker was surprised to discover they were still soft, although the seats were located uncomfortably close to the deck.
The bulkheads themselves were the color of winter wheat. There were shelves and cabinets, all empty. The upper part of the forward panel was gla.s.s. A set of gauges was installed beneath it. He wiped them off cautiously: none of the symbols was familiar. The characters bore a family resemblance to the inscription on the bow.
At noon, Ginny cornered him. "Where are they all coming from?"
Lasker shrugged. "It is getting worse, isn't it?"
"Yes," she said. "We can't afford to pump coffee and set out snacks for everyone in the Red River Valley."
"I thought some of the local folks were bringing their own."
"Some. Anyhow, we're out of business. Thought you'd want to know. Maybe we should set up a turnstile."
More cars were pulling in while they talked.
The cure apparently occurred on the late morning of the third day after the excavation. It was a Sat.u.r.day.
Mark Watkin had come with several of his friends to see the boat. Mark limped noticeably, a result of a basketball injury that had ruined his left knee almost a year earlier. Doctors had recommended he use a cane, but the boy steadfastly refused.
The teenagers had not stayed long. And in fact they had come and gone without being seen at all by Lasker, who was now actively avoiding the crowds. But the following day, Mark was back. This time he went to the front door of the farmhouse. And the limp was gone.
"I don't know whether it had anything to do with your boat or not," he told Gin. "But my knee got warm while I was standing up on the ridge." He s.h.i.+fted his weight forward onto his left leg. "It feels like it used to."
Ginny looked scared when she relayed the story to Lasker. "Have you noticed," she added, "that Will's allergies have disappeared too?"
They had hosed off the sails, which now hung just inside the barn door. They were white. The kind of white that hurts the eyes when the sun hits it. They did not look as if they'd ever been buried.
Lasker stood inside, out of the wind, his hands in his pockets, thinking how good they looked. And it struck him for the first time that he had a serviceable boat. He'd a.s.sumed all along that someone was going to step forward and claim the craft. But on that quiet, bleak, cold Sunday, he understood that, for better or worse, it was his.
He pictured himself at its wheel, sails billowing, slicing across the polished surface of the Red River. No: make that Lake Winnipeg.
Lasker had never done any sailing, except once or twice with someone else at the tiller. But the prospect of taking that bright vessel into the wind overwhelmed him. He squeezed his eyes and pictured himself and Ginny sliding past the low hills of Winnipeg's sh.o.r.eline, the dying sun streaking the sky.
Or Corey. If he'd had the boat when he knew Corey- He shook the thought away. Ridiculous. It would have made no difference.
Call her. The thought exploded at the back of his mind.
Lasker no longer kept livestock. He was alone in the barn. A gust of wind caught the door. It creaked, and the sails moved.
Call her.
His pulse rose in his ears. She lives in Seattle.
Call. Talk to her.
Lasker pushed it out of his mind.
Settle it.
The best cure for an old romance was to see her ten years later. Where had he read that?
It was colder inside the barn than out. A combine and a tractor were stored at the far end, under tarpaulins. The place smelled of hay and gasoline.
Do it.
The taffrail was supported by a series of stanchions. These also seemed not to be bolted or joined to the deck, but were rather an integral part of the whole. Therefore, when a vandal stole one, he'd had to break it off. n.o.body saw it happen, but Lasker responded by moving the boat into the barn, and padlocking the door. That same afternoon a television crew arrived from Grand Forks.
They walked around with Minicams, interviewed Lasker and Ginny and the kids and half a dozen people who were still hanging about. (Most of the crowd had gone home after Lasker locked the boat away.) * * * *
Needless to say, Lasker made no attempt to call Corey. He never seriously considered it. That's a closed compartment, he told himself. Fini.
Been over a long time.
People kept coming. They got angry when confronted with a locked barn. Lasker tried to order them off the property. That tactic was met with a lot of grumbling about traveling a long way just to see his G.o.dd.a.m.n boat, now open up or they'll open it up themselves.
Lasker took the path of least resistance. And promised himself he'd start selling tickets. h.e.l.l, if he couldn't turn it off, he might as well profit from it.
That night: "And from Fort Moxie." (Chuckles.) "You just never know what you might find lying around these days. A farmer out on Route 11 dug up a sailboat. The boat's apparently in good condition, and n.o.body knows who put it there. Debbie Baker is on the scene-" (Smiles.) * * * *
At sunrise Monday, Lasker noticed that the missing stanchion was back, and the damaged section was repaired. No: restored. There was no sign whatever that anything had been torn loose.
Lasker glanced nervously around the empty barn, went back outside, and replaced the padlock.
He phoned Frank Hall. "Need a favor, Frank," he said.
"At this hour?" Hall sounded half-asleep and not pleased.
"When you get a chance. Is there a way we can find out how old the boat is?"
"We looked for a plate."
"No. I mean, break off a piece and have someone a.n.a.lyze it."
"Tom, you can do that with stuff that's old. But I don't think there's a process for dealing with material that's been made recently. Maybe thirty, forty thousand years. But not 1988. You understand what I mean?"
"Yeah," said Lasker. "Let's try it. Would you look into it? Find out how we can do it, and let's see what we get."
"Tom."
The voice drifted in off the dark prairie, insinuated itself into the chatter from the television.
He glanced over at Gin, who was reading the Herald, half-watching the TV.
"Tom."
The wind blew against the side of the house. A sliver of moonlight fell against a storage shed. The other utility buildings bulked heavy and black. He realized that the outside lights were not on.
Lasker eased himself out of his chair. "I'll be back in a minute," he said.
Her eyes found him over the top of the newspaper. She nodded.
He walked into the kitchen, thumbed the switch.
No lights.
They were on out front; he could see them. But not in back. Near the barn.