So Cold the River

big from behind the wheel of a car. Had to be twelve feet tall, and the steel couplers on either side looked invincible, as if you could bang on them all day with a sledge and never do a bit of damage.

There was a ladder on either end of the car, as well as a few iron rungs on the front. He reached out and wrapped his fist around one of those, leaned on it, and that was when he saw the splotches. Glistening stains on the crushed stone beneath the car.

Water marks.

While he watched, another drop of water fell onto the stone, and he saw that it was coming from inside the car rather than from underneath it. When he stared through the door, though, there was nothing but old, dry dirt on the floor.

He tightened his grip around the rung of the ladder and hoisted himself up, swinging his left foot up and over the side. Hung there for a minute, peering into the shadowed interior, and then slid through.

The boxcar was heavy with trapped heat, the air smelling of rust. The car seemed far larger on the inside than on the outside, the opposite end lost in darkness. The rippled steel walls seemed to drink in the light, holding it all to the thin shaft in the center.

The floor beneath his feet was dry, but he could hear water now, a gentle sloshing sound. He took a hesitant step forward, out of the light, and felt cold moisture seep through his shoes and socks and find his skin.

He bent down and reached with his hand, dipped his fingertips into the water. About an inch deep, frigid.

Another step toward the sloshing sound, which had an even, constant beat. Water covered the floor throughout the dark portions of the boxcar, and he wanted to move back to the dry boards and the square of sunlight but kept shuffling forward into the darkness despite himself.

He was ten feet from the door and still moving when the silhouette took shape.

It was all the way at the back of the car, lost to the darkness except for the distinctive outline of a bowler hat.

Eric stopped where he was, the water like a winter creek on his feet, and stared down the remaining length of the boxcar, watching the silhouette take starker shape, first the shoulders and then the torso. The man was sitting in the water with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up, and he was tapping a slow, steady beat with the toe of his right shoe, slapping it into the water, which rose almost to his ankles.

“An elegy,” he said, “is a song for the dead.”

Eric couldn’t speak. It wasn’t just from fear or astonishment but from an almost physical thing, a limit he didn’t understand and couldn’t do anything about. He was a spectator in this car. Here to watch. To listen.

“I can barely hear it,” the man said. His voice was a sandpaper whisper. “What about you?”

The violin music was back, soft as a breeze, as if it couldn’t penetrate the walls of the boxcar.

“Been waiting a long time to get home,” the man said. “Longer ride than I’d have liked.”

Eric couldn’t make out his face, couldn’t see anything but the form of him.

“People ’round here seem to have forgotten it,” the man said, “but this is my valley. Was once. Will be again.”

His voice seemed to be gathering strength, and the features of his suit were now showing, along with his nose and mouth and shadowed eye sockets.

“Ain’t but a trace of my blood left,” he said, “but that’s enough. That’s enough.”

The man dropped his hands into the water then, two soft splashes, and pushed off the floor. His silhouette rippled as he stood, like a water reflection pushed by wind, and something that had been unhooked in Eric’s brain suddenly connected again and he knew that he had to move.

He turned and stumbled back for the streak of sun that represented the door, slid on the wet floor but righted himself, and then banged off the wall, groping with his hands. He got out of the water and onto dry floorboards and then had his hand around the edge of the door, shoved his shoulder through and lunged into the light.

His feet caught and he was free but falling, landing on his ass in the dirt and stone.

“Now, what did I tell you!” someone shouted, and Eric looked up to see the old man in the engineer’s cap standing just outside the depot, shaking his head. “I said watch your step coming out of there!”

Eric didn’t answer, just got to his feet and brushed the dirt from his jeans as he moved away from the train car. He took a few steps before turning to look back at it. After a few seconds he walked all the way back and dropped to one knee below the door.

The water marks were gone. The stones were pale and dry under the sun.

“You ain’t hurt, are you?” the old man yelled, and Eric ignored him again and took hold of the edge of the big cargo door, leaned his shoulder into it, and grunted and got it moving. He slid it all the way back as the old man yelled at him to go easy on the equipment, then stepped aside and looked in.

The sun caught the corners now, and there was nothing in sight, neither man nor water. He leaned in and stared into the far end, stared at the emptiness. Then he bent and picked up a small stone and tossed it inside, listened to it skitter off the dry floor.

The wind picked up and blew hard at his back then, swirling dust around the old boxcar. There was a high, giddy whistling as it filled the car, as if it had been working on the door for a long time and was delighted to find someone had finally opened it the rest of the way.

19

HE CALLED ALYSSA BRADFORD from the car, sitting with the air-conditioning blasting and the vents angled so the cold air blew directly into his face. The old man from the railway museum was leaning against the door frame, watching him with a frown.

“Alyssa, I did have a few follow-up questions I forgot to ask,” Eric said when she answered. “The bottle of water you gave me…. Can you tell me anything about it at all?”

She was quiet for a moment. Then said, “Not really. That’s why I wanted you—”

“I understand what you wanted. But I need a little help. It’s the only thing you brought me that first day. The only artifact of any sort you gave me. No photos, no scrapbook, just that bottle. I guess I’m wondering why you thought it was so special.”

He was staring at the Pluto boxcar, at the grinning red devil.

“It’s strange,” she said eventually. “Don’t you think it’s strange? The way it stays cold, the way it… I don’t know, feels. There’s something off about it. And it is the only thing—and I mean the only thing—that he had from childhood. My husband told me that he kept it in a locked drawer in his bedside table, and said the bottle was a souvenir from his childhood and that no one was allowed to touch it. As you can see, it meant a lot to him for some reason. That’s why I’m so curious.”

“Yes,” Eric said. “I’m curious, too.”

“When I talked to you at Eve’s memorial service,” she said, “and I saw how you intuited the importance of that photograph, I knew I wanted to give you the bottle. I thought you might see something, feel something.”

That damn photograph was why she had hired him, why she’d sent him here. He could have guessed it from the start but instead he’d chosen to believe her hollow assertions of being impressed by the film. Claire wouldn’t have been fooled.

“I think I need to talk to your husband,” he said.

“What? Why?”

“Because he’s the one who’s actually related to the guy, Alyssa. It’s his family, and I need to ask him what the hell he really knows about his father. What he’s heard, what he thinks. I need to ask—”

“Eric, the entire point of this film was that it would be a surprise for my husband and his family.”

I don’t care were the words that rose in his throat, but he needed to keep any touch of hysteria down, and he was close to shouting now, close to telling her that something was very deeply wrong with Campbell Bradford, and once he got started on that, it’d be rolling downhill faster than he could control, stories of phantom trains and whispering ghosts coming out, and then his reputation in Chicago would be crushed just as completely as the one he’d had in Hollywood.

“I’d like to ask you to rethink that,” he said. “I believe I’m going to need to find out a little more from him to make any progress.”

“I’ll consider it,” she said in a tone of voice that made it clear she would not. “But I’m heading out right now