So Cold the River

“Alyssa promised me you’ve got some good ones.”

Campbell Bradford’s breath came and went in soft, barely audible hisses, and when Eric became aware of the sound, he wanted out of the room, cursed himself for forcing this suggestion on Alyssa in the first place. This man was dying. He was not months away, or even weeks away. Death was close. He could hear it in those little puffing hisses from Campbell’s nose.

It hadn’t been so many years ago that Eric could be in the presence of an old, sick person like this and feel sorrow. Now he felt fear. The buffer zone of years was thinning too fast. He’d be here soon.

“I’ll just let you talk as much as you want, and whenever you’re ready for me to go, I’ll get lost,” he said, unfolding the tripod and fastening the camera to it. When he stole a glance at Campbell, he saw the same blank face and thought, Well, this isn’t going to take long. The man was not going to be able to talk to him. Then Eric took the lens cap off and dropped his eye to the viewfinder to check the focus and felt his next words die in his chest, pulled down by a cold fist of fear. In the viewfinder Campbell Bradford was watching him with an entirely different expression, the blue eyes hard and penetrating and astonishingly alert. They were the eyes of a young man, a strong man.

Eric lifted his head slowly, turned from the camera to the man in the bed and felt that cold fist in his chest open and flutter its fingers.

Campbell Bradford’s face had not changed. The eyes looked just as dim, just as unaware. Eric looked at the door, wishing now that he’d left it open.

“You going to talk to me?” Eric asked.

A slow blink, another hissed breath. Nothing else.

Eric looked at him, then thought, Okay, let’s try it again, and lowered his eye to the viewfinder. There was Campbell, still in the bed, still watching him, still with alert blue eyes that looked nothing like the ones Eric had just been staring into.

He wanted to look up again but didn’t, kept his eye to the camera instead. Give Paul Porter credit—he might be an asshole, but the man bought one hell of a camera. It was amazing, the way the thing picked up the life in Campbell Bradford’s eyes.

“Are you going to talk to me tonight?” Eric asked again, this time with his eye to the camera.

“Yes,” Campbell Bradford said, voice clear and strong.

Eric jerked his head up, bumped the tripod with his knee, and nearly knocked the camera over. Campbell looked back at him, face empty.

“Great,” Eric said, steadying the camera and facing Campbell. “Where would you like to start? What would you like to tell me?”

Nothing.

What in the hell was this about? The old bastard spoke only when Eric was looking at him through the camera. He waited, and still Campbell was silent. Eric pursed his lips, exhaled, shook his head. Okay, Gramps, I’ll look away again. He put his eye to the viewfinder and said, “I’d like to ask you about your childhood. Is that okay?”

“I don’t really have much to say about that,” Campbell Bradford said. His face was unchanged in the camera, the skin still loose and sallow, the sickness still clear. In fact, nothing had changed except the look in his eyes. For the first time, Eric considered that the old man could be screwing with him. That blank-faced look could be forced.

“Can I ask you something off topic?” Eric said.

“Yes.” The voice was clear enough, but not youthful. It was an elderly man’s voice. A sick man’s voice.

“Are you going to talk to me only when I’m looking through the camera?”

Campbell Bradford smiled.

“That,” Eric said, “is one wicked sense of humor.”

He lifted his head again, and Campbell went back to the vacant expression, and Eric laughed.

“Okay, I’ll play the game.” He moved the camera over and flicked the viewing display open so he could look through the camera without having to keep his eye to the tiny viewfinder. “Why don’t you want to talk to me about your childhood?”

“Not much to say.”

The old man was good. He could time it right, speak just as Eric dropped his eyes to the display, stop just as he flicked his eyes up. What a case.

“Tell me about the town, maybe. West Baden, isn’t that it?”

“Nice town,” Campbell said, and his voice seemed tired now.

“Did you live by the hotel?” Eric said and waited a long time on this one, staring right at Campbell, waiting for him to crack. He didn’t, and Eric dropped his eyes to the camera, and Campbell said, “Sure.”

Shit, he wasn’t going to give it up.

“How long did you live there?” Eric said, eyes still on the camera.

“A while.” The fatigue appeared to be taking Campbell quickly, and Eric wondered if the game he’d played had sapped his strength.

Show him the bottle, maybe. Tell him the way that shit had tasted, see if he could get a laugh or a response of any depth. Eric took the bottle out. Damn but that thing was cold.

“Alyssa gave me this,” he said, pushing it into the old man’s hand, and for the first time Campbell’s face changed while Eric had his eyes away from the camera, went drawn and lined with concern.

“You shouldn’t have this,” he said.

“I’m sorry. She brought it to me.”

Campbell’s long, ancient fingers opened and he lifted his hand from the bottle, found Eric’s forearm and squeezed with surprising strength.

“It was so cold,” he said.

“The bottle? Yeah, I know. Weird stuff.”

“No!” Campbell’s eyes were wide now, full of emotion, the game forgotten.

“What?”

“Not the bottle.”

“Well, I thought it was plenty cold. When I touched—”

“Not the bottle.”

Eric said, “What, then? What are you talking about?”

“So cold.”

“What was?”

“The river.”

“What river are you talking about?”

“It was so cold.”

Eric wanted to say something about Bradford’s sense of humor again, wanted to give him some credit for this unnerving and inventive-as-hell prank, but he couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t even get them formed, because he was staring into the man’s face and unable to believe that any drama school on earth had ever produced a talent like this. He wasn’t acting. He was lost in some frozen memory. One that terrified him.

“So cold the river,” Campbell Bradford repeated, his voice now dropping to a whisper as he lowered his head back to the pillow. “So cold the river.”

“What river? I don’t understand what you’re talking about, sir.”

Nothing.

Eric said, “Mr. Bradford? I’m sorry I brought the bottle.”

Silence. The amazing job of blank-faced posing he’d done before paled in comparison to this.

“Mr. Bradford, I was hoping to talk to you about your life. If you don’t want to talk about West Baden or your childhood, that’s fine with me. Let’s talk about your career, then. Your kids.”

But it wasn’t going to work. Not anymore. The old man was stone silent. Game or not, Eric wasn’t going to wait all night. He let five minutes pass, asked a few more questions, got no response.

“All right,” he said, removing the camera from the tripod. “I think you were messing with me earlier, and I hope you are now. I’m sorry if I upset you.”

That got a languid blink. When Eric picked up the bottle from the bed and put it back in his briefcase,