So Cold the River

control of it. To learn how to use it.

He got to his feet and went back inside the room. There was an extension number for the spa listed on the card beside the phone. He called.

The girl who answered told him the spa was closing in thirty minutes. There wasn’t enough time for a session, she explained. A session? All he wanted was to see the damn mineral bath. He told her as much, and was met with polite but firm resistance.

“Sessions in the mineral bath run for half an hour or an hour. There’s not enough time for that, sorry. We can schedule you tomorrow.”

“Look,” he said, “I’ll pay for a full session.”

“I’m sorry, sir, we just can’t—”

“And tip you a hundred dollars,” he said, the situation suddenly feeling urgent to him as he looked at the empty bottle in his hand. “I’ll be out by nine, when you close.”

“All right,” she said after a long pause. “But you’re going to want to hurry down here, or you won’t get much time at all.”

“That’s all right. Say, do you have any plastic water bottles down there?”

“Um, yes.”

He said he was glad to hear that they did.

The spa was beautiful, filled with high-grade stone and ornate trim, fireplaces crackling. He’d routinely mocked men he knew in California who frequented such places, too much of the Missouri farm-town boyhood still in him to sample that lifestyle. Yet here he stood in a white robe and slippers, padding along behind an attractive blond girl who was opening a frosted door that led to the mineral bath.

“It’s a complete re-creation of the originals,” she said, pausing with the door half open. “But most people these days do add aromatherapy. Are you sure you don’t—”

“I want the natural water,” he said. “Nothing else.”

“Okay,” she said, and opened the door. The potent stench of sulfur was immediately present, and the blond girl grimaced, clearly horrified that he hadn’t elected to go with the scent of vanilla or lavender or butterfly wings or whatever the hell it was that you were supposed to use.

“You might feel a little light-headed at first,” she said. “Kind of giddy. That’s from all the gases that are released by the water, lithium and such. There’s a complete list of the chemical content there on the counter if you’re int—”

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll be all set.”

She’d been on the verge of a full introductory speech, he could tell, and he didn’t want to waste time. He wanted to get to work emptying the two plastic water bottles she’d given him and filling them with Pluto Water.

She left then, and he was alone in the green-tiled room that stank of sulfur. The tub was still filling, pouring out of the hotwater faucet only. There were two faucets, the girl had told him, both depositing mineral water directly from the spring, with the only difference being that one carried water that had been heated to one hundred and two degrees.

There was a sink across from the tub, and he poured the water from his bottles into that, shook them as dry as possible, and returned to the tub. He turned on the cold-water faucet, cupped his hand, and caught some of the water. Lifted it to his mouth and sampled, frowning and licking his lips like some asshole wine connoisseur. It tasted different from Anne McKinney’s, crisper and cleaner. Of course, it hadn’t been in a glass bottle for eighty years. Just because it tasted different didn’t mean it wouldn’t work. He hoped.

He filled one bottle about a third and then pulled it back from the faucet and stared at it, thinking of the last vision he’d had, of the boy vanishing up the stairs beside Campbell Bradford and Shadrach Hunter. Where had they gone? What had happened next?

The idea that had slipped into his mind was growing legs now: if he could find ways to document this, if he could tell a tale that had been hidden from historians, hidden from the eyes of ordinary men, well, the result would be extraordinary. In the past, he’d never discussed his rare and brief flashes with anyone but Claire, because a man who claimed psychic tendencies would quickly be dismissed as a lunatic. It was the way of the world. But suppose he could prove what he’d seen as the truth. And suppose, with the water as his aid, he could do it again, on another story. A self-proclaimed psychic was the subject of ridicule, but a proven entity, a film director whose exclusive ability allowed him to shatter secrets and expose the unknown, would be something else entirely. He’d be a star. Beyond that. A legend. Famous as famous got.

It was a fantasy. But there was also a possibility, perhaps a stronger one than he dared admit, that it could become a reality. See the story, document it, and turn to the Hollywood connections he had left. There were publicists and agents who’d salivate at the very idea. And once the buzz began…

But first he had to see the rest of it. First he had to know what had happened. The water would provide that for him.

In a soft voice, he said, “Show me. Show me what happened,” and drank. Drank it all. That done, he leaned back to the faucet.

Once both bottles were filled, he put them in the pocket of the big robe, then looked around the room and watched the water cascade into that old-fashioned tub. What the hell, he’d come down here, and he’d paid for it.

He took off the robe and his underwear and stepped down into the water, finding it the perfect temperature for soaking sore muscles. He probably had only ten minutes left, but that was all he’d need. He’d never been one for hot tubs, really.

But this one did feel good. Felt incredible, really, like it was finding kinks and knots in his muscles and lifting them away, lifting him a little bit, too. That must be the gas from the mineral blend. It did make you a little giddy, at that.

He flicked his eyes open and inhaled deeply, breathing in those mellowing fumes. The ceiling looked different. For a moment he was confused, unsure of the change, but then he realized—there was a fan overhead now, wide blades paddling lazily through the air. That hadn’t been there before, had it? He rolled his head sideways then, back toward the door, and saw he was no longer alone.

There was a second tub in the room now. A long, narrow white bowl resting on claw feet. There was a man inside. He had his head laid back as Eric had a minute ago, face to the ceiling, eyes closed. He was clean-shaven and had thick dark hair, damp and glistening. His chest rose and fell in the slow rhythm of sleep.

He is another vision, Eric thought, not moving at all, afraid a single ripple in the water would cause the man to raise his head. It’s just like the others.

It wasn’t like the others, though. Not like watching a movie, everything distant. This time, it was here with him. As it had been with Campbell in the train car.

He heard a click then, and the door pushed open, nothing but blackness on the other side, and Campbell Bradford stepped into the room.

His eyes were straight ahead, on Eric. Maybe it was going to be like the one in the train car, when Campbell had spoken directly to him, when he’d had to run for the door because Campbell was on his feet and walking toward him…

Campbell turned away, though. He flicked his eyes away from Eric and to the sleeping man in the other tub, and then he walked toward him. He moved quietly, his shoes sliding over the tile floor, his suit barely rustling. When he reached the man in the tub, he stood over him silently, looking down. Then he slid his suit coat off his shoulders and laid it over the back of a chair. Once the jacket was off, Campbell unfastened his cuff links and set them on top of the coat. Then he rolled both sleeves up past the elbows. Still the man in the tub didn’t move, lost to sleep.

Warn him, Eric thought. Say something.

But of course he couldn’t. He wasn’t part of this scene, he just felt like he was. Campbell couldn’t see him; Campbell was not real. Eric hadn’t taken any of the Bradford water, none of that dangerous stuff that brought Campbell out of the past and into the present. All he had to do was watch and wait for it to go away. It would end in time. He knew that it would end in time.

For a long moment, Campbell stood above the man in the tub and watched him, almost serenely. When he finally moved, it was with sudden and violent speed. He lunged out and dropped the palm of one hand on top of the