Mr. X

real in the same unreal way—besides, Iknew I had not won that money, therefore I had dreamed about finding it. Then I dried my face and looked in the closet.

    The blazer hung evenly, displaying no signs of dream-boodle. I poked my hand into the side pockets and found only Ashleigh Ashton's business card. Male vanity suggested that she had slipped it into my pocket when I wasn't looking. Showing off, I even checked the inside pockets.

    See?I told myself.You knew it all along.

    When I pulled a pair of jeans out of the duffel, I caught sight of my knapsack under the bed. Everything inside me stopped moving. I put on my socks and regarded the knapsack. An ominously dreamlike quality suffused my old companion. I got into my shorts, pulled a polo shirt over my head, thrust my legs into the jeans, and yanked the thing onto the bed. Dream-memory singled out one of the buckled pouches. I worked the buckle, raised the flap, and drew the zipper across the top of the pouch. When I reached inside, I touched what felt like currency. My hand came back into view gripping a fat wad of bills.

    Five hundred and eighty-one dollars. Two fives had been plastered together with beer.

    I rammed the money back into the pouch, zipped it shut, and shoved the knapsack under the bed.

 • 28

 • A purple shirt hung from Uncle Clark's shoulders, and a turquoise bracelet swam on one of his wrists. He looked like a conga player awaiting the summons onstage, but what he was waiting for was breakfast. I got coffee going and started opening cabinet doors.

    'Cereal is down at the end, bowls are right in front of you. I take Bran Buds and Grape-Nuts, fifty-fifty, with a spoonful of honey and some milk. It could be you're too young to handle Bran Buds.'

    He monitored the buckshot rattle of the cereal into the bowl and nodded when it was half filled. 'Don't go light on the honey, and level the milk right up so I can give it a good stir. Keep your eye on that coffee.'

    I covered everything with milk and placed the bowl on the table. He dumped in three scoops of sugar. After I joined him at the table, he slid his ivory eyes toward me. 'From all that racket you made last night, I'd guess you had a grade-A nightmare. Some will tell you that's a sign of a bad conscience.'

    “I'm sorry if I woke you up.'

    He ate down to the bottom of the bowl and pushed his spoon around, roping in stray pellets. 'What was your nightmare about?'

    “I was in a big storm.'

    'They say a dream of heavy rainfall indicates unexpected money.'

    'What about almost being struck by lightning?'

    'That's supposed to mean a change of fortune. Could be a whole lot of money coming your way. Better hold your umbrella upside down and steer clear of Mr. Toby Kraft. Money has a way of winding up in that man's pocket.'

    I had an uneasy vision of the bills folded into my knapsack.

    'Rainstorms, now,' he said. 'We used to get us some doozies in the old days. The river rolled right into town. Picked up anything it could get along the way. Cars. Livestock. Full-grown men. In the water a corpse will turnblue. It will swell up with gas and float on the current. The hands will look like catcher's mitts. I've lived next to theMississippi all my life. People think rivers are pretty things, but those with common sense won't trust one any wider than you can jump across.'

    I told him that until yesterday, when I had seen the river from

    St. Ann's, I had nearly forgotten that Edgerton was built along theMississippi. He gave me a frown-sneer and then perked up again. 'You didn't remember about the river?'

    'Not until I saw it yesterday afternoon.'

    'Best part ofa river is when it lets you forget it. Way back, we needed the river, and history tells you towns like this got built because of it. Anda river town is a different kind of place.'

    'Different how?'

    'A river town isirregular,'Clark said. 'You get your gamblers and your sharpies before you get your preachers, and it might be some considerable time before any of 'em find an advantage in turning respectable. There's a differentmentality, you understand me?'

    What he was describing sounded more like theBarbary Coast than southern Illinois, but I nodded anyhow.

    'And maybe you go twenty years without a flood. If one comes, you build everything back up afterwards. The river needs the town, and the town needs the river. A month or two later, even the smell is gone.'

    'The smell?'

    Clarkgave me a prolonged smirk-sneer. “I have pondered the question of why a river will smell fresh and clean when it runs between its banks and will leave behind such a stink after it floods. I believe the answer is that a flood will turn a river upside down and bring the bottom to the top. When it runs off, you will have river-bottom everywhere you look. Not mud—mud is just dirt that got too wet for its own good. River-bottom is what is supposed to be kept out of sight. River-bottom is the ugly part of nature, where everything gets broken down and turned into something else. It has a lot of death in it, and death carries a powerful charge of smell. Death is a lively business, when you think about it.'

    'Must be hard to clean up.'

    'That stuff willcling. I figure Edgerton rebuilt itself three times between the 1870s and the start of the century. Every time they built it up, it got bigger. There was a full-time circus in a full- time fairground, you could find two saloons and two gambling houses on every block. It had that same old mentality, you know what I'm saying?'

    'Wide open,' I said.

    'But you had your banks and your businesses, and you had your fine ladies along with your fancy ladies.' He sneered at me with what looked like pride. “It was at that time your people arrived in Edgerton, you know. The famous Dunstan brothers, Omar and Sylvan. 1874.'

    'Omar and Sylvan?' I said. “I never heard of them before.'

    'The Dunstan brothers rode into town on the back of a hay wagon and jumped off with a couple of valises and two hundred dollars in gold coins. Don't let that hay wagon give you the wrong idea. The Dunstans had a big- city style about them. Smart, good-looking gentlemen who spoke the King's English, knew the best manners, and dressed in the latest fashions. After they found temporary lodgings, Omar and Sylvan walked into a gambling establishment and tripled their grubstake in a single afternoon.'

     'They were gamblers?'

    'Their livelihoods were in commerce and finance. Nobody ever found out what they did before they came to Edgerton, though there was considerable talk. Some said they'd been bounty hunters. One or both of them was rumored to have been in prison.'

    'What did they do when they got here?'

    'Everything they touched prospered. When the floods came along, Omar and Sylvan wound up better off than before. Bought properties cheap off those who left town. Bought land where they figured the town would grow. Fifteen, twenty years later, they held the leases on a lot of important buildings. Naturally, they were as catnip to the ladies.'

    Clarkloved the story of the Dunstan brothers. The arc from the hay wagon to wealth thrilled his imagination. By now, he all but considered Omar and Sylvan blood relatives whose achievements added to his own merit.

    “I bet they were,' I said.

    'Handsome as the Devil, they say.' The glorious sneer declared that despite the ravages of age, Clark Rutledge knew himself to be no less handsome. 'You couldn't tell 'em apart. They say, from time to time their high spirits led them to give the ladies the impression that they were having a good time with someone other than they thought, if you catch my drift. You can put your money on one thing, they were let into a lot of nice houses when the Mister wasn't at home.' He hesitated for a moment. 'Howard fell pretty close to the same tree, from what I hear. And so did a couple of the other sons, but they either passed away early in life or ran off.'