Читать книгу Buried Treasure - Jack B. Downs - Страница 8

1 / Sam’s End

Berlin, Maryland 1954

The sun rose above the trees, lighting the day in a blaze of early spring brightness. The darkest chapter of Sam’s life opened on that day, a morning somewhere between ordinary and promising. He coaxed the baby carriage across the tracks traversing Washington Street on the east side of Berlin. David, his two-year-old, was asleep as soon as they’d started out from the house. David was more a mystery than James, his older son. The tot made Sam uneasy, as if he possessed a time bomb. The baby’s fair hair and skin, so light in contrast to James’s, belied his temper.

“James, slow down boy! Stay where I can see you!”

Sam’s voice carried no bite. It was spring, finally. The equinox was almost two weeks past, but the cold had clung, raw and stubborn as a soggy wool coat. Now a temperate front bullied its way up the close Atlantic coast, trumpeting a promise of balmier weather. Berlin, Maryland, was awakening from a long chill, casting aside its foggy slumber. Sam shrugged off the nagging sense of unease that had plagued him. Today no delusions of somebody following him, no paranoia about his wife’s strange behavior.

James pedaled down the sidewalk toward the playground, pumping the shiny three-wheeler Santa had brought—Maureen wept at the expense—tassels streaming from the handles. In the short travel from the house, James had spilled twice from the bike and righted himself, to pedal again like a demon. His last visit to the playground had been November, around the time Sam was laid off at the chicken processing plant. Yet this morning, James flew there unerring, like a leatherback hatchling to the surf.

His wife, Maureen, had suggested the outing. Insisted, really.

“You’ll do fine. I know you’ve a lot on your mind, but the boys need air, and so do you,” she’d said, slipping on her gloves. “Just don’t let James out of your sight. He tends to never look back.” She’d smiled enigmatically, kissed him, and left for the bus stop.

Just beyond the train tracks, two routes led to the playground. The shorter path cut through the hedges that fronted the Bomberger’s stately home, at the corner of Washington and Hyatt Streets. The longer path followed the sidewalk around the corner and down Hyatt to the far side of the home, where it passed between the Owings and the Magid’s to the small playground. Inez Bomberger periodically blocked the shortcut with yarn or baling twine. The neighbor kids found some use for the string, for it would disappear, and the tracks of youth-sized sneakers would emerge again in the permanent mud of the passage.

Sam waved a greeting at Mrs. Somers across the street. She braced astride her porch, gardening implements in hand, her fists on her hips like the captain of a warship. A hundred pots of various sizes assembled neatly before her, all waiting their assignments.

“Hello to you and yours, Sam Paxton,” she said. “And another on the way? Did I hear right?”

He nodded, tipping his hat. “Afraid so, Miss Ellen. Maureen’s in a family way again.”

She snorted and turned back to her patient pots.

It was a glorious morning. Sam felt light, for a change not consumed by worries about work. Spring meant new life and renewal. Careers could founder in the bleak fall. Optimistic owners hired come spring. Sam straightened his shoulders and glanced down at his angel, his son, lacking a care.

At a clatter up the street, Sam raised his head. James’s bike was on its side, the high wheel spinning. He glimpsed the red sweatshirt hood disappearing into the hedge in front of Miss Inez’s. Sam picked up his pace to circle around the Bomberger’s the long way. That would be at least a couple minutes. What if there were older boys at the playground? Or worse, a responsible mother, like Judy Owings? She would have this or that to say about letting a boy run unattended.

Sam called out, blending disapproval with plea. He was hollering because Mrs. Somers would expect it. He glanced again at David, innocent in his slumber. He turned to ask Mrs. Somers to watch the carriage for a moment, but she’d disappeared. He looked up and down the street. No one. Sam stepped across the grass and saw a child’s shoe in the lumpy mud between the bushes.

“James!”

He felt his anger rise. Think. He hadn’t been out of the house twenty minutes yet. Sam glanced back, and then burst through the opening, jogging toward the playground. It was further than he remembered. He saw James clawing up the ladder to the slide.

“James Patrick!”

His eldest son smiled briefly before resuming his climb, one foot dangling a muddy sock. Sam swiveled. The street was invisible beyond the hedge.

Sam raced to the playground and positioned himself at the bottom of the aluminum slide. “Down. Now, young man.”

James leaned forward, a hand on each rail, a muddy shoe tapping the metal. He flashed a quick smile.

“Where’s David?” he asked.

“Out on the sidewalk, where I left him to chase you. Down! Now! I told you not to run out of sight! Down! Now!”

“Where’s my bike?” James asked.

“Come down here, young man, right now!” Sam could hear his mounting tone. “We’ll go get your bike, and your brother,” he relented. “Now, please!”

James started to cry. Sam reached up and grabbed James’s ankle. He pulled his son down the slide and picked him up. Resting James on his hip, Sam made his way back to the hedge cut.

“We gonna get my bike?” James sniffled.

Sam, winded from two packs of Marlboros a day, puffed.

“Yes, and your brother better be sleeping.”

Sam heard a car screeching around the corner in front of Bomberger’s, down Hyatt. Could the carriage have rolled into the street? He’d eased the front wheels off the sidewalk into the spongy spring grass. The area was flat. The carriage could not have rolled. Sam drew a deep breath, relieved.

He twisted sideways through the hedges and bent to pull his son’s shoe from the muck. The carriage stood where he’d left it. His arms were aching from carrying James, who now had his own small arms wrapped tightly around his father’s neck. In one of his last completely sane thoughts, Sam reflected that James already understood that nothing staved off anger like a child’s affection.

He chided himself for losing his temper with his son on such a peaceful morning. Blessing on blessing, not a peep from the buggy. They shuffled across the lawn, James with his muddy sock hanging from his foot.

Sam strode up to the carriage, his eyes taking in what his mind couldn’t.

It was empty.

***

When had the world shrunk to such a dark and cold place? How had something as light and magical as love become a sword that cut down good people to writhe, without the mercy of death? Deep in her head, she peeked out through her own eyes, listening but not reacting, hearing but not falling. She loved him more than she could comprehend. Lovers do what lovers must, for love.

Those seared by the insanity of passion will recover, given time. That was her new faith. Lovers regard only their beloved, else the love withers and chokes. Strong as the fiercest will to live, love fights not to die. Nothing dies in spring, least of all love. Once, she had thought she loved. Silly now, it seems. Real love is beyond thought and reason. Intractable in its insisting. In another time, in another world, it might have been different. But there is only this time, in this world, and so it is this way. She tenderly stroked the small mattress where her child had so recently lain, but would never again.