Читать книгу The Ruby - Leland Nichols - Страница 4

It was a pleasant April afternoon, when the kaleidoscope of colors gave way to a beautiful landscape, leaving Dorian Alexander standing beside a placid river lined with a gravel bar shoreline. Somehow it seemed fitting; time flowed like a river and now time had come to a seeming standstill next to the sluggish river beside him. Dorian was confused, looking around like a man who had lost his way. He had stopped abruptly, ending the journey through time, leaving him to wonder at the splendor of beauty around him. His eyes passed from wildflowers to big oaks, to sky, to far rolling hills that left him suspended in a moment of quiet.

Dorian examined the time-portation device that had just failed, pressing a thumb to the various raised areas, which blended into the scrolled artwork, in an attempt to reactivate it.

The device, a brilliant amalgam of form and function, did not betray the secrets of its operation, should it on an off chance, fall into unwitting hands.

“I can’t believe this. Not now,” he said to himself in a low voice.

With a sigh, he put the device into a pocket, pondering his next action. It was a beautiful day in early spring; the air filled with the songs of small birds, and on the ground, wildflowers in full bloom. Far beyond, cliffs and spires, covered with a rug of trees, rose to a fog-cloaked horizon. All around him were endless acres of primeval beauty. A slight breath of wind blew over the meadow, stirring the grasses and wildflowers, perfuming the air with floral scents. He stood for a moment breathing in the clean, mountain air. It appeared to be an unspoiled wilderness; a splendid overgrowth of foliage extending for miles into the horizon, under an unbroken stretch of blue sky.

After a few minutes of following the river upstream, in the distance Dorian saw the first sign of human existence in this countryside: a pickup truck parked amongst a thicket of evergreens, near an open meadow dominated by a gigantic dogwood tree. Uncertain of what sort of contraption this was, he strolled over to the truck, and came to a halt with an almost hypnotized stare.

Though Dorian knew nothing of the particulars of early automobiles, it was a 1922 Ford Model T pickup with wooden-spoke wheels and dry-rotted tires. The vehicle had a small passenger cab and cargo bed, on a lightly sprung frame. The Model T had been converted into a utility vehicle, with an aftermarket cargo box replacing its factory-made deck. The body of the truck was somewhat rough with irregularities, marked with some rust. Having only seen such vehicles before in pictures, Dorian admired every detail as he circled the truck marveling at its strange appearance, astonished by its sheer antiquity.

He had a broad smile on his face as he reached out to touch the front fender, tracing admiring fingers across the rough, faded black finish. He crouched down to have a look at the undercarriage. On his hands and knees, he stuck his head far under the body, looking at the engine and frame. Having seen all he wanted, he proceeded to back out of the tight quarters when the unexpected happened, something he had not counted on, a human voice.

“You lose sumpin’?”

Dorian, startled by the sound of a voice from the other side of the truck, hastily scampered out from under it, bumping his head on the frame. Across the undercarriage, he caught a glimpse of the legs and bare feet of a woman standing on the other side. Brushing the dust from his coveralls, he stood, facing her. She was young, only about nineteen. Somewhat embarrassed by the sudden interruption, he stared red-faced at the girl on the other side. She wore a freshly picked blossom in her hair on the right side of her face. Her wholesome good looks captured his attention. She was the very picture of innocence. She wore a faded, thin dress, threadbare—almost transparent from being washed so many times. Her light brown, tangled hair fell over her eyes, and was often brushed aside by a soiled hand. She was quite charming, and wore no makeup on her slightly dirty face. Well suntanned, Dorian deduced that she spent most of her time outdoors.

Dorian was conscious of his own clothes and wondered how strange he must appear to her. He wore reflective silvery-white coveralls with a zipper down the front. Excellent for protection from the elements, they were spotless and perfectly creased, as if he had just removed them from a drawer.

“Does it belong to you?” Dorian asked. “I’ve never seen one of these old machines before.”

“Old? It’s all Pa can afford. Times are hard, ya know.”

They both walked to the front of the truck. She daintily patted the blossom in her hair, and straightened the tresses on the back of her neck, then brushed at the front of her dress with open palms, but the fabric’s stains of age were not removable.

“I’m Billie,” she said, tossing her head a bit to the side. She smiled. “Where’d you come from?”

“Well... uh,” Dorian stammered. “Oh. Allow me to introduce myself. You see, I’m from…uh… Dorian, my name is Dorian. I’ve had a mechanical breakdown. Do you live nearby?”

“Jes’ across the way. This here is our property,” Billie said, as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, waving her hands expansively.

“All this is your property?” Dorian was incredulous.

“Yeah, all 240 acres, includin’ what you’re standin’ on.”

“Is there a town nearby?”

“Yeah, ’bout ten miles down the state highway.”

“I need to be on my way as soon as possible. You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get a ruby, would you?”

“I ain’t got no rubies. What you want that for?”

“I…uh…need it to make repairs,” Dorian said, trying to find a plausible explanation for his unusual situation.

“Your car broke down, huh? Well, I got news for ya, it ain’t goin’ to help. There ain’t no ruby in there.”

She laughed, but sensed he was uncomfortable, and wondered what he was trying to hide, or what truth he was avoiding.

“It’s just that…”

He stopped abruptly. He did not know how to present his case to her. Two things stood in the way. The first; do not violate the Principal Mandate: don’t interact with anyone, unless it is unavoidable, and in any case, disclose nothing about the nature of his mission. Secondly, and more to the point, who would believe such a story in the first place? He would very likely never gain trust in those whose help he so desperately needed. Dorian found himself in an unforgiving situation; he needed help, but could not reveal the exact circumstances of what had happened to anyone. With a little patience, and without being a nuisance, perhaps he could be clever enough to get what he needed. Dorian turned and looked at the truck again.

“This is great,” he said. “I never dreamed I’d actually ever see one—a real motor carriage.”

She tiptoed very seductively closer to him. “Motor carriage? A car, you mean. Grandpa used to say that.”

“An internal combustion engine,” he said. “Does it actually run on liquid hydrocarbons?”

Billie chuckled to herself and shook her head. “No, silly. It runs on gasoline.”

She paused to study him for a moment, head tilted slightly, smiling at him. “How come you ain’t wearin’ no hat?”

“I don’t know. It never occurred to me that I needed one.”

“I’ll give you a lift to town.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, pondering her trusting and generous offer. Then he answered, “Would you do that?”

“Shore, hop in.”

Billie had parked the truck on a slight grade so it could be rolled to a start by popping the clutch with the ignition switch on, in case the battery or starter should fail. She did not like to use the crank, which could result in a sore arm from an unpleasant kick-back.

Billie circled the truck and entered on the driver’s side. She noticed that Dorian was having a hard time getting the door open on the other side. He tugged at the handle, not doing it properly, as if he had never opened the door of a car or truck before.

“It’s not stuck,” she said, watching him with evident delight.

After a few seconds, she reached across the seat and opened the door from the inside. It swung open with a squeal. The original cushion of the truck seat had completely rotted away exposing rusted metal springs. A tattered blanket thrown over the exposed springs was all there was to sit on. With most of the floorboard missing, Dorian placed his feet carefully as he crawled into the vehicle and sat down. Curious, he studied Billie’s every move as she operated the strange machine. She depressed the clutch pedal with her bare left foot, and pushed the floor-mounted starter pedal with her right, while holding down the accelerator pedal. The truck rattled and shook, then settled into a chattering roar. Through the hole in the floorboard, Dorian saw the flash and flame of the exhaust. He could see the fire from the exhaust pipe as blue smoke rose from behind the engine. She put the shift lever into gear, and they drove away in a plume of dust. The narrow-tired vehicle bounced across the field, rocking and rolling along a dirt lane with a grassy center.

After a short distance, they turned out of the meadow onto a gravel road of brown creek rock that crunched under the tires. The road curved and twisted, winding through the ever darkening tall trees. The farther they went, the more bizarre and enclosing the vegetation became. Although it was still daylight, the underbrush and the enclosed canopy of the trees blacked out most of the light of day. The gravel road ended at a paved blacktop, and Billie turned left onto the road, heading south, accelerating the old truck to a moderate speed.

Dorian leaned on the door, surveying the miles of pastures, dense patches of lofty forest and sunless valleys, separated by stretches of gray fences. He watched the landscape roll past his window, glad to feel the cool air on his face. Along the road, they passed several farm houses, each with their own characteristic form of decay, each an eyesore in varying states of paint and disrepair, ravaged by the heavy hand of time. It was as if they had never been new, and had always been decrepit.

Dorian was in awe of the countryside—its variety, its contours. He surveyed the majesty of the Ozark wilderness and looked out over the wooded hills and high bluffs, a magnificent wild panorama of ridges and valleys of dense oak and hickory forest. It was a signature combination of civilization and nature with an aura of grace and charm, a beautiful and only half-tamed country, far too vast to capture in a single glance.

“You’re not from ’round here, are ya?” Billie asked.

“I’m just passing through.”

“There’s a grocery store jes’ up the road a-piece. Do you want a soda pop?”

“Thanks, but that’s not necessary. I had a drink a few minutes ago before I left on this trip.”

“Thought you said you didn’t live ’round here, must have been more than a few minutes back, wasn’t it?”

After a long pause from pondering that question, Dorian said, without looking at her, “Seemed like only a second to me.”

Billie gave him a strange look, then smiled.

After traveling down the road with its scenic hilltops and rocky hillsides, Billie slowed at a crossroads and honked the horn at the proprietor sitting on the porch of a roadside store, a weathered structure with a rusty tin roof. The storekeeper sat on a homemade willow twig rocking chair below a large picture window scribed with black letters, “U.S. Post Office and General Store.” He tipped his hat at the passing car. In front was a hand-cranked gasoline pump, painted red with a large glass bowl for measuring fuel. Alongside the gas pump, an attendant lugged a wire-rack carrier of glass oil bottles with long metal spouts toward the door of the building.

Dorian looked out the truck’s window at the station and at a field next to it; a graveyard of rusted automobiles littered the landscape of a neglected meadow. There were gutted cars with sprouts growing out of the engine compartments, and along the front, near the road, the remnants of a wood wagon. He took delight at every sight. Everything here was a new experience for him. Having been displaced into this new world of two thousand years in the past, he found it a primitive, simple life unlike anything he had known in his own time.

Billie turned to Dorian, her lower lip pouting.

“Will you be stayin’ long?” Billie asked.

“Until I find a ruby, at the very least.”

She looked out the corner of her eyes at his clothes, scanning him from head to toe. She was captivated by the novelty of his unusual clothing.

“I swear I’ve never seen anyone wearin’ clothes like that before, ’cept in some Buck Rogers story my brother Andy used to read. Where’d you say you’re from?”

“Well, I didn’t. It’s a long story.”

“You jes’ wanted to give your girl a ruby, right?”

“I wish it were that simple. From the looks of things, I may have to get one out of the earth myself.”

“What?”

“Dig one up from the ground, I suppose.”

“Pa finds lots of rocks when he’s diggin’ the ground. I don’t think he has any rubies, though.”

“Your Pa? You mean your father, he digs rocks? A geologist. Can I see him?”

Billie slammed on the brake, Dorian was thrown against the dash, bumping his head on the windshield. She slid on the gravel, fishtailing sideways and wrestled the big wooden steering wheel to line up with another dirt road to the left.

“Ya said that jes’ in time. The house is down this way.”

Billie notched down the throttle as they drove down the makeshift road that followed the contour of the landscape, causing the vehicle to lean as the road banked in one direction, then the other. Dorian looked out the window at densely wooded areas on both sides of the road as they passed through alternating patches of shade and sunlight. At first, there was a slight dimming of the light and the beginning of darkness ahead, then the sky was closed up entirely under the thickening branches.

The way to Billie’s house was by obscure roads off the main highway, leading through a vast wilderness so remote that very few strangers would have any reason to trespass through the property, even if they had a need to be roaming in this part of the country. The primitive, narrow track was a world of uneven ground. It rose to huge swells, deeply pitted and potholed, full of hollows and blind passages, with great drop-offs on either side. Down through the hollers they went, steam billowing from the radiator cap. The scar of winding gullies washed out by the rain further hampered the truck’s ability to stay upright. The vehicle tilted from side to side with each pitch of the sloping terrain, springs squeaking, frame rattling, and at times bottoming out on a rough patch of road.

Occasionally, Billie would have to slow almost to a stall to swerve around washed-out gullies and large rocks in the road. The hillside dipped down with breath-taking steepness, a quality of savage grandeur, sloping to a small brook, that wound through the bottom to a shallow creek bed of eroded rocks. At times, there was just shade, and then darkness was thrown over them like a blanket, blotting out most of the sky. It was a drive that tunneled through foliage and a network of dark green threads.

The road went up an incline into a clearing of straight road lined with a rail fence made from split pine, darkened and decayed. To Dorian’s relief, there was the slight forgiveness of smoother, rolling terrain, and the truck began to slow down. They made a right turn around a rusty mailbox into a driveway in front of a humble, turn-of-the-twentieth-century homestead that stood several hundred feet from the road. A simple wood frame house, it was old and run down, yet picturesque and home-like, as if it held many pleasant memories. The two story house stood prominently among several out-buildings, including a barn that held a commanding view of the hillside in front of the property.