Now And Forever Part 7

CHAPTER 22.

Cardiff led McCoy into the vast yard of motionless stones and flightless angels. McCoy peered at the markers.

"d.a.m.n. There's plenty of names, but no dates. When did they die?"

"They didn't," Cardiff said softly.

"Good G.o.d, lemme look closer."

McCoy took six steps west, four steps east, and came to...

The open grave with a coffin gaping wide, and a spade tossed to one side.

"What's this? Funeral today?"

"I dug that," said Cardiff. "I was looking for something."

"Something?" McCoy kicked some dirt clods into the grave. "You know more than you're telling. Why are you protecting this town?"

"All I know is that I might stay on."

"If you stay, you cannot tell these people the whole truth-that the bulldozers are coming, and the cement mixers, the funeral directors of progress. And if you leave, will you tell them before you go?"

Cardiff shook his head.

"Which leaves me," said McCoy, "as guardian of their virtues?"

"G.o.d, I hope not." Cardiff shifted by the open grave. Clods fell to drum the coffin.

McCoy backed off, nervously staring down at the open grave and into the empty coffin. "Hold on." A strange look came over his face. "My G.o.d, I bet you brought me here to stop my telephoning out, or even trying to leave town! You..."

At this, McCoy spun, lost his footing, and fell.

"Don't!" cried Cardiff.

McCoy fell into the coffin full-sprawled, eyes wide, to see the spade fall, loosened by accident or thrown in murder, he never knew. The spade struck his brow. The jolt shook the coffin lid. It slammed shut over his stunned and now colorless eyes.

The bang of the coffin lid shook the grave and knocked down dirt showers, smothering the box.

Cardiff stood amazed and in shock, a mile above.

Had McCoy slipped, he wondered, or was he pushed?

His foot dislodged another shower of dirt. Did he hear someone shrieking beneath the lid? Cardiff saw his shoes kick more dirt down into silence. With the box now hidden, he backed off, moaning, stared at the tombstone above etched with someone else's name, and thought, That must be changed.

And then he turned and ran, blindly, stumbling, out of the yard.

CHAPTER 23.

I have committed murder, Cardiff thought.

No, no. McCoy buried himself. Slipped, fell, and shut the lid.

Cardiff walked almost backward down the middle of the street, unable to tear his gaze from the graveyard, as if expecting McCoy to appear, risen like Lazarus.

When he came to the Egyptian View Arms, he staggered up the walk and into the house, took a deep breath, and found his way to the kitchen.

Something fine was baking in the oven. A warm apricot pie lay on the pantry sill. There was a soft whisper under the icebox, where the dog was lapping the cool water in the summer heat. Cardiff backed off. Like a crayfish, he thought, never forward.

At the bay window he saw, on the vast lawn behind the house, two dozen bright blankets laid in a checkerboard with cutlery placed, empty plates waiting, crystal pitchers of lemonade, and wine, in preparation for a picnic. Outside he heard the soft drum of hooves.

Going out to the porch, Cardiff looked down at the curb. Claude, the polite and most intelligent horse, stood there, by the empty bread wagon.

Claude looked up at him.

"No bread to be delivered?" Cardiff called.

Claude stared at him with great moist brown eyes, and was silent.

"Would it be me that needs deliverance?" said Cardiff, as quiet as possible.

He walked down and stepped into the wagon.

Yes was the answer.

Claude started up and carried him through the town.

CHAPTER 24.

They were pa.s.sing the graveyard.

I have committed murder, Cardiff thought.

And, impulsively, he cried, "Claude!"

Claude froze and Cardiff jumped out of the wagon and rushed into the graveyard.

Swaying over the grave, he reached down in a terrible panic to lift the lid.

McCoy was there, not dead but sleeping, having given up, and was now taking a snooze.

Exhaling, Cardiff spoke down at his terrible enemy, glad that he was alive.

"Stay there," he said. "You don't know it, but you're going home." He dropped the lid gently, taking care to insert a twig in the gap between top and bottom to allow for air.

He ran back to Claude, who, sensing the visit was over, started off again at a good clop.

All around them the yards and porches were empty.

Where, Cardiff wondered, has everyone gone?

He had his answer when Claude stopped.

They stood before a large, rather handsome brick building, its entrance flanked by two Egyptian sphinxes lying supine, half-lioness and half-G.o.d, with faces he could almost name.

Cardiff read these words: HOPE MEMORIAL LIBRARY.

And in small letters beneath that: KNOW HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE.

He climbed the library steps to find Elias Culpepper standing before the great double front doors. Culpepper behaved as if he'd been expecting the younger man, and motioned at him to sit down on the library steps.

"We've been waiting for you," he said.

"We?" said Cardiff.

"The whole town, or most of it," said Culpepper. "Where have you been?"

"The graveyard," said Cardiff.

"You spend too much time there. Is there a problem?"

"Not anymore, if you can help me mail something home. Is there a train expected anytime soon?"

"Should be one pa.s.sing through sometime today," said Elias Culpepper. "Doubt it'll stop. That hasn't happened in..."

"Can it be stopped?"

"Could try flares."

"I've got a package I want sent, if you can stop it."

"I'll light the flares," said Culpepper. "Where's this package going?"

"Home," Cardiff said again. "Chicago."

He wrote a name and address on a page ripped from his notepad, and handed the piece of paper to Culpepper.

"Consider it done," said Culpepper. He rose and said, "Now I think you ought to go inside."

Cardiff turned and pushed the great library doors and stepped in.

He read a sign above the front counter: CARPE DIEM. SEIZE THE DAY. It could have also read: SEIZE A BOOK. FIND A LIFE. BIRTH A METAPHOR.

His gaze drifted to find a large part of the town's population seated at two dozen tables, books open, reading, and keeping the SILENCE that other signs suggested.

As if pulled by a single string, they turned, nodded at Cardiff, and turned back to their books.

The young woman behind the library front desk was an incredible beauty.

"My G.o.d," he whispered. "Nef!"

She raised her hand and pointed, then beckoned for him to follow.

She walked ahead of him and she might well have had a lantern in her hand to light the dim stacks, for her face was illumination. Wherever she glanced, the darkness failed and a faint light touched the gold lettering along the shelves.

The first stack was labeled: ALEXANDRIA ONE.

And the second: ALEXANDRIA TWO.

And the last: ALEXANDRIA THREE.

"Don't say it," he said, quietly. "Let me. The libraries at Alexandria, five hundred or a thousand years before Christ, had three fires, maybe more, and everything burned."

"Yes," Nef said. "This first stack contains all or most of the books burned in the first fire, an accident.

"This second stack from the second burning, also an accident, has all the lost books and destroyed texts of that terrible year.

"And the last, the third, contains all the books from the third conflagration-a burning by mobs, the purposeful destruction of history, art, poetry, and plays in 455 B.C.

"In 455 B.C.," she repeated quietly.

"My G.o.d," he said, "how were they all saved, how did they get here?"

"We brought them."

"How?!"

"We are tomb robbers." Nef ran her finger along the stacks. "For the profit of the mind, the extension of the soul, whatever the soul is. We can only try to describe the mystery. Long before Schliemann, who found not one but twenty Troys, our ancestors played finders-keepers with the grandest library in time, one that would never burn, would live forever and allow those who entered to touch and scan, a chance to run after an extra piece of existence. This building is absolute proof against fire. In one form or another, it has traveled from Moses, Caesar, Christ, and will continue on toward the new Apollo and the Moon that the rocket chariot will reach."

"But still," he said. "Those libraries were ruined. Are these duplicates of duplicates? The lost are found, but how?"

Nef laughed quietly. "It was a hard task. Down through the centuries, a book here or there, a play one place, a poem another. A huge jigsaw, fitted in pieces."

She moved on in the comfortable twilight spilling through the library's tall windows, brushing her fingers over the names and t.i.tles.