Book of Days: A Novel (15 page)

And even if Stone led him to the book, what guarantee was there that it would fix whatever was eating away at his brain like a piranha?

As the first shards of the creek materialized through breaks in the trees and underbrush, he stopped and listened to the silence. An occasional call from a red-tailed hawk broke the still canopy overhead but that was all.

Intellectually he knew this was a place of peace, but the emotion eluded him.

As he pressed through the bushes, breaking into the rocky sun-soaked beach that bordered the creek, Cameron looked right, then left. Nothing. Wait. Two hundred yards downriver Cameron saw a flash. Yes. The sun glinting off a fishing pole.

The figure whipping the pole back and forth glanced his direction from time to time, but it wasn't till Cameron trudged down the creek bank and stood directly across from him that the casting stopped.

The man was tall and wore an Oregon Ducks baseball hat. He had a black goatee with more gray than black, and his eyes made Cameron think of Sean Connery.

Cameron eased forward till he was inches from the crystal water that gurgled in front of his boots. He glanced at the photo Susan had e-mailed him earlier. The man who stood twenty yards away on the other side of the creek was definitely Taylor Stone.

"Greetings!" the man called across the glassy creek. "You lost?"

"Not if you know where we are."

"Well said." The man smiled.

"You're Taylor Stone."

"Is that a statement or a question?"

"I'm Cameron Vaux."

"Ah, I see." Taylor whipped off his hat to reveal a shock of salt-and-pepper hair to match his goatee. He bowed, his hat across his chest. "You're correct. I am Taylor Stone. It is interesting to meet you."

He put his hat back on, turned, and whipped his arm back and forth three times in smooth succession, the fly at the end of his line settling on the water for only a few seconds before a flick of his wrist snatched it off the surface. "Are you a fly fisherman, Cameron?"

"I've always wanted to learn."

"Do you mean that?" Taylor stopped casting and stared at him, a twinkle in his brown eyes.

Cameron had wanted to learn since his dad and he had backpacked a section of the Pacific Crest Trail and stumbled on a fly fisherman who had given them part of his catch for dinner. "Yes."

"Well, well. Then perchance I'll teach you someday, Mr. Cameron Vaux."

He studied Taylor. "For someone so well known in Three Peaks, you're a difficult man to track down."

"Do you believe in God, Cameron?"

He almost laughed. Three Peaks: spiritual central. Did everyone here ask about a person's spiritual life so freely?

"My dad did. So did my wife."

Taylor pointed at him. "You know what I'm going to say next, right?"

"You're going to say, 'I wasn't asking about them, I was asking about you.'"

"Correct."

"I don't know." Cameron looked down the creek and gave a tiny shake of his head. "I really don't know."

"It's born into us. We're not humans with a spirit. We're spirits with a body. We're made to follow something bigger than ourselves. So we latch on to things to fulfill the way we were made."

"Your point?"

Taylor chuckled. "For some people around here, that 'something' is a magical, mystical book that exists only in their minds."

"Can we talk about that?"

"Why do you want to talk to me?"

"All roads seem to point to you."

"All?"

"Many."

"And do those roads say I'm a hermit?"

Cameron laughed. "I was going to say reclusive."

"How long after meeting someone is it before you form your own opinion of him?"

Cameron sat on a boulder and rested his elbows on his knees. "Jason says you're Machiavellian and control the people in this town; that you try to keep people from talking about the book."

"Machiavellian? I'm impressed. I didn't think Jason capable of coming up with such a precedent metaphor." Taylor winked.

"Most men's vocabulary and elocution don't allow the use of words with such eloquence."

Taylor nodded. "I like you, Cameron."

"Would you be willing and able to answer a few questions about the history of the Book of Days?"

"Able? Sure." Taylor pulled a ten- or eleven-inch redband trout out of the creek, removed the hook from the fish in one swift motion, set it back into the shallow water at his feet, and watched it swim away. "Willing? Nope."

Cameron assumed he was kidding. "I imagine you know why I'm here asking—"

"Yes. You've talked to Jason, maybe Arnold Peasley or Kirk Gillum, and they've told the young video producer, whose dad claimed to have seen the book, to ferret out the hidden knowledge buried deep in the cranium of Taylor Stone."

Cameron stared at the man. Had he been tracking Cameron as much as Cameron had been tracking him?

"Would you like to hear some hard, cold reality?" Taylor continued without waiting for Cameron to comment. "Although it's a truth you know well, allow me the liberty of stating it. Life for the majority of Americans is exceedingly boring. Work, eat, sleep, then hit the repeat button. It's why legends like the Book of Days bloom and multiply like dandelions. It makes life more interesting. And when you add in the New Age element that is rampant in Three Peaks, a cottage industry is created. People see things they want to see. They start hearing voices that don't exist and see pictures and visions in their minds that aren't real. They believe things that only reside in their imaginations, and they create evidence for past and future events where there isn't any."

Taylor caught and released another trout.

"So the Book of Days is a hoax?"

"You can find Web sites that prove Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike, but I'm one of those who says he's still alive and well."

"So the Book of Days is a hoax."

"Not a hoax, a fable. A made-up story Jason and his followers have tried to turn into a religion.

"Do you believe in those books that say we can tap into a hidden power floating beyond our vision? That we can create our own reality just by thinking of it?

"Millions of people bought those books and believe the message. They are spiritually starving, so when a book like that arrives, promising to fill their empty souls, the unsuspecting lap it up like a starving cat in front of a bowl of microwaved milk."

Taylor turned from his casting and drilled Cameron with his eyes. "This Book of Days nonsense is no different."

"Then why keep the lid on it? Why not promote the idea that an amazing book that tells the future exists in your town and build the legend rather than keep it quiet? It would boost tourism."

"Because working, eating, and sleeping with contentment as your constant companion is not entirely bad." Taylor leaned his rod against his body.

"A great majority of the people who live in Three Peaks take for granted that they've known three-quarters of the town their whole life. They take for granted the gift of being able to call most of those neighbors in the middle of the night and see them come running to help."

Cameron nodded. "Community."

"Exactly. Yes, we could create T-shirts and posters and Internet ads telling people to come search for the legendary Book of Days and create a tourist trap that would rake in thousands daily. But it would become a trap for us as well. Do you think the Scots like the proliferation of tourists searching for Nessie? Some do, I'll grant you. The ones selling the T-shirts and DVDs wouldn't mind seeing even more seekers. But the majority of the towns around the lake would like to simply be left alone."

Taylor sat on a large boulder and set his fly rod across his leg as he worked on securing a new fly to his line. "I have some power in this town having been mayor a few times and having run the paper for more than a few years. And yes, I've tried to keep people from talking about the Book of Days or sticking their nose in where it doesn't belong so that we can keep our sleepy little town sleeping. If that makes me Machiavellian, so be it."

The confidence Taylor spoke with made his words ring true and washed away what little belief Cameron had held of the authenticity of the book.

The river between them seemed to grow wider. But he wasn't ready to give up without one last try.

"Before my father died, he claimed to have seen the book. He says he touched it."

"I'm sorry for your loss. I can't comment on what your dad saw or didn't see, and I don't know what has driven you to talk me today. But I do know people can be led down false paths when their souls are searching, and I would pray you do not take that path." Taylor finished tying on the new fly and began casting again.

His words settled on Cameron like a three-hundred-pound anchor. No one with a shred of rational thought would entertain the idea of a physical book that told the future and recorded the past existing on Earth. He himself had chalked his dad's words up to the disease until he'd become desperate. Even Jessie's words hadn't spurred him into action.

So was his own fear clouding his judgment? Undoubtedly. But he didn't care. Taylor Stone wasn't God. He didn't have all the knowledge of the universe at his fingertips. Maybe Jason was right and this guy was wrong.

"What if the book is real? You can't know with one-hundred-percent certainty it isn't, can you? I have to at least try to find it."

"That book will bring you nothing but death, Cameron."

"How can a book that doesn't exist bring death?"

Taylor's next cast fell far short of the deep hole he'd aimed for. He cast three more times before answering.

"I see your passion and can appreciate it. And I feel for you as you go on this quest. But I think we're done talking for the day." Taylor set his rod down and stared at Cameron. "Unless of course you're ready for that lesson."

"Maybe later."

Taylor nodded good-bye and Cameron turned away from the creek. He slogged through the underbrush arguing with himself.
Believe Taylor. Believe Jason.

He replayed the conversation with Taylor in his mind. Something was off. Not off exactly, but slivers of Taylor's speech didn't ring true. Was it a hint of concern in Taylor's eyes? Maybe it was Cameron's feeling Taylor was protecting somebody. And what about his line,
"That book will bring you nothing but death"
Freudian slip?

He stopped, turned, and hiked back up the trail the way he'd just come. He slowed as he approached the creek and watched the ground in front of his hiking boots to avoid snapping any twigs. As he got closer to the river bank he scrunched down and eased forward, taking only one step every few seconds.

A rock shifted under his weight and cracked against another stone. Cameron froze and didn't move for thirty seconds. He sank to his knees and crawled up to spot where he could see the creek.

A few more yards, yes, he spotted Taylor. He wasn't fishing. He stood, hands on hips, looking toward the three peaks the town was named for.

Cameron was only slightly surprised when a few seconds later Taylor bent over a large boulder, arms extended to hold himself, and muttered something too quiet to hear. The next moment he straightened and kicked at the rocks in front of him. Then he picked up a stone the size of a cantaloupe and hurled it into the boulder in front of him. It shattered and Taylor turned and fell back against the boulder, arms folded, head looking up to the sky.

So Stone wasn't as self-assured as he liked to project. If Cameron's interpretation was right, he'd just ripped the door off a house that Stone wanted to keep hidden from everyone, maybe even himself.

The man deserved credit. Taylor Stone was quite an actor. The fisherman had almost convinced Cameron there was nothing to the legend.

Machiavellian? Probably not. But there was a very good chance he was the Book of Day's key master.

CHAPTER 14

Cameron arrived at the Three Peaks Community Hall on Friday night a few minutes before six o'clock, ready to see a skirmish. It seemed like a third of the town or more had responded to Jason's open invitation to hear the new revelation he'd discovered about the Book of Days.