Stairway to Forever (16 page)

"But who's this purty young lady, Mister Fitzgilbert, sir? I don't b'lieve I've had the pleasure of making her acquaintance ....?"

"Sheriff Vaughan, this is my fiancee, Mrs. Mary Danna Dardrey. Danna, meet Gomer Vaughan, our county sheriff. Sheriff, I'm going to have to be away

for a while. The house and property and the cars are now Mrs. Dardreys, legally, and she'll be living out here for a few days at the time, now and then, while I'm gone."

Vaughan had taken Danna's hand as gingerly as if it had been a tiny, fledgling bird that he feared he might crush, and spoken softly, with a natural, rural gentility and grace, "Miz Dardrey, ma'am, I'm purely honored for to meet you. It's gonna be real nice for to have a fine lady like you a-living in my county, and enything whatsoever me or any my depitties can do for you, enytime, you just let me know. You hear?"

"Thank you, Sheriff Vaughan, I will. But back to this business of this confession: did the man say why he had broken into Fitz's shelter?"

Vaughan sighed and shook his head disgustedly. "He did, ma'am. Seems like he thought Mister Fitzgilbert is a big-time dope dealer and figgered he kept a big stash of dope in that shelter. When he'd busted in and found out he was wrong, he stole some small odds and ends of what he had found and took off, leaving the boys, Calvin and Bubba, there to steal whatever they wanted and could get over the fence.

"Coming over into the yard, he'd cut the two top strands of the bob-wire, but going back out, he tore up his arm and his shirt on the one he hadn't bothered for to cut, see. He got in his truck and drove over to a feller he thought would give him beer money for what he'd stole and then went and got him some brews.

"The boy, Bubba, says the two of them—him and Calvin—had got real mad on account of they could find shells but no guns to shoot them in, so they just poured gas all over the tent and set it on fire out of

pure spite and meanness. Them boys is like that, ma'am, the both of them. Calvin, he set the fire, while Bubba was climbing out over the fence. But when Calvin made for to climb out, he got up to the top, a 'right, but then he snagged his dungarees on the bob-wire and slipped and fell. It knocked him cold as a cucumber and Bubba thought he's dead and run home, a-bawling, to tell their maw."

"But what. . . ? Why in the world would this man have thought Fitz a dope dealer, big time or otherwise?" queried Danna.

Another shake of the head, another deep sigh on the part of Sheriff Vaughan. "Because, ma'am, whin the good Lord was a-passing out brains, Yancy Mathews had gone out for a pi . . . uhh, a beer, is why. / knows Mister Fitzgilbert's money comes from investments and selling collecter's coins, but the onliest thing Yancy Mathews has ever invested in was cases of beer whinever Bates's likker store has had a holiday sale. He couldn't get it though his beer-pickled head how Mister Fitzgilbert could make money without going out to work ever morning and, too, he thought that shoot-out, out there, whin them crooked Customs guys tried to kill Mister Fitzgilbert, was a bunch of racketeers like he sees on the 1930s movies on the late show on the teevee, so he figgered Mister Fitzgilbert, he had to be one too, and he figgered he could either steal him enough dope to sell to keep him in beer money for a long time, or he could let onto Mister Fitzgilbert he knowed about the dope and make him pay big bucks for to keep his mouth shut."

It then was Fitz who shook his head. "The man must be a cretin, Sheriff Vaughan. Does he have any idea what a real mob dope dealer would have done

to him, and probably all his family too, had he tried to steal dope or extort money like that?"

"Like I done said, Mister Fitzgilbert, sir, Yancy Mathews is as dumb as the day is long. He's a beeraholic, his word don't mean sh . . . ahh, nothing to nobody, he beats his wife all the time and whales all his kids so bad they hafta do their school lessons standing up a lot the time—not that his two boys don't need it, mostly—he's just as mean as a cotton-mouth moccasin and is all the time out picking fights in ever beer joint and honky-tonk in the county that'll still let him inside the door, and out in the parking lots of those what won't, but a dog tick is got more brains than Yancy Mathews does. Naw, I know all he was thinking about was beer and getting the money to buy more of it with any way he could get it.

"Well, it's gonna be a long, dry spell for Yancy Mathews, this time 'round. County prosecuter, he says he's gonna ask for Yancy to get at least a year, mebbe two, on the county farm. We gonna turn Bubba, and Calvin too whinever he get outen the hospital, over to the state juvenile folks. Mebbe they can do something with the two of them . . . but I got my doubts 'bout thet, they's both bent twigs, I'm a-feared. It's a shame, too, 'cause their maw's of a decent old farm fambly up to White Creek, church-going folks; her paw was a deacon of the White Creek Baptis' Church 'til the day he died."

In the Jeep on the way back home, Danna said, "What's all this about a fallout shelter, Fitz? You're not that paranoid ... I don't think. Are you?"

"It's not a fallout shelter, Danna, but it's difficult to go into trying to explain something that even you don't fully understand, especially to a man like our sheriff. He saw it and decided it was a fallout shelter

and I just agreed with him that that's what it is. When we get back, I'm hoping all the water will be out, then I can show you what's down there. Prepare yourself for a real shock, though," was the reply she got.

As he began to lead her down the steep, shallow, and now very wet stone stairs, both of them wearing crepe-soled shoes and miner's headlamps, he cautioned, "Be very careful on these steps, Danna; they just weren't cut big enough for normal-sized, adult feet for some reason. I had an arrangement of safety ropes and wiring and lights at the landings and down below, too, but either that ignorant ridgerunner and his brats cut them down or the fire took them out, but you might try grasping the masonry spikes, at least they're still in place."

In the chamber at the bottom, Fitz found water still dripping down the walls from the stones of the ceiling and so he moved the hose of the sump pump to the far end of the crypt where there still was a few inches' depth of water for it to suck up and out.

Danna still stood at the foot of the stairs, looking around, letting the beam of her light play on the walls, floor, ceiling and the water-soaked remnants of what had been stacked supplies. "But Fitz, what in the world is this for? You didn't have it built, did you? It looks old, very old, I can't see any joint that looks like it has ever been mortared. How old is it?"

"I don't know about this crypt," he told her, "but that mound up there appears on county maps from the late seventeenth century. It's possible that this crypt was built by or for some Englishman who owned an estate that included this land back from the last couple of decades of the nineteenth century up to the late thirties of this one. But I don't guess anybody will ever know for sure.

"But look, we're pressed for time. Give me your hand, step down here to my side, close your eyes and bend at your waist, then just walk beside me."

She looked at him wonderingly, but did as he directed.

"Okay, Danna, straighten up and open your eyes. Hold it, don't trip over that log, there," he told her on the beach of the sand world.

After a trip across the dunes by trail bike, Fitz sat in the stern-cabin of the wrecked ship and told Danna as much as he knew of this new world and of how he had originally gotten there. Then, going into the now-crowded and cluttered larger of the side-cabins, he gaped open the built-in locker, took out the leather box and opened it to show her the couple of inches' depth of ancient golden coins remaining.

"This world, this ship, this locker, this box, Danna, is where all the gold Gus has sold for me ... for us, now, came from. But who would believe it if I told or tried to tell the truth about it? Hell, there are times when I still have difficulty in believing parts of it my own self."

She shook her head. "Then this business of an inheritance from a long-deceased, Irish great-uncle was ... is a complete fabrication? You lied to me and to Pedro, from the very beginning, Fitz? How could you? Don't you know how stupid it is to not be fully candid with your attorney, especially in tax matters? I'm sorry, Fitz, I credited you to be more intelligent than that." She sounded deeply hurt and it tore at him that his actions had so injured her.

He regarded her soberly and asked, "And had I told you the full truth of the matter on that first day that Gus Tolliver brought me up to your offices, what would your reaction have been? No, don't an-

swer me at once, think about it, Danna, what would you have thought of me, said to me? Think."

After a moment, the barest hint of a smile crept into her eyes. "You're right, of course, Fitz. How could I have doubted your proven judgment. I'd either have gently ushered you out and put you down as just another crackpot or, had you seemed dangerous, had you held until some of the city's finest could have come and taken you away to one of the paper doll academies.

"But Fitz, this means that all this trouble of an inheritance tax . . . No, they wouldn't believe this, either, and if you brought one of them here, they'd probably claim it for the government and then want all the gold back, or the best part of it, them or the state or both. And I do agree with you about this bright, beautiful place, whatever it is, wherever it is. The last thing needed here is a heaping helping of our world to utterly ruin it forever, the way we and our parents and theirs have let crass, commercial interests overpopulate and ruin our own world.

"So, this is where you mean to spend three or four months, eh? I envy you, my own."

"I'd like it one hell of a lot better if you were here with me . . .?" he said, a bit wistfully, then added, "but I understand, Pedro made it all clear enough to me, I have to go away and stay away alone, but that still doesn't mean that I have to like the concept . . . and I don't, not one little bit, Danna," he said, embracing her where she stood, among the clutter of supplies and plastic jugs of drinking water.

From the haven of his arms, she spoke up against his cheek, "Were it not for the time thing, I'd like living here, only going back to that other world when I absolutely had to. Things are getting all but unbearable in that world, I just wasn't cut out to live

that way. You possibly don't know exactly what I mean, living out in the distant suburbs as you do, but that city—and it's far and away worse in the larger cities, too, Fitz—is swiftly becoming a combination jungle-madhouse. Civility is a thing of the past and it often seems that our entire culture is dying, that ours is becoming a dirty, smelly, very unhealthy place, full of danger and constant fear, in which only the strong and the cruel have any hope of survival and no one can expect a happy life any more.

"Fitz, human beings may be primates, but they also are much like two of the other species of omnivores—rats and pigs—and if you put too many of either of those in a confined area, they start to kill and eat each other. And that's just what is happening now in our world, I'm afraid. There're way too many people, forced by circumstances beyond their control to live far too close to each other, so they're, in effect, killing and eating each other. And I want out of it all, Fitz, I'm just not cut out to live that way.

"This place is marvelous. I haven't heard any noises except the surf breaking and the wind blowing and bird cries. No sirens, no crying children, no shouts or screams, no screeching tires or blowing horns or crashes of car against car. I'd like living here; I feel safe, utterly unthreatened by anyone or anything. So blissful it is here, heaven must be like this."

Atop the last really tall dune before the descent to the sandy plain, they sat the trail bike and surveyed the forested hills far away, beyond the grassy flatnesses.

that's where I'll be, somewhere in those hills and valleys, Danna. Tell Gus or Pedro to get you a Very pistol and a large assortment of flares for it, about two dozen each of red and green triple stars. Then, whenever you get to this world, stay aboard the ship

and fire alternate red and green signals every three hours, night and day, for twenty-four hours. Wait a few minutes after each time you do it and watch the sky in this direction. If you see another star of the same color you fired, 111 be there as soon as I can— two, three days, however long it takes. But if you see a star of the other color, go back into the other world and try again in a couple of weeks, it'll mean I'm too for away to get back in a short time. There's just a limit to the amount of speed you can get out of these machines, especially over rough, unfamiliar terrain."

Upon their return to what Danna had commenced to call their "sand yacht," they rode down to the beach, stripped and frolicked in the sand and gentle seas until the sun was low in the western sky. Tired but happy, they hurriedly redressed, for the wind had picked up some force as it always did about sunset and their wet bodies were beginning to chill to less than comfort.

As they crested the seaward dune above the ship, Danna tensed and cried, "My God, Fitz, what . . . what's that?"

Stopping the bike, he looked in the direction she had pointed to see a long, massive, grey-green shape leaving the sea and heading inland at an angle away from them. He unsnapped the cased binoculars and handed them to her. "It's a crocodile, at least thirty feet long, if not more. A female, she's got a hole full of eggs in the dunes up there. Keep well away from that part of the beach, please, she's very protective. She chased me once when I got too close."

They found the cot entirely too narrow and shaky-flimsy, so ended up making love on the boards of the cabin's deck, but then they went back through the crypt and so into the other world, where dawn was just breaking beyond the rusting bulk of the county

water tower. So, while Fitz showered, Danna called her service and left word for Pedro that she would not be in that coming day. By the time she had done with her own shower, Fitz had prepared a sumptuous breakfast. They ate it, then tumbled into the big bed for sleep, lovemaking, sleep, more lovemaking and, finally, more sleep. When at last they again awakened, it was night, stars faintly glittering through the light of a newly arisen moon.