A Question of Time

Chapter 15

On leaving Sarah Tyrrell, Drakulya walked back to El Tovar, intending to consult once more with Joe Keogh, and also to ask some questions of the adoptive father of the missing girl.

Brainard, still lying low in Joe Keogh's suite, was made uneasy by the way Mr. Strangeways looked at him. Brainard in fact impressed his caller as a man who would dearly love to become invisible.

Under steady scrutiny, Brainard looked from Joe to Strangeways and back again. Then he ventured:

"You're maybe—a friend of Mr. Tyrrell's?"

Strangeways shook his head. "I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him. We do share a certain background, however."

Brainard nodded slowly. "I thought so. So maybe you'll be able to find my daughter?"

"As I have told your aunt, I will do what I can to help her. First, I would like you to tell me all you can about Tyrrell."

Brainard fumbled through several pockets before he found his cigarettes. "That won't be much. He's alive, down there somewhere, as far as I know. I haven't seen him for a long time. And I've been doing business with him over the years. Honest business. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

Another question elicited the information that Brainard himself had never been down into the Canyon, not even the most mundane modern version of the place, and he seemed to have no clear idea that a Canyon of any other time or shape might be accessible. He had never even set foot on the main trails that descended from near the Village and whose upper portions at least were trampled daily by a thousand tourists. He was not expert or even interested in the out-of-doors. In fact, Brainard seemed to think it believable that a man had been hiding out for sixty years, in some sanctuary accessible without magic or its equivalent in science, within a mile or two of the swarming tourist activity on the South Rim.

Drakulya said to him: "Tell me more about the business that you do with Tyrrell, and—since you ask—I will venture an opinion on its honesty."

"Well sir, there's nothing wrong with the kind of business I do with Mr. Tyrrell. I'm a dealer in art. Specifically in his creations. There's nothing very complicated about our arrangement—except that most people think he's dead. But I'm not defrauding anyone; the pieces I deliver are genuine. Mr. Tyrrell carves statues, and I sell them for him. Unlike paintings, carved stone is very difficult to date, so the buyers just assume these items were done in the thirties, or even earlier. The man has a right to sell his own creations, doesn't he? And a right to employ me as an agent?"

At this point Joe interjected: "His wife also has a legal right to his estate. But as I read the situation, she's not getting most of the money from these deals that you conclude."

"Is Sarah complaining?" Brainard demanded.

Mr. Strangeways made a slight gesture in Joe's direction, as if to silence him. Looking steadily at Brainard, he said: "Tell us, please, just how this arrangement began, between the two of you."

"Sure." Brainard looked at the ceiling, considering. "It was back in the early sixties, and I was here looking over some things for my aunt—she usually does her best to avoid spending any time here. But she never has wanted to turn the place over to the Park Service completely.

"Well, I'd come here one day to take a look at some of the furnishings in the Tyrrell House, to see what they might be worth. I was staying in the place overnight, when—he showed up, in the middle of the night. Surprised the hell out of me."

"Showed up—under what circumstances?"

"I was sitting there in a chair, thinking—actually I supposed I dozed off in front of a fire. Then something woke me up—a dream, I thought at first. Then I heard someone in another room. I went to look, and he was just standing there. At first I thought he might be a burglar—but he soon convinced me he wasn't."

"Then he made no strenuous effort to avoid discovery."

"I—suppose not. Maybe he was curious about me."

"And how did you recognize him?"

"Oh, I'd seen several of the old photographs. And, being in the house, I'd also been thinking about him… but above all I think it was the way he just told me who he was, when I asked him. Very calm, low-key, and self-assured. Still, that he was really Edgar Tyrrell was a little more than I could believe at first—also, I may add, that meeting was one of the spookiest experiences of my entire life. Here's this man who was supposed to have been dead for thirty years… but, to make a long story short, I believed him. Had to. We got to talking about art, and he excused himself—disappeared, almost as if he were a ghost—and in twenty minutes he was back, carrying something that convinced me."

"What was that?"

"A pretty little piece, a coyote as I recall, not one of those really strange animals—he told me he'd come up to the rim to compare one of his new pieces with an old one he remembered being in the house. Of course the one he remembered wasn't there. All that was left in the house, even then, were reproductions.

"We talked some more. When he found out I was his wife's nephew—well, his own nephew too, of course, though I could never imagine myself calling him 'uncle'—he started asking me questions about Sarah. Apparently they'd had no contact since she left him.

"He was really curious about her, and seemed concerned. But he also made it a condition of our doing business that she was not to know I'd met him and talked to him. In fact, no one at all was to know that he was still alive."

Brainard considered. He lit a cigarette, with hands afflicted with a noticeable tremor. "To make a long story short, after we'd talked for a considerable time, he left me his new piece to sell for him. In return he didn't want money—he had a list of tools, construction materials, things like that. 'I could obtain the material by other means,' he said. 'But this will save me time.' "

"Always," said Mr. Strangeways, "always a question of time. In one way or another. Does it not seem so, Joseph?"

"Yeah," said Joe abstractedly, and turned back to Brainard. "Go on."

Brainard crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray, and went on. "After he'd gone, I began to think, and the more I thought, the less I could credit what I'd just seen. I mean, this guy would have to be ninety years old, and still active, the way he was."

"And that was almost thirty years ago. By now he'd have to be well over a hundred. Maybe a hundred and twenty? But you're still doing business with him."

"All right, it's crazy. I don't know. You tell me. Maybe it's his son who meets me now, or his grandson. Maybe it's his younger brother. Maybe it's Tyrrell’s ghost—I don't know, though I have my own ideas. All I do know is that he keeps bringing up carvings and I've never had any trouble selling them as authentic. I know what the collectors think, that my aunt and I have this secret hoard of Tyrrell’s that we're putting on the market gradually, one a year or so, just to keep the price up.

"The one time an expert did question authenticity, I took his objections back to Tyrrell. And the next item Tyrrell gave me, and all the ones after that, were done in such a way that those objections wouldn't hold. I guess some people are still doubtful from time to time, but I've always been able to find a number who believe."

"And what did you do for Tyrrell, in exchange for being made wealthy?"

"Brought him stuff. He never wanted money, said he had no use for it. He's got some kind of cave, a hideout down there in the Canyon, that no one's ever managed to find."

"He told you that?"

"In a way. Little things he said from time to time. That sounds crazy too, that nobody could find his hideaway. Until you stand on the Rim here for a while and take a real look at the place." There was no doubt that Brainard believed in the plausibility of what he was saying.

"What sort of things, exactly, did you bring him?" Joe asked.

"I'd get him catalogs, and he'd pick out what he wanted from them, and tell me what specific tools to buy. A few times he wanted chemicals, and I'd go to a scientific supply house. Explosives, once in a while. That took a bit of doing, because you usually need a license, but I know some people. Usually it was things like rope, and generator parts, and some men's work clothing, in specific sizes. Tyrrell's sizes. Drafting materials, once…"

"And all of this has been going on for thirty years?"

"Almost that long, yes. He told me he'd tried other ways of getting supplies, before he met me. He said he kept running into problems with the other ways—but he didn't go into any details on that."

"And finally you did break your agreement. You did tell Sarah that you had met him."

Brainard nodded. "I had to, after our arrangement had been going on for a year or two. I kept coming up with more statues, and I couldn't keep that a secret, not from her. The sales were common knowledge in the field. She knew too much about her husband's work and his affairs, that there hadn't been any such backlog. So I had to explain where the statues were really coming from."

"And what was her reaction?"

"About like yours." Brainard sighed. "She wasn't surprised—not nearly as much as I'd expected her to be. She asked a great many questions about Tyrrell—indirectly, the way he'd asked about her."

"She didn't want to meet him, though?"

"No. Never suggested anything of the kind. She really didn't want to come anywhere near this place. Though she's been here a few times over the years; just in and out, never staying in the house overnight. Until now, when Cathy turned up missing."

"And did Tyrrell ever find out that you'd broken your agreement with him?"

Brainard shrugged wearily. "If he did, he didn't say anything. He might have guessed I'd told his wife at least. He probably realized all these posthumous sales couldn't be kept secret from her. But he must have decided just to let things go on."

Joe's radio was buzzing, and something in the quality of the sound suggested—to him at least—that it was urgent. Answering, he heard Maria's voice.

"Boss? Cathy Brainard is alive and well, back up on the South Rim."

"You've seen her?"

"I'm standing here looking at her now, right near the mule corral. She's come back up Bright Angel, just the way Bill did."

The three men, each surprised in his different way, looked at one another for a long, silent moment.

Joe grabbed up his cane while Maria on the radio was still giving details. In a moment he was hobbling at his best pace—notably improved since the massage by Mr. Strangeways—after the other two men who had been with him. Now Joe could almost keep up with the overweight and puffing Brainard.

In a minute he caught up with the others near the mule corral, which was deserted at this time of day, the morning's convoy of tourist riders having descended into the Canyon hours ago, and the afternoon's contingent of returning adventurers not yet arrived.

Maria was standing there, with a young woman who could only be Cathy Brainard. As the men arrived, Maria hurried away, with a quick word to Joe that she wanted to inform Mrs. Tyrrell.

Joe saw Drakulya look after Maria, frowning slightly.

Cathy was just standing still, looking weary. A large backpack that must be hers was lying at her feet.

Brainard, his fears for himself forgotten for the moment, was standing just in front of his daughter, staring at her with obvious relief. "Thank God, you're back."

"Hi," the girl said to him, a certain reserve in her voice. She submitted tiredly to a somewhat awkward hug.

Holding her at arm's length, the stocky man said to his adopted daughter: "I was afraid—I never wanted you to get caught up in any of my own troubles. I never wanted that."

"Your troubles?" It sounded to Joe as if the young woman didn't know what her father was talking about, and wasn't trying very hard to find out. As if she had to make a considerable effort to bring her mind back from her own concerns.

Nor did it escape Joe's notice that she avoided calling this man "father."

"Kid," said Brainard. "Cathy. I'm not going to ask you any questions. I'm just glad you're back." He awkwardly stroked her hair.

"I'm going to ask you some questions, though," Cathy flared back. "And I have some for Aunt Sarah." She looked at the strangers present. "But I guess they can wait." Brainard, looking bewildered, let her go.

Then Cathy turned her gaze toward Strangeways. The look she gave him, casual at first, became something of a stare. "Who're you?" she demanded, with the bluntness of one determined to concentrate on matters of importance.

Strangeways bowed slightly. His face under the broad hat brim was shadowed. "A friend of your mother's, Cathy."

Joe put in: "He's working with me, Miss Brainard." Then it became necessary for Joe to explain his own identity, and the reasons for his presence.

When Cathy had heard him out she looked at the investigators with some bitterness as well as weariness. "Well, I'm back now. You can call off the hunt."

"Cathy! It was old Sarah's voice; she was approaching, as swiftly as her years would allow, from the direction of the Tyrrell House. Cathy ran toward her with open arms, and the others witnessed a more emotional reunion.

A few minutes later, Joe, in the company of John and Mr. Strangeways, was hobbling back toward his hotel. Sarah, Cathy, and Brainard had preceded them. Silence obtained during the first part of the walk.

"I guess we can start packing?" John suggested, when they were halfway to their destination.

"Not I," said Mr. Strangeways.

"How's that, sir?" John inquired.

"I am thinking, gentlemen," said their elder companion, "of the Origin of Species."

Joe Keogh thought for a moment. "You're talking about the book written by Charles Darwin?"

Dark eyes turned toward him. "Not so much the book as its subject—the laws governing the development of life on earth. Tyrrell's real interest seems to be in those basic natural laws, which Darwin began to discover more than a century ago. My people as well as yours are subject to those basic laws. We are all human, all children of the earth."

"All right. Well, Cathy's back, apparently unharmed. My client is probably going to thank me for my trouble, pay me off, and send me on my way."

"Yes, your mission seems to have been accomplished, Joseph. But I am not yet satisfied that I am free, in good conscience, to depart. Not yet."

Joe did not hesitate. "What can I do to help?"

"Yeah," seconded John.

"I cannot say just yet, gentlemen. But the offer is gratefully accepted."

In Joe's suite Sarah Tyrrell put down the borrowed phone, having just finished reporting to the law that her grandniece Cathy Brainard had returned safely, under her own power.

The old lady commented: "They didn't sound very excited or surprised."

Joe said: "A lot of runaways come back under their own power. Where's Cathy now?"

"Getting some sleep." Sarah paused. "Where's Maria?"

Joe didn't know. He looked at Bill, who was standing by. "And where's Brainard, by the way?"

"Said he was going to the lobby to get some cigarettes. Didn't seem to want an escort."

The day's snow showers were picking up in intensity as Gerald Brainard, wearing a winter coat, small suitcase in hand, turned from a pedestrian path into one of the small sightseers' parking lots scattered around the Village area. Looking left and right through the gloomy day, he pulled a set of car keys from his pocket as he approached a small snow-covered Pontiac.

He had not looked in all the necessary directions, evidently. He barely had the car door open when a large form, wearing a fur-collared coat, loomed over him.

"Think you're going somewhere?"

A few minutes later, the Pontiac was parked again, this time in a snowy byway of the winter Park, a long, comparatively narrow expanse of paving, half drive, half parking lot, surrounded by pine woods, much used by summer crowds. Now the place was all but deserted; only one other car stood there, besides the Pontiac.

Three men were sitting in this second vehicle; Smith was behind the wheel, Brainard beside him on the right, and Preston in the rear seat.

"We're just gonna sit here for a while," Smith was saying. "No hurry, is there? We got all day, right?" He turned his head slightly. "Pres, was there anything else you wanted to do this afternoon?"

"Nope." Preston was lighting a cigarette. He made no move to offer a smoke to anyone else. "I got all day. Nothing I want to do but sit here this afternoon and talk about money. How the man we work for is going to recoup a certain investment."

Brainard had nothing to say. Pale and shivering, he was staring straight ahead of him, at the band of snowy woods some distance beyond the windshield.

"I want some suggestions, Brainard. Deadbeat."

"I don't have the money to pay you now. I—"

The speech ended in a yelp. Preston had reached forward to burn the back of Brainard's neck with his cigarette.

"Just sit still, sweetie. That's not what I call a suggestion. You're gonna come up with some better ones than that."

"Nobody here in this part of the park," Smith remarked conversationally. "You couldn't plan to find a deserted place like this around here at the holiday season, could you? But it's our lucky day. I'm waiting, deadbeat. How are you going to come up with a hundred and twenty grand?"

"I'll pay it," said Brainard. He started to pull his coat collar up, covering the back of his neck. Preston behind him pulled it down again.

A moderate snow was falling. "They say," said Smith, "that sometimes the whole park gets snowed in for days."

"No tourists in sight anywhere," said Preston from the rear. "No rangers. Nobody here but us. We're waiting, deadbeat."

He burned Brainard again.

And then, suddenly, they were not alone. The figure of a bearded man, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, was standing at the edge of the woods. And then purposefully approaching the occupied vehicle, passing the empty Pontiac.

Brainard made a little sound, almost too faint to be called a groan, deep in his throat.

"What the hell now?" remarked Smith.

Drakulya stopped some twelve or fifteen feet in front of the car. He stood there motionless, hands in pockets. His lips moved and he was saying something.

Smith ran a window partway down, and the voice of the man standing outside could be heard plainly. "Mr. Brainard, patience. You will shortly be free to leave."

At those words Brainard made a convulsive effort to open his door. The man behind him grabbed him by the collar and pulled him forcibly back into his seat. Then Preston opened his rear door and got out of the car, which resettled itself on its springs with the removal of his considerable weight.

"Get lost, punk," fur-collared Preston told Mr. Strangeways. "Go chase the squirrels somewhere. This is a private conversation."

Brainard gave a desperate cry for help, a cry he choked off when the man in the driver's seat beside him jabbed him with an elbow.

Drakulya looked from Brainard's captor behind the windshield to the other who stood in open air. "Mr. Smith, I presume? And Mr. Preston? I see it is too late to urge you to allow this man to leave the Park unharmed. Well, I suppose I must make allowances. I hesitate to interfere in the collection of a just debt. So may I ask—"

"I already told you once," interrupted Preston. "I told you nice, go chase a squirrel. You wouldn't listen. Okay." He strode forward purposefully, heading straight for Mr. Strangeways.

At the last moment, just before he reached his goal, a frown as of puzzlement appeared on Preston's face.

Then he reached out for the waiting Strangeways. But the grip he wished to obtain had been pre-empted. Mr. Strangeways already had him with both hands by the front of his furred jacket, and a fraction of a second after that Mr. Preston squawked aloud, in sheer surprise that his body had so rapidly become airborne. He made a shrill noise for such a large man. And for a mere breather he was quite well-coordinated, able to execute a kind of dance step in middair, a doomed attempt to regain balance that had, alas, already been lost forever.

His body, carefully aimed, smote with considerable force the front end of the occupied but motionless vehicle. In the first phase of the impact, the flying man's legs struck the hood. A fraction of a second later his bulky torso crashed into the sloping windshield. Strong glass caved in, but did not shatter. The hurtling body glanced from the deeply slanting surface, mounting almost straight up into the air for a distance of several car-heights before coming down on pavement covered with, so far, only a very inadequate padding of new snow.

Even before Preston's body had undergone this secondary impact, Drakulya was standing beside the driver's door, pulling it open. Incautiously Mr. Smith had neglected to fasten his seat belt, a fact which did not escape his caller's notice.

Taking the back of his second subject's neck firmly in one hand, and with the other seizing the steering column just below the wheel, Mr. Strangeways brought the two together with an effort that approached the maximum force he could exert.

A fraction of a second later he was recoiling in startlement, and hissing his annoyance as he realized that this part of the exercise would have to be done over again. His effort with the steering column had only succeeded in popping an airbag, leaving Mr. Smith hardly worse than disconcerted, rather as if a shotgun loaded with cream puffs had been fired in his face. Smith tried to wave his arms, and let out a rabbit-like squeak that some listeners might have found comical.

But Mr. Strangeways still had him by the back of the neck.

Intent on concluding this distasteful business, the bearded man recovered his aplomb with commendable speed for one of his advanced years. The airbag had already deflated itself, and a second try with neck and steering column produced the desired result.

Brainard, though physically almost intact, required help to leave of the battered vehicle.

"Thanks. My God, how can I thank you?"

"You have just done so. That is sufficient."

"I didn't see either of 'em watching the hotel. I thought I'd take a chance… now Cathy's back, I didn't want her getting messed up in my troubles."

After advising his client to try some snow on his burned neck, Strangeways methodically but quickly went through the pockets of Brainard's tormentors. Preston, sprawled in the snow, still breathed, but painfully, and the examiner judged that that condition would not persist for long. In Smith it had already passed. Strangeways also rifled the more obvious places of storage in their car, looking for anything that might connect them with Brainard.

He found nothing in that line, but did collect almost five thousand dollars in cash. Considering this the spoils of war, Strangeways handed it, in the form of an untidy bundle, to Brainard before sending him on his way.

"Some of that's my own money. They took it away from me just now."

"You may have the rest," the rescuer said.

"Can I pay you something, for your help?"

"Decent of you to offer. But no, thank you. The weather is turning bad. I advise you to drive carefully."

"Thanks." Brainard gingerly scooped more snow onto the back of his neck. "God, maybe my luck is turning at last."

When Strangeways arrived back at the hotel suite, Joe Keogh asked him if he had seen Brainard.

The bearded man nodded. "Yes, as a matter of fact. When last I saw him he was driving peacefully toward the main exit from the Park. I have little doubt that he will be well on his way before the worst of the storm arrives."

"What about the people who were after him?"

Strangeways looked at his well-kept nails. "Also on their way."

After a pause Joe asked: "Still after Brainard?"

"No. They had taken a different direction… careless, improvident men. I doubt that they have managed to get far. The roads are becoming treacherous." He made a sighing noise, faintly reptilian. "For the careless, accidents are almost inevitable in such conditions."

"Oh," said Joe, with finality. He had known the other for many years. After a moment he said: "Oh," again.

"Joseph?" the other asked him mildly.

"Yes?"

"Are a great many automobiles now equipped with airbags?"

"Most of the new ones, I guess."

Drakulya nodded thoughtfully. "Now I must rest. All this activity by day is wearing, even in weather so beautifully gray—I can see why my compatriot Tyrrell was so drawn to this country, dangerous as it is for us."

"Why?"

"The sun, Joseph. We, our kind, are much concerned with its presence, absence, and intensity."

"With avoiding it, I'd think."

"Yes, of course. Only with the full bulk of a planet between our bodies and the sun are vampires entirely shielded from all of the potentially harmful emissions and effects. Though it is still my contention that we may depend on some emission from the sun, as yet unknown to science, for much of our true nourishment…

"But also we have no trouble in grasping the idea that something really odd might be expected to happen when the sun strikes directly, for the first time in a billion years, upon the freshly shattered surface of some deep rock.

"Who can say, Joseph, what would happen then? Perhaps most likely nothing. On the other hand, I can visualize strange possibilities…"

"And Tyrrell was thinking along those lines when he came here."

"I am sure it was not idly, merely by chance, that he came to settle here in sun country, as it is called; on the contrary, anyone coming here as a vampire would require a strong reason."

"Connected with Darwin, maybe?"

"With life, Joseph. Connected with nothing less than life itself.