The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter

Author:Conrad Richter [Richter, Conrad]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7953-3469-6
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2013-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

The Confluence

When the man awoke he did not know at first where he was. Troubled sleep had confused him, taken with dreams of a bridge that men had to pass through. It was a dark bridge, very late at night, and the men were nearly always alone, most of them on foot, reluctant, talking incoherently to themselves to brave them into the black unknown. Only one had been in a hurry, with a horse and buggy that rattled the plank and stirred the dry dust so the dreamer could taste it in his throat. Now the dreamer lay remembering, seeing again in his mind the shadowy figures, hearing their lonely voices, feeling the threat and sadness of that bridge, and the chill of the river it spanned. The chill was still in his flesh and his bones when he awoke.

Gradually the dusty ax-scarred rafters and black-stained shingles overhead took shape and brought him back to reality. With stiff joints and muscles he came backward down the wooden arch. Once down, the tender town scene through the telescope of the bridge revived his spirit, the red tin roofs of the remembered streets, blue summer woodsmoke rising from the lazy chimneys, the familiar odd shapes of Unionville houses half hidden in the fog of leaves, the green hills lifting beyond and pink clouds hanging over them, all simmering and asleep as if in an early-morning spell. He stood drinking in the delicate perishable picture, then descended the path through rank-smelling weeds to wash his face in the river.

All the way up Mill Street with no sidewalks and very few houses he noted the vagaries of the ambient envelope here in the eddy behind Shade Mountain, the unseen layers of cool and warmer air, the winding currents of some elusive scent now gained, now lost. Distillations of hearty old-time breakfasts, of frying ham and potatoes, pursued him. His fingers felt the thin change in his pocket. He must go hungry or unshaven today and the latter was unthinkable if he wanted to look presentable to his mother. God knows that his best would be lacking enough.

Joe Heisler’s barber shop already at this early hour held faces and heads to be readied for the funeral. Sitting on the long bench were Rob Felty, the miller, Charley Hartman, the station agent, and Sherm Rhine, the staunch friend of and moneylender to his Aunt Jess, but neither they nor Joe acknowledged his presence after the first glance. Only the eyes of the customer reclining under the razor watched him covertly through the mirror, secure in his turned back and lathery disguise.

Sitting back at last in the leathern chair, John Donner saw the old mine boss from the west end of the county pass the window. He had had a stroke, lost his family, and come down off Broad Mountain to the DeWitt House to board. Daily, summer and winter, he could be seen dressed in the same lightweight coat and trousers, never an overcoat, exercising

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