Book of Days_ A Novel - James L. Rubart [35]
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.