Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

Dr. Lucas Hamilton

I've seen some rural towns, but I wasn't expecting anything quite so…retro. Like the clinic, the town reminds me of a movie set. This is a cliche, a once-vibrant main street crushed by Walmart and Costco and Amazon.

I see boarded up mom-and-pop stores. Whole buildings sit abandoned. On one corner, a sullen man tends the pump at a vintage gas station. A boy with a broom sweeps the sidewalk in front of a movie theater.

The signs look a hundred years old, and everything is dirt brown. Even the tarmac is covered by a thick veil of brown dirt, as if no one ever drives through. From where I stand this town is gasping its last breaths.

Delano returns with a classic, if dusty 1930's era Dodge. It's weird, but it seems on brand for him. He's vintage. Anachronistic. He's an old-world gentleman in a tiny town where the gas station still has pump jockeys, and the theater shows classic films. It's a living museum—Colonial Williamsburg, only if it was dedicated to Bonnie and Clyde. This town is like the Carnival, with its century-old costumes and strongmen and fortune tellers. It's a throw-back, that's all. Everything old is new again, isn't that what they say?

Warning bells do begin to ring in my head, but as each breath gets harder for me to take, it matters less. Delano stops his car and comes around to help me into the passenger seat.

We exchange words as I try to slide onto the springy bench. He calls me stubborn, and I say something on the order of pot, kettle, but I'm so exhausted his reply floats away from me. He stands back and gives a whistle that startles me. The sweeping boy looks up, eager to see what the doctor wants.

"Can you drive a car?" Delano calls out. The boy nods happily. "If you've got time, we're picking up a car from the fairgrounds, and I can't let this one here drive."

"I can do it," he shouts.

Can he though? The boy looks younger than Sophie. He's thirteen by my guess. Maybe fourteen. Nevertheless, he leans his broom against the wall and strides over with more confidence than any kid his age should have.

I give a painful shake of my head. "There's no way that infant is driving my Range Rover."

"I'll drive your car," Delano probably figures that's going to make me feel better. "He can bring mine."

"You've got it all figured out." There's something just out of my reach here, but I don't want to try too hard to grasp what it is. My heart is telling me to look away. I can't seem to hold onto a thought long enough to examine it.

"If I leave Calvin with you, you'll strand him out there. Tell me I'm wrong."

"You're not." I probably would leave the boy. I must get back. I don't know if I can take another hour of this old dusty town or bleak landscape or the wind that whips grit in my face. It feels as if my life depends on going home right now, do not cross Go , do not collect two hundred dollars. It feels as if I don't go directly home I might never get home at all.

"Hey, Doc." The kid climbs into the back seat and leans forward so his face is right between mine and Dr. Delano's. He's got light brown hair and a mess of freckles. His eyes are brown shiny buttons. Maybe he is older, and he just doesn't eat enough. He's way too thin.

"Hey, Calvin." Delano edges the Dodge onto the street. It moves like a boat. No seatbelts. No bells and whistles. I tell myself some people take their restorations seriously, and Delano must be one of them. "This is Dr. Hamilton."

"Hey," Calvin looks me over.

"Do you know where the carnival was last night?" I ask.

"I do. Go east. Holy cow!" Calvin's eyes widen when he takes a closer look at me. "What happened to you, mister?"

Delano answers with one of his smirk-smiles. "He didn't eat his spinach, so let that be a lesson to you, Calvin."

Calvin makes a face. "I hate spinach."

"Try it with scrambled eggs and tomatoes." I close my eyes and lean back. "I make egg white omelets Florentine. Sophie doesn't complain if they have cheese. Grate a little parmesan on it. You'd like that, I bet."

Silence makes me look around. Calvin appears doubtful.

"What? That's how I get my daughter to eat greens."

"You got a daughter?" Calvin's eyes widen. "How old is she? Does she go to school here?"

"She's enrolled at the Academy. She's a freshman this year."

Calvin nods eagerly. "Maybe I'll meet her, if we stay here."

Delano asks, "Your folks thinking of moving?"

Calvin heaves a drawn-out sigh. "They haven't said it, but lots of families are pulling up stakes. Pastor says Jesus is angry because the farmers got too greedy."

Shit. What church does Calvin's family belong to? I haven't gone to church since I was twelve, but telling people they made Jesus angry is seriously messed up.

Delano seems unfazed by the boy's words. "Then I guess you'll be at church tomorrow, instead of helping me unpack at my clinic."

"I can do both" He bites his lip. "If Ma lets me."

Good, I think. That's good. If Calvin earns some extra cash, maybe he can eat more.

"Just let me know if you can't so I can ask around for another helper. I'm supposed to open on Monday, and I've got a load of preparations to make."

"Yes, sir."

Delano reaches a hand back to ruffle his hair. "Good lad."

Calvin sits back as what seems like miles of nothing speed past the window. I don't recognize the landscape. The sun beats down on the car, and I drift in and out of sleep in its warmth. At one point, I see what looks like a mountain range in the distance. Maybe it's a vast bank of thunderclouds.

"Are those mountains?" This landscape might as well be the moon, for all I know of it.

"Ah, shoot. That's a black roller heading our way." Calvin slumps against the cushions. "Better stop, Doc. You got a chain?"

"Yes. That's one of the things they warned me to carry when I bought the car and told them where I was going."

"What?" I ask.

"This area is so dry, the static electricity builds up during dust storms." Delano and Calvin open their doors to get out. Calvin leans in before closing the door. "Wait inside here."

Someone opens the trunk. After some fussing around, they come back, dusting off their hands. I don't know what they did, but as we pull out there's something making a scraping, jangling sound behind us.

"What did you just do?" I ask.

"We attached the chain," Calvin says as if this should be obvious. "Pa says static electricity can hurt the car unless you drag a chain behind."

"You're an old hand at all this, Calvin." Delano shoots a quick glance at the boy. "How long do you think we've got?"

Calvin gives the horizon a quick glance. "Couple hours. Less if it's a bad one."

"Damnation," Delano mutters. "How far is the fairgrounds?"

"Right up yonder. On the left. Past the old Jensen place. Ma and Pa talked about the carnival last night."

"Did you go?" I ask Calvin.

The boy shakes his head. "Ma says it's an unchristian, unclean place, but I wish I coulda gone. Bart said there would be hoochie-coochie girls."

Delano hides a smile. "One would hate to miss out on that."

"Did you go mister? I wanted to go." Calvin addresses me. "What was it like?"

How could I describe the pervasive feeling that things weren't quite right? The tingle of unease that crept down my spine. "I didn't see any hoochie girls."

"Dr. Hamilton here was set upon by ruffians and robbed," Delano gives the words all the dramatic flair a boy could want.

"Maybe it's a good thing I missed it." Calvin's expression doesn't match his words. I understand him. What kind of adventures can a kid have in a dying town? A traveling carnival would be as exciting as a spaceship landing.

"Turn there," Calvin says suddenly, pointing to a narrow road on the opposite side of the street. Delano makes the turn. The entrance to the property looks how I remember it, though the sky was dark when I'd seen it

Unfortunately, there are no welcoming signs posted anywhere. The place looks desolate. Used tickets, empty popcorn boxes, and other carnival detritus blow across the parking lot. Delano stops the car. I don't wait for his help to get out.

This can't be.

My heart thunders as I look around. There isn't a single thing left of the carnival. The circus-like campus filled with multicolored tents is gone. The lot full of cars is empty. There are no people. Even my Range Rover is gone.

Delano slips out of the car and comes to stand beside me. "They must have moved on after closing last night."

A car door shuts noisily. Calvin joins us.

"I wish I'd come." He kicks a wad of paper napkins into the freshening breeze. "Probably be a long time before anything special happens around here again."

The voice telling me things aren't what they seem has grown so insistent, it competes with the kettledrums booming behind my eyes. It's all adding up now. Waking in the clinic of a kindly country doctor. The half-empty vintage town. The pristine classic car. The way Calvin says Ma , and unchristian , and hoochie-coochie girls .

I lean heavily on Dr. Delano. He must be stronger than he looks, because he's technically holding me up. My knees are shaking. I'm about to fall. He's wrapped his arm around my waist, and his hand fits perfectly beneath my rib cage, flat and warm. He's exactly the right height for resting my cheek against his shoulder.

All the clues are adding up, and I can't bear to look at what they might mean.

"Steady, Dr. Hamilton."

No, no, no. It can't be. I'm going to wake up any minute. "I don't understand."

"You took a lot of hits to the face. Your head must be killing you," Delano is being gentle with me. I wonder if he's thinking about jackets with extra-long sleeves and padded rooms.

My throat is too dry to swallow. "But?—"

"We'll call Mrs. Andersen and have someone in Santa Fe tell your daughter you're okay. Has she got a relative she can call? A neighbor so she won't be alone?"

"No." I croak. "Not really."

She could call one of my friends. There's the housekeeper, Mrs. H. She's also met Damien, and we have an older neighbor lady who pays Sophie to walk her dog sometimes.

A piece of newspaper scuttles along the dirt until it blows up and catches on my leg. I don't want to read it but I can't help looking at the headline, "Drought and Dust Storms Kill Farmers' Dreams." I peel it free of my body and begin folding it until I catch a glimpse of the date. The drummers in my head go crazy. The date on the paper says April 5, 1935. I choke on truth and dust, and drying spit.

My knees finally buckle. I don't faint. Not really. It's shock—shock and terror—because I'm dreaming or I'm crazy and neither of those options is good.

The paper I'm holding says it's Friday, April fifth, 1935.

"No, no." I shake my head, and the pain blinds me. "No, it can't?—"

Delano catches me before I fall. "I should never have listened to you. Let's get you back to the clinic. You need to lie down and rest."

I fight Delano when he tries to turn me back to the car. I fight Calvin when he tries to help. I don't even know why, except I want to believe this is a joke, or one of those print-your-own-papers, where they personalize the headline and date.

It can't be 1935. It can't.

Delano and Calvin force me back to the car, but it takes little effort now, seeing how weak I've grown. Calvin sits in the back seat and leans forward again. He studies me.

"The other doc's brains are really scrambled, ain't they?" he asks in a loud whisper.

"Hush and sit back." Delano gives him a light push. "It happens this way sometimes. Memory is tricky. It might take a while for him to get his bearings."

That's not true, but I'm too numb to argue. I remember everything now.

My extremities are anchors pinning my body to the passenger seat. Without that, I'd probably fly into a million pieces.

In the distance, the ridge of brown that I thought might be a mountain range has turned into roiling, turbulent waves of dirt. It's a river, the mighty, muddy Mississippi minus the water, and it's coming straight at us, carrying debris with it that will scour this already barren landscape to its bones.

"Better hurry, Doc," Calvin warns.

"We've got time." Doc reassures calmly. He's got the bedside manner of a Norman Rockwell physician, but beneath that, I sense something implacable. Immutable. Battle-tested and hard.

"It looks like a bad one." Calvin's nervous.

"I'll drop you at your place and take Dr. Hamilton home with me."

Delano glances my way, but I'm speechless. I'm empty. I can't put words together anymore. By the time we drop Calvin off, grit is already skittering against the car. The sky is growing dark. The wind whips laundry off the line as two women—one old, one young and pregnant—scramble to bring it inside.

Wind gusts, powerful enough to knock a man off his feet, shake the vehicle.

At Delano's clinic we run. With each step, my brain smashes against my skull. It's an apocalyptic nightmare until we burst through the door to the clinic. Delano shuts and locks it behind us and I sob with relief. My tears are a violent outpouring from somewhere so deep inside me I'm afraid if I can't stop crying I'll die.

I should not be here. The outside world is a filthy hellscape. I have a daughter who needs me, sick patients, and a demanding job.

Either I've gone crazy, or the world has.

One thing is crystal clear: I'm not going home anytime soon.