The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (14 page)

He listened a moment more. Then he hung up and looked at Peter. He shook his head.

“The town was never designated by name. And the producer and cameraman involved in those pictures are listed, but they’ve both been dead for a long time. That footage was taken way back in 1925.”

“Then there’s no way I can find out the name.”

“No,” said Daley. “No way.”

He went back to the hotel and booked a flight for Boston. He packed and checked out, then took a taxi for LaGuardia. At four o’clock that afternoon, he was in Boston.

He rented a car at the airport, picking up a detailed road map of Massachusetts and another for all of New England.

He checked in at a nearby motel. It was after dark, too late to start out now. He would get a night’s sleep and start down the highway early in the morning.

After dinner, he studied the map of Massachusetts. The word “Puritan” had cropped up constantly in his hallucinations. It seemed to be a key, a symbol, a signpost. He had read up on the Puritans. They had founded Massachusetts in the 1640s where they had originally set up their meeting houses and churches, their freehold houses, their gristmills and sawmills and smithy shops. They had created an austere, Bible-reading oligarchy, held their town meetings, punished their drunkards in the stocks, and, later, burned their witches. Massachusetts had been their stronghold, although later they had spread to other parts of New England.

Massachusetts, then, was his best bet. If he failed there, it would be only the beginning. If he had to, he would cover every damned city and town in all of New England. He had a lot of ground to cover, and it might take him days to find it, even weeks. But he knew it was out there somewhere. And he would know it when he found it.

If
he found it.

Early in the morning, he took to the highway. In studying the map, he had plotted a rough attack. First, he would cover the ring of cities and towns forming an arc around Boston itself. Then he would continue in a kind of north and south pattern, gradually tracking westward toward the Connecticut Valley and the Berkshires.

His prime landmark would be the tower. And, of course, that arching railroad span over the main street.

He drove through Medford, Malden, Woburn, and Melrose. Then Lynn, Wakefield, Peabody, Salem, Beverly, and Danvers. He avoided the thruways and the parkways, using only the heavily congested secondary arteries connecting one town with another. Only in that way, by driving up the main streets of each city and town, could he make the identification he looked for.

After that, farther north. Middleton, Newburyport, Amesbury. Then away from the coast, moving southwest—Haverhill, Methuen, Lawrence. And south, back toward Boston again. Reading, Burlington, Bedford.

He saw nothing even remotely resembling his town. There were any number of railroad bridges spanning streets, but none of the shape and color that he sought. There were a few towers, but none that resembled the one he knew. But everywhere he saw the signs: Puritan Motel, Puritan Restaurant, Puritan Barber Shop, Puritan Drugstore.

He drove south from Boston. Quincy, Braintree, Weymouth, Brockton, Taunton, New Bedford, Fall River; he avoided Cape Cod. From his dreams, he knew that his town was not surrounded by the sea. His feeling was that it was inland somewhere.

Attleboro, Norwood, Framingham, Marlborough, Shrewsbury, Worcester.

He slept only a few hours each night. He barely paused to eat. A quick hamburger, then straight through the city, a quick look around, and then off again to the next city. He drove hour after hour. He stopped for a million red lights. Highways danced before his eyes; the white lines in the road wobbled. By darkness, weariness engulfed him. He drove like a robot, by sheer instinct. He slept exhausted in motels and hotels, and awoke at dawn to continue his search.

Leominster, Fitchburg, Gardner, Greenfield, Northampton.

Ultimately, they all looked the same. The same gas stations, drugstores, department stores, roadside stands, souvenir shops. The same shopping centers, the same traffic, the same bowling alleys, the same golf courses, the same traffic signals, the same people on the streets. Each town with the same face, but with a different name.

Holyoke, Chicopee, Springfield, Westfield …

Gradually he began to see that his quest was almost hopeless. A fool’s errand.

He had seen nothing remotely resembling his town. The film log had said:
A New England Town
. It could be anywhere, not necessarily in Massachusetts. It could be in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, even Maine. He could spend weeks trying to find it. And he didn’t have weeks. He had another four days before he had to fly back to the Coast.

There was another, more chilling, possibility. He may have already driven through the town, and never known it.

True, he had a picture of the place. God knows, it was frozen clearly enough in his mind. But he knew it the way it had looked sometime in the forties. This was the seventies. Who knew how it looked now? Thirty-five years, and maybe forty, had passed. That was long enough to change the face of any city. There had been the postwar population boom, great new housing developments,
new high-rise buildings, vast shopping centers, retail complexes. Familiar landmarks had been torn down, streets widened, entire neighborhoods razed and rebuilt.

Maybe he’d already been there and never knew it.

On the next day, he drove through the Berkshires. Great Barrington, Stockbridge, Pittsfield, North Adams. Nothing that he recognized.

He followed the signs, found the Massachusetts Turnpike, and headed east for Boston. He would turn in the car there and grab a plane for the Coast.

He was deadly tired of the state of Massachusetts. He’d really traveled it, upward and downward, backward and forward. He’d hardly slept or eaten. And how many times had he told himself, this isn’t the town, but it could be the next. Or the next. Or the next.

Now, he didn’t even care anymore. Maybe someday he’d come back, take another look, go through the rest of New England. He’d take his time, do it leisurely. Or, on the other hand, maybe he’d never come back. What was the use? What was the point?

Let sleeping dreams lie
.

Still, he knew he never could. His curiosity would never let him rest. He’d missed this time. But he knew the town was there, somewhere.

It was a hot spring day. The broiling highway slipped under the wheels of his car, an endless strip of shining white concrete. He was tooling along at a steady seventy. The sound of the motor and the singing of the tires mesmerized him into a kind of stupor. He had to fight to keep his eyes open. On the right of the turnpike, the great green road signs loomed up and then whooshed by, their bold white letters shimmering in the heat haze. There were still a hundred miles to go before he reached Boston. Once on the plane, he would sleep.

A big river appeared on the left. He had not been in this particular area before, but he knew it was the Connecticut River. At the
moment it lay supine, a broad gray snake dozing in a bath of faint mist, its shiny skin rippling and glinting a little in the sun. Beyond, on the other bank, was a city.

Suddenly he was wide awake. He stared at the river. Here, from this elevation, he could see that it had a peculiar reverse-S curve. And beyond it, the city.

It looked like any of the other cities he had seen. Yet, it did not. There was something about it, something in its contour, the way it was designed. The way the hills rose beyond the city. Farther down, three bridges spanned the river. One, an automobile bridge, white in color. Another a railroad trestle. And the third, an old steel bridge, its girders painted red.

In the dream, the river in the distance had this same reverse-S curve. Still, that wasn’t particularly unusual—the river probably made a lot of similar curves as it meandered down toward the ocean from the north. Yet this particular reverse-S was near the city.

In the dream there had been two bridges, not three. But the white bridge looked comparatively new. He seemed to remember the trestle, and the bridge with the red girders. But maybe he was simply reading them into the dreams.

He looked for the tower, the tall, delicate Florentine rectangle towering over a public square. The one with the spectator’s balcony where he had stood, in his hallucination, and looked out over the city and down on the square itself.

But there was no tower. And without the tower, it wasn’t the town.

Yet—yet—there was
something
about the place. He saw the big turnpike sign rushing up on his right: R
IVERSIDE
. E
XIT
O
NE
M
ILE
.

Riverside. It meant nothing to him. It jogged no memory. It was just another name. The smart thing was to go right by it, and get on to Boston. And from there, home.

But he found himself easing down his speed and moving over to the right lane and toward the exit ramp. Almost as though his head were saying one thing, his hands another.

He crossed the big white bridge and drove into the city. Bridge Street. River Street. Columbus Avenue. The names on the street signs meant nothing to him. There were the usual gas stations, used-car lots, wholesale houses, cafeterias, and drugstores. The usual crowds on the streets, the usual buses, the usual traffic. Just another town.

But again, there was something about it. He saw an occasional building that seemed to look familiar. The curve of a street. The way the river and the opposite bank looked from here. The factories on the other side, smoke eddying from their chimneys. They seemed familiar, and yet they did not. And he thought again, Take it easy. This isn’t the place. It can’t be. You want to see something badly enough, you can see it.

He was hungry. He decided he’d have a bite and push on. Parking the car on what seemed to be a main street, he remembered that he had run out of cash. He’d have to cash some traveler’s checks. There was a bank just across the street. The sign said: Puritan Bank and Trust. He walked inside.

And then Peter saw him.
Cotton Mather
.

The big Puritan stood on a pedestal at the rear of the bank. He was a huge effigy, larger than life size, perhaps ten feet tall. He looked exactly as he had in the dream. Dark red tunic, caught at the waist with a leather band. Over this, a sleeveless jacket of dull gray. A doublet and leather hose lined with oilskin. A large conical broadbrim hat. Broad white collar of linen. The face hard and stern. The eyes cold and dead.

Well, old friend, thought Peter, it’s you at last. We have finally met….

He walked toward the rear of the bank, toward the effigy. He heard his steps echoing on the floor. Dimly, he was aware of the business of the bank going on around him—the people standing in lines to complete their transactions, the cashiers behind the glass wall, the buzz and hum of voices. The area in which the Puritan
stood on his pedestal had been roped off. Peter looked up at the effigy. The old Puritan towered above him, gigantic, frightening. Exactly as he had in the dream. The cold eyes seemed to be looking down, glaring at him.

“Everything all right, sir?”

Peter whirled around. A uniformed bank guard was staring at him curiously. Peter was shaking. He tried to pull himself together. Finally he managed a smile.

“That figure up there. I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s very—impressive.”

The guard smiled. “That’s one word for it. A lot of people around here think it’s just plain ugly. The directors of the bank have been talking about getting rid of it. But I don’t know—people in town are used to seeing it here. You know—it’s part of the bank, tradition and all that. Some of ’em would miss old Cotton if they took him away. Looks real lifelike, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does.” He stared at the guard. “Is that what everybody calls him—Cotton?”

“Yes, sir. After Cotton Mather. It’s kind of a nickname, I guess.”

“How long has he—it—been here?”

“Well, of course, it’s a kind of trademark for the bank, you might say. Been here ever since the bank has. That would be about forty years. I’ll tell you this much. Old Cotton up there is a real dust collector. About every five years we have to throw away his clothes and get him a new set.”

“I see.” He wanted to turn again and take another long look at the effigy. It wasn’t every day you could stare at a dream come true. He knew the Puritan’s eyes were only glass, but he had the curious feeling that they were alive and boring into him. He was in the aftermath of shock now. He could feel the gooseflesh all over his body, and he knew he was still shivering. The guard stood there, watching him.

“Where can I cash some travelers checks?”

“Over there, sir. Any one of those windows.”

He walked toward one of the windows. He did not look back; he didn’t dare. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He knew there couldn’t be another figure like that anywhere else in the world. And he had found it. Or had it found
him?

This, he thought, was the place where I lived. Before I died. No doubt about it now. Riverside, Massachusetts.

The clerk behind the glass partition cashed Peter’s check.

“Noticed you staring at the old witchburner.”

“Yes.”

The clerk grinned. “Every stranger who walks in here usually stops to take a good look. Catches your eye, if you know what I mean. A great attention-getter.” He smiled ruefully. “But how would you like to have that ugly devil staring you in the face every day? The way I have to.” The clerk shook his head in distaste.

Peter walked out of the bank and onto the street. He got into the car and started to drive north. Somehow he knew there was a curve just ahead, and then beyond that the intersection of two main avenues. Now he knew he had been here before. Some of the buildings, the older buildings, seemed familiar to him. He drove around the curve, paused for a traffic light, and then without hesitation took the street to the left. State Street, the sign said.

Another turn, this one to the right. And then he saw it. The arched railroad bridge spanning the street just ahead. It was made of gray granite and supported by a small turretlike structure at each end. Just as he had seen it in the dream. Except that now it seemed much grayer than he remembered it.