So Cold the River (2010) (54 page)

These are the terms that were applied to him once he was in the ambulance.

Kellen was the first one in the water. He watched Eric leap, saw where he entered, splitting the water directly between two
downed
trees that could have impaled him. Kellen marked the spot, but with an ankle broken in two places, he couldn’t make his way
down to the water quickly enough, and the body had disappeared.

One thing Eric definitely did
not
imagine—Claire’s voice on his downward plunge. She was coming down the trail with Detective Roger Brewer in tow. She’d forced
the detective to go with her to the last place she’d seen him, stretched out there on the trail, and upon finding him missing,
began to shout for him. Kellen heard the shouting. Kellen shouted back.

Brewer entered the water while Claire—with a dislocated shoulder and broken collarbone from her landing on the pavement after
Josiah Bradford shoved her from his truck—stood on the bank and shouted at every ripple in the water and shadow over it, thinking
they all might be Eric.

The way they all tell it now, Eric just floated up from the depths. Surfaced in the middle of the swirling pool, facedown.
Like the Lost River had him, and then decided to give him back.

Brewer and Kellen brought him out. The detective began CPR, then turned it over to Claire and went for his radio when he could
not get a response. Claire succeeded in getting a few wet, wheezing coughs.

They could not restore spontaneous breathing or a pulse.

In the ambulance, the electrocardiogram registered a bradycardic—unusually slow—heart rate. Thirty-seven beats per minute.
There was still no palpable pulse. The heart’s electrical system was functioning, but the mechanical pumping system was not.
The paramedics applied a ventilator to assist with breathing and then administered epinephrine. One minute later, Eric’s heart
rate was up to one hundred beats per minute, and a pulse appeared at the carotid artery.

He was driven to Bloomington Hospital at speeds averaging
ninety miles an hour, and there he was placed on a different ventilator, and steps were taken to warm his core temperature.
Claire was with him for the ride and believed that he would be pronounced dead on arrival, that the epinephrine-induced heartbeat
was nothing more than a tease.

It was not a tease. Within an hour of his arrival, his heart was functioning normally, and three hours after that, the lungs
were deemed capable of unassisted breathing.

They kept him in the hospital for another twenty-four hours. Monitoring, they said, and there were other tasks to be done—putting
stitches in his scalp, setting Claire’s collarbone, outfitting her with a sling, treating Kellen’s shattered ankle.

He does not remember anything of the ambulance ride, or much of his early hours in the hospital. At some point he grows clear-headed
again, and soon the police are with him, statements being taken. Claire and Kellen have already offered theirs, and she is
in the room with him now. He cannot take his eyes off her. He looks at her and he sees the pickup truck again, the melting,
twisted metal and the flash of white bone amid ashes.

I thought you were dead, he tells her.

Likewise, she says.

She believes that Josiah hoped to kill her when he pushed her out of the truck. He had the shotgun in his lap but did not
fire it, maybe because he couldn’t do that and control the vehicle, maybe because he was afraid of igniting the dynamite in
the bed of the truck. Whatever the reason, he settled for shoving her out onto the road, and Brewer crashed into a fence trying
to avoid her.

What were you thinking when you jumped into the water? she asks him. How could you let yourself do that?

You were gone, he answers. It does not seem enough for her; it remains more than enough for him. She was gone, and Campbell
remained. Now she is here, and Campbell is gone.

He can hardly believe it. He can hardly trust it.

It isn’t until late that evening that they hear the news about Anne McKinney. When Detective Brewer shares it in a low, flat
voice, Claire weeps and Eric leans his head back and closes his eyes.

Looks like it was fast, and painless, Brewer says. That’s something. Old as she was, it was just too much stress. Shouldn’t
be surprising that she had a heart attack; it’s surprising that it happened then, after everything was pretty well resolved.

She saved me, Claire says. Saved us.

Yes, ma’am.

No one even got her out of that basement? She must have been terrified. She must have been so scared.

Brewer doesn’t know about that. Says Anne was on the radio with the dispatcher and sounded solid. Then there was a bit of
weirdness right before the end.

Weirdness?

She reported a tornado sighting, Brewer explains. That was the last thing she said. Apparently she thought there was one right
outside. But of course she was still down in the basement, couldn’t see a thing.

So she scared herself to death, Claire says.

Brewer spreads his hands and says that he can’t answer that. All he knows is that they said she sounded fine when she made
the report. Real composed. Relaxed, even. She was still in the chair in front of the radio when the police got there.

Eric, listening to all this with his eyes closed, is saddened but believes that Claire’s worries are unnecessary. Anne was
ready for the storm, real or imagined. She wouldn’t have been terrified by it. She’d have been ready.

That evening, with Josiah Bradford confirmed dead, Lucas Bradford makes an official statement to the police, explaining the
reason he hired Gavin Murray. Seems his father, the recently deceased Campbell Bradford, had written an odd letter just before
his passing. In the letter, he took credit for the death of a man of the same name in 1929. He did not murder him, he wrote,
not exactly, but he did nothing to help him either. He let the man drown and felt that it was the right thing to do. He was
saving not only himself but others. The man, he wrote, was evil.

He identified his fortune as having been built on fourteen dollars removed from a dead man’s money clip, all that he had when
he hopped a Monon freight train and rode to Chicago. While he felt no guilt over letting Campbell drown, he felt plenty for
the widow and orphaned son left behind to suffer both poverty and Campbell’s legacy. But he was afraid. For so many years,
he was afraid of so many things.

Along with the letter was a revised will—Campbell had designated half of his substantial wealth to be split among any direct
descendants of the man he’d let drown. He knew only that there was a son. The rest would have to be tracked down. It was important,
he wrote, that he look after the family. That was very important.

Josiah Bradford, the only direct descendant of the Campbell Bradford who had drowned in the Lost River, had been dead for
fifteen hours before this was revealed.

The letter made no mention of an odd green glass bottle, or of the reason the old man had for taking Campbell’s name as his
own.

Eric lets everyone wonder about this. He does not tell them
about Campbell’s final threat, that anyone who did not share his blood and his name would feel his wrath.

Claire urges him to tell the doctors about his addiction to the mineral water and the ravaging effects it may have on his
body. He tells her this is unnecessary. It is done, he says. It is over.

She asks how he can know this, and it is difficult to answer.

Just trust me, he says. I’m sure.

And he is. Because the water gave him back. His heart had stopped, his breathing had stopped. Those things began anew. He
began anew. The old plagues will not return for him.

He returns to Chicago for two weeks before he can convince Claire to go back to the valley with him. He has a purpose there,
he explains, and for the first time he understands it. There’s a story that needs to be told—so many stories, really—and he
can be a part of that. A documentary, though, a historical portrait of this place in a different time. It will not be the
sort of thing that makes it to the theaters, but it is an important story, and he believes the film can be successful in a
modest way.

She asks him if he will write the script, and he says he will not. That isn’t his role. He’s an image guy, he explains, he
can see things that need to be included in the story but he cannot tell its whole. He wonders if her father would be interested
in writing it. His name could help secure some interest. She suspects that he would.

Kellen meets them in the hotel, his foot encased in an Aircast, crutches by his side. He says he has a green glass bottle
to return to Eric but left it in Bloomington. He didn’t think it should be brought back to this place. Eric agrees.

They eat a celebratory dinner in the ornate dining room of the beautiful old hotel, and Eric explains the documentary and
asks Kellen if he would consider being part of it. Kellen is enthusiastic, but it’s obvious something else is on his mind.
He doesn’t address it until Claire has gone to the restroom and left the two of them alone. Then he mentions the spring, the
one from the visions, and asks Eric if he believes it is really out there.

Yes, Eric tells him. I know that it is.

Kellen asks if he will search for it.

He will not.

Do you think Campbell is gone? Kellen asks.

Eric thinks for a moment and then offers a quote from Anne McKinney—
You can’t be sure what hides behind the wind
.

Claire and Eric stay the night, make love in the same room, and then she sleeps and he lies awake and stares into the dark
and waits for voices. There are none. Beneath him, the hotel is peaceful. Outside, a gentle wind begins to blow.

The idea for this story came wholly from the place itself. The towns of French Lick and West Baden are very real, as is the
astounding West Baden Springs Hotel, as is the even more astounding Lost River. I grew up not far north of these places and
saw the West Baden hotel when I was a child and it was little more than a ruin. It was a moment and a memory that lingered,
and over the years, I continued to learn about the place and its remarkable history. In 2007, when I saw the restoration of
the West Baden Springs Hotel near completion, I felt the storyteller’s compulsion revving to a high pitch. This book is the
result, and because the places and the history are important to me, I’ve tried to present them accurately whenever possible.
Still, this is a work of fiction, and I’ve taken some liberties—and no doubt made some mistakes.

Two dear friends helped with my research and encouraged the undertaking—Laura Lane and Bob Hammel—and a few
people I’ve never met also deserve credit. Chris Bundy has chronicled the history of the area better than anyone, and his
books were wonderful resources. Bob Armstrong, the late Dee Slater, and the members of the Lost River Conservation Association
have been dedicated protectors and proponents of an underappreciated natural wonder for many years, and they piqued my interest
in the river several years ago while I was working as a newspaper reporter. And to Bill and Gayle Cook, who brought the hotels
back from near extinction, I’d like to say a most heartfelt thanks on behalf of the people of Indiana.

It is such a tremendous pleasure to work with the people at Little, Brown. My deepest thanks to Michael Pietsch, editor and
publisher without peer, for his efforts and above all else his faith. Thanks also to David Young, Geoff Shandler, Tracy Williams,
Nancy Weise, Heather Rizzo, Heather Fain, Vanessa Kehren, Eve Rabinovits, Sabrina Callahan, Pamela Marshall, and the many
other key players on the Hachette team.

My agent and friend, David Hale Smith, patiently listened to my wild explanation of an idea for a novella about haunted mineral
water and then, with an astounding level of calm, watched it turn into a five-hundred-page manuscript. What can I say, DHS?
Oops. An important note of gratitude is due the extraordinary violinist Joshua Bell. This fellow Bloomington native’s violin
work on the haunting song “Short Trip Home” (written, I must add, by another Indiana University product, renowned bassist
and composer Edgar Meyer) pushed me
toward an unexpected but rewarding place. It was a melody that needed a story, I thought, and from that grew a large portion
of this book.

I fear that I tend to lean too heavily for input and advice on the writers I’ve long admired, and without fail they somehow
tolerate it. It’s great to be in a business where amazing work comes from amazing people, and there are none finer than Michael
Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman, and George Pelecanos. Thanks to you all, for so many things.

1

T
HEY’D BEEN ON THE TRAIN
for five hours before Arlen Wagner saw the first of the dead men.