The train slowed down and pulled into Pharaoh. No one got off or on.
The train pulled out and a few people started getting packed up to get out at Presqueville. Japheth sat quietly. The others had left.
“I'm sorry,” said Burl, when he caught the man's eye.
“For cryin'?”
“No. For what happened up at Ghost Lake.”
“Well, now, I'd sure like it if the mess got cleaned up a bit. Nature'll do it, of course, but she'll take her own sweet time. But you could do it lickety-split once the summer comes.”
“I can go back?”
Japheth hooted and tapped his pipe stem against the side of his head. “You are thick-headed, boy. Sure you can go back. Anytime. In fact, you have to. I'm ordering you to. You've gotta clean up that mess back there. You made the messâyou clean it up. That's the way you become master of your own destiny, the way I see it.
“And who knows when I might decide to drop around,” said Japheth. “Take a bit of a holiday in my apple-pie camp.”
“I'll clean it up,” said Burl.
“Good. Rake over the coals. Give old Mother Nature a bit of a hand.”
The summer, thought Burl. As soon as it was warm. He would go again in the summer. And this time he had been invited.
He would write to Bea and tell her about the fate of the camp. If she was still interested in flying people there she would have to contact the owner, Japheth Starlight of Chapleau. Burl owed her that much, he decided. He wondered
if he would ask her for what she owed him. He decided he didn't want it, not now.
And Reggie? He would tell her what had happened. He'd send her the money she'd given him when he could. What else could he do? Would he send her the letter? He'd have to think about that. There was nothing left of the Revelation. Well, almost nothing. There were the few chords the Maestro had taught him, but the world would never get to hear Nathaniel Orlando Gow's oratorio. The Shadow had won in the end. If only the Maestro had found Ghost Lake earlier. If only Calâ¦
No. He wasn't going to waste his time thinking about what might have happened. He would clean up the mess. That was all he could do.
He would write to his mother. But he couldn't go up to Dryden, no more than he could move in with Cal and Tanya. He would plan to visit sometime. If she wanted him to.
There was nothing left to deal with but Cal. Cal and the memory he dragged around with him of Laura. But that was not a burden Burl could shoulder right now. Later, maybe.
“There she is,” said Japheth Starlight. He was looking down the track to where the lights of Presqueville beamed like a few cold stars. “Is this your stop, Burl?”
A phone number flashed in Burl's head. A number he had seen written out in careful letters on an orange, a banana, the wrapper of a chocolate bar, a label stuck to a bag full of sandwiches, even scratched onto the top of a can of pop.
“Yes,” he said. “This is my stop.” And then he stood up on his shaky feet and put aside his blankets. The soup man hopped up and handed Burl his shirt and Gow's old coat from the storage rack above the seat and helped Burl into them. Burl shook his hand. He shook Japheth Starlight's
hand. Then he headed down the car to make sure his father was looked after okay.
It was only then that Burl noticed that someone had found him a real pair of shoes. They seemed quite new, and they fit him well.