The Ancestor

by Lee Matthew Goldberg

  Little do Trav and California know that Wyatt has watched them from outside all night.

  Heard every word they said through thin walls. After getting the information he needs about Trav’s plan for after work tomorrow, Wyatt makes the long trek back to where he’s been sleeping. Five miles through the woods wouldn’t be easy in the dark for anyone, let alone someone as emaciated as him. He’d nibbled on the chum the fishermen left on the

  dock. Fish heads with filmy eyes, guts, and digestive tracks, tails he could scrape against his teeth. Far from nourishing. The temperature has surely dropped to single digits and he ponders giving up halfway, except that would mean death. He’s not ready to die, at least until the mystery of how he made it to 2020 gets solved.

  As the wind tears through his coat and icicles map his beard, he imagines Trav and California on their couch with a fire cooking. He’s easily able to supplement himself for Trav and once she’s in his arms, a thawing follows. He kisses the freckles down her neck.

  Luxuriates in the scent of flowery perfume. Makes love quietly, just the sound of his weeping audible. She consoles rather than chides.

  It’s dawn when he steps through the broken glass into his new home. He’s found bags to cover the hole but inside remains frosty. He curls up next to the picture of Adalaide and Joe, his nose against hers, desperate for sleep to come. When he wakes, he has no sense of time or how long he’s been under. He’s seasick so he imagines he’s back on the steamboat, reliving the same horror, possibly forever.

  Outside in the gray afternoon, he begs for money. The town quiet but he sticks to the main street and kindly asks outside of Elson’s and Pizza Joint, the grocery store and the feed shop, until his pockets jingle jangle with coins. In 1898 this could’ve fed him for a week but he’s smart enough to know that won’t be the case now. Just before sunset, he heads into Elson’s.

  He’s not as disheveled and stinky as he was the last time. Aylen had cleaned him up some before she let him fall asleep in her bed. Brushed his teeth, washed his skin with a cloth and soap. Combed the knots from his hair. Not entirely presentable yet but in the wilds of a town like Laner, not obviously a hobo. He situates himself at the bar and orders an ale, discovers that it costs half of the coins he received for the day once he spills them out on the counter.

  “What food can I get with what’s left?” he asks Elson, a burly man whose body has to shift to make room for him behind the bar. He has muttonchops that would have been in style in Wyatt’s time and a similar eye that has closed over, although Elson’s seems like it will never open. Maybe that’s why he takes pity.

  “How about a baked potato with the works?” Elson asks, scooping the coins into his dirty apron.

  “The…works?” Wyatt questions.

  “All the good stuff.” Elson winks with his good eye. “I ain’t gonna let you leave here hungry.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.”

  A pint of ale gets placed under his nose, the hops smelling delightful. He takes a long swig but then cautions himself to ration the rest. The bells above the front door clink and Trav enters with Grayson. The two sit at the end of the bar, far enough away for Wyatt to remain unnoticed but close enough that his trained ears can hear their conversation.

  “You could’ve showered before,” Grayson says, waving his hand in front of his nose.

  “You could’ve too. Least I was up to my neck in fish and have an excuse.”

  “Usual, boys?” Elson asks, and begins pouring suds.

  “So, did you ask Callie about Lorinda?”

  “I’m gonna stop you there, Gray.”

  “No dice?”

  “You’ve dug your ditch.”

  “It was always the same girl at Raye’s.”

  “I don’t think that makes it any better.”

  “Try and see if you can arrange a meeting. Or, or…have Lorinda over and I’ll show up that night too.”

  “Yeah, that won’t look suspicious.”

  “C’mon, buddy, I’d do it for you.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll make it happen.”

  Grayson pulls Trav into him and leaves a sloppy kiss on his cheek. Wyatt’s definitely not seen friends behave like that before.

  His baked potato arrives covered in cheese, loose meat, and sour cream. It’s heavenly, his cold furnace of a body radiating with each bite. He proceeds to lick the plate clean.

  “Guessing you hated it,” Elson says, taking away the plate.

  Wyatt smacks his lips. “Quite the opposite.”

  “I know, that’s called sarcasm.”

  Once Elson leaves, there’s nothing blocking Wyatt from Trav’s view. So he takes a sip of ale and lets out a satisfactory, “Ahhhhhhhhh,” ready to catch his great-great grandson’s attention. Looking over, his eyes meet Trav’s. Trav cocks his head to the side and Wyatt swallows his heart as Trav pushes his stool out and makes his way over.

  He’s numb when a hand is thrust in his direction, ready for destiny to ignite.

  Over a century has passed to bring the two men to this defining moment. But only if one believes in magic and the ability to suspend a body and mind for that long. Logic dic-tates, what exactly? That they might be distantly related, accounting for any similarities, and Wyatt in the throes of amnesia has latched onto the most fantastical explanation.

  Travis feels drawn to his doppelgänger as well. And when they finally shake hands, experiences a familiarity that seems to demolish logic, even for a second.

  “Travis Barlow,” he says, unable to break from the handshake. This man with cold palms and poor circulation like himself, something that runs in the family with all Barlow men.

  “Wyatt.”

  “I saw you over at the bar and…I think we passed each other on the docks yesterday,”

  Travis says, still fused to his double.

  “That was I.”

  “You look,” Travis stops himself, nervously laughs. Cutting through the mystical aura that surrounds and moving back to realistic notions. “You look like me. Is that weird to say? That must sound weird.”

  “No, we do. We do.”

  Finally, they let go of each other but a wave of energy festers between them. Each can sense it crackling. This tricking of the universe.

  “Are you from around here?” Travis asks, his legs turning to mush. A woozy sensation forces him to take a stool. Elson’s got a cold beer waiting. He sips it like it’s his lifeline.

  “Washington State,” Wyatt replies confidently.

  “I’m from here. Laner. We don’t see too many outsiders. Are you headed to Nome?”

  “No. This is where I’m meant to be.”

  Wyatt rubs his beard in a hypnotic fashion, and Travis gets lost in the repeated motion.

  He wants to reach out and touch this grizzled man’s features, to size them up against his own.

  “Without the beard, we have the same face,” Travis says. “Doesn’t it seem like that? I thought so when I passed you on the docks. Like I was looking at—no, that’s insane.”

  “We could be related,” Wyatt says. “Although, I do not know much about my family, so I doubt I’d be much help.”

  “Let me buy you a beer,” Travis says, since Wyatt’s almost tapped his dry. He calls over Elson who pours another.

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “What brings you to Laner?” Travis asks, his face sparkling and engaged. A fire lit within.

  “You’d think I’m crazy if I told you,” Wyatt replies, with suds collecting in his beard.

  “I’m giving in to crazy right now.”

  Wyatt winks his good eye. “Gold.”

  Travis nearly spits out his drink. “Wasn’t expecting you to say that. In these parts?

  Really?”

  “I’m a believer.”

  “I mean, a gold rush passed through here some hundred years back. Maybe there’s scraps left?”

  Grayson joins them with a powerful hand on Travis’s shoulder.


  “And who’s this talkin’ your ear off?” Grayson asks, already wobbling. Grayson with the ability to pound three beers in the time most take to finish one.

  “This is Wyatt,” Travis says, indicating him with a bottle.

  “I know you, rider,” Grayson says, pointing. “The man with the golden nugget.”

  “I’ll take that as a description,” Wyatt says, with an exaggerated bow.

  “He was just telling me about gold,” Travis says.

  “Yep, had a little piece the size of a stone,” Grayson says.

  Wyatt smiles. “And I’m hoping to get more.”

  Travis steps outside of himself to really view this man beyond their likenesses. Wyatt’s clothes tattered, not only worn but truly lived in, like they might be his only home.

  There’s dirt in pockets a quick bath won’t scrub clean. Trapped behind his ears and ground in wrinkles. A second skin, a drifter’s shell.

  “You recently came up from Washington?”

  “Took a boat,” Wyatt says, mimicking the rocking waves he experienced by rising and dipping in his seat.

  “You at Killbessey’s Inn, or the Motel 6 off the route?”

  “’Fraid not. Just handed over my last bit of money.” He nods to his empty plate.

  “If you’re sleeping on the street,” Grayson begins, pulling up his belt, “can’t have that.

  Got a no vagrants policy in Laner.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Travis says. “Do you really have nowhere to stay?”

  “I’m all right,” Wyatt says. “Found a semi-warm spot and trust me I’ve slept far longer in colder conditions.”

  “If money’s what you need.”

  “No, I don’t want a handout.”

  “Hey, Elson,” Travis whistles. Elson shuffles over, spit-cleaning a glass. “Elson, this here’s Wyatt. You still looking for a dishwasher like I heard?”

  “Sure am.”

  “I’ve heard Wyatt’s the best dishwasher out of the lower forty-eight.”

  “I can put him through a run.”

  Travis claps. “See there, should keep you afloat until the gold pours in.”

  It seems as if Wyatt’s heart booms, not expecting this kind of goodwill from a stranger. But they aren’t complete strangers, at least it doesn’t feel that way.

  “Can start you tomorrow morning?” Elson says, inspecting his semi-cleaned glass.

  “Got one of them Oxendine boys working tonight’s shift, but if you ask me, he’s high as a UFO in the sky. You into drugs, man?”

  Elson widens his one giant eye.

  “No sir,” Wyatt says. “Never.”

  “I’ll see you for the breakfast rush then. Town’s got our very own sun-up boozers.”

  Elson tips his head toward Grayson in jest before tending to another customer.

  “Fuck you, old man,” Grayson says. “I never start the well goin’ till after my shift ends.”

  “Thank you, Trav…Travis,” Wyatt says. “That was very kind. You’re a good man.”

  “Tell my wife that. I usually even out as decent at best.”

  Wyatt tugs on his lip with his fang tooth.

  “You married?” Travis asks.

  “Was.”

  “I’ll leave it at that, man.”

  “It’s a big trap,” Grayson says, spilling a fifth of his tall beer on the floor. “Minute I saw my girl setting it up, I ran for the hills.”

  “Right into a prostitute,” Travis says, before Grayson pounds him in the shoulder.

  “Don’t make Elson cut you off.”

  “I’m grabbing a smoke!” Grayson howls, and is out the door.

  “Forgive my best friend,” Travis says. “He’s really a cool guy at heart.”

  Wyatt finishes the swill at the bottom of his glass and stands. “I should be getting back.”

  “Back to where? I can give you a lift.”

  “It’s not far.”

  “Come on, I’m parked outside.”

  Wyatt shrugs and follows Travis into his pickup. They wave at Grayson, who’s struggling with lighting a broken cigarette. It’s warm in the pickup with the heater. Wyatt seems like he’d be happy to sleep on the seats.

  “So where to?” Travis asks.

  “It’s that abandoned store,” Wyatt says, hanging his head in shame. “The window’s broken and I can slip in.”

  He directs Travis to his pseudo-home, which in the nighttime appears more pathetic than usual. Travis gives an audible sigh.

  “You won’t freeze?”

  It’s as if he wants Wyatt to ask to go home with him. But he can tell that Wyatt would be too proud. It’d be an insult to offer.

  “I’ve got blankets, and I’m cold-blooded,” Wyatt says. “Really, I’m fine. You got me work today. You’ve been a friend.”

  “I wanna hear about this gold in our area,” Travis says. “Maybe we can hunt for it together? I’m a very good hunter.”

  Wyatt nods. “I think that might be swell.”

  He extends his hand so they can shake again. This time when they do, a brotherhood is established. Travis understanding deep down that neither realizes how much the other will impact their life, that nothing will ever be the same.

  Wyatt pops out of the pickup and eases his way through the broken window until he fades into the darkness like a ghost that may have never been there at all.

  Travis stays with the motor idling. Not ready to leave. Afraid to shatter this uncanny introduction.

  18

  Travis wants to share with Callie about his double, the mysterious prospector who’s come to the edge of the Earth for gold. But how to put it into words? He tries in front of a mirror, but it sounds insane. So better to keep quiet. She’s putting lotion on her cracked hands, Alaska a scourge on her already dry skin. They’ve set up a humidifier that seems to do little.

  “You want to take a picture?” she asks, because he’s been staring.

  “Just zoned out.”

  “You’re getting good at that.”

  She has to be aware that he’s been different these past two days, more withdrawn. For a while he’d been opening up. Working on Smitty’s boat a boon to his personality.

  “It’s the long days on the water.”

  “Is it?” She’s hesitant but snuggles up close. “You know you can tell me anything. If it’s about Bobby…”

  “Nothing to do with Bobby,” he says, a lie. Because to lose one’s brother like that, even if they fought most of their lives, causes you to lose faith in whatever you once held true.

  “How’s Gray?” she asks, after a challenging lull.

  “Oh yeah, something I wanted to run by you,” he says. Callie raises her eyebrows.

  “Think we could set up a meeting between him and Lorinda?”

  “This one of his brilliant schemes?”

  “Have her over, and I’ll bring Gray. And we see what happens.”

  “A disaster of biblical proportions.”

  “Or maybe they work through their issues?”

  She closes the lotion cap and turns over on her side. “Okay, but you’ll take the heat from the bomb if it’s set off.”

  He runs his hand down her shoulder to her waist, but she’s already snapped off the light, and it’s hard to visualize her in the dark.

  Morning with a purpose, a night without a fitful sleep for once. Wyatt uses the snow outside in lieu of running water, removing surface dirt from his face. Whistling as he walks the few blocks to work. Elson the only one there before the sun rises, pleased he showed up early. He learns how to work the machine that cleans the dishes. Each needs a scrubbing first before being placed inside. He’s mystified by the smell of the dish soap, floral and inviting. Locals fill in as the hours pass, wolfing down their breakfasts, their black coffees, some adding a swill of liquor. The dishes pile up, but he gets into a groove, a system working eventually. Elson pops in around midday with an A-okay.

  He has to slightly alter his system for the dinn
er rush boom, but he manages. He peeks out every so often for a sign of Trav, eager to continue their talk. Once he’s ready to set off to find his gold—if he could remember where it’d been left—he’ll need an extra hand.

  A great way for the men to really bond. As the dirty plates slow down, Elson sticks his head in the kitchen to say “last customer.” Wyatt’s tired from standing, but he senses his

  powers returning, more of a fully realized human than when the day began. Elson asks if he wants to be paid daily in cash, to avoid any IRS “sticking their noses in,” and Wyatt agrees, also knowing it’d be impossible for him to pay taxes since he doesn’t exist in this century. Elson gives him two twenty-dollar bills, worth about a thousand in his time, and he thinks that he’s never had this much money in his hands before.

  After eating another baked potato with the works, Wyatt makes his way to Raye’s.

  He’s sad that Trav didn’t come by Elson’s, hoping their encounter hadn’t been a fluke and Trav’s interested in forging a friendship. Raye’s is rowdy when he gets there, music coming from a phonograph, a jaunty tune. A girl sits atop the bar in stockings kicking her toes to the ceiling. Two fishermen clap below, smiles stretched wide. Raye slinks over, her nest of black hair pinned in a tower, a nightgown hugging her body. Her eyes betray her age, older than she appears.

  “Can I help you with anything in particular?” she asks, her voice with a Southern twang. Her mouth painted with dark red lipstick, the whitest teeth ever beneath.

  “Aylen?” he asks, hopeful. Raye takes out a pack of cigarettes and pats it against her palm until one comes out.

  “With a client right now, but if you wait?” She loosens another cigarette for him. “On the house.” Lighting it for him, they smoke in silence. He’s smoked pipes before but nothing like this, the tobacco singeing his throat. When he’s nearly finished, Aylen steps down the staircase.

  She notices him, pretending she doesn’t. Raye catches her at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Sweetie, I believe one of your regulars.” She guides Aylen over to Wyatt who puts out his cigarette and removes his hat.