Folk of the Fringe

by Orson Scott Card

  "It's fine," she said.

  "You still gonna take me there?"

  "I said I would, didn't I?"

  She sounded just annoyed enough that he knew it was OK to tease her again. "You don't think they'll have the Second Coming while we're there, do you? If you think so, I'll wear my tie."

  She smiled, then turned to face him and pushed him away. "Deaver, go to bed."

  "I'm gettin up at four-thirty, Rain, and then you're one girl who's gonna have fun."

  "I don't think the song was about early morning boat trips."

  She was doing the dishes when he left for his little room.

  Lehi was waiting at five-thirty, right on schedule. "I can't believe it," he said. "I thought you'd be late."

  "Good thing you were ready on time," said Deaver, "cause if you didn't come with us you wouldn't get a cut."

  "We aren't going to find any gold, Deaver Teague."

  "Then why're you comin with me? Don't give me that stuff, Lehi, you know the future's with Deaver Teague, and you don't want to be left behind. Where's the diving stuff?"

  "I didn't bring it home, Deaver. You don't think my mom'd ask questions then?"

  "She's always askin questions," said Deaver.

  "It's her job," said Rain.

  "I don't want anybody askin about everything I do," said Deaver.

  "Nobody has to ask," said Rain. "You always tell us whether we want to hear or not."

  "If you don't want to hear, you don't have to," said Deaver.

  "Don't get touchy," said Rain.

  "You guys are both gettin wet-headed on me, all of a sudden. Does the temple make you crazy, is that how it works?"

  "I don't mind my mom askin me stuff. It's OK."

  The ferries ran from Point to Bingham day and night, so they had to go north a ways before cutting west to Oquirrh Island. The smelter and the foundries put orange-bellied smoke clouds into the night sky, and the coal barges were getting offloaded just like in daytime. The coal-dust cloud that was so grimy and black in the day looked like white fog under the floodlights.

  "My dad died right there, about this time of day," said Lehi.

  "He loaded coal?"

  "Yeah. He used to be a car salesmen. His job kind of disappeared on him."

  "You weren't there, were you?"

  "I heard the crash. I was asleep, but it woke me up. And then a lot of shouting and running. We lived on the island back then, always heard stuff from the harbor. He got buried under a ton of coal that fell from fifty feet up."

  Deaver didn't know what to say about that.

  "You never talk about your folks," said Lehi. "I always remember my dad, but you never talk about your folks."

  Deaver shrugged.

  "He doesn't remember em," Rain said quietly. "They found him out on the plains somewhere. The mobbers got his family, however many there was, he must've hid or something, that's all they can figure."

  "Well what was it?" asked Lehi. "Did you hide?"

  Deaver didn't feel comfortable talking about it, since he didn't remember anything except what people told him. He knew that other people remembered their childhood, and he didn't like how they always acted so surprised that he didn't. But Lehi was asking, and Deaver knew that you don't keep stuff back from friends. "I guess I did. Or maybe I looked too dumb to kill or somthin." He laughed. "I must've been a real dumb little kid, I didn't even remember my own name. They figure I was five or six years old, most kids know their names, but not me. So the two guys that found me, their names were Teague and Deaver."

  "You gotta remember somethin."

  "Lehi, I didn't even know how to talk. They tell me I didn't even say a word till I was nine years old. We're talkin about a slow learner here."

  "Wow." Lehi was silent for a while. "How come you didn't say anything?"

  "Doesn't matter," said Rain. "He makes up for it now, Deaver the talker. Champion talker."

  They coasted the island till they got past Magna. Lehi led them to a storage shed that Underwater Salvage had put up at the north end of Oquirrh Island. It was unlocked and full of diving equipment. Lehi's friends had filled some tanks with air. They got two diving outfits and underwater flashlights. Rain wasn't going underwater, so she didn't need anything.

  They pulled away from the island, out into the regular shipping lane from Wendover. In that direction, at least, people had sense enough not to travel at night, so there wasn't much traffic. After a little while they were out into open water. That was when Rain stopped the little outboard motor Deaver had scrounged for her and Lehi had fixed. "Time to sweat and slave," said Rain.

  Deaver sat on the middle bench, settled the oars into the locks, and began to row.

  "Not too fast," Rain said. "You'll give yourself blisters."

  A boat that might have been Lake Patrol went by once, but otherwise nobody came near them as they crossed the open stretch. Then the skyscrapers rose up and blocked off large sections of the starry night.

  "They say there's people who was never rescued still livin in there," Lehi whispered.

  Rain was disdainful. "You think there's anything left in there to keep anybody alive? And the water's still too salty to drink for long."

  "Who says they're alive?" whispered Deaver in his most mysterious voice. A couple of years ago, he could have spooked Lehi and made his eyes go wide. Now Lehi just looked disgusted.

  "Come on, Deaver, I'm not a kid."

  It was Deaver who got spooked a little. The big holes where pieces of glass and plastic had fallen off looked like mouths, waiting to suck him in and carry him down under the water, into the city of the drowned. He sometimes dreamed about thousands and thousands of people living under water. Still driving their cars around, going about their business, shopping in stores, going to movies. In his dreams they never did anything bad, just went about their business. But he always woke up sweating and frightened. No reason. Just spooked him. "I think they should blow up these things before they fall down and hurt somebody," said Deaver.

  "Maybe it's better to leave em standing," said Rain. "Maybe there's a lot of folks like to remember how tall we once stood."

  "What's to remember? They built tall buildings and then they let em take a bath, what's to brag for?"

  Deaver was trying to get her not talk about the old days, but Lehi seemed to like wallowing in it. "You ever here before the water came?"

  Rain nodded. "Saw a parade go right down this street. I can't remember if it was Third South or Fourth South. Third I guess. I saw twenty-five horses all riding together. I remember that I thought that was really something. You didn't see many horses in those days."

  "I seen too many myself," said Lehi.

  "It's the ones I don't see that I hate," said Deaver. "They ought to make em wear diapers."

  They rounded a building and looked up a north-south passage between towers. Rain was sitting in the stern and saw it first. "There it is. You can see it. Just the tall spires now."

  Deaver rowed them up the passage. There were six spires sticking up out of the water, but the four short ones were under so far that only the pointed roofs were dry. The two tall ones had windows in them, not covered at all. Deaver was disappointed. Wide open like that meant that anybody might have come here. It was all so much less dangerous than he had expected. Maybe Rain was right, and there was nothing there.

  They tied the boat to the north side and waited for daylight. "If I knew it'd be so easy," said Deaver, "I could've slept another hour."

  "Sleep now," said Rain.

  "Maybe I will," said Deaver.

  He slid off his bench and sprawled in the bottom of the boat.

  He didn't sleep, though. The open window of the steeple was only a few yards away, a deep black surrounded by the starlit grey of the temple granite. It was down there, waiting for him; the future, a chance to get something better for himself and his two friends. Maybe a plot of ground in the south where it was warmer and the snow didn't pile up five feet deep
every winter, where it wasn't rain in the sky and lake everywhere else you looked. A place where he could live for a very long time and look back and remember good times with his friends, that was all waiting down under the water.

  Of course they hadn't told him about the gold. It was on the road, a little place in Parowan where truckers knew they could stop in because the iron mine kept such crazy shifts that the diners never closed. They even had some coffee there, hot and bitter, because there weren't so many Mormons there and the miners didn't let the Bishop push them around. In fact they even called him Judge there instead of Bishop. The other drivers didn't talk to Deaver, of course, they were talking to each other when the one fellow told the story about how the Mormons back in the gold rush days hoarded up all the gold they could get and hid it in the upper rooms of the temple where nobody but the prophet and the twelve apostles could ever go. At first Deaver didn't believe him, except that Bill Horne nodded like he knew it was true, and Cal Silber said you'd never catch him messin with the Mormon temple, that's a good way to get yourself dead. The way they were talking, scared and quiet, told Deaver that they believed it, that it was true, and he knew something else, too: if anyone was going to get that gold, it was him.

  Even if it was easy to get here, that didn't mean anything. He knew how Mormons were about the temple. He'd asked around a little, but nobody'd talk about it. And nobody ever went there, either, he asked a lot of people if they ever sailed on out and looked at it, and they all got quiet and shook their heads no or changed the subject. Why should the Lake Patrol guard it, then, if everybody was too scared to go? Everybody but Deaver Teague and his two friends.

  "Real pretty," said Rain.

  Deaver woke up. The sun was just topping the mountains; it must've been light for some time. He looked where Rain was looking. It was the Moroni tower on top of the mountain above the old capitol, where they'd put the temple statue a few years back. It was bright and shiny, the old guy and his trumpet. But when the Mormons wanted that trumpet to blow, it had just stayed silent and their faith got drowned. Now Deaver knew they only hung on to it for old times' sake. Well, Deaver lived for new times.

  Lehi showed him how to use the underwater gear, and they practiced going over the side into the water a couple of times, once without the weight belts and once with. Deaver and Lehi swam like fish, of course—swimming was the main recreation that everybody could do for free. It was different with the mask and the air hose, though.

  "Hose tastes like a horse's hoof," Deaver said between dives.

  Lehi made sure Deaver's weight belt was on tight. "You're the only guy on Oquirrh Island who knows." Then he tumbled forward off the boat. Deaver went down too straight and the air tank bumped the back of his head a little, but it didn't hurt too much and he didn't drop his light, either.

  He swam along the outside of the temple, shining his light on the stones. Lots of underwater plants were rising up the sides of the temple, but it wasn't covered much yet. There was a big metal plaque right in the front of the building, about a third of the way down. THE HOUSE OF THE LORD it said. Deaver pointed it out to Lehi.

  When they got up to the boat again, Deaver asked about it. "It looked kind of goldish," he said.

  "Used to be another sign there," said Rain. "It was a little different. That one might have been gold. This one's plastic. They made it so the temple would still have a sign, I guess."

  "You sure about that?"

  "I remember when they did it."

  Finally Deaver felt confident enough to go down into the temple. They had to take off their flippers to climb into the steeple window; Rain tossed them up after. In the sunlight there was nothing spooking about the window. They sat there on the sill, water lapping at their feet, and put their fins and tanks on.

  Halfway through getting dressed, Lehi stopped. Just sat there.

  "I can't do it," he said.

  "Nothin to be scared of," said Deaver. "Come on, there's no ghosts or nothin down there."

  "I can't," said Lehi.

  "Good for you," called Rain from the boat.

  Deaver turned to look at her. "What're you talkin about!"

  "I don't think you should."

  "Then why'd you bring me here?"

  "Because you wanted to."

  Made no sense.

  "It's holy ground, Deaver," said Rain. "Lehi feels it, too. That's why he isn't going down."

  Deaver looked at Lehi.

  "It just don't feel right," said Lehi.

  "It's just stones," said Deaver.

  Lehi said nothing. Deaver put on his goggles, took a light, put the breather in his mouth, and jumped.

  Turned out the floor was only a foot and a half down. It took him completely by surprise, so he fell over and sat on his butt in eighteen inches of water. Lehi was just as surprised as he was, but then he started laughing, and Deaver laughed, too. Deaver got to his feet and started flapping around, looking for the stairway. He could hardly take a step, his flippers slowed him down so much.

  "Walk backward," said Lehi.

  "Then how am I supposed to see where I'm going?"

  "Stick your face under the water and look, chiggerhead."

  Deaver stuck his face in the water. Without the reflection of daylight on the surface, he could see fine. There was the stairway.

  He got up, looked toward Lehi. Lehi shook his head. He still wasn't going.

  "Suit yourself," said Deaver. He backed through the water to the top step. Then he put in his breathing tube and went down.

  It wasn't easy to get down the stairs. They're fine when you aren't floating, thought Deaver, but they're a pain when you keep scraping your tanks on the ceiling. Finally he figured out he could grab the railing and pull himself down. The stairs wound around and around. When they ended, a whole bunch of garbage had filled up the bottom of the stairwell, partly blocking the doorway. He swam above the garbage, which looked like scrap metal and chips of wood, and came out into a large room.

  His light didn't shine very far through the murky water, so he swam the walls, around and around, high and low. Down here the water was cold, and he swam faster to keep warm. There were rows of arched windows on both sides, with rows of circular windows above them, but they had been covered over with wood on the outside; the only light was from Deaver's flashlight. Finally, though, after a couple of times around the room and across the ceiling, he figured it was just one big room. And except for the garbage all over the floor, it was empty.

  Already he felt the deep pain of disappointment. He forced himself to ignore it. After all, it wouldn't be right out here in a big room like this, would it? There had to be a secret treasury.

  There were a couple of doors. The small one in the middle of the wall at one end was wide open. Once there must have been stairs leading up to it. Deaver swam over there and shone his light in. Just another room, smaller this time. He found a couple more rooms, but they had all been stripped, right down to the stone. Nothing at all.

  He tried examining some of the stones to look for secret doors, but he gave up pretty soon—he couldn't see well enough from the flashlight to find a thin crack even if it was there. Now the disappointment was real. As he swam along, he began to wonder if maybe the truckers hadn't known he was listening. Maybe they made it all up just so someday he'd do this. Some joke, where they wouldn't even see him make a fool of himself.

  But no, no, that couldn't be it. They believed it, all right. But he knew now what they didn't know. Whatever the Mormons did here in the old days, there wasn't any gold in the upper rooms now. So much for the future. But what the hell, he told himself, I got here, I saw it, and I'll find something else. No reason not to be cheerful about it.

  He didn't fool himself, and there was nobody else down here to fool. It was bitter. He'd spent a lot of years thinking about bars of gold or bags of it. He'd always pictured it hidden behind a curtain. He'd pull on the curtain and it would billow out in the water, and here would be the bags of gold
, and he'd just take them out and that would be it. But there weren't any curtains, weren't any hideyholes, there was nothing at all, and if he had a future, he'd have to find it somewhere else.

  He swam back to the door leading to the stairway. Now he could see the pile of garbage better, and it occurred to him to wonder how it got there. Every other room was completely empty. The garbage couldn't have been carried in by the water, because the only windows that were open were in the steeple, and they were above the water line. He swam close and picked up a piece. It was metal. They were all metal, except a few stones, and it occurred to him that this might be it after all. If you're hiding a treasure, you don't put it in bags or ingots, you leave it around looking like garbage and people leave it alone.

  He gathered up as many of the thin metal pieces as he could carry in one hand and swam carefully up the stairwell. Lehi would have to come down now and help him carry it up; they could make bags out of their shirts to carry lots of it at a time.

  He splashed out into the air and then walked backward up the last few steps and across the submerged floor. Lehi was still sitting on the sill, and now Rain was there beside him, her bare feet dangling in the water. When he got there he turned around and held out the metal in his hands. He couldn't see their faces well, because the outside of the facemask was blurry with water and kept catching sunlight.

  "You scraped your knee," said Rain.

  Deaver handed her his flashlight and now that his hand was free, he could pull his mask off and look at them. They were very serious. He held out the metal pieces toward them. "Look what I found down there."

  Lehi took a couple of metal pieces from him. Rain never took her eyes from Deaver's face.

  "It's old cans, Deaver," Lehi said quietly.

  "No it isn't," said Deaver. But he looked at his fistful of metal sheets and realized it was true. They had been cut down the side and pressed flat, but they were sure enough cans.