“I guess I do.” It wasn’t the time to say that he had been feeling horny a lot, particularly around Dana. “I’m in better shape than I thought I’d be, three days ago. When I left Catoctin Mountain I expected that the drive down to the Institute on the tractor would just about kill me, and it didn’t. Yesterday I felt fine. And last night with you was great, the best night I’ve had in years — I mean, the best night’s sleep.”
“I assumed you meant that.” She gave a coarse, low-pitched laugh that echoed off the tunnel roof and walls. “Don’t you think there’s a faint chance I would have noticed, if you’d meant anything else? You don’t have to tell me you slept well. I would have liked to talk last night, but you told me we ought to go to sleep. Then you went out like a light.”
“You’re worried about feeling well, are you? You shouldn’t be.” Art finally released Dana’s hand and waved to an invisible Seth. The walkway was straight and they had allowed themselves to fall far behind.
Now from in front of them a flashlight had turned in their direction. “I can’t think of any bad side effect that makes a person feel good. I don’t think there’s any such thing.”
“I hope you’re right. But what do we know?” Dana walked faster. “We have to find Oliver Guest and learn exactly what’s going on with us. I hope he can tell us more than the doctors at the Institute. I could never get much out of them.”
“Medical caution.” Art increased his pace to match hers. “Unless you want to call it medical cowardice. Suppose they predicted our condition, and things turned out some other way? Then they couldn’t act like gods anymore.”
“Sounds like you feel for doctors the way I feel about lawyers.”
“Could be. One of them damn near killed me. That toe-tapping double-talking buckle-shoed charlatan.” Art walked faster yet. One nice thing about feeling fitter, you had the energy for righteous indignation. “He was an arrogant little shit. If I hadn’t ignored him and gone for a second opinion right away while he was still blathering on about allergies, I wouldn’t be talking with you today.”
“I sympathize with that feeling. But what can you do? The faith healers and karmic gurus are even worse.”
They were almost up to Seth, who turned off his flashlight. Art could see him outlined against a lighter patch of wall. The tunnel made a right angle turn, and a brighter light came from there. He reached in his pocket for his compass. The water flow was southwest.
“Been enjoying yourselves, you two?” Seth sounded cynically amused. “Me, too. So are we ready for stage two? This might be a bit tricky.”
The black water flowed on through a dark opening, but the walkway terminated at a wider platform. On the right, away from the water, a rusty iron ladder stood bolted to the wall. It led up to a square vertical metal grating through which weak daylight filtered. A thin layer of snow had found its way through to the platform beneath.
Seth went to the foot of the ladder and stared up. “If that sucker has a lock on the outside, we’re in trouble.”
“It shouldn’t have. Service staff need to be able to get in and out of any access point.” Art moved past Seth and climbed three rungs of the ladder. He held on with his left hand and reached up to the grating with his right. “The real question is, has it been used recently? There’s a layer of snow behind the cover. That won’t help.”
He gripped the grating and pushed one-handed, as hard as he could.
“Is it moving?” Seth asked from below.
“Not an inch. I think it’s frozen. It’s hinged on the upper side. Dana, lend me your wrench, would you?”
He took the long tool and thrust it as hard as he could. The result was a loud clang and a shower of snow in his eyes. Art tried again. Snow again fell, more than the first time.
“I think it moved a bit.” Seth was peering up from the foot of the ladder. “Come down, and let’s try something different.”
He took the wrench from Art, climbed the ladder, and halted on the second rung.
“The two of you hold me at the legs and waist. This needs a two-handed swing.”
Dana gripped Seth’s waist. Art reached higher, to support his lower back.
“Hold tight and try to catch me if I fall off. I’m not gonna hold anythin’ back.” Seth, turning sideways, gave an explosive grunt and rammed the wrench against the bottom of the grating.
“Any good?” Art again had a face full of snow.
“Nah. Nothing. Move, you mother, move.” The wrench thrust out, again and again, while Seth grunted and cursed. At the fifth effort he moved higher on the ladder and said, “Watch out below. I’m dropping the wrench.”
Art and Dana stepped quickly out of the way. A moment later came Seth’s gasp of triumph. “Yeah, baby. Here we go.”
He was pushing the grating, turning it upward on its hinges and climbing higher on the ladder. Finally he could scramble out through the square opening. He peered down at them.
“Come join me. Let’s see if we know where we are and where we go from here.”
Holding the heavy wrench in one hand, Art climbed awkwardly after Dana. Outside, he peered at the world through half-closed eyes. Daylight was blindingly bright after the gloom of the storm drains. He did not know how long they had been underground, but judging from the position of the sun in the cloudy sky it was early afternoon. The snow had tailed away to nothing.
Art surveyed the cold, still, and silent landscape. He stood at the foot of a bank covered with shrubs and small trees. Directly in front, in what he judged was roughly south, he saw a gleam of dull gray. Beyond that lay taller trees and, farther off, another and larger body of water.
“Well?” Dana said. She and Seth were staring expectantly at Art. “This is your stamping ground, not ours. What do you make of it, stout Cortez? Where are we?”
Art was pulling out a map with fingers that still trembled from the effort to open the storm drain cover.
“I’m pretty sure we are right here.” He unfolded the map and placed his finger at a point on the bottom left quadrant. “Near a place called Cabin John. The water you see right in front of us is the C O Canal — the Chesapeake and Ohio. We’re at a spillway into it. You can’t see the towpath on the other side because of the snow, but it runs all the way down into Georgetown. We couldn’t use the canal, though, even if we had a boat, because it has locks all the way down, and you can’t operate them without power. Beyond the evergreens is the Potomac River. Downstream is to the left. There are rapids, but the bad ones are upriver toward Great Falls.”
“Boats?” Seth asked.
“I don’t know if we’ll find any close to here. There’s a big boathouse downstream, on this side of the river. But it’s about three miles away. And they rent boats that you row, not boats with motors.”
“Renting ain’t what we got in mind today. We’ll borrow. But, boy, you weren’t kidding. You really know this area.”
“I guess I do.” As Art replied he was taken by a memory, thirty and more years old, of a warm afternoon when he and Mary had walked the towpath together, gathering wild hollyhocks and sweet-smelling phlox from close to the water’s edge. Two small boys were ahead of them, uncomfortably close to the quiet canal. Mary, worried not at all about Art teetering on the steep bank and in need of a steadying hand, had rushed off after the children. The summer memory was so piercing and so bittersweet that his eyes rejected today’s snow and its leaden reflection in the canal.
“Art?” Dana tugged at his sleeve. More sensitive than Seth, she had caught something new in his expression. “Do you need to rest?”