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Thoughts

     
     
     
     
     
    Five minutes after we got back to the country house, Jacob announced he had news: “Alex, I’ve located Basil.” Tuttle’s son.
    “Can you put me through to him, Jacob?”
    “Negative. He does not have a link.”
    “No code? Nothing at all?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Where does he live?”
    “Portsboro. Near Lake Vanderbolt.”
    “All right. We’ll be home shortly. Thanks, Jacob.”
    “No residential address is listed for him, either.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Ground mail goes to the distribution center. I guess he picks it up there.”
    Alex made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Fortunately, Portsboro’s not far. You want to come?”
    I looked out at the windblown hills below. “Sure,” I said. “This time of year, I love the north country. All that snow—”
     
    Basil had gone in a different direction from his father. He’d started medical school but never completed his studies. The few who’d written about Sunset Tuttle had little to say about Basil. He’d been married briefly. No known children. Had worked at several jobs before simply walking away to embrace a life of leisure, financed in part by state security, and probably more so by his father.
    After Sunset died, Basil had dropped out of sight. At the time, he would have been in his late twenties.
    We let Audree know where we could be reached and took the Moonlight Line north in the morning. Alex has always had a child’s fascination for trains. He can sit for hours, staring out the window at the passing scenery. Headed north, though, the train passes through farming country. Experts had for centuries been predicting the end of farms, as they had of trains. But both lived on. It appears now there will always be a market for foods produced the old-fashioned way, just as there will be for the sheer practicality and economy of the train. And I’ll confess that there’s something reassuring in the knowledge they’ll probably always be with us.
    In time, the farms gave way to open forest. We climbed mountains, crossed rivers, navigated gorges, and rolled through tunnels. At Carpathia, we had to change trains. We wandered through the gift shop for an hour while snow began to fall. Alex picked up a tee shirt for Audree. It had a picture of the train on it with the logo ALL THE WAY. “I’m not sure I can see her wearing it,” I said.
    He smiled. “It’s all a matter of timing.”
    Then we were on our way again, riding the Silver Star, winding through mountains that rose ever higher. By early evening we arrived in Packwood. There we rented a skimmer and crossed a hundred kilometers over snow-packed forest to Portsboro, population eleven hundred.
    We landed in a parking area on the edge of town, got into our jackets, and climbed out. The cold air felt solid. Like a wall. I turned up the heat in my jacket, and we trudged through the snow, crossed a street, turned a corner, and went into Will’s Café. It was midafternoon, and the place was empty except for three women at one table and a chess game at another. We ordered sandwiches and hot chocolate and asked the waiter, then one of the customers, and finally the owner where Basil Tuttle lived. Nobody seemed to know. They knew he lived in the town, but nobody had any idea where he could be found. “Comes in once in a while,” the owner said. “But that’s all I’ve got.”
    One of the women waved in the general direction of the western horizon and said he “lives out there somewhere.” We left Will’s, went down to the next corner, and tried Mary’s Bar & Grill.
    This time we found someone. Her name was Betty Ann Jones. “I know him,” she said, while the other three people at her table shook their heads disapprovingly. She laughed and raised a hand to reassure them. “Basil likes to be left alone. Are you bill collectors or police or something? Why do you want to see him?”
    “We’re working on a history project,” Alex said. “We’re writing a