The Dead Republic Read Online Free PDF Page A

edges. The cover was a painting of a sailor, some sort of an officer, with white gloves and binoculars. He was a coastguard; the badge was in a bottom corner. He held onto the rail of a boat and there was an iceberg right behind his head.
    I looked at Meta Sterne.
    —You’ll love it, she said.
    She looked at her notes.
    —Your wife’s first name, she said.—I didn’t catch it.
    —She didn’t have one, I told her.
    —No?
    —No.
    Ford shouted.
    —Give me the wind!
    I heard a motor to my right, and a giant propeller I hadn’t noticed turned reluctantly, then became one noise, and sand rushed across more sand, and men with cloths across their faces pushed against the wind, pushed the sand back onto the desert with wide brushes.
    I put my weight on the leg; I gripped both arms of the canvas chair and stood up.
    There was another man in front of me. He was tall, and thin, in another of those blue uniforms. He had a careful moustache and a tiny piece of beard right under his bottom lip. He wasn’t smiling but there was something relaxed and honest about the way he stood. His eyes - I’d seen them before. They reminded me of someone I’d once known.
    —How are you? he said.
    He had to shout.
    —Grand, I shouted back.
    —Good, he said.—I’m glad to hear that.
    He held out his hand. It took me a while to cop on: he wanted me to shake it. It was a long time since I’d done that. His hand was the size of my own, dry and strong.
    He let go.
    —We never got a chance to do that the last time we met, he said.
    —No.
    I heard Ford roar.
    —Where’s Hank?
    —Good to see you looking so well, said the man in front of me. He turned, and walked back across the sand.
    —Who’s that? I asked Meta Sterne.
    —That’s Henry Fonda, she said.—Hank.
    —He’s the fella that found me.
    —That’s right.
    He’d been Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine . He’d walked off the set for a slash and found me dead in the heart of Monument Valley.
    But that wasn’t why I knew him.
     
     
     
    I looked in the mirror. The Saturday Evening Post was on the bed, with the coastguard and his iceberg. TRIAL BY WATER . I still hadn’t opened it. The window shade was down; the sun was a dull square patch behind me.
    I looked back at the old man. I made him move his mouth. I pushed the face closer to the glass. The skin was dry; the old lad’s white beard was breaking through. I closed one eye. I could see the skin clearly. The holes, and grey creases.
    It was the 7th of November, 1948. I was forty-seven. But the date on the Saturday Evening Post was the 11th of February, 1933. That made me thirty-one.
    No, it fuckin’ didn’t. The pages were dry and cracking, like my skin.
    I looked at my face again. The 7th of November, 1948. The next day would be the 8th. I’d look in the mirror and I’d see the same face. I’d know who I was looking at.
    I stood back and looked again.
    The eyes. I knew where I’d seen them before. On Henry Fonda. His eyes had reminded me of someone I once knew. Henry Smart. I went back into the glass. I stared. The eyes were old and worn. But they were still blue. Still killers.
     
     
     
    —Did you read that story yet?
    —No.
    —You can read.
    —I know I can read.
    We were in a room with a big desk and three chairs. Layers of cigar smoke had been drifting under the ceiling for years. There were pictures, big photographs from films - horses and hats. Henry Fonda and other people I hadn’t seen.
    It was the 27th of November.
    Ford was behind the desk. There was no doubting that. My side looked exactly like his but he was the man behind it, facing the door. There was a third chair, and a man sitting in it. He had a handful of paper, and a pen that was too big for the hand holding it. Ford didn’t introduce us and I didn’t introduce myself.
    Meta Sterne was in another room, behind me. The door was open and I knew she’d be listening and taking her own notes.
    —So, said Ford.—Why haven’t you read