Rhythmic sounds came from the other side of the cabin, so he walked around to the front to find Daddy Lomax on a bluff looking out over the valley and the river far below.
He must have been seventy-five, but despite Sandy’s concern, he looked as if he beat up grizzly bears for a hobby. An inch over six feet, in soiled jeans and a plaid shirt, the old scientist was splitting logs with the ease of one slicing bread.
Snow-white hair hung to his shoulders, and a stubble of ivory whiskers rimmed his chin. More white curls spilled from the V of his shirt, and he seemed to feel no cold, although Terry Martin was glad for his quilted parka.
“Found it then? Heard you coming,” said Lomax, and split one last log with a single swing. Then he laid down the ax and came over to his visitor. They shook hands; Lomax gestured to a nearby log and sat down on one himself.
“Dr. Martin, is it?”
“Er, yes.”
“From England?”
“Yes.”
Lomax reached into his top pocket, withdrew a pouch of tobacco and some rice paper, and began to roll a cigarette.
“Not politically correct, are you?” Lomax asked.
“No, I don’t think so.”
Lomax grunted in apparent approval.
“Had a politically correct doctor. Always yellin’ at me to stop smoking.”
Martin noted the past tense.
“I suppose you left him?”
“Nope, he left me. Died last week. Fifty-six. Stress. What brings you up here?”
Martin fumbled in his attaché case.
“I ought to apologize at the outset. It’s probably a waste of your time and mine. I just wondered if you’d glance at this.”
Lomax took the proffered photograph and stared at it.
“You really from England?”
“Yes.”
“Helluva long way to come to show me this.”
“You recognize it?”
“Ought to. Spent five years of my life working there.”
Martin’s mouth dropped open in shock.
“You’ve actually been there?”
“Lived there for five years.”
“At Tarmiya?”
“Where the hell’s that? This is Oak Ridge.”
Martin swallowed several times.