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He Bought an Abandoned Desert Pyramid for $76—Its Cellar Hid a Heartbreaking Family Vault — Transcript

by The Forgotten Acre Farm · 24,597 words · 4,231 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Lightning splits the sky over 40 miles
0:02of sand.
0:03And for one white second in a bowl where
0:06every map swears there is nothing, a
0:08pyramid rises out of a ring of dead
0:10palms.
0:11Rain falls in ropes.
0:13Water pours off the roof in silver
0:15sheets.
0:17The sunken courtyard below begins to
0:19fill. On the far ridge, two headlights
0:22crawl downward. Tires chew wet sand.
0:26On the passenger seat, a red gas can
0:28rocks with every bump.
0:30The man behind the wheel is 72 years
0:33old, and he has come to burn something
0:35he has spent most of his life hiding.
0:38Across the dark, a young man runs.
0:41Worn jacket, rolled mat,
0:44an old folding knife in his fist
0:46scratched with two letters that aren't
0:47his. Somewhere beneath that pyramid,
0:50behind a wall that sounds hollow as a
0:51drum,
0:53something has been waiting 14 years.
0:55The headlights stop. The water keeps
0:57rising.
0:58He opens the knife.
1:00The sun was not up yet,
1:02but the sky had started thinking about
1:04it. A thin seam of gold lay along the
1:06far mountains.
1:08Everything else was the color of cold
1:10ashes.
1:11And on top of the highest dune for 5
1:13miles in any direction, a young man
1:15stood perfectly still. You could only
1:17see his back. Thick, dark brown hair,
1:20a little too long, curling messily over
1:23the collar of a faded olive brown canvas
1:25jacket. The hood bunched soft around his
1:28neck. A gray sweatshirt underneath.
1:31Because March nights in the California
1:33desert do not read the travel brochures.
1:36Dark olive cargo pants dusted pale to
1:38the knee.
1:39And on his back, a big worn brown canvas
1:42backpack.
1:44Two buckled pockets on the front.
1:47A rolled sleeping mat strapped
1:48underneath it like a promise that he
1:50would be sleeping somewhere tonight. He
1:52just didn't know where yet.
1:54His right hand hung loose at his side.
1:57Folded once between two fingers was a
1:59single dollar bill.
2:00A scruffy little dog leaned against his
2:03boot,
2:04tan and white, one ear up,
2:07one ear flopped, and below them,
2:10down in the bowl between the dunes,
2:12in a spot where every map in Imperial
2:14County swore there was nothing but sand,
2:17stood a pyramid.
2:20He had $77 to his name.
2:23He was about to spend 76 of them, and
2:25under that pyramid, behind a cellar wall
2:27that sounded hollow as a drum,
2:30a passage led straight to a family
2:32vault.
2:33Inside it was a promise an old man had
2:35kept for 32 years,
2:38and the only way home from a debt Ansel
2:40Crane had been carrying for two long
2:42years.
2:44It all started with a dog that came back
2:46wet. Sabo Sand and Rail sat on the
2:48shoulder of Highway 78 half an hour from
2:51anything that called itself a town. A
2:54gravel lot, a tin-roofed shop, two rusty
2:58shipping containers, a soda machine that
3:00kept your money about half the time,
3:03and 19 dune buggies with roll cages and
3:05paddle tires, which men from San Diego
3:08rented on the weekends so they could
3:10launch themselves off a sand hill at 40
3:13miles an hour and land on their wallets.
3:16Ansel washed them, all 19,
3:19every Sunday night and every Monday
3:21morning.
3:22Because a sand rail that comes back from
3:24the Glamis Dunes does not come back
3:26dirty.
3:27It comes back full.
3:29Sand in the seat rails, sand in the air
3:31filters,
3:32sand packed into places a reasonable man
3:35would not believe a machine had places.
3:38And the day you stop paying attention is
3:40the day you miss a cracked weld, and
3:43somebody's husband goes home in a
3:44helicopter. Marlene Sabo owned the lot.
3:4866 years old, 5 ft 1,
3:51built like a fire hydrant with opinions.
3:54She'd spent 30 years as a diesel
3:56mechanic for a trucking outfit out of
3:58Barstow,
3:59and she could hear a bad wheel bearing
4:01from across the yard over the roar of a
4:02generator.
4:04She wore the same sun-bleached ball cap
4:06every day.
4:07She called every man under 50 slick,
4:10and she paid in cash on Fridays exactly
4:13what she'd promised, not $1 more.
4:16"You missed a spot, slick." He looked.
4:20He had not missed a spot.
4:23"Which spot?"
4:24"Whichever one I find Monday."
4:27She walked off with her coffee.
4:30He went back to the spot that did not
4:31exist and washed it again.
4:34Because she wasn't wrong. Not about the
4:36spot. About him.
4:39He'd been missing spots his whole life.
4:41He was just finally old enough to go
4:43back and wash them. If you'd stood
4:45beside him that March morning, you'd
4:47have seen a face that looked older than
4:4927 and younger than it felt.
4:53A square, stubborn jaw under dark
4:55stubble he kept meaning to shave.
4:58Deep-set hazel eyes that went green in
5:00hard sunlight and brown in the shade.
5:03A thin, white scar cutting straight
5:05through his left eyebrow.
5:07A small, dark mole just under his right
5:10ear.
5:11He was 6-ft tall and too thin for it,
5:14and lately his shoulders had started
5:15curling forward.
5:17Just a little. The way they do on men
5:20who have spent a long time apologizing
5:22without ever opening their mouths. But
5:24people noticed his hands. Long fingers.
5:28Hard palms.
5:29Calluses in all the places a
5:31stonemason's grandson ought to have
5:33them.
5:34And at the base of his left thumb, a
5:36pale crescent of scar from the first
5:38afternoon he ever held the knife.
5:41The knife lived in his right cargo
5:43pocket.
5:44He touched it the way some men touch a
5:46wallet
5:47or a cross. The dog had showed up in
5:50January. She came out of the creosote
5:52one evening while Ansel was eating a gas
5:54station burrito on an upside down
5:57bucket.
5:58Ribs like a washboard.
6:00A face like a mop that had seen some
6:02things.
6:03She sat 10 ft away and did not beg.
6:07She just looked at the burrito, then at
6:09him, then at the burrito.
6:12He tore it in half. That was the whole
6:14contract. He named her Chola after the
6:17cactus.
6:18Because a chola grabs onto you the
6:20second you brush past it and you will
6:22not get it off without pliers and a
6:24prayer.
6:25Marlene had watched the whole thing from
6:27the shop door with her arms folded.
6:29That dog eats better than you do.
6:32That dog's smarter than I am.
6:34Low bar slick. The next morning there
6:36was a 40 lb bag of dog food beside his
6:39container.
6:40No note. Marlene did not do notes. She
6:43did dog food.
6:45And Friday envelopes.
6:47And once when he came down with a fever
6:50in February, a can of chicken soup left
6:52on his step with the lid already peeled
6:54back.
6:55Because she knew he didn't own a can
6:57opener.
6:59Because she noticed things.
7:01And then pretended she hadn't. On the
7:03first Friday of every month, he rode
7:05into Brawley with Marlene on her parts
7:07run.
7:09His envelope of cash on his knee and
7:11Chola's chin on his thigh.
7:14At the post office, he bought one money
7:16order. $25.
7:19Pay to the order of Mrs. Opal Crane.
7:21El Centro, California.
7:23He knew the address the way you know
7:25your own heartbeat. The first month he'd
7:27written a note to go with it. Three
7:29pages, front and back.
7:32He read it over in the parking lot and
7:34tore it into very small pieces because
7:36every sentence in it started with the
7:38word I.
7:39And she didn't need to hear about him.
7:41She needed to see something come in her
7:43mailbox that wasn't a bill.
7:45So, no note, just the money order every
7:48month. 14 months now. She had never
7:51written back, but she had never sent one
7:53back, either. It was a thin rope. He
7:56held onto it anyway. It was a Wednesday
7:58in March when the dog came back wet.
8:0081°.
8:02Breezy.
8:03The kind of March afternoon that makes
8:05snowbirds from Minnesota weep with
8:07gratitude and buy property they'll
8:09regret by July.
8:11For a week, Chola had been disappearing.
8:14Every day around 2:00, she'd get up from
8:16her strip of shade under container two,
8:19shake herself and trot off north,
8:21straight into the dunes.
8:23And every evening around 6:00, she'd
8:25come trotting back.
8:27Dusty, tired, smug.
8:31Ansel had decided she had a boyfriend.
8:33That Wednesday, she came back soaked to
8:35the shoulders.
8:36Not damp, soaked. Her belly fur hanging
8:39in dripping points. Something green and
8:42slimy packed between her toes.
8:44She smelled like a pond, like a ditch in
8:47July,
8:48like the bottom of a flower vase nobody
8:50had changed in a month.
8:52She trotted straight up to Marlene, who
8:54was standing at the shop door with a
8:56clipboard.
8:57And she shook. Marlene stood very still.
9:01Dripping.
9:02Then she held out the clipboard.
9:05There was a perfect wet paw print on
9:07somebody's rental agreement.
9:09Green around the edges.
9:11Did that dog go swimming?
9:13There's nowhere to swim.
9:16Then you explain this.
9:18Ansel knelt and spread Chola's toes
9:20apart with his thumb.
9:22Algae.
9:23The long, stringy kind that only grows
9:26in standing water.
9:27Water that has been sitting under the
9:29sun for a very long time.
9:32He looked north. There was nothing
9:34north. That was the whole point of
9:36north.
9:37North of the highway was the wild heart
9:39of the Algodones Dunes. Some of the
9:42biggest dunes in North America.
9:44Hills 300 ft tall that crept a few feet
9:47every year like slow sleepy animals.
9:50No lakes, no creeks, no ranches, no
9:53water.
9:54Everybody knew that. Except the dog.
9:58Marlene's voice came from behind him.
10:00Flat as a tire iron.
10:03Don't.
10:04Don't what? Whatever you're thinking.
10:06People go walking out there and search
10:09and rescue finds them a week later. Or
10:11the buzzards find them first.
10:14I'm not going out there.
10:17She lowered her sunglasses and looked at
10:19him over the top of them.
10:20He kept scratching the dog's ears. Very
10:23innocently. Like a man with nothing
10:26whatsoever on his mind.
10:28Not at 2:00 in the afternoon anyway. I'm
10:31not stupid. I'll go at 4:00.
10:34In the afternoon.
10:36In the morning. She opened her mouth.
10:38Shut it.
10:40Then she jabbed the clipboard at him
10:42like a sword and laid down the law.
10:44One gallon of water for every 2 hours.
10:48A hat.
10:49He'd tell her exactly which way he went.
10:52And if he wasn't back by noon, she was
10:54calling the sheriff and telling him
10:55Ansel owed her money.
10:57He pointed out that he didn't owe her
10:59money.
11:00She pointed out that he would. If they
11:02had to come get him.
11:04That night he didn't sleep. He lay on
11:06the cot in container two and listened to
11:09the wind ticking sand against the metal
11:11walls.
11:12And he did the thing he had promised his
11:14sponsor he would stop doing. He made a
11:17story.
11:18Because there's a special kind of
11:20trouble that lives in the brain of a
11:21gambler. People think it's greed. It
11:24isn't. It's hope. It's the part of you
11:27that sees a wet dog in the desert and
11:29thinks there's something out there.
11:31Something hidden.
11:33Something for me.
11:34And if I just go and look, everything
11:36changes. He knew that voice.
11:39He knew exactly where it had taken him
11:41the last time he listened.
11:44He'd slept in a lot of places since
11:46then.
11:47A 24-hour laundromat in Brawley where
11:49dryer number six ran warm even when it
11:52was off.
11:53And the tired owner let him stay as long
11:55as he matched up the socks in the lost
11:57and found basket every night.
12:00For 3 months, he was the finest sock
12:03matcher in Imperial County. Then the
12:05place changed hands. The new owners had
12:08cameras and opinions. There was a summer
12:11after that he didn't like to talk about.
12:14Then a broken-down church bus behind the
12:16little brick church in Holtville with go
12:18ye therefore painted down the side and a
12:20folding door that didn't latch. He slept
12:22on the back bench for nine nights.
12:25On the 10th morning, somebody knocked on
12:27the window by his head and he sat up so
12:29fast he cracked his skull on the luggage
12:31rack. A small white-haired woman stood
12:33outside in a cardigan the color of
12:35oatmeal.
12:37She was holding a thermos.
12:39She had the face of a kind librarian who
12:41would nevertheless absolutely charge you
12:43a late fee.
12:45Now then, you must be the reason that
12:47door keeps swinging.
12:49He started grabbing his things. She held
12:51the thermos up like a crossing guard
12:53sign.
12:54Coffee first, shame later. I'm Pearl.
12:57Pearl Austerander was 74, widowed 11
13:01years.
13:02She ran the food pantry on Tuesdays and
13:04the coffee on Sundays and as far as
13:06Ansel could tell, most of Holtville the
13:09rest of the week.
13:11She brought him coffee every morning for
13:133 weeks and never once asked his story.
13:17When he finally wanted to know why not,
13:19she screwed the lid back on the thermos
13:21and explained that the Lord already knew
13:23it.
13:24And she was nosy.
13:26But she wasn't that nosy. When the
13:28deacons voted to tow the bus, it was
13:30Pearl who drove him out to a gravel lot
13:32on Highway 78 and told Marlene Sabo he
13:34was a good worker.
13:36She didn't actually know that.
13:38She told her anyway.
13:39Which is its own kind of faith.
13:41He hadn't always slept in metal boxes.
13:44He grew up in a small yellow stucco
13:46house on Pepper Drive in El Centro with
13:49a lemon tree out back and a porch out
13:51front that his grandfather had built out
13:53of fieldstone with his own two hands.
13:56His parents had been a short chapter.
13:58His grandparents were the whole book.
14:00Pop was Wade Crane, stonemason, 50 years
14:04of rock walls and chimneys and church
14:06steps all over the Imperial Valley.
14:08Forearms like fence posts, a voice like
14:11gravel being stirred in a bucket.
14:14He believed you could tell everything
14:15about a man by the way he set a
14:17cornerstone.
14:18"Stone tells you where it wants to
14:20break," he liked to say.
14:22"You just have to shut up long enough to
14:24listen." Nana was Opal.
14:2731 years running the cafeteria at the
14:29middle school on the east side of town,
14:31feeding 800 children a day on a budget
14:34that would make an accountant cry. She
14:36spoke mostly in proverbs and half of
14:39them she'd made up. "A burnt biscuit
14:41still fills a belly." "You can't hurry a
14:43pot roast or a grudge." And whenever she
14:45meant business, she used all three of
14:48his names.
14:49Ansel Wade Crane.
14:51A boy could tell exactly how much
14:53trouble he was in by how far apart she
14:55spaced them. Ansel spent his summers
14:58carrying Pop's stones. And on his 13th
15:00birthday, Pop gave him the knife.
15:03It was old.
15:04Older than Pop, maybe.
15:07A folding knife with a curved blade.
15:09Brass bolsters worn smooth as a creek
15:12pebble and a handle of dark desert wood
15:14gone nearly black from a lifetime of
15:16hands.
15:17It came in a canvas sheath Pop had
15:19stitched himself.
15:22Pop pressed it into his palm and folded
15:23his fingers closed around it. A good
15:25knife is worth more than a bad friend
15:28and it asks a whole lot less of you.
15:31There were two letters scratched into
15:32the brass.
15:34A T, thin and shaky.
15:36Done with the point of a nail.
15:39When Ansel wanted to know whose they
15:41were, Pop looked away.
15:43Out past the lemon tree.
15:45Out toward the east where the green of
15:47the valley ran out and the sand began.
15:50A man who taught me was all Pop gave
15:52him.
15:53Long story. Ask me when you're older. He
15:55never did ask.
15:57That's the thing about older.
15:59You always think you'll get there with
16:00time to spare.
16:0310 minutes later he sliced the base of
16:05his own thumb open.
16:07Pop laughed out loud, wrapped it in a
16:09shop rag and told him every good knife
16:11takes one payment up front.
16:14But Pop told him other stories.
16:16On the porch at night with the swamp
16:18cooler rattling and the moths going
16:20crazy around the bulb.
16:21His favorite was the pyramid man. Once
16:23upon a time there was a man who could
16:25make stone do anything.
16:27Make it stand straight in a windstorm.
16:30Make it hold water. Make it ring like a
16:32bell if you hit it right.
16:34And this man had a wife who wanted more
16:36than anything in the world to see the
16:38pyramids of Egypt.
16:40She had a picture of them torn out of a
16:42magazine and taped inside her kitchen
16:44cupboard.
16:46Every morning she opened that cupboard
16:47to get her coffee cup.
16:49And every morning there was Egypt. But
16:51they were not rich people and Egypt is
16:54very far away. So the pyramid man
16:57brought Egypt home.
16:59Built her a pyramid out past the dunes
17:02where nobody'd bother her.
17:04Nana would call through the screen door
17:05for Wade to quit filling that boy's
17:07head.
17:08And Pop would call back that the boy's
17:10head had room. Ansel believed in this
17:12pyramid man until he was about 10.
17:15Then he filed it away with Pop's other
17:17tales. The Marine he'd arm wrestled in
17:19Calexico for a jar of pickled eggs.
17:22The roadrunner that stole a sandwich off
17:24a wall and came back the next day for
17:26the chips. At 14, a granite chip jumped
17:28off his chisel and split his eyebrow
17:30open.
17:32He bled all over a church step in Sealy.
17:35Pop drove him to urgent care with a bag
17:37of frozen peas pressed to his face and
17:39made him laugh the whole way so he
17:41wouldn't cry.
17:42First stonemason's mark.
17:45Now he was official.
17:47Pop's kidneys started failing when Ansel
17:49was 22. Dialysis, three times a week.
17:54Four hours a session.
17:56Ansel left community college, took the
17:58night shift at a stone yard cutting
18:00countertops and grave markers, and spent
18:02his days in a vinyl chair beside Pop at
18:04the clinic doing crossword puzzles.
18:08Pop was terrible at them.
18:10He wrote pyramid into any seven-letter
18:12space just to make Ansel groan. Two
18:14years of that.
18:16Then hospice. Then a morning in April
18:18when the house was very quiet and Nana
18:20sat at the kitchen table with both hands
18:22pressed flat on the oilcloth.
18:25Like she was trying to keep the table
18:27from floating away.
18:29After the funeral, the envelopes came.
18:32The hospital, the specialists, the
18:35ambulance company.
18:37A company that had bought the debt from
18:39another company.
18:41Final notice, some of them said. They
18:43were never final.
18:44There was always another one behind it.
18:46Nana's eyes had been failing for a
18:48while.
18:49Macular degeneration.
18:52She could still read the newspaper with
18:53the big magnifying glass she wore on a
18:55cord around her neck, but bank
18:57statements were small print and long
18:59numbers.
19:00So that summer she went to the bank and
19:02signed a power of attorney so Ansel
19:04could handle the bills.
19:06In the parking lot, she squinted up at
19:08him and told him he was the man of the
19:10house now. Heaven help them both.
19:13She meant it as a joke, mostly. At 2:00
19:16one morning at the kitchen table, he
19:18typed a question into his phone.
19:20Can a widow have to pay her husband's
19:22medical bills in California?
19:24California, it turned out, is a
19:26community property state. In some cases,
19:28yes.
19:29She could be on the hook.
19:32And at 2:00 in the morning, he could
19:33already see a man in a polo shirt
19:35standing on Pop's fieldstone porch with
19:37a clipboard.
19:39So, when a guy at the stone yard showed
19:40him the app, Ansel listened. The guy's
19:43name doesn't matter. A friendly guy with
19:45a big laugh and a new truck.
19:47Sports betting was easy money, according
19:49to the guy, if you were smart about it.
19:51And Ansel was smart. The only catch was
19:54that California hadn't legalized it.
19:56Arizona had, 60 miles away. So, one
19:59Friday night in August, Ansel drove east
20:02on Interstate 8 across the Colorado
20:04River into Yuma, pulled into a gas
20:07station lot, and put $40 on a baseball
20:10game between two teams he couldn't have
20:12named a week before.
20:15He won $380.
20:18And that was the worst thing that ever
20:19happened to him. Because now he knew.
20:22Now, there was a door in the wall. The
20:24bills on one side, $380 on the other.
20:28All he had to do was walk through it
20:29enough times.
20:31Twice a week, then four times,
20:33then every night he wasn't working. He
20:36told Nana he'd picked up overtime.
20:38He learned exactly how far across the
20:40river he had to drive before his phone
20:42would let him play.
20:44He lost the winnings in a week, then his
20:46savings, then a credit card, then
20:48another one. And every single time, the
20:50voice said the same thing.
20:53Just get back to even.
20:56Even.
20:58Like a level line across a fresh wall.
21:01Like the whole world could be made
21:02straight again with one good night.
21:05He never got back to even.
21:07Nobody does.
21:09That's not how the math is built. Pop
21:11and Nana had a savings account they'd
21:13been feeding since 1975.
21:16$20 here, 50 there.
21:19Pop called it the coffee can because for
21:2110 years it actually had been a red
21:23coffee can on the top shelf of the
21:25pantry until Nana read in a magazine
21:27that burglars always check the coffee
21:29can.
21:30$28,000.
21:32Everything they had besides the house.
21:35Ansel had the password. Ansel had the
21:38power of attorney.
21:39And Ansel had the voice.
21:42This is how you save the house.
21:45Just this once.
21:47Just enough to win it back and pay the
21:48hospital and nobody ever has to know.
21:52It took him 5 months to empty it.
21:55He told himself it was a loan.
21:58He kept a spreadsheet on his phone with
22:00columns for what he'd taken and what
22:02he'd pay back and when.
22:04The spreadsheet was very neat.
22:07The spreadsheet was a lie with grid
22:09lines.
22:10In December the property tax came due.
22:13Nana always paid it in person at the
22:15county treasurer's office with a check
22:17written in her best cafeteria manager
22:20handwriting because some things a person
22:22ought to look in the eye.
22:24The check bounced.
22:26He came home from a parking lot in Yuma
22:28at 2:00 in the morning and every light
22:31in the house was on. She was at the
22:33kitchen table. The oilcloth, the
22:36magnifying glass, the bank letter flat
22:39in front of her.
22:40And beside it the statements he'd shoved
22:42into the drawer under the toaster.
22:44All 5 months. Every transfer. She didn't
22:48yell.
22:49He would have given anything for her to
22:51yell.
22:52She folded the letter in half, then in
22:54half again. Square corners. The way
22:57she'd folded napkins for 800 children a
23:00a
23:01"How much is left?
23:03He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
23:05She looked up at him with her cloudy
23:07eyes. She could barely see his face
23:09across the kitchen. She looked anyway.
23:12Ansel Wade Crane, how much?
23:16None.
23:17It came out of him like something
23:19cracking.
23:20She nodded. Once. Small. Like she'd been
23:23told the time. She wasn't calling
23:25anybody.
23:27His grandfather wouldn't want his name
23:28in the paper. And she would not have the
23:31neighbors watching him leave her house
23:32in handcuffs.
23:35He stood in that kitchen at 25 years old
23:38and cried like a little boy, and she
23:40didn't get up.
23:42She pressed the folded letter flat with
23:44both hands until her voice was steady
23:46enough to use.
23:48But you can't stay here. Come home when
23:51I can trust you.
23:52He packed the brown canvas backpack that
23:54night.
23:55Two pairs of pants, four shirts, a gray
23:58sweatshirt, a toothbrush, Pop's knife.
24:03He walked out past the fieldstone porch
24:05at 4:00 in the morning.
24:07The porch light was still on.
24:09He never found out if she'd left it on
24:11for him or just forgotten.
24:13Two weeks later, he stood in a pawn shop
24:15in Yuma with Pop's knife in his hand.
24:18A sleepy man behind the register looked
24:20at it for about 4 seconds.
24:2240. Fine. He walked out with two 20s,
24:25sat in his truck, and bet them on the
24:27first quarter of a basketball game.
24:30He lost them in 9 minutes.
24:329 minutes.
24:34For the knife that had taken its payment
24:36up front in blood when he was 13 years
24:38old.
24:39He sat in the truck until the sun came
24:41up.
24:42And somewhere around dawn, a thought
24:44came into his head so clear and so quiet
24:46it was like somebody had spoken it from
24:48the passenger seat. You are going to
24:50lose everything. Or you are going to
24:52stop. There is no third thing.
24:55The meeting was in a church basement on
24:574th Avenue.
24:58Gamblers Anonymous, Tuesday nights,
25:01folding chairs,
25:03bad coffee in a steel urn,
25:05a hand-lettered sign on the cinder block
25:07wall.
25:09The first bet is the only one you can
25:11refuse. The first man who talked to him
25:13was Clyde Pruitt, 63, 6'4, wide as a
25:17refrigerator, a great ponytail, and a
25:19long-haul trucker's tan on exactly one
25:21arm.
25:22Two marriages and a house in Tucson
25:24gambled away.
25:2611 years clean.
25:28He spoke almost entirely in CB radio,
25:30and he dropped into the folding chair
25:32beside Ansel so hard the legs
25:33complained.
25:35"New guy, what's your 20?" "My what?"
25:37"Your location, brother. Not where
25:39you're sitting. Where are you?" Ansel
25:40looked at his own boots for a long time.
25:43"Bottom."
25:44Clyde nodded slowly, like a man who had
25:47been there and still remembered the
25:48furniture.
25:50The good news about the bottom, he told
25:51Ansel, was that the floor's solid. "You
25:54can push off it." Clyde became his
25:56sponsor.
25:57He called from truck stops in Amarillo
25:59and Flagstaff and Barstow at 6:00 in the
26:01morning and 11:00 at night.
26:04He never asked whether Ansel had
26:05gambled.
26:06He wanted to know what he'd eaten, where
26:09he'd slept, whether he'd called his
26:11grandmother.
26:12The answer to that last one was always
26:14no, and Clyde would just promise to ask
26:17again tomorrow. The truck got
26:19repossessed in January. The stone yard
26:21let him go in February. He lost the
26:24apartment in March. He stopped having an
26:26address.
26:27He started having a backpack.
26:29But the last paycheck from the stone
26:31yard went straight to the pawn shop in
26:33Yuma.
26:34The knife was still there, lying on a
26:36square of faded green felt.
26:38$52 with interest. He counted it out in
26:41fives and ones, and the sleepy man
26:43behind the register looked at him a
26:45little differently than he had the first
26:46time. $1 was left over.
26:49He folded it once,
26:51neat, square,
26:54the way Nana folded things.
26:56He put it in his shirt pocket and never
26:58spent it.
26:59Not a lucky charm.
27:01He was done with luck.
27:03A receipt.
27:05Proof that there was at least $1 in the
27:07world that had stayed exactly where he
27:08put it.
27:09That was 13 months ago.
27:12Now on the cot in container two, he took
27:14that dollar out and held it in the dark.
27:17$77.
27:19That was everything.
27:21$76 saved from Marlene's Friday
27:24envelopes folded in a sandwich bag at
27:26the bottom of his backpack.
27:28And this one.
27:29It's a dog.
27:31Dogs find puddles. It's a sprinkler at
27:33some rich guy's dune camp. It's a cattle
27:36trough.
27:37It's
27:38There are no cattle.
27:40There are no rich guys.
27:42It's March.
27:43Nobody's out there.
27:45There's nothing out there.
27:47Then where did the water come from? It's
27:48not a bed if you're not trying to win
27:50anything. You're going for a walk.
27:52You're following your dog. You're just
27:54going to look.
27:56At 4:15 in the morning, he zipped up his
27:58jacket.
28:0044°.
28:02His breath came out white. The stars
28:04over the dunes were so thick and close
28:06they looked fake like somebody had
28:07overdone it. He wore everything he
28:09owned. That wasn't a choice.
28:12That was how he lived now.
28:14If you leave your things somewhere, your
28:15things leave without you.
28:18Two gallons of water hung off the
28:19backpack.
28:21Marlene's spare headlamp sat on his
28:22forehead.
28:24And Chola trotted ahead along her own
28:26tracks from yesterday, a neat dotted
28:27line running north that the wind hadn't
28:29come up yet to erase. Walking in the
28:31dunes is not like walking. It's like
28:33arguing. Every step up a slope, the sand
28:36slides you half a step back down.
28:39You win two feet,
28:41you lose one.
28:42And at the top of every ridge, there's
28:44another ridge.
28:45Bigger.
28:47Smug about it.
28:48Sand Ansel decided around mile two is
28:50just the ground with a sense of humor.
28:53Up, down
28:54along a knife sharp crest where the wind
28:57had curled the sand like a wave frozen
28:59in the act of breaking.
29:01Down into a hollow so still it felt like
29:03the bottom of a mixing bowl.
29:06The sky went from black to navy,
29:08navy to gray,
29:10gray to lavender.
29:12Mile four.
29:13Mile four and a half.
29:15His legs were shaking and he was arguing
29:17with himself in earnest now.
29:20Turn around.
29:21You're a grown man following a mutt into
29:24the Sahara because you want to believe
29:25in something.
29:27Turn
29:28around. Trolla stopped at the top of the
29:31next dune. Her tail went straight up
29:33like a flag.
29:35She barked once,
29:36bright and sharp in all that silence.
29:39Ansel climbed the last 40 feet on his
29:41hands and knees.
29:42He reached the top. He stood up
29:45and everything in him went quiet. Below
29:48him, the dunes opened into a wide hollow
29:50sheltered on every side by walls of sand
29:53glowing apricot and gold in the first
29:55light.
29:57And at the bottom of that bowl where
29:59nothing should have been but more sand
30:01stood a ragged ring of palm trees,
30:04dozens of them.
30:06Tall fan palms and date palms.
30:10Most of them dead. Their fronds hanging
30:12brown and broken against the trunks like
30:14umbrellas left out in a storm.
30:17But here and there some were still
30:18green, still alive, still drinking from
30:22something. In the middle of the palms
30:24stood a house, not a shack,
30:27a house,
30:28square and solid and flat roofed built
30:31of big pale stone blocks the color of
30:34old cream.
30:36Long black streaks ran down the walls
30:38from the roofline like tears that had
30:40dried there years ago.
30:42Dead vines hung from the edge of the
30:44roof in thick brown ropes, swaying a
30:46little in the breeze. The front of the
30:48house was glass.
30:50Floor-to-ceiling windows in dark frames,
30:52a whole wall of them, looking out over a
30:55narrow terrace with a low stone railing.
30:58Half the panes were smashed,
31:00jagged, star-shaped,
31:03and through the holes, even from up on
31:05the ridge, he could see furniture.
31:07A couch,
31:08chairs,
31:10the legs of a table,
31:12a light fixture hanging from the ceiling
31:14still waiting for somebody to flip a
31:15switch.
31:17To the left, set deep in a recess in the
31:19stone, stood two tall wooden doors. The
31:22whole house sat up high on a raised
31:24stone base with a lower level tucked
31:25underneath, and a band of gray concrete
31:28running along the bottom of its walls.
31:30On the left, a stone staircase with low
31:32walls stepped down from the terrace to
31:34the ground.
31:36On the right, a long stone footbridge
31:37with pale wooden slats reached out from
31:39the house toward the dunes,
31:42going nowhere,
31:44just reaching. And in front of the
31:46house, down in a sunken courtyard, there
31:48was water.
31:50A long rectangular pool, green as split
31:52pea soup, thick with algae and floating
31:54trash, its edges ringed with cracked mud
31:57and a white crust like somebody had
31:59spilled a sack of salt and walked away.
32:01Junk everywhere.
32:03Black tires half buried in the sand,
32:05rusty orange barrels on their sides,
32:08blue tarps snagged in the scrub, a white
32:11canvas tent sagging under the palms on
32:13the left like a ghost that had given up
32:16haunting,
32:17a plastic chair,
32:18a wooden crate,
32:20spiky clumps of agave pushing up through
32:23all of it.
32:24Somebody had been here. A lot of
32:26somebodies.
32:27Not one of them had stayed, but none of
32:30that was the thing. The thing was on the
32:32roof, sitting on top of that flat stone
32:35house set back from the edges so a wide
32:37ledge ran all the way around it was a
32:40pyramid, a real one.
32:43Four slanted sides of cream sandstone
32:46blocks laid in neat rows that climbed
32:49and narrowed until they met in one sharp
32:52point.
32:53And that point caught the very first ray
32:55of sun and turned it to gold.
32:59Sand had blown up onto the ledge and
33:01piled against the pyramid's base in soft
33:04little drifts like snow against a cabin
33:07wall.
33:09On the right face about a third of the
33:11way up, a few blocks were missing.
33:14A dark hole
33:16like a missing tooth in a smile. Behind
33:19it all the dunes rolled orange and gold
33:21to the horizon. And far off the
33:23mountains stood blue and hazy in the
33:25morning light
33:27like they were watching, too.
33:29So, that was how he stood there
33:31on the crest
33:32back to the world
33:34dark curls stirring over his collar
33:37the pack and the rolled mat on his
33:39shoulders
33:40the dollar folded in his lowered right
33:42hand
33:43and the dog leaning on his boot.
33:45He did not move maybe for a whole minute
33:48because he knew this place. He had never
33:50seen it in his life.
33:52And he knew it.
33:53A man who could make stone do anything.
33:56A wife who wanted Egypt. Out past the
33:59dunes where nobody bother her.
34:02Pop.
34:03The name came out of him cracked right
34:05down the middle.
34:06You weren't lying.
34:08Chola barked and went bounding down the
34:10slope toward the green water like a kid
34:12let out of school. Up close the place
34:14was bigger than it had looked from the
34:16ridge and sadder and more beautiful. All
34:20three at once.
34:22Chola was in the pool up to her chest
34:24lapping at the green water enormously
34:26pleased with herself.
34:28He informed her that this was
34:29disgusting. She sneezed at him.
34:32He walked the whole way around the
34:34house, slowly, hands in his pockets.
34:37Through the broken glass he could see
34:39sand drifted across the floor in long
34:41ripples like the tide had come in one
34:43night and forgotten to leave. A dining
34:45table on its side, a hallway, and at the
34:48very edge of what he could see, the top
34:50of a staircase
34:52going down
34:54into dark. He could have stepped
34:56through.
34:57The holes were plenty big enough. He
34:59didn't.
35:01He stood outside the window with his
35:02fingers wrapped around Pop's knife in
35:04his pocket
35:06because it wasn't his. Whoever had built
35:08it, it belonged to somebody, and Ansel
35:11Crane had taken enough things in his
35:13life that belonged to somebody else.
35:15He caught himself making a list anyway.
35:18Glass, sand, drains, tires.
35:22Then he stopped
35:24because those weren't ruins. Those were
35:26jobs.
35:28Except it wasn't his. And he had $77.
35:31He filled an empty jug with pool water
35:34for the dogs walk home and started back
35:36up the dune before the sun got high.
35:38At the top, he let himself look back
35:42just once.
35:44The point of the pyramid was blazing
35:46gold like somebody had lit a candle on
35:49it.
35:49The Brawley Library had six public
35:52computers and a librarian named Mrs.
35:55Delgado who could tell from across the
35:57room when you were looking at something
35:59you shouldn't.
36:01Ansel was looking at the county parcel
36:03map. Out in the dunes the colored
36:05squares got huge and the satellite
36:07photos got terrible.
36:09A beige smear,
36:11a smudge that might have been a shadow
36:13or a rock or a mistake,
36:16but he'd counted his steps.
36:18He'd marked the sun against the
36:19mountains
36:20and he found the square.
36:2210 acres. Land use, vacant.
36:26Improvements of record
36:28none.
36:30He laughed out loud.
36:32Mrs. Delgado looked up.
36:34He covered his mouth. None. A stone
36:37house with a pyramid on its roof and the
36:39county believed it was 10 acres of
36:41nothing because nobody had ever pulled a
36:43permit because nobody from the
36:45assessor's office had ever walked 5 mi
36:47into the dunes to check
36:49because from the sky a sand-colored
36:51pyramid sitting in sand looks an awful
36:53lot like sand.
36:55Owner of record Toliver Augustus,
36:58deceased. Taxes in default since 2013.
37:01Then a lot of legal words he had to read
37:03three times.
37:05Offered at public auction
37:07unsold
37:08offered again
37:10unsold
37:11a third time
37:13unsold
37:14and at the bottom in a box by itself the
37:17next date
37:18Tuesday 10:00 in the morning
37:21County Administration Center, El Centro
37:24re-offer of unsold parcels at a reduced
37:27minimum bid.
37:28He scrolled down to his number.
37:31Minimum bid
37:32$76
37:34which Ansel figured was about what it
37:36had cost the county to mail out the
37:38notices. His heart started doing
37:40something
37:41a familiar something
37:43the hammer drill feeling from dark
37:45parking lots in Yuma at 1:00 in the
37:47morning.
37:48He shut the computer down, went outside,
37:51and sat on the curb in the sun for 20
37:53minutes with his head in his hands. Back
37:55at the shop, Marlene was under a buggy
37:57with only her boots sticking out.
37:59Her voice came echoing up out of the
38:01engine bay.
38:03The mummy house.
38:05Sure.
38:06Kids rode out to the edge of the
38:08wilderness on weekends and dared each
38:10other to walk in.
38:12There was supposed to be a ghost.
38:14The man who built it was supposed to be
38:16buried in there with his gold.
38:18Do you believe that?
38:20Slick. Kids also say Bigfoot drives a
38:23dune buggy. She rolled out on her
38:25creeper with grease across her cheek and
38:27squinted up at him.
38:28Everything out there was government land
38:30anyway. Bureau of Land Management.
38:34Wasn't it?
38:35He didn't answer.
38:37Because that was the whole thing.
38:39Everybody who knew about the house
38:41thought it sat on federal land.
38:43Everybody who knew about the parcel
38:44thought it was empty sand. And in 13
38:47years nobody had ever put the two
38:49together. Nobody but a dog. Clyde called
38:51Sunday night from a truck stop in
38:53Amarillo.
38:55Diesel engines idled behind him.
38:57A woman on a loudspeaker called shower
38:59number 12.
39:02Ansel told him everything.
39:04Clyde didn't interrupt once.
39:07When it was over the silence went on so
39:09long that Ansel checked whether the call
39:11had dropped.
39:12Brother.
39:14You hear yourself hidden house?
39:16Nobody knows. One shot.
39:19Everything you got on one number.
39:21A breath like a slow leak in a tire.
39:24That's a bet wearing a bet costume.
39:27Ansel sat on the step of container two
39:29with Chola's head in his lap.
39:31Somewhere off in the dark a coyote was
39:34filing a complaint with the management.
39:36He'd thought about this for 3 days.
39:38A bet he explained slowly was when you
39:41hoped. You put the money down and hoped
39:43for something you couldn't control. And
39:45when it didn't come the money was gone
39:47and you had nothing.
39:49This wasn't that. He wasn't hoping for
39:51anything. He knew exactly what he'd do
39:53with it. Clean it out, fix the glass,
39:55shovel the sand, sleep under a roof that
39:58didn't belong to anybody but him. Even
40:00if that's all it ever was. Even if there
40:03was nothing out there but rocks and a
40:05green swimming pool. That's not a bet.
40:07That's a decision. I know what I'm
40:09buying.
40:10The line went quiet. Then Clyde laughed
40:13low and rough like a big engine turning
40:15over on a cold morning.
40:1810-4. You putting all 77 down?
40:2276.
40:24What's the one?
40:26You know what the one is.
40:28A shorter silence.
40:30A warmer one.
40:32Clyde cleared his throat.
40:35Hard.
40:36Yeah, he knew what the one was. And
40:39Ansel had better call him after.
40:41Win or lose. It's not win or lose.
40:44That's the right answer. Say it again on
40:46Tuesday.
40:48On Tuesday he took the bus from Brawley
40:50to El Centro. Alfalfa fields so green
40:53they hurt to look at.
40:54Canals straight as rulers.
40:57A crop duster banking low over a field
40:59of lettuce yellow wings flashing in the
41:00sun.
41:02He got off an hour early and his feet
41:04walked him somewhere he hadn't told them
41:05to go.
41:07Six blocks.
41:08Left, right, left again. Pepper Drive.
41:12Pepper. He stopped at the corner.
41:14The yellow stucco house. The lemon tree.
41:18The fieldstone porch Pop had built in
41:20the summer of 1981.
41:22Nana's old silver Buick in the driveway
41:25a little dustier than she used to keep
41:27it.
41:28He stood there for 11 minutes.
41:31He wanted to walk up and knock so badly
41:33his hands shook.
41:35He wanted to tell her he was sober.
41:3814 months.
41:39That he worked.
41:41That he sent what he could.
41:43That he was about to buy a pyramid.
41:46Nana.
41:48He was about to buy a pyramid. Except
41:51she wouldn't want to hear about a
41:52pyramid. She'd want to know she could
41:54trust him.
41:56And a man doesn't prove that on a porch.
41:58He proves it the slow way.
42:00One month at a time.
42:02One money order at a time.
42:04Not yet.
42:06He walked to the county building. The
42:08auction was in a beige meeting room on
42:10the second floor.
42:11Fluorescent lights,
42:13folding chairs mostly empty.
42:16A county clerk sat behind a long table
42:18with her reading glasses on a beaded
42:20chain and the posture of a woman who had
42:22made her peace long ago with meetings
42:24that never end. Five other people.
42:27A heavy-set man in a golf shirt who was
42:29clearly an investor and wanted everybody
42:31to know it.
42:33A young couple holding hands hoping for
42:35a lot near the Salton Sea.
42:38An old farmer in a feed store cap.
42:41A woman with a laptop who never once
42:43looked up.
42:44Parcel after parcel.
42:47Numbers in a flat voice.
42:49The small tap of a gavel.
42:51Ansel sat in the back row with his knee
42:54bouncing. He pressed his hand flat on it
42:56to make it stop. Then the clerk read his
42:59number. 10 acres.
43:01Vacant land.
43:02Algodones dunes north of highway 78. No
43:05legal road access. No utilities. No
43:08improvements of record. Offered three
43:11times previously. Unsold.
43:13She glanced at her screen.
43:16Minimum bid $76.
43:18Do I have 76?
43:21The golf shirt man snorted at the idea
43:23of anybody paying good money for sand.
43:26The young couple traded a look.
43:28And Ansel's heart went like a hammer
43:30drill. Here it was. The parking lot. The
43:33button.
43:34The thumb hovering.
43:36And every cell in his body that had ever
43:38sat in a dark car in Yuma screamed at
43:40him that this was it.
43:42This was the big one.
43:44Which was exactly why he made himself
43:46wait. In.
43:47Out.
43:48This is not a bet. I'm not hoping.
43:51I know what I'm buying. A roof, work, a
43:54pile of stone that a man who could make
43:56stone do anything built for a woman he
43:58loved. That's all. That's enough.
44:02He raised his hand. The clerk looked at
44:04him over her glasses.
44:06Something moved behind them. Pity,
44:08maybe.
44:09Or curiosity.
44:11Or just the faint, rare joy of a county
44:13employee watching something actually
44:15happen.
44:1776.
44:18Do I hear 77?
44:20Silence.
44:22Except for his heart.
44:24Going once.
44:26Don't think.
44:27Don't count.
44:28Don't hope.
44:30Going twice.
44:32Oh, no.
44:33Oh, no.
44:35What are you doing?
44:36You're buying a haunted desert from the
44:38government with your laundry money.
44:40Pop. Pop, help.
44:42Sold to the gentleman in the back. She
44:45tapped the gavel very gently, like she
44:47was afraid of waking something up.
44:49Ansel leaned forward and put his head
44:51between his knees like a man on an
44:53airplane in a bad storm.
44:55He counted $76 onto the table. Fives and
44:59ones that still smelled faintly of
45:01engine degreaser.
45:02Then came the fees. A transfer tax. A
45:05recording fee.
45:07For one horrible second, his stomach
45:09dropped into his boots until he
45:10remembered the 20. Marlene had shoved it
45:13into his jacket pocket that morning and
45:15walked away before he could give it
45:16back.
45:17It was for the paperwork, she'd called
45:19over her shoulder.
45:21He'd wash it off.
45:23He paid the fees with Marlene's 20 and
45:25signed his name in six places.
45:28Ansel Wade Crane.
45:31The last signature looked like a
45:32seismograph reading. The deed would take
45:35a few weeks to record.
45:37The clerk explained that much.
45:39Then she paused with her hand flat on
45:41his papers and waited until the golf
45:43shirt man was out the door.
45:46Can I tell you something huhn off the
45:47record?
45:48The county had to notify the heirs
45:50before every sale.
45:52Three times on this one.
45:54A son and a daughter. The son never
45:57answered. Not once.
45:59And the daughter
46:00wrote back.
46:02One line. Handwritten on the back of our
46:04own notice.
46:05Her voice dropped.
46:07"I want nothing of his." She lifted her
46:09hand off the papers. She just thought he
46:11ought to know what he was walking into.
46:14Nobody had loved that place enough to
46:15keep it.
46:17Ansel looked down at the words.
46:19Augustus Tolliver, deceased.
46:22And his own shaky name underneath.
46:25Somebody did.
46:27Once.
46:29He walked out into the sun with $4 and
46:31change in his pocket. And $1 folded in
46:34his hand. The deed came back recorded 19
46:37days later.
46:39He counted every one of them. Marlene
46:41drove him out to the edge of the dunes
46:43the next Thursday. She didn't say one
46:45word about the pyramid the whole way.
46:47Marlene talked when she was annoyed. She
46:50went quiet when she was worried. At a
46:51pullout where the highway crossed a low
46:53saddle in the sand, she hauled a kid's
46:55plastic sand sled out of her truck bed.
46:58Bright blue.
47:00Cracked down one side and patched with
47:02duct tape.
47:03She lashed on six-gallon jugs of water,
47:05a 40-lb bag of dog food, a shovel, a
47:07blue tarp, and a bucket full of the
47:09things a man needs when he's starting
47:11over.
47:12Rags, rope, matches,
47:16a handsaw,
47:18three cans of chili,
47:19and a can opener.
47:21She set it right on top where he'd see
47:23it. There was no signal out there.
47:25She'd checked.
47:27He'd walk up to the top of the ridge
47:29every Sunday and call her. Somebody had
47:31to know he was alive.
47:34Marlene.
47:35Don't.
47:37She didn't look at him.
47:38She yanked the last strap so tight it
47:40whistled.
47:42"I just wanted to say
47:44I said, "Don't, Slick. If you die out
47:46there, I have to hire somebody new.
47:49And somebody new won't know where the
47:50good hose is." She got in the truck and
47:53sat for a moment with both hands on the
47:54wheel.
47:55Then she rolled the window down.
47:58He should bring the dog back for a bath
47:59sometime.
48:01She smelled like a frog's armpit.
48:03And Marlene drove away. It was a long 5
48:06miles. The rope cut into his shoulder
48:08through the canvas, and he switched
48:10sides every hundred yards, then every
48:1350.
48:15The sled carved a long wandering groove
48:17in the sand behind him all the way back
48:19to the highway.
48:21Like a signature.
48:23Like proof he'd come this way.
48:25Cola rode on the dog food bag like she'd
48:28paid for a ticket. He thought about Pop
48:30hauling fieldstone for that porch one
48:33rock at a time.
48:35He thought about a man he'd never met
48:37dragging block after block of sandstone
48:39into the middle of nowhere for a woman
48:41who wanted Egypt.
48:43And he thought about how heavy love must
48:45be
48:47when you have to carry it that far.
48:50This time when he came over the last
48:51ridge, he didn't stop to stare.
48:54He walked straight down. Because it was
48:56his now. The wooden doors were locked.
49:00Two tall slabs gone gray and split along
49:02the grain with a keyhole the size of his
49:04thumb.
49:05He could have gone in through the glass.
49:08He owned the glass now.
49:10But you didn't go into a man's house
49:11through the window.
49:13Even if the man was gone.
49:15Nana would have insisted. Pop would have
49:18agreed. Then he noticed one flat stone
49:20at the foot of the left-hand door.
49:23Squarer than the others. Set at a
49:25slightly different angle.
49:27The way a stonemason sets a stone he
49:29plans on lifting again.
49:31Pop had done exactly that on the
49:33fieldstone porch. The spare key lived
49:35under it for 30 years. Ansel worked his
49:38fingers under the edge. It came up with
49:40a soft sigh of sand.
49:42Underneath was a rusted coffee can the
49:44lid sealed on with black electrical
49:46tape.
49:47Inside wrapped in a yellowed plastic bag
49:49lay a long iron key.
49:51black with age
49:53heavy
49:55and tied to its bow with wire was a
49:57brown paper luggage tag
49:59old
50:00older than the rest on the can
50:02its edges gone soft and furry its ink
50:05faded to the color of weak tea
50:08but the letters were big and blocky and
50:09steady
50:10pressed hard into the paper so they'd
50:12last front for whoever needs it
50:16he stayed on his knees a long time
50:19well
50:20that's me
50:21that's about the most me thing anybody
50:23has ever written the key fought him
50:2613 years of sand and heat and silence
50:29he turned it gently then firmly then
50:32with both hands and his tongue between
50:33his teeth already picturing it snapping
50:36off in the lock and himself explaining
50:38to Clyde how he'd been defeated by a
50:40door
50:41then something gave a dry clunk deep in
50:44the wood the door swung in
50:46and the air of the house came out to
50:47meet him
50:49cool
50:50still
50:51old
50:53it touched his sunburned face like the
50:55breath of a well like a church on a
50:57weekday afternoon
50:59the desert was 84 degrees behind him one
51:02step inside it felt like another season
51:05Cola pushed past his legs and trotted in
51:07like she'd lived there all her life the
51:09big room had a high ceiling and stone
51:11walls and a floor of wide pale tiles
51:13under sand so deep in places it came
51:15over his boots
51:17a long low couch that had once been blue
51:20and had faded to the color of skim milk
51:22a dining table on its side four chairs
51:25scattered around it like they'd tried to
51:26run
51:28and hanging from the ceiling on a long
51:30chain a dusty brass light fixture shaped
51:32like a lotus flower a lotus Egypt she
51:35wanted Egypt a kitchen where somebody
51:37had tried to steal the sink and given up
51:39halfway
51:41a hallway
51:42bedrooms
51:44a deep stone tub
51:47and at the end of the hallway, a
51:48stairway going down.
51:50Stone steps turning once and
51:52disappearing into dark.
51:55Cool air rose from it. Cooler than
51:57anywhere else in the house.
52:00Chola stood at the top beside him.
52:03Then very softly she growled. Not mean.
52:06Just the sound a dog makes when it has
52:08noticed something you haven't.
52:10"Tomorrow," he promised her, "when it
52:13was light." Then he went back to the big
52:15room and did what Pop had taught him.
52:17What had kept him alive, if he was
52:19honest, for 14 months.
52:21He counted.
52:2211 panes broken.
52:24Four more cracked. About a dump truck of
52:26sand on the floor, conservatively.
52:28Drifts on the roof ledge. Clogged
52:30drains. Dead vines. The pool. The palms
52:34that needed cutting and the palms that
52:36needed saving.
52:37The hole in the pyramid.
52:39And 14 tires.
52:41He went outside and counted them again.
52:43Still 14. Which frankly felt rude. It
52:47was a long list.
52:48If he'd been a different kind of man, it
52:50would have crushed him flat.
52:52But they were jobs. Not sorrows. Not
52:55punishments. Jobs.
52:58Things a man with two hands and a shovel
53:00could do one at a time.
53:02He'd spent 14 months counting sorrows.
53:05It was nice to count something else for
53:07a change. He made his bed near the glass
53:09where the sand was thinnest.
53:11He opened a can of chili with Marlene's
53:13can opener and ate it cold with Pop's
53:15knife because he'd forgotten a spoon.
53:18Chola curled against the backs of his
53:20knees with a groan like an old man
53:22settling into a recliner.
53:24Night came down fast. Orange. Purple.
53:28Then stars.
53:29Thousands of them pouring in through the
53:31broken glass.
53:32And then the wind came up. It came
53:34across the dunes in a long low sigh.
53:38When it reached the pyramid, it found
53:39the the in the right side.
53:42the missing tooth.
53:44And it blew across it the way a child
53:45blows across the top of a soda bottle.
53:49The whole house hummed.
53:51Low,
53:52soft,
53:54steady,
53:55like somebody humming in the next room,
53:58like an old man humming to himself while
54:00he works.
54:02Ansel lay on his back and told the
54:04ceiling that Pop had been right. It was
54:06real, all of it. Somebody had really
54:08built it. He couldn't sleep, not out of
54:11fear,
54:12out of something he hadn't felt in so
54:14long it took him a while to recognize
54:16it.
54:17He was curious.
54:18Around midnight he put on the headlamp
54:20and walked the house.
54:22On the back of the pantry door he found
54:24a calendar, still turned to December of
54:262012.
54:28On the 25th in big blocky capitals
54:30somebody had written two words, "Call
54:33L."
54:35The rest of the month was empty.
54:37He closed the pantry door very gently,
54:40the way you close a door on somebody
54:42sleeping. In the hallway photographs
54:44hung on the left-hand wall, most of them
54:46bleached by the sun almost to nothing.
54:49A few had survived.
54:51A woman in a floppy sun hat with her
54:53arms flung wide in front of a half-built
54:55stone wall like she was presenting it on
54:58a game show.
54:59A black and white wedding picture.
55:02A big young man in a suit too tight
55:04across the shoulders.
55:06A small dark-haired woman with a smile
55:08so wide it barely fit on her face. And
55:10down low, almost hidden by the
55:12doorframe, one small square photograph
55:15with a scalloped white border.
55:18Ansel crouched and wiped the glass with
55:19his sleeve. A stone wall under
55:22construction somewhere flat and dusty.
55:24A big man with his sleeves rolled up and
55:27forearms like fence posts.
55:29His hand resting on the shoulder of a
55:31skinny kid about 13 years old who was
55:33holding a stone almost as big as his
55:35chest and leaning backward to balance
55:37it.
55:38Grinning,
55:40gap-toothed,
55:42squinting into the sun,
55:44with ears that stuck out from his head
55:46like the handles on a sugar bowl.
55:48Ansel stopped breathing. He knew those
55:50ears. He'd seen them every day of his
55:53life until he was 24 years old. Across
55:56the kitchen table, across the dialysis
55:58chair,
56:00on the pillow in hospice,
56:02on the white border in faded blue ink,
56:05in the same big blocky hand as the key
56:07tag Gus and the crane kid.
56:11Brawley,
56:121962.
56:14He sat down on the floor.
56:17Not on purpose.
56:18His legs just quit.
56:20Pop.
56:2113 years old,
56:23carrying stones for a man who could make
56:25stone do anything.
56:27A man who taught me.
56:29Long story. Slowly, with fingers that
56:31didn't feel like his own, Ansel took the
56:34knife out of his pocket. He turned it in
56:36the headlamp's light.
56:38The dark wood,
56:40the worn brass,
56:42and two letters scratched in with a nail
56:44that he had looked at 10,000 times
56:46without ever really seeing.
56:49A.T. Tolliver.
56:51Augustus.
56:53Augustus.
56:54Gus.
56:56The knife in his hand had belonged to
56:58the man who built this house. Pop had
57:00carried his stones and learned at his
57:02elbow and walked away with his knife and
57:04his stories.
57:05And he'd handed them both to a little
57:07boy on a fieldstone porch in El Centro.
57:10And that boy grew up and lost everything
57:12except this knife, which he sold for $40
57:16and bought back for 52.
57:18And then a dog came back wet, and he
57:21followed her 5 miles into the sand.
57:24And he spent nearly every dollar he had
57:26on the one house in California where he
57:29had never really been a a at all. At the
57:31far end of the hallway, the stairs went
57:33down into the dark. And from the bottom
57:35of them, cool and slow and patient, the
57:38house breathed out.
57:39Like it had been waiting a very long
57:41time.
57:42Chola was right.
57:44There was something down there.
57:46It was 4 ft long, the exact color of dry
57:48sand, and it had opinions. Ansel saw it
57:51from the fourth step the next morning. A
57:53thick, lazy coil in the far corner of
57:56the lower room tucked against the cool
57:57stone. Diamonds down its back. The blunt
58:01wedge of its head lifting. And then the
58:03sound. Dry and fast.
58:06Like a gourd full of seeds shaken right
58:08beside your ear.
58:10Chola went off like a smoke alarm.
58:13He hauled her up the stairs by the
58:14scruff and shut her in the bathroom
58:16where she barked at the door with deep
58:17personal offense. Okay. Okay. Don't
58:20think about which kind. Every kind is
58:22the bad kind when you're 5 mi into the
58:24desert with no truck and no signal.
58:27Don't get bit. That's the plan. That's
58:30the whole entire plan.
58:32Pop always claimed a rattlesnake in a
58:34cellar isn't a monster. It's a tenant.
58:37It got there first. It found the coolest
58:40room in the house, same as you would.
58:42And you don't kill a tenant for having
58:44good taste.
58:45So he got the shovel and the 5-gallon
58:47bucket. It took 40 minutes and most of
58:49his dignity.
58:51At one point, he was standing on an
58:53overturned crate murmuring, "Easy,
58:55buddy, easy. Nobody wants this." in the
58:57voice he'd last used on a nervous pony
59:00at the county fair.
59:02But at the end of it, the snake was in
59:04the bucket and the bucket was a long way
59:06out in the dunes.
59:08He tipped it over and backed away like a
59:10man leaving the presence of a queen. The
59:13snake poured out onto the sand, gave him
59:15one long look, and slid off under a
59:17creosote bush with the air of somebody
59:19who would be writing a strongly worded
59:21letter. Then he went down and looked at
59:23the cellar properly. One long room and
59:25two small ones dug into the ground
59:27beneath the house.
59:2915° cooler than upstairs.
59:32A workbench along one wall and above it
59:34on nails driven into the mortar,
59:37Gus Tolliver's tools.
59:39Hammers,
59:40cold chisels,
59:42a mason's level with the bubble gone
59:44cloudy as an old man's eye.
59:47In the small room on the left, a
59:49wellhead capped with steel and a dead
59:51pump crusted white with mineral scale.
59:55In the back room, shelves of empty mason
59:57jars, a stack of dried paint cans,
1:00:00a broken box fan and sand on everything.
1:00:03The far wall of that back room was
1:00:05white, plastered smooth, painted. He saw
1:00:09it. He didn't see it. He'd been looking
1:00:12at the snake. That was April. He started
1:00:15with the sand. There was no wheelbarrow,
1:00:17so he heaped it onto the blue tarp,
1:00:20dragged it out through the wooden doors,
1:00:22and dumped it off the terrace. Then he
1:00:24dragged the tarp back and did it again.
1:00:27212 tarp loads.
1:00:30By the end of the second week, the floor
1:00:32was a floor again. Wide pale tiles laid
1:00:35so tight he couldn't have slid a playing
1:00:37card into a single joint.
1:00:40Whoever Gus Tolliver had been, he was
1:00:42not a man who did things halfway. Then
1:00:45the roof.
1:00:46Early in the mornings before the heat,
1:00:48he shoveled the drifts off the ledge
1:00:49around the pyramid and found four roof
1:00:52drains underneath packed solid.
1:00:5413 years of rain with nowhere to go but
1:00:57down the walls.
1:00:58That explained the black streaks. He dug
1:01:01the drains out with Pop's knife and a
1:01:03coat hanger. Then the vines, then the
1:01:05tires. He was sitting on top of the tire
1:01:08stack one evening eating chili out of
1:01:10the can when he heard a kid's voice out
1:01:12in the scrub beyond the palms, high and
1:01:15wobbly and talking very fast.
1:01:18Okay.
1:01:20Okay. Mummy house day one. I'm going in.
1:01:24If I die, Mom, I'm sorry about the
1:01:26microwave. It wasn't the fork. It was a
1:01:29different fork.
1:01:31Ansel stood up
1:01:33on top of 14 tires in the red light of
1:01:36sunset. A tall, dark shape against the
1:01:39sky with a can in one hand and a knife
1:01:42in the other.
1:01:43The kid screamed. Ansel was not
1:01:45expecting the scream. So, Ansel
1:01:47screamed, too.
1:01:49Chola came tearing around the corner
1:01:50barking her head off. The kid screamed
1:01:53again. And Ansel fell off the tires.
1:01:56When everybody calmed down, the kid was
1:01:58standing 20 ft away with both hands out
1:02:00like a man stopping traffic. Skinny,
1:02:03brown arms like pipe cleaners.
1:02:05A souvenir T-shirt from the Glamis Dunes
1:02:08that hung almost to his knees and a
1:02:10bicycle helmet. There was no bicycle
1:02:12anywhere in sight. Are you a mummy? No.
1:02:15Are you a ghost?
1:02:17No.
1:02:19Chola trotted over and sniffed the kid's
1:02:21sneakers. The kid didn't take his eyes
1:02:23off Ansel for a second.
1:02:25Are you the guy who built it because if
1:02:27you are, you look really good for your
1:02:28age.
1:02:30I bought it. That did it.
1:02:32The hands came down and the questions
1:02:35came out like water from a burst pipe.
1:02:38He'd bought the mummy house with money.
1:02:40How much was there gold?
1:02:42Everybody at the store said there was
1:02:44gold. And did Ansel know the Great
1:02:46Pyramid of Giza had more than 2 million
1:02:48blocks in it? And was this one real
1:02:51stone? And what was the dog's name? And
1:02:53did she bite? And why was he eating out
1:02:56of a can? Ansel let it all run out.
1:02:59Then he pointed out mildly that the kid
1:03:01was trespassing. The kid thought about
1:03:03that.
1:03:05Kind of, he admitted.
1:03:07Yeah, his name was Jasper Nunez. He was
1:03:0911.
1:03:1012 in June, he informed Ansel like it
1:03:13was a promotion. His mom, Rosa, ran the
1:03:15register at the little store out by the
1:03:17Glamis railroad crossing.
1:03:19And the two of them lived in a travel
1:03:21trailer parked behind it year round.
1:03:25In the winter, Glamis was full of kids.
1:03:27More than a hundred thousand people on a
1:03:29holiday weekend.
1:03:31Bonfires and buggies and music.
1:03:33In the summer, it was Jasper and the
1:03:35lizards. He was very lonely.
1:03:38He would never in a hundred years have
1:03:39admitted it.
1:03:41But it was in every word he spoke and he
1:03:43spoke a great many words.
1:03:45He'd walked in from the wilderness
1:03:47posts. He explained where the buggies
1:03:49had to stop. His mom dropped him off on
1:03:51her way to work. It was like a mile,
1:03:54maybe a mile and a quarter.
1:03:56Ansel stood very still.
1:03:58A mile.
1:04:00Jasper wanted to know how Ansel had
1:04:02gotten out here.
1:04:04From the highway. Jasper looked at him.
1:04:06At the blue sled leaning against the
1:04:08wall.
1:04:10Back at him.
1:04:11Dude, nobody walks from the highway.
1:04:15Ansel had walked from the highway three
1:04:17times. Five miles each way.
1:04:20Once dragging 40 pounds of dog food and
1:04:23six gallons of water through the sand
1:04:25like a man in a story about suffering.
1:04:27He sat back down on the tires and
1:04:29started to laugh.
1:04:31He laughed until he had to hold his
1:04:33ribs.
1:04:34He laughed until Cholla licked his face
1:04:36to make sure he wasn't dying while
1:04:38Jasper stood there in his helmet looking
1:04:40deeply concerned.
1:04:42It was the first time he'd laughed like
1:04:44that in two years. Jasper came back the
1:04:46next morning with a beach wagon on fat
1:04:48balloon tires loaded with water jugs
1:04:50from the spigot behind the store because
1:04:52his mom figured that if he was going to
1:04:54bother that man, he could at least be
1:04:56useful about it.
1:04:58He came the morning after that, too.
1:05:00And the one after that.
1:05:03Ansel set exactly two rules. No filming
1:05:06inside the house.
1:05:08And no telling anybody where it was.
1:05:10Because of the gold. There's no gold. As
1:05:13far as Ansel knew, that was the truth.
1:05:15He gave Jasper the real reason.
1:05:18People who think there's gold do stupid
1:05:20things.
1:05:22Jasper nodded slowly like he was writing
1:05:24it down somewhere inside his helmet.
1:05:27Pearl came in the middle of May with a
1:05:28man named Oscar Benavides and a pickup
1:05:31truck full of plastic. The truck stopped
1:05:33at the wilderness posts.
1:05:35Pearl did not.
1:05:37She walked the last mile and a quarter
1:05:39in a wide straw hat, a long cotton
1:05:41skirt, and white tennis shoes with a
1:05:43hiking pole in each hand, and an
1:05:46expression of deep Christian
1:05:47determination.
1:05:50At the top of the last ridge, she looked
1:05:52at the pyramid
1:05:53all the way up
1:05:55to the point.
1:05:57And for a long moment, Pearl Ostrander
1:05:59did not say a single word, which by
1:06:01Ansel's later estimate had happened
1:06:03maybe four times since the Carter
1:06:05administration. "Well, isn't that
1:06:07something?" Oscar came puffing up behind
1:06:09her with a long flat bundle on his
1:06:11shoulder.
1:06:1371, barrel-chested,
1:06:16a neat white mustache and a straw cowboy
1:06:19hat with a sweat line around the band
1:06:21like the rings of a tree.
1:06:2338 years as a water master for the
1:06:26irrigation district opening and closing
1:06:28gates
1:06:29and deciding which farmer got which drop
1:06:31of the Colorado River.
1:06:33He sang bass in Pearl's choir.
1:06:36He talked slow like every word had been
1:06:38measured out of a ditch.
1:06:40By way of introduction, he explained
1:06:42that Pearl claimed he owed her for 1987.
1:06:45Ansel wanted to know what had happened
1:06:46in 1987.
1:06:49Oscar and Pearl looked at each other.
1:06:50They did not talk about 1987. Pearl's
1:06:53late husband, Herb, had run a glass shop
1:06:55in Holtville for 40 years, and the back
1:06:57room was still full of stock. Clear
1:07:00polycarbonate sheets, rolls of glazing
1:07:02tape, sealant,
1:07:04Herb's putty knife with his initials
1:07:06burned into the handle.
1:07:08Pearl peeled the paper off the first
1:07:10sheet with a sniff.
1:07:11Herb would roll over in his grave.
1:07:14Plastic in a window that size.
1:07:17But Herb wasn't the one carrying it a
1:07:18mile through the sand. She showed him
1:07:20how. Measure each opening twice. Score
1:07:24the sheet and snap it clean over the
1:07:25edge of a board.
1:07:27Lay the tape in a straight bead without
1:07:28stretching it. Seat the panel so it
1:07:31floated in the frame instead of fighting
1:07:32it.
1:07:33Run the sealant in one smooth pass and
1:07:35strike it off at an angle so the water
1:07:37ran away instead of sitting there.
1:07:40Her hands were small and spotted and
1:07:41absolutely steady. When Ansel told her
1:07:44she was good at this, she shrugged.
1:07:4641 years married to it. You pick things
1:07:49up.
1:07:51By late afternoon, three of the broken
1:07:53panes were whole.
1:07:55Sun poured through them onto the clean
1:07:57floor in long gold rectangles and the
1:07:59big room felt like a room for the first
1:08:01time in 13 years.
1:08:03Pearl pressed Herb's putty knife into
1:08:05Ansel's hand and folded his fingers over
1:08:07it, the same way Pop had done with the
1:08:09knife.
1:08:10Keep it.
1:08:11Pearl.
1:08:12I can't. Herb would want it used.
1:08:15Things are for using. People, too.
1:08:19Oscar, meanwhile, had wandered off.
1:08:22Ansel found him an hour later sitting on
1:08:24the edge of the green pool staring into
1:08:26it like a man reading a newspaper.
1:08:30This was Gus Toliver's place.
1:08:32Oscar didn't look up.
1:08:35Wasn't it?
1:08:37Ansel stopped short. Oscar had known of
1:08:39him.
1:08:40Gus came into the district office back
1:08:42in '87 or '88 asking about groundwater
1:08:45out in the dunes.
1:08:47Everybody laughed at him. Oscar didn't.
1:08:51Gus figured the canals had been leaking
1:08:53into the ground for 50 years
1:08:55and all that water had to go somewhere.
1:08:58Was he right? Oscar pointed at the green
1:09:01palms, then at the dead ones.
1:09:04Half right.
1:09:06There'd been water.
1:09:07Then they lined the big canals with
1:09:09concrete and the leaking stopped and the
1:09:11water under here started dropping
1:09:13a few inches a year.
1:09:15The deep roots kept up. The shallow ones
1:09:18didn't. And the green in that pool was
1:09:20coming from a pipe at the bottom.
1:09:23A trickle.
1:09:24Gus had a well and a pump. The pump
1:09:26died. The pipe didn't. The next Saturday
1:09:30Oscar brought a used submersible pump
1:09:32from his garage.
1:09:34Marlene sent a solar panel she'd pulled
1:09:36off a wrecked camper with a note taped
1:09:38to it.
1:09:39Don't electrocute yourself.
1:09:41Marlene considered this a warning label,
1:09:43not a note. Ansel drained the pool by
1:09:46hand
1:09:47bucket by bucket, 6 days.
1:09:50Jasper hauled buckets until his arms
1:09:52gave out, then narrated the rest into
1:09:54his mom's old phone like a nature
1:09:56documentary.
1:09:58Here we observe the wild Ansel in his
1:10:00natural habitat. Notice the sweat.
1:10:03Notice the despair.
1:10:05Under 8 inches of green muck, Ansel
1:10:08found the original tile.
1:10:10Deep blue with a border of tiny gold
1:10:13tiles.
1:10:14Little pyramids.
1:10:16Hundreds of them marching all the way
1:10:18around the edge. He scrubbed for 2 days.
1:10:21Then Oscar lowered the pump down the
1:10:23well and they stood together in the
1:10:25blazing noon sun and watched clean water
1:10:28come coughing out of the old pipe at the
1:10:30bottom of the pool.
1:10:31Clear water.
1:10:33In the desert. Jasper walked solemnly to
1:10:35the edge in his bicycle helmet and
1:10:37jumped in.
1:10:39Chola went in right after him and Oscar
1:10:41took off his straw hat and held it
1:10:43against his chest like he was in church.
1:10:45Water kept its own calendar, he told
1:10:47them quietly.
1:10:48You couldn't rush it. But it always came
1:10:50back for the people who waited. Marlene
1:10:53closed the shop on the 1st of June.
1:10:55Nobody rents a dune buggy at 115°
1:10:58but the day before she locked the gate
1:11:00she handed Ansel a sheet of paper with
1:11:02three phone numbers on it.
1:11:04The city of Brawley, where the
1:11:05headstones in the old section of the
1:11:07cemetery had been tipping since the last
1:11:09big earthquake.
1:11:10Pearl's church in Holtville, where the
1:11:12front steps had heaved and a deacon's
1:11:14wife had twisted her ankle on Easter.
1:11:16And a date grower down near Bard who'd
1:11:18lost a rock wall along his ditch to a
1:11:20flash flood. She told all three he was
1:11:23good. He reminded her that she never
1:11:25seen him lay stone.
1:11:27I've seen you wash a buggy, same thing.
1:11:30You either pay attention or you don't.
1:11:32Don't make a liar out of me, slick. So,
1:11:35he worked. On the job by 6:00 before the
1:11:38heat turned the world into a skillet.
1:11:40He reset toppled headstones with a pry
1:11:43bar and fresh gravel.
1:11:45He cleaned a hundred years of grime off
1:11:47marble angels with soft brushes and
1:11:49plain water the way pop had taught him.
1:11:52Never anything harsh.
1:11:54Never anything that would take the stone
1:11:56along with the dirt.
1:11:58Every Sunday evening he climbed the
1:12:00tallest dune where his phone could find
1:12:02one bar of signal and called Marlene.
1:12:05Alive.
1:12:07Alive.
1:12:08Dog. Alive. There was always a short
1:12:12pause after that. Long enough to tell
1:12:14she'd been sitting by the phone.
1:12:16Then she hung up.
1:12:18On the first Friday of every month he
1:12:20still sent the money order.
1:12:22In June he sent something else, too.
1:12:25One photograph printed at the drugstore
1:12:27in Brawley.
1:12:29The pyramid at sunset with the pool
1:12:31clear and blue and the palms standing
1:12:33tall.
1:12:34On the back in pencil, six words. He
1:12:37erased them, wrote them again. It's
1:12:40real. Pop's pyramid.
1:12:42Love, A.
1:12:44She didn't write back. He kept working.
1:12:46July in the Imperial Valley isn't a
1:12:48month. It's a punishment.
1:12:51By the fourth, the thermometer
1:12:53Oscar had screwed to the shady side of
1:12:55the house read 117 at 4:00 in the
1:12:58afternoon. Even the lizards went
1:13:00underground.
1:13:01So did Ansel. He moved his sleeping mat
1:13:03down to the cellar,
1:13:05the only place that stayed below 90, and
1:13:07spent his afternoons clearing out the
1:13:09back room.
1:13:10Jars,
1:13:11paint cans, the broken fan.
1:13:14And by the light of a work lamp hooked
1:13:16to Marlene's solar battery, he finally
1:13:19looked at that far white wall.
1:13:21Really looked.
1:13:23And the back of his neck went cold. The
1:13:25other walls in the cellar were Gus's
1:13:27walls.
1:13:28Cream stone.
1:13:29Joints so tight you'd think the blocks
1:13:31had grown together.
1:13:33This one was plaster.
1:13:34Smooth, newer.
1:13:37Painted thick with a brush like somebody
1:13:39had tried very hard to cover something
1:13:41up.
1:13:42He put his palm flat against it. It was
1:13:44cooler than the others.
1:13:46And at the very bottom where the wall
1:13:47met the floor, there was a hairline
1:13:50crack.
1:13:51Through it he could feel air moving.
1:13:53A faint cool breath on his fingertips.
1:13:57Like the house breathing out. He turned
1:13:59Pops' knife around and tapped the wall
1:14:01with the heavy end of the handle. Talk.
1:14:03A foot over. Talk. Corner to corner.
1:14:06High. Low. Everywhere he tapped it
1:14:09answered him the same way. Hollow, like
1:14:12the skin of a drum. It's your wall. You
1:14:15can do whatever you want with it.
1:14:18So why are your hands shaking? Because
1:14:20somebody built this to keep something
1:14:22in.
1:14:23Or to keep somebody out. Except they
1:14:25left a key out front.
1:14:27For whoever needs it.
1:14:30Except that. He opened the knife and set
1:14:32the point against the plaster at the
1:14:34corner.
1:14:35It went in too easily.
1:14:38He peeled back a square.
1:14:39Underneath was gray concrete block.
1:14:42Hardware store block. And the mortar
1:14:44between the blocks was terrible, thick,
1:14:48lumpy.
1:14:49The courses wandered up and down like a
1:14:51drunk walking home, and the joints
1:14:53hadn't been struck with a trowel. They'd
1:14:56been raked with a finger.
1:14:57He could see the print of it, a wide,
1:14:59slow, dragging fingertip. This wasn't
1:15:02the work of the man who laid those floor
1:15:04tiles.
1:15:05Or it was
1:15:07after something had happened to his
1:15:09hands.
1:15:10He took Gus Tolliver's own cold chisel
1:15:13and Gus Tolliver's own hammer down from
1:15:15their nails.
1:15:16The mortar came out in chalky chunks
1:15:19that whitened his boots and his
1:15:21forearms.
1:15:22The first block came free,
1:15:25and cool air came pouring through the
1:15:27hole.
1:15:28It smelled of stone and dust and
1:15:30something dry and faintly sweet, like a
1:15:33cedar closet, like an old church. By
1:15:361:00 in the morning, he'd pulled 12
1:15:38blocks and the opening was wide enough
1:15:40for his shoulders.
1:15:41He sat on the floor with chalk dust in
1:15:43his hair and looked at the black hole.
1:15:46Chola sat beside him and pressed her
1:15:47side against his leg.
1:15:50She didn't growl this time. She just
1:15:52looked ears pricked forward.
1:15:54He put on the headlamp and went through.
1:15:56It was a passage, 4 ft wide, maybe 5
1:16:00high, so he walked bent over with one
1:16:03hand trailing along the wall.
1:16:05And this part was Gus.
1:16:07Perfect courses of cream sandstone.
1:16:11A ceiling arched overhead in a smooth
1:16:14curve of fitted stone, built like the
1:16:16inside of a bread oven,
1:16:19like something meant to stand a thousand
1:16:21years.
1:16:23It ran straight
1:16:25toward the very middle of the house,
1:16:27toward the place directly under the
1:16:28pyramid. 40 ft, 50, cooler, sweeter,
1:16:34and up ahead, faint and steady, a low
1:16:37hum.
1:16:38The wind across the hole in the pyramid.
1:16:41He'd heard it every night since April.
1:16:44Never from this side.
1:16:46The passage ended at a heavy wooden door
1:16:48bound with three straps of black iron
1:16:51set so precisely into the stone that no
1:16:53light showed around its edges.
1:16:56A key was sitting in the lock.
1:16:58Waiting.
1:16:59You can still go back. Stack the blocks.
1:17:03Plaster over it.
1:17:04Never know.
1:17:06You'd know. He turned the key. It moved
1:17:09like it had been oiled yesterday.
1:17:11The door swung inward with a long soft
1:17:14sigh.
1:17:15Like somebody letting out a breath
1:17:16they'd been holding for 14 years.
1:17:20A room. 12 ft square.
1:17:23The same cream stone but finer every
1:17:25block dressed by hand until it glowed
1:17:28like old ivory in his lamp.
1:17:30The ceiling didn't stay flat.
1:17:33It stepped inward course by course each
1:17:35row jutting past the one below it
1:17:37climbing and narrowing toward a point.
1:17:40The inside of a pyramid. Near the top
1:17:43where the stones nearly met a narrow
1:17:44square shaft angled up through the solid
1:17:47rock.
1:17:48At the far end of it, small and ragged
1:17:51and impossibly far away was a patch of
1:17:53night sky.
1:17:55Three stars. The missing tooth.
1:17:58That was the hum.
1:18:00That was the breath.
1:18:01Gus had built his house a way to
1:18:03breathe.
1:18:05On the far wall were two niches arched
1:18:08at the top like small chapels.
1:18:11In the left one sat a plain bronze urn.
1:18:14Beneath it cut deep and clean into the
1:18:16stone Daisy May Tolliver.
1:18:191933
1:18:202001. She wanted Egypt.
1:18:24The right hand niche was empty.
1:18:26Beneath it the same careful hand.
1:18:29Half finished.
1:18:30Augustus Tolliver.
1:18:321931.
1:18:34Then smooth stone.
1:18:36A space left waiting for a year nobody
1:18:38ever came back to carve.
1:18:40Ansel's cap was off before he knew it.
1:18:43The same way it came off in church.
1:18:45The same way it had come off at Pop's
1:18:47grave.
1:18:48This wasn't a vault for gold. This was a
1:18:50family vault. Stone shelves ran along
1:18:53both side walls.
1:18:55Beneath Daisy's niche lay a mason's
1:18:57trowel set crosswise with care.
1:19:01The steel blade worn thin and rounded at
1:19:03the tip.
1:19:04The wooden handle worn into the shape of
1:19:06one particular hand.
1:19:08On the right hand shelf set a small
1:19:10cedar box.
1:19:12That was the sweet smell.
1:19:14And leaning against it was an envelope
1:19:16sealed with one fat drip of red candle
1:19:19wax. Big blocky capitals across the
1:19:22front. To whoever finds this. On the
1:19:25left hand shelf stood five gray steel
1:19:27ammunition cans.
1:19:29Army surplus.
1:19:31The kind every desert rat in the west
1:19:33keeps in the garage because they're
1:19:35watertight and they'll outlast you.
1:19:37Four big ones. One small.
1:19:40He reached for the first big can. He
1:19:43told himself he was being careful and
1:19:45respectful.
1:19:46He wasn't.
1:19:48His fingers shook on the latch. And in
1:19:50the back of his skull a voice he hadn't
1:19:52heard in months woke up and started
1:19:54whispering.
1:19:55Faster and faster. Buried with his gold.
1:19:59That's what everybody says. Buried with
1:20:01his gold.
1:20:03The lid came up. Paper. Envelopes.
1:20:06Hundreds of them packed upright in
1:20:08bundles tied with twine each with a slip
1:20:10of paper tucked under the knot.
1:20:131979.
1:20:151980. 1981.
1:20:18The second can. The third. The fourth.
1:20:22All the way to 2011.
1:20:24Then the small can.
1:20:26Heavy. Wrong heavy. The kind that bends
1:20:29your wrist.
1:20:30The latch gave with a snap like a
1:20:32gunshot in that little room.
1:20:35Gold. Small coins each about the size of
1:20:37a dime.
1:20:39Hundreds of them heaped in the bottom of
1:20:40the can catching the lamplight and
1:20:42throwing it back at him in a thousand
1:20:44little winks.
1:20:46Oh.
1:20:47Oh, no.
1:20:48He sat down hard on the stone with the
1:20:50can in his lap.
1:20:51Every parking lot in Yuma.
1:20:54Every night with his thumb over a
1:20:55button. Just once. Just enough.
1:20:58Just get back to He could pay her back
1:21:01tonight.
1:21:02Walk out of this desert, catch the first
1:21:04bus, put $28,000 on her kitchen table.
1:21:08Plus interest.
1:21:09Plus the hospital.
1:21:10Plus
1:21:12Stop.
1:21:13Plus
1:21:14Stop.
1:21:16His hand was in the can.
1:21:18He didn't remember putting it there.
1:21:21Cold metal sliding between his fingers
1:21:23like water.
1:21:24He pulled it out like he'd touched a
1:21:26stove and shut the lid.
1:21:28He took the dollar out of his shirt
1:21:29pocket and held it.
1:21:32It's not yours. Maybe not ever.
1:21:34You don't even know what it's for. Read
1:21:36the letter first.
1:21:38The red wax cracked under his thumb like
1:21:40a dry leaf.
1:21:42Inside were four sheets of yellow legal
1:21:44paper.
1:21:45Pencil.
1:21:46The same blocky capitals.
1:21:48But not steady.
1:21:50The letters leaned and wobbled.
1:21:52Some had been written twice one on top
1:21:54of the other like the hand holding the
1:21:56pencil had slipped and had to go back.
1:21:59To whoever finds this.
1:22:02My name is Augustus Tolliver.
1:22:04Most folks call me Gus.
1:22:06I have been a stonemason since I was 15
1:22:09and a date farmer when the stonework ran
1:22:11thin. I built this house with my own
1:22:13hands between 1988 and 1996
1:22:17for my wife Daisy.
1:22:18She wanted to see Egypt. We never made
1:22:21it. So I brought it here.
1:22:23She is resting in this room. Please be
1:22:26gentle with her. If you came in with the
1:22:28key out front, good. That key has been
1:22:30under that stone since 1996
1:22:33for anybody caught out here in weather.
1:22:35If you came through my wall,
1:22:38I am sorry about the wall.
1:22:40I had a stroke last spring and my left
1:22:42hand never came all the way back.
1:22:46It is the worst wall I ever built.
1:22:48I was ashamed of it the whole time.
1:22:52In September of 1979, my daughter Lenore
1:22:55and I had a fight. I said things no
1:22:57father should ever say. She was 20 years
1:23:00old. She left that night and I let her
1:23:03go because I was proud and because I was
1:23:05a fool. Six days later,
1:23:08I wrote her a letter to say I was sorry.
1:23:11I wrote her one every month after that
1:23:12for 32 years.
1:23:14I gave every one of them to my son
1:23:16Garrett.
1:23:17He told me Lenore would only take mail
1:23:19through him.
1:23:20He told me she did not want me to have
1:23:22her address.
1:23:23And every Christmas he told me she had
1:23:25sent them back unopened.
1:23:27Every Christmas I believed him
1:23:30because he was my son. Last summer after
1:23:32the stroke, I stayed at Garrett's house
1:23:34in Yuma while I learned to walk again.
1:23:37One night, I went into his garage
1:23:39looking for a blanket.
1:23:41Behind the Christmas decorations, I
1:23:42found three boxes.
1:23:44Every letter I ever wrote to my girl,
1:23:47never opened, never sent.
1:23:50On top was a Christmas card from Lenore
1:23:52to her brother.
1:23:54It said, "Dad has never written me one
1:23:56word, not one. Tell him I stopped
1:23:59waiting. I I brought the letters here.
1:24:02I have not said a word to Garrett.
1:24:05I tried.
1:24:06I could not make myself shame my own
1:24:08boy.
1:24:09I am an old man and I am a coward in
1:24:12this one thing.
1:24:13Maybe that will be my last mistake.
1:24:16I do not know where my daughter lives.
1:24:18I do not know if she married.
1:24:20I am going to try to find her. If I
1:24:23don't make it, I am leaving it to you.
1:24:25In the small can are 200 gold coins.
1:24:29I bought one every month for a long
1:24:31time.
1:24:32They were meant for Lenora.
1:24:34Someday, if you have need, take half. I
1:24:37mean that. Half is yours.
1:24:40The other half and every one of these
1:24:42letters belongs to my daughter Lenora
1:24:44Tolliver.
1:24:45Find her if you can. Tell her I never
1:24:47stopped. Do not give these to my son.
1:24:50Not because I don't love him, because I
1:24:52do, and I don't trust what he would do
1:24:54with them.
1:24:55The place beside Daisy is for me.
1:24:58I don't suppose anybody will ever put me
1:25:00there. That's all right. I put her there
1:25:02myself. That was the important one. One
1:25:04more thing.
1:25:06When I was young, I gave my good knife
1:25:08to a skinny kid who carried my stones.
1:25:10Best helper I ever had.
1:25:13Ears like a sugar bowl.
1:25:15I hope he passed it on.
1:25:17That's how it's supposed to work.
1:25:19Whoever finds this,
1:25:21I hope you have need of it,
1:25:23and I hope you are kind.
1:25:26Gus Tolliver.
1:25:27June 9th, 2012. Ansel read it three
1:25:30times. Then he folded it along its
1:25:32creases and held it against his chest
1:25:34with both hands.
1:25:36And sitting on the floor of that vault
1:25:38with his knees pulled up, he cried for
1:25:40the first time since a kitchen in El
1:25:42Centro.
1:25:44Quiet.
1:25:45Eyes shut. Jaw clenched until it ached.
1:25:49The tears ran down into his stubble and
1:25:52dripped onto an old man's wobbly pencil
1:25:54letters. Because he knew exactly what it
1:25:56was to write a letter and never send it.
1:25:59He'd torn up three pages in a post
1:26:01office parking lot.
1:26:03He'd mailed 18 money orders without a
1:26:05note.
1:26:06And he knew what it was to be the one
1:26:08who broke the trust.
1:26:09The one whose name was on every
1:26:11transfer.
1:26:12The one who had to look at the person
1:26:13he'd hurt and say the word none. He
1:26:15thought about Garrett Tolliver, whoever
1:26:18he was, a boy who'd put his father's
1:26:20letters in a box behind the Christmas
1:26:22lights,
1:26:24and then had to keep putting them there.
1:26:2632 Christmases.
1:26:28"A lie isn't one stone," Pop used to
1:26:31warn him, "it's a wall.
1:26:33Once you lay the first one, you've got
1:26:35to keep building or the whole thing
1:26:37comes down on you."
1:26:38He took out the knife and held it in the
1:26:40lamplight. "A tea ears like a sugar
1:26:43bowl. I hope he passed it on."
1:26:46"He did, Mr. Tolliver. It's right here."
1:26:48The hum rose and fell
1:26:50like somebody listening. "He counted
1:26:52everything before he left. He couldn't
1:26:54help it. 33 bundles, 384 letters. Every
1:26:58envelope addressed in blocky capitals to
1:27:00one word,
1:27:02Lenora. No stamps, no addresses, not one
1:27:06of them opened."
1:27:07In the 1983 bundle, one envelope had a
1:27:10pressed flower showing faintly through
1:27:11the paper. A desert primrose maybe, flat
1:27:15and brown as a moth. 200 gold coins, a
1:27:18tenth of an ounce each.
1:27:20Lady Liberty striding with a torch on
1:27:22one side,
1:27:23a family of eagles at a nest on the
1:27:25other.
1:27:26And on every single one near the rim, a
1:27:28tiny capital T punched into the gold
1:27:31with a steel stamp. Inside the cedar
1:27:33box, just one thing,
1:27:35a page torn from a magazine, yellow and
1:27:38soft as cloth.
1:27:40The pyramids at Giza at sunset, and four
1:27:42little brown marks at the corners where
1:27:45old tape had dried and fallen away.
1:27:47The marks you'd get if a page had been
1:27:49taped inside a kitchen cupboard for a
1:27:51very long time.
1:27:53Every morning she opened that cupboard
1:27:54to get her coffee cup.
1:27:56He closed the box very gently and put
1:27:58everything back exactly where he'd found
1:28:00it.
1:28:01Then he stood in front of the gold. "If
1:28:03you have need, take half."
1:28:05He had need. 100 coins was a debt paid.
1:28:09A kitchen table,
1:28:10a fieldstone porch.
1:28:13Done.
1:28:14Even.
1:28:15that word again
1:28:17He opened the small can and took out one
1:28:19coin.
1:28:20Just one.
1:28:22Half was for a man who wanted to fix his
1:28:24whole life in one night.
1:28:25He'd been that man.
1:28:27He knew how that went.
1:28:29He needed one.
1:28:31For a bus ticket.
1:28:33For whatever it would cost to find a
1:28:34woman named Lenora who had stopped
1:28:36waiting. He walked back up the passage,
1:28:39hung the blue tarp over the hole stack
1:28:42the paint cans in front of it and sat on
1:28:43his mat until the stairwell turned gray.
1:28:47Then he climbed the ridge and called the
1:28:48one person he knew who could find
1:28:50anybody.
1:28:52Pearl picked up on the second ring at
1:28:545:15 in the morning.
1:28:56Now then, who died? Nobody. Somebody a
1:29:01long time ago. Pearl I need you to find
1:29:05a woman.
1:29:07Well, it's about time.
1:29:09Not like that. He heard a coffee pot
1:29:11gurgling behind her. Then the scratch of
1:29:13a pen. She wanted a name and a year.
1:29:17He gave her what he had.
1:29:19Lenora Toliver
1:29:21born around 1959
1:29:23left Brawley in September of 1979
1:29:27maybe married
1:29:28maybe anywhere.
1:29:30The pen stopped.
1:29:32Toliver
1:29:33like the pyramid
1:29:35and then very gently Pearl wanted to
1:29:37know what he'd found.
1:29:39He looked out over the dunes going pink.
1:29:43Something that belongs to her.
1:29:45She'd need a week and a pot of coffee.
1:29:48The coin shop sat on Main Street in old
1:29:50downtown Yuma between a shuttered barber
1:29:52shop and a store that sold Mexican
1:29:53pottery. A bell jingled over the door.
1:29:56The air conditioning hit like a slap.
1:29:59The man behind the glass counter was in
1:30:00his 70s, bald on top with a white fringe
1:30:03around the sides like cotton and a brown
1:30:05cardigan.
1:30:07in August
1:30:08in Yuma.
1:30:09Ansel decided not to ask. He set the
1:30:12coin on the glass. The man looked at it
1:30:14for 1 second. Then he fitted a jeweler's
1:30:17loop to his eye, turned the coin over
1:30:19with plastic tweezers, and went very
1:30:21still over the rim.
1:30:23When he finally looked up, the loop made
1:30:24his eye enormous and blue and watery.
1:30:27Haven't seen one of these in 14 years.
1:30:30Ansel's stomach dropped. Gus Toliver's
1:30:33T.
1:30:34The man spoke the name softly like the
1:30:36title of a song. Gus came in the first
1:30:38Monday of every month for almost 17
1:30:40years. 1/10 oz eagle, cash.
1:30:44Then he'd take a little steel punch off
1:30:46his key ring and tap one letter into the
1:30:48rim, right there on the counter. It
1:30:50ruined the collector value and the man
1:30:52had told him so every single month.
1:30:54Gus always answered that it wasn't for
1:30:56collecting, it was for his girl. Then
1:30:58the man studied Ansel. The sunburn, the
1:31:01chalk dust worked into the canvas
1:31:03jacket, the scar through the eyebrow,
1:31:06the hands.
1:31:08Where'd you get it, son? A hundred easy
1:31:10lies lined up like buses. A swap meet,
1:31:13some guy. Lies had always come easy to
1:31:15Ansel. That was the trouble with them.
1:31:18It came with a house I bought. The man
1:31:20held his eyes for a long moment. Then he
1:31:22nodded and paid a fair price, counting
1:31:24the 20s onto the glass one at a time.
1:31:28More money than Ansel had held at once
1:31:29in nearly 2 years.
1:31:31On his way out, he saw the flyer taped
1:31:33to the front window.
1:31:35Green lawns, a splash pad, a bronze
1:31:38plaque on a stone pedestal.
1:31:41You are invited. Dedication of the
1:31:44Augustus Toliver Memorial Park, Labor
1:31:46Day, hosted by Garrett Toliver and the
1:31:49Toliver Family Foundation. A photo in
1:31:51the corner, a tall man in his 70s with
1:31:54silver hair combed straight back in a
1:31:56pressed linen shirt smiling a big warm
1:31:58civic smile beside a shovel with a
1:32:00ribbon on it.
1:32:01Gus's jaw.
1:32:03Ansel knew it from the wedding picture.
1:32:06The same square line,
1:32:08but softer,
1:32:09like a stone rounded off in a river.
1:32:12Half a block down Main Street, something
1:32:14made him look back through the shop
1:32:15window. The old man in the cardigan had
1:32:18picked up the phone behind the counter.
1:32:20He was dialing without looking up the
1:32:22number,
1:32:23like he'd dialed it a hundred times
1:32:25before.
1:32:26Pearl called back on Sunday at sunset
1:32:28while Ansel stood on the ridge with his
1:32:30one flickering bar, and Cholla dug a
1:32:33hole for no reason. She'd found her. He
1:32:35sat down in the sand. Lenora Tolliver
1:32:38had married a man named Harold Fairbanks
1:32:40in 1983
1:32:42in Kingman, Arizona.
1:32:45Two paragraphs in the Kingman paper and
1:32:47not one word about her parents.
1:32:50Back then, Pearl pointed out, you always
1:32:52mention the parents.
1:32:54Unless.
1:32:56Unless you'd stopped waiting.
1:32:59Harold had passed in 2015.
1:33:01No children that Pearl could find. And
1:33:04in 2019, the same paper ran a little
1:33:07notice.
1:33:08Local woman retires after 35 years at
1:33:11the post office.
1:33:13Ansel closed his eyes. 35 years
1:33:16behind a counter,
1:33:18sorting other people's mail.
1:33:20She was 67 now.
1:33:22She lived alone.
1:33:24And Pearl had her address.
1:33:26Garrett Tolliver found him four days
1:33:28later.
1:33:30At the cemetery.
1:33:316:30 in the morning and already 98°.
1:33:35Ansel was in the old section in Brawley
1:33:37where the names on the headstones had
1:33:39worn down to whispers, digging out the
1:33:41sunken base of a small marble marker.
1:33:44Esther.
1:33:451911 to 1914. He heard the car before he
1:33:49saw it.
1:33:50Big.
1:33:51Quiet.
1:33:52The kind of engine that whispers.
1:33:55A long silver sedan rolled to a stop at
1:33:57the end of the gravel path with its
1:33:59motor and its air conditioning still
1:34:01running and a tall man stepped out into
1:34:03the heat like he was doing it a favor.
1:34:0672 silver hair combed back from a high
1:34:09forehead a pale linen shirt pressed so
1:34:12sharp you could slice bread on the
1:34:13creases.
1:34:15Woven leather shoes that had never
1:34:17touched a cemetery before.
1:34:19The face from the flyer. He strolled
1:34:22down the path between the graves with
1:34:23his hands in his pockets and stopped to
1:34:26admire Esther's marker in its canvas
1:34:28sling.
1:34:29Beautiful work.
1:34:31Truly.
1:34:33His father would have liked Ansel.
1:34:35Warm smooth
1:34:37a voice that had raised a great deal of
1:34:39money at a great many luncheons.
1:34:42Ansel straightened slowly.
1:34:44He kept hold of the shovel.
1:34:46Mr. Tolliver.
1:34:48Garrett, please. The smile arrived about
1:34:51half a second before his eyes did.
1:34:54He'd heard Ansel bought his father's old
1:34:56place he went on.
1:34:57Congratulations.
1:35:00He'd honestly forgotten all about it.
1:35:02And he understood Ansel had come across
1:35:04a few of his father's coins.
1:35:06Merle at the coin shop was an old friend
1:35:09same civic club for 30 years.
1:35:13Ansel didn't answer. Garrett held up
1:35:15both open hands.
1:35:17He wanted to put Ansel's mind at ease.
1:35:19Keep the gold all of it. He didn't need
1:35:22it and his father would have wanted it
1:35:24to go to a working man.
1:35:27Ansel waited.
1:35:28Because there was a butt. He could feel
1:35:30it coming the way you feel a sandstorm
1:35:32in the skin on the back of your neck.
1:35:34There were also some papers out there.
1:35:36Private family letters mostly. His
1:35:39father had been a stubborn sentimental
1:35:41old man who wrote a great deal of
1:35:43nonsense in his last years and Garrett
1:35:45would hate for it to end up anywhere it
1:35:47shouldn't. He'd just like it back as his
1:35:49son.
1:35:51Do not give these to my son.
1:35:54Ansel's hands tightened on the shovel.
1:35:57I'm not giving you anything, Mr.
1:35:59Toliver.
1:36:00Garrett smiled, a real one this time,
1:36:03almost fond.
1:36:05Ansel, let's be practical. He took a
1:36:07folded paper from his shirt pocket and
1:36:09opened it so Ansel could see.
1:36:11A cashier's check.
1:36:13$28,000.
1:36:16Pay to the order of Opal Crane.
1:36:18The heat. The birds.
1:36:20The hum of the highway.
1:36:22All of it stopped. There was only that
1:36:24slip of paper fluttering in the hot wind
1:36:26with his grandmother's name on it. Small
1:36:28towns.
1:36:30Church prayer lists weren't nearly as
1:36:32private as people thought.
1:36:34Garrett let that sit.
1:36:36$28,000
1:36:38from a widow with bad eyes.
1:36:40Wasn't that right, Ansel? Couldn't
1:36:42breathe.
1:36:43You could put this on her kitchen table
1:36:45tomorrow morning, son. Every penny. All
1:36:48you have to do is bring me a few boxes
1:36:50of old paper.
1:36:51And you get to go home.
1:36:54Go home. He wanted it. God help him, he
1:36:57wanted it so badly his teeth hurt. Not
1:36:59the money, the table, the yellow house,
1:37:02her face, her saying his name. All three
1:37:05words close together this time.
1:37:08It's just paper. Nobody's read it in 40
1:37:11years. Nobody would ever know.
1:37:14Except Tell her I never stopped. Except
1:37:17a woman in Kingman who sorted other
1:37:19people's mail for 35 years and never
1:37:21once got her own.
1:37:23Except an old man with a dead left hand
1:37:26building the worst wall of his life so
1:37:28somebody kind might find what was behind
1:37:30it.
1:37:31Except a dollar in his shirt pocket that
1:37:33had stayed where he put it.
1:37:35He looked up from the check.
1:37:37They're not yours to buy and they're not
1:37:39mine to sell. For 1 second the smile
1:37:41slipped. A twitch at the corner of the
1:37:43mouth.
1:37:44A cloud passing fast over the eyes.
1:37:47And underneath for that one second,
1:37:49Ansel saw something old and tired and
1:37:51very frightened.
1:37:52Then the smile was back, warmer than
1:37:55ever.
1:37:56Everybody's got a number, son. I'd have
1:37:58thought a gambler would know that better
1:38:00than anybody.
1:38:01That's how I know. Garrett folded the
1:38:03check twice, slid it back into his
1:38:05pocket, and buttoned the flap.
1:38:07The offer stood until Labor Day when
1:38:09they opened his father's park.
1:38:11After that, he was afraid he'd have to
1:38:13be less friendly.
1:38:14He turned to go. Then he looked back
1:38:16over his shoulder.
1:38:18Nobody believes a gambler, Ansel.
1:38:20Not even his own grandmother.
1:38:23The silver sedan swallowed him and
1:38:24glided away. Ansel stood there with the
1:38:27shovel for a long time.
1:38:29Then he looked down at Esther,
1:38:313 years old, waiting in her sling to be
1:38:34set straight. He got back on his knees
1:38:36in the dirt and finished the job. That
1:38:38night he took the 1979 bundle out of the
1:38:41first can.
1:38:43Four letters, September through
1:38:45December. He wrapped them in a clean
1:38:48shirt and put them in the bottom of his
1:38:50pack.
1:38:51Then he rebuilt the wall,
1:38:53dry,
1:38:55block by block,
1:38:57tight.
1:38:58He screwed Gus's old tool rack over the
1:39:01whole thing and hung every hammer and
1:39:03chisel back on its nail until it looked
1:39:06like a workshop wall that had always
1:39:08been there.
1:39:09The worst wall he'd ever built. He was
1:39:11ashamed of it the whole time. The bus to
1:39:14Kingman took 9 hours.
1:39:16Yuma to Phoenix,
1:39:19a layover in a terminal that smelled of
1:39:21floor cleaner and cinnamon pretzels.
1:39:23Then north into Black Rock Hills, where
1:39:26Joshua trees stood around like they were
1:39:28waiting for a bus that never came.
1:39:31He practiced the whole way.
1:39:33Mrs. Fairbanks,
1:39:35I have something that belongs to you.
1:39:38Ma'am, your father wrote to you.
1:39:41Every version sounded crazy. Every
1:39:43version sounded like a man selling
1:39:45something because that's exactly what
1:39:48Garrett had made sure he'd sound like.
1:39:50Her house was at the end of a quiet
1:39:52street.
1:39:53Tan stucco.
1:39:55A gravel yard with three barrel cacti in
1:39:57a perfect row and one palo verde tree.
1:40:01And out front, a white mailbox freshly
1:40:03painted its little red flag standing
1:40:05straight.
1:40:07The cleanest mailbox on the street.
1:40:10The inner door opened.
1:40:12The screen door did not. She was small.
1:40:15Silver hair cut short and sharp like
1:40:17she'd done it herself with good scissors
1:40:19and no patience.
1:40:21Reading glasses pushed up on her head.
1:40:24Daisy's mouth from the wedding photo.
1:40:26And under it, plain as a cornerstone,
1:40:29Gus Halliver's jaw.
1:40:31Her eyes went over him once fast, top to
1:40:33bottom. Like a stack of envelopes.
1:40:36Address. Postage. Return.
1:40:40I know who you are. My brother called.
1:40:43Mrs. Fairbanks, please. Your father. My
1:40:46father never wrote me one word in 47
1:40:48years.
1:40:50She didn't raise her voice. She didn't
1:40:52need to.
1:40:53And I am not buying a sob story from a
1:40:55man who stole his own grandmother's
1:40:57savings.
1:40:59Every word landed square, placed like
1:41:02stone.
1:41:03The letters were 12 inches from her
1:41:05hand.
1:41:06All he had to do was take them out. But
1:41:08he looked at her face.
1:41:10And behind the sharp hair and the sharp
1:41:12voice, he saw the same thing he'd seen
1:41:15for 1 second in the cemetery on her
1:41:17brother's face.
1:41:19Old.
1:41:20Tired.
1:41:21Afraid.
1:41:23Except she wasn't afraid of the truth.
1:41:25She was afraid of hoping.
1:41:27A letter you aren't ready for is just
1:41:29paper. She'd throw it out. Or worse,
1:41:32she'd read it standing in a doorway with
1:41:34a stranger watching.
1:41:3647 years of waiting
1:41:39with a stranger watching. He knew about
1:41:41letters that came at the wrong time.
1:41:43He'd torn one up in a post office
1:41:45parking lot.
1:41:47"I'm sorry I bothered you, ma'am."
1:41:49Something moved in her face.
1:41:51Then it didn't.
1:41:53"Return to sender."
1:41:55The door closed, not a slam.
1:41:58A soft, final click
1:42:00like the lid of a mailbox.
1:42:02The phone rang on the bus home somewhere
1:42:04south of Phoenix after 10:00 at night.
1:42:07An unknown number.
1:42:09He answered anyway. That warm luncheon
1:42:11voice. Garrett hoped he hadn't woken
1:42:13him. He just wanted Ansel to know he'd
1:42:16had the loveliest cup of coffee that
1:42:18afternoon with his grandmother.
1:42:21Everything in Ansel went cold. Lovely
1:42:23woman, lovely porch.
1:42:26Fieldstone, wasn't it? Garrett had
1:42:28explained to her what Ansel was up to.
1:42:30Finding an old man's gold in the desert
1:42:32and squeezing the family for more.
1:42:35The same way he'd squeezed her.
1:42:38She hadn't said much. She'd just sat
1:42:40there with her hands on the table. "I
1:42:42think she believed me."
1:42:44Ansel's hand was shaking so hard the
1:42:46phone rattled against his ear.
1:42:48"What do you want?"
1:42:49The same thing he'd always wanted. The
1:42:52offer stood until Labor Day.
1:42:54Ansel might think about his grandmother
1:42:56sitting at that table
1:42:58and then think about what he was really
1:43:00protecting.
1:43:01A few boxes of paper for a woman who'd
1:43:03just shut the door in his face.
1:43:06The line went dead. The bus got into
1:43:08Yuma at 11:40. He got off and started
1:43:11walking and his feet decided where the
1:43:13way they had on Pepper Drive.
1:43:15100° at midnight.
1:43:17The air thick and strange.
1:43:21To the south over Mexico, lightning
1:43:23flickered silent inside a wall of
1:43:25clouds.
1:43:26Pink,
1:43:27white,
1:43:29like somebody flicking a light switch on
1:43:31and off in a room a long way off.
1:43:34Monsoon coming.
1:43:35He could smell wet dust and creosote.
1:43:38Then he looked up and he was in a
1:43:39parking lot.
1:43:41A big one.
1:43:43Mostly empty.
1:43:45Lit orange.
1:43:47And at the far end, glowing like an
1:43:49altar, stood the tall glass doors of the
1:43:51casino on the edge of town.
1:43:54He didn't remember walking here. He sat
1:43:56down on a concrete parking bumper with
1:43:58his pack between his feet and the 1979
1:44:01letters in the bottom of it.
1:44:04He took out his phone. He deleted the
1:44:06app 19 months ago.
1:44:08But the store was right there.
1:44:10Two taps.
1:44:12A little blue button. And he was in
1:44:14Arizona. It would work right here, right
1:44:17now.
1:44:18With the money from the coin in his
1:44:20front pocket. Just get back to even.
1:44:23His thumb moved. She believed him. Of
1:44:25course she did.
1:44:27You did it once, you'll do it again.
1:44:29Everybody knows that about you. A
1:44:31stranger in Kingman knew it before you
1:44:33opened your mouth.
1:44:35So what does it matter if nobody is ever
1:44:37going to believe you? Then what's the
1:44:39point of
1:44:40Stop.
1:44:41What's the point of
1:44:43Stop.
1:44:46He took the dollar out with his other
1:44:47hand and squeezed it.
1:44:50Then he lifted his thumb off the screen,
1:44:51scrolled, and pressed a different name.
1:44:53Six rings. Then Clyde rough with sleep
1:44:56with diesel engines idling behind him.
1:44:59Talk to me, brother. What's your 20?
1:45:01We're parking lot. A very long silence.
1:45:04Which one? The bad one.
1:45:07Springs creaked as Clyde sat up. A long
1:45:09breath, slow and even.
1:45:11Copy. Don't hang up. You hear me?
1:45:14Tell me what you see.
1:45:16Doors. Big glass doors. Lights. About a
1:45:20hundred yards off. Clyde let out a long
1:45:22breath.
1:45:23Like a man easing a heavy rig down a
1:45:25grade. A hundred yards was a lot of
1:45:28yards, he told Ansel.
1:45:29And Ansel was going to keep every single
1:45:31one of them. He didn't have to win
1:45:33tonight. He didn't have to fix anything
1:45:36or pay anybody back or make anybody
1:45:38believe him. He just had to not lose.
1:45:41That's all tonight was.
1:45:43Ansel bent forward with his forehead
1:45:45almost on his knees, and he breathed. He
1:45:48got out that Garrett had been to his
1:45:49grandmother's house. Clyde already
1:45:52understood.
1:45:54Later, brother.
1:45:55Ansel could tell him every bit of it
1:45:57later. Right now, he just had to sit.
1:46:01So, he sat.
1:46:03On a concrete bumper in a casino lot at
1:46:05midnight with lightning in the south and
1:46:07a grown man breathing on the other end
1:46:09of the line from a truck stop in New
1:46:11Mexico.
1:46:13And he did not lose. 40 minutes later,
1:46:15headlights swung into the lot.
1:46:17An old Ford pickup moving way too fast.
1:46:21It bounced over a speed bump and stopped
1:46:23in front of him with a squeal.
1:46:25Marlene Sabo was behind the wheel in
1:46:27plaid pajama pants with her ball cap on
1:46:29backward.
1:46:31Ansel stared at her.
1:46:33Then at the phone in his hand.
1:46:35How does Clyde have Marlene's number?
1:46:37Brother?
1:46:38I've had Marlene's number since April.
1:46:41Marlene leaned across the bench seat and
1:46:42shoved the passenger door open.
1:46:45Get in, slick. He got in. She didn't ask
1:46:48a single question. She turned the AM
1:46:50radio down low, some old song about a
1:46:53train, and pulled out of the lot without
1:46:55once looking at the casino doors.
1:46:58West on the interstate, the lightning
1:47:00came closer, lighting up the desert
1:47:02white for half a second at a time.
1:47:05Saguaros.
1:47:07Power lines.
1:47:08The black hump of the Cargo Muchacho
1:47:10Mountains.
1:47:12They turned north on Ogilby Road toward
1:47:14the dunes, and the storm hit. First, the
1:47:17wind, a hot roaring shove that rocked
1:47:19the Ford on its springs, then the dust.
1:47:22A brown curtain so thick Marlene slowed
1:47:24to 15 and hunched over the wheel.
1:47:27Then the rain.
1:47:28Not drops,
1:47:30ropes.
1:47:32Fat hammering ropes that turned the
1:47:33windshield into a waterfall and the road
1:47:36into a river.
1:47:38His phone buzzed in his lap.
1:47:40Jasper.
1:47:42Ansel.
1:47:43Somebody is at your pyramid.
1:47:45Headlights in the storm.
1:47:48I can see them from the trailer when the
1:47:50lightning goes. Then it rang.
1:47:52Rain on a metal roof.
1:47:54Wind.
1:47:56A 12-year-old breathing too fast.
1:47:59All the questions were gone out of his
1:48:00voice.
1:48:01Somebody had come in from the open area.
1:48:04Right past the posts. And they were
1:48:06heading straight for Ansel's house.
1:48:09Ansel looked north through the
1:48:10waterfall.
1:48:12Lightning.
1:48:13One enormous white flash that lit up the
1:48:16whole world.
1:48:17The flooded road. The desert. The black
1:48:20wall of the dunes of And far off on top
1:48:23of the highest ridge crawling down
1:48:25toward a hidden bowl where a pyramid
1:48:27stood in a ring of palms.
1:48:30Two small yellow headlights.
1:48:32Then the dark slammed back down.
1:48:35And they were gone.
1:48:37The wipers were losing.
1:48:39The rain came in sheets and ropes and
1:48:41buckets and the headlights reached about
1:48:4410 ft and gave up. Ansel kept the phone
1:48:46pressed to his ear and talked to Jasper
1:48:49the way you'd talk to somebody standing
1:48:51on a ledge. Slow.
1:48:53Clear.
1:48:55Go get your mom.
1:48:56Right now.
1:48:58Tell her to call 911.
1:49:00Somebody drove past the wilderness posts
1:49:02and they're out in the flood.
1:49:05Tell them the mummy house. They'll know.
1:49:08Are you going out there?
1:49:10He didn't answer that.
1:49:12He told Jasper to stay inside that
1:49:14trailer with his mom and not go anywhere
1:49:16near those dunes, and to promise a long
1:49:19crackling pause.
1:49:21Then a very small promise.
1:49:24Then the call dropped. Marlene didn't
1:49:26look at him. Both hands on the wheel,
1:49:29nose 6 in from the glass.
1:49:33You're going out there in a monsoon
1:49:36on foot to save a house.
1:49:39Not the house, him.
1:49:42Because Garrett Toliver was 72 years old
1:49:45and didn't know the desert anymore.
1:49:47And the bowl.
1:49:49He stopped.
1:49:51Something had just gone through him
1:49:52cold. The bowl. The cracked mud. The
1:49:56white crust like spilled salt.
1:49:58Oscar had warned him the very first day
1:50:00standing by the green pool with his hat
1:50:03in his hand. That's old clay down there.
1:50:06That's why Gus found water.
1:50:08Clay holds it.
1:50:09Clay doesn't drink. It sheds. Every drop
1:50:13that fell into that hollow tonight had
1:50:14nowhere to go but down. Down the slopes,
1:50:18down across the hard clay floor into the
1:50:20lowest place in the whole bowl, the
1:50:22sunken courtyard, where the pool was,
1:50:25and the roof drains.
1:50:27Oh, no.
1:50:28The roof drains. Four of them.
1:50:31He dug them out himself with Pops' knife
1:50:33and a coat hanger. So, every drop that
1:50:35hit that roof was now pouring straight
1:50:37off the edge into the courtyard.
1:50:40Marlene, drive faster.
1:50:43She drove faster. They hit Highway 78
1:50:46sideways in a spray of water higher than
1:50:48the truck. 3 miles later, the sign for
1:50:51her lot loomed out of the rain, and she
1:50:53swung across the flooded gravel past the
1:50:55dark shop and stopped beside a long
1:50:57shape under a canvas cover.
1:51:00She was out before the truck stopped
1:51:02rocking. She ripped the cover off. A
1:51:04sand rail, not a rental.
1:51:07Older. Meaner.
1:51:09Painted a red so dark it was nearly
1:51:11black with a roll cage of heavy pipe,
1:51:13paddle tires taller than Jasper and a
1:51:15big steel winch bolted to the front
1:51:17bumper.
1:51:19This is Lorraine.
1:51:21Who's Lorraine?
1:51:23My ex-husband's mother.
1:51:25Loud, mean, always gets where she's
1:51:27going.
1:51:29She was already climbing in and yanking
1:51:30straps.
1:51:32Get in.
1:51:34Marlene, you don't have to of She turned
1:51:36and looked at him through the rain
1:51:37pouring off the bill of her backward
1:51:39cap.
1:51:40He knew how to wash one of these.
1:51:43He didn't know how to drive one. He
1:51:45should get in the dang buggy.
1:51:47He got in the dang buggy.
1:51:50Lorraine started on the first try with a
1:51:52sound like a grizzly bear clearing its
1:51:54throat.
1:51:55And they went into the dunes. He'd never
1:51:57be able to describe that drive properly.
1:52:00There was only noise and dark and water,
1:52:03the engine screaming, rain hammering the
1:52:06cage like gravel on a tin roof.
1:52:09Headlights jerking across sand gone
1:52:11slick as wet sugar.
1:52:14Lightning and a whole dune lit white for
1:52:16half a second right in front of them and
1:52:18then black.
1:52:20Marlene's jaw set and her lips moving,
1:52:23praying or swearing, possibly both.
1:52:27The wilderness posts flashed past in the
1:52:29headlights.
1:52:31No motor vehicles beyond this point.
1:52:34Marlene drove right past them. They
1:52:36could mail her the ticket. Up, down, up.
1:52:40And then over the last ridge above the
1:52:42bowl.
1:52:43Marlene hit the brakes.
1:52:45The lightning came in a huge white sheet
1:52:47that lit the hollow like a stadium.
1:52:49And for one long second, Ansel saw
1:52:52everything. The bowl was a lake, brown
1:52:55water rushing off every slope in braided
1:52:57streams.
1:52:58The palms knee-deep and thrashing. The
1:53:01house in the middle like a ship in a
1:53:03storm, its new clear panes glinting the
1:53:05pyramid pale and streaming.
1:53:08And off all four corners of the roof,
1:53:10four silver ropes of water poured down,
1:53:13exactly where he'd sent them, into the
1:53:15sunken courtyard, which was full. The
1:53:18pool was gone. The whole courtyard was
1:53:21one brown basin, rising, swirling, a
1:53:24barrel, a plastic chair, a red gas can,
1:53:28bobbing, and at the foot of the stone
1:53:30staircase on the left side of the house,
1:53:32upside down with its wheels in the air
1:53:34and its headlights still burning under
1:53:36the water like two drowned yellow eyes
1:53:38was a side-by-side. Pinned beneath it
1:53:40with only his head and shoulders and one
1:53:42arm above the surface was a man.
1:53:45Silver hair plastered flat, mouth open,
1:53:49face tipped back toward the sky to keep
1:53:51it out of the water.
1:53:53The dark slammed down.
1:53:55Ansel was already out of the buggy. He
1:53:57didn't remember deciding.
1:53:59He was just running,
1:54:01sliding, falling, up again,
1:54:04sand gone to mud. Lightning, the house,
1:54:08dark. Lightning, the stairs.
1:54:12He went down the stone staircase on his
1:54:14backside, step-by-step, and the water
1:54:16came up to meet him.
1:54:17Ankles, knees, waist, warm. That was the
1:54:21strangest thing, warm as bathwater and
1:54:24thick with sand pulling at his legs. The
1:54:26drowned headlights lit everything a
1:54:28murky brown.
1:54:30The roll cage, bent, crushed down on one
1:54:34side.
1:54:35Garrett's leg trapped at the thigh
1:54:37between the bar and the stone floor.
1:54:40Garrett twisted upright, clawing at the
1:54:42cage with one hand.
1:54:44And wrapped around him, around his chest
1:54:46and his shoulder and his other arm wound
1:54:48through the bars of the cage like a rope
1:54:51was a blue tarp, one of the old ones,
1:54:54one Ansel had never gotten around to
1:54:56pulling out of the scrub.
1:54:58The wind had torn it loose and the flood
1:54:59had carried it straight into the wreck.
1:55:01And every time the water surged it
1:55:03pulled The down.
1:55:06The water was at Garrett's chin.
1:55:08His eyes found Ansel and went wide,
1:55:10white all the way around.
1:55:12He opened his mouth.
1:55:14Water went in. He choked
1:55:17for 1 second, just one.
1:55:19A voice inside Ansel's head said
1:55:21something very quiet. He came here to
1:55:23burn it. He brought a gas can.
1:55:26He came while you were gone.
1:55:28He sat at Nana's table. He made Lenora
1:55:30shut the door.
1:55:32He kept her father from her for 47 years
1:55:34and tonight he was going to burn the
1:55:36last of him.
1:55:38And now the water.
1:55:39Let it.
1:55:41Ansel heard it clear as a bell.
1:55:44And he hated that he heard it.
1:55:46Then he heard something underneath it.
1:55:48Older.
1:55:49Gravel being stirred in a bucket. You
1:55:52don't kill a tenant for having good
1:55:53taste. You finish the job. He grabbed
1:55:56Garrett under the arms. Breathe,
1:55:58breathe. He had him. The tarp was the
1:56:00problem. Every surge dragged it tighter.
1:56:03There was no time to untangle it. No
1:56:05light. Just brown water and roaring rain
1:56:08and an old man choking against his
1:56:10chest.
1:56:11His right hand went to his cargo pocket.
1:56:14The knife was there.
1:56:15It was always there.
1:56:17He got it out. Got it open. His fingers
1:56:20shook so badly he nearly dropped it and
1:56:22if he dropped it it would have been gone
1:56:24forever into the mud.
1:56:26He didn't drop it. He pulled the tarp
1:56:28taut with his left hand and cut.
1:56:31The old blade went through the wet
1:56:32plastic like it had been waiting 50
1:56:34years for exactly this.
1:56:36Again. Across the chest. Again. Around
1:56:39the arm. The tarp fell away in long blue
1:56:42ribbons and swirled off into the dark.
1:56:45Garrett came up a few inches gasping but
1:56:48the leg was still pinned.
1:56:50Ansel set his shoulder under the bar and
1:56:52lifted with everything he had. Legs,
1:56:55back, all of it. Half an inch. Then it
1:56:58settled back down and Garrett screamed.
1:57:00The water was rising. He shouted for
1:57:02Marlene. The rain swallowed it whole.
1:57:05He shouted again.
1:57:07Hopeless.
1:57:08Then light.
1:57:10Up on the right where the long stone
1:57:12footbridge reached out from the house,
1:57:13Lorraine came grinding across the clay
1:57:15with her lights blazing.
1:57:17Marlene swung her around nose first
1:57:19toward the courtyard, jumped out, hit
1:57:21the winch release, and ran the hook out
1:57:23onto the bridge. She threw it from the
1:57:25very edge. It splashed down 3 ft from
1:57:28Ansel's head. Her voice cut through the
1:57:30storm like a train whistle.
1:57:33Top bar. Not the side, the top.
1:57:37He found the top bar under the water by
1:57:39feel, wrapped the cable once, and set
1:57:41the hook.
1:57:43Got it.
1:57:44The winch whined.
1:57:46The cable came up out of the water
1:57:48humming like a guitar string. And the
1:57:50side-by-side moved.
1:57:52Metal shrieking against stone. 1 in, 2,
1:57:563.
1:57:58Ansel wrapped both arms around Garrett's
1:58:00chest, braced his boots, and pulled. The
1:58:02leg came free. They went over backward
1:58:05into the water together. Brown, warm,
1:58:08roaring.
1:58:09Then his feet found the floor and he
1:58:10came up gasping with Garrett's head on
1:58:12his shoulder and he dragged him through
1:58:14the wreckage toward the bridge.
1:58:16Marlene was already flat on her belly at
1:58:18the edge reaching down with both arms.
1:58:21Together they hauled him up onto the
1:58:22pale wooden slats. Garrett Tolliver lay
1:58:25on his back in the pouring rain coughing
1:58:28up water. His leg was bent wrong below
1:58:31the knee. His fine linen shirt hung torn
1:58:34off one shoulder.
1:58:35Ansel collapsed beside him with the
1:58:37knife still in his fist.
1:58:39He didn't think he could let go of it.
1:58:41Marlene came back with a foil emergency
1:58:43blanket from Lorraine's toolbox and
1:58:45threw it over Garrett. She put her palm
1:58:47on his forehead, rough and practical the
1:58:49way you'd check a motor for heat.
1:58:52Then she reached over, took Ansel's cap
1:58:54off, dumped the water out of it, and put
1:58:56it back on him.
1:58:57Backward.
1:58:59The way she wore hers.
1:59:01Garrett's eyes opened.
1:59:03Rain ran down his face. His lips were
1:59:05blue.
1:59:06I was going to burn it. I smelled the
1:59:08gas.
1:59:09Garrett stared at him. Then why? Ansel
1:59:12didn't answer.
1:59:14Not then.
1:59:15He just pulled the foil blanket up
1:59:17around the old man's shoulders and
1:59:19tucked it in the way you'd tuck in
1:59:20anybody who was cold.
1:59:22"Hold still," he told him. "Help was
1:59:24coming." It came at first light. The
1:59:27rain stopped all at once the way monsoon
1:59:29rain does, like somebody turning off a
1:59:31faucet. Then the sun came up over the
1:59:34far mountains onto a desert washed so
1:59:36clean it looked brand new.
1:59:38And the water went away almost as fast
1:59:40as it had come.
1:59:42The sand at the rims of the bowl drank
1:59:44it down in long hissing gulps.
1:59:46By the time search and rescue came down
1:59:48the slope in their orange vehicle with a
1:59:50stretcher,
1:59:51the courtyard was a shallow brown pond
1:59:53and the overturned machine sat in the
1:59:55middle of it like a dead beetle. The
1:59:57paramedics splinted Garrett's leg.
2:00:00Broken in two places, oxygen mask,
2:00:04stretcher.
2:00:05A young deputy with mud to his knees
2:00:07wanted to know what had happened.
2:00:10Ansel gave him the truth as short as the
2:00:12truth would go.
2:00:14The man got stuck in the flood. They got
2:00:16him out. The deputy's eyes went to a red
2:00:19gas can washed up at the bottom of the
2:00:21stone staircase lying on its side with
2:00:23the cap gone.
2:00:25He looked at it a long time.
2:00:27Then he wanted to know whether this was
2:00:29Ansel's property
2:00:30and whether Ansel wanted to press
2:00:32charges.
2:00:33Trespass.
2:00:34Anything else?
2:00:36On the stretcher above the oxygen mask,
2:00:38Garrett's eyes were open.
2:00:41Watching.
2:00:42Ansel looked at the gas can, then at the
2:00:44old man.
2:00:46He gave it about 3 honest seconds.
2:00:49"No, sir." The deputy waited a beat to
2:00:51see if he changed his mind. He didn't.
2:00:54When they carried the stretcher past,
2:00:56Garrett's hand came out from under the
2:00:58strap and caught Ansel's sleeve.
2:01:00Just for a second. His fingers were
2:01:03cold.
2:01:04Then the paramedics kept walking.
2:01:06And his hand let go.
2:01:09After they'd gone, Ansel went down into
2:01:11the cellar.
2:01:12Ankle-deep brown water.
2:01:15The bottom row of his dry-stacked wall
2:01:17was soaked. The second row damp. The
2:01:19third row dry. He pulled the blocks and
2:01:22crawled through with the headlamp.
2:01:24The passage floor was wet for a few
2:01:26feet. Then it wasn't.
2:01:28And for the first time he noticed it
2:01:30rising under his boots. So gently you'd
2:01:33never feel it walking.
2:01:35An inch every 10 ft.
2:01:37By the iron-bound door he was 6 in
2:01:40higher than where he'd started. And the
2:01:42threshold was a single block of
2:01:43sandstone a full hand high. A step up.
2:01:46Like the doorway of a church. Gus had
2:01:48known about the clay. About the storms.
2:01:52He'd built his wife a resting place the
2:01:55water could never reach.
2:01:57Inside the vault was dry as a Bible on a
2:02:00shelf.
2:02:01Daisy's urn. The gray cans. The cedar
2:02:05box. The trowel.
2:02:07All of it safe.
2:02:09He walked to the empty niche and laid
2:02:11his palm flat on the blank stone where
2:02:13the second year should have been.
2:02:15Soon.
2:02:17He didn't know how.
2:02:19But soon. They had Garrett at the
2:02:21hospital in El Centro. Ansel went on the
2:02:23second day after standing in the parking
2:02:25lot for a long time with all the very
2:02:27good reasons not to.
2:02:29Third floor. End of the hall.
2:02:32Blinds half closed.
2:02:34A vase of stiff expensive flowers on the
2:02:36windowsill with a card stuck on a
2:02:38plastic fork.
2:02:39Warmest wishes from the Civic Club.
2:02:42Nobody else had come. Without the linen
2:02:44shirt and the slacks and the silver hair
2:02:46combed back just so, Garrett looked like
2:02:48what he was.
2:02:50An old man.
2:02:51Thin arms, spotted hands.
2:02:54A cast from hip to ankle.
2:02:57A hospital bracelet on his wrist.
2:02:59Born 1954.
2:03:01He didn't look surprised.
2:03:04He'd wondered if Ansel would come.
2:03:06Then he talked and Ansel let him.
2:03:09The way you let water out of a pipe
2:03:10that's been blocked for 14 years. Most
2:03:13of it Ansel already knew from the
2:03:15letter.
2:03:16What he didn't know was the beginning.
2:03:19That Lenny laughed like a screen door
2:03:21banging and every time she did their
2:03:23father looked up from his work like
2:03:25somebody had called his name.
2:03:27And never once looked up like that for
2:03:29Garrett.
2:03:31That a week after she left, Gus came out
2:03:33to Garrett's truck with an envelope and
2:03:35asked him to mail it because Garrett had
2:03:36her address.
2:03:38She'd called him from a payphone and
2:03:40begged him not to tell.
2:03:42That Garrett put the envelope in his
2:03:44glove box.
2:03:45Meant to mail it.
2:03:47Was going to.
2:03:49Was just angry.
2:03:51And a month later when his father wanted
2:03:53to know if Lenny had written back.
2:03:55Garrett heard himself say she'd sent it
2:03:57back unopened. After that, every letter
2:04:00was another stone.
2:04:02Every Christmas, another lie to cover
2:04:04the last one.
2:04:06By the second year, he couldn't pull a
2:04:08single one out without the whole wall
2:04:10coming down on him.
2:04:11After the funeral, he'd driven out to
2:04:13the pyramid with a flashlight and torn
2:04:15the place apart.
2:04:16Found nothing.
2:04:18And every night for 14 years he'd told
2:04:20himself his father had burned them.
2:04:23And the park, Garrett looked at the
2:04:25ceiling for a long time. He'd told
2:04:27himself it was for his father.
2:04:30It wasn't. It was so that when people
2:04:32said the name Toliver, they'd think of a
2:04:34nice green park with a splash pad. Not
2:04:36some boxes behind the Christmas lights.
2:04:40Then Merle had called about the coin and
2:04:42he'd known.
2:04:43Ansel wanted to know why that night. Why
2:04:46the storm? Garrett almost laughed.
2:04:49His investigator had told him Ansel was
2:04:51on a bus to Kingman
2:04:52and he thought the rain would hide the
2:04:54smoke. He was 72 years old. He didn't
2:04:57know a thing about the desert anymore.
2:05:00Dad did. Ansel turned his cap over in
2:05:02his hands.
2:05:03He was going to give Lenora the letters.
2:05:06All of them.
2:05:08That was going to happen no matter what.
2:05:11But first he wanted Garrett to write to
2:05:12her.
2:05:13Everything.
2:05:15The glove box, the garage, the card
2:05:19and the phone call about Ansel.
2:05:21The part about stealing from his
2:05:23grandmother was true.
2:05:25The part about squeezing an old man's
2:05:26family was a lie.
2:05:28And Lenora deserved to hear that it was
2:05:31a lie from the man who told it.
2:05:34And if I don't, then she reads them
2:05:36anyway knowing you never said a word and
2:05:39you're the man in the garage forever.
2:05:42Garrett stared at him.
2:05:44You could have let me drown. Why didn't
2:05:46you?
2:05:47Ansel thought about the voice in the
2:05:49water, about pop, about an old man with
2:05:52a dead left hand building a wall so
2:05:54somebody kind might find what was behind
2:05:56it.
2:05:57Somebody had once stopped him, he
2:05:59explained slowly, from doing the worst
2:06:01thing he could do.
2:06:02He hadn't thought he'd ever get the
2:06:04chance to pay that back. Then he took a
2:06:06single postage stamp out of his shirt
2:06:08pocket.
2:06:09He'd bought a book of them at the gift
2:06:10shop downstairs.
2:06:12He set it on the rolling tray table next
2:06:14to the water cup.
2:06:16Mail it yourself
2:06:17with a stamp.
2:06:19And he walked out.
2:06:21He walked to Pepper Drive.
2:06:232 miles in 104°.
2:06:25He didn't want a ride.
2:06:27He didn't want to arrive.
2:06:29He just wanted to keep walking toward
2:06:31it. He didn't stop at the corner this
2:06:32time. He went up the three fieldstone
2:06:34steps Pop had laid in 1981 and knocked
2:06:37on the screen door. Slow footsteps. The
2:06:40tap of a cane.
2:06:42That was new.
2:06:44The inner door opened. And there she
2:06:46was. Smaller than he remembered.
2:06:50Her silver curls still set the way she
2:06:52did them every Saturday night.
2:06:54Thicker glasses. The magnifying glass on
2:06:57its cord around her neck like a medal.
2:07:00Her blue house dress with the little
2:07:02white flowers.
2:07:03He watched her squint through the
2:07:05screen.
2:07:06Lean closer.
2:07:08And then he watched her know. Her hand
2:07:11came up to her mouth.
2:07:13Ansel Wade Crane.
2:07:16Not far apart this time.
2:07:18All at once. So close together they were
2:07:20almost one word. The way she'd said it
2:07:23when he was six and fell off his bike
2:07:25and she came running down the driveway
2:07:27with her arms already open.
2:07:29He got one word out. Nana.
2:07:32She pushed the screen door open and
2:07:34stood back to let him in. Same oilcloth.
2:07:37Same toaster. Same drawer underneath.
2:07:41She poured him iced tea and set a plate
2:07:43of lemon bars in front of him without
2:07:45asking because there is no situation in
2:07:47this world in Opal Crane's opinion that
2:07:50a lemon bar cannot improve.
2:07:52He told her everything.
2:07:54From the first bet in Yuma to the check
2:07:57with her name on it in a cemetery in
2:07:58Brawley and the word no. She listened
2:08:01without interrupting once her hands
2:08:03folded on the oilcloth.
2:08:05When he was done she sat a while longer.
2:08:07Then she pushed herself up, took her
2:08:09cane, and went to the pantry. She
2:08:11reached up to the top shelf and felt
2:08:13around. She came back with a red coffee
2:08:16can. Old. Paint rubbed off at the rim. A
2:08:19dent in one side.
2:08:21He'd known that can his whole life.
2:08:23She set it in front of him and took off
2:08:25the lid. Money order envelopes. stacked
2:08:28on their edges like cards in a file box.
2:08:3120 of them.
2:08:32Every one he'd ever sent.
2:08:34He pulled out the first.
2:08:36January.
2:08:37Not cashed. Not even signed on the back.
2:08:41Still crisp.
2:08:42He pulled out another.
2:08:44And another.
2:08:45Not one cashed.
2:08:47And standing at the front like a
2:08:48bookmark was a photograph of a pyramid
2:08:51at sunset.
2:08:52It's real.
2:08:54Pops pyramid. Love A.
2:08:57He looked up at her. He couldn't speak.
2:08:59I wasn't waiting for the money, honey. I
2:09:01was waiting to see if you'd keep sending
2:09:03it.
2:09:04He put his face in his hands.
2:09:07She came around the table slow cane
2:09:09tapping and pulled his head against her
2:09:10house dress the way she used to when he
2:09:12was small enough.
2:09:14He wasn't small enough anymore.
2:09:16She did it anyway.
2:09:1820 months.
2:09:20Every first week, like clockwork. Even
2:09:23after that man came, his head came up.
2:09:25Garrett had been here. Her face went
2:09:27very flat. Very cafeteria.
2:09:30The man had sat in his grandfather's
2:09:32chair.
2:09:34Nobody sat in that chair.
2:09:36Then he'd put a check on her table with
2:09:37her name on it. And told her it was hers
2:09:40if she'd talk some sense into her
2:09:41grandson.
2:09:43I've fed 800 children a day for 31
2:09:46years, Ansel Waid Crane.
2:09:48I know exactly what a liar looks like
2:09:50when he's angling for seconds.
2:09:53He wanted to know what she'd done. She
2:09:54lifted her chin. She'd given him back
2:09:57his check. And a lemon bar to go.
2:10:00Mama raised her right.
2:10:01Then he did laugh.
2:10:03Helplessly.
2:10:05And so did she.
2:10:06Her big wheezing cafeteria laugh that he
2:10:09hadn't heard in two years. The two of
2:10:11them rattling the iced tea glasses with
2:10:13a red coffee can full of money orders
2:10:15sitting between them. Afterwards, she
2:10:17went out to the garage.
2:10:19He heard boxes shift. Something fall
2:10:21over.
2:10:23A word Opal Crane would never in her
2:10:25life admit to knowing.
2:10:28She came back with something wrapped in
2:10:29an old shop towel and set it in his lap.
2:10:32A mason's hammer. Square face on one
2:10:35end. Chisel blade on the other. The
2:10:38hickory handle worn dark into the shape
2:10:40of one particular hand.
2:10:42Pops.
2:10:43It had been waiting out in that garage
2:10:45for 2 years.
2:10:47Like everything else in this house. He
2:10:49started to promise he'd pay her back.
2:10:51Every penny.
2:10:52I know you will.
2:10:54That's the only reason I didn't cash
2:10:55those.
2:10:56The drive to Kingman was 9 hours by bus.
2:10:59It was 6 and 1/2 by Marlene. She drove.
2:11:03Ansel rode up front.
2:11:05Chola sat between them with her chin on
2:11:07the dashboard.
2:11:08And in the back seat of the crew cab,
2:11:10his cast propped across the whole bench
2:11:12on a pillow, rode Garrett Tolliver.
2:11:16Marlene had looked at him for a long
2:11:17time in the hospital parking lot before
2:11:19she let him in.
2:11:21She didn't call him slick. He was over
2:11:2350. He didn't get a nickname. He got the
2:11:26back seat. Garrett had mailed his
2:11:29letter. He'd shown Ansel the receipt
2:11:31from the hospital mailroom, and he kept
2:11:33it folded in his shirt pocket, and took
2:11:35it out to look at it four times between
2:11:37Yuma and Quartzsite.
2:11:39It was the first letter he had ever
2:11:41mailed to his sister. Somewhere past
2:11:43Lake Havasu, Marlene and Garrett got
2:11:45into a short, sharp argument about
2:11:47whether the best pie in Arizona came
2:11:49from a diner in Quartzsite or a truck
2:11:51stop in Ehrenberg.
2:11:53Ansel learned two things.
2:11:55Marlene could out-argue a man who'd
2:11:57spent 40 years in sales. And Garrett
2:12:00Tolliver, once he stopped trying to sell
2:12:02you something, had a surprisingly decent
2:12:04laugh.
2:12:06At a quarter past two, they pulled up in
2:12:07front of the tan stucco house.
2:12:10Three cactuses. One palo verde.
2:12:14The white mailbox. Ansel carried the
2:12:161979 bundle up the gravel path.
2:12:19Four white envelopes tied with twine.
2:12:22Lenora on every one.
2:12:24He never got to knock.
2:12:27The inner door opened while he was still
2:12:28on the second step.
2:12:30She stood behind the screen holding an
2:12:32opened envelope against her chest. A
2:12:34hospital's return address printed in the
2:12:37corner.
2:12:38Her eyes went past him to the truck.
2:12:40To the shape in the backseat with his
2:12:42face pressed close to the window. Her
2:12:44jaw tightened. He would stay in the
2:12:46truck. He was very good at waiting
2:12:48outside. He'd had a lot of practice.
2:12:52Then her eyes dropped to what Ansel was
2:12:53holding and she stopped breathing.
2:12:57He watched her find the twine, the
2:12:59handwriting. Her own name in a hand she
2:13:01hadn't seen in 47 years.
2:13:04The color left her face.
2:13:06Her fingers fumbled the latch on the
2:13:08screen door.
2:13:09Found it.
2:13:11Come in. Her kitchen was so clean it
2:13:13hurt.
2:13:14A row of plaques hung over the table.
2:13:1610 years of service.
2:13:1820.
2:13:1930.
2:13:2035.
2:13:22With gratitude. She sat with Garrett's
2:13:24letter flat in front of her and her
2:13:25hands on either side of it the way women
2:13:27of a certain age hold a table down when
2:13:30the floor starts to move.
2:13:32Garrett had written that he lied about
2:13:34Ansel.
2:13:35That Ansel stole from his grandmother,
2:13:37which was true.
2:13:39That he was a gambler, also true.
2:13:41And that he was the most honest man
2:13:43Garrett had ever tried to buy. Ansel
2:13:46stayed by the door. Most of what her
2:13:48brother told her on the phone was true,
2:13:50he admitted. He'd taken his
2:13:52grandmother's money.
2:13:54All of it.
2:13:55He wasn't here because he was a good
2:13:57man.
2:13:58He was here because her father had asked
2:14:00whoever found these to be kind.
2:14:03And he was trying.
2:14:05She looked at the bundle for a long
2:14:07time.
2:14:08Then she reached out and took it. Very
2:14:10carefully.
2:14:12Like it might be hot.
2:14:14Her fingers untied the twine the way 35
2:14:16years of bundles had taught them. She
2:14:19stopped with the first envelope in her
2:14:20hand. Sit down. Don't you dare leave me
2:14:23alone with these.
2:14:25He sat. She slid a silver retirement
2:14:27letter opener under the flap and opened
2:14:29it in one clean stroke. One sheet.
2:14:32Pencil. Big blocky capitals, steady and
2:14:35young. Before the stroke. Before
2:14:37everything. She read it to herself
2:14:39first. Then she read it out loud. Like
2:14:42she needed to hear it in the room to
2:14:43know it was real.
2:14:45Lenny.
2:14:47Her voice wobbled on the name. Six days.
2:14:50Your mother hasn't said one word to me
2:14:51in six days and I don't blame her. I
2:14:53don't have the words either.
2:14:55So I'm going to do what I do. One at a
2:14:58time.
2:14:59She pressed her lips together. Went on.
2:15:03What I said to you Tuesday night was
2:15:04wrong.
2:15:05Every word.
2:15:07I was scared and I was proud.
2:15:09And I'm a stonemason Lenny.
2:15:11So when I get scared I build a wall.
2:15:14I built one between you and me in about
2:15:1610 seconds flat. That's the fastest I
2:15:18ever worked. Half a laugh came out of
2:15:20her. Half something else.
2:15:23I'm taking it down. Same way I put it
2:15:25up. One stone at a time. This letter is
2:15:28the first stone.
2:15:29Come home whenever you want. Or don't
2:15:31and let me come to you. Either way.
2:15:34She couldn't finish. He watched her try.
2:15:37Then the last line came out in a
2:15:38whisper.
2:15:40Either way, the porch light's on. She
2:15:42took off her glasses and set them
2:15:44precisely beside the letter opener.
2:15:47And Lenora Fairbanks, 67 years old,
2:15:50retired after 35 years behind a counter
2:15:53of the United States Postal Service, put
2:15:55her face in her hands at her own clean
2:15:58kitchen table and wept.
2:16:01Ansel didn't reach for her.
2:16:03He just stayed.
2:16:05Because that was what she'd asked for.
2:16:07When she finally lifted her head, her
2:16:09eyes were red and her voice was raw.
2:16:12Six days.
2:16:14He'd written to her in six days.
2:16:17She'd quit checking her own mailbox in
2:16:191985.
2:16:2135 years she'd put a million letters in
2:16:24the right boxes.
2:16:26Christmas cards, love letters,
2:16:29letters from soldiers,
2:16:31and she never once checked her own.
2:16:34She wanted to know how many there were.
2:16:37384.
2:16:39She stared at him.
2:16:41Then something cracked open in her face
2:16:43and for 1 second there was a 20-year-old
2:16:45girl who laughed like a screen door
2:16:46banging.
2:16:48Of course you counted. He nodded.
2:16:51She got up and went to the window. She
2:16:53looked out at the truck, at her brother
2:16:56face pressed to the glass watching her
2:16:58house the way their father used to watch
2:17:00the door. Then she walked out, down the
2:17:02gravel path, past the three cactus's,
2:17:05straight to the truck. Marlene saw her
2:17:07coming and got out fast and came to
2:17:09stand beside Ansel on the sidewalk and
2:17:11neither of them made a sound.
2:17:13Lenora opened the back door of the crew
2:17:15cab.
2:17:16Garrett looked up at her. His face was
2:17:19wet. His mouth moved. Nothing came out.
2:17:23You should have mailed them.
2:17:25Every month I thought about it, Lenny.
2:17:27Every single month. Then that's 384
2:17:30times you thought about it.
2:17:32She stood there in the open door. Then
2:17:34she climbed in beside his cast and
2:17:36pulled the door shut behind her. Through
2:17:39the tinted glass, Ansel could just make
2:17:41out two silver heads side by side, not
2:17:44touching, not yet.
2:17:46Marlene folded her arms and squinted at
2:17:48the truck. In her professional opinion,
2:17:51that was either very good or very bad.
2:17:53They stood on the sidewalk for an hour
2:17:55and 10 minutes. When the door finally
2:17:57opened, Lenora climbed out with swollen
2:18:00eyes and her sharp silver hair sticking
2:18:02up on one side.
2:18:04She walked straight back to Ansel.
2:18:07She wanted to see where her mother was,
2:18:10where her father had put her.
2:18:12It took Garrett 3 hours to walk a mile
2:18:14and a quarter. They went in October when
2:18:17the heat had finally broken and the
2:18:19mornings were 70° and the sky was so
2:18:22blue it looked painted.
2:18:24Garrett walked in on crutches from the
2:18:26wilderness posts, his cast dragging a
2:18:28furrow through the sand.
2:18:31He wouldn't be carried.
2:18:32He wouldn't ride.
2:18:34One crutch,
2:18:35the other,
2:18:37the good leg,
2:18:38stop,
2:18:39breathe,
2:18:41again,
2:18:42his face gray,
2:18:44his jaw set in a hard square line that
2:18:46looked for the first time exactly like
2:18:48his father's. Nobody hurried him. Lenora
2:18:51walked beside him matching his pace
2:18:53holding a bronze urn wrapped in a soft
2:18:55white blanket.
2:18:57For 14 years Augustus Tolliver had sat
2:19:00in a marble columbarium niche in Yuma
2:19:02with fresh flowers on the first of every
2:19:04month paid for by the foundation.
2:19:07Now there were county papers with two
2:19:09signatures on them, son and daughter.
2:19:11He was going home. The rest of them
2:19:13came, too.
2:19:15Pearl in her straw hat and hiking poles
2:19:17setting the pace like a drill sergeant.
2:19:19Oscar humming bass.
2:19:22Marlene lugging a cooler of iced tea and
2:19:24complaining about the sand like she'd
2:19:26personally filed a grievance with the
2:19:27desert.
2:19:29Rosa holding Jasper's hand.
2:19:31Jasper in his bicycle helmet for no
2:19:33reason anybody could identify.
2:19:36And Clyde who had parked his rig on
2:19:38Highway 78 at 6:00 that morning and
2:19:40walked in from the highway because
2:19:41nobody told him about the posts.
2:19:44He arrived red-faced and soaked through.
2:19:47It was the first time in 30 years he'd
2:19:49parked a truck and walked anywhere.
2:19:52He would never do it again.
2:19:5410-4. And bringing up the rear in
2:19:56Jasper's beach wagon on its fat balloon
2:19:58tires sitting on a folded quilt with her
2:20:00purse in her lap and her cane across her
2:20:02knees like a scepter being hauled
2:20:04through the sand by her grandson and a
2:20:0612-year-old boy in a bicycle helmet rode
2:20:09Opal Crane.
2:20:10Every bump earned the same instruction.
2:20:13Smooth, boys.
2:20:15She was not a sack of feed.
2:20:18At the top of the last ridge she told
2:20:20them to stop. She sat very still.
2:20:23She lifted the magnifying glass on its
2:20:25cord to her eye.
2:20:26She couldn't see much.
2:20:28Ansel knew that.
2:20:30Not the clear panes or the blue pool or
2:20:33the green palms, but she could see the
2:20:35shape. A big pale shape against the sky.
2:20:39Four slanted sides.
2:20:41One point.
2:20:43She lowered the glass.
2:20:45Wade, you old liar, you were telling the
2:20:48truth. The vault wasn't big enough for
2:20:51everybody.
2:20:52The others waited in a bent-over line in
2:20:54the passage and Jasper sat by the iron
2:20:56door with his helmet in his lap.
2:20:59Inside there were four of them and one
2:21:01dog who refused to be left out.
2:21:04Garrett against the wall on his crutches
2:21:06holding up a lantern.
2:21:08Opal on a folding stool.
2:21:10Ansel.
2:21:11And Lenora in front of the far wall.
2:21:15In front of her mother.
2:21:17She read the words carved in the stone.
2:21:19She wanted Egypt. Then she unwrapped the
2:21:22white blanket and set her father down in
2:21:24the empty niche beside her mother.
2:21:26Gently.
2:21:28Carefully.
2:21:29Square.
2:21:31The two urns sat side by side in their
2:21:33stone arches in the cool and the hum
2:21:35under the long narrow shaft where a
2:21:38single beam of October sun came angling
2:21:40down and laid itself across both of
2:21:43them.
2:21:44Ansel took Gus's cold chisel from his
2:21:47belt.
2:21:48And Pops' hammer. He'd practiced for a
2:21:51month on scrap sandstone behind the
2:21:53house every evening until his letters
2:21:54came out clean and deep and blocky.
2:21:57Gus's kind of letters, made to last.
2:22:02He set the chisel against the smooth
2:22:03stone beside 1931
2:22:06and struck.
2:22:07The ring went through the little room
2:22:09like a bell.
2:22:11two
2:22:12zero
2:22:14one
2:22:15two
2:22:17Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. There was
2:22:20only the hammer and the hiss of falling
2:22:22dust and the hum of the wind in the
2:22:24shaft. When the year was done, Lenora
2:22:26was standing right behind him. There was
2:22:29room under it. Wasn't there?
2:22:31Like under her mother's.
2:22:33He nodded and he waited.
2:22:36She thought for a long time with her
2:22:38hand pressed to her heart.
2:22:40Then she told him what to carve.
2:22:43When he was finished, the words sat
2:22:45under her father's name, deep and clean,
2:22:48exactly like the ones under Daisy's.
2:22:51Augustus Tolliver 1931
2:22:552012
2:22:57He never stopped. Out in the passage
2:22:59very softly, Oscar started to sing.
2:23:03Shall we gather at the river?
2:23:06His bass came rolling up the stone
2:23:08tunnel until the walls hummed with it.
2:23:10Then Pearl joined in thin and high and
2:23:13perfectly on pitch. Then Clyde rough and
2:23:16off-key. Then Marlene so quietly she
2:23:18would deny it to her grave. Garrett
2:23:21stood against the wall with the lantern
2:23:23shaking in his hand, crying without a
2:23:25sound. What a bee. Lenora turned and
2:23:27looked at him. Then she took the lantern
2:23:29out of his hand, set it on the shelf,
2:23:31and put her arms around her brother.
2:23:32Carefully. Around the crutches, around
2:23:35everything. It wasn't forgiveness, not
2:23:38all the way, not yet. But it was the
2:23:41first stone. Upstairs with the late sun
2:23:44pouring gold through the clear panes,
2:23:46Lenora counted the coins out on Gus's
2:23:48long table, quick and sure, the way
2:23:50she'd counted change for 35 years. Two
2:23:53piles of a hundred.
2:23:55Then she took one coin out of Ansel's
2:23:57pile and set it aside.
2:23:59He'd already taken one. 99. He tried to
2:24:02refuse.
2:24:04She tapped the table once.
2:24:06Hard.
2:24:07Half was his. Her father wrote it.
2:24:10She was not going to argue with her
2:24:11father anymore.
2:24:13She'd done that once and it cost her 47
2:24:15years. Garrett had already signed a
2:24:17one-page paper waving his own claim to
2:24:20anything in that vault.
2:24:21He signed it with a cheap plastic pen.
2:24:24It was the first thing in 20 years, he
2:24:26admitted to Ansel later, that he'd
2:24:28signed without his name going on a
2:24:29building. The next Monday, the bell
2:24:31jingled over the coin shop door in Yuma.
2:24:34Merle looked at 99 little gold eagles,
2:24:37everyone with a T in the rim, for a long
2:24:39time.
2:24:40Somebody was finally doing something
2:24:41with them.
2:24:42Gus would have liked that.
2:24:44He paid a fair price, every penny. That
2:24:47Friday, Ansel set a cashier's check on
2:24:49the oilcloth on Pepper Drive.
2:24:52$28,000.
2:24:54Payable to the order of Opal Crane.
2:24:56She studied it through her magnifying
2:24:58glass for a long time.
2:25:00Then she put it in the bank, took $20
2:25:03back out, and bought a brand new red
2:25:05coffee can.
2:25:06The park opened that same month.
2:25:09No ribbon, no luncheon.
2:25:11Just a bronze plaque on a stone
2:25:13pedestal, its words changed at the last
2:25:15minute by a phone call from a hospital
2:25:17bed. Augustus and Daisy Tolliver Park,
2:25:20for their children.
2:25:22Garrett stood at the back of the small
2:25:24crowd on his crutches.
2:25:26Lenora stood beside him.
2:25:28Close. Not touching.
2:25:31But close.
2:25:33By the wilderness posts, a crooked sign
2:25:35went up on a scrap of plywood.
2:25:38Jasper painted it in red house paint,
2:25:40the letters starting big and getting
2:25:42smaller as he ran out of room.
2:25:45Crane stone and restoration. Any wall,
2:25:48any step, any stone. Ask for Ansel.
2:25:52Ansel never fixed it. The work came.
2:25:55Headstones in Brawley and El Centro and
2:25:58Calexico.
2:26:00Church steps in Holtville. Rock walls
2:26:02along the ditches in the Bard Valley.
2:26:05Oscar put in a word with the irrigation
2:26:07district and it turned out the district
2:26:08needed somebody to repair the old stone
2:26:10headgates on the canals, some of them a
2:26:12hundred years old. A man who paid
2:26:15attention. A man who never used anything
2:26:18harsh. Pearl did his books and charged
2:26:20him in lemon bars which he gave to Opal
2:26:22which Opal gave back to Ansel in a cycle
2:26:24nobody could explain.
2:26:27When the season came back in October,
2:26:29Marlene opened her gate again.
2:26:31And every Monday before sunrise, a tall
2:26:34young man with a scar through his
2:26:35eyebrow showed up to wash the buggies.
2:26:38He didn't need the money anymore.
2:26:40He came anyway. And every single Monday
2:26:43she found a spot he'd missed.
2:26:45And on Sunday afternoons, the great room
2:26:47of the pyramid filled up. Lenora rented
2:26:49a little house in Brawley three blocks
2:26:51from Pearl's church.
2:26:53Every Sunday she sat under the brass
2:26:55lotus light and read one of her father's
2:26:58letters. One a week. In order.
2:27:0132 years of letters deserved to be read
2:27:03slowly. Opal came riding in the beach
2:27:06wagon and complaining about every bump.
2:27:08Then Pearl. Then Oscar and Rosa and
2:27:11Clyde whenever his route came through.
2:27:14Then people from the church. A widower
2:27:17who hadn't spoken to his son in nine
2:27:18years.
2:27:19A woman who'd fallen out with her sister
2:27:21over a casserole dish in 1994
2:27:24and couldn't remember anymore which of
2:27:26them had been right. Lenora gave them
2:27:28paper, real envelopes, real stamps, and
2:27:32she helped them write the letters they'd
2:27:34never sent.
2:27:35She was very good at it.
2:27:37She'd spent 35 years knowing exactly
2:27:40where a letter needed to go.
2:27:42Opal and Lenora became the kind of
2:27:44friends who finish each other's
2:27:45proverbs.
2:27:47Garrett came once a month and sat at the
2:27:49end of the table with his cane. He wrote
2:27:52letters, too.
2:27:53Ansel never asked who they were for, but
2:27:55every one of them Garrett mailed
2:27:57himself. The 9th of June came around
2:27:59again.
2:28:01Ansel woke before the sun made coffee on
2:28:03the camp stove, let Chola out, and
2:28:05watched the sky over the far mountains
2:28:07go from black to navy to gray to gold.
2:28:11Then he took Gus's letter out of the
2:28:13cedar box and went down through the
2:28:15cellar, through the old wall, up the
2:28:17gently rising passage, and through the
2:28:20iron-bound door. Cool. Still
2:28:23humming.
2:28:25The morning sun came down the long shaft
2:28:27and laid one gold bar of light across
2:28:29the two niches.
2:28:32She wanted Egypt.
2:28:34He never stopped.
2:28:36He sat with his back against the stone
2:28:38and read the letter out loud.
2:28:40All four pages. Every wobbly word.
2:28:44"I hope you have need of it, and I hope
2:28:47you are kind."
2:28:49Then he folded it back along its creases
2:28:51and sat a while longer in the hum.
2:28:53He'd had need of it, he told Mr.
2:28:55Toliver,
2:28:56and he was trying. That afternoon came
2:28:59cake from Rosa and lemon bars from
2:29:00Pearl, and a used fat tire bicycle that
2:29:03Marlene had rebuilt in her shop and then
2:29:05flatly refused to discuss when Jasper
2:29:07burst into tears.
2:29:09Jasper had turned 13 that week, and when
2:29:12the party wound down, Ansel took him out
2:29:14to the stone bench by the pool.
2:29:17The water was clear and blue.
2:29:19The little gold pyramids marched around
2:29:20the tile, and every palm in the ring was
2:29:22green, even the ones that had been dead.
2:29:25Ansel took the knife out of his right
2:29:27cargo pocket.
2:29:29The dark desert wood worn smooth as
2:29:31river glass. The curved blade, the
2:29:34brass.
2:29:35And on the brass beside AT, two more
2:29:38sets of letters scratched in just as
2:29:40carefully with the point of a nail.
2:29:43WC
2:29:45AC
2:29:47He looked over at Rosa standing in the
2:29:48doorway.
2:29:50She looked at the knife.
2:29:52At her son.
2:29:53And she nodded once.
2:29:56Ansel put the knife in Jasper's palm and
2:29:58folded the boy's fingers closed around
2:30:01it. A good knife is worth more than a
2:30:03bad friend. And it asks a whole lot less
2:30:05of you.
2:30:07Jasper studied the three sets of
2:30:09letters.
2:30:10He wanted to know who AT was.
2:30:13Man who taught the man who taught me.
2:30:16Long story.
2:30:17And because Ansel knew better than
2:30:19anybody what happens when you wait for
2:30:21later, he didn't make the kid wait.
2:30:24He told him the whole thing.
2:30:26Right there by the water. Every bit of
2:30:28it. When they went back inside, the late
2:30:30sun was falling through the clear panes
2:30:32onto the mantel Ansel had built that
2:30:34spring.
2:30:36One long slab of cream sandstone left
2:30:38over from the building of the pyramid
2:30:40set into the wall above a small stone
2:30:42fireplace.
2:30:44Level enough that you could lay a marble
2:30:45on it and it wouldn't roll.
2:30:48Three things sat on it. On the left, a
2:30:50mason's trowel its blade worn thin and
2:30:52rounded at the tip. Lenora had given it
2:30:55to him. Her father would want it used.
2:30:58And Ansel used it every week.
2:31:00On the right, a mason's hammer its
2:31:03hickory handle worn dark into the shape
2:31:05of another hand.
2:31:06Two tools from two old men.
2:31:09One who taught a skinny kid with ears
2:31:11like a sugar bowl. And one who was that
2:31:14kid.
2:31:15And between them in a plain wooden
2:31:17frame, Ansel had made himself a single
2:31:19dollar bill.
2:31:21Folded once.
2:31:22Soft as cloth. A receipt. That night the
2:31:25wind came up across the dunes and found
2:31:28the hole in the side of the pyramid.
2:31:31Ansel had never fixed it. It would have
2:31:33taken one afternoon.
2:31:35He didn't want to.
2:31:37Because when the wind blew across it,
2:31:39the whole house hummed. Low and soft and
2:31:42steady.
2:31:43Like an old man humming to himself while
2:31:45he works.
2:31:47And down at the bottom of the stairs,
2:31:49cool and slow and patient, the house
2:31:51breathed out. He'd had $77 to his name.
2:31:55He spent 76 of them on a pile of stone
2:31:58in the sand that nobody else wanted. It
2:32:00was the best $76 he ever spent.
2:32:03Somewhere tonight, maybe in a drawer,
2:32:05maybe in a box behind the Christmas
2:32:07lights, there might be a letter you
2:32:08never sent.
2:32:09The porch light's still on. It's never
2:32:12too late to lay the first stone.

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