The Lincoln Highway / Шоссе Линкольна (by Amor Towles, 2021) - аудиокнига на английском

Evening and the flat land, Rich and somber and always silent; The miles of fresh-plowed soil, Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness; The growing wheat, the growing weeds, The toiling horses, the tired men; The long empty roads, Sullen fires of sunset, fading, The eternal, unresponsive sky. Against all this, Youth . . . —O Pioneers!, Willa Cather J UNE 12, 1954—The drive from Salina to Morgen was three hours, and for much of it, Emmett hadn’t said a word. For the first sixty miles or so, Warden Williams had made an effort at friendly conversation. He had told a few stories about his childhood back East and asked a few questions about Emmett’s on the farm. But this was the last they’d be together, and Emmett didn’t see much sense in going into all of that now. So when they crossed the border from Kansas into Nebraska and the warden turned on the radio, Emmett stared out the window at the prairie, keeping his thoughts to himself. When they were five miles south of town, Emmett pointed through the windshield. —You take that next right. It’ll be the white house about four miles down the road. The warden slowed his car and took the turn. They drove past the McKusker place, then the Andersens’ with its matching pair of large red barns. A few minutes later they could see Emmett’s house standing beside a small grove of oak trees about thirty yards from the road. To Emmett, all the houses in this part of the country looked like they’d been dropped from the sky. The Watson house just looked like it’d had a rougher landing. The roof line sagged on either side of the chimney and the window frames were slanted just enough that half the windows wouldn’t quite open and the other half wouldn’t quite shut. In another moment, they’d be able to see how the paint had been shaken right off the clapboard. But when they got within a hundred feet of the driveway, the warden pulled to the side of the road. —Emmett, he said, with his hands on the wheel, before we drive in there’s something I’d like to say. That Warden Williams had something to say didn’t come as much of a surprise. When Emmett had first arrived at Salina, the warden was a Hoosier named Ackerly, who wasn’t inclined to put into words a piece of advice that could be delivered more efficiently with a stick. But Warden Williams was a modern man with a master’s degree and good intentions and a framed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt hanging behind his desk. He had notions that he’d gathered from books and experience, and he had plenty of words at his disposal to turn them into counsel. —For some of the young men who come to Salina, he began, whatever series of events has brought them under our sphere of influence is just the beginning of a long journey through a life of trouble. They’re boys who were never given much sense of right or wrong as children and who see little reason for learning it now. Whatever values or ambitions we try to instill in them will, in all likelihood, be cast aside the moment they walk out from under our gaze. Sadly, for these boys it is only a matter of time before they find themselves in the correctional facility at Topeka, or worse. The warden turned to Emmett. —What I’m getting at, Emmett, is that you are not one of them. We haven’t known each other long, but from my time with you I can tell that that boy’s death weighs heavily on your conscience. No one imagines what happened that night reflects either the spirit of malice or an expression of your character. It was the ugly side of chance. But as a civilized society, we ask that even those who have had an unintended hand in the misfortune of others pay some retribution. Of course, the payment of the retribution is in part to satisfy those who’ve suffered the brunt of the misfortune—like this boy’s family. But we also require that it be paid for the benefit of the young man who was the agent of misfortune. So that by having the opportunity to pay his debt, he too can find some solace, some sense of atonement, and thus begin the process of renewal. Do you understand me, Emmett? —I do, sir. —I’m glad to hear it. I know you’ve got your brother to care for now and the immediate future may seem daunting; but you’re a bright young man and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Having paid your debt in full, I just hope you’ll make the most of your liberty. —That’s what I intend to do, Warden. And in that moment, Emmett meant it. Because he agreed with most of what the warden said. He knew in the strongest of terms that his whole life was ahead of him and he knew that he needed to care for his brother. He knew too that he had been an agent of misfortune rather than its author. But he didn’t agree that his debt had been paid in full. For no matter how much chance has played a role, when by your hands you have brought another man’s time on earth to its end, to prove to the Almighty that you are worthy of his mercy, that shouldn’t take any less than the rest of your life. The warden put the car in gear and turned into the Watsons’. In the clearing by the front porch were two cars—a sedan and a pickup. The warden parked beside the pickup. When he and Emmett got out of the car, a tall man with a cowboy hat in his hand came out the front door and off the porch. —Hey there, Emmett. —Hey, Mr. Ransom. The warden extended his hand to the rancher. —I’m Warden Williams. It was nice of you to take the trouble to meet us. —It was no trouble, Warden. —I gather you’ve known Emmett a long time. —Since the day he was born. The warden put a hand on Emmett’s shoulder. —Then I don’t need to explain to you what a fine young man he is. I was just telling him in the car that having paid his debt to society, he’s got his whole life ahead of him. —He does at that, agreed Mr. Ransom. The three men stood without speaking. The warden had lived in the Midwest for less than a year now, but he knew from standing at the foot of other farmhouse porches that at this point in a conversation you were likely to be invited inside and offered something cool to drink; and when you received the invitation, you should be ready to accept because it would be taken as rude if you were to decline, even if you did have a three-hour drive ahead of you. But neither Emmett nor Mr. Ransom made any indication of asking the warden in. —Well, he said after a moment, I guess I should be heading back. Emmett and Mr. Ransom offered a final thanks to the warden, shook his hand, then watched as he climbed in his car and drove away. The warden was a quarter mile down the road when Emmett nodded toward the sedan. —Mr. Obermeyer’s? —He’s waiting in the kitchen. —And Billy? —I told Sally to bring him over a little later, so you and Tom can get your business done. Emmett nodded. —You ready to go in? asked Mr. Ransom. —The sooner the better, said Emmett. • • • They found Tom Obermeyer seated at the small kitchen table. He was wearing a white shirt with short sleeves and a tie. If he was also wearing a suit coat, he must have left it in his car because it wasn’t hanging on the back of the chair. When Emmett and Mr. Ransom came through the door, they seemed to catch the banker off his guard, because he abruptly scraped back the chair, stood up, and stuck out his hand all in a single motion. —Well, hey now, Emmett. It’s good to see you. Emmett shook the banker’s hand without a reply. Taking a look around, Emmett noted that the floor was swept, the counter clear, the sink empty, the cabinets closed. The kitchen looked cleaner than at any point in Emmett’s memory. —Here, Mr. Obermeyer said, gesturing to the table. Why don’t we all sit down. Emmett took the chair opposite the banker. Mr. Ransom remained standing, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. On the table was a brown folder thick with papers. It was sitting just out of the banker’s reach, as if it had been left there by somebody else. Mr. Obermeyer cleared his throat. —First of all, Emmett, let me say how sorry I am about your father. He was a fine man and too young to be taken by illness. —Thank you. —I gather when you came for the funeral that Walter Eberstadt had a chance to sit down with you and discuss your father’s estate. —He did, said Emmett. The banker nodded with a look of sympathetic understanding. —Then I suspect Walter explained that three years ago your father took out a new loan on top of the old mortgage. At the time, he said it was to upgrade his equipment. In actuality, I suspect a good portion of that loan went to pay some older debts since the only new piece of farm equipment we could find on the property was the John Deere in the barn. Though I suppose that’s neither here nor there. Emmett and Mr. Ransom seemed to agree that this was neither here nor there because neither made any effort to respond. The banker cleared his throat again. —The point I’m getting to is that in the last few years the harvest wasn’t what your father had hoped; and this year, what with your father’s passing, there isn’t going to be a harvest at all. So we had no choice but to call in the loan. It’s an unpleasant bit of business, I know, Emmett, but I want you to understand that it was not an easy decision for the bank to make. —I should think it would be a pretty easy decision for you to make by now, said Mr. Ransom, given how much practice you get at making it. The banker looked to the rancher. —Now, Ed, you know that’s not fair. No bank makes a loan in hopes of foreclosing. The banker turned back to Emmett. —The nature of a loan is that it requires the repayment of interest and principal on a timely basis. Even so, when a client in good standing falls behind, we do what we can to make concessions. To extend terms and defer collections. Your father is a perfect example. When he began falling behind, we gave him some extra time. And when he got sick, we gave him some more. But sometimes a man’s bad luck becomes too great to surmount, no matter how much time you give him. The banker reached out his arm to lay a hand on the brown folder, finally claiming it as his own. —We could have cleared out the property and put it up for sale a month ago, Emmett. It was well within our rights to do so. But we didn’t. We waited so that you could complete your term at Salina and come home to sleep in your own bed. We wanted you to have a chance to go through the house with your brother in an unhurried fashion, to organize your personal effects. Hell, we even had the power company leave on the gas and electricity at our own expense. —That was right kind of you, said Emmett. Mr. Ransom grunted. —But now that you are home, continued the banker, it’s probably best for everyone involved if we see this process through to its conclusion. As the executor of your father’s estate, we’ll need you to sign a few papers. And within a few weeks, I’m sorry to say, we’ll need you to make arrangements for you and your brother to move out. —If you’ve got something that needs signing, let’s sign it. Mr. Obermeyer took a few documents from the folder. He turned them around so that they were facing Emmett and peeled back pages, explaining the purpose of individual sections and subsections, translating the terminology, pointing to where the documents should be signed and where initialed. —You got a pen? Mr. Obermeyer handed Emmett his pen. Emmett signed and initialed the papers without consideration, then slid them back across the table. —That it? —There is one other thing, said the banker, after returning the documents safely to their folder. The car in the barn. When we did the routine inventory of the house, we couldn’t find the registration or the keys. —What do you need them for? —The second loan your father took out wasn’t for specific pieces of agricultural machinery. It was against any new piece of capital equipment purchased for the farm, and I’m afraid that extends to personal vehicles. —Not to that car it doesn’t. —Now, Emmett . . . —It doesn’t because that piece of capital equipment isn’t my father’s. It’s mine. Mr. Obermeyer looked to Emmett with a mixture of skepticism and sympathy—two emotions that in Emmett’s view had no business being on the same face at the same time. Emmett took his wallet from his pocket, withdrew the registration, and put it on the table. The banker picked it up and reviewed it. —I see that the car is in your name, Emmett, but I’m afraid that if it was purchased by your father on your behalf . . . —It was not. The banker looked to Mr. Ransom for support. Finding none, he turned back to Emmett. —For two summers, said Emmett, I worked for Mr. Schulte to earn the money to buy that car. I framed houses. Shingled roofs. Repaired porches. As a matter of fact, I even helped install those new cabinets in your kitchen. If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to go ask Mr. Schulte. But either way, you’re not touching that car. Mr. Obermeyer frowned. But when Emmett held out his hand for the registration, the banker returned it without protest. And when he left with his folder, he wasn’t particularly surprised that neither Emmett nor Mr. Ransom bothered seeing him to the door. • • • When the banker was gone, Mr. Ransom went outside to wait for Sally and Billy, leaving Emmett to walk the house on his own. Like the kitchen, Emmett found the front room tidier than usual—with the pillows propped in the corners of the couch, the magazines in a neat little stack on the coffee table, and the top of his father’s desk rolled down. Upstairs in Billy’s room, the bed was made, the collections of bottle caps and bird feathers were neatly arranged on their shelves, and one of the windows had been opened to let in some air. A window must have been opened on the other side of the hall too because there was enough of a draft to stir the fighter planes hanging over Billy’s bed: replicas of a Spitfire, a Warhawk, and a Thunderbolt. Emmett smiled softly to see them. He had built those planes when he was about Billy’s age. His mother had given him the kits back in 1943 when all Emmett or his friends could talk about were the battles unfolding in the European and Pacific theaters, about Patton at the head of the Seventh Army storming the beaches of Sicily, and Pappy Boyington’s Black Sheep Squadron taunting the enemy over the Solomon Sea. Emmett had assembled the models on the kitchen table with all the precision of an engineer. He had painted the insignias and serial numbers on the fuselages with four tiny bottles of enamel paint and a fine-haired brush. When they were done, Emmett had lined them up on his bureau in a diagonal row just like they would have been on the deck of a carrier. From the age of four, Billy had admired them. Sometimes when Emmett would come home from school, he would find Billy standing on a chair beside the bureau talking to himself in the language of a fighter pilot. So when Billy turned six, Emmett and his father hung the planes from the ceiling over Billy’s bed as a birthday surprise. Emmett continued down the hall to his father’s room, where he found the same evidence of tidiness: the bed made, the photographs on the bureau dusted, the curtains tied back with a bow. Emmett approached one of the windows and looked out across his father’s land. After being plowed and planted for twenty years, the fields had been left untended for just one season and you could already see the tireless advance of nature—the sagebrush and ragwort and ironweed establishing themselves among the prairie grasses. If left untended for another few years, you wouldn’t be able to tell that anyone had ever farmed these acres at all. Emmett shook his head. Bad luck . . . That’s what Mr. Obermeyer had called it. A bad luck that was too great to surmount. And the banker was right, up to a point. When it came to bad luck, Emmett’s father always had plenty to spare. But Emmett knew that wasn’t the extent of the matter. For when it came to bad judgment, Charlie Watson had plenty of that to spare too. Emmett’s father had come to Nebraska from Boston in 1933 with his new wife and a dream of working the land. Over the next two decades, he had tried to grow wheat, corn, soy, even alfalfa, and had been thwarted at every turn. If the crop he chose to grow one year needed plenty of water, there were two years of drought. When he switched to a crop that needed plenty of sun, thunderclouds gathered in the west. Nature is merciless, you might counter. It’s indifferent and unpredictable. But a farmer who changes the crop he’s growing every two or three years? Even as a boy, Emmett knew that was a sign of a man who didn’t know what he was doing. Out behind the barn was a special piece of equipment imported from Germany for the harvesting of sorghum. At one point deemed essential, it was soon unnecessary, and now no longer of use—because his father hadn’t had the good sense to resell it once he’d stopped growing sorghum. He just let it sit in the clearing behind the barn exposed to the rain and snow. When Emmett was Billy’s age and his friends would come over from the neighboring farms to play—boys who, at the height of the war, were eager to climb on any piece of machinery and pretend it was a tank—they wouldn’t even set foot on the harvester, sensing instinctively that it was some kind of ill omen, that within its rusting hulk was a legacy of failure that one should steer clear of whether from politeness or self-preservation. So one evening when Emmett was fifteen and the school year nearly over, he had ridden his bike into town, knocked on Mr. Schulte’s door, and asked for a job. Mr. Schulte was so bemused by Emmett’s request that he sat him down at the dinner table and had him brought a slice of pie. Then he asked Emmett why on earth a boy who was raised on a farm would want to spend his summer pounding nails. It wasn’t because Emmett knew Mr. Schulte to be a friendly man, or because he lived in one of the nicest houses in town. Emmett went to Mr. Schulte because he figured that no matter what happened, a carpenter would always have work. No matter how well you build them, houses run down. Hinges loosen, floorboards wear, roof seams separate. All you had to do was stroll through the Watson house to witness the myriad ways in which time can take its toll on a homestead. In the months of summer, there were nights marked by the roll of thunder or the whistle of an arid wind on which Emmett could hear his father stirring in the next room, unable to sleep—and not without reason. Because a farmer with a mortgage was like a man walking on the railing of a bridge with his arms outstretched and his eyes closed. It was a way of life in which the difference between abundance and ruin could be measured by a few inches of rain or a few nights of frost. But a carpenter didn’t lie awake at night worrying about the weather. He welcomed the extremes of nature. He welcomed the blizzards and downpours and tornadoes. He welcomed the onset of mold and the onslaughts of insects. These were the natural forces that slowly but inevitably undermined the integrity of a house, weakening its foundations, rotting its beams, and wilting its plaster. Emmett didn’t say all of this when Mr. Schulte asked his question. Putting his fork down, he simply replied: —The way I figure it, Mr. Schulte, it was Job who had the oxen, and Noah who had the hammer. Mr. Schulte gave a laugh and hired Emmett on the spot. For most of the farmers in the county, if their eldest came home one night with news that he’d taken a job with a carpenter, they would have given him a talking-to he wouldn’t soon forget. Then, for good measure, they would have driven over to the carpenter’s house and given him a few words—a few words to remember the next time he had the inclination to interfere with the upbringing of another man’s son. But the night Emmett came home and told his father he had secured a job with Mr. Schulte, his father hadn’t grown angry. He had listened carefully. After a moment of reflection, he said that Mr. Schulte was a good man and carpentry a useful skill. And on the first day of summer, he made Emmett a hearty breakfast and packed him a lunch, then sent him off with his blessing to another man’s trade. And maybe that was a sign of bad judgment too. When Emmett came back downstairs, he found Mr. Ransom sitting on the porch steps with his forearms on his knees and his hat still in his hand. Emmett sat beside him and they both looked out across the unplanted fields. Half a mile in the distance, you could just make out the fence that marked the beginning of the older man’s ranch. By Emmett’s last accounting, Mr. Ransom had over nine hundred head of cattle and eight men in his employ. —I want to thank you for taking in Billy, Emmett said. —Taking in Billy was the least we could do. Besides, you can imagine how much it pleased Sally. She’s about had it with keeping house for me, but caring for your brother’s another matter. We’ve all been eating better since Billy arrived. Emmett smiled. —Just the same. It made a big difference to Billy; and it was a comfort to me knowing that he was in your home. Mr. Ransom nodded, accepting the younger man’s expression of gratitude. —Warden Williams seems like a good man, he said after a moment. —He is a good man. —Doesn’t seem like a Kansan. . . . —No. He grew up in Philadelphia. Mr. Ransom turned his hat in his hand. Emmett could tell that something was on his neighbor’s mind. He was trying to decide how to say it, or whether to say it. Or maybe he was just trying to pick the right moment to say it. But sometimes the moment is picked for you, as when a cloud of dust a mile up the road signaled his daughter’s approach. —Emmett, he began, Warden Williams was right to say that you’ve paid your debt—as far as society is concerned. But this here’s a small town, a lot smaller than Philadelphia, and not everyone in Morgen is going to see it the way the warden does. —You’re talking about the Snyders. —I am talking about the Snyders, Emmett, but not just the Snyders. They’ve got cousins in this county. They’ve got neighbors and old family friends. They’ve got people they do business with and members of their congregation. We all know that whatever trouble Jimmy Snyder happened to find himself in was generally of Jimmy’s own making. In his seventeen years, he was the engineer of a lifetime of shit piles. But that don’t make any difference to his brothers. Especially after they lost Joe, Jr., in the war. If they were none too pleased that you got just eighteen months in Salina, they were in a state of righteous fury when they learned you’d be let out a few months early because of your father’s passing. They’re likely to make you feel the brunt of that fury as much and as often as they can. So while you do have your whole life in front of you, or rather, because you have your whole life in front of you, you may want to consider starting it somewhere other than here. —You’ve no need to worry about that, said Emmett. Forty-eight hours from now, I don’t expect Billy and me to be in Nebraska. Mr. Ransom nodded. —Since your father didn’t leave much behind, I’d like to give you two a little something to help you get started. —I couldn’t take your money, Mr. Ransom. You’ve done enough for us already. —Then consider it a loan. You can pay it back once you get yourself situated. —For the time being, observed Emmett, I think the Watsons have had their fill of loans. Mr. Ransom smiled and nodded. Then he stood and put his hat on his head as the old pickup they called Betty roared into the driveway with Sally behind the wheel and Billy in the passenger seat. Before she had skidded to a stop with a backfire out of the exhaust, Billy was opening the door and jumping to the ground. Wearing a canvas backpack that reached from his shoulders to the seat of his pants, he ran right past Mr. Ransom and wrapped his arms around Emmett’s waist. Emmett got down on his haunches so he could hug his little brother back. Sally was approaching now in a brightly colored Sunday dress with a baking dish in her hands and a smile on her face. Mr. Ransom took in the dress and the smile, philosophically. —Well now, she said, look who’s here. Don’t you squeeze the life out of him, Billy Watson. Emmett stood and put a hand on his brother’s head. —Hello, Sally. As was her habit when nervous, Sally got right down to business. —The house has been swept and all the beds have been made and there’s fresh soap in the bathroom, and butter, milk, and eggs in the icebox. —Thank you, said Emmett. —I suggested the two of you should join us for supper, but Billy insisted you have your first meal at home. But seeing as you’re just back, I made the two of you a casserole. —You didn’t have to go to all that trouble, Sally. —Trouble or not, here it is. All you have to do is put it in the oven at 350° for forty-five minutes. As Emmett took the casserole in hand, Sally shook her head. —I should have written that down. —I think Emmett will be able to remember the instructions, said Mr. Ransom. And if he doesn’t, Billy surely will. —You put it in the oven at 350° for forty-five minutes, said Billy. Mr. Ransom turned to his daughter. —I’m sure these boys are eager to catch up, and we’ve got some things to see to at home. —I’ll just go in for a minute to make sure that everything— —Sally, Mr. Ransom said in a manner that broached no dissent. Sally pointed at Billy and smiled. —You be good, little one. Emmett and Billy watched as the Ransoms climbed into their trucks and drove back up the road. Then Billy turned to Emmett and hugged him again. —I’m glad you’re home, Emmett. —I’m glad to be home, Billy. —You don’t have to go back to Salina this time, do you? —No. I never have to go back to Salina. Come on. Billy released Emmett, and the brothers went into the house. In the kitchen, Emmett opened the icebox and slid the casserole onto a lower shelf. On the top shelf were the promised milk and eggs and butter. There was also a jar of homemade applesauce and another of peaches in syrup. —You want something to eat? —No, thank you, Emmett. Sally made me a peanut butter sandwich just before we came over. —How about some milk? —Sure. As Emmett brought the glasses of milk to the table, Billy took off his backpack and set it on an empty chair. Unbuckling the uppermost flap, he carefully removed and unfolded a little package wrapped in aluminum foil. It was a stack of eight cookies. He put two on the table, one for Emmett and one for himself. Then he closed the foil, put the rest of the cookies back in his backpack, rebuckled the flap, and returned to his seat. —That’s quite a pack, Emmett said. —It’s a genuine US Army backpack, said Billy. Although it’s what they call an army surplus backpack because it never actually made it to the war. I bought it at Mr. Gunderson’s store. I also got a surplus flashlight and a surplus compass and this surplus watch. Billy held out his arm to show the watch hanging loosely on his wrist. —It even has a second hand. After expressing his admiration for the watch, Emmett took a bite of the cookie. —Good one. Chocolate chip? —Yep. Sally made them. —You help? —I cleaned the bowl. —I bet you did. —Sally actually made us a whole batch, but Mr. Ransom said she was overdoing it, so she told him that she would just give us four, but secretly she gave us eight. —Lucky for us. —Luckier than just getting four. But not as lucky as getting the whole batch. As Emmett smiled and took a sip of milk, he sized up his brother over the rim of the glass. He was about an inch taller and his hair was shorter, as it would be in the Ransom house, but otherwise he seemed the same in body and spirit. For Emmett, leaving Billy had been the hardest part of going to Salina, so he was happy to find him so little changed. He was happy to be sitting with him at the old kitchen table. He could tell that Billy was happy to be sitting there too. —School year end all right? Emmett asked, setting down his glass. Billy nodded. —I got a hundred and five percent on my geography test. —A hundred and five percent! —Usually, there’s no such thing as a hundred and five percent, Billy explained. Usually, one hundred percent of anything is as much as you can get. —So how’d you wrangle another five percent out of Mrs. Cooper? —There was an extra-credit question. —What was the question? Billy quoted from memory. —What is the tallest building in the world. —And you knew the answer? —I did. . . . —Aren’t you going to tell me? Billy shook his head. —That would be cheating. You have to learn it for yourself. —Fair enough. After a moment of silence, Emmett realized that he was staring into his milk. He was the one now with something on his mind. He was the one trying to decide how, or whether, or when to say it. —Billy, he began, I don’t know what Mr. Ransom’s told you, but we’re not going to be able to live here anymore. —I know, said Billy. Because we’re foreclosed. —That’s right. Do you understand what that means? —It means the Savings and Loan owns our house now. —That’s right. Even though they’re taking the house, we could stay in Morgen. We could live with the Ransoms for a while, I could go back to work for Mr. Schulte, come fall you could go back to school, and eventually we could afford to get a place of our own. But I’ve been thinking that this might be a good time for you and me to try something new . . . Emmett had thought a lot about how he would put this, because he was worried that Billy would be disconcerted by the notion of leaving Morgen, especially so soon after their father’s death. But Billy wasn’t disconcerted at all. —I was thinking the same thing, Emmett. —You were? Billy nodded with a hint of eagerness. —With Daddy gone and the house foreclosed, there’s no need for us to stay in Morgen. We can pack up our things and drive to California. —I guess we’re in agreement, said Emmett with a smile. The only difference is that I think we should be moving to Texas. —Oh, we can’t be moving to Texas, said Billy, shaking his head. —Why’s that? —Because we’ve got to be moving to California. Emmett started to speak, but Billy had already gotten up from his chair and gone to his backpack. This time, he opened the front pocket, removed a small manila envelope, and returned to his seat. As he carefully unwound the red thread that sealed the envelope’s flap, he began to explain. —After Daddy’s funeral, when you went back to Salina, Mr. Ransom sent Sally and me over to the house to look for important papers. In the bottom drawer of Daddy’s bureau, we found a metal box. It wasn’t locked, but it was the kind of box you could lock if you wanted to. Inside it were important papers, just as Mr. Ransom had said there’d be—like our birth certificates and Mom and Dad’s marriage license. But at the bottom of the box, at the very bottom, I found these. Billy tipped the envelope over the table and out slid nine postcards. Emmett could tell from the condition of the cards that they weren’t exactly old and weren’t exactly new. Some of them were photographs and some were illustrations, but all were in color. The one on top was a picture of the Welsh Motor Court in Ogallala, Nebraska—a modern-looking lodge with white cabanas and roadside plantings and a flagpole flying the American flag. —They’re postcards, Billy said. To you and me. From Mom. Emmett was taken aback. Nearly eight years had passed since their mother had tucked the two of them in bed, kissed them goodnight, and walked out the door—and they hadn’t heard a word from her since. No phone calls. No letters. No neatly wrapped packages arriving just in time for Christmas. Not even a bit of gossip from someone who’d happened to hear something from somebody else. At least, that’s what Emmett had understood to be the case, until now. Emmett picked up the card of the Welsh Motor Court and turned it over. Just as Billy had said, it was addressed to the two of them in their mother’s elegant script. In the manner of postcards, the text was limited to a few lines. Together, the sentences expressed how much she already missed them despite having only been gone for a day. Emmett picked up another card from the pile. In the upper left-hand corner was a cowboy on the back of a horse. The lariat that he was spinning extended into the foreground and spelled out Greetings from Rawlins, Wyoming—the Metropolis of the Plains. Emmett turned the card over. In six sentences, including one that wrapped around the lower right-hand corner, their mother wrote that while she had yet to see a cowpoke with a lasso in Rawlins, she had seen plenty of cows. She concluded by expressing once again how much she loved and missed them both. Emmett scanned the other cards on the table, taking in the names of the various towns, the motels and restaurants, sights and landmarks, noting that all but one of the pictures promised a bright blue sky. Conscious that his brother was watching him, Emmett maintained an unchanged expression. But what he was feeling was the sting of resentment—resentment toward their father. He must have intercepted the cards and hidden them away. No matter how angry he had been with his wife, he had no right to keep them from his sons, certainly not from Emmett, who had been old enough to read them for himself. But Emmett felt the sting for no more than a moment. Because he knew that his father had done the only sensible thing. After all, what good could come from the occasional reception of a few sentences written on the back of a three-by-five card by a woman who had willfully abandoned her own children? Emmett put the postcard from Rawlins back on the table. —You remember how Mom left us on the fifth of July? asked Billy. —I remember. —She wrote us a postcard every day for the next nine days. Emmett picked up the card from Ogallala again and looked just above the spot where their mother had written Dearest Emmett and Billy, but there was no date. —Mom didn’t write down the dates, Billy said. But you can tell from the postmarks. Taking the Ogallala card from Emmett’s hand, Billy turned all the cards over, spread them on the table, and pointed from postmark to postmark. —July fifth. July sixth. There was no July seventh, but there are two July eighths. That’s because in 1946, July seventh was on a Sunday and the post office is closed on Sunday, so she had to mail two of the cards on Monday. But look at this. Billy went back to the front pocket of his backpack and took out something that looked like a pamphlet. When he unfolded it on the table, Emmett could see it was a road map of the United States from a Phillips 66. Cutting all the way across the middle of the map was a roadway that had been scored by Billy in black ink. In the western half of the country, the names of nine towns along the route had been circled. —This is the Lincoln Highway, explained Billy, pointing to the long black line. It was invented in 1912 and was named for Abraham Lincoln and was the very first road to stretch from one end of America to the other. Starting on the Atlantic Seaboard, Billy began following the highway with his fingertip. —It starts in Times Square in New York City and it ends three thousand three hundred and ninety miles away in Lincoln Park in San Francisco. And it passes right through Central City, just twenty-five miles from our house. Billy paused to move his finger from Central City to the little black star that he had drawn on the map to represent their home. —When Mom left us on the fifth of July, this is the way she went . . . Taking up the postcards, Billy turned them over and began laying them across the lower half of the map in a westward progression, placing each card under its corresponding town. Ogallala. Cheyenne. Rawlins. Rock Springs. Salt Lake City. Ely. Reno. Sacramento. Until the last card, which showed a large, classical building rising above a fountain in a park in San Francisco. Billy gave an exhale of satisfaction to have the cards laid out in order on the table. But the whole collection made Emmett uneasy, like the two of them were looking at someone else’s private correspondence—something they had no business seeing. —Billy, he said, I’m not sure that we should be going to California. . . . —We have to go to California, Emmett. Don’t you see? That’s why she sent us the postcards. So that we could follow her. —But she hasn’t sent a postcard in eight years. —Because July thirteenth was when she stopped moving. All we have to do is take the Lincoln Highway to San Francisco and that’s where we’ll find her. Emmett’s immediate instinct was to say something to his brother that was sensible and dissuasive. Something about how their mother didn’t necessarily stop in San Francisco; how she could easily have continued on, and most likely had; and that while she might have been thinking of her sons on those first nine nights, all evidence suggested that she hadn’t been thinking of them since. In the end, he settled for pointing out that even if she were in San Francisco, it would be virtually impossible for them to find her. Billy nodded with the expression of one who had already considered this dilemma. —Remember how you told me that Mom loved fireworks so much, she took us all the way to Seward on the Fourth of July just so we could see the big display? Emmett did not remember telling this to his brother, and all things considered, he couldn’t imagine having ever had the inclination to do so. But he couldn’t deny it was true. Billy reached for the last postcard, the one with the classical building and the fountain. Turning it over, he ran his finger along their mother’s script. —This is the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco’s Lincoln Park and every year on the Fourth of July it has one of the biggest fireworks displays in all of California! Billy looked up at his brother. —That’s where she’ll be, Emmett. At the fireworks display at the Palace of the Legion of Honor on the Fourth of July. —Billy . . . , Emmett began. But Billy, who could already hear the skepticism in his brother’s voice, began shaking his head, vigorously. Then looking back down at the map on the table, he ran his finger along their mother’s route. —Ogallala to Cheyenne, Cheyenne to Rawlins, Rawlins to Rock Springs, Rock Springs to Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City to Ely, Ely to Reno, Reno to Sacramento, and Sacramento to San Francisco. That’s the way we go. Emmett sat back in his chair and considered. He had not chosen Texas at random. He had thought about the question of where he and his brother should go, carefully and systematically. He had spent hours in the little library at Salina turning through the pages of the almanac and the volumes of the encyclopedia until the question of where they should go had become perfectly clear. But Billy had been pursuing his own line of thinking just as carefully, just as systematically, and he could see his own answer to the question with just as much clarity. —All right, Billy, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you put those back in their envelope and let me take a little time to think about what you’ve said. Billy began nodding now. —That’s a good idea, Emmett. That’s a good idea. Gathering the postcards together in their east-to-west order, Billy slipped them into their envelope, spun the red thread until they were securely sealed, and returned them to his pack. —You take a little time to think about it, Emmett. You’ll see. Upstairs, while Billy occupied himself in his room, Emmett took a long, hot shower. When he was done, he picked his clothes off the floor—the clothes that he’d worn both to and from Salina—removed the pack of cigarettes from the shirt pocket, and threw the heap in the trash. After a moment, he threw the cigarettes away too, being sure to tuck them under the clothes. In his room he dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and denim shirt along with his favorite belt and boots. Then he reached into his top bureau drawer and took out a pair of socks tucked into a ball. Unfolding the socks, he gave one of them a shake until out came the keys to his car. Then he crossed the hall and stuck his head into his brother’s room. Billy was sitting on the floor beside his backpack. In his lap was the old blue tobacco tin with the portrait of George Washington on it, while on the rug were all his silver dollars laid out in columns and rows. —Looks like you found a few more while I was away, said Emmett. —Three, Billy answered while carefully putting one of the dollars in its place. —How many more to go? With his index finger Billy poked at the empty spots in the grid. —1881. 1894. 1895. 1899. 1903. —You’re getting pretty close. Billy nodded in agreement. —But 1894 and 1895 will be very hard to find. I was lucky to find 1893. Billy looked up at his brother. —Have you been thinking about California, Emmett? —I have been thinking about it, but I need to think about it a little bit more. —That’s okay. As Billy turned his attention back to the silver dollars, Emmett looked around his brother’s room for the second time that day, once again taking in the collections that were neatly arranged on their shelves and the planes that hung over the bed. —Billy . . . Billy looked up again. —Whether we end up going to Texas or California, I think it may be best if we plan to travel light. Since we’ll be making something of a fresh start. —I was thinking the same thing, Emmett. —You were? —Professor Abernathe says that the intrepid traveler often sets out with what little he can fit in a kit bag. That’s why I bought my backpack at Mr. Gunderson’s store. So that I’d be ready to leave as soon as you got home. It already has everything in it that I need. —Everything? —Everything. Emmett smiled. —I’m headed out to the barn to check on the car. You want to come? —Now? asked Billy in surprise. Hold on! Wait a second! Don’t go without me! Having carefully laid out the silver dollars in chronological order, Billy now swept them up and began pouring them back into the tobacco tin as quickly as he could. Closing the lid, he put the tin back in his backpack and the backpack back on his back. Then he led the way downstairs and out the door. As they crossed the yard, Billy looked over his shoulder to report that Mr. Obermeyer had put a padlock on the barn doors, but Sally had broken it off with the crowbar she kept in the back of her truck. Sure enough, at the barn door they found the bracket—with the padlock still secured to it—hanging loosely on its screws. Inside, the air was warm and familiar, smelling of cattle though there hadn’t been cattle on the farm since Emmett was a boy. Emmett paused to let his eyes adjust. Before him was the new John Deere and behind that a battered old combine. Proceeding to the back of the barn, Emmett stopped before a large, sloping object draped with canvas. —Mr. Obermeyer took off the cover, said Billy, but Sally and I put it back. Gripping the canvas by the corner, Emmett pulled with both hands until it was piled at his feet, and there, waiting just where he’d left it fifteen months ago, was a powder-blue, four-door hardtop—his 1948 Studebaker Land Cruiser. After running his palm along the surface of the hood, Emmett opened the driver’s door and climbed inside. For a moment, he sat with his hands on the steering wheel. When he’d bought her, she already had 80,000 miles on the odometer, dents in the hood, and cigarette burns in the seat covers, but she ran smoothly enough. Inserting and turning the key, he pushed the starter, ready for the soothing rumble of the engine—but there was silence. Billy, who had been keeping his distance, approached, tentatively. —Is it broken? —No, Billy. The battery must be dead. It happens when you leave a car idle for too long. But it’s an easy thing to fix. Looking relieved, Billy sat down on a hay bale and took off his backpack. —You want another cookie, Emmett? —I’m fine. But you go right ahead. As Billy opened his backpack, Emmett climbed out of the car, stepped to the rear, and opened the trunk. Satisfied that the upright lid blocked his brother’s view, Emmett pulled back the felt that covered the recess in which the spare tire rested and gently ran his hand around its outer curve. At the top, he found the envelope with his name on it, right where his father had said it would be. Inside was a note in his father’s script. Another handwritten missive from another ghost, thought Emmett. Dear Son, By the time you read this, I imagine the farm will be in the hands of the bank. You may be angry or disappointed with me as a result, and I wouldn’t blame you for being so. It would shock you to know how much my father left me when he died, how much my grandfather left my father, and how much my great-grandfather left him. Not simply stocks and bonds, but houses and paintings. Furniture and tableware. Memberships in clubs and societies. All three of those men were devoted to the Puritan tradition of finding favor in the eyes of the Lord by leaving more to their children than had been left to them. In this envelope, you will find all that I have to leave you—two legacies, one great, one small, both a form of sacrilege. As I write this, it shames me some to know that in leading my life as I have, I have broken the virtuous cycle of thrift established by my forebears. But at the same time, it fills me with pride to know that you will undoubtedly achieve more with this small remembrance than I could have achieved with a fortune. With love and admiration, Your father, Charles William Watson Attached to the letter by a paper clip was the first of the two legacies—a single page torn from an old book. Emmett’s father wasn’t one to lash out at his children in anger even when they deserved it. In fact, the only time Emmett could remember his father expressing unmitigated ire toward him was when he was sent home from school for defacing a textbook. As his father made painfully clear that night, to deface the pages of a book was to adopt the manner of a Visigoth. It was to strike a blow against that most sacred and noble of man’s achievements—the ability to set down his finest ideas and sentiments so that they might be shared through the ages. For his father to tear a page from any book was a sacrilege. What was even more shocking was that the page was torn from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays—that book which his father held in greater esteem than any other. Near the bottom, his father had carefully underlined two sentences in red ink. There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Emmett recognized immediately that this passage from Emerson represented two things at once. First, it was an excuse. It was an explication of why, against all good sense, his father had left behind the houses and paintings, the memberships in clubs and societies in order to come to Nebraska and till the soil. Emmett’s father offered this page from Emerson as evidence—as if it were a divine decree—that he had had no choice. But if, on the one hand, it was an excuse, on the other, it was an exhortation—an exhortation for Emmett that he should feel no remorse, no guilt, no hesitation in turning his back on the three hundred acres to which his father had dedicated half his life, as long as he abandoned them in order to pursue without envy or imitation his own portion, and in so doing discover that which he alone was capable of. Tucked in the envelope behind the page of Emerson was the second legacy, a stack of brand-new twenty-dollar bills. Running his thumb over the crisp, clean edges, Emmett figured there were about 150 in all, amounting to some three thousand dollars. If Emmett could understand why his father considered the torn page a sacrilege of sorts, he couldn’t accept that the bills were. Presumably, his father characterized the money as a sacrilege because he was bestowing it behind the backs of his creditors. In so doing, he had gone against both his legal obligation and his own sense of what was right and wrong. But after meeting the interest payments on his mortgage for twenty years, Emmett’s father had paid for the farm two times over. He had paid for it again with hard labor and disappointment, with his marriage, and finally with his life. So, no, the setting aside of three thousand dollars was not a sacrilege in Emmett’s eyes. As far as he was concerned, his father had earned every penny. Taking one of the bills for his pocket, Emmett returned the envelope to its spot above the tire and laid the felt back in place. —Emmett . . . , said Billy. Emmett closed the trunk and looked to Billy, but Billy wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the two figures in the doorway of the barn. With the late afternoon light behind them, Emmett couldn’t tell who they were. At least not until the wiry one on the left stretched out his arms and said: —Ta-da! Duchess Y OU SHOULD HAVE SEEN the look on Emmett’s face when he realized who was standing in the door. From his expression, you would’ve thought we’d popped out of thin air. Back in the early forties, there was an escape artist who went by the name of Kazantikis. Some of the wisecrackers on the circuit liked to call him the half-wit Houdini from Hackensack, but that wasn’t totally fair. While the front half of his act was a little shaky, the finale was a gem. Right before your eyes, he’d get bound up in chains, locked in a trunk, and sunk to the bottom of a big glass tank. A good-looking blonde would wheel out a giant clock as the emcee reminded the audience that the average human being can only hold his breath for two minutes, that deprived of oxygen most grow dizzy after four and unconscious after six. Two officers of the Pinkerton Detective Agency were present to ensure that the padlock on the trunk was secure, and a priest from the Greek Orthodox Church—complete with a long black cassock and long white beard—was on hand should it prove necessary to administer the last rites. Down into the water the trunk would go and the blonde would start the clock. At two minutes, the members of the audience would whistle and jeer. At five minutes, they would ooh and aah. But at eight minutes, the Pinkertons would exchange worried glances. At ten, the priest would cross himself and recite an indecipherable prayer. At the twelfth minute, as the blonde burst into tears, two stagehands would rush from behind the curtains to help the Pinkertons hoist the trunk from the tank. It would be dropped to the stage with a thump as water gushed across the footlights and into the orchestra pit. When one of the Pinkertons fumbled with his keys, the other would brush him aside, draw his pistol, and shoot off the lock. He would rip open the lid and tip over the trunk, only to discover . . . it was empty. At which point, the orthodox priest would pluck off his beard revealing that he was none other than Kazantikis, his hair still wet, as every single member of the audience looked on in holy amazement. That’s how Emmett Watson looked when he realized who was standing in the door. Of all the people in the world, he just couldn’t believe it was us. —Duchess? —In the flesh. And Woolly too. He still looked dumbfounded. —But how . . . ? I laughed. —That’s the question, right? I put a hand to the side of my mouth and lowered my voice. —We hitched a ride with the warden. While he was signing you out, we slipped into the trunk of his car. —You can’t be serious. —I know. It’s not what you’d call first-class travel. What with it being a hundred degrees in there and Woolly complaining every ten minutes about having to go to the bathroom. And when we crossed into Nebraska? I thought I was going to get a concussion from the divots in the road. Someone should write a letter to the governor! —Hey, Emmett, said Woolly, like he’d just joined the party. You’ve got to love that about Woolly. He’s always running about five minutes late, showing up on the wrong platform with the wrong luggage just as the conversation is pulling out of the station. Some might find the trait a little exasperating, but I’d take a guy who runs five minutes late over a guy who runs five minutes early, any day of the week. Out of the corner of my eye I had been watching as the kid, who’d been sitting on a hay bale, began edging his way in our direction. When I pointed, he froze like a squirrel on the grass. —Billy, right? Your brother says you’re as sharp as a tack. Is that true? The kid smiled and edged a little closer until he was standing at Emmett’s side. He looked up at his brother. —Are these your friends, Emmett? —Of course we’re his friends! —They’re from Salina, Emmett explained. I was about to elaborate when I noticed the car. I’d been so focused on the charms of the reunion that I hadn’t seen it hiding behind the heavy equipment. —Is that the Studebaker, Emmett? What do they call that? Baby blue? Objectively speaking, it looked a little like a car that your dentist’s wife would drive to bingo, but I gave it a whistle anyway. Then I turned to Billy. —Some of the boys in Salina would pin a picture of their girl back home on the bottom of the upper bunk so they could stare at it before lights out. Some of them had a photo of Elizabeth Taylor or Marilyn Monroe. But your brother, he pinned up an advertisement torn from an old magazine with a full-color picture of his car. I’ll be honest with you, Billy. We gave your brother a lot of grief about that. Getting all moon-eyed over an automobile. But now that I see her up close . . . I shook my head in a show of appreciation. —Hey, I said, turning to Emmett. Can we take her for a spin? Emmett didn’t answer because he was looking at Woolly—who was looking at a spider web without a spider. —How are you doing, Woolly? he asked. Turning, Woolly thought about it for a moment. —I’m all right, Emmett. —When was the last time you had something to eat? —Oh, I don’t know. I guess it was before we got in the warden’s car. Isn’t that right, Duchess? Emmett turned to his brother. —Billy, you remember what Sally said about supper? —She said to cook it at 350° for forty-five minutes. —Why don’t you take Woolly back to the house, put the dish in the oven, and set the table. I need to show Duchess something, but we’ll be right behind you. —Okay, Emmett. As we were watching Billy and Woolly walk back toward the house, I wondered what Emmett wanted to show me. But when he turned in my direction, he didn’t look himself. As a matter of fact, he seemed out of sorts. I guess some people are like that when it comes to surprises. Me, I love surprises. I love it when life pulls a rabbit out of a hat. Like when the blue-plate special is turkey and stuffing in the middle of May. But some people just don’t like being caught off guard—even by good news. —Duchess, what are you doing here? Now it was me who looked surprised. —What are we doing here? Why, we’ve come to see you, Emmett. And the farm. You know how it is. You hear enough stories from a buddy about his life back home and eventually you want to see it for yourself. To make my point, I gestured toward the tractor and the hay bale and the great American prairie that was waiting right outside the door, trying its best to convince us that the world was flat, after all. Emmett followed my gaze, then turned back. —I’ll tell you what, he said. Let’s go have something to eat, I’ll give you and Woolly a quick tour, we’ll get a good night’s sleep, then in the morning, I’ll drive you back to Salina. I gave a wave of my hand. —You don’t need to drive us back to Salina, Emmett. You just got home yourself. Besides, I don’t think we’re going back. At least not yet. Emmett closed his eyes for a moment. —How many months do you have left on your sentences? Five or six? You’re both practically out. —That’s true, I agreed. That’s perfectly true. But when Warden Williams took over for Ackerly, he fired that nurse from New Orleans. The one who used to help Woolly get his medicine. Now he’s down to his last few bottles, and you know how bluesy he gets without his medicine. . . . —It’s not his medicine. I shook my head in agreement. —One man’s toxin is another man’s tonic, right? —Duchess, I shouldn’t have to spell this out for you, of all people. But the longer you two are AWOL and the farther you get from Salina, the worse the consequences are going to be. And you both turned eighteen this winter. So if they catch you across state lines, they may not send you back to Salina. They may send you to Topeka. Let’s face it: Most people need a ladder and a telescope to make sense of two plus two. That’s why it’s usually more trouble than it’s worth to explain yourself. But not Emmett Watson. He’s the type of guy who can see the whole picture right from the word go—the grander scheme and all the little details. I put up both of my hands in surrender. —I’m with you one hundred percent, Emmett. In fact, I tried to tell Woolly the very same thing in the very same words. But he wouldn’t listen. He was dead set on jumping the fence. He had a whole plan. He was going to split on a Saturday night, hightail it into town, and steal a car. He even pilfered a knife when he was on kitchen duty. Not a paring knife, Emmett. I’m talking about a butcher knife. Not that Woolly would ever hurt a soul. You and I know that. But the cops don’t know it. They see a fidgety stranger with a drifty look in his eye and a butcher knife in his hand, and they’ll put him down like a dog. So I told him if he put the knife back where he’d found it, I’d help him get out of Salina safe and sound. He put back the knife, we slipped into the trunk, presto chango, here we are. And all of this was true. Except the part about the knife. That’s what you’d call an embellishment—a harmless little exaggeration in the service of emphasis. Sort of like the giant clock in Kazantikis’s act, or the shooting of the padlock by the Pinkerton. Those little elements that on the surface seem unnecessary but that somehow bring the whole performance home. —Look, Emmett, you know me. I could have done my stretch and then done Woolly’s. Five months or five years, what’s the difference. But given Woolly’s state of mind, I don’t think he could have done five more days. Emmett looked off in the direction that Woolly had walked. We both knew that his problem was one of plenty. Raised in one of those doorman buildings on the Upper East Side, Woolly had a house in the country, a driver in the car, and a cook in the kitchen. His grandfather was friends with Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, and his father was a hero in the Second World War. But there’s something about all that good fortune that can become too much. There’s a tender sort of soul who, in the face of such abundance, feels a sense of looming trepidation, like the whole pile of houses and cars and Roosevelts is going to come tumbling down on top of him. The very thought of it starts to spoil his appetite and unsettle his nerves. It becomes hard for him to concentrate, which affects his reading, writing, and arithmetic. Having been asked to leave one boarding school, he gets sent to another. Then maybe another. Eventually, a guy like that is going to need something to hold the world at bay. And who can blame him? I’d be the first to tell you that rich people don’t deserve two minutes of your sympathy. But a bighearted guy like Woolly? That’s a different story altogether. I could see from Emmett’s expression that he was going through a similar sort of calculus, thinking about Woolly’s sensitive nature and wondering if we should send him back to Salina or help him safely on his way. As a quandary it was pretty hard to parse. But then I guess that’s why they call it a quandary. —It’s been a long day, I said, putting a hand on Emmett’s shoulder. What say we go back to the house and break bread? Once we’ve had something to eat, we’ll all be in a better frame of mind to weigh the whys and wherefores. Country cooking . . . You hear a lot about it back East. It’s one of those things that people revere even when they’ve never had any firsthand experience with it. Like justice and Jesus. But unlike most things that people admire from afar, country cooking deserves the admiration. It’s twice as tasty as anything you’d find at Delmonico’s and without all the folderol. Maybe it’s because they’re using the recipes their great-great-grandmas perfected on the wagon trail. Or maybe it’s all those hours they’ve spent in the company of pigs and potatoes. Whatever the reason, I didn’t push back my plate until after the third helping. —That was some meal. I turned to the kid—whose head wasn’t too far over the tabletop. —What’s the name of that pretty brunette, Billy? The one in the flowery dress and work boots whom we have to thank for this delectable dish? —Sally Ransom, he said. It’s a chicken casserole. Made from one of her own chickens. —One of her own chickens! Hey, Emmett, what’s that folksy saying? The one about the fastest way to a young man’s heart? —She’s a neighbor, said Emmett. —Maybe so, I conceded. But I’ve had a lifetime supply of neighbors, and I’ve never had one who brought me a casserole. How about you, Woolly? Woolly was making a spiral in his gravy with the tines of his fork. —What’s that? —Have you ever had a neighbor bring you a casserole? I asked a little louder. He thought about it for a second. —I’ve never had a casserole. I smiled and raised my eyebrows at the kid. He smiled and raised his eyebrows back. Casserole or no casserole, Woolly suddenly looked up like he’d had a timely thought. —Hey, Duchess. Did you get a chance to ask Emmett about the escapade? —The escapade? asked Billy, poking his head a little higher over the table. —That’s the other reason we came here, Billy. We’re about to set off on a little escapade and we were hoping your brother would come along. —An escapade . . . , said Emmett. —We’ve been calling it that for lack of a better word, I said. But it’s a good deed, really. A sort of mitzvah. In fact, it’s the fulfillment of a dying man’s wish. As I began to explain, I looked from Emmett to Billy and back again since the two seemed equally intrigued. —When Woolly’s grandfather died, he left some money for Woolly in what they call a trust fund. Isn’t that right, Woolly? Woolly nodded. —Now, a trust fund is a special investment account that’s set up for the benefit of a minor with a trustee who makes all the decisions until the minor comes of age, at which point the minor can do with the money as he sees fit. But when Woolly turned eighteen, thanks to a little bit of fancy jurisprudence, the trustee—who happens to be Woolly’s brother-in-law—had Woolly declared temperamentally unfit. Wasn’t that the term, Woolly? —Temperamentally unfit, Woolly confirmed with an apologetic smile. —And in so doing, his brother-in-law extended his authority over the trust until such a time as Woolly should improve his temperament, or in perpetuity, whichever comes first. I shook my head. —And they call that a trust fund? —That sounds like Woolly’s business, Duchess. What does it have to do with you? —With us, Emmett. What does it have to do with us. I pulled my chair a little closer to the table. —Woolly and his family have a house in upstate New York— —A camp, said Woolly. —A camp, I amended, where the family gathers from time to time. Well, during the Depression, when the banks began failing, Woolly’s great-grandfather decided he could never entirely trust the American banking system again. So, just in case, he put a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash in a wall safe at the camp. But what’s particularly interesting here—even fateful, you might say—is that the value of Woolly’s trust today is almost exactly a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I paused to let that sink in. Then I looked at Emmett directly. —And because Woolly’s a man who’s big of heart and modest of needs, he has proposed that if you and I accompany him to the Adirondacks to help him claim what is rightfully his, he will divvy up the proceeds in three equal parts. —One hundred and fifty thousand dollars divided by three is fifty thousand dollars, said Billy. —Exactly, I said. —All for one and one for all, said Woolly. As I leaned back in my chair, Emmett stared at me for a moment. Then he turned to Woolly. —This was your idea? —It was my idea, Woolly acknowledged. —And you’re not going back to Salina? Woolly put his hands in his lap and shook his head. —No, Emmett. I’m not going back to Salina. Emmett gave Woolly a searching look, as if he were trying to formulate one more question. But Woolly, who was naturally disinclined to the answering of questions and who’d had plenty of practice in avoiding them, began clearing the plates. In a state of hesitation, Emmett drew a hand across his mouth. I leaned across the table. —The one hitch is that the camp always gets opened up for the last weekend in June, which doesn’t give us a lot of time. I’ve got to make a quick stop in New York to see my old man, but then we’re heading straight for the Adirondacks. We should have you back in Morgen by Friday—a little road weary, maybe, but on the sunny side of fifty grand. Think about that for a second, Emmett. . . . I mean, what could you do with fifty grand? What would you do with fifty grand? There is nothing so enigmatic as the human will—or so the headshrinkers would have you believe. According to them, the motivations of a man are a castle without a key. They form a multilayered labyrinth from which individual actions often emerge without a readily discernible rhyme or reason. But it’s really not so complicated. If you want to understand a man’s motivations, all you have to do is ask him: What would you do with fifty thousand dollars? When you ask most people this question, they need a few minutes to think about it, to sort through the possibilities and consider their options. And that tells you everything you need to know about them. But when you pose the question to a man of substance, a man who merits your consideration, he will answer in a heartbeat—and with specifics. Because he’s already thought about what he would do with fifty grand. He’s thought about it while he’s been digging ditches, or pushing paper, or slinging hash. He’s thought about it while listening to his wife, or tucking in the kids, or staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night. In a way, he’s been thinking about it all his life. When I put the question to Emmett, he didn’t respond, but that wasn’t because he didn’t have an answer. I could see from the expression on his face that he knew exactly what he’d do with fifty thousand dollars, nickel for nickel and dime for dime. As we sat there silently, Billy looked from me to his brother and back again; but Emmett, he looked straight across the table like he and I were suddenly the only people in the room. —Maybe this was Woolly’s idea and maybe it wasn’t, Duchess. Either way, I don’t want any part of it. Not the stop in the city, not the trip to the Adirondacks, not the fifty thousand dollars. Tomorrow, I need to take care of a few things in town. But on Monday morning, first thing, Billy and I are going to drive you and Woolly to the Greyhound station in Omaha. From there you can catch a bus to Manhattan or the Adirondacks or anywhere you like. Then Billy and I will get back in the Studebaker and go on about our business. Emmett was serious as he delivered this little speech. In fact, I’ve never seen a guy so serious. He didn’t raise his voice, and he didn’t take his eyes off me once—not even to glance at Billy, who was listening to every word with a look of wide-eyed wonder. And that’s when it hit me. The blunder I’d made. I had laid out all the specifics right in front of the kid. Like I said before, Emmett Watson understands the whole picture better than most. He understands that a man can be patient, but only up to a point; that it’s occasionally necessary for him to toss a monkey wrench in the workings of the world in order to get his God-given due. But Billy? At the age of eight, he probably hadn’t set foot out of the state of Nebraska. So you couldn’t expect him to understand all the intricacies of modern life, all the subtleties of what was and wasn’t fair. In fact, you wouldn’t want him to understand it. And as the kid’s older brother, as his guardian and sole protector, it was Emmett’s job to spare Billy from such vicissitudes for as long as he possibly could. I leaned back in my chair and gave the nod of common understanding. —Say no more, Emmett. I read you loud and clear. After supper, Emmett announced that he was walking over to the Ransoms to see if his neighbor would come jump his car. As the house was a mile away, I offered to keep him company, but he thought it best that Woolly and I stay out of sight. So I remained at the kitchen table, chatting with Billy while Woolly did the dishes. Given what I’ve already told you about Woolly, you’d probably think he wasn’t cut out for doing dishes—that his eyes would glaze over and his mind would wander and he’d generally go about the business in a slipshod fashion. But Woolly, he washed those dishes like his life depended on it. With his head bent at a forty-five-degree angle and the tip of his tongue poking between his teeth, he circled the sponge over the surface of the plates with a tireless intention, removing some spots that had been there for years and others that weren’t there at all. It was a wonder to observe. But like I said, I love surprises. When I turned my attention back to Billy, he was unwrapping a little package of tinfoil that he’d taken from his knapsack. From inside the tinfoil he carefully withdrew four cookies and put them on the table—one cookie in front of each chair. —Well, well, well, I said. What do we have here? —Chocolate chip cookies, said Billy. Sally made them. While we chewed in silence, I noticed that Billy was staring rather shyly at the top of the table, as if he had something he wanted to ask. —What’s on your mind, Billy? —All for one and one for all, he said a little tentatively. That’s from The Three Musketeers, isn’t it? —Exactly, mon ami. Having successfully identified the source of the quotation, you might have imagined the kid would be pleased as punch, but he looked despondent. Positively despondent. And that’s despite the fact that the mere mention of The Three Musketeers usually puts a smile on a young boy’s face. So Billy’s disappointment rather mystified me. That is until I was about to take another bite, and I recalled the all-for-one-and-one-for-all arrangement of the cookies on the table. I put my cookie down. —Have you seen The Three Musketeers, Billy? —No, he admitted, with a hint of the same despondency. But I have read it. —Then you should know better than most just how misleading a title can be. Billy looked up from the table. —Why is that, Duchess? —Because, in point of fact, The Three Musketeers is a story about four musketeers. Yes, it opens with the delightful camaraderie of Orthos and Pathos and Artemis. —Athos, Porthos, and Aramis? —Exactly. But the central business of the tale is the means by which the young adventurer . . . —D’Artagnan. — . . . by which D’Artagnan joins the ranks of the swashbuckling threesome. And by saving the honor of the queen, no less. —That’s true, said Billy, sitting up in his chair. In point of fact, it is a story about four musketeers. In honor of a job well done, I popped the rest of my cookie in my mouth and brushed the crumbs from my fingers. But Billy was staring at me with a new intensity. —I sense that something else is on your mind, young William. He leaned as far forward as the table would allow and spoke a little under his breath. —Do you want to hear what I would do with fifty thousand dollars? I leaned forward and spoke under my breath too. —I wouldn’t miss it for the world. —I would build a house in San Francisco, California. It would be a white house just like this one with a little porch and a kitchen and a front room. And upstairs, there would be three bedrooms. Only instead of a barn for the tractor, there would be a garage for Emmett’s car. —I love it, Billy. But why San Francisco? —Because that’s where our mother is. I sat back in my chair. —You don’t say. Back at Salina, whenever Emmett mentioned his mother—which wasn’t very often, to be sure—he invariably used the past tense. But he didn’t use it in a manner suggesting that his mother had gone to California. He used it in a manner suggesting that she had gone to the great beyond. —We’re leaving right after we take you and Woolly to the bus station, added Billy. —Just like that, you’re going to pack up the house and move to California. —No. We’re not going to pack up the house, Duchess. We’re going to take what little we can fit in a kit bag. —Why would you do that? —Because Emmett and Professor Abernathe agree that’s the best way to make a fresh start. We’re going to drive to San Francisco on the Lincoln Highway, and once we get there, we’ll find our mother and build our house. I didn’t have the heart to tell the kid that if his mother didn’t want to live in a little white house in Nebraska, she wasn’t going to want to live in a little white house in California. But setting the vagaries of motherhood aside, I figured the kid’s dream was about forty thousand dollars under budget. —I love your plan, Billy. It’s got the sort of specificity that a heartfelt scheme deserves. But are you sure you’re dreaming big enough? I mean, with fifty thousand dollars you could go a hell of a lot further. You could have a pool and a butler. You could have a four-car garage. Billy shook his head with a serious look on his face. —No, he said. I don’t think we will need a pool and a butler, Duchess. I was about to gently suggest that the kid shouldn’t jump to conclusions, that pools and butlers weren’t so easy to come by, and those who came by them were generally loath to give them up, when suddenly Woolly was standing at the table with a plate in one hand and a sponge in the other. —No one needs a pool or a butler, Billy. You never know what’s going to catch Woolly’s attention. It could be a bird that settles on a branch. Or the shape of a footprint in the snow. Or something someone said on the previous afternoon. But whatever gets Woolly thinking, it’s always worth the wait. So as he took the seat next to Billy, I quickly went to the sink, turned off the water, and returned to my chair, all ears. —No one needs a four-car garage, Woolly continued. But I think what you will need is a few more bedrooms. —Why is that, Woolly? —So that friends and family can come visit for the holidays. Billy nodded in acknowledgment of Woolly’s good sense, so Woolly continued making suggestions, warming to his subject as he went along. —You should have a porch with an overhanging roof so that you can sit under it on rainy afternoons, or lie on top of it on warm summer nights. And downstairs there should be a study, and a great room with a fireplace big enough so that everyone can gather around it when it snows. And you should have a secret hiding place under the staircase, and a special spot in the corner for the Christmas tree. There was no stopping Woolly now. Asking for paper and pencil, he swung his chair around next to Billy’s and began drawing a floor plan in perfect detail. And this wasn’t some back-of-the-napkin sort of sketch. As it turned out, Woolly drew floor plans like he washed dishes. The rooms were rendered to scale with walls that were parallel and corners at perfect right angles. It gave you a zing just to see it. Setting aside the merits of a covered porch versus a four-car garage, you had to give Woolly credit on the dreaming front. The place he imagined on Billy’s behalf was three times the size of the one the kid had imagined on his own, and it must have struck a chord. Because when Woolly was done with the picture, Billy asked him to add an arrow pointing north and a big red star to mark the spot where the Christmas tree should go. And when Woolly had done that, the kid carefully folded the floor plan and stowed it away in his pack. Woolly looked satisfied too. Although, when Billy had cinched the straps nice and tight and returned to his chair, Woolly gave him his sad sort of smile. —I wish I didn’t know where my mother is, he said. —Why is that, Woolly? —So that I could go and look for her just like you. Once the dishes were clean and Billy had taken Woolly upstairs to show him where he could shower, I did some poking around. It was no secret that Emmett’s old man had gone bust. But all you had to take was one look around the place to know it wasn’t from drinking. When the man of the house is a drunk, you can tell. You can tell from the look of the furniture and the look of the front yard. You can tell from the look on the faces of the kids. But even if Emmett’s old man was a teetotaler, I figured there had to be a drink of something somewhere—like maybe a bottle of apple brandy or peppermint schnapps tucked away for special occasions. In this part of the country, there usually was. I started with the kitchen cabinets. In the first, I found the plates and bowls. In the second, the glasses and mugs. In the third, I found the usual assortment of foodstuffs, but no sign of a bottle, not even hiding behind the ten-year-old jar of molasses. There wasn’t any hooch in the hutch either. But in the lower compartment was a jumble of fine china covered in a thin layer of dust. Not just dinner plates, you understand. There were soup bowls, salad plates, dessert plates, and teetering towers of coffee cups. I counted twenty settings in all—in a house without a dining-room table. I seemed to remember Emmett telling me his parents had been raised in Boston. Well, if they were raised in Boston, it must have been on the top of Beacon Hill. This was the sort of stuff that is given to a Brahmin bride with every expectation it will be handed down from one generation to the next. But the whole collection could barely fit in the cupboard, so it certainly wasn’t going to fit in a kit bag. Which sort of made you wonder . . . In the front room, the only place to stow a bottle was in the big old desk in the corner. I sat in the chair and rolled up the top. The writing surface had the normal accessories—scissors, a letter opener, a pad and pencil—but the drawers were cluttered with all sorts of things that had no business being there, like an old alarm clock, a half a deck of cards, and a scattering of nickels and dimes. After scraping up the loose change (waste not, want not), I opened the bottom drawer with my fingers crossed, knowing it to be a classic stowing spot. But there was no room for a bottle in there, because the drawer was filled to the brim with mail. It didn’t take more than a glance to know what this mess was all аbout: unpaid bills. Bills from the power company and the phone company, and whoever else had been foolish enough to extend Mr. Watson credit. At the very bottom would be the original notices, then the reminders, while here at the top, the cancellations and threats of legal action. Some of those envelopes hadn’t even been opened. I couldn’t help but smile. There was something sort of sweet in how Mr. Watson kept this assortment in the bottom drawer—not a foot away from the trash can. It had taken him just as much effort to stuff the bills inside his desk as it would have to consign them to oblivion. Maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to admit that he was never going to pay them. My old man certainly wouldn’t have gone to the trouble. As far as he was concerned, an unpaid bill couldn’t find its way into the garbage fast enough. In fact, he was so allergic to the very paper on which bills were printed, he would go to some lengths to ensure that they never caught up with him in the first place. That’s why the incomparable Harrison Hewett, who was something of a stickler when it came to the English language, was occasionally known to misspell his own address. But waging a war with the US Postal Service is no small affair. They have entire fleets of trucks at their disposal, and an army of foot soldiers whose sole purpose in life is to make sure that an envelope with your name on it finds its way into your mitts. Which is why the Hewetts were occasionally known to arrive by the lobby and depart by the fire escape, usually at five in the morning. Ah, my father would say, pausing between the fourth and third floors and gesturing toward the east. Rosy-fingered dawn! Count yourself lucky to be of its acquaintance, my boy. There are kings who never laid eyes upon it! Outside, I heard the wheels of Mr. Ransom’s pickup turning into the Watsons’ drive. The headlights briefly swept the room from right to left as the truck passed the house and headed toward the barn. I closed the bottom drawer of the desk so that the whole pile of notices could remain safe and sound until the final accounting. • • • Upstairs, I stuck my head into Billy’s room, where Woolly was already stretched out on the bed. He was humming softly and staring at the airplanes hanging from the ceiling. He was probably thinking about his father in the cockpit of his fighter plane at ten thousand feet. That’s where Woolly’s father would always be for Woolly: somewhere between the flight deck of his carrier and the bottom of the South China Sea. I found Billy in his father’s room, sitting Indian style on the bedcovers with his knapsack at his side and a big red book in his lap. —Hey there, gunslinger. What’re you reading? —Professor Abacus Abernathe’s Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers, and Other Intrepid Travelers. I whistled. —Sounds impressive. Is it any good? —Oh, I’ve read it twenty-four times. —Then good may not be big enough a word. Entering the room, I took a little stroll from corner to corner as the kid turned the page. On top of the bureau were two framed photographs. The first was of a standing husband and seated wife in turn-of-the-century garb. The Watsons of Beacon Hill, no doubt. The other was of Emmett and Billy from just a few years back. They were sitting on the same porch that Emmett and his neighbor had sat on earlier that day. There was no picture of Billy and Emmett’s mother. —Hey, Billy, I said, putting the photograph of the brothers back on the bureau. Can I ask you a question? —Okay, Duchess. —When exactly did your mother go to California? —On the fifth of July 1946. —That’s pretty exactly. So she just up and left, huh? Never to be heard from again? —No, said Billy, turning another page. She was heard from again. She sent us nine postcards. That’s how we know that she’s in San Francisco. For the first time since I’d entered the room, he looked up from his book. —Can I ask you a question, Duchess? —Fair’s fair, Billy. —How come they call you that? —Because I was born in Dutchess County. —Where is Dutchess County? —About fifty miles north of New York. Billy sat up straight. —You mean the city of New York? —None other. —Have you ever been to the city of New York? —I’ve been to hundreds of cities, Billy, but I’ve been to the city of New York more than I’ve been to anywhere else. —That’s where Professor Abernathe is. Here, look. Turning to one of the first pages, he offered up his book. —Small print gives me a headache, Billy. Why don’t you do the honors. Looking down, he began reading with the help of a fingertip. —Dearest Reader, I write to you today from my humble office on the fifty-fifth floor of the Empire State Building at the junction of Thirty-Fourth Street and Fifth Avenue on the isle of Manhattan in the city of New York at the northeastern edge of our great nation—the United States of America. Billy looked up with a certain level of expectation. I responded with a look of inquiry. —Have you ever met Professor Abernathe? he asked. I smiled. —I’ve met a lot of people in our great nation and many of them from the isle of Manhattan, but to the best of my knowledge, I have never had the pleasure of meeting your professor. —Oh, said Billy. He was quiet for a moment, then his little brow furrowed. —Something else? I asked. —Why have you been to hundreds of cities, Duchess? —My father was a thespian. Although we were generally based in New York, we spent a good part of the year traveling from town to town. We’d be in Buffalo one week and Pittsburgh the next. Then Cleveland or Kansas City. I’ve even spent some time in Nebraska, believe it or not. When I was about your age, I lived for a stretch on the outskirts of a little city called Lewis. —I know Lewis, said Billy. It’s on the Lincoln Highway. Halfway between here and Omaha. —No kidding. Billy set his book aside and reached for his knapsack. —I have a map. Would you like to see? —I’ll take your word for it. Billy let go of the knapsack. Then his brow furrowed again. —When you were moving from town to town, how did you go to school? —Not all worth knowing can be found between the covers of compendiums, my boy. Let’s simply say that my academy was the thoroughfare, my primer experience, and my instructor the fickle finger of fate. Billy seemed to consider this for a moment, apparently unsure of whether he should be willing to accept the principle as an article of faith. Then, after nodding twice to himself, he looked up with a touch of embarrassment. —Can I ask you something else, Duchess? —Shoot. —What is a thespian? I laughed. —A thespian is a man of the stage, Billy. An actor. Extending a hand, I looked into the distance and intoned: She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. . . . It was a pretty good delivery, if I do say so myself. Sure, the pose was a little hackneyed, but I put a world of weariness into the tomorrows, and I hit that old dusty death with an ominous flare. Billy gave me his patented wide-eyed look. —William Shakespeare from the Scottish play, I said. Act five, scene five. —Was your father a Shakespearean actor? —Very Shakespearean. —Was he famous? —Oh, he was known by name in every saloon from Petaluma to Poughkeepsie. Billy looked impressed. But then his brow furrowed once again. —I have learned a little about William Shakespeare, he said. Professor Abernathe calls him the greatest adventurer to have never set sail on the seas. But he never mentions the Scottish play. . . . —Not surprisingly. You see, the Scottish play is how theater folk refer to Macbeth. Some centuries ago, it was determined that the play was cursed, and that to speak of it by name can only bring misfortune upon the heads of those who dare perform it. —What sorts of misfortune? —The worst sorts. At the very first production of the play back in the sixteen hundreds, the young actor cast as Lady Macbeth died right before going onstage. About a hundred years ago, the two greatest Shakespearean actors in the world were an American named Forrest and a Brit named Macready. Naturally, the American audience was partial to the talents of Mr. Forrest. So when Macready was cast in the role of Macbeth at the Astor Place Opera House—on the isle of Manhattan—a riot broke out in which ten thousand clashed and many were killed. Needless to say, Billy was enthralled. —But why is it cursed? —Why is it cursed! Have you never heard the tale of Macbeth? The black-hearted Thane of Glamis? What? No? Well then, my boy, make some room, and I shall bring you into the fraternity! Professor Applenathe’s Compendium was set aside. And as Billy got under the covers, I switched off the light—just as my father would have when he was about to tell a dark and grisly tale. Naturally enough, I began on the fen with the three witches bubbling, bubbling, toil and troubling. I told the kid how, spurred by the ambitions of the Missus, Macbeth honored the visit of his king with a dagger through the heart; and how this cold-blooded act of murder begot another, which in turn begot a third. I told him how Macbeth became tormented by ghostly visions, and his wife began sleepwalking the halls of Cawdor while wiping the specter of blood from her hands. Oh, I stuck the courage to the sticking place, all right! And once the trees of Birnam Wood had climbed the hill of Dunsinane, and Macduff, that man of no woman born, had left the regicide slain upon the fields, I tucked Billy in with a wish of pleasant dreams. And as I retreated down the hall, I took a bow with a gentle flourish when I noted that young Billy had gotten out of bed to switch the light back on. Sitting on the edge of Emmett’s bed, what struck me immediately about his room was all that wasn’t in it. While there was a chip in the plaster where a nail had once been lodged, there were no pictures hanging, no posters or pennants. There was no radio or record player. And while there was a curtain rod above the window, there were no curtains. If there had been a cross on the wall, it could well have been the cell of a monk. I suppose he could have cleared it out right before going to Salina. Putting his childish ways behind him, and what have you, by dumping all his comic books and baseball cards in the trash. Maybe. But something told me this was the room of someone who had been preparing to walk out of his house with nothing but a kit bag for a long, long time. The beams from Mr. Ransom’s headlights swept across the wall again, this time from left to right as the truck passed the house on its way to the road. After the screen door slammed, I heard Emmett turn off the lights in the kitchen, then the lights in the front room. When he climbed the stairs, I was waiting in the hall. —Up and running? I asked. —Thankfully. He looked genuinely relieved, but a little worn out too. —I feel terrible putting you out of your room. Why don’t you take your bed and I’ll sleep downstairs on the couch. It may be a little short, but it’s bound to be more comfortable than the mattresses at Salina. In saying this, I didn’t expect Emmett to take me up on the offer. He wasn’t the type. But I could tell he appreciated the gesture. He gave me a smile and even put a hand on my shoulder. —That’s all right, Duchess. You stay put and I’ll join Billy. I think we could all use a good night’s sleep. Emmett continued down the hall a few steps, then stopped and turned back. —You and Woolly should switch out of those clothes. He can find something in my father’s closet. They were about the same size. I’ve already packed things for Billy and me, so you can take what you want from mine. There’s also a pair of old book bags in there that you two can use. —Thanks, Emmett. As he continued down the hall, I went back into his room. From behind the closed door, I could hear him washing up, then going to join his brother. Lying down on his bed, I stared at the ceiling. Over my head were no model airplanes. All I had was a crack in the plaster that turned a lazy curve around the ceiling lamp. But at the end of a long day, maybe a crack in the plaster is all you need to trigger fanciful thoughts. Because the way that little imperfection curved around the fixture was suddenly very reminiscent of how the Platte River bends around Omaha. Oh, Omaha, I remember thee well. It was in August of 1944, just six months after my eighth birthday. That summer, my father was part of a traveling revue claiming to raise money for the war effort. Though the show was billed as The Greats of Vaudeville, it might just as well have been called The Cavalcade of Has-Beens. It opened with a junkie juggler who’d get the shakes in the second half of his act, followed by an eighty-year-old comedian who could never remember which jokes he had already told. My father’s bit was to perform a medley of Shakespeare’s greatest monologues—or, as he put it: A lifetime supply of wisdom in twenty-two minutes. Wearing the beard of a Bolshevik and a dagger in his belt, he would lift his gaze slowly from the footlights in search of that realm of sublime ideas located somewhere in the upper right-hand corner of the balcony, and thence wouldst commence: But soft, what light through yonder window breaks . . . and Once more unto the breach, dear friends . . . and O reason not the need! . . . From Romeo to Henry to Lear. A tailor-made progression from the moonstruck youth, to the nascent hero, to the doddering old fool. As I recall, that tour began at the Majestic Theatre in glamorous Trenton, New Jersey. From there, we headed west, hitting all the bright lights of the interior from Pittsburgh to Peoria. The last stop was a one-week residence at the Odeon in Omaha. Tucked somewhere between the railway station and the red-light district, it was a grand old Deco spot that hadn’t had the good sense to turn itself into a movie theater when it still had the chance. Most of the time while we were on the road, we stayed with the other performers in the hotels that were suited to our kind—the ones frequented by fugitives and Bible salesmen. But whenever we reached the final stop on a tour—that stop from which there would be no forwarding address—my father would check us into the fanciest hotel in town. Sporting the walking stick of Winston Churchill and the voice of John Barrymore, he would saunter up to the front desk and ask to be shown to his room. Discovering that the hotel was fully booked and had no record of his reservation, he would express the outrage appropriate to a man of his station. What’s that! No reservation! Why, it was none other than Lionel Pendergast, the general manager of the Waldorf Astoria (and a close personal friend), who, having assured me that there was no other place in Omaha to spend the night, called your offices in order to book my room! When the management would eventually admit that the presidential suite was available, Pops would concede that, though he was a man of simple needs, the presidential suite would do very nicely, thank you. Once ensconced, this man of simple needs would take full advantage of the hotel’s amenities. Every stitch of our clothing would be sent to the laundry. Manicurists and masseuses would be summoned to our rooms. Bell boys would be sent out for flowers. And in the lobby bar every night at six, drinks would be ordered all round. It was on a Sunday in August, the morning after his last performance, that my father proposed an excursion. Having been hired for a run at the Palladium in Denver, he suggested we celebrate by having a picnic on the bank of a meandering river. As we carried our luggage down the hotel’s back stairs, my father wondered whether perhaps we should augment our festivities by bringing along a representative of the gentler sex. Say, Miss Maples, that delightful young lady whom Mephisto, the cross-eyed magician, had been sawing in half every night in the second act. And who should we find standing in the alley with her suitcase in hand, but the buxom blonde we’d just been discussing. —Tallyho! said my father. Ah, what a delightful day that turned out to be. With me in the rumble seat and Miss Maples up front, we drove to a large municipal park on the edge of the Platte River, where the grass was lush, the trees were tall, and the sunshine glistened on the surface of the water. The night before, my father had ordered a picnic of fried chicken and cold corn on the cob. He had even stolen a tablecloth right out from under our breakfast plates (try that one, Mephisto!). Miss Maples, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, seemed to delight in my old man’s company. She laughed at all his jokes and warmly expressed her gratitude whenever he refilled her glass with wine. She even blushed at some of the compliments he had stolen from the Bard. She had brought along a portable record player, and I was put in charge of picking the records and cuing the needle as the two of them danced uncertainly on the grass. It has been observed that that which comforts the stomach dullens the wits. And surely, no truer words have ever been said. For after we had tossed the wine bottles into the river, packed the phonograph into the trunk, and put the car in gear, when my father mentioned that we needed to make a quick stop in a nearby town, I thought nothing of it. And when we pulled up to an old stone building on top of a hill and he asked me to wait with a young nun in one room while he spoke to an older nun in another, I still thought nothing of that. In fact, it was only when I happened to glance through the window and spied my father speeding down the driveway with Miss Maples’s head on his shoulder that I realized I’d been had. NINE Emmett E MMETT WOKE TO THE smell of bacon frying in a pan. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken to the smell of bacon. For over a year, he’d been waking to the complaint of a bugle and the stirring of forty boys at six fifteen in the morning. Rain or shine they had forty minutes to shower, dress, make their beds, eat their breakfast, and line up for duty. To wake on a real mattress under clean cotton sheets with the smell of bacon in the air had become so unfamiliar, so unexpected, it took Emmett a moment to wonder where the bacon had come from and who was cooking it. He turned over and saw that Billy was gone and the clock on the bedside table read 9:45. Swearing softly, he climbed out of bed and dressed. He had hoped to get in and out of town before church let out. In the kitchen, he found Billy and Duchess sitting across from each other—and Sally at the stove. In front of the boys were plates of bacon and eggs, in the middle of the table a basket of biscuits and a jar of strawberry preserves. —Boy are you in for a treat, said Duchess when he saw Emmett. Pulling up a chair, Emmett looked toward Sally, who was picking up the percolator. —You didn’t have to make breakfast for us, Sally. By way of reply, she set down a mug on the table in front of him. —Here’s your coffee. Your eggs will be ready in a minute. Then she turned on her heels and went back to the stove. Duchess, who had just taken a second bite from a biscuit, was shaking his head in appreciation. —I’ve traveled all around America, Sally, but I’ve never had anything like these biscuits. What’s your secret recipe? —There’s nothing secret about my recipe, Duchess. —If there isn’t, there should be. And Billy tells me you made the jelly too. —Those are preserves, not jelly. But yes, I make them every July. —It takes her a whole day, said Billy. You should see her kitchen. There are baskets of berries on every counter and a five-pound bag of sugar and four different pots simmering on the stove. Duchess whistled and shook his head again. —It may be an old-fashioned endeavor, but from where I sit, it’s worth the effort. Sally turned from the stove and thanked Duchess, with a touch of ceremony. Then she looked at Emmett. —You ready yet? Without waiting for an answer, she brought over his serving. —You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble, Emmett said. We could have seen to our own breakfast, and there was plenty of jam in the cabinet. —I’ll be sure to keep that in mind, Sally said, setting down his plate. Then she went to the sink and began scrubbing the skillet. Emmett was staring at her back when Billy addressed him. —Did you ever go to the Imperial, Emmett? Emmett turned to his brother. —What’s that, Billy? The Imperial? —The movie theater in Salina. Emmett directed a frown at Duchess, who quickly set the record straight. —Your brother never went to the Imperial, Billy. That was just me and a few of the other boys. Billy nodded, looking like he was thinking something over. —Did you have to get special permission to go to the movies? —You didn’t need permission, so much as . . . initiative. —But how did you get out? —Ah! A reasonable question under the circumstances. Salina wasn’t exactly like a prison, Billy, with guard towers and searchlights. It was more like boot camp in the army—a compound in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of barracks and a mess hall and some older guys in uniform who yelled at you for moving too fast when they weren’t yelling at you for moving too slow. But the guys in uniform—our sergeants, if you will—didn’t sleep with us. They had their own barracks, with a pool table, and a radio, and a cooler full of beer. So after lights-out on Saturday, while they were drinking and shooting pool, a few of us would slip out the bathroom window and make our way into town. —Was it far? —Not too far. If you jogged across the potato fields, in about twenty minutes you’d come to a river. Most of the time, the river was only a few feet deep, so you could wade across in your skivvies and make it downtown in time for the ten o’clock show. You could have a bag of popcorn and a bottle of pop, watch the feature from the balcony, and be back in bed by one in the morning, leaving no one the wiser. —Leaving no one the wiser, repeated Billy, with a hint of awe. But how did you pay for the movies? —Why don’t we change the subject, suggested Emmett. —Why not! said Duchess. Sally, who had been drying the skillet, set it down on the stovetop with a bang. —I’ll go make the beds, she said. —You don’t have to make the beds, said Emmett. —They won’t make themselves. Sally left the kitchen and they could hear her marching up the stairs. Duchess looked at Billy and raised his eyebrows. —Excuse me, said Emmett, pushing back his chair. As he headed upstairs, Emmett could hear Duchess and his brother launching into a conversation about the Count of Monte Cristo and his miraculous escape from an island prison—the promised change of subject. • • • When Emmett got to his father’s room, Sally was already making the bed with quick, precise movements. —You didn’t mention that you were having company, she said, without looking up. —I didn’t know I was having company. Sally fluffed the pillows by giving them a punch on either end, then set them against the headboard. —Excuse me, she said, squeezing past Emmett in the doorway as she went across the hall to his room. When Emmett followed, he found her staring at the bed—because Duchess had already made it. Emmett was a little impressed by Duchess’s effort, but Sally wasn’t. She pulled back the quilt and sheet and began tucking them back in with the same precise movements. When she turned her attention to the punching of pillows, Emmett glanced at the bedside clock. It was almost ten fifteen. He really didn’t have time for this, whatever this was. —If something’s on your mind, Sally . . . Sally stopped abruptly and looked him in the eye for the first time that morning. —What would be on my mind? —I’m sure I don’t know. —That sounds about right. She straightened her dress and made a move toward the door, but he was standing in her way. —I’m sorry if I didn’t seem grateful in the kitchen. All I was trying to say was— —I know what you were trying to say because you said it. That I didn’t need to go to the trouble of skipping church so that I could make you breakfast this morning; just like I didn’t need to go to the trouble of making you dinner last night. Which is fine and dandy. But for your information, telling someone they didn’t have to go to the trouble of doing something is not the same as showing gratitude for it. Not by a long shot. No matter how much store-bought jam you have in the cabinet. —Is that what this is about? The jam in the cabinet? Sally, I did not mean to slight your preserves. Of course they’re better than the jam in the cabinet. But I know how much effort it takes for you to make them, and I didn’t want you to feel you had to waste a jar on us. It’s not like it’s a special occasion. —It may interest you to know, Emmett Watson, that I am quite happy to have my preserves eaten by friends and family when there is no occasion to speak of. But maybe, just maybe, I thought you and Billy might like to enjoy one last jar before you packed up and moved to California without saying so much as a word. Emmett closed his eyes. —Come to think of it, she continued, I guess I should thank my lucky stars that your friend Duchess had the presence of mind to inform me of your intentions. Otherwise, I might have come over tomorrow morning and made pancakes and sausage only to find there was no one here to eat them. —I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance to mention that to you, Sally. But it wasn’t like I was trying to hide it. I talked about it with your father yesterday afternoon. In fact, he was the one who brought it up—saying it might be best if Billy and I were to pull up stakes and make a fresh start somewhere else. Sally looked at Emmett. —My father said that. That you should pull up stakes and make a fresh start. —In so many words . . . —Well, doesn’t that just sound delightful. Pushing past Emmett, Sally continued into Billy’s room, where Woolly was lying on his back and blowing at the ceiling, trying to stir the airplanes. Sally put her hands on her hips. —And who might you be? Woolly looked up in shock. —I’m Woolly. —Are you Catholic, Woolly? —No, I’m Episcopalian. —Then what are you still doing in bed? —I’m not sure, admitted Woolly. —It’s after ten in the morning and I’ve got plenty to do. So at the count of five, I’m going to make that bed, whether you’re in it or not. Woolly jumped out from under the covers in his boxer shorts and watched in a state of amazement as Sally went about the business of making the bed. While scratching the top of his head, he noticed Emmett on the threshold. —Hey, Emmett! —Hey, Woolly. Woolly squinted at Emmett for a moment, then his face lit up. —Is that bacon? —Ha! said Sally. And Emmett, he headed down the stairs and out the door. It was a relief for Emmett to be alone behind the wheel of the Studebaker. Since leaving Salina, he’d barely had a moment to himself. First there was the drive with the warden, then Mr. Obermeyer in the kitchen and Mr. Ransom on the porch, then Duchess and Woolly, and now Sally. All Emmett wanted, all he needed, was a chance to clear his head so that, wherever he and Billy decided to go, whether to Texas or California or someplace else altogether, he could set out in the right frame of mind. But as he turned onto Route 14, what Emmett found himself dwelling on was not where he and Billy might go, it was his exchange with Sally. I’m sure I don’t know. That’s how he’d replied when she had asked him what might be on her mind. And in the strictest sense, he hadn’t known. But he could have made a pretty good guess. He understood well enough what Sally had come to expect. At one time, he may even have given her cause for expecting it. That’s the sort of thing young people do: fan the flames of each other’s expectations—until the necessities of life begin to make themselves known. But Emmett hadn’t given her much cause for expectations since he went to Salina. When she had sent him those packages—with the homemade cookies and hometown news—he had not replied with a word of thanks. Not on the phone and not in a note. And in advance of coming home, he had not sent her word of his pending arrival or asked her to tidy the house. He hadn’t asked her to sweep or make beds or put soap in the bathroom or eggs in the icebox. He hadn’t asked her to do a thing. Was he grateful to discover that she had chosen to do these things on his and Billy’s behalf? Of course he was. But being grateful was one thing, and being beholden, that was another thing altogether. As Emmett drove, he saw the intersection with Route 7 approaching. Emmett knew that if he took a right and circled back on 22D, he could reach town without having to pass the fairgrounds. But what would be the point of that? The fairgrounds would still be there whether he passed them or not. They’d still be there whether he went to Texas or California or someplace else altogether. No, taking the long route wouldn’t change a thing. Except maybe letting one imagine for a moment that what had happened already hadn’t happened at all. So not only did Emmett continue straight through the intersection, he slowed the car to twenty miles an hour as he approached the fairgrounds, then pulled over on the opposite shoulder where he had no choice but to give it a good hard look. For fifty-one weeks of the year, the fairgrounds were exactly like they were right now—four empty acres scattered with hay to hold down the dust. But in the first week of October, they would be anything but empty. They would be filled with music and people and lights. There would be a carousel and bumper cars and colorful booths where one could try one’s hand at pitching or riflery. There would be a great striped tent where, with an appropriate sense of ceremony, judges would convene, confer, and bestow blue ribbons for the largest pumpkin and the tastiest lemon meringue pie. And there would be a corral with bleachers where they would hold the tractor pull and calf roping, and where more ribbons would be awarded by more judges. And back there, just beyond the food concessions, would be a spot-lit stage for the fiddling contest. It was right by the cotton-candy vendor, of all places, on the last night of the fair that Jimmy Snyder had chosen to pick his fight. When Jimmy called out his first remark, Emmett thought he must be talking to someone else—because he barely knew Jimmy. A year younger, Emmett wasn’t in any of Jimmy’s classes and didn’t play on any of his teams, so he had little reason to interact with him. But Jimmy Snyder didn’t have to know you. He liked running people down whether he knew them or not. And it didn’t matter for what. It could have been for the clothes you were wearing, or the food you were eating, or the way your sister crossed the street. Yes, sir, it could have been about anything, as long as it was something that got under your skin. Stylistically speaking, Jimmy was one for framing his insults as inquiries. Looking curious and mild, he’d ask his first question to no one in particular. And if that didn’t hit a sore spot, he’d answer the first question himself, then ask another, circling ever inward. Isn’t that cute? was the question he’d posed when he’d seen Emmett holding Billy’s hand. I mean, isn’t that the cutest thing you ever saw? When Emmett realized that Jimmy was referring to him, he brushed it off. What did he care if he was seen holding his younger brother’s hand at the county fair. Who wouldn’t be holding the hand of a six-year-old boy in the middle of a large crowd at eight in the evening? So Jimmy tried again. Shifting gears, as it were, he wondered out loud whether the reason Emmett’s father hadn’t fought in the war was because he’d been 3-C, the Selective Service classification that allowed farmers to defer. This struck Emmett as an odd taunt given how many men in Nebraska had received the 3-C designation. It struck him as so odd that he couldn’t help but stop and turn around—which was his first mistake. Now that Jimmy had Emmett’s attention, he answered the query himself. No, he said, Charlie Watson wouldn’t have been 3-C. ’Cause he couldn’t grow grass in the Garden of Eden. He must have been 4-F. Here, Jimmy turned a finger around his ear to imply Charlie Watson’s incapacity to reason. Granted, these were juvenile taunts, but they had begun to make Emmett grit his teeth. He could feel the old heat rising to the surface of his skin. But he could also feel that Billy was tugging at his hand—maybe for the simple reason that the fiddling contest was about to begin, or maybe because, even at the age of six, Billy understood that no good could come from engaging with the likes of Jimmy Snyder. But before Billy could tug Emmett away, Jimmy took one more crack at it. No, he said, it couldn’t have been because he was 4-F. He’s too simple to be crazy. I suppose if he didn’t fight, it must have been because he was 4-E. What they call a conscientious— Before Jimmy could say the word objector, Emmett had hit him. He had hit him without even letting go of his brother’s hand, extending his fist from his shoulder in one clean jab, breaking Jimmy’s nose. It wasn’t the broken nose that killed him, of course. It was the fall. Jimmy was so used to speaking with impunity that he wasn’t prepared for the punch. It sent him stumbling backward, arms flailing. When his heel caught on a braid of cables, Jimmy fell straight back, hitting his head on a cinderblock that was bracing the stake of a tent. According to the medical examiner, Jimmy landed with such force that the corner of the cinderblock dug a triangular hole an inch deep into the back of his skull. It put him in a coma that left him breathing, but that was slowly sapping his strength. After sixty-two days, it finally drained the life out of him altogether, as his family sat at his bedside in their fruitless vigil. Like the warden said: The ugly side of chance. Sheriff Petersen was the one who brought the news of Jimmy’s death to the Watsons’ doorstep. He had held off on pressing charges, waiting to see how Jimmy would fare. In the meantime, Emmett had maintained his silence, seeing no virtue in rehashing the events while Jimmy was fighting for his life. But Jimmy’s pals did not maintain their silence. They talked about the fight often and at length. They talked about it in the schoolhouse, at the soda fountain, and in the Snyders’ living room. They told of how the four of them had been on their way to the cotton-candy stand when Jimmy bumped into Emmett by mistake; and how before Jimmy even got the chance to apologize, Emmett had punched him in the face. Mr. Streeter, Emmett’s attorney, had encouraged him to take the stand and tell his own version of events. But whatever version prevailed, Jimmy Snyder was still going to be dead and buried. So Emmett told Mr. Streeter that he didn’t need a trial. And on March 1, 1953, at a hearing before Judge Schomer in the county courthouse, after freely admitting his guilt, Emmett was sentenced to eighteen months at a special juvenile reform program on a farm in Salina, Kansas. In another ten weeks, the fairgrounds wouldn’t be empty, thought Emmett. The tent would be raised and the stage rebuilt and the people would gather once again in anticipation of the contests and food and music. As Emmett put the Studebaker in gear, he took little comfort from the fact that when the festivities commenced he and Billy would be more than a thousand miles away. Emmett parked along the lawn at the side of the courthouse. As it was Sunday, only a few stores were open. He made quick stops at Gunderson’s and the five-and-dime, where he spent the twenty dollars from his father’s envelope on sundries for the journey west. Then after putting his bags in the car, he walked up Jefferson to the public library. At the front of the central room, a middle-aged librarian sat at a V-shaped desk. When Emmett asked where he could find the almanacs and encyclopedias, she led him to the reference section and pointed to various volumes. As she was doing so, Emmett could tell that she was scrutinizing him through her glasses, giving him a second look, as if maybe she recognized him. Emmett hadn’t been in the library since he was a boy, but she could have recognized him for any number of reasons, not least of which was that his picture had been on the front page of the town paper more than once. Initially, it was his school portrait set alongside Jimmy’s. Then it was Emmett Watson being taken into the station house to be formally charged, and Emmett Watson descending the courthouse steps in the minutes after his hearing. The girl at Mr. Gunderson’s had given him a similar look. —Can I help you find anything in particular? the librarian asked after a moment. —No, ma’am. I’m all set. When she retreated to her desk, Emmett pulled the volumes he needed, brought them to one of the tables, and took a seat. For much of 1952, Emmett’s father had been wrestling with one illness or another. But it was a flu he couldn’t shake in the spring of ’53 that prompted Doc Winslow to send him to Omaha for some tests. In the letter Emmett’s father sent to Salina a few months later, he assured his son that he was back on his feet and well on the road to recovery. Nonetheless, he had agreed to make a second trip to Omaha so that the specialists could do a few more tests, as specialists are wont to do. Reading the letter, Emmett wasn’t fooled by his father’s folksy assurances or his wry remark on the penchants of medical professionals. His father had been using mollifying words for as long as Emmett could remember. Mollifying words to describe how the planting had gone, how the harvest was coming, and why their mother was suddenly nowhere to be found. Besides, Emmett was old enough to know that the road to recovery was rarely lined with repeat visits to specialists. Any doubts as to Mr. Watson’s prognosis were swept aside one morning in August when he stood up from the breakfast table and fainted right before Billy’s eyes, prompting a third trip to Omaha, this one in the back of an ambulance. That night—after Emmett had received the call from Doc Winslow in the warden’s office—a plan began to take shape. Or to be more accurate, it was a plan that Emmett had been toying with for months in the back of his mind, but now it was in the forefront, presenting itself in a series of variations that differed in timing and scope, but which always took place somewhere other than Nebraska. As his father’s condition deteriorated over the fall, the plan became sharper; and when he died that April, it was clear as could be—as if Emmett’s father had surrendered his own vitality to ensure the vitality of Emmett’s intentions. The plan was simple enough. As soon as Emmett was out of Salina, he and Billy were going to pack their things and head to some metropolitan area—somewhere without silos or harvesters or fairgrounds—where they could use what little remained of their father’s legacy to buy a house. It didn’t have to be a grand house. It could be a three- or four-bedroom with one or two baths. It could be colonial or Victorian, clapboard or shingled. What it had to be was in disrepair. Because they wouldn’t be buying this house to fill it with furniture and tableware and art, or with memories, for that matter. They’d be buying the house to fix it up and sell it. To make ends meet, Emmett would get a job with a local builder, but in the evenings while Billy was doing his schoolwork, Emmett would be setting the house right, inch by inch. First, he’d do whatever work was needed on the roof and windows to ensure the house was weather tight. Then he’d shift his attention to the walls, doors, and flooring. Then the moldings and banisters and cabinets. Once the house was in prime condition, once the windows opened and closed and the staircase didn’t creak and the radiators didn’t rattle, once every corner looked finished and fine, then and only then would they sell. If he played his cards right, if he picked the right house in the right neighborhood and did the right amount of work, Emmett figured he could double his money on the first sale—allowing him to invest the proceeds in two more run-down houses, where he could start the process over again. Only this time, when the two houses were finished, he would sell one and rent out the other. If Emmett maintained his focus, within a few years he figured he’d have enough money to quit his job and hire a man or two. Then he’d be renovating two houses and collecting rent from four. But at no time, under any circumstances, would he ever borrow a dime. Other than his own hard work, Emmett figured there was only one thing essential to his success, and that was to pursue his plan in a metropolitan area that was big and getting bigger. With that in mind, he had visited the little library at Salina, and with volume eighteen of the Encyclopedia Britannica open on the table, he had written down the following: Population of Texas 19204,700,000 19305,800,000 19406,400,000 19507,800,000 1960E9,600,000 When Emmett had the Texas entry in front of him, he hadn’t even bothered to read the opening paragraphs—the ones that summarized the state’s history, its commerce, culture, and climate. When he saw that between 1920 and 1960 the population would more than double, that was all he needed to know. But by the same logic, he should be open to considering any large growing state in the Union. As he sat in the Morgen library, Emmett removed the scrap of paper from his wallet and set it on the table. Then he opened volume three of the encyclopedia and added a second column. Population of TexasPopulation of California 19204,700,00019203,400,000 19305,800,00019305,700,000 19406,400,00019406,900,000 19507,800,000195010,600,000 1960E9,600,0001960E15,700,000 Emmett was so surprised by California’s growth that this time he read the opening paragraphs. What he learned was that its economy was expanding on multiple fronts. Long an agricultural giant, the war had turned the state into a leading builder of ships and airplanes; Hollywood had become the manufacturer of dreams for the world; and taken together, the ports of San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco amounted to the single largest gateway for trade into the US of A. In the 1950s alone, California was projected to grow by more than five million citizens, at a rate of close to fifty percent. The notion that he and his brother would find their mother seemed as crazy as it had the day before, if not crazier, given the growth of the state’s population. But if Emmett’s intention was to renovate and sell houses, the case for California was indisputable. Emmett returned the scrap to his wallet and the encyclopedia to its shelf. But having slid the third volume back in its slot, Emmett removed the twelfth. Without sitting down, he turned to the entry on Nebraska and scanned the page. With a touch of grim satisfaction, Emmett noted that from 1920 to 1950 its population had hovered around 1.3 million people, and that in the current decade it wasn’t expected to increase by a soul. Emmett replaced the volume and headed for the door. —Did you find what you were looking for? Having passed the reference desk, Emmett turned to face the librarian. With her eyeglasses now resting on her head, Emmett saw that he had been wrong about her age. She was probably no older than thirty-five. —I did, he said. Thank you. —You’re Billy’s brother, aren’t you? —I am, he said, a little surprised. She smiled and nodded. —I’m Ellie Matthiessen. I could tell because you look so much like him. —Do you know my brother well? —Oh, he’s spent a lot of time here. At least, since you’ve been away. Your brother loves a good story. —He does at that, agreed Emmett with a smile. Although as he went out the door, he couldn’t help but add to himself: for better or worse. There were three of them standing by the Studebaker when Emmett returned from the library. He didn’t recognize the tall one on the right in the cowboy hat, but the one on the left was Jenny Andersen’s older brother, Eddie, and the one in the middle was Jacob Snyder. From the way that Eddie was kicking at the pavement, Emmett could tell that he didn’t want to be there. Seeing Emmett approach, the tall stranger nudged Jake in the side. When Jake looked up, Emmett could tell that he didn’t want to be there either. Emmett stopped a few feet away with his keys in his hand and nodded to the two men he knew. —Jake. Eddie. Neither replied. Emmett considered offering Jake an apology, but Jake wasn’t there for an apology. Emmett had already apologized to Jake and the rest of the Snyders. He’d apologized in the hours after the fight, then at the station house, and finally on the courthouse steps. His apologies hadn’t done the Snyders any good then, and they weren’t going to do them any good now. —I don’t want any trouble, said Emmett. I just want to get in my car and go home. —I can’t let you do that, said Jake. And he was probably right. Though Emmett and Jake had only been talking for a minute, there were already people gathering around. There were a few farmhands, the Westerly widows, and two boys who had been biding their time on the courthouse lawn. If the Pentecostal or Congregational church let out, the crowd would only grow. Whatever happened next was sure to get back to old man Snyder, and that meant there was only one way that Jake could let the encounter come to its conclusion. Emmett put his keys in his pocket, leaving his hands at his side. It was the stranger who spoke up first. Leaning against the door of the Studebaker, he tilted back his hat and smiled. —Seems like Jake here’s got some unfinished business with you, Watson. Emmett met the gaze of the stranger, then turned back to Jake. —If we’ve got unfinished business, Jake, let’s finish it. Jake looked like he was struggling with how to begin, like the anger that he’d expected to feel—that he was supposed to feel—after all these months was suddenly eluding him. Taking a page from his brother’s book, he started with a question. —You think of yourself as quite a fighter, don’t you, Watson? Emmett didn’t reply. —And maybe you are something of a fighter—as long as you get to hit a man unprovoked. —It wasn’t unprovoked, Jake. Jake took half a step forward, feeling something closer to anger now. —Are you saying Jimmy tried to hit you first? —No. He didn’t try to hit me. Jake nodded with his jaw clenched, then took another half step. —Seeing as you like to take the first swing so much, why don’t you take the first swing at me? —I’m not going to take a swing at you, Jake. Jake stared at Emmett for a moment, then looked away. He didn’t look at his two friends. He didn’t look at the townspeople who had gathered behind him. He turned his gaze in order to look at nothing in particular. And when he turned back, he hit Emmett with a right cross. Given that Jake hadn’t been looking at Emmett when he went into motion, his fist glanced off the top of Emmett’s cheek rather than hitting him squarely in the jaw. But he made enough contact that Emmett stumbled to his right. Everyone took a step forward now. Eddie and the stranger, the onlookers, even the woman with the stroller who had just joined the crowd. Everyone, that is, but Jake. He remained where he was standing, watching Emmett. Emmett returned to the spot where he’d been the moment before, his hands back at his side. Jake was red in the face with some combination of exertion and anger and maybe a hint of embarrassment too. —Put up your fists, he said. Emmett didn’t move. —Put up your goddamn fists! Emmett raised his fists high enough to be in the stance of a fighter, but not so high as to defend himself effectively. This time, Jake hit him in the mouth. Emmett stumbled three steps back, tasting blood on his lips. He regained his footing and advanced the three steps that would bring him back within Jake’s reach. As he heard the stranger egging Jake on, Emmett halfway raised his fists and Jake knocked him to the ground. Suddenly, the world was out of kilter, sloping away at a thirty-degree angle. To get onto his knees, Emmett had to support himself with both hands on the pavement. As he pushed himself upward, he could feel the heat of the day rising up from the concrete through his palms. On all fours, Emmett waited for his head to clear, then he began to stand. Jake took a step forward. —Don’t you get up again, he said, his voice thick with emotion. Don’t you get up again, Emmett Watson. When Emmett reached his full height, he started to raise his fists, but he hadn’t been ready to stand, after all. The earth reeled and angled upward, and Emmett landed back on the pavement with a grunt. —That’s enough, someone called out. That’s enough, Jake. It was Sheriff Petersen pushing through the onlookers. The sheriff instructed one of his deputies to pull Jake aside and the other to disperse the crowd. Then he got down on his haunches to assess Emmett’s condition. He even reached out and turned Emmett’s head so he could get a better look at the left side of his face. —Doesn’t seem like anything’s broken. You gonna be all right, Emmett? —I’m gonna be all right. Sheriff Petersen stayed on his haunches. —You gonna want to press charges? —For what. The sheriff signaled to a deputy that he could let Jake go, then turned back to Emmett, who was sitting on the pavement now, wiping the blood from his lip. —How long have you been back? —Since yesterday. —Didn’t take long for Jake to find you. —No, sir, it didn’t. —Well, I can’t say as I’m surprised. The sheriff was quiet for a moment. —You staying out at your place? —Yes, sir. —All right then. Let’s get you cleaned up before we send you home. The sheriff took Emmett’s hand in order to help him off the ground. But as he did so, he took the opportunity to look at Emmett’s knuckles. • • • The sheriff and Emmett were driving through town in the Studebaker with Emmett in the passenger seat and the sheriff behind the wheel, moving at a nice easy pace. Emmett was checking his teeth with the tip of his tongue when the sheriff, who had been whistling a Hank Williams song, interrupted himself. —Not a bad car. How fast can she go? —About eighty without shaking. —No kidding. But the sheriff kept driving at his easy pace, taking wide lazy turns as he whistled his tune. When he drove past the turnoff to the station house, Emmett gave him a quizzical glance. —I thought I’d take you to our place, the sheriff explained. Let Mary have a look at you. Emmett didn’t protest. He had appreciated the chance to get cleaned up before heading home, but he had no desire to revisit the station house. After they’d come to a stop in the Petersens’ driveway, Emmett was about to open the passenger-side door when he noted that the sheriff wasn’t making a move. He was sitting there with his hands on the wheel—just like the warden had the day before. As Emmett waited for the sheriff to say whatever was on his mind, he looked out the windshield at the tire swing hanging from the oak tree in the yard. Though Emmett didn’t know the sheriff’s children, he knew they were grown, and he found himself wondering whether the swing was a vestige of their youth, or the sheriff had hung it for the benefit of his grandchildren. Who knows, thought Emmett; maybe it had been hanging there since before the Petersens owned the place. —I only arrived at the tail end of your little skirmish, the sheriff began, but from the look of your hand and Jake’s face, I’d have to surmise you didn’t put up much of a fight. Emmett didn’t respond. —Well, maybe you thought you had it coming to you, continued the sheriff in a tone of reflection. Or maybe, having been through what you’ve been through, you’ve decided that your fighting days are behind you. The sheriff looked at Emmett as if he were expecting Emmett to say something, but Emmett remained silent, staring through the windshield at the swing. —You mind if I smoke in your car? the sheriff asked after a moment. Mary doesn’t let me smoke in the house anymore. —I don’t mind. Sheriff Petersen took a pack from his pocket and tapped two cigarettes out of the opening, offering one to Emmett. When Emmett accepted, the sheriff lit both cigarettes with his lighter. Then out of respect for Emmett’s car, he rolled down the window. —The war’s been over almost ten years now, he said after taking a drag and exhaling. But some of the boys who came back act like they’re still fighting it. You take Danny Hoagland. Not a month goes by without me getting a call on his account. One week he’s at the roadhouse in a brawl of his own making, a few weeks later he’s in the aisle of the supermarket giving the back of his hand to that pretty young wife of his. The sheriff shook his head as if mystified by what the pretty young woman saw in Danny Hoagland in the first place. —And last Tuesday? I got hauled out of bed at two in the morning because Danny was standing in front of the Iversons with a pistol in his hand, shouting about some old grievance. The Iversons’ didn’t know what he was talking about. Because, as it turned out, Danny’s grievance wasn’t with the Iversons. It was with the Barkers. He just wasn’t standing in front of the right house. Come to think of it, he wasn’t on the right block. Emmett smiled in spite of himself. —Now at the other end of the spectrum, said the sheriff, pointing his cigarette at some unknown audience, were those boys who came back from the war swearing that they would never again lay a hand on their fellow men. And I have a lot of respect for their position. They’ve certainly earned the right to have it. The thing of it is, when it comes to drinking whiskey, those boys make Danny Hoagland look like a deacon of the church. I never get called out of bed on their account. Because they’re not out in front of the Iversons’ or the Barkers’ or anybody else’s at two in the morning. At that hour, they’re sitting in their living room working their way to the bottom of a bottle in the dark. All I’m saying, Emmett, is I’m not sure either of these approaches works that well. You can’t keep fighting the war, but you can’t lay down your manhood either. Sure, you can let yourself get beat up a time or two. That’s your prerogative. But eventually, you’re going to have to stand up for yourself like you used to. The sheriff looked at Emmett now. —You understand me, Emmett? —Yes, sir, I do. —I gather from Ed Ransom you might be leaving town. . . . —We’re headed out tomorrow. —All right then. After we get you cleaned up, I’ll take a ride over to the Snyders’ and make sure they keep out of your way in the interim. While I’m at it, are there any other people who’ve been giving you trouble? Emmett rolled down his window and tossed out the cigarette. —Mostly, he said, what people have been giving me is advice. Duchess W HENEVER I COME TO a new town, I like to get my bearings. I want to understand the layout of the streets and the layout of the people. In some cities this can take you days to accomplish. In Boston, it can take you weeks. In New York, years. The great thing about Morgen, Nebraska, is it only took a few minutes. The town was laid out in a geometric grid with the courthouse right in the middle. According to the mechanic who’d given me a lift in his tow truck, back in the 1880s the town elders spent a whole week deliberating how best to christen the streets before deciding—with an eye to the future—that the east-west streets would be named for presidents and the north-south streets for trees. As it turned out, they could have settled on seasons and suits because seventy-five years later the town was still only four blocks square. —Howdy, I said to the two ladies coming in the opposite direction, neither of whom said howdy back. Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s a certain charm to a town like this. And there’s a certain kind of person who would rather live here than anywhere else—even in the twentieth century. Like a person who wants to make some sense of the world. Living in the big city, rushing around amid all that hammering and clamoring, the events of life can begin to seem random. But in a town this size, when a piano falls out of a window and lands on a fellow’s head, there’s a good chance you’ll know why he deserved it. At any rate, Morgen was the sort of town where when something out of the ordinary happens, a crowd is likely to gather. And sure enough, when I came around the courthouse, there was a semicircle of citizens ready to prove the point. From fifty feet away I could tell they were a representative sample of the local electorate. There were hayseeds in hats, dowagers with handbags, and lads in dungarees. Fast approaching was even a mother with a stroller and a toddler at her side. Tossing the rest of my ice cream cone in the trash, I walked over to get a closer look. And who did I find at center stage? None other than Emmett Watson—being taunted by some corn-fed kid with a corn-fed grievance. The people who had gathered to watch seemed excited, at least in a midwestern sort of way. They weren’t shouting or grinning, but they were glad to have happened along at just the right moment. It would be something they could talk about in the barbershop and hair salon for weeks to come. For his part, Emmett looked fantastic. He was standing with his eyes open and his arms at his sides, neither eager to be there nor in a hurry to leave. It was the taunter who looked anxious. He was shifting back and forth and sweating through his shirt, despite the fact that he’d brought along two cronies to back him up. —Jake, I don’t want any trouble, Emmett was saying. I just want to get in my car and go home. —I can’t let you do that, replied Jake, though it looked like that’s exactly what he wanted Emmett to do. Then one of the wingmen—the tall one in the cowboy hat—tossed in his two cents. —Seems like Jake here’s got some unfinished business with you, Watson. I had never seen this cowboy before, but from the tilt of his hat and the smile on his face, I knew exactly who he was. He was the guy who’s started a thousand fights without ever throwing a punch. So what did Emmett do? Did he let the cowboy unsettle him? Did he tell him to shut up and mind his own business? He didn’t even deign to respond. He just turned to Jake and said: —If we’ve got unfinished business, let’s finish it. Pow! If we’ve got unfinished business, let’s finish it. You could wait your whole life to say a sentence like that and not have the presence of mind to say it when the time comes. That sort of level-headedness isn’t the product of upbringing or practice. You’re either born with it or you’re not. And mostly, you’re not. But here comes the best part. It turned out that this Jake was the brother of the Snyder kid whom Emmett put out of commission back in 1952. I could tell because he started talking some nonsense about how Jimmy had been sucker-punched, as if Emmett Watson would ever stoop to hitting a man with his guard down. When the prodding didn’t work, Mr. Fair Fight here looked off in the distance as if he were lost in thought, then, without any warning, hit Emmett in the face. After stumbling to his right, Emmett shook off the blow, straightened up, and started moving back in Jake’s direction. Here we go is what everybody in the crowd was thinking. Because Emmett could clearly beat this guy to a pulp, even if he was ten pounds lighter and two inches shorter. But much to the crowd’s dismay, Emmett didn’t keep coming. He stopped on the very spot where he’d been standing the moment before. Which really got to Jake. His face turned as red as his union suit, and he started yelling that Emmett should raise his fists. So Emmett raised them, more or less, and Jake took another crack at it. This time, he hit Emmett right in the kisser. Emmett stumbled again, but didn’t topple. Bleeding from the lip, he regained his footing and came back for another helping. Meanwhile, the cowboy—who was still leaning dismissively on the door of Emmett’s car—shouted, You show him, Jake, as if Jake were about to teach Emmett a lesson. But the cowboy had it upside down. It was Emmett who was teaching the lesson. Alan Ladd in Shane. Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity. Lee Marvin in The Wild One. You know what these three have in common? They all took a beating. I don’t mean getting a pop in the nose or having the wind knocked out of them. I mean a beating. Where their ears rang, and their eyes watered, and they could taste the blood on their teeth. Ladd took his at Grafton’s Saloon from Ryker’s boys. Sinatra took his in the stockade from Sergeant Fatso. And Marvin, he took his at the hands of Marlon Brando in the street of a little American town just like this one, with another crowd of honest citizens gathered around to watch. The willingness to take a beating: That’s how you can tell you’re dealing with a man of substance. A man like that doesn’t linger on the sidelines throwing gasoline on someone else’s fire; and he doesn’t go home unscathed. He presents himself front and center, undaunted, prepared to stand his ground until he can’t stand at all. It was Emmett who was teaching the lesson, all right. And he wasn’t just teaching it to Jake. He was teaching it to the whole goddamn town. Not that they understood what they were looking at. You could tell by the expressions on their faces that the whole point of the instruction was going right over their heads. Jake, who was beginning to tremble, was probably thinking that he couldn’t keep it up much longer. So this time, he tried to make it count. Finally getting his aim and his anger into alignment, he let one loose that knocked Emmett clear off his feet. The whole crowd gave a little gasp, Jake breathed a sigh of relief, and the cowboy let out a snicker of satisfaction, like he was the one who’d thrown the punch. Then Emmett started getting up again. Man, I wish I’d had a camera. I could’ve taken a picture and sent it to Life magazine. They would’ve put it on the cover. It was beautiful, I tell you. But it was too much for Jake. Looking like he might burst into tears, he stepped forward and began shouting at Emmett that he should not get up. That he should not get up, so help him God. I don’t know if Emmett even heard him, given that his senses were probably rattled. Though whether he heard Jake or not didn’t make much difference. He was going to do the same thing either way. Stepping a little uncertainly, he moved back within range, stood to his full height, and raised his fists. Then the blood must have rushed from his head because he staggered and fell to the ground. Seeing Emmett on his knees was an unwelcome sight, but it didn’t worry me. He just needed a moment to gather his wits so he could get up and return to the hitting spot. That he would do so was as certain as sunrise. But before he got the chance, the sheriff spoiled the show. —That’s enough, he said, pushing his way through the gawkers. That’s enough. At the sheriff’s instruction, a deputy began dispersing the crowd, waving his arms and telling everyone it was time to move along. But there was no need for the deputy to disperse the cowboy. Because the cowboy had dispersed himself. The second the authorities appeared on the scene, he had lowered the brim of his hat and started ambling around the courthouse like he was headed to the hardware store for a can of paint. I ambled after him. When the cowboy reached the other side of the building, he crossed one of the presidents and headed up a tree. So eager was he to put some distance between himself and his handiwork, he walked right past an old lady with a cane who was trying to put a grocery bag in the back of her Model T. —Here you go, ma’am, I said. —Thank you, young man. By the time granny was climbing behind the wheel, the cowboy was half a block ahead of me. When he took a right down the alley beyond the movie theater, I actually had to run to catch up, despite the fact that running is something I generally avoid on principle. • • • Now, before I tell you what happened next, I think I should give you a little context by taking you back to when I was about nine and living in Lewis. When my old man dropped me off at St. Nicholas’s Home for Boys, the nun in charge was a woman of certain opinions and uncertain age named Sister Agnes. It stands to reason that a strong-minded woman who finds herself in an evangelical profession with a captive audience would be likely to avail herself of every opportunity to share her point of view. But not Sister Agnes. Like a seasoned performer, she knew how to choose her moments. She could make an unobtrusive entrance, remain at the back of the stage, wait until everyone had delivered their lines, then steal the show with five minutes in the spotlight. Her favorite time to impart her wisdom was just before bed. Coming into the dormitory, she would quietly watch as the other sisters scurried about in their habits instructing one kid to fold his clothes, another to wash his face, and everyone to say their prayers. Then when we had all climbed under the covers, Sister Agnes would pull up a chair and deliver her lesson. As you might imagine, Sister Agnes was partial to a biblical grammar, but she spoke with such a sympathetic inflection that her words would silence the intermittent chatter and linger in our ears long after the lights were out. One of her favorite lessons was something she referred to as the Chains of Wrongdoing. Boys, she would begin in her motherly way, in your time you shall do wrong unto others and others shall do wrong unto you. And these opposing wrongs will become your chains. The wrongs you have done unto others will be bound to you in the form of guilt, and the wrongs that others have done unto you in the form of indignation. The teachings of Jesus Christ Our Savior are there to free you from both. To free you from your guilt through atonement and from your indignation through forgiveness. Only once you have freed yourself from both of these chains may you begin to live your life with love in your heart and serenity in your step. At the time, I didn’t understand what she was talking about. I didn’t understand how your movements could be hampered by a little wrongdoing, since in my experience those who were prone to wrongdoing were always the first ones out the door. I didn’t understand why when someone had done wrong unto you, you had to carry a burden on their behalf. And I certainly didn’t understand what it meant to have serenity in your step. But as Sister Agnes also liked to say: What wisdom the Lord does not see fit to endow us with at birth, He provides through the gift of experience. And sure enough, as I grew older, experience began to make some sense of Sister Agnes’s sermon. Like when I first arrived at Salina. It was the month of August, when the air was warm, the days were long, and the first crop of potatoes had to be dug from the earth. Old Testament Ackerly would have us working from dawn till dusk, such that when dinner was over, the only thing we wanted was a good night’s sleep. And yet, once the lights were out, I would often find myself stewing over how I’d come to be at Salina in the first place, reviewing every bitter detail until the rooster crowed. On other nights, I would imagine being called to the warden’s office, where he would solemnly deliver the news of a car crash or a hotel fire in which my old man had lost his life. And while such visions would appease for the moment, they would badger me for the rest of the night with a sense of shameful remorse. So there they were: indignation and guilt. Two contradictory forces so sure to confound, I resigned myself to the possibility I might never sleep soundly again. But when Warden Williams took over for Ackerly and initiated his era of reform, he instituted a program of afternoon classes designed to prepare us for lives of upright citizenship. To that end, he had a civics teacher come talk about the three branches of government. He had a selectman instruct us on the scourge of Communism and the importance of every man’s vote. Pretty soon, we were all wishing we could get back to the potato fields. Then a few months ago, he arranged to have a certified public accountant explain the basics of personal finance. After describing the interplay between assets and liabilities, this CPA approached the chalkboard and in a few quick strokes demonstrated the balancing of accounts. And right then, while sitting in the back row of that hot little classroom, I finally understood what Sister Agnes had been talking about. In the course of our lives, she had said, we may do wrong unto others and others may do wrong unto us, resulting in the aforementioned chains. But another way to express the same idea was that through our misdeeds we put ourselves in another person’s debt, just as through their misdeeds they put themselves in ours. And since it’s these debts—those we’ve incurred and those we’re owed—that keep us stirring and stewing in the early hours, the only way to get a good night’s sleep is to balance the accounts. Emmett wasn’t much better than me at listening in class, but he didn’t need to pay heed to this particular lesson. He had learned it long before coming to Salina. He had learned it firsthand by growing up under the shadow of his father’s failure. That’s why he signed those foreclosure papers without a second thought. That’s why he wouldn’t accept the loan from Mr. Ransom or the china from the bottom of the cabinet. And that’s why he was perfectly happy to take the beating. Just like the cowboy said, Jake and Emmett had some unfinished business. Regardless of who had been provoked by who, or whom by whom, when Emmett hit the Snyder kid at the county fair, he took on a debt just as surely as his father had when he had mortgaged the family farm. And from that day forward, it hung over Emmett’s head—keeping him up at night—until he satisfied the debt at the hands of his creditor and before the eyes of his fellow men. But if Emmett had a debt to repay to Jake Snyder, he didn’t owe a goddamn thing to the cowboy. Not a shekel, not a drachma, not one red cent. —Hey, Tex, I called as I jogged after him. Hold up! The cowboy turned and looked me over. —Do I know you? —You know me not, sir. —Then what do you want? I held up my hand to catch my breath before I replied. —Back there at the courthouse, you suggested that your friend Jake had some unfinished business with my friend Emmett. For what it’s worth, I think I could just as easily argue that it was Emmett who had unfinished business with Jake. But either way, whether Jake had the business with Emmett or Emmett had the business with Jake, I think we can both agree it was no business of yours. —Buddy, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I tried to be more clear. —What I’m saying is that even though Jake may have had good reason to give Emmett a beating, and Emmett may have had good reason to take one, you had no cause for all that goading and gloating. Given time, I suspect you’ll come to regret the role you played in today’s events, and you’ll find yourself wishing you could make amends—for your own peace of mind. But since Emmett’s leaving town tomorrow, by then it’ll be too late. —You know what I suspect, said the cowboy. I suspect you can go fuck yourself. Then he turned and began walking away. Just like that. Without even saying goodbye. I admit, I felt a little deflated. I mean, here I was trying to help a stranger understand a burden of his own making, and he gives me the back of his shirt. It’s the sort of reception that could turn you off charitable acts forever. But another of Sister Agnes’s lessons was that when one is doing the work of the Lord, one should be willing to have patience. For just as surely as the righteous will meet setbacks on the road to justice, the Lord will provide them the means to prevail. And lo and behold, what suddenly appeareth before me but the movie theater’s dumpster filled to the brim with the previous night’s trash. And poking out from among the Coca-Cola bottles and popcorn boxes was a two-foot length of two-by-four. —Hey! I called once more while skipping down the alley. Hold on a second! The cowboy turned on his heels and from the look on his face I could tell that he had something priceless to say, something that was likely to bring smiles to the faces of all the boys at the bar. But I guess we’ll never know, because I hit him before he could speak. The blow was a good crack along the left side of his head. His hat, which went lofting in the air, did a somersault before alighting on the other side of the alley. He dropped right where he’d been standing like a marionette whose strings have been cut. Now, I had never hit anybody in my life. And to be perfectly honest, my first impression was how much it hurt. Shifting the two-by-four to my left hand, I looked at my right palm, where two bright-red lines had been left behind by the edges of the wood. Tossing it on the ground, I rubbed my palms together to take out the sting. Then I leaned over the cowboy to get a better look. His legs were folded under him and his left ear was split down the middle, but he was still conscious. Or conscious enough. —Can you hear me, Tex? I asked. Then I spoke a little louder to make sure he could. —Consider your debt repaid in full. As he looked back at me, his eyelashes fluttered for a moment. But then he gave a little smile, and I could tell from the way his eyelids closed that he was going to sleep like a baby. Walking out of the alley, I became conscious not simply of a welling sense of moral satisfaction, but that my footfall felt a little lighter and my stride a little jauntier. Well, what do you know, I thought to myself with a smile. There’s serenity in my step! And it must have showed. Because when I emerged from the alley and said howdy to the two old men passing by, they both said howdy back. And though on the way into town, ten cars had passed me before the mechanic picked me up, on the way back to the Watsons’, the first car that came along pulled over to offer me a ride. Woolly T HE FUNNY THING ABOUT A STORY, thought Woolly—while Emmett was in town, and Duchess was on a walk, and Billy was reading aloud from his big red book—the funny thing about a story is that it can be told in all sorts of lengths. The first time Woolly heard The Count of Monte Cristo, he must have been younger than Billy. His family was spending the summer at the camp in the Adirondacks, and every night his sister Sarah would read him a chapter before he went to bed. But what his sister was reading from was the original book by Alexander Dumas, which was a thousand pages long. The thing about hearing a story like The Count of Monte Cristo from the one-thousand-page version is that whenever you sense an exciting part is coming, you have to wait and wait and wait for it to actually arrive. In fact, sometimes you have to wait so long for it to arrive you forget that it’s coming altogether and let yourself drift off to sleep. But in Billy’s big red book, Professor Abernathe had chosen to tell the entire story over the course of eight pages. So in his version, when you sensed an exciting part was coming, it arrived lickety-split. Like the part that Billy was reading now—the part when Edmond Dant?s, convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, is carted off to spend the rest of his life in the dreaded Ch?teau d’If. Even as he is being led in chains through the prison’s formidable gates, you just know that Dant?s is bound to escape. But in Mr. Dumas’s telling, before he regains his freedom you have to listen to so many sentences spread across so many chapters that it begins to feel like you are the one who is in the Ch?teau d’If! Not so with Professor Abernathe. In his telling, the hero’s arrival at the prison, his eight years of solitude, his friendship with the Abb? Faria, and his miraculous escape all occur on the very same page. Woolly pointed at the solitary cloud that was passing overhead. —That’s what I imagine the Ch?teau d’If looked like. Carefully marking his place with his finger, Billy looked up to where Woolly was pointing and readily agreed. —With its straight rock walls. —And the watchtower in the middle. Woolly and Billy both smiled to see it, but then Billy’s expression grew rather more serious. —Can I ask you a question, Woolly? —Of course, of course. —Was it hard to be at Salina? As Woolly considered the question, far overhead the Ch?teau d’If transformed itself into an ocean liner—with a giant smokestack where the watchtower once had been. —No, said Woolly, it wasn’t so hard, Billy. Certainly not like the Ch?teau d’If was for Edmond Dant?s. It’s just that . . . It’s just that every day at Salina was an every-day day. —What’s an every-day day, Woolly? Woolly took another moment to consider. —When we were at Salina, every day we would get up at the same time and get dressed in the same clothes. Every day we had breakfast at the same table with the same people. And every day we did the same work in the same fields before going to sleep at the same hour in the same beds. Though Billy was just a boy, or maybe because he was just a boy, he seemed to understand that while there is nothing wrong with waking up or getting dressed or having breakfast, per se, there is something fundamentally disconcerting about doing these things in the exact same fashion day in and day out, especially in the one-thousand-page version of one’s own life. After nodding, Billy found his place and began to read again. What Woolly did not have the heart to tell Billy was that while this was unquestionably the way of life at Salina, it was also the way of life in many other places. It was certainly the way of life at boarding school. And not simply at St. George’s, where Woolly had most recently been enrolled. At all three boarding schools that Woolly had attended, every day they would wake up at the same time, get dressed in the same clothes, and have breakfast at the same table with the same people before heading off to attend the same classes in the same classrooms. Woolly had often wondered about that. Why did the heads of boarding schools choose to make every day an every-day day? After some reflection, he came to suspect that they did so because it made things easier to manage. By turning every day into an every-day day, the cook would always know when to cook breakfast, the history teacher when to teach history, and the hall monitor when to monitor the halls. But then Woolly had an epiphany. It was in the first semester of his second junior year (the one at St. Mark’s). On his way from physics down to the gymnasium, he happened to notice the dean of students getting out of a taxi in front of the schoolhouse. As soon as he saw the taxi, it occurred to Woolly what a pleasant surprise it would be were he to pay a visit to his sister, who had recently bought a big white house in Hastings-on-Hudson. So, jumping in the back of the cab, Woolly gave the address. You mean in New York? the driver asked in surprise. I mean in New York! Woolly confirmed, and off they went. When he arrived a few hours later, Woolly found his sister in the kitchen on the verge of peeling a potato. Hallo, Sis! Were Woolly to pay a surprise visit to any other member of his family, they would probably have greeted him with an absolute slew of whos, whys, and whats (especially when he needed 150 dollars for the taxi driver, who was waiting outside). But after paying the driver, Sarah just put the kettle on the stove, some cookies on a plate, and the two of them had a grand old time—sitting at her table and discussing all the various topics that happened to pop into their heads. But after an hour or so, Woolly’s brother-in-law, “Dennis,” walked through the kitchen door. Woolly’s sister was seven years older than Woolly, and “Dennis” was seven years older than Sarah, so mathematically speaking “Dennis” had been thirty-two at the time. But “Dennis” was also seven years older than himself, which made him almost forty in spirit. That is why, no doubt, he was already a vice president at J.P. Morgan and Sons and Co. When “Dennis” discovered Woolly at the kitchen table, he was a little upset on the grounds that Woolly was supposed to be someplace else. But he was even more upset when he discovered the half-peeled potato on the counter. When is dinner? he asked Sarah. I’m afraid I haven’t started preparing it yet. But it’s half past seven. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Dennis. For a moment, “Dennis” looked at Sarah in disbelief, then he turned to Woolly and asked if he could speak to Sarah in private. In Woolly’s experience, when someone asks if they can speak to someone else in private, it is difficult to know what to do with yourself. For one thing, they generally don’t tell you how long they’re going to be, so it’s hard to know how deeply you should involve yourself in some new endeavor. Should you take the opportunity to visit the washroom? Or start a jigsaw puzzle that depicts a sailboat race with fifty spinnakers? And how far should you go? You certainly need to go far enough so that you can’t hear them talking. That was the whole point of their asking you to leave in the first place. But it often sounds like they may want you to come back a bit later, so you need to be close enough to hear them when they call. Doing his best to split the hair down the muddle, Woolly went into the living room, where he discovered an unplayed piano and some unread books and an unwound grandfather clock—which, come to think of it, was very aptly named since it once had belonged to their grandfather! But as it turned out, given how upset “Dennis” had become, the living room wasn’t far enough away, because Woolly could hear every word. You were the one who wanted to move out of the city, “Dennis” was saying. But I’m the one who has to get up at the crack of dawn in order to catch the 6:42 so that I can be at the bank in time for the investment committee meeting at 8:00. For most of the next ten hours, while you’re here doing God knows what, I am working like a dog. Then, if I run to Grand Central and I’m lucky enough to catch the 6:14, I just might make it home by half past seven. After a day like that, is it really so much to ask that you have dinner waiting on the table? That’s the moment the epiphany came. Standing there before his grandfather’s clock listening to his brother-in-law, it suddenly occurred to Woolly that maybe, just maybe, St. George’s and St. Mark’s and St. Paul’s organized every day to be an every-day day not because it made things easier to manage, but because it was the best possible means by which to prepare the fine young men in their care to catch the 6:42 so that they would always be on time for their meetings at 8:00. At the very moment that Woolly concluded the recollection of his epiphany, Billy reached the point in the story when Edmond Dant?s, having successfully escaped from prison, was standing in the secret cave on the isle of Monte Cristo before a magnificent pile of diamonds, pearls, rubies, and gold. —You know what would be magnificent, Billy? You know what would be absotively magnificent? Marking his place, Billy looked up from his book. —What, Woolly? What would be absotively magnificent? —A one-of-a-kind kind of day.