the pit, a wall of rock, thin trees scratching for a living. On top of the wall was a road that ran straight along the top of the mountain. The only way to get here from that road was to scramble down the rocks.
About a third of the way around the pit there was a
bigger road than the one I'd come up, and there were three other pits like this one, vast canyons separated from each other by ridges which in places narrowed to ten feet. When this pit was active the gravel trucks had used that other road, kicking up dust, rumbling through the daytime hours with loads of stone crushed and ground to order in a towering collection of connected timber structures that clung to the side of the hill. Fist size, egg size, pea size, dust: there was nowhere in this part of the state that gravel from this quarry hadn't been used to build roads, line drainage ditches, mix into concrete.
This pit was abandoned now, and so were two of the others, but the fourth—the one MacGregor had said was close to played-out, too—was for now still working, lower down on the hill. Each of the exhausted pits was as huge and desolate as this one, and each, as it was abandoned and the dewatering pumps removed, filled with water from the interrupted springs that bled down the face of the rock. The local kids used these pits to swim in in the summer, diving from the rocks into the cold, bottomless pools. It had been one of those kids who, early last August, on the last warm night of the year, had discovered something strange here: a late-model Nissan Sentra come to rest on a ledge a few feet below the surface.
To my right two cars were parked: the yellow Plymouth, and a familiar Dodge Ram van. The van's rear windows were hung with Mylar shades from which a stag on a huge boulder stared, impassive, over a winter scene as desolate as this.
Just beyond the cars a dilapidated shack with a tin roof leaned into the night. Light shone through its grimy windows, reflecting weakly off the cars' chrome trim.
My footsteps were silent walking up to the shack. It seemed likely that Jimmy was armed, and though he wouldn't shoot me if he knew it was me, he was liable to be jumpy as hell.
I stopped about ten feet from the door, stood facing it. Anyone looking out through the glass could have seen me clearly then, a tall, solid shape on the barren plain. Inside my gloves, my palms were sweating.
'Jimmy!' My voice echoed off the rock wall, repeating, fading, dying. The light in the shack went out; nothing else happened. 'Jimmy!' I called again. 'It's Bill Smith. I'm alone. Let me in.'
Nothing, again.
Then Jimmy's voice, loud, tough, and blustery. 'Mr. S.! Talk to me! You alone?'
'I said I was. Let me in.'
I waited. The door creaked open; the doorway gaped emptily. I walked forward, stepped through into the darkness. The door slammed shut and the blinding beam of a powerful flashlight hit me full in the face.
I jerked, raised my hand to block the glare. The beam switched off and the small flame of a match lit a kerosene lamp. Wavering shadows were thrown against the bare walls, shadows of two figures standing, some distance apart, before me.
'Jesus,' I said, trying to clear my eyes.
'Had to make sure.' Jimmy's voice, nonchalant.
'You know a lot of guys my size that sound like me?'
'You never know.'
We faced each other across the small, dusty room. In the flickering light Jimmy looked drawn and tired, his stubble-covered face smudged with dirt; but the grin, the cocky set of his shoulders under the plaid-lined parka were the same as always, the same as they'd been on the kid I'd taught to hit a baseball and to drive a nail straight and to split a log without chopping his own foot off.
And to shoot. I'd taught him that, too.
Loosely by his side Jimmy held an old Winchester. 30- 30, maybe the one Tony had given him when he was twelve. The shack smelled of stale beer, kerosene, and disuse. Shadows danced on the walls, moved over our faces. It struck me then how much Jimmy looked like Tony: the same short, powerful build, the same square jaw and dark, unyielding eyes. But where Tony looked as if he'd been put together by a rockslide, Jimmy had been carved more carefully. His nose was straighter than Tony's, his eyes set less deep; but the take-it-or-leave-it in them was Tony's, too.
To Jimmy's right, next to the wall, Alice Brown stood with her arms wrapped around her. She had taken off her hat, but not her parka; the potbellied woodstove in the corner wasn't giving off enough heat for that. She was watching me with guarded eyes.
'I'm sorry,' I said to her. 'I didn't believe you.'
'You had no reason to,' she answered calmly.
'I wanted to. But I couldn't afford it.'
'I had to make sure Jimmy wanted to see you,' she said.
I turned back to Jimmy. 'Did you?'
'Hell, yes!' Jimmy leaned the rifle against the wall, reached into the Stewart's bag on a rickety table by the stove. He pulled out a six-pack, freed a can from its plastic collar, tossed it to me. He held out another, said 'Allie?' in an unsure voice. Alice shook her head.
I dropped onto an upended wooden box, popped the top of the beer. Jimmy leaned against the table. There was one spindly chair in the room and he gestured Alice to it with his beer and a tentative smile.
'No,' she said, with no smile at all.
So the chair stayed empty as I sat and Jimmy leaned and Alice stood. On the table next to the Stewart's bag was a half-eaten meatball hero, melted cheese and tomato sauce congealing on aluminum foil. 'You mind if I finish this?' Jimmy asked me. 'I'm starving.'
'Go ahead,' I said. He scooped up the sandwich, bit into it. Tomato sauce dripped on the floor, kicked up tiny
