SAL
Eleven days before Mr Merkel died Gideon made a show of searching the old farmhouse, walking in with a crowbar and a flashlight and re-emerging two hours later covered in plaster and cobwebs. Ezra watched from the cinder block steps, a beer dangling from his hand. Sal stood behind the screen door.
‘I’m going hunting tomorrow,’ Ezra said without turning around. ‘Want to come?’
‘Yes,’ Sal said.
They set off late on Sunday afternoon. Ezra had Samson, his leather pouch, and his shotgun, but Sal knew they weren’t going hunting. They looped around to the east, ignored Samson when he pointed, climbed to the graveyard, then walked thirty more yards to the top of the hill. Sal gaped at the world spread out before him. The sun carpeted the foothills in gold all the way to the Great Basin, wh
