Free The Driftless Area by Tom Drury Page A

for you. That wasn’t even her house.”
    “It wasn’t.”
    “Uh-uh.”
    “What if there had been a ladder?”
    “That would have been interesting, wouldn’t it?”
    “What are you, crazy?”
    “Yeah, I guess. Probably pretty crazy.”
    “Are you going to sleep now?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Good night.”
    “No. You know what? I’m giving you something.”
    She rummaged in her purse and then leaned way out from the bed, with one hand on the floor, and handed him a round yellow stone about the size of a tennis ball and covered with small depressions like the moon.
    “Thanks,” he said.

    “It’s my lucky rock,” she said. “I found it in a quarry. I think it was made by heat or something.”
    “You should keep it.”
    “No, it’s too heavy. I’ve been looking for somebody to give it to. It has a good feel to it. You’ll like it. Go ahead, throw it up and catch it. You’ll see what I mean.”
    “Yeah,” said Pierre. “It’s kind of sandy.”
    “Didn’t I tell you?”
    And for the rest of the trip, all the way to the coast and back, he carried the rock in the pocket of his safari coat, and he would throw it up and catch it while watching the road for rides.
    Pierre’s cousin and her family lived in a small house in northern California with peeling redwood trees growing in the back, and they would pitch a tent in the yard for Pierre to sleep in.
    His cousin owned a company that made custom skateboards endorsed by an apparently famous skateboarder Pierre had not heard of, and her husband had a repair shop specializing in Saabs, and he drove old Saabs and thought Saabs were about the greatest thing.
    Their children were good souls and backgammon prodigies who would beat Pierre almost every time they played. He thought he was a fair backgammon player but he was nothing compared to these children, who were five, seven, and nine years old.

    Even the youngest had a keen understanding of how to block, and when to hit blots or leave them alone, and when to double. It was extraordinary.
    Pierre stayed with them one week and it never got crowded or uncomfortable, on account of the tent. They would chop wood for their winter supply and go to the ocean near Big Sur, where the children ran through the tidal pools.
    His cousin had an unorthodox style with an ax. She would not toss the blade to the side and swing, as most do, but begin with the ax hanging motionless down her back and bring it up and over her head with gathering speed. And in this way, though slender and not very tall, she could split blocks that Pierre would barely dent.
    His cousins had the sanest family life that Pierre had ever known. The kids called him Uncle Pierre, and the day before he headed up the coast, they drew their faces on paper plates and gave them to him so he would remember what they looked like.
    So now he had the rock, and he had the paper plates, and everything was in place for what would happen next, although Pierre did not know what this would be, or even this it would be anything.
    It happened when he was nearly home. He got a little careless as he often did at the end of the journey. At a truck stop in Minnesota, he took a ride from a man in abattered sky-blue pickup who asked if he would split the gas money.
    Both the shape that the truck was in and the driver’s request for money might normally have made Pierre wait for another ride. Sharing the cost was fair in theory but, from what he had seen, drivers who made a point of asking up front tended toward the mercenary.
    As for the truck, the panels were dented and scraped, the dashboard was delaminating, and there was no glass in the back window. But it was late afternoon and he had only 125 miles to go, so Pierre took the ride.
    The driver was a large man with long hair in a shade between yellow and white. Of Pierre’s age or maybe a few years older, he wore a green Boy Scout shirt with the arms sawed off at the shoulders and a royal blue insignia identifying him as a