Free The Knights of the Cornerstone by James P. Blaylock

more stone out of the Dead Mountains, mainly for the funeral industry and to build New Cyprus houses. The stonecutting was a going concern in the thirties. They put it on flatcars running out of Barstow and sent it all over the country. That’s why they call them the Dead Mountains.Lots of headstones and urns and crypts cut out of those hills.”
    “Is that right? I was wondering about that old quarry and rail line. No profit in stonecutting anymore, I guess.”
    “Once the homes were built, quarry work slacked off, and then during the war most of the men went off to fight and the stonecutting was about over. It’s a lost art now, what Hugh Blankfort used to do.” She lapsed into silence now and watched the river.
    “It’s interesting how the Temple is built right into the rocks like it is,” he said after a time, and she turned to look at him again.
    “That’s Blankfort’s work. Some of the old-timers called that island the Temple Mount; some of them called it the Temple Bar. All of it’s tied right into the Cornerstone.”
    “ ‘The stone that the builder refused,’ eh?”
    “ ‘… Shall become the cornerstone,’ “ she said, finishing the verse for him and looking straight into his face.
    For a moment he was afraid that she thought he was trying to mock her—hauling out a Bible quotation himself before she could get a crack at it. But evidently she didn’t. “So the Knights must have a fairly big membership,” he said finally. “Probably they don’t need an absentee member like me.”
    “They’re not all of them active,” she said. “Lots of them are standing by. ‘Blessed is he that waits, and cometh to the days.’ So says the Old Book.”
    Calvin nodded. It was a good sentiment—being blessed for waiting.
    “Yes, sir. Blessed are those who wait,” she said again, maybe to make sure that he was listening. “But you can’t wait forever,” she said. “Sooner or later you’ve got to do what it is you were called out to do.”
    He found he was unsettled by his aunt’s easy way of quoting Bible verse. She could find something useful in it without a moment’s thought. She had always been naturally religious, ever since he could remember, which had sometimes been an embarrassment to him. Her early efforts to interest him in things of the spirit hadn’t exactly taken hold when he was younger, and even now it was a reminder that he had shirked another duty. “What if you weren’t
called out
to do anything at all?” he asked. “It’s kind of restful that way.”
    “A person thinks so, but then comes a day when you come face-to-face with it.”
    “With
what
?” he asked, vaguely surprised that he was actually interested in an answer.
    “Well, with whatever it might be. With the
dragon
, I guess you could say.” She nodded her head. “We’re all sent out to do it battle, you see, only some of us pretend otherwise, and then we start to believe our pretending, and then when it comes for us, we’re no match for it.”
    “Maybe it’s best to avoid it. Just don’t open the door when it knocks.”
    “Oh, it’s already inside,” she said. “That I can guarantee. You get to be my age and you can’t fool yourself about that. It’ll look right out of the mirror at you. And anyway, what’re you doing out here in New Cyprus if you weren’t called out?”
    “Well, sure,” he said, trying to deal with this. “I didn’t think you were talking about that kind of calling. I mean, on the telephone, or a letter in the mailbox.” He shifted in his chair, looking for something more to say, and uncomfortable with the notion that she seemed to be talking to him for a reason now, and not just shooting the breeze. He glanced sideways at her. Her eyes were illuminated by therising sun. “You look good this morning,” he said. “Rested or something.”
    “I
feel
rested,” she said. “Like a desert tortoise waking up to spring weather.”
    “Tell me about Aunt Iris,” he said.
    “I