The Knights of the Cornerstone Read Free

City. I’ll pay you back.”
    “My treat,” Calvin said.
    “Then make it a case,” his uncle said, and both of them laughed.

FRED WOOLSWORTH
    T he barren peaks of the Dead Mountains loomed ahead, off toward the horizon on the north side of the highway, sharp against the desert sky and bunched together along the Colorado River where California, Arizona, and Nevada merged, and where lay the magical, invisible line that marked the time zone. Calvin looked into the rearview mirror, unpleasantly startled, as he most often was, at the sight of his own face. Elaine had told him once that he looked like a young Jimmy Stewart, and he reminded himself of that from time to time. He was the right build anyway, and he could see the resemblance, but there was some essential quality he lacked—the endearing manner of speaking, maybe, or the twinkle in the eye.
    He looked past himself, deeper into the mirror, at the gray hills of the Bullion Range, diminished and hazy but still visible behind him. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t a lick of difference between the two dry ranges—one infront and one behind—except that one was associated with gold and the other with death. Probably the names were the quirk of a geological survey team that had come out from the west and lost its sense of humor along the way, which wouldn’t be any more difficult than losing a penny if you were out here in the desert for more than a few days.
    He tossed his road map onto the passenger seat and considered the strange fact that a person forfeited an hour merely by crossing into Arizona—a purely imaginary hour, of course, but an hour that could only be regained by turning around and heading back west. Except if one never returned west, then one was an hour closer to the grave, if only in some mystical sense. There was something unsettling in it, although he was unsettled by any number of things these days—a consequence, probably, of some variety of looming midlife crisis, although he was a little young for that sort of thing, which was … unsettling.
    A vehicle appeared on the highway ahead of him now, shimmering in the heat haze until it solidified into an old green pickup truck with a bad muffler. It roared past, the sun glaring so brightly on the windshield that it might have been Elijah rattling away in a glowing whirlwind, bound for the Promised Land. Some fifty miles past Ludlow he spotted the grape soda connection, and he turned off the highway into a solitary two-pump gas station, lunch counter, antiques store, and market rolled into one. The sign on the big window read “Gas’n’Go Antiques and Cafe.” The place sat adjacent to a dry lake that wasn’t dry. Over the last few weeks, late summer storms had strayed in from Arizona and left a few inches of water in the lake bed, which cheerfully reflected the blue sky, tinged with gold from the declining sun.
    A gust of wind ruffled the surface of the lake, breaking up the reflection, and Calvin climbed out of the Dodgeand into the searing heat, nearly staggered by it after the air-conditioned trip out from Eagle Rock. A hand-painted sign on the gas pump read “Pay First!” in order to ward off bolters, so he went inside, hauling two twenties out of his wallet. He shut the door behind him to keep out the heat, and a little bell jingled, although no one came out. There were the sounds of a swamp cooler working on the roof and a distant radio playing country-western music, but the place was apparently empty of customers.
    He smiled approvingly and glanced around, taking in the junk food on the shelves, the groceries, the sign over the lunch counter that advertised chili fries and cheeseburgers. Maybe on his way back out he would stop in for a bite to eat, generate some serious heartburn for the long drive home. He could grab a roll of antacids to keep his aura on the necessary sublunar wavelength. Cases of beverages lay piled on the floor beyond a picnic table with benches, including,