"Report to the annex at six tomorrow instead of road patrol. You're assigned to the administrative review unit until the Grand Jury completes the quarry inquiry."
"Am I on desk suspension, Chief?" I asked, keeping my hands resting on the window frame.
Harris took his time answering. He pulled a yellow cedar pencil from his shirt pocket, turned it between his fingers twice, and tapped the eraser against my side mirror.
"No," Harris said, his voice dropping low enough that it didn't carry to the porch. "You're the only deputy in this district who bothered to read the deed book before he pulled his weapon. I need somebody in that records room who knows the difference between an emergency public easement and a cousin's commercial haul permit. Pack your gear and go home. Take the back road through Anthony so you don't have to look at the pit gates."
"Yes, sir."
I watched his Dodge Charger swing out into the limestone lane, throwing up two thin plumes of gray dust that hung in the midday heat like smoke before settling into the roadside weeds. County Attorney Miller’s car followed thirty yards behind, his tires creeping cautiously over the cattle guard as though the iron rails might snap under the weight of his office.
The yard was empty now, except for Magistrate Cross’s Crown Victoria and my own cruiser.
Cross didn't wait for an escort. She closed her briefcase with the same dry, metallic snap she had used two hours earlier, laid it on the passenger seat of her car, and started her engine. She didn't wave as she pulled through the gate; she just nodded once through the open window, her spectacles catching the glare of the live oaks, and turned south toward the township line.
I walked back up the pine steps one last time.
Silas Vance was already out of his chair. He had gathered two of the cardboard boxes from the gravel and set them inside the front door on the clean pine boards. He was carrying the small oil lamp by its brass wire loop, setting it back on the cedar table where the dust ring showed exactly where it had sat for forty years.
"You need help with that cot, Mr. Vance?" I asked from the screen door.
The old man turned, holding the glass chimney against his chest with one calloused palm. The sun was dropping behind the ridge now, throwing long, cool shadows through the live oaks that stretched all the way to the water well.
"No, son," Silas said, his voice quiet, steady, and certain. "I've been moving my own furniture since nineteen fifty-two. I reckon I can slide it three feet across the rug without calling the county."
He didn't close the wooden door against the afternoon. He left it wide open to catch the gulf breeze that always came up through the timber once the sun went down over the limestone bluffs.
I walked down the steps, clicked the gate latch into its iron loop, and got into my car. As I turned the cruiser around in the wide limestone apron by the cattle guard, I looked back through the rearview mirror.
Silas was standing on the edge of the porch, his hands resting on the smooth cedar rail his father had notched with a broadaxe before the state road was ever paved. The yellow dust had settled into the gravel, the air brakes were gone from the lane, and behind the pump house, the deep well ran cold, clear, and unpoisoned through ninety feet of solid Florida rock.
FINAL THANK-YOU NOTE
Thank you for making room for these pages today.