Chapter 19

Next to the ten-speed and an umbrella stand rested an Army green junk bag. I pulled the bag out with both hands and listened to metal jostle within, and under, the pile. Dust covered the bag and made a cloud within the watershed. I unzipped the bag, fingered the money inside, which was wrapped stacks of one hundred dollar bills, zipped the bag up, and carried it back to the main house.

Sander popped his head out the kitchen window and saw me returning with the money. Following our visual connection with each other, I listened to a loud popand stopped dead in my tracks, believing that the world had come to an end and that Dale Sander became the devil in disguise.

* * * *

Bombs everywhere. First in Seattle, Los Vegas, New York City, and then in Washington D.C. and Miami. Nuclear explosions all over the United States of America. I couldn’t stop thinking about them. Mushroom clouds everywhere. Two years of darkness and ash blowing around in the atmosphere.