On the wagon ride back to Road’s End, she surprised the twins with the silver dollar, for her share of the expenses. Maytha asked how she got it, but Sister shook her head and avoided her eyes. Vedna pestered her to tell until she confessed. They were concerned about the weakness she experienced immediately after the photograph; they’d heard stories at Laguna about old people who died within days of being photographed.
The people at Road’s End were Chemehuevi Christian converts who kept to themselves. The twins found sheep and goat droppings on one end of the land — evidence their neighbors had been using their auntie’s land in her absence; probably they hoped no one would claim it after the old woman died.
The day after they got back with their supplies from Needles the three of them were struggling to get the hole in the roof patched. Maytha stood precariously on the roof to pull the rope while Vedna, on a ladder, and Sister Salt, on the ground, lifted and guided the sheet of corrugated tin up. Just then a kind Chemehuevi man passing by on the road saw their struggle and stopped to help them. He was not young, but he was able and strong as he climbed the old ladder and took hold of the end of the tin and guided it into place. He was on an errand somewhere, because he carried a rope halter, but he stayed and helped them lift the other piece of tin roofing into place and even showed them how to nail it down to prevent leaks.
Late that afternoon, before sundown, the work was finished and they invited him for rabbit in amaranth soup, and he quietly accepted. He said nothing while they talked excitedly about how fast the old roof was becoming snug again. Now that the roof was on, they could welcome the winter rains, and not shiver.
They each thanked the man for his help before he continued down the road, the rope halter over one shoulder. But the following morning they were shocked to see an angry wife and her two sisters walk into the yard, their walking sticks firmly in their hands, ready to thrash someone. They called the twins and Sister prostitutes and told them to keep their hands off other women’s husbands or else they’d call the Indian police to arrest them. They’d heard about the twins and their Sand Lizard pal going to jail in Yuma for stealing soap, so they better not steal anything else either.
Edward was saddened to see Hattie and the child on the station platform waving good-bye to him; the sight of the little monkey frolicking on the child’s back brought tears to his eyes. He never imagined the marriage would end like this. Perhaps they were better suited to each other than to marriage itself. He had no regrets — he was accustomed to the single state. But he felt sorry for Hattie, who apparently suffered from the sort of nervous disorder recently reported in German scientific journals, an affliction found almost exclusively among highly educated women. In any case, they would remain cordial with each other; if Hattie later wished to petition for annulment, he intended to cooperate fully. She generously arranged a line of credit for him at her bank since time was of the essence in the purchase of the mining claim. Dr. Gates was negotiating with the prospector who owned the mining claim on the meteor crater site.
As the train traveled farther east, the bleak plain of gravel and sand scattered with sagebrush gave way to the juniper and piñon of the higher elevation. Now the great majestic peaks of the San Francisco Mountains could be seen, pale blue in the distance; though it was only September, caps of snow gleamed on the peaks. He was glad he packed along his camera despite its bulk.
Dr. Gates met the train and accompanied him to check into the hotel next to the train station. The following morning, after breakfast in the hotel restaurant, they set out in the buggy for the crater, some twenty miles to the southwest. The dry grassy plain was scattered with pale yellow sandstone ridges and occasional dark outcroppings of volcanic rock and crossed by a number of ravines that, though sandy and dry now, carried enormous floods of runoff during the wet season. The air was so clear the San Francisco peaks, snow-tipped and blue, stood out vividly on the horizon to the west.
The low silhouette of the ridge formed by the debris from the meteor impact was visible in the distance when the doctor directed the driver to turn the buggy into a sandy wash. They followed the wash some distance to the foot of a pale yellow-orange sandstone mesa forty feet high.
The prospector made the discovery the previous week while digging for Indian pots. They walked forty or fifty yards from the buggy up a sandy slope to the foot of the sandstone formation, where a large crevice provided hand- and footholds to reach the mesa top. The doctor halted on a ledge below the final ten feet to caution Edward: here the Indians must have used a ladder of some sort because the sandstone was steep and offered few hand-or toeholds to a climber. Edward looked up and then he looked back; he had come this far and he did not want to stop. He nodded for Gates to proceed and watched his companion scramble skillfully up the sandstone, his fingers and toes barely braced in shallow indentations of the rock.
Once on the top, Gates knelt and offered a hand to Edward, who took a deep breath and sprang upward, arms and feet seeking any means to hold long enough to propel him higher to the doctor’s outstretched hand. For a moment he feared he would not have the momentum to make it, but he threw himself with all his might upward and the doctor pulled him to safety.
He was out of breath but exhilarated to reach the top of the mesa safely, and it wasn’t until he followed the doctor over the low mounds of grass and fallen stones that he realized he might have strained the muscles in the weak leg. He stopped then briefly to gently stretch the leg to prevent its stiffening.
Gates led him to a mound next to a large boulder where the outline of a dwelling was visible. Next to the boulder Edward saw piles of freshly disturbed sand at the corner of a room. A large piece of canvas covered the excavation, which reached into the wall and under the boulder. Gates pulled back the cover with a flourish, and there in the stone cavity, Edward saw a most remarkable object: wrapped in the remains of a garment of feathers and cotton string was an iron meteorite. On one end of the iron were tiny stone beads once strung as a necklace, and nearby were two small pottery bowls. The doctor reached into one of the bowls and handed Edward a tiny pottery whistle in the shape of a bird.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Oh quite wonderful,” Edward replied as he turned the little clay artifact over in his palm. The burial objects with the meteorite — the tiny stone bead necklace and the toy whistle — were intended for a child.
“Well you haven’t seen anything yet!” his companion exclaimed as he carefully pulled back the remains of the feather blanket from the “head” of the meteorite to reveal a glittering “eye” in the lustrous black iron.
“White diamond!” he said triumphantly.
Edward spent a good deal of time on his hands and knees examining the object and its site. He regretted his camera was down below in the wagon and the ascent so difficult; otherwise he might have recorded the Indian burial of the meteorite. In the catalogue of North American meteorites he had been amazed to read about a three-thousand-pound meteor iron discovered in Indian ruins in northern Chihuahua in a room with human burials, wrapped in native cotton just like the others. The prospector wanted to removed it at once, but the doctor managed to persuade him to wait until Edward could see the wonderful object just as it was found. Edward hoped the prospector would agree to sell it at a reasonable price.