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  • John

    The sun is as unrelenting as the cement mixer's appetite, which has two
    men shoveling sand and gravel, wrestling bags of cement, eight hours a
    day.

    I'm eighteen. He's sixty-three. I doubt that he was a better man at
    thirty-three. After each two-hour stint at the mixer, we are given an
    easier job. Except for John. He tells the foreman this is what he wants
    to do, all that he wants to do. He has his own scoop, says it ‘fits his
    hand'.

    Bookton, or rather Bookton's Ryan ranch, is one of John's stopping-off
    places. Maybe once a year, sometimes less, rarely more. Been a routine,
    he says, for years. He doesn't know when he'll drop in. Neither does
    Mr. Ryan, but it doesn't matter. John is always welcome.

    When he arrives, Mr. Ryan makes a few weeks work for him; if just
    mending fences. When he finishes, he looks for work in town. If he
    finds something, like this time, he continues to bunk at Ryan's. When
    the work is done he moves on. He doesn't have to. He is welcome to stay
    year round. But he won't hear of it. He doesn't accept charity, he says


    If he has roots anywhere, they are at Ryan's, though his real roots are
    deep within himself.

    I learn this as I get a glimpse of him during our lunch hours.
    Confident. Born of wanderlust, alone, but not lonely. Steely, but a
    little tattered. Much like his old Mercury.

    Most of its chrome has been shaved away by getting too close to
    something, replaced with scrapes and bruises. Rather like a piece of
    Michaelangelo's work except unintentionally formed. He shears off the
    other side against a concrete fountain. He doesn't even shrug or survey
    the damage.

    Some of the guys snicker behind his back, or pass him off as mindless.
    John knows about it. But, like the contact with the fountain, he knows
    about it, he just doesn't consider it worth his concern.

    There is as a penalty for their foolishness. John doesn't tell them of
    the dream. Buried treasure, he says, buried treasure. He has stories.
    He has maps. He hopes to track it down. He's looked a time or two.

    Of course there is the obligatory Lost Dutchman's mine, and the
    wagonload of Confederate gold that ended up hidden in a cave. And he
    has three or four tales of lesser wealth. This all sounds familiar to
    me. My dad often recites these yarns. Dad even has some that John
    hasn't heard, and vise-versa.

    “John, you have to meet my dad, you just have to.”

    “Why's that?”

    “Trust me.”

    He does. They sit on the sofa for hours, as excited as two little kids,
    eyes sparkling. Before they finish, they both have all the stories
    memorized.

    Dreams are nice, but work is reality. Word is out that they are hiring
    at the drilling site. The pay is better. I tell John. He tells me to go
    on and apply. They wouldn't have work for him, he says.

    I see him on a couple of occasions, and then I don't see him. I ask
    about him when I run into Mr. Ryan. Apparently, John moved on about the
    time I saw him last.

    A year passes.

    A pickup is stalled on the road with its hood open. I stop. It is John.
    He has been on an errand for Mr. Ryan, and the old truck just quit
    running. He is unfamiliar with it. While we tinker with it, we visit
    for a few minutes. He has been back at Ryan's for just a short time, he
    says. We finally give up trying to fix the truck. Mr. Ryan has been
    notified, and help will be here soon. I drive away.

    A few days later, I see John driving a new rig. A really, really nice
    rig. Gee, I wonder if the pickup was so serious that Mr. Ryan decided
    to just trade it in? If so, this is pretty fancy for a ranch truck. I
    cringe as I have visions of John getting too cozy with a concrete wall,
    like he did with the old Mercury.

    When I next see Mr. Ryan I rib him about that possibility. “Oh, that
    isn't my truck”, he says, “that's John's”.

    I gasp out that he must be paying awfully well for John to make the
    payments on a rig like that. He smiles slyly.

    “John”, he says, “isn't making payments”.
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