No one could have pointed to the exact day when the boy became a man. His birthdays came and went with little fanfare, and each year looked much like the last. If there was a moment of transformation, it waited… Continue reading

There are few inventions in this world more persuasive than a motorcycle with an impatient rider upon it. It has a remarkable ability to convince a fellow that he has entered into a private arrangement with the laws of physics,… Continue reading

Kellogg and I had been meeting for breakfast every Monday for nearly eleven years. It was a small tradition, the sort of thing two old friends cling to as the world grows stranger around them. Same diner, same corner table… Continue reading

There is a certain kind of silence that only exists along an old gold creek. The water whispers over polished stones, a Steller’s jay complains from somewhere uphill, and now and then the breeze rattles through the pines as though… Continue reading

There are schools where men are taught the gentle flow of civilization, where they learn to reckon maps, command engines of war, and send death across horizons they shall never tread. Mine was not among them. Far beyond the frontiers… Continue reading

There are few spectacles more inspiring than a child possessed by a purpose she cannot explain. Our youngest sister, Marcy, was six years old when she undertook one of the grandest public works projects ever attempted in our backyard. One… Continue reading

The morning mist clung to the valley as though it had no intention of leaving. From the porch of the weathered farmhouse, Eli watched his father hitch the team to the plow, just as he had every spring for as… Continue reading

There is no force in civilization quite so disappointed as a crowd denied a proper catastrophe. Gold Hill, perched beneath Virginia City like a faithful sidekick to an aging celebrity, briefly appeared ready to oblige the public with one. A… Continue reading

Prologue It is with a hand that trembles more from memory than from age that I set down these final words. For years, the world believed Sherlock Holmes to be dead, lost to the raging torrent of the Reichenbach Falls… Continue reading

For many cycles beneath the twin moons it endured, and the wanderer knew a contentment beyond the imaginings of mortal men. Hunger had fled him as though it had never been born, and sleep enfolded him with such divine perfection… Continue reading