They’d known each other forever, these two. Grown up in the tiny South Dakota town of “Alma” (at least that’s what the sign on the post office said). Went various separate ways over the years but always managed to reconvene until, finally, after separations and deaths of wives, and children moving off to silicon computer hell, they decided to share the same little cinder-block bungalow on the edge of Twentynine Palms. It suited them fine. They’d been living there, relatively content, for eleven years straight now. They’d had some minor ups and downs like the time Sherman found out that Dean had shot sixteen quail off the back porch with his 20-gauge and then had the nerve to cook up the breasts in a black skillet and serve the whole mess over scrambled eggs for breakfast. Sherman actually wept about the quail and Dean felt guilty for days, sitting in his rocker and realizing the deadly silence he’d caused around the bungalow. It took a full two weeks before the quail built up enough confidence to come back in and covey up with their soft, peaceful whistle again. By that time, Sherman had forgiven Dean and they were on to new and more exciting concerns—namely a waitress down at Denny’s called Faye. One thing they both had an impeccable eye for was waitresses. Not just cute or sexy waitresses but waitresses with heart. Waitresses with the unmistakable stamp of compassion about them around the eyes. They were few and far between, they both agreed, but when they finally discovered Faye it seemed to fill them with new purpose. Each day at noon they would shower and shave, put on clean shirts, bolo ties, and their pressed khaki pants, don their “Open Road” Stetsons, then hike down the long dusty frontage road to the highway. Just before they entered the door of Denny’s they would both rub the dust off their boots on their pant legs, check each other’s tie for straightness, then remove their Stetsons and enter the air-conditioning. They were well aware of Faye’s work hours and always arrived intentionally at the height of lunch hour so they could watch Faye in action. The two of them would stand patiently side by side with their hats held with both hands, covering their knees, waiting sometimes forty-five minutes for a booth, just to watch Faye swing her amazing hips through the kitchen doors, balancing trays of steaming turkey and BLTs and always with her heartbreaking smile sweeping across the multitudes: the fat, the ugly, the rude, the drunken, the insane—she made no distinction, they all received the same radiant beam of kindness from her eyes. Not that any of them recognized it and certainly none of them deserved it according to Dean and Sherman. The days of the “gentleman” were long dead but they made their appearance at Denny’s each day at noon to remind Faye that her sort of beauty was a great blessing in the midst of all this sad madness. She appreciated it too. Her face always brightened a notch or two when she’d see them waiting there by the cashier, and the light would go on in Sherman’s head and he even felt that maybe the same phenomenon was happening to Dean but he never mentioned it to him for fear Dean would think it too esoteric an observation. Dean liked things plain and simple. When they were finally shown to a booth they’d set their Stetsons side by side and upside down with the crowns resting on the shiny red Naugahyde upholstery. This was for good luck. If you set a hat with its brim down you’d never be able to catch any luck at all. They both knew that. And they both had a tacit understanding of how their version of “luck” had subtly changed over the years. It no longer had anything to do with money or success or health or the “future” of any kind—that was the main difference. “Luck” now had to do with the present. Sustaining the present. Celebrating it, in fact. To be sitting here now in this red booth with their backs to the plate-glass window and the Colorado River and the blistering Mojave heat—to be here in the icy breeze of the air-conditioning and to see Faye’s eyes settle on them and smile that smile and head toward them with her pad and pencil ready to take their order—that was luck of the rarest kind. It was luck to have an enduring friendship, a true partnership, at their age and not be condemned to some horrible blithering sentence of aloneness in one of those glassed-in “homes” they’d pass now and then out near Palm Springs. There was no reason for either one of them to suspect that this lucky condition of theirs would ever change. They had no more expectations of life than this daily routine, this settled compact that the days and nights would be shared without complications, with not much talk and a deep sense of satisfaction at the smallest details like the way Faye would lick her pencil stub and make a little sigh. And this is the way things continued for Sherman and Dean well into their twelfth year in the cinder-block bungalow on the very edge of Twentynine Palms until one morning the sky completely collapsed. Sherman awoke slightly later than usual to find Dean gone. He searched the rooms, the porch, and the immediate area around the bungalow, making sure to take his hickory cane with him to ward off any rattlesnakes, but Dean was nowhere to be found. Sherman made himself a pot of sage tea and toasted a blueberry pop-up tart, then sat out on the porch with it, watching the rising sun transform all the colors of the yucca and manzanita. He watched a coyote slink across the dirt road with a pack rat in its mouth. He watched the heat vapors begin to rise in bands and get broader out where the asphalt highway begins. He listened to how the quail got quieter as the sun grew more intense and how the distant sounds of passing trucks became joined with sports cars coming in from L.A., racing toward golf and women and casino glitz. He had a short thought about his youth but shook it off. He knew where that would lead. He heard the tin roof on the porch start popping as it expanded from the sun’s full glare and realized he’d been sitting out there in his rocker for well over six hours. Still no sign of Dean. It was now closing in on their time to go visit Faye down at Denny’s so Sherman decided he might as well get himself ready, and by the time he was, Dean would have surely showed up. For some reason Sherman had trouble selecting a tie clasp for his bolo but he finally decided on the horseshoe silver-plated one with inlaid turquoise marking the nail holes. He decided on this one because it was the only tie clasp that Dean had an identical matching one of. They’d both bought them in a pawnshop over in Indio—again out of superstition that wearing them would sustain their good fortune. Sherman noticed that Dean’s horseshoe was missing out of the box so he was surely wearing it, wherever he was, and if Sherman put his on that might help get them reunited. Sherman took his time getting into his khakis, his pressed shirt, and donning his “Open Road” but still Dean hadn’t shown up and there was no sign of him down the long dirt road. Sherman started to wonder whether he shouldn’t hike down to the root beer stand and make a phone call to the police— see if maybe there wasn’t some report on Dean of some kind. Then he thought it was too soon for that, and besides, it was only inviting bad luck if you started looking for it. He waited five more minutes, standing squarely on the porch and squinting hard out toward the highway for the least trace of Dean’s silhouette, but nothing appeared. Sherman strode off toward Denny’s with a slightly sickening feeling rising up below his breastbone. It just didn’t feel right walking alone toward Faye. There was an awful sense of betrayal about it even though he’d gone through all the waiting for Dean and looking all around the place. How would he feel if Dean had gone off to meet Faye without letting him know? Sherman stopped and turned around. He stared back at the bungalow—their bungalow. It looked emptier now. Emptier than it did when the two of them, walking side by side, would approach it after their long walks down to the post office or the grocery store or coming back from Denny’s. Now it looked like it could be anybody’s place. Sherman walked back up to the porch and went inside. He found a piece of scrap paper and wrote a note to Dean: “Where the Sam Hell have you gone off to? Meet me down at Denny’s. I’ll go ahead and order your paddy melt so don’t dawdle. Sherman.” He set the note in plain sight on the kitchen counter and placed their cactus-shaped saltshaker on top to anchor it. He looked across the kitchen for a second to the screen door as though half expecting to see Dean standing there, but he wasn’t. It was a feeling like there might be a ghost present.