He scans the surrounding desert. Would a thick enough blanket of brush protect him from the sun? Might he dig a hole and cover himself with earth? He steps outside, drops to his knees, and begins scooping a temporary grave, but it’s only a foot deep by the time the sun crests the hills to the east and sends a wave of orange fire rolling across the desert.

He returns to the cabin and crouches under what’s left of the roof, can’t do anything but watch helplessly as sunlight slides toward him, a deadly incoming tide. Closer and closer it creeps, until he’s forced to stand with his back to the wall. The shadow of the remaining bit of roof holds back the brightness, but in an hour, when the sun rises above the cabin, there’ll be no escaping it.

He charts the sun’s ascent by the light descending the walls, his desperation increasing as one by one his benchmarks—the bent nail, the stain that looks like a ten-gallon hat, the top of the f in the spray-painted fuck next to the window—are illuminated. His anxiety peaks when the scrap of shadow beneath his feet starts to fade. His legs quake, his teeth chatter, and he wonders if he’ll shake himself to pieces before the sun incinerates him.

Then, suddenly, mercifully, a great calm blooms in his chest.

The wisest man he ever met was an old sailor who held down the end of the bar at the Whale, a lowdown San Francisco saloon later destroyed in the quake. Snipe, as this sailor was known, would, for the price of a rum, answer questions about matters both practical and philosophic, everything from what to do to unstick the lid of a pickle jar to how to woo a woman above your station.

One night, as a lark, Claudine bought him a drink and told Jesse to ask him something. On the spot, Jesse struggled to come up with a question. Snipe noticed his difficulty and said, “I know what you want to know. You want to know what happens to you when you die.” This was actually the furthest thing from Jesse’s mind. He was a rover and didn’t anticipate ever dying. But he humored the old man, telling him to go on.

“When you die, what you believe will happen to you is exactly what will happen to you,” Snipe said. “If you want angels, you’ll get angels. If you think you’re headed for hell, you’ll end up there. And if you think this sad slog is all there is, it’ll be all there is.”