I’d never got a letter from Sam before, but I’d seen his unfinished essays and his calligraphy practices. The familiar pencil italic made my name glamorous and the box number romantic. The letter was a sheet of the same lined notebook.

It was night. A light rain falling. I stood on the concrete floor of the college mailroom and felt the cold coming up through the thinning soles of last year’s fancy boots.

Sally,

A pair of hawks live down the hill from us. We see them starting out in the morning. Do you understand? We watch their backs as they fly out over the valley. I wouldn’t have known they were hawks, but Lichtenstein has good eyes and knows things like that.

What things I’m learning! Do you know how to tell a fir from a pine? Do you know how to burn ticks off with a cigarette? Could you recognize a muskrat? Well, you just better come up here as soon as you can and start finding things out!

The air here has vitamins. It’s funny. I’d read about “air like wine” but never realized what that meant.

I sit here in front of the cabin every afternoon. I’ve written some haiku that I’d like very much to have you read. But I’m not going to send them to you. I want you to come and sit in this spot. You have to read it while seeing what I saw when I wrote it.

It’s true, you know, that society is destroying us all. In this simple place with the wind booming through the chinks at night, I’ve found a sweet stillness of the world that I’ve never believed in. My concept of enlightenment was a state of pain compared to this. Please come. I need to share this happiness. Get Rennel to drive you. Write and we’ll meet you in St. Ignatius. This place is hard to find.

Peace,

Han Shan Rommel

PO Box 24

St. Ignatius

Montana

I folded the letter carefully into my pocket. Walked out into the rain. It was too cold and dark and far to go home. I walked under blinking crosswalk signs and streetlights fuzzed purple by the wind.

There were lights all over Rennel’s house. I opened the door and edged past the dismantled motorcycle. Voices were singing in the kitchen, pots banged around, and there was a suspicious smell of boiling vegetation. Up the loud stairs, the bathroom door was open. There were half-woven baskets soaking in the tub. The upright reeds bent in the light. Rennel’s door was closed. I heard no sound from the other side. Knocked.