The Influence(60)

He put the nugget in his pocket, feeling it press coldly against his thigh through the material. His brain was buzzing. What would he do if he was suddenly rich? Buy a house in Acapulco? Move to Switzerland? Nah, he thought. He’d stay right here. This was his home, these were his people. He might quit working or might not. He’d probably build himself a nicer house, but chances were that he’d just continue on with a slightly more comfortable version of the life he already had.

It occurred to him that nuggets were usually found through panning or sluicing, where rock had been worn down by water. Mines or pits usually exposed veins of gold that had to be smelted to separate the metal from the surrounding minerals. It was strange to find a nugget in a situation such as this.

Dropping to his knees, he started digging through the pile of rubble where he’d found the first nugget and, moments later, he uncovered another. Again, he dusted it off and held it up. Smaller than the first, the shape and size of a peanut shell, it gleamed brightly in the morning sunlight. Looking at the gold—his gold!—McDaniels smiled broadly. So much for the experts. They were wrong, he was right, and now he was going to be wealthier than he’d ever dared hope.

Thank God for his good fortune.

Although maybe he should be thanking the angel.

McDaniels put the second nugget in his pocket. He paused for a moment, thinking about the bullet-ridden body he’d helped carry into Cameron Holt’s smokehouse. It might sound crazy, but in the past few weeks he’d noticed something that no one else seemed to have picked up on: the angel was good luck. It didn’t matter that they’d shot it down, its mere presence here had brought unexpected windfalls to people in the community. Shane Garner had struck a big bucks deal with some winery, Xochi and Maria had won the lottery, he was finding gold on his property…

This was luck of biblical proportions.

Providence, as his mother used to say, was smiling on them.

Jackass McDaniels was not a religious man. Though he’d been raised to have a healthy fear of God, life had made him more practical and realistic. He hadn’t seen too many examples of miracles performed by an invisible, all-knowing, all-powerful deity. In fact, most people he knew who prayed regularly never got what they wanted from the man in the sky. They were still poor and unhappy, and afflicted loved ones were never cured of the diseases they contracted.

But this was something different. This wasn’t a made-up story but a concrete reality. The angel’s physical body, whatever it was made out of, seemed to possess a measurable power. And, because it was an angel, that power was good.

McDaniels stood. But was it good? He’d heard things lately about other occurrences not quite so happy. And the Ingrams had lost their son, who’d been torn apart by wild animals. Were those a result of the angel as well? He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think so. Those were just the ordinary problems of everyday life. The angel hadn’t gotten rid of them, but she hadn’t caused them.

Couldn’t the same thing be said about the winning lottery ticket and his gold? After all, he’d always thought there was gold here; he’d been working his mine for years.

It didn’t pay to examine the situation too carefully. Hell, he wasn’t even sure the angel was a she. He thought about picking up that body and unconsciously wiped his hands on his Levi’s, as though he could still feel the weird sliminess that had gotten on his section of blanket on the way to Cameron Holt’s smokehouse.

No, it wouldn’t do to think too hard about the angel. Best to just accept the gift for what it was and move forward.

He walked over to the opposite side of the pit, grabbed the shovel that was leaning against the wall, and used it to turn over a big scoop of earth. Several shiny gold nuggets stood out against the tan blandness.

Smiling, McDaniels bent down to pick them up.



****



There wasn’t a lot to do on the bus ride from school when he didn’t have any homework, especially for the last twenty minutes, when it was just the ranch kids: him, his brother Ray, that retard Mitt Stevens, and the three cholo girls. So Bill Haack usually just slept.

But today he was too hyped-up to sleep, just as he’d been too hyped-up to pay attention in his classes.

Tumbleweed Connection had gotten a gig. An honest-to-shit paying gig.

He hadn’t told the other members of the band—hadn’t even told his brother—because he was trying to think of a way to explain to his parents that he was dropping out of school and following his dream without his old man beating the crap out of him. For the fiftieth time today, he unfolded and reread the email he’d printed out last night, the paper so worn from use that it looked like it was a year old instead of a day.