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there's a rock wall, right out of a Robert Frost poem. And somewhere along the base of
that wall is a rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield.
A fool's errand, you say. How many hayfields are there in a small rural town like
Buxton? Fifty? A hundred? Speaking from personal experience, I'd put it at even higher
than that, if you add in the fields now cultivated which might have been haygrass when
Andy went in. And if I did find the right one, I might never know it Because I might
overlook that black piece of volcanic glass, or, much more likely, Andy put it into his
pocket and took it with him.
So I'd agree with you. A fool's errand, no doubt about it. Worse, a dangerous one for a
man on parole, because some of those fields were clearly marked with NO
TRESPASSING signs. And, as I've said, they're more than happy to slam your ass back
inside if you get out of line. A fool's errand ... but so is chipping at a blank concrete wall
for twenty-eight years. And when you're no longer the man who can get it for you and
just an old bag-boy, it's nice to have a hobby to take your mind off your new life. My
hobby was looking for Andy's rock.
So I'd hitchhike to Buxton and walk the roads. I'd listen to the birds, to the spring runoff
in the culverts, examine the bottles the retreating snows had revealed - all useless non-
returnables, I am sorry to say; the world seems to have gotten awfully spendthrift since I
went into the slam - and looking for hayfields.
Most of them could be eliminated right off. No rock walls. Others had rock walls, but my
compass told me they were facing the wrong direction. I walked these wrong ones
anyway. It was a comfortable thing to be doing, and on those outings I really felt free, at
peace. An old dog walked with me one Saturday. And one day I saw a winter-skinny
deer.
Then came 23 April, a day I'll not forget even if I live another fifty-eight years. It was a
balmy Saturday afternoon, and I was walking up what a little boy fishing from a bridge
told me was called The Old Smith Road. I had taken a lunch in a brown FoodWay bag,
and had eaten it sitting on a rock by the road. When I was done I carefully buried my
leavings, as my dad had taught me before he died, when I was a sprat no older than the
fisherman who had named the road for me.
Around two o'clock I came to a big field on my left. There was a stone wall at the far end
of it, running roughly northwest I walked back to it, squelching over the wet ground, and
began to walk the wall. A squirrel scolded me from an oak tree.
Three-quarters of the way to the end, I saw the rock. No mistake. Black glass and as
smooth as silk. A rock with no earthly business in a Maine hayfield. For a long time I just
looked at it, feeling that I might cry, for whatever reason. The squirrel had followed me,
and it was still chattering away. My heart was beating madly.
When I felt I had myself under control, I went to the rock, squatted beside it - the joints in
my knees went off like a double-barrelled shotgun - and let my hand touch it It was real. I
didn't pick it up because I thought there would be anything under it; I could just as easily
have walked away without finding what was beneath. I certainly had no plans to take it
away with me, because I didn't fed it was mine to take - I had a feeling that taking that
rock from the field would have been the worst kind of theft. No, I only picked it up to