Properties of Thirst

The chapter opens from the point of view of Snow, one of the Los Angeles Department of Water agents. He thinks back to his childhood. He was labeled unintelligent at a young age and never learned to read. He was skilled, however, at shooting and, by age 10, was earning money from local farmers by killing birds that damaged their crops. Secretly, Snow did trick shooting at fairs and carnivals but kept this—and the fact that he had a kind of ghost or spirit around him—a secret from his father and grandfather. Later, his grandfather taught him to read Braille. He had a brief stint in a Hollywood film—hired by Bobby Kaye for his marksmanship abilities—but was fired when he refused to aim the gun at people. It was there that one of the Pinkertons witnessed Snow’s skills and suggested that he pursue a security job with Los Angeles Department of Water.

Snow worked the night shift watch as the facility was constructed; he was told that certain citizens opposed the undertaking, especially Rocky Rhodes. One night, Snow caught Rocky preparing to light dynamite. Snow moved to fire at Rocky, but the dynamite detonated, knocking Snow down and removing most of Rocky’s hand. Later, Snow found and kept Rocky’s wedding ring.

After the aqueduct was built, Los Angeles Department of Water hired Snow to police it. On one occasion when he and an agent named McCloud were collecting water samples, a raccoon attacked Snow. McCloud took him to the Three Chairs clinic, where Lou tended to his arm, stitched it, and then inoculated him against rabies. Later, Snow met Lou in town and returned Rocky’s ring to her.

He recalls, too, the incident with the elephant, though the attack occurred so quickly that the details are vague. Snow sustained cracked and broken ribs, a perforated lung, and a cracked jaw. When he awakened in a Los Angeles hospital, he learned that McCloud was killed by the elephant and that Stryker and Hace escaped punishment. He vowed to see that justice was carried out.

When the war broke out, Snow made plans to visit Stryker’s father. He first took a solitary trek into the mountains on the pretense of strengthening his lungs. He scouted Three Chairs from a distance and then got Rocky in his gun sight, planning to shoot off his hat. However, Rocky moved, and Snow’s shot hit a tree instead.

Just before the war ends, Schiff receives a telegram from Sunny asking him to come to Three Chairs because Rocky has died. He can’t leave and thus doesn’t know how to respond to her and never does. Four years later, after the war is over, Schiff arrives at Three Chairs to discover that it has become the property of the Los Angeles Department of Water. An agent informs him that Rocky died by suicide and that Sunny had to sell the estate. Schiff phones Cas, who is living with Lyndon. She informs him that Sunny has adopted an orphan from Manzanar and has opened a restaurant in a town north of San Francisco.

Driving north, Schiff recalls his final days in Japan and then thinks of the letter he received from Cas and Rocky while he was in Hawaii. Rocky let him know that Dr. Arakawa’s data from Manzanar pointed to an increase in the incidence of pulmonary illnesses. Schiff sleeps in his car and arrives the next morning in the town where Sunny now lives. He fears that Sunny may refuse to speak to him but goes to her restaurant anyway. Three chairs are on the porch, and one of them is the rocking chair that Rocky made for him. A boy of Japanese descent exits a school bus: Sunny’s adopted son, Emerson. Soon, Sunny arrives. Schiff tries to speak to her, but she puts him to work preparing for the dinner service.

After the restaurant closes, Sunny offers Schiff some wine, and they talk. She’s still upset that Schiff didn’t respond or come when she needed him. He tells Sunny about searching Stryker’s living quarters.

Sunny recounts how Rocky went missing: A forest ranger heard a shot and then discovered Rocky’s boat in the middle of the lake. They searched for him for three days. In time, Lyndon suggested that they go through Rocky’s papers. He had 12 active lawsuits against Los Angeles Department of Water. That night, Sunny couldn’t sleep and has a sudden thought: She entered her parents’ former bedroom, where she discovered more of Lou’s cooking notebooks.

This chapter recounts Rocky’s final hours from his perspective. In the boat on the lake, he fingers his knife and studies the sunset. He contemplates several things: the landscape, Lou, Stryker, and fishing. He debates his legacy and whether it’s acceptable for him to ultimately lose the battle against Los Angeles Department of Water. He recounts specific memories of Stryker, Lou, and Punch.

As Rocky peers into the water, he loses his balance and falls into the lake.