By late morning, the auctioneer reached the items classified unofficially as junk.
Bent shelving.
Broken scales.
Damaged shop benches.
Scrap metal.
A drill press missing its motor.
Then four workers rolled the safe out from the mill using a heavy equipment dolly.
Conversation picked up immediately.
The thing was enormous.
Nearly chest high to Eli.
Built like a square steel vault.
Its original dark paint had disappeared beneath red-brown corrosion. The brass combination dial had been smashed. One hinge showed deep pitting from rust.
But the strangest damage appeared on the left side.
Someone had once attacked the safe with a torch.
A blackened scar spread across the steel where the outer wall had been cut open several inches.
The attempt looked violent.
Ugly.
Incomplete.
The auctioneer knocked his knuckles against the door.
“Anybody looking to store the national debt?”
A few men laughed.
“We've got ourselves one commercial safe. Eight hundred pounds, give or take. Combination's gone. Door's locked. Nobody's opened it.”
“Anything inside?” somebody called.
“If I knew that, I'd be auctioning what's inside.”
More laughter.
The auctioneer explained that the safe had been found in the rear office after the mill closed. Nobody knew when it had last been opened. An earlier owner had apparently tried cutting into it and failed.
Calvin Rusk called, “Probably full of mouse nests.”
“Metal mice,” another man answered.
The auctioneer smiled.
“Scrap value alone should buy somebody lunch.”
Most people began drifting away.
Eli did not.
He walked around the safe once.
Then again.