Maybe nothing.
Maybe the extra weld repaired damage.
Maybe the safe contained expired invoices.
Maybe rust had made him imagine a mystery.
But he could not forget that second heat pattern.
The auctioneer called again.
“Five?”
Eli raised his hand.
The crowd turned.
Ellis slowly closed his eyes.
“Five from the young gentleman.”
Someone behind Eli said, “There goes his college money.”
Laughter.
Then another bidder raised to ten.
Probably for entertainment.
Eli raised fifteen.
Twenty.
Twenty-five.
Calvin watched with amusement.
“Mercer,” he called, “what are you going to do with that?”
Eli ignored him.
Thirty.
The other bidder laughed and raised thirty-five.
Eli felt the folded bills in his pocket.
Forty was everything.
Months of work.
He pictured the hydraulic pump they had failed to buy.
Work gloves he needed.
A used bicycle.
School clothes.
Forty dollars could become many practical things.
The auctioneer looked at him.
“Thirty-five. Anybody forty?”
Eli raised his hand.