Chapter One Summary

Jerome Kildee is an odd man who builds an odd house on the mountainside under a giant redwood tree on Windy Point. Jerome had known as soon as he first came to the area that it was a place for him—a place for silent men. One complete wall is a window that faces the ridges and valley below. The house is lodged against the trunk of a redwood, making the red bark the far wall of the one-room house. Filling one end of the room is a large, beautiful fireplace. Jerome who had been a monument maker builds the fireplace as his last masterpiece.

After moving to the woods, Jerome does no work. He owns a hundred acres of forest surrounding his house but he does not clear it. He buys all his food and pays the Eppys, his...