In Chap­ter 255 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark”, Sam­my embarks on a late morn­ing jour­ney, depart­ing from a warm good­bye with a woman and immers­ing him­self in the seren­i­ty of the out­doors as he trav­els toward the old farm­house. Upon arriv­ing, he is met by Mar­ty Tooms, who is duti­ful­ly clear­ing bindweed from the land in prepa­ra­tion for an upcom­ing auc­tion. Their ini­tial exchange is polite, and Mar­ty assumes Sammy’s pres­ence is relat­ed to the bank, hav­ing spo­ken with Mr. Ful­bright about tidy­ing the place to attract buy­ers.

Sam­my, how­ev­er, clar­i­fies that he isn’t from the bank. This rev­e­la­tion cre­ates a moment of sur­prise for Mar­ty, who, despite his stand­ing as a stranger to Sam­my, has a flick­er of recog­ni­tion and famil­iar­i­ty about the land’s his­to­ry and its impor­tance to him and the late chief. They dis­cuss the land’s mem­o­ries, hint­ing at the emo­tion­al weight it car­ries, espe­cial­ly in the wake of Cal­lie Mon­trose’s body being dis­cov­ered beneath a cher­ry tree on Nix’s prop­er­ty.

As they walk to the house, a weighty enve­lope drawn from Sam­my’s car serves as the cat­a­lyst for a piv­otal moment. Inside, Mar­ty dis­cov­ers that the land—his home—belongs to him once again, a rev­e­la­tion that aston­ish­es him. Sam­my explains that a valu­able paint­ing, once trea­sured in his life, has been lever­aged to facil­i­tate this loan for Mar­ty. He empha­sizes the sig­nif­i­cance of the paint­ing, express­ing a desire for it to remain hang­ing among oth­ers, not just as col­lat­er­al but as a reminder of friend­ship.

Mar­ty is ini­tial­ly per­plexed, strug­gling to com­pre­hend the depth of this unex­pect­ed gen­eros­i­ty. Sam­my assures him that the details can be set­tled lat­er, allow­ing space for con­tem­pla­tion on the impli­ca­tions of such a ges­ture. The chap­ter encap­su­lates themes of redemp­tion, mem­o­ry, and the inher­ent ties to land and per­son­al his­to­ry, show­ing how past bonds can shape present real­i­ties and hopes for the future.