How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The dead mountain range of tailings on the lip of the mine had sat for decades, washed by rain, and still was barren as the Sahara. From a distance you might guess these piles of dirt to be fragile, like a sandcastle, but up close you'd see the pinkish soil corrugated with vertical ridges and eroded to a sheen, like rock. It would take a pickaxe to dent it. (8.1)
Codi's image of the tailing piles is one of nightmarish barrenness. She basically sees land that is so damaged it can never recover. Buried in the ugliness, though, is a hint of resilience—a surface that you'd need a pickaxe to dent.
Quote #2
At the upstream end of the canyon we could also see the beginnings of the dam that would divert the river out to Tortoise Canyon. [...] They pretended the dam was some kind of community-improvement project, but from where Viola and I stood it looked like exactly what it was—a huge grave. Marigold-orange earth movers hunched guiltily on one corner of the scarred plot of ground. (14.130)
This one is basically self-explanatory: dam=grave, end of river=end of life. You know, math.
Quote #3
"The greatest honor you can give a house is to let it fall back down into the ground," he said. "That's where everything comes from in the first place." (19.79)
For Loyd, the earth is the ultimate home. That's what he means when he says that he'd die for the land. He's not referring to a nation or country or anything like that.