St. Dale

“The announcer? Oh, you mean D.W. Yeah, Mike is Darrell Waltrip’s little brother, but my point is that he drove for DEI. And then this past year, Junior won it. Dale Earnhardt, Junior-also driving for DEI.” People were beginning to walk toward them now. Perhaps it was time to leave. Shane leaned closer, and said in a low, urgent voice, “If one of the DEI drivers wins again next February that’ll be three wins in a row for DEI, ending in the year two thousand and three. You see what I’m talking about?”

Bill Knight nodded. “Yes, Shane, it’s a striking set of coincidences. Or facts, if you will. But it’s numbers. And the third win isn’t even a sure thing yet. You can make numbers do anything. I wouldn’t call that-”

Shane shook his head impatiently. “Don’t you see? Death transformed him. He reached a higher power.”

For one stricken moment Bill Knight thought Shane was going to compare this transcendent state to the transfiguration of Christ after the resurrection, but before he could object Shane rushed on, “It’s like Stars Wars, you know? When Obe Wan Kenobe is killed, he becomes even more powerful. Or Gandalf the Grey becoming Gandalf the White. A higher power.”

“Oh,” said Bill, willing himself not to smile. He thought of pointing out that Obe Wan Kenobe and Tolkien’s Gandalf were fictional characters, but he didn’t see what good it would do to bring that up. He’d met people who expected Jesus to look like Kevin Sorbo, and there was no arguing with faith like that. “Well,” he said at last, “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in thinking that. I’m sure that people in a dangerous sport like racing could use a guardian angel looking out for them. Though I’m not convinced that celestial beings are allowed to influence the outcome of sporting events.” A hundred arguments to the contrary spiraled through his mind like a Hail Mary pass, but he ignored them.

“And you know about the goat, right?” said Shane. “Born in Florida. White number 3 on its side.”

“Well, you can’t have reincarnation and transfiguration,” Bill pointed out. “They cancel each other out, you know. You’re either here or you’re there.”

Shane groaned. “It’s just a sign. A sign that he hasn’t left us. Like-like the rainbow.”

“Well…I don’t think Christian doctrine subscribes to the idea of people hanging around after they’ve died. I think they’re supposed to have gone on to heaven. Isn’t that what you were told in church?”

Shane waved away a millennium of theology. “But I’ve seen him,” he said. “At Bristol before the race. I saw him!” Shane walked away before Sarah Nash and Harley could catch up with them.

Bill Knight stared after the boy. He considered going after him, but he saw that Karen had taken the young man’s arm, and they seemed to be heading for the gift shop. Before he could make up his mind to follow them, someone touched his arm, and he looked up into the worried face of a stranger: a dark-eyed young man with a thick crew cut, who was dressed in the uniform of an army enlisted man. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your friend there, but I couldn’t help overhearing what he said about Dale and the miracles and all.”

“He’s-he’s given it a lot of thought,” said Bill, searching for a remark that was both courteous and truthful.

“Yes sir, I could see that he had,” said the soldier. “Interesting stuff. Just one problem with it, though.”

Just one? thought Bill.

“Yes, sir. Ward Burton.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Ward.”

The soldier heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes. Civilians. “No, sir. I’m not Ward Burton. Name’s Alvarez.” He tapped the label sewn on his shirt. “What I meant was that Little E. didn’t win the Daytona 500 this spring. Ward Burton did.”

Bill blinked. He thought that name had sounded familiar. Ward Burton had won the last race at Loudoun, and his parishioners had talked about it for days. “I know nothing about racing,” he said, “but are you sure? Shane seems quite knowledgeable.”

Private Alvarez shrugged. “Ask anybody, sir. Heck, ask Junior. He sure knows he hasn’t won the big one yet. Your friend was right about Mike Waltrip winning in ’01, and everything else sounded right, too, but not this year’s Daytona. 2002: Ward Burton.”

“But it’s such an important thing. Why would he get it wrong?”

“I don’t know, sir. I wondered that myself. You take care now.” With a wave that was just short of being a salute, the soldier walked away.

“Isn’t this place amazing?” said Sarah Nash. “Look what I bought in the gift shop!” She handed Bill a large, expensive-looking bottle tinted sapphire blue. He examined the label, expecting to see the word Chardonnay or Chablis, but instead the elegant script proclaimed the bottle’s contents to be Dale Earnhardt Spring Water.

He saw the twinkle in her eye, and he smiled back. “You know, Sarah,” he said softly, “if Dale had lived, he would have turned that into wine for you.” Then he thought again of Shane McKee and the legend he’d fashioned out of his grief. Lord of the Rings-and Pistons? “I shouldn’t joke about it,” he said. “People are genuinely mourning this man-even after more than a year. I had no idea that the feelings ran this deep.”

“Well, if it’ll make you feel better,” said Sarah Nash, “I think Dale himself would have thought that remark about the water was a hoot.”

Chapter XIV

The Rock

North Carolina Motor Speedway

“The Rock deserves more than the tail end of an afternoon,” said Harley, “but from here on out the distance between the speedways becomes so great that we have to make sacrifices in order to fit them all in.” He was sitting at the head of two pushed-together tables at a North Carolina barbecue. The other passengers, between trips to the salad bar, listened while they ate with varying degrees of attentiveness.

Either by luck or because the decor was inevitable in a restaurant in that area, the place was a shrine to Dale Earnhardt. There were the usual barbecue restaurant ornaments: cartoon pig statues on shelves, and signed publicity stills of celebrity patrons, mostly of Nashville singers passing through on the way to gigs in Charlotte, but besides this standard fare, the pine-paneled walls were dedicated to the Intimidator.

From official Earnhardt posters in narrow chrome frames, the Intimidator stared down at the restaurant’s patrons, stern-faced in his black-and-white Goodwrench firesuit, his eyes obscured by the usual dark sunglasses. A glass-fronted curio cabinet from the Hickory Furniture Market displayed die-cast replicas of the number 3 Monte Carlo and its predecessors, along with a collection of Earnhardt caps, coffee mugs, statuettes, framed 8x10 photos, and black-framed posters of the car and its driver at different race tracks or in posed publicity stills. The two most interesting posters were a departure from the standard fare. One from the Dukes of Hazzard era showed a young, shaggy-haired Earnhardt in jeans and boots, holding a cowboy hat, and perched atop the rail fence of a shady pasture. A western saddle was balanced on top of the rail beside him; just past it, a bay horse poked its head over the fence as if to inspect the blue-and-yellow race car parked on the grass verge of the country road.

“That was in the old days,” Ray Reeve remarked to no one in particular. “Back when he was sponsored by Wrangler, when he won his first championship in 1980. Boy, he looks young. I’d forgotten.” He pointed at the framed poster beside it. “That there’s his last championship, I do believe.”

His friend Jesse nodded happily. “I’d say it was, Ray. I surely would.”

Bill Knight, who had been staring in dismay at the latter image, said, “What an odd poster. What can they mean by it?” Repressing a shudder, he looked to Harley for an explanation.

Harley shrugged. “Coincidence.” He picked up a menu and began to study it as if there’d be a quiz.

No firesuit or sunglasses in this last championship poster. Instead, an older, debonair Dale Earnhardt, tuxedo- clad and confident, stood in a full-length photo scaled larger-than-life and superimposed at the far left of a