I felt Frank’s hand on my shoulder. “I want you to thank your folks, Joe, for all the help they’ve done me.”
He held out his hand. We shook, his scars feeling rough against my palm.
“Now remember. Let me do the work. It’s between me and Zeke now.” He smiled. Like Zeke. End of argument.
I walked to our car. A silver ox was painted on the driver’s side door. Symbol of the farmer, Frank had said. On the other door, where the creature could see it clearly, was a silver lion.
I sat down in the Pontiac, pulled the door shut, and placed my hands over the channels. A part of me wanted to cut my hands and shed some of my own blood in this race. I stared ahead through the windshield so as not to see the thing that wasn’t Zeke in the Chevy next to me.
The Pontiac was surrounded by a pattern of blue paint drawn on white cement. Diagonal lines shot off from that pattern on the side opposite the Chevy and joined to another, smaller circle. Frank sat in that circle, holding a knife. He looked at me and nodded.
I slowly turned my head to face the Chevy. I yelled, “Ready?” The thing grinned and the Chevy Engine screamed to life.
“Start your… Engine!” it rasped, then threw back its head and howled.
I nodded to Frank. For a moment he looked at me. There was hope and fear in his eyes. He stared at the knife in his hand. With a quick movement he plunged it into his chest.
The Pontiac engine roared. A wave of heat rolled up my arms.
On the pavement where Frank had been sitting there was only an empty corpse.
I looked over at the Chevy. “Now, you fucker!”
The Pontiac bucked and flew forward. I did not scream. I could feel a steady heat, like a murderous calm, flowing up my arms from the channels..
The white highways stretched like a snake before us. There were two miles between us and Busted Bridge, and I had never really driven before. My Engine was untested, untamed.
But it was effortless. The wheel would jerk in my hands and suddenly we’d be skirting a pothole that I hadn’t even seen. Frank’s spirit gave itself up willingly, threw its entire being in the Pontiac’s engine. There was not even any need to conserve anything for a second race.
The highway made a slow curve, and then the columns of Dead City were rising before us like a mountain range. After a mile and a half the Pontiac and the Chevy were still even.
Then a searing pain in my arms nearly made me jerk my hands from the wheel. I held on. I heard the creature scream as we passed it.
We were almost to the edge of the City when the Chevy’s pattern blew. In my rear view mirror I could see blue flames explode from the pattern on the hood. The Chevy skewed sideways across the road. The car ground against the railing, spewing sparks, and then swerved back onto the lane.
But it was not under control. The car began to spin, almost gracefully, creating bright red ovals on the white cement. The car crashed through the opposite railing.
I yelled and slammed on the Pontiac’s brakes. I nearly lost control myself before I could turn the car around. As we approached the split railing of Busted Bridge I felt my arms go cold, and the Pontiac choked to a halt. I jumped out.
Zeke was on fire. He fled from the Chevy in a stumbling half-run, and then dropped to his knees. He looked up with pain-filled eyes and saw me.
Behind him, the car exploded with a light that was no color at all.
Zeke smiled.
Father died a year later. Firstmother crumpled up with grief and followed him into the grave in six months. Sara’s still a young woman, and she makes a good wife. My brothers and sisters that were her children have become my sons and daughters. Sara’s pregnant with the first of mine, and it looks like I won’t need a secondmother for many years.
Unless Lydia Mitchum ever shows up here again. She ran off about six months back from the Preacher and the rumors have been coming by about her and some woman driver. I think of her—and her green shirt and her breasts—sometimes. But not too much.
Father’s land is mine now. You can make a good living off it if you’re not afraid to work, and I know there will always be food on the table for the kids. I don’t race anymore. The farthest I want to travel is to the edge of my acres, and only as fast as the horse pulling the plow ahead of me.
The other night I couldn’t sleep, so I eased out of bed quiet enough to not wake Sara. I walked over to the Landers’ place in the cool night air, and I stood on the porch of the dilapidated house. I could see the two gravestones on the hill, spaced just a few feet apart.
I went around to the shed behind the house and unchained the doors. Moonlight spilled across the silver and black car. I rummaged around in the shed a while, looking at wrenches and brushes and rusted car parts. At one point I climbed behind the wheel and looked out through the windshield. I lightly touched the channels. The car was empty, completely empty.
When I was all done remembering, I unscrewed the caps from the kerosene lamps and sloshed liquid up and down the walls and across the car.
I stood near the back of the house. The shed burned for a long while. There must have been a big can of kerosene somewhere inside, because suddenly a whole side of the shed exploded out and the roof tumbled down.
It was dawn before I got home. My house looked solid and clean in the growing light. Sara stepped out onto the porch as I walked up. She had a worried look on her face.
“What is it?” she asked.
I shook my head and touched her rounded belly beneath her gown. Sara said we would name him Joseph. “Nothing.” It was time for the morning chores, and from inside the house one of the children started crying.
It was a happy sound.
