“Okay, get ready,” Styx said, brushing cheese-cracker crumbs from his fingers.

We’d been on the train for over an hour. The worry lines on Bobby Gene’s forehead were looking more and more like Granddad Franklin’s.

“Ready?” Styx said.

“For what?” Bobby Gene asked.

For anything, I thought.

“This is our stop.” Styx tossed the last cracker wrapper back onto our paper sack. We rolled it all up into the bandanna.

Bobby Gene inched toward the open cargo door. He poked his head out past the edge, just enough to look around with one eye. “This doesn’t look like a stop.”

“It’s not. But it’s where we get off.”

Bobby Gene moved back, placing himself between Styx and me. “Is it actually going to stop, though?”

“Trust me,” Styx said. “It’ll slow down enough.”

Sure enough, the train began to slow.

“They call it Dead Man’s Curve,” Styx said.

“That’s all kinds of comforting,” Bobby Gene muttered.

“Ready?”

The train slowed to a crawl. Styx sat on the edge of the floor, his legs dangling out the door. Then he heaved himself out of the train. His feet skidded across the stones banking the tracks. He rolled into the grass, a soft landing.

“Awesome,” I said, leaping after him.

My body hung in the grip of the wind for a long second before my feet touched down. Momentum carried me forward until I tumbled into the grass.

Bobby Gene inched toward the edge, his frown fully set. Styx and I got up and chased after the boxcar.

“Come on, B.G.,” Styx said.

“You can do it. It’s easy.” My heart was still soaring, somewhere between earth and sky.

We trotted alongside the train. It was going slow enough that we could do that. But it would round the corner soon, and—

“Planning to ride off into the sunset, B.G.?” Styx said. “If you go to the end of the line, we’ll be seeing you sometime tomorrow.”

Bobby Gene scrambled to the boxcar’s edge. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me!”

“Jump,” I said. “It’ll be okay.”

Bobby Gene looked really scared. Maybe Styx and I should’ve left him at home for this one.

With a desperate cry, he finally did it. He rolled down the gravel bank and came to rest in the grass. Styx reached down and took his hand.

Bobby Gene brushed himself off.

“Looking good, B.G.” Styx beamed. He raised his hand for a high five. Bobby Gene slapped it. Then he cut me an evil side-eye.

I swallowed the nagging feeling that maybe I wasn’t being the best brother. Then again, Bobby Gene knew, like I did, that following Styx meant anything was possible.

---

We walked through the fields, away from the tracks. We were smack in the middle of nowhere, USA. Nothing around for miles, apart from the occasional farmhouse in the distance. Much of the land was scrappy dirt, too uneven and rocky to farm.

We drew close to a ramshackle house and garage on a scrubby plot of land.

The low rail fence was much easier to climb than chain link. The lot inside it was peppered with junk. Someone did woodworking and metalwork here.

The house needed a paint job and the roof sagged. The large deck on the back looked weathered.

The garage had four big doors, two open. We walked right in.

Motors everywhere! Parts and tools and half-constructed machines. Lawn mowers, snowblowers, the shell of an old Ford pickup.

There was welding equipment and metal art. One wall of the garage was studded with every imaginable size of screwdriver and drill bit, wrench head, and plenty of things I didn’t know the names of.

“This, here.” Styx led us to a shelf stocked with dozens of lawn mower motors. “We’re looking for a Briggs & Stratton model number 2307A.” He showed us how to find the model number on each one.

“How’d you learn so much about motors, anyway?” I asked.

“I know a guy,” Styx said.

“You know a lot of guys,” Bobby Gene said.

We combed through the motors. Styx started at the top shelf. I started at the bottom, and Bobby Gene in the middle.

“What if there isn’t one?” I asked.

“There will be.” Styx sounded certain. “He always keeps at least one of everything he might need. He’s compulsive like that.”

“Whose shop is this?” Bobby Gene asked.

Styx didn’t answer right away.

“Let me guess,” I said. “A guy you know.”

Styx tapped his nose. “You’re picking up what I’m putting down.”

We combed through the motors. I lucked out and my finger landed on the right one first. “Found it!” I double-checked the numbers. Then Styx and Bobby Gene came and triple-, quadruple-checked it.

“Great,” Styx said. “Wrap it up.”

The motor was heavy. We wrapped it in the bandanna and tied it to the stick again, in the middle this time, not at the edge.

Styx carefully placed the lunch box in the spot where the motor had been, to complete the trade. “Okay,” he said. “We’re all set.”

Bobby Gene carried one end of the stick and I carried the other, and we made our way back into the yard.

Boots thumped across the deck. “Hey,” a man’s gruff voice called. “What’re you doing down there?”