The Rail by Howard Owen

to DrugWorld probably is helping it win the town’s approval.
    â€œThey think I’m a come-here,” she says, looking amazed. “A come-here! There were Penns here when these monkeys were still in trees. No offense to Millie and Wat and theirs, Neil. But I could wipe the whole town out by advising them not to eat rat poison. Whatever I suggest, they do the opposite.”
    â€œI haven’t quit yet, though,” she tells them, smiling off into the distance as she carries dirty dishes into the kitchen. “I’m not out of tricks yet.”
    The car, David learns, was damaged worse than he had thought. Something has apparently come loose related to the battery, is Neil’s guess, because this morning it won’t start. David curses and kicks a tire. He has never been mechanically inclined and fears that things broken never will be fixed again.
    They go back inside and call Garner’s, which sends a tow truck. The driver tries in vain to jump-start the Camry, then hooks it (a little carelessly, David thinks) to the truck and pulls it the mile to the garage.
    Blanchard offers to lend them transportation, so they can go to the shop “and maybe just knock around town. Maybe you could get some things at the grocery store for me.”
    Her only vehicle, it turns out, is a truck, “a big, red, shiny one.”
    â€œWell, I thought I ought to do something to blend with the environment,” she says as she gives them the keys. They retrieve the truck from the old garage beside the house that is done in stone to vaguely resemble Penn’s Castle itself.
    â€œWant me to drive?” David asks Neil. “Or maybe you want to give it a shot.”
    Neil tells him no, not yet.
    â€œLet me get my feet on the ground first.”
    So David carefully drives them out to the road. Every glint of sunlight, every limb moving in the breeze, he realizes, makes him flinch a little.
    â€œNot much chance of hitting two in two days,” Neil says.
    â€œIt’d be worth it to hit the same one again.”
    â€œYou mean ol’ Dasher?”
    â€œYeah. They’d probably throw me in jail. It’d be like killing Santa Claus.”
    They find, when they reach Garner’s, that there’s one tired, discouraged-looking mechanic at work, although another one is expected “any time now.” David tries to stress the urgency of the task, but Neil remembers enough of how Penns Castle works to know the futility of trying to hurry anyone.
    After he became a famous outsider, he used to chafe, on rare visits home, over how nothing could be pinned down. No task could be defined by hours and minutes.
    â€œLet’s go for a ride,” he tells David, who shrugs and follows him back to the truck.
    Before they can leave, a county sheriff’s car pulls up behind them, blocking their exit, and a young man in a strikingly unstylish brown uniform gets out. He walks slowly over to the passenger’s side and looks over his sunglasses. He resembles someone, Neil thinks, perhaps an old classmate’s son.
    â€œYou Neil Beauchamp?” the deputy asks.
    Neil nods.
    â€œI thought so. Miz Penn said you all had come down here.”
    David and Neil say nothing, and neither does the deputy for an uncomfortable stretch.
    â€œI just wanted you to know,” he says at last, his voice slipping a little. “I just wanted you to know that Lacy Haithcock was a friend of mine. He didn’t deserve what happened. Didn’t deserve it any way, shape or form.”
    Neil nods again. He waits; he can see the mechanic, sipping a soft drink, standing to one side, watching. David starts to say something, but before he can, the deputy turns and walks quickly back to the patrol car, slams the door and roars away, the tires throwing dirt and rocks in his wake.
    They sit in the truck, not moving, giving the man in the brown suit ample time to be somewhere else. Neil sighs and sinks into the