It did not look new. Earl had not wasted time or money on paint. The hood came from Number Twelve and was a slightly different shade of faded than the fenders from Thirty-One, and the seat had a strip of duct tape across one corner. But it looked whole. It looked like a tractor, instead of the carcass of one. The tires, four used ones Earl had found from a farmer up the road for less than the price of one new, were inflated and sound. Every hose was new and every clamp was tight. The engine bay was clean enough to eat from. Hanging from the steering wheel on a loop of wire was a single cardboard tag, and on it, in Earl's handwriting: *Unit 1. Frame/drive/elec: 31. Engine: 12. Hyd: 7. See book 4, pp. 1–38.*
"Unit One," Megan read aloud. She looked at Earl. "You're planning on more."
"Let's see if this one runs first," Earl said.
---
He had already done everything he could do without starting it. He had primed the fuel system and bled the air from the lines. He had filled the engine with fresh oil and turned it over with the injectors out to build oil pressure before the first real crank. He had checked the coolant level three times. He had walked around the machine twice that morning before they arrived, he admitted later, touching every connection one more time.
Now he climbed up onto the platform, slowly, one hand on the fender, and settled into the seat. He looked down at the gauges. He set the throttle a quarter open. He put his hand on the key.
Ray realized he was holding his breath.
The starter engaged with a heavy, grinding whir. The engine turned over once, twice, three times, the sound of compression thumping in the cylinders like a heartbeat. Then there was a cough, a deep, wet, startled cough, and a puff of black smoke from the exhaust stack. Then another. The engine caught, stumbled, and caught again, and for a few seconds it ran rough and loud and uneven, shaking the whole machine on its tires, smoke rolling out of the stack and drifting up into the rafters of the shed.
Earl did not move. He sat with his hand on the throttle, his head tilted slightly, listening.
The smoke thinned. Then it went from black to gray, and from gray to almost nothing. The roughness smoothed. The shaking eased. And slowly, the way a frightened animal calms under a steady hand, the engine settled into an idle: a deep, even, rhythmic rumble that filled the shed and seemed to come up through the concrete floor into the soles of Ray's boots.
Steady. Strong. Even.
Megan let out a short, astonished laugh. Ray did not make any sound at all.
Earl watched the oil pressure gauge climb and hold. He watched the temperature gauge begin its slow rise. He watched the charging light flicker and go out. Then he looked down at his son, standing in the doorway of the shed with his mouth slightly open, and he did not smile, exactly. But something in his face changed.
"Well," he said over the engine. "That's a start."
---
It was only a start, and Earl was very clear about that.