Beyond Kingman the Arizona desert widened into enormous distances that made a person seem temporary. Old Route 66 ran through stretches of open country where tourist traffic had moved elsewhere and faded signs advertised businesses that had died decades earlier. The days were bright enough to hurt his eyes, but the nights could turn surprisingly cold. He learned to make his water last through the day and to measure a road not in miles but in the number of places where help might exist.
The abandoned Sinclair station stood off a cracked service road some distance from the nearest reliable traffic. Its green-and-white sign was almost unreadable, and the windows were broken except for a corner office where enough glass remained to keep out most of the wind. Behind the station lay a small graveyard of vehicles: a rusted pickup missing its hood, two ruined sedans, a gutted bus, and pieces of machinery half swallowed by sand. To anyone else the place looked like a warning, but to Leo it also looked like a workshop that had been waiting too long for somebody to come back.
Inside he found a workbench, a few usable hand tools, and shelves littered with forgotten hardware. There was no functioning electricity, no running water, and nothing that could make the place safe in a storm. He swept the broken glass away from one corner, laid a discarded upholstery cushion over the concrete, and told himself it was temporary. Every night he meant to leave the next morning, but every morning the next patch of road seemed longer than his remaining strength.
He repaired a broken bicycle he had discovered behind the building, though its tires were badly worn and one wheel refused to stay true. The project gave structure to days that otherwise threatened to dissolve into hunger. Sometimes he closed his eyes and imagined Daniel standing over his shoulder, correcting the angle of a wrench with a patient hand. Other times he was simply seventeen years old, alone and frightened enough to cry into a sleeve so nobody passing on the road would hear him.
On the nineteenth day after leaving Flagstaff, the temperature dropped as evening approached. Leo had eaten a handful of crackers and half a bruised apple given to him by a diner waitress the previous afternoon. His canteen was nearly empty, and a headache had settled behind his eyes. He was sitting by the workbench trying to make a stubborn bicycle bearing turn smoothly when he heard an engine struggling in the distance.
The noise came in uneven bursts, each one followed by a sharp metallic complaint. Leo went still, listening, and identified a large motorcycle before he could see it. It sounded wrong in several ways at once, the kind of sound that told a mechanic the rider should stop rather than demand another mile. Then it backfired hard enough to echo off the abandoned station and rolled into view on the service road.