The trucker scratches his beard stubble and thinks for a moment. “Let me show you something, Connor.” He reaches over Connor and grabs, of all things, a deck of cards from a little pouch hanging next to the bed. “Did ya ever see this?” The trucker takes the deck of cards in one hand and does a skillful one-handed shuffle. “Pretty good, huh?”

Connor, not knowing what to say, just nods.

“How about this?” Then the trucker takes a single card and with sleight of hand makes the card vanish into thin air. Then he reaches over and pulls the card right out of Connor’s shirt pocket. “You like that?”

Connor lets out a nervous laugh.

“Well, those tricks you just saw?” The trucker says, “I didn’t do ’em.”

“I . . . don’t know what you mean.”

The trucker rolls up his sleeve to reveal that the arm, which had done the tricks, had been grafted on at the elbow.

“Ten years ago I fell asleep at the wheel,” the trucker tells him. “Big accident. I lost an arm, a kidney, and a few other things. I got new ones, though, and I pulled through.” He looks at his hands, and now Connor can see that the trick-card hand is a little different from the other one. The trucker’s other hand has thicker fingers, and the skin is a bit more olive in tone.

“So,” says Connor, “you got dealt a new hand.”

The trucker laughs at that, then he becomes quiet for a moment, looking at his replacement hand. “These fingers here knew things the rest of me didn’t. Muscle memory, they call it. And there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wonder what other incredible things that kid who owned this arm knew, before he was unwound . . . whoever he was.”

The trucker stands up. “You’re lucky you came to me,” he says. “There are truckers out there who’ll take whatever you offer, then turn you in anyway.”

“And you’re not like that?”

“No, I’m not.” He puts out his hand—his other hand—and Connor shakes it. “Josias Aldridge,” he says. “I’m heading north from here. You can ride with me till morning.”

Connor’s relief is so great, it takes the wind right out of him. He can’t even offer a thank-you.