“So how come they’re all dead, and I’m still here?”

Edgar drops a fry into his puddle of ketchup and flips it with the tip of his finger. “I’ll start my own gang then,” he says.

“What’ll you call it?”

“The Pirates.”

Jesse goes to piss before they hit the road. The car is running when he gets back, Edgar behind the wheel.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jesse says.

“Touch the one wire to the two,” Edgar says. “I remember.”

“You don’t mess with the car without my permission. You know that.”

“Can I have permission to drive?”

“Get back on your side.”

Edgar acts like it takes everything in him to slide across the seat.

They head north. Jesse figures they can make it to Wells, or even Jackpot, before having to stop for daylight. An hour into the drive, Edgar, who’s been sulking, turns on the radio. Jesse shuts it off.

“Please, sir, may I play the radio, sir?” Edgar says. His resentment at having to ask is obvious, even behind the funny voice he uses.

“You may,” Jesse says, rewarding him for following the rules.

Traffic is sparse on the highway. When they meet another vehicle, it’s usually a big rig, some as festooned with colored lights as Christmas trees. Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome” comes on the radio. After the first verse about the whippoorwill being too blue to fly and the moon hiding behind a cloud to cry, Jesse changes the station. The only way he’ll get through the next few nights is to keep one step ahead of grief.

The Galaxie blows a tire an hour past Ely. Jesse manhandles the car to the shoulder, kills the engine, and lucks out when he finds a flashlight in the glove box. His luck continues when he pops the trunk with his screwdriver and there’s a jack and a spare.

“Give me a hand,” he calls to Edgar, still in the car.

It’s the left rear tire that failed. Edgar holds the light while Jesse loosens the nuts with a lug wrench and jacks up the car. Jesse’s sweating as he pulls off the ruined tire and slips on the spare, has to dry his hands on his pant legs before replacing and finger-snugging the nuts. Edgar can’t stand still. The flashlight beam keeps jumping around.

“Quit fidgeting,” Jesse snaps.

He lowers the car, tightens the nuts, and carries the jack to the trunk. The engine starts, and he slams the trunk shut and, through the rear window, sees Edgar in the driver’s seat again.

“Goddammit!” he yells.