“So shoot me,” said Joseph. “I’ve been hungry since I come back from the afterlife. All I can think about is food. They had us on government rations back in that hick jail. Thought I was gonna waste away.”

Coot leaned his forehead against the window. He was deep in thought, with only the sound of an old man chewing with his mouth open and making little grunts of ecstasy.

Coot watched the man on the back porch of the caboose. The man tossed his cigar into the night, then walked back inside.

“How am I gonna do this?” said Coot. “Think.”

Joseph smacked the glove box. He removed a pistol and tossed it into Coot’s lap.

“What’s this?” Coot said.

“What’s it look like? Old Roscoe the Persuader. That’s what it is.”

“Are you nuts?”

“This ain’t about me.”

“I’m not walking in there with a gun.”

“Suit yourself, but you don’t have a chance any other way.”

Coot placed the gun on the dashboard. “Don’t be ridiculous, they’ll shoot me.”

“No, they won’t, they’re Christians.”

“They’ll shoot me twice.”

“Where’s your sporting blood, son?”

“You’re nuts.”

Joseph lifted the gun, spun the cylinder, then clicked it shut. “You pop in there holding Roscoe and say to that preacherman, ‘Come with Daddy, sucker,’ and he’ll do it. Simple as that.”

“Put that thing away before you hurt somebody. Haven’t you had enough bullets to last one lifetime?”

“That’s exactly how you’d wanna say it too, real forceful-like. ‘Come with Daddy, sucker.’ Pretty good, huh?”

Joseph was clearly impressed with himself.

“I’m only thinking of your girlfriend, Coot. That man ain’t gonna give you a second look unless you got something worth looking at, like Roscoe.”

“Gimme that gun,” said Coot.

Joseph handed Coot the gun. “That’s more like it.”

Coot opened the cylinder and emptied the bullets into his hand. Then he rolled down his window and tossed them into the darkness.

“You dunce,” said Joseph. “That’s all the ammo I had.”

He gave the gun back to Joseph. “No more guns.”

Coot leapt out of the car. Joseph waited in the truck. Coot crept through the rail yard, rehearsing what he would say. Maybe Joseph was right. Maybe J. Wilbur Chaplain wouldn’t hear a word he had to say. Maybe this was a wasted effort.

Coot climbed the steps onto the railcar and took a few breaths before he rapped on the glass panel of the door. He cupped his hand over his mouth and smelled his own breath.

He took a few steps back and waited.

A bald man opened the door and gave Coot a serious look. He stood in the doorway like a human tank. The neck on this man was nearly as big as Coot’s upper thigh.

“Can I help you, son?” the man said.