“I’m Frank. Thought I was going to have this car to myself. Glad for the company.” He took out a little packet of tobacco and rolling papers.

Nate watched with interest as Frank rolled a cigarette, one-handed.

Frank explained that he had come in on another train, three days before. He’d heard there might be temporary work at the broom factory over in Leopold, but no such luck. “Some people get the idea that just because I got one arm less than the usual, I might not be able to keep up,” he said. “But never mind. I’ll find me a job in Idaho. If not, there’s always Washington.”

“You travel around a lot like this, huh?” Nate asked him.

“Fifty years, more or less. I was probably about your age first time I took off.”

Nate studied his face—his skin the color of dry earth after a long stretch of drought. He tried to imagine Frank his own age but couldn’t.

“Let me guess,” said Frank. “Your old man gave you a hard time about something, and you’re so steamed, you’re running away from home.”

“I’m just making a little trip over to Anaconda. I’m not running away from anyone.”

“First time out?” Frank asked him. Nate wasn’t sure what he meant. “Riding the rails, I mean.”

“My first time.”

“Man, I remember mine,” Frank told him. “I was fourteen years old. Before the war. I’m talking about the first one. We lived in Milwaukee back then, in a real house. But I was restless, you know. Caught a case of the wandering bug.”

“You ever go back?”

A dreamy look came over Frank’s face then. “Can’t say I ever saw my mother’s face again,” he said. “I don’t carry a lot of regrets in life, but that is one.”

“I’m not leaving home permanently or anything,” Nate told him, imagining for a moment how it would be if he’d just said good-bye to his mother forever, instead of for a day. “I’m just going to see someone.”

The old man looked at him for a long minute. He was probably around the age of Poppa, but Nate couldn’t picture his grandfather admitting to a single wrong move in his life. “And what happens after you find this person?” Frank asked him. “What do you do then?”

“He’s in a hospital. I have to make sure he’s all right.”

Frank drew on his cigarette. “That sounds fair enough,” he said. “Except for one problem. You ever think what you’ll do if this person ain’t all right? Think you can just pack up and git back to where you come from then?”