‘Where?’ College asked.

‘Transcontinental.’

‘We live in restless times,’ College said. ‘The fact is, you don’t know the first thing about being a brakeman.’

‘Maybe the first thing,’ Jonathan said. He was already a better railroadman than College, at least in the yards, and both of them knew it.

‘Well, I’ll grant you that—’

‘You’d better.’

‘—but the first thing is not the last thing, and there are many things in between. The job of a brakeman has technique, artistry—’

‘I’ll learn.’

‘Oh, will you now? Why are you so grumpy today? I’ll have you know, there’s no brakeman in all Colorado so brave, so deft, so quick as I am. May I offer you my services?’ College made a flourish of a bow. ‘Private tuition on the job. Fees modest. There are mountains out there, not just these Rockies seen from the town of Denver, but the Smokies—’

Jonathan was disconcerted. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘—the Tetons, the Ozarks, the Appalachians, great ranges that stretch from north to south, rivers running down them east to west and—’ College stopped midflight, suddenly aware that this usually quick audience really did not understand him. ‘Did you never have a friend when you were a boy, Johnny?’ he said then.

Jonathan shut his eyes.

For all his warmth, Atlas, like his father, is a man with few friends. There have been lots of women in his life, marriages, ten-minute quickies and various stages in between – more women than he can remember – but not many friends. None of us Carricks has much talent for such things. ‘I worked as a gynecologist for the Navy—’ Atlas began by way of explanation.

‘How’d you weasel your way into a job like that?’ I asked.

‘Oh, come on. Even servicemen have wives. And besides, there are lots of women in the Navy.’

‘Did you like it?’

‘I loved it. But at the time—’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘How come you loved it?’

Atlas laughed. ‘The smell—’

‘The what?’

He laughed again. ‘I love the way women smell. But the point is, I did some work with transsexuals on the side. It’s the damndest thing. You make them a vagina, see, but they can’t keep the thing open. It’s like piercing ears. If you don’t wear earrings, the ear lobe closes over. Because the vagina doesn’t belong there, it closes over unless they wear a plug in it.’

‘Atlas, what are you trying to tell me?’

‘Getting too fancy, am I?’

‘In a word—’

‘Hang on a minute. Hatred, anger, bitterness: these were the things that held dad together. They were his flesh and blood, practically his genetic structure. And here he’d been transported into a world where there had to be a measure of trust and camaraderie; he couldn’t function without them. What was the poor bastard to do? Well, the way I see it is this: he carved a place for human warmth in that forbidding flesh of his. Not easy. Very painful in fact. Surgical. And once the surgery was done – this is where my fancy image comes in – he had to keep his nature prised apart much like a transsexual keeps his man’s body prised apart to accommodate a vagina. The artifice of it didn’t always work (doesn’t always with transsexuals, either). He knew he was smart; he knew he was quick; he even knew he was a good-looking guy. But friendship? He didn’t understand the first thing about it. It never occurred to him that in those two years College might actually have come to like him. See what I’m getting at?’