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“You run every day, don't you?

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “But I'm not fast—at least, not as fast as my dad hoped I'd be. I haven't even talked to him since he and Mom left. Mom and Dad called again yesterday but . . .” I trailed off, unable to tell Winona that the first time I'd tried to talk, I'd busted my uncle's cell phone before Dad could even say
hello
. After a moment, I added, “I'll never run the race of a lifetime like Dad did, and he knows it.”

“Those sound like your dad's dreams, Ledge,” Winona said, still working on the same spoke she'd been fiddling with for the last ten minutes. “What're yours?”

“What are my what?”

“Your
dreams
, y'dumb lug!” Laughing, she threw the spoke at me. “Surely you've got some of your own!”

“I guess I never really thought about it.” I caught the spoke and shrugged again, hoping Winona didn't see the way the thin metal rod curled into a corkscrew in my hand. A series of images flashed through my mind: Aunt Jenny's painting of a boat on the ocean, the infamous melting clocks incident in art class, the twisted arc of the windmill . . . Gypsy's Mona Lisa smile just after she'd said I'd be an artist.

While I'd gone to the salvage yard every day since meeting Winona, I still hadn't stepped into its sprawling steel ocean. “Feel free to explore, Ledge,” she'd told me more than once. “There's a lot more here than meets the eye. All kinds of treasures.”

“Treasures? It's a junkyard,” I'd snorted the first time she said it, imagining myself rising from the salvage yard the same way Eva Mae had risen from the river. Only, instead of stepping out covered head to toe in gold, I'd come out looking like a giant Transforminator toy or a goofball knight armored top to bottom in rusted metal. I'd be a terrified and terrifying human sculpture—a piece of art, not an artist.

Now, as Winona rethought her approach to the wheel spokes, I shook those same images from my head once again. I glanced at a massive, mystifying shape that grew beneath a tarp in the middle of the shop, wondering what it might be. The only bit visible was a curve of metal protruding from beneath the coverings like the foot of a giant beast. Whatever Winona worked on when I wasn't there, she wouldn't let me see, and I was dying to sneak a peek.

“Sarah Jane would look,” I said under my breath.

“Sarah Jane would do what?” Winona squinted at me, dropping a wrench with a clatter.

“Uh . . . nothing. I was just talking to myself.”

“About Sarah Jane Cabot?”

“Um . . . I guess. Do you know her?”

“Not personally, no. But I know her
work
—her father's too. Or haven't you seen the foreclosure sign out front?”

“But Sarah Jane doesn't have anything to do with the foreclosure. She's just a kid,” I replied, not sure why I was defending her.

“Sarah Jane featured Pops in one of her papers not too long before her snollygoster father decided to foreclose,” Winona said. “Gus was so proud of getting in a newspaper, any newspaper, he hung it in the shop.” She rolled her eyes. “I took it down. Every time I saw the headline:
Shiver Me Timbers! Gus Neary Be a Former Buccaneer!
I started thinking Pop was a retired pirate: peg leg, parrot, scurvy—the works. He already had the eye patch, which is probably why Sarah Jane picked on him. But it's Sarah Jane's dad who's the real picaroon raider, not mine.” Winona stopped her ramble short, squinting at me. “How do you know her, Ledge?” she asked, suddenly wary. “Is Sarah Jane your—”

“She's not my girlfriend! Not, not,
not
my girlfriend.” I cut her off, but Winona only burst out laughing.

“Okay! Got it. But really Ledge, I was only going to ask if she's your
friend
.”

I returned to the ranch that afternoon with more grease under my nails than river water could wash away. I'd been cleaning up the same way for days. No soap. No shampoo. Removing just enough stink to keep the girls from complaining, I got a hefty helping of wild-boy joy out of going un-combed and un-scrubbed—knowing Mom would never let me get away with such a lack of hygiene.

But my new heights of grime were nothing compared to the layers of red dust Fedora showed up wearing. Fe came back so filthy from her hunting trips with the twins that she practically needed her own highpressure, outdoor kid wash to get the dirt off, while Marisol and Mesquite came back clean as Girl Scout whistles. It made me wonder if the twins had the ability to levitate the dust right off their skin, or if they were simply making Fedora do all their dirty work . . . whatever that might be.

Like me, the three girls kept their mouths closed about their secret daily missions and, for a while, I pretended not to care what kind of trouble Marisol and Mesquite might be getting my sister into. But that evening, when Fedora returned to the ranch tuckered out and sunburned, and with calluses and blisters on her hands, I began to worry.

“Tell me what you're doing with Mesquite and Marisol,” I demanded, catching up with Fedora before joining the others at the campfire. “Where do the three of you go every afternoon?”

“Marisol and Mesquite say it's none of your beeswax,
Sledgehammer
,” Fe answered, hitting me with the rotten nickname the twins had invented, then walking a little faster.

I clenched my teeth. Fe was spending too much time with the older girls.

“Don't call me that, Fedora!”

Stopping, Fe raised her pointy chin inside her helmet and crossed her arms over her dirty T-shirt. “You're not Mom. You can't control me.”

“I am your brother though. Your
big
brother. Tell me what you've been up to or I'll pound you.”

“Careful, Ledge! Anger is only one letter away from
danger
.” Fedora started walking again, calling my bluff. She and I both knew I'd never do it. Pinch her, maybe. Pound her, no.

“Next time Mom and Dad phone, I'll tell them you're keeping secrets!” I hollered after her, feeling like a hypocrite and a tattletale too.

“You've got secrets too, Ledge!” Fe yelled back. “Besides, I bet you don't even talk to Mom and Dad next time they call. I bet you'll be too scared you'll break the phone again! You'll be a big, fat phone-chicken . . . Bawk! Bawk!” She waggled her elbows, dancing in circles like a chicken.

“Fine!” I spat. “Just don't expect me to tell you how I spend
my
afternoons,” I added, even though I was dying to tell
someone
about my time in the salvage yard.

“Fine!” Fe spat back. “
Sledgehammer Stupid-Head!
”

“Give it a rest, Fedora!” Both Fe and I turned at the sound of Rocket's voice. I hadn't heard him coming up behind us. Fe looked wounded at Rocket's rebuff. Her lower lip trembled. She wasn't accustomed to him siding with me instead of her. I wasn't either. But I didn't like it when someone else yelled at my sister.

Rocket moved past us to join the others at the campfire. I waited, every muscle tense, thinking he might turn around to ask again if we could talk. But he walked on, not looking back.

Fedora sniffed inside her helmet.

“Come on, Fe,” I said. “Whatever you're up to, it's got to make you hungry.” I took my sister's hand and squeezed it. Then I led her toward the fire, wondering if Rocket had finally given up on giving me his lecture.

 

When the Super-Duper Humdinger issue of
The Sundance Scuttlebutt
came out, Sarah Jane mailed my copy directly to the ranch.

Two weeks had passed since Fish and Mellie's wedding. It was Saturday and Grandpa was dozing on the porch as usual. The colorful yarns of an old afghan meandered across his lap despite the dog days of summer that panted hot breath at everyone else's heels. I felt a stab of guilt as I looked at Grandpa in his chair. I'd been so wrapped up in everything else—running, the Knucklehead, torturous lessons with the twins—I'd almost forgotten about Grandma Dollop's jar and the silent promise I'd made to get it back.

Rocket had left early that morning after losing an argument with Autry, making one of his rare trips off the ranch in his own truck—a rusty Ford F-1 that had a way of rolling away from wherever he parked it, the parking brake a goner. Autry sent Rocket into Sundance to collect the mail from the post office and, if there was any truth to Autry's teasing, to wave away the girls who buzzed around my cousin like honeybees to clover, the same way he waved away Fedora when she begged him to let her ride along.

My parents called just before the nonsensical newspaper arrived.

“Ledge? Fedora? Who wants to talk first?” Autry asked, holding his new cell phone out over the picnic table.

“Me! Me!” Fedora shouted. I only half listened as Fe babbled to Mom and Dad. But I pricked up my ears when I heard her talking about the safest way to use a shovel.

“. . . and if you do that, you don't fall down if you hit something!” Fe was explaining. “And we're hoping we hit something big! We're hoping to find—”

“Ssss! Fedora, shush!” Marisol hissed from her seat at the table.

“Yeah!” added Mesquite. “You've talked long enough. Ledger's turn!” Without giving Fedora the chance to say good-bye, the twins levitated the phone out of my sister's hand and zipped it my way.

I grabbed the phone before it could hit me in the side of the head, taking a deep breath as I raised it to my ear. Now Fedora would see that I wasn't a big, fat phone-chicken. But Fe still jammed her helmet back on her head and slid to the far end of the picnic table, just in case shards of phone went flying.

“Tell me everything, Ledger!” Mom's voice spilled from the phone in a tidal wave of mom-worry—so loud, Gypsy giggled from across the table, covering her mouth with her fingers. “Are you eating, Ledge?” Mom asked. “You need to eat. Are you brushing your teeth? Don't forget! Flossing? Don't forget that either! Remember to wear sunblock and don't let Autry give you too much pop or candy . . .”

I crossed my eyes at Mom's flood of concern, relieved that her savvy never worked well over the phone. I only felt vaguely compelled to brush my teeth, and had no impulse whatsoever to tell her everything.

“Are you doing all right, Ledge?” Dad asked when he came on the line.

“I'm running, Dad,” I assured him quickly. Unlike with Mom, I wanted to tell Dad about Winona and the Knucklehead and how I was good at knowing how things went together without even looking at a manual. I wanted to tell him about the windmill and how I'd twisted and bent the tower without destroying it. I wanted to ask whether Josh or Ryan had called or come by looking for me, or if Brody had told half the town that I'd been quarantined in Wyoming with mono or measles or mad cow disease.

“I'm running, Dad. I'm running every day,” was what came out of my mouth.

“That's great, son,” Dad replied. “But how're you doing? Are you okay?”

“I think I might be getting faster. But the air's thinner here, so—”

“Ledger—” Dad began to interrupt, but I never learned what he'd been about to say, because Rocket, just back from town and looking grumpier than ever, chose that moment to drop an envelope down on the picnic table in front of me.

I heard, “Ledge? Ledger? Did I lose you?” Then Dad's voice was a crackle of static. I let the phone slip from my ear as Rocket pointed, jabbing with a single flashing spark at Sarah Jane's loopy handwriting:

It was the end of my conversation with Mom and Dad. Autry's new phone didn't stand a chance. Neither did the picnic table. This time the nails flew out of the table so fast, no one had time to push them down. After two weeks of holding strong, the picnic table collapsed into a pile of wood, my own hopes that Sarah Jane had given up on her humdinger newspaper collapsing with it.

I snatched up the envelope before any of the others had a chance to get a good look at it. What if Sarah Jane had written about my family and the wedding? What if our secret was out? All the rules broken? What if Sarah Jane had decided to tell the whole world I was
defective
?

I
DIDN'T OPEN MY MAIL UNTIL I'd run up to the birch-tree glade by myself, taking a seat in the shade after startling three or four white-tailed deer and an antelope or two that were nibbling at the peeling bark. I sat for a long time, staring at the envelope. I wasn't sure if I was brave enough to open it, even if I was dying of curiosity.

It was worse than I'd expected. I'd read Sarah Jane's last paper—the one about the aliens who liked strawberry-rhubarb pie. I'd also read every scribbled entry in her notebook twice. But what I held in my hands now was different. This time, Sarah Jane must've used every fancy feature available on the copy machine at Willie's Five & Dime. Two sheets of legal-sized paper, printed on both sides, were folded and stapled together. And every headline had something to do with me, my family, or the ranch.

Before sealing the envelope, Sarah Jane had attached a Post-it to the front page of the paper.

Grinding my teeth, I flipped through the newspaper. An article about Fish and his floating bride filled the front page, while Grandma Dollop's jar followed on the next. The center pages held accounts of electrical storms and newfangled windmills, but my eyes popped when I saw a two-page spread describing the ruin of the Knucklehead in front of the five-and-dime. Sarah Jane had written the article with a painstaking attention to detail, and Indiana boy Ledger Kale was the star of the story.