Dakota still steals ground when she walks, moving faster than her small steps should allow. Gliding across the parking lot, down the hillside. She does not look back. Not once.

The fire pit is abandoned. Cordoned off with strips of yellow and orange tape, knotted around sunken rebar. Some of the group’s things are still inside where they left them. Empty bottles. Tipped-over cans. A black fleece. It all looks important now.

They continue to walk. They are five hundred miles into the woods, and it will be five hundred miles out. The sky is already losing light, and the place she is taking him is nowhere he wants to be. Halfway down the path they once walked from Sugarville, Dakota turns into the brush and steps into the space they’ve carved out for themselves.

The fire pit sits in a thicket of blackberries and nettles. Logs have mossy tops, and Meebs and Rocco are standing over a smoldering hole in the ground. They’re trying to start a fire without Dakota. She steps forward and thorned branches swallow the path at her back. Lance couldn’t get out if he tried.

“Well, look,” Mason says.

Lance is looking at the blond girl by the fire. A girl he does not immediately recognize as Breanna. She has cried away her makeup and hard eyes and any trace of cleverness, as if Stone’s death cracked her shell wide open and a real girl came pouring out. She looks about fifteen. Maybe she’d always looked this soft when she was alone with him. Maybe she’d look this way tonight, and never again.

They are all raw.

Tragedy and Meebs are a poor fit. His eyes are too wide, mouth so small. Like a sad cartoon. Mason looks old. Hunched and scowling. Overnight, he’s a few years closer to his father. Rocco is the most together.

Put that log here, Meebs. C’mon, man.

Did he care? Was Rocco used to this? How much had he lost in his life?

Lance’s eyes are stinging. He can’t help it. He wipes his cheeks. They all look different and new. Did he ever really know any of them? Does he know anyone at all?

He sits next to Dakota. Looks down at her hand.

“You brought your horn?” Meebs asks.

Lance nods, pulling the case close.

“Blower,” Rocco says.

“We heard you talked to Stone,” Mason says.

“Did you go back down like I asked?” Breanna says, her voice thin.

“Yeah, I did.”

Her shoulders sag. “Thank you for going. Thank you for talking to him.”

“That kind of depends on what you said, Blower,” Mason says.

“What did Stone want to talk about?” Breanna asks, only looking at Lance.

The campfire remains a gray, smoking pit. Dakota coughs. Meebs and Rocco shuffle around, jabbing it with twigs.

“He said a lot of things,” Lance says. He tries to push his voice out smooth, but it’s cracking, ready to snap. “He told me about basic training. He seemed to feel better after we talked. I didn’t know he would do it. If he’d said anything, I would’ve told someone.”

“He didn’t say anything about Telluride?” Mason asks. Something is creeping up behind his eyes. A wolf in its cave. Lance stares at the wolf, wondering what it wants.

“Did he mention Telluride?” Rocco asks.

They are leaning forward now. They all want something from him.

“Yeah,” Lance says. “He did.”

“Yep,” Mason says, leaning back. They’re all nodding, listening to a drumbeat Lance is just beginning to hear.

Their fire has finally started. It’s a flimsy thing, no core. It will not hold up unless they keep feeding it, blowing at the smoke until they see stars and taste soot and feel sick from it. But you can keep that kind of fire going a long time.

“I guess he finally went for it,” Rocco says.

“He should’ve known better,” Mason says. “Guy couldn’t jump trains for shit.”

They’re looking at him again. Lance’s turn.

They need your story.

He just has to say the words. This story will catch and burn. Stone was trying to jump a train to Telluride. Breanna is still looking at him. She wants something different than the rest of them. She wants the truth.

“He was so sad, Breanna,” Lance says.

She’s crying, hard. Staring at the ground.

“Hey,” Mason says. “Leave her alone.”

Breanna’s shaking her head.

“That’s not it, Mason,” Lance says. “He wasn’t that bad at jumping trains.”

“You don’t know,” Rocco says. “He fell twice before.”

“Did you drop him?” Lance asks Mason.

“Excuse me?”

The wolf is out now, baring its teeth. C’mon, Mason. Jump and bite. Tonight, he is strong enough. He will grab that wolf by the throat and strangle it.

“Did you let go of his hand? Like you let go of mine?”

Breanna stops crying.

“Did you drop him that night?” she asks Mason. “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Are you questioning me?” Mason snaps.

“Yeah. What are you going to do, Mason?” Breanna says. “Fire me?”

“You’re seriously talking shit to me, Bre? Who gave him a job when he got discharged?” He’s talking to everyone, using his ringmaster voice. “Answer me! Who found him a place to live when he got bounced from his dad’s? Who’s closing down his whole place tomorrow to host a party for his ass?”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “You’re such a good friend.”

“You got something to say, Blower?”

“Was he too good at guitar?” Lance says. “Is that why you called him Stone?”

“Shut your fucking mouth—”

“Did Dakota like him better?”

“Okay, I’ll shut it for you.”

Mason is standing.

“Come on over and try,” Lance says. He stands, and everyone is standing.

“Calm down,” Dakota says.

“Look,” Rocco says. “It’s no one’s fault. No one pushed Stone in front of that train.”

Lance is shaking his head, no, no, no.

“Stone was riding to Telluride.” Meebs uses a clear, monotone voice. Like the comment is designed to play on a loop.

“You’re wrong, Meebs,” Lance says.

“Blower,” Rocco says. “Shut up.”

“You want to know what he really said about you all? You want to know what he said about his friends right before he jumped in front—”

Something knocks his head to the side. The world tilts and his eyes water and when he wipes them clean it’s Meebs, seething, panicked by what he’s done.

“Go away,” Meebs says. “Just go away!”

“Andrew!” Dakota says. “What the hell are you doing?”

Andrew? Who’s Andrew?

Lance plunges into the brush. Thorns and nettles rip his skin. He’s fighting through, hacking at the forest until it loosens his grip and dumps him onto a path. He can’t swallow the thickness in his throat, can’t move it down far enough to breathe.

And someone is crashing after him.

He turns, but cannot fight. Can’t protect himself from what’s coming.

Dakota.

It’s Dakota, and she’s carrying his horn.

A flood is coming, choking off his voice, and Dakota is wrapping her arms around him and there are no words when it all comes crashing down. They hold each other through a long, hard wave, and when the worst is over, they wipe their faces dry and breathe.

Lance expects someone to come for them. Someone must want him to finish his story. But when he and Dakota go, no one follows. There is a new numbness. Novocain in the moonlight. His arm is around her waist as they stumble down the path, cuts scabbing over in the breeze.

He smells the flowers before he sees them.

Honey, lavender, and that singular smell that will always be his first night at the Trainsong. The path spills into a field Lance has only seen from an open train car. White flowers, holding the moon in their petals. The breeze comes fast and cool, and he clutches Dakota with both arms, pulling her to his chest.

“Will you stay for the trainsong?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“You aren’t mad?” he asks.

“I don’t know what I am.”

They find a patch of bare earth. The dirt is still warm. Her hands, still electric. He breathes clean air and holds her left hand. He focuses on her thumb. This thumb is a world that makes sense. A world he can climb inside and build walls around. The ridges on her nail, the softness of a knuckle. The way it can be pinched between his fingers. This tiny piece of Dakota. If he looks and holds on long enough, maybe he can understand just this.

She sees him looking.

“Your thumb is a clue,” he says.

She smiles. “Yeah?”

She pinches his thumb back.

“I was thinking maybe they aren’t clues,” she says. “Maybe they’re gifts. They just never felt like gifts, because I couldn’t share them. Like I never saw this field.”

“Or a hand,” Lance says.

“Or a hand.”

They hold each other. At the first sound of the train, Lance sits up straight.

The headlamp comes like dawn to the field, swallowing the flowers in a blaze, unclasping their hands, filling his eyes until they burn. He blinks, gobs of color turning solid, becoming a yellow car with black letters.

Larson’s Lumber

It coasts down the tracks and shudders through a curve. Next, a silver flash.

Mandalay Motors

They’re coming. He feels them before he sees them, and then their car is drifting past in slow time. Mason, feet perched on the car’s edge, holding the metal handle. Meebs, right beside him. So close he might’ve been leaning on Mason’s shoulder. Rocco is farther back, in shadow. They’re staring out at the field, expressions fixed and flat.

Lance is right there in front of them. Dakota is right there. But the group does not see them. They’re looking for something else, watching the horizon. Their car takes the curve and folds into line behind the others, twisting off through a tunnel of trees. The rumble echoes, then is gone.

Lance stands and unsnaps his hard case.

Dakota follows him, wading through the tall grass, climbing the slope to the crunch of ballast. Lance’s leg is shaking when he places it on the nearest tie. Or maybe that’s the train. Maybe the tracks here always hum a little.

“What are you going to play?” Dakota asks.

“A request.”

He puts the brass to his lips and plays Stone’s song.