It fell from the sky like a shooting star, out in the desert west of town. Had it not fallen then, in that hour before dawn, I’d never have seen it. I normally wouldn’t even have been awake then, but Marcy had quit mid-shift, leaving no one else to sell Marlboros and tar-black coffee and diesel fuel and burritos to all the all-night truckers along this lonely stretch of highway. Had it not fallen so close to the ranch, I’d never have been able to retrieve it. The Buick would have thrown its grasping transmission before I’d hauled the smouldering mass back to the barn. I normally wouldn’t even have had the trailer hooked up, but the ice chest had busted, and Howard had offered to lend us his deer cooler, though he refused to move it himself. It was a sign, a miracle, an answer to a hundred prayers. That scraped-up heap of metal and glass, so strange and otherworldly, was going to be my ride out of here.…