Chapter 1 - Stranded in Cheyenne
"God, send me a younger daddy so grandpa can finally rest," he prayed. Not knowing the quiet millionaire at the next table heard every word. The snow came sideways off the high plains that Monday night, it didn't fall so much as travel. By 11:40 on December 21st, Interstate 25 was closed in both directions. And every bus on the departures board in Cheyenne, Wyoming, showed the same red word, cancelled.
The regional bus station was a low brick building with a cafe counter at one end and three rows of blue plastic benches bolted to the floor. It smelled like burned coffee and wet wool. The clock on the wall ran 2 minutes fast, and nobody had fixed it in years. Every few seconds, the wind threw itself against the glass doors and rattled them in their frames, like somebody outside was asking to be led in.
About 20 people were stranded there. A trucker slept with his cap over his face. A college girl charged her phone beside the vending machine. A young couple shared one pair of earbuds. They all had the tired, folded look of people who had already made their phone calls and had nothing left to do but wait.
On the bench nearest the heater, an old man was asleep sitting up. He was big the way men who have done heavy work stay big even after the work leaves them. His hands lay open on his knees, scarred across the knuckles. His chin had dropped onto his chest. Under his breathing, there was a small catch, like a door that didn't quite close. Beside him sat a boy. He was 8 years old and he was wearing a man's flannel shirt as a coat. The sleeves had been rolled four times. The shirt hung to his knees and he had cinched it around his waist with a belt that had extra holes punched in it by a hand. His sneakers had been glued at the soles with shoe cement and the left one was coming apart again, the rubber lifting at the toe.
On his lap, he held a white envelope. Someone had written on it in careful capital letters, "Food." Inside were $6. The boy knew it was $6 because he had counted it four times since Casper. His name was Caleb Hollis. The man asleep beside him was his grandfather, Walter Hollis. Everyone but Caleb called him Walt.
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Caleb was not asleep. Caleb never slept when grandpa slept. Every few minutes, he did something nobody in the room noticed. He reached over and laid two fingers on the inside of his grandfather's wrist, the way he had once watched a nurse do it. Then he lifted his eyes to the clock on the wall and moved his lips, counting. When the minute ended, he took his fingers away, nodded to himself, and folded his hands on the envelope again. At 11:52, he closed his eyes and prayed. He didn't mean for anyone to hear, but the station was quiet. And boys who are eight don't always know how far a whisper carries. "God," he said, "send me a younger daddy so grandpa can finally rest. I can carry the bags till then." Then he opened his eyes and checked the pulse again.
At the far end of the cafe counter, a man set down his cup. He was 49, gray at the temples, in a dark wool coat that was good without trying to look expensive.
