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Indigo Dreamweaver had not always been Indigo Dreamweaver. There had been a time when he was Robb Bigelow, which was a perfectly respectable name for a boy growing up in Grand Island, Nebraska, and considerably less useful for a tattoo artist operating three blocks off Dickinson Boulevard in Fort Stockton, Texas. Robb had become Indigo somewhere between his second tattoo convention and the discovery that customers were more willing to let a man named Indigo Dreamweaver permanently inscribe Sanskrit on their lower backs than a man named Robb Bigelow. By the time he reached Fort Stockton the transformation had become so complete that most people assumed Indigo had been born under a full moon in the back of a Volkswagen bus somewhere outside Taos. He had not. He had been born at a hospital in Grand Island, two years and eleven months before his younger brother Todd, whose arrival in Fort Stockton on a Tuesday afternoon brought with it one duffel bag, seventy-three dollars, thirty-four days of sobriety and enough unresolved business in Nebraska to require considerably more luggage.

Todd was fresh out of rehab. This was not his first attempt at sobriety, nor his second, and Indigo had stopped counting after discovering that keeping score made him angry in ways that did neither brother any good. Todd had spent most of his adult life treating geography as a recovery program. When things went bad in Grand Island, he moved to Lincoln. When Lincoln failed to improve him, he tried Kearney. There had been several months in North Platte nobody discussed. Each relocation had been accompanied by Todd’s sincere conviction that his problems were primarily municipal and would improve once he crossed the appropriate county line. Fort Stockton was merely the latest theory, although this time there was one important difference. Todd had completed rehab sober and had called Indigo before buying the bus ticket.

There was also the matter of Daisy Chain Bigelow, Todd’s nine-year-old daughter in Grand Island, whose mother he had met years earlier when she worked the midnight shift at the Caffeinated Spike Coffee Shop. The relationship had lasted considerably less time than the consequences. Todd loved Daisy Chain in the sincere but unreliable way some men love their children from a distance: completely in photographs, desperately on birthdays, and considerably less successfully on the first of every month when money was due. Nebraska had eventually become curious about this arrangement, and officials in Grand Island had reached the conclusion that Todd’s child-support obligation was more than a philosophical concept. Todd described the resulting situation as complicated. Indigo described it as unpaid child support. Todd said there were circumstances. Indigo said there was a child. They had been reunited less than forty minutes.

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Becky Berkinstock intervened before the reunion became considerably shorter. Becky was Indigo’s girlfriend and the afternoon host of Is It True, or Did You Hear It on Fox? on Fort Stockton Public Radio, a mixture of news, conspiracy, personal confession and community grievance that routinely confused her three listeners and usually enraged Mayor Goodman. Becky believed almost every human problem could be improved by talking about it openly, preferably between two and four in the afternoon with underwriting support from a local tire dealer. She also believed Todd deserved a genuine chance, although she and Indigo agreed that a genuine chance was not the same thing as an unlimited number of them. Todd could stay in the spare bedroom provided there were no drugs, no drinking, no disappearing, no borrowing money without asking, no overnight female visitors and no lengthy explanations of why any of these rules represented an unreasonable infringement on his personal liberty. Todd agreed, which Indigo accepted provisionally. He had heard his brother agree to things before.

The next problem was employment, and Indigo went to see Chad at the Piggly Wiggly. The store did not actually need another stocker, but Chad had known Indigo long enough to recognize the difference between a favor and an invitation to negotiate. He gave Todd twenty-five hours a week, mostly mornings, stocking shelves and unloading trucks. On Todd’s first day Chad laid out the terms with the solemnity of a man who had discovered through experience that employee manuals frequently contained too many words. Todd was to show up sober, show up on time and refrain from eating anything until it had crossed the register. Todd asked whether those rules were listed in order of importance. Chad considered the question and told him they were now.

Transportation became the next obstacle. Indigo had been driving Todd to work, which required abandoning the tattoo shop at times inconvenient to people who had scheduled permanent alterations to their bodies. Becky volunteered, but her afternoon radio schedule and tendency to convert routine errands into spontaneous interviews made her unsuitable for dependable transportation. Todd needed wheels, and because seventy-three dollars had already become fifty-eight, the three of them eventually found themselves walking the back row at Manny’s Motor Mart on a Saturday morning.

Manny kept several automobiles specifically for people whose credit histories were best discussed outdoors. Most had been washed recently enough to suggest optimism. Todd passed a Buick, a Cavalier and something Japanese whose hood was a different color from the rest of the car before stopping in front of a 1987 Chevrolet El Camino. It was red, more or less, with SS graphics, Rally wheels and a 4.3-liter V6. Primer and exposed filler interrupted portions of the body, rust had begun negotiations with the rocker panels, and the interior contained bucket seats beneath a headliner that had surrendered to gravity. The five-digit odometer displayed a number everyone agreed was technically a number, although Manny discouraged anyone from assigning historical significance to it.

Todd walked around the El Camino twice and asked how much. Manny smiled and said, “It runs and drives.”

Indigo looked at him. “That isn’t a price.”

“It is when you see the rest of it.”

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Manny raised the hood and started the engine. The V6 settled into a respectable idle, which was immediately encouraging until Indigo looked underneath and noticed several fluids apparently attempting to leave the vehicle. He asked what was leaking. Manny bent slightly, studied the pavement and said it depended on how long they stood there. The brakes needed service, some of the lights worked, and the transmission remained present and willing to participate. Todd had stopped listening. He was sitting behind the wheel with both hands resting on it, staring through the windshield with the peculiar concentration of a man seeing something nobody else could.

Indigo saw it too, although what he saw wasn’t the car. Since arriving in Fort Stockton Todd had carried himself like a man waiting for somebody to knock on the door. Sitting behind the wheel of the El Camino, he looked for the first time like somebody considering where he might go next because he wanted to get there. Becky climbed into the passenger seat, looked around at the sagging headliner and cracked trim, and pronounced it perfect. Indigo asked what, exactly, it was perfect for. Becky looked across the seat at Todd and said, “A start.”

Manny, sensing the first movement toward a sale, cleared his throat and explained that what they were looking at was a “running and driving project.” Indigo looked at Todd. Todd looked back and immediately told him not to say it. Indigo protested that he hadn’t said anything. Todd told him he had been about to. Becky confirmed that Indigo had, in fact, developed the face.

They bought the El Camino.

Todd drove it home while Indigo followed far enough behind to stop safely if the Chevrolet ceased being either running or driving. It made the trip without incident, although one brake light failed somewhere between Manny’s and Indigo’s house and the oil leak marked Todd’s new parking place with enough precision that there was never any question where the El Camino belonged.

Three evenings later Todd discovered Earl’s Salvage Yard & Formalwear, several acres of automotive remains on the edge of Fort Stockton and one of the few businesses in West Texas where a man could obtain a TH350 transmission, a left taillight for a 1972 Buick Riviera and a rented tuxedo without moving his truck. Earl believed automobiles and formalwear shared the same fundamental principle, which was that most people only cared what either looked like from twenty feet away. Todd liked Earl immediately. Earl liked Todd cautiously. He had known too many men who had crawled out of worse things to be frightened by recovery, but he understood idle time. A man could get into considerable trouble sitting still, so Earl found Todd things to do.

The first project was hanging behind a wrecked Cadillac near the formalwear building. Todd asked what it was. Earl identified it as a Continental kit. Todd asked what it fit, and Earl looked toward the El Camino before answering, “Nothing you’ve got.” Earl wanted forty dollars. Todd offered thirty. Earl accepted so quickly that a wiser man might have reconsidered the purchase.

By sunset they were attaching it to the rear of the El Camino.

There are moments in automotive history when mankind possesses the ability to do something but fails to ask whether mankind should. This was one of them. The Continental kit mounted the spare tire vertically behind the tailgate in a manner suggesting the El Camino had backed into a Lincoln and elected not to exchange insurance information. It extended an automobile already possessing a pickup bed by an additional distance Earl estimated as “some,” complicated access to the tailgate and made the entire Chevrolet appear more expensive, provided the observer had never previously seen an expensive automobile.

Todd loved it. Earl claimed to. Indigo arrived twenty minutes later, parked, climbed out and spent several seconds looking at the rear of the El Camino in complete silence. He finally asked what they had done. Todd explained that they had improved it. Indigo pointed out that they had mounted a spare tire behind a pickup bed. Todd replied, “Continental kit,” as though this were both an explanation and a legal defense. Indigo reminded him that he knew what a Continental kit was. Todd asked why he’d asked, then.

Indigo turned toward Earl and reminded him that he was supposed to be helping Todd. Earl agreed that he was. Indigo pointed at the Chevrolet and asked, “With what?”

Earl studied the El Camino. “Tonight?”

That was how the restoration began.

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Todd started spending most evenings at Earl’s. They fixed the brake lights first because Earl maintained that stopping the automobile was only half the process of stopping it. The brakes came next, followed by seals, wiring, hoses and the various leaks through which the Chevrolet had been attempting to return its fluids to the earth. Todd removed the sagging headliner and replaced it. He sanded rust. Earl taught him to use body filler, although Earl’s definition of straight remained generous enough to encompass several geological formations. They repaired the worst sections of the body and hunted through the salvage yard for trim. The work was neither fast nor particularly elegant, but it had the advantage of always providing something that needed doing tomorrow.

A routine formed around Todd before anybody deliberately created one. He went to the Piggly Wiggly in the morning, came home in the afternoon, ate supper with Indigo and Becky, attended meetings twice a week and spent the other evenings at Earl’s. Then he slept and did it again. Weeks accumulated. So did paychecks. Todd began buying parts instead of asking Indigo for money. A gasket one week, weatherstripping the next, then a used piece of trim and a replacement lens. He kept every receipt in the glove compartment as though somebody might eventually audit his recovery.

Chad noticed the change before Indigo mentioned it. One morning he arrived at the Piggly Wiggly at six forty-five and found Todd already stocking canned vegetables. Chad reminded him that he didn’t start getting paid until seven. Todd said he knew. Chad stood there for a moment, looking at a man who several weeks earlier had considered arriving within ten minutes of his scheduled shift a major concession to organized society. He told Todd he was early. Todd shrugged and said he couldn’t sleep. Chad nodded, then noticed that Todd had put the creamed corn where the green beans belonged and informed him that this was how civilizations collapsed.

By then the El Camino had become familiar around Fort Stockton, particularly outside the Grounds for Divorce, where the Regulars monitored its evolution through the window with the unsolicited concern generally reserved for public construction projects. Hairless B29 objected to the Continental kit on engineering grounds. Angus Hopper objected to it on aesthetic grounds. Rex Hall wondered aloud what the added weight and rear overhang did to handling. Trixie liked it, which settled absolutely nothing. Todd listened to all of them with the calm assurance of a man who had thirty dollars invested in a decision and therefore could not possibly be wrong.

One morning he stopped at the GFD for coffee before work. Hairless stared through the window at the El Camino and asked whether Todd was aware that his spare tire was mounted behind the pickup bed. Todd said he was. Hairless asked why. Todd explained that Earl had put it there. Hairless asked why Earl had put it there. Todd answered, “Continental kit.” Hairless told him that still wasn’t an answer. Todd said it had been at Earl’s. Hairless considered this for a moment and admitted that explained more than he wanted to know.

Indigo sat across the table and watched his brother smile.

Todd was doing that more often.

Then Becky put him on the radio.

She maintained afterward that she had not technically put Todd on the radio because she had never used his name. Her afternoon topic was “Can a Man Outrun His Past, or Does the Past Eventually Get Better Tires?” and she described, strictly for purposes of discussion, a recovering addict recently arrived from Nebraska who was living with his older brother, working at a local grocery store and restoring an unusual red Chevrolet. She might have retained some measure of anonymity had she not mentioned the Continental kit.

Mayor Goodman called during the second segment.

“Becky, there are only so many recovering Nebraskans driving red El Caminos with Continental kits in Fort Stockton.”

Becky objected that she had never identified Todd.

“You said his brother is a tattoo artist.”

“That could be anybody.”

“In Fort Stockton?”

Becky went to a promo for the upcoming pledge drive.

Her anonymous case study had lasted twenty-three minutes.

Two days later Sheriff Ray Vickers walked into the Piggly Wiggly. Todd saw him from aisle seven and recognized official purpose before Vickers had cleared produce. Todd’s instincts regarding law enforcement had been developed over many years and in several jurisdictions. He put down a case of peas and headed toward the stockroom, where Chad intercepted him and asked where he was going. Todd said lunch. Chad looked at his watch and pointed out that it was nine-fifteen. Todd explained that he ate early.

Vickers called his name.

Todd stopped.

The old reflex was visible even from twenty feet away. For perhaps two seconds Todd Bigelow had already left the building, crossed the county line and developed strong opinions about living in New Mexico.

Then he stayed.

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Vickers had not come to arrest him. He had come to tell him that officials in Grand Island knew where he was and that the child-support matter had not disappeared merely because Todd had. Todd glanced toward the front door. Vickers noticed and told him he was free to walk through it if he wanted, but Nebraska would still be there when he got outside.

By the time Todd reached Indigo’s tattoo shop that afternoon, fear had fermented into anger and anger had located a target. He accused Indigo of turning him in. Indigo denied it. Todd didn’t believe him. Indigo pointed out that Becky had broadcast enough identifying information to locate Todd from the International Space Station, and Becky called from the other room that she had already apologized for that.

Todd kept pushing until Indigo finally admitted the part that mattered. No, he had not turned Todd in. But if Nebraska hadn’t found him, eventually Indigo would have made the call himself.

Todd stared at him.

“You said you’d help me.”

“I am helping you.”

“By turning me in?”

“I didn’t turn you in.”

“But you would.”

“Yes.”

Todd started toward the door, but Indigo did not follow him. Instead he said there was a nine-year-old girl in Nebraska. Todd told him not to bring Daisy Chain into it. Indigo asked how it was possible to discuss unpaid child support without bringing the child into it. Todd launched into the explanations he had spent years assembling: Daisy Chain’s mother had made things difficult, work had been inconsistent, the amount was wrong, the court didn’t understand, there were fees and penalties and circumstances. Indigo listened until Todd ran out of new nouns.

Then he asked, “Do you owe it?”

Todd started explaining again.

“Do you owe it?”

The room became quiet.

“Yes.”

Indigo nodded. He told Todd he would help him stay sober. He would give him a roof, drive him to meetings, help him deal with Nebraska and stand beside him in court if it came to that. He would even continue helping him fix the ridiculous El Camino.

“The Continental kit is staying,” Todd said.

Indigo stared at him. “I don’t care about the Continental kit.”

“You keep bringing it up.”

“Because it’s ridiculous.”

For half a second Todd almost smiled. Then Indigo finished what he had been trying to say. He would help Todd with almost anything, but he would not help him abandon his daughter.

Todd left.

He did not come home that night.

At eleven-thirty Indigo drove to Earl’s. The El Camino sat outside the darkened shop. Earl was in a folding chair near the formalwear building, and when Indigo asked where Todd was, Earl nodded toward the Chevrolet. Todd had been sitting inside it for several hours. Indigo asked whether he was all right. Earl considered the question before answering with the only fact that mattered.

“He’s sober.”

Indigo walked over and leaned against the front fender. Todd sat behind the wheel in darkness. Neither brother spoke for several minutes. The El Camino ticked softly as the engine cooled, and somewhere beyond Earl’s fence a truck changed gears on the highway.

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Finally Todd said, “I don’t know how to fix all of it.”

Indigo looked through the windshield at him.

“You don’t.”

Todd waited.

“You fix what you can reach.”

The next morning Todd called Grand Island.

There were forms, numbers, arrangements and an amount of money that caused him to sit down. Nothing disappeared. Nobody congratulated him. Nebraska did not forgive the debt because he had purchased an El Camino and learned how to install weatherstripping. Todd made a payment.

Then he made another.

The Chevrolet continued improving. Todd did too. Neither transformation was miraculous. The El Camino still leaked occasionally, and Todd still had bad days. Earl’s bodywork looked better from certain angles than others, particularly after sunset. Todd sometimes came home from a meeting angry at the entire concept of recovery. The Continental kit remained attached despite repeated appeals from Hairless B29, Indigo and several basic principles of automotive design. But the brake lights worked. The brakes worked. The engine stopped marking every parking space. Todd kept his job. He kept going to meetings. He kept sending money north.

Several months after his arrival, Todd walked into Indigo’s tattoo shop carrying a letter.

He could see Daisy Chain.

Indigo read it twice before asking when. Todd said next week. Indigo asked whether he was going. Todd nodded toward the window, where the El Camino sat at the curb in a single shade of red for the first time since anyone in Fort Stockton had known it.

Indigo looked at the Chevrolet.

“You sure?”

“Earl says it’ll make Nebraska.”

“Earl rents tuxedos in a junkyard.”

“He knows cars.”

“He thinks that Continental kit looks good.”

Todd conceded the point and added that Hairless had checked it too. Indigo asked what Hairless said. Todd told him Hairless said it would make Nebraska.

“And back?”

Todd paused.

“I didn’t ask that.”

The morning Todd left, half of Fort Stockton seemed to develop business near the Grounds for Divorce. Chad had given him two extra shifts before the trip and promised his job would still be there when he returned. Rex Hall supplied a first-aid kit nobody had requested. Trixie brought a wrapped package for Daisy Chain. Earl checked the fluids twice. Hairless crawled underneath the El Camino one final time while Angus stood nearby with his coffee supervising the inspection in the traditional manner of men who had no intention of crawling underneath anything themselves.

Becky arrived with fourteen sandwiches and a portable recorder. Todd pointed out that Grand Island was not fourteen sandwiches away. Becky said he might get hungry. When she mentioned doing a remote segment from Nebraska, Indigo quietly took the recorder out of her hand. Mayor Goodman happened to drive past at that moment, saw Becky holding broadcasting equipment beside the El Camino and accelerated without making eye contact.

Todd loaded his duffel bag into the bed. There was ample room despite the Continental kit, although Hairless maintained that this did not constitute vindication. Then Todd stood beside Indigo, and for a few seconds neither brother seemed to know what men were supposed to say when one of them was about to drive eleven hours toward something he had spent years avoiding.

Indigo hugged him.

Todd hugged back.

Then he climbed behind the wheel. The 4.3-liter V6 started without protest. Everyone listened for a moment. Earl nodded approvingly. Todd rolled down the window, and Indigo leaned toward him.

“You’re not running.”

Todd looked north.

“No.”

For most of his adult life Todd Bigelow had left places because something was behind him. This time there was something ahead.

He put the El Camino in gear and pulled away from the Grounds for Divorce, turned onto Dickinson Boulevard and headed east toward the highways that would eventually carry him north. The Continental kit projected proudly and unnecessarily from the rear, a thirty-dollar monument to the proposition that improvement and good judgment are not always the same thing.

Angus watched until the El Camino disappeared.

“He’ll make it,” Becky said.

Nobody answered.

There are statements you do not improve by voting on them.

Eight days later Indigo was sitting with the Regulars at the GFD when his phone buzzed. The photograph had been taken in a driveway in Grand Island. Daisy Chain Bigelow sat behind the wheel of the El Camino, grinning, both hands wrapped around the steering wheel with the enormous seriousness of a nine-year-old pretending to drive. Todd stood beside her.

He looked tired.

He looked happy.

He looked sober.

Behind them, sticking proudly and unnecessarily from the rear of the Chevrolet, was Earl’s Continental kit.

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Indigo studied the photograph long enough that Lucinda stopped beside him with the coffee pot and asked whether Todd had made it. Indigo nodded. She asked about the car. Indigo enlarged the picture, inspected the El Camino and said, “Apparently.”

Angus leaned across the table far enough to see the photograph.

“Running and driving?”

Indigo looked again at his brother and the little girl behind the steering wheel.

“Both of ’em.”

For perhaps fifteen seconds the Grounds for Divorce became unusually quiet, which was approximately fourteen seconds beyond its design specifications.

Then the front door opened and Becky hurried inside carrying her phone. Todd was going to be on the show at three, she announced. Indigo slowly lowered his coffee and asked whether she had actually asked him.

Becky stopped.

The Regulars looked at her.

She looked at Indigo.

“Well.”

Indigo closed his eyes.

And somewhere in Grand Island, Nebraska, Todd Bigelow began reconsidering the advantages of being wanted by the authorities.

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