The waitress came with the coffeepot and filled his cup without asking. She took the empty plate. She looked at it and then at him, and she did not say anything, and he did not either. He wanted to ask her where she had learned that saying. He wanted to ask her name, her real name, though he could see it right there on her chest on the plastic tag. He did not ask anything. He said, "Thank you. Tell Earl thank you," and she said, "He knows," and went back behind the counter.
When Josie had finished her chocolate milk and done the word search on the placemat — she found BUFFALO and CORNHUSKER and PLATTE but not SANDHILLS, which was hidden diagonally backwards and which Walt pointed out to her — he left two dollars on the table for the grilled cheese and the milk and the coffee, and another dollar under the saucer, which he could not afford and would not have taken back for anything in the world.
Outside the snow had thickened. The lot was white and the grain elevator was a ghost of itself. He buckled Josie in and walked around to the driver's side and got in and turned the key, and the Ford started on the second try, coughing, and he backed it out of the space and pulled toward the frontage road.
He got perhaps forty feet.
There was a sound from under the hood like a fan belt taking a deep breath and then not letting it out. A white cloud came up over the windshield all at once, so thick he could not see the road, and the temperature needle went flat against the pin, and a sweet hot smell filled the car. Walt stopped. He shut off the engine. In the silence they could hear something dripping steadily onto the snow underneath them, and the hiss of it as it hit.
Josie looked at him with her owl's eyebrows.
"Is it resting?"
"It's resting," said Walt, and put his forehead against the steering wheel for just a moment, and then lifted it.
* * *
The cook, Earl, came out first, in his paper hat and a canvas jacket, and then the old man with the crossword, and then the waitress, with a cardigan pulled on over her uniform and her arms wrapped around herself. Earl lifted the hood and peered in at the engine with a flashlight while the steam drifted away, and then he got down on his knees in the snow and shone the light up underneath.
"Water pump," he said, getting up. "Seal's gone. See where it's coming out by the pulley? She's pissing coolant like a Jersey cow. Pardon me, little miss."
"That's okay," said Josie. "We had cows."
"Can it be fixed?" Walt asked.
"Sure it can be fixed. Can't be fixed today." Earl wiped his hands on his jacket. "Hector's got the Texaco down on First, he'll have it towed for you, but he'll have to order the part out of North Platte and nobody in North Platte answers a phone on a Saturday after noon, and Sunday's Sunday. Monday afternoon, maybe. Monday morning if God likes you."
"What's it run?"