The caboose answers to a collie. The farm answers to a girl in her early twenties who also answers to Goat Maiden when the weddings need a story walking through the door with a tray.
THE CREW
TWO ON THE PAPERS More in the lantern light.
TWO ON THE PAPERS More in the lantern light.
The caboose answers to a collie. The farm answers to a girl in her early twenties who also answers to Goat Maiden when the weddings need a story walking through the door with a tray.
Conductor · Border collie · Black and white
She reads a hillside the way some people read a clock. On a run she takes the flank, the gate, and the last look back. On the farm she is Dolly’s partner, not her pet. The whistle is hers. So is the cupola.
Engineer · Goat Maiden · Early twenties
She keeps Arkatype Farms. She keeps the Dodecahedron the Snawfus gave her. She earns the farm money by bringing the Goat Maiden to other people’s celebrations — beverages, story, and a character that can be franchised the way a fairy tale is franchised. On the rails she is the one who says when the platform is clear.
Personal vehicle · Nested inside the caboose
Not a crew member who signs the manifest. A tool with opinions. Duckster is Dolly’s own rig, stored in a bay of the infinitely larger caboose, used when a job is too tight for trucks and a bell.
The beasts of the Dodecahedron — the old Ozark company Vance Randolph wrote down so they would not be forgotten — live inside that twelve-sided gift. They go in and out at will. They are not lost. They are not late. They do not belong on a rescue list.
They do, however, help. On a hard run they may walk the flank with Charlotte. When a crate of ordinary critters is set down at Arkatype Farms, they help with the second mercy: intelligence and language, so the newcomers can join the talking farm instead of only grazing it.
Professor Gruff prints the goat news. The caboose keeps the lantern sheets. Same county. Different desk.