“Come and get it or the vultures will!” called Mike’s dad from the kitchen.
Mike opened his eyes and yawned, lying naked on his bed atop its single blanket. “Okay!” he called, and stretched like a coyote.
It was only around seven o’clock, but the morning air was already hot, the sun blazing in through the open window and just warming up for a broiling day. There was a brand new air conditioner, but Mike hadn’t been using it much because he was acclimating himself to life in the Arizona desert. A month ago he’d have leaped out of bed to perform fifty puffing push-ups, then don gym shorts to sweatily jog his nice suburban neighborhood in Thousand Oaks, California, while telling himself how healthy he was and how good it felt to come panting home to a bowl of granola and non-fat milk, but one of the laws of desert life was never Get Active unless you had to; so despite the beckoning aromas of sausage and eggs with hash-brown potatoes, he lazily pillowed his head on his arms and gazed around his room.

Scooter pointed ahead. “Hey, is that another ghost? I didn’t think they came out in the daytime.”
“Depends on the ghost,” said Little Coyote, leaning out of the cab behind Mike, who leaned from the window shading his eyes against the glare of the mid-morning sun.
“It’s somebody on a horse,” said Mike. “...Looks like they’re riding to meet us about a half mile ahead.”
“Think its the Codyville sheriff?” asked Scooter.
“Looks like the pony express,” said Mike. “With a real late delivery.”
Little Coyote shaded his eyes and also studied the figures, their outlines blurred by shimmering heat waves. “I’ve never seen a ghost rider trailing a cloud of physical dust.”
“Guess we should stop?” asked Scooter.
“So it would seem.”
Scooter put in the throttle, pulled down the cut-off and grasped the brake lever as they coasted on, the engine’s puffing subsiding. Mike, still shading his eyes, peered ahead though the wraiths of heat wavering back from the boiler. “...Looks like a chubby Indian boy on... what do you call ‘em?”
“Painted ponies,” said Little Coyote, still leaning out behind Mike as the locomotive continued to slow and horse and rider neared the track about a quarter mile ahead.