Publisher's Synopsis
Like a hot dust-devil, charismatic Phineas Farrow arrives in a small West Texas railroad town in 1896. In short order, he cooks up a hare-brained scheme to make a fortune for the struggling townsfolk by staging a head-on wreck of two derelict train engines just west of the desolate little community. The plan is to import wealthy Easterners to pay for viewing the historic event. Phineas convinces reluctant but ambitious stationmaster, Marvin G. Crush, to persuade Stella Villard to fund the event with her entire fortune or recently inherited railroad stock. In addition to the wreck, thirteen year old Felix Manguson urges the organisers to being in a seedy side-show he has learned about: Attaboy, The Amazing Mayan Mummy and Frieda, The Talking Head. In this raucous narrative based on actual events, social, religious and racial tensions collide explosively just like tow speeding train engines, leaving the town changed forever.
