The Ambassador of Nowhere Texas

by Kimberly Willis Holt

I squatted too. “Hey, puppy.”

  The dog paid me no mind.

  “I guess I’m not that interesting,” I said.

  “You have to be a belly rubber,” Joe told me.

  The dog’s ears flopped, and his tongue hung out of the corner of his mouth. He actually looked like he was grinning.

  Every dog started to howl when Sheriff Levi appeared on the porch, wearing a dirty cowboy hat, a stiffly starched shirt, and faded jeans. His stature was long, bony, and a little stooped. He went to the edge of the porch, cupped his hands around his mouth, and sang out in a high-pitched yodel, adding his part to the dog chorus. “Yi—ppy-yi-yo!”

  The dogs continued while Sheriff Levi threw back his head and howled with them.

  Then as if remembering he wasn’t a dog, Sheriff Levi stood military style with his arms at his side and ordered, “At ease!”

  The dogs quieted.

  Clearly impressed, Joe kept looking over at me, but I’d been here before. This was Sheriff Levi’s way of saying “howdy.”

  Then the dog whisperer called out to me, “Rylee Wilson, is that you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sheriff Levi was in front of us now, teetering a little on his skinny legs. He’d gotten so old, and his right eye still twitched. “Haven’t seen you in a while. I need to go in town and get a Bahama Mama soon. Who’s your friend?”

  “This is Joe.”

  “Hi,” Joe said.

  Sheriff Levi held out his hand, and Joe surprised me. He took hold and gave Sheriff Levi’s hand a shake—not a firm one, but at least he made an effort.

  “Joe, hope you liked our welcome.”

  Joe smiled and nodded.

  “Did you come here for a dog?” Sheriff Levi asked.

  “No,” Joe said. “A bike.” He glanced around, but the only bike leaning against the house was old and a little rusty on the fenders.

  “That’s it,” Sheriff Levi said. “I put a new chain on it. It could use a new paint job, though.”

  And more. I wanted to tell Joe to skip this one. Maybe Dad would sell him his, since he hadn’t ridden it in years.

  Joe walked over to it. “Is it still thirty dollars?”

  “If you take a dog, I’ll give it to you for free.”

  “I’m sorry. I really don’t want a dog.”

  “Then it’s twenty dollars,” Sheriff Levi said.

  Joe squinted. “I thought the ad said thirty dollars.”

  “Ten dollars off on account of your good taste in friends.” Sheriff Levi winked at me, or maybe it was just the twitch.

  “Thanks.” Joe uncurled his thin roll of cash and peeled away some bills.

  “Don’t you want to try it out first?” I asked him.

  “You’re welcome to,” Sheriff Levi said. “Might be a good idea.”

  “Nah, I trust you.”

  “So be it. Sold.”

  Before we took off, Sheriff Levi insisted that we see the photograph Miss Myrtie Mae left him. We waited while he went into the house and brought out the picture of a hound dog sitting in the back seat of the sheriff’s car peering through the criminal bars. “That was Duke, one of my favorite dogs. Found him walking around the square.”

  I told him about the Zachary Beaver picture Miss Myrtie Mae left Dad.

  “Goodness gracious, I think of that boy every now and then. I’ve always been partial to orphans. I wonder if he’s still alive.”

  “I wish I knew,” I said.

  “If he is,” Sheriff Levi said, “he might live in Florida.”

  “Hey, maybe Juan Garcia knows?” Joe joked.

  Sheriff Levi thought Joe was being serious. “Oh, I doubt that. Garcia is too busy on the PGA tour. The reason I suggested Florida is there’s a little town there where a lot of circus and sideshow people live when they aren’t traveling. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard of any sideshows in years. He may be retired.”

  Sheriff Levi opened the front door, placed the picture against the wall, and stepped back out. “Zachary might live in New York City. I believe that was where he was from. Somewhere around those parts.”

  “Really?” Joe would never stop bugging me about finding Zachary Beaver now.

  “Joe’s from New York City,” I told Sheriff Levi.

  He faced Joe. “Are you the boy who’s living with his mom in Miss Myrtie Mae’s house?”

  “Well, I guess it’s ours now,” Joe said.

  Sheriff Levi nodded. “Yep, yep, that’s right.”

  “We lived in Brooklyn,” Joe told him.

  “Sorry you had to go through all that craziness that went on there. What’s the world coming to?”

  Joe turned and walked away fast with the bike at his side like he was trying to forget Sheriff Levi’s comment. “Thanks for the bike,” he said, but he didn’t turn around.

  “Thanks, Sheriff Levi. Come by the stand when you can.” I rushed off to catch up with Joe.

  The little dog raced past me and reached Joe before I did. Joe stopped walking, and stared down. “Sorry, little guy. You can’t come home with me.”

  Sheriff Levi reached us and scooped the dog into his arms. “Sure you don’t want a dog, Joe?”

  Joe shook his head and began moving forward, guiding the bike again.

  Petting the runaway’s head, Sheriff Levi turned to me, and said, “Tell your parents hello and that I’ll be getting that snow cone before the week’s out.”

  I jogged up to Joe’s side, afraid that Sheriff Levi’s comment would set us back to the rough part of our new friendship. I wasn’t good at filling these pauses, but I took a stab. “You don’t think your mom would let you have a dog?”

  “Sure, she’d probably let me,” he answered, “but I don’t want a dog.”

  “I’d have one, but Mom and Mayzee are allergic to them.”

  “Dogs die,” he said.

  The wind picked up, blowing a tumbleweed across our path. Down the road ahead dozens of them rolled until they reached the raised track.

  “Wow!” Joe said. “Where do they come from?”

  Tumbleweeds were nothing new to me. They looked mighty rolling across the prairie and the highways, but as soon as they hit something big, they fell apart.

  One night, right before a snowstorm, Mom and I were driving back from Oklahoma. Giant tumbleweeds, as big as bales of hay, seemed to come out of nowhere as they rolled in front of our car. We’d squealed each time one crossed our way, but we drove right through them, scattering them into a million tiny sticks.

  Joe tilted his chin and peered at me sideways. “So, Ambassador, are you going to teach me to ride this bike?”

  CHAPTER 25

  “You don’t know how to ride a bike?”

  “Nope.” Joe wasn’t embarrassed. “My mom saw a guy flip over and hit his head when she was pregnant with me. She thinks it was a sign that I shouldn’t ever learn.”

  “My mom and dad have always made me wear a helmet,” I told him. “It was green and the other kids used to call me Martian. Then Sheriff Levi started giving out coupons for an ice cream cone from the Dairy Queen to any kid he caught wearing a helmet. After that, it was cool.”

  “Well, I guess I better wear a helmet, then. I like ice cream cones. Ready for my first lesson?”

  The dirt road that ran along the railroad track was a perfect place for teaching someone how to ride a bike. The only people who could possibly see us were the cars speeding up as they left Antler.

  Joe straddled the bike, and I steadied it by gripping the seat.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  “I mean go!”

  I still had hold of the bike seat while he put his feet on the pedals. When he pressed down, I let go. Joe started out wobbly—going slow, too slow.

  He fell.

  “That’s okay. Nice first try.” I tried to sound encouraging.

  He bounced up, brushed himself off, and got back on.

  Come on, I thought, faster, faster.
Joe didn’t remind me of someone who would be cautious at anything. But that was the way he pedaled. Then he fell.

  I rushed over to him. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded and jumped back on, returning to his slow pedaling. He fell again, and again. And again. Guaranteed bruises.

  “If you pick up the speed early on, you won’t wobble and fall,” I told him.

  I’d never taught anyone to ride a bike. Mayzee still used training wheels. This was hard.

  On the next attempt, Joe increased his speed from the start, and he was off.

  “Yes!” I yelled.

  Smooth sailing. It was as if those falls had never happened.

  Ka-nuck, ka-nuck, ka-nuck. The train was up the track from us but soon parallel. Joe waved his arm high, and the engineer sounded the long, vibrating whistle. Wooo-wooo. Ka-nuck, ka-nuck, ka-nuck.

  Then Joe stretched both arms toward the sky and pedaled hands free. Now he was racing the train. I sprinted, trying to catch up, but Joe kept pedaling faster. He gripped the handlebars, leaned back, and did a wheelie. If it weren’t for the earlier falls, I’d have sworn he was bluffing me.

  Breathless, I focused on the tip of his braid, which was blowing in the wind like a clock pendulum.

  Joe was a quick learner. A few minutes before, he had no balance. Now he was coasting down the path with me trailing way behind and the last train cars whizzing by.

  “How do you stop?” he yelled, without turning around.

  I quit running so I could speak. “Squeeze the brakes under your handles!”

  He looked down, moving.

  “They don’t work!” he hollered.

  Joe slowed to a tricycle pace, let go of the bike, raised his arms and dove sideways, landing mere feet away from the track. He sprawled out flat, kissing the ground as the train sped by.

  I rushed up to him. “I’m sorry. I should have told you how to stop before you started.”

  He rolled over onto his back. No bruises, but his cheeks and nose were smudged with dirt. “It doesn’t matter. The brakes are shot.”

  “Good thing your mom’s not here.”

  Joe started to laugh and held up his arms. “Help me up.”

  I gave him a good yank until he was sitting on the ground, where I joined him. I pointed to my cheeks.

  He raised his eyebrows like he didn’t understand.

  “Um … you have a little dirt,” I explained.

  “Oh,” he said. Then he wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “Gone?”

  I nodded.

  “Should I get my money back from that shyster?” he asked.

  “Sheriff Levi’s not a shyster. He probably didn’t know. I doubt he’s ever ridden a bike. But how did you—”

  “I’m kidding. He’s a little loony, though, in a good way. Surely somebody can fix bicycle brakes around here.”

  “I know someone who can fix bikes, but I don’t think you like him.”

  “Vernon?”

  Then I laughed. “No, Uncle Cal. He’s a cyclist and pretty good at stuff like that. He thinks it’s fun. Dad told me when Uncle Cal was a kid, he took apart his bicycle so he could put it back together again.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like him. I just don’t want him hitting on my mom.”

  “Okay, then,” I told him. “Let’s stop by his place on the way back. He’s probably home by now. Are you going to say anything to him about the flowers?”

  “Nah.” He smiled. “He might mess up my brakes.”

  At the next turnoff, we crossed the railroad tracks and then the highway. We passed the Dairy Queen and reached the square. This felt like old times with Twig. Every day had seemed like an adventure.

  “How did you know how to do all those brave stunts—riding without your hands and then that wheelie?”

  Joe shrugged. “Beginner’s luck.”

  I wondered if there was more to it than that.

  * * *

  After Joe’s first riding lesson, we walked over to Uncle Cal’s home and met him as he pulled in the driveway. He told Joe he’d fix his brakes after work the next week.

  “Rylee says you cycle?” Joe said it like he wasn’t that interested.

  “Every day,” Uncle Cal said. “If you ever want to join me, I ride around the town in the morning, right before dawn.”

  “I’m not a morning person,” Joe told him, throwing in a fake yawn.

  Uncle Cal got on Joe’s bike and tried out the brakes. “I’ll give you a holler when I’m finished.”

  I started to leave, but Joe nudged me with his elbow. “Why don’t you ask him about Zachary?”

  I halfway shrugged.

  Uncle Cal straightened his posture. “What’s that?”

  “Dad doesn’t really want to find out what happened to him. He says he wants to remember him like he was. That it had been a bad summer and Zachary Beaver was the best part.”

  Uncle Cal grimaced. Then he took off his cap and wiped the sweat from his brow before replacing it. “Yeah, that was the summer of seventy-one, the summer my brother, Wayne, died over in Vietnam.”

  “I’m sorry,” I barely whispered the words. “I knew about Wayne, but I didn’t know when he—”

  Joe looked away, shading his eyes as if he were on the lookout for something.

  “It was a long time ago, Rylee,” Uncle Cal said. “Still miss him, though. Even now, whenever I ride out to the canyon overlook and there’s not a soul out there, I scream, ‘Wayne McKnight, I miss you!’ It feels like my words fly straight up to heaven.”

  Joe faced us again, and I could tell he was taking it all in.

  “I wish I’d known him,” I said.

  “No one like him.” Uncle Cal turned away from us, but not before I heard the choke in his voice.

  CHAPTER 26

  The following Sunday, Joe called to tell me Uncle Cal had finished fixing the brakes. “Want to meet me over there?”

  My shift wouldn’t start for another hour, so I got on my bike and headed across the street. Joe was already making the corner.

  “You run fast!” I told him, hopping off my bike.

  “I used to run track,” he said, speeding to a halt. He wore old bowling shoes—burgundy and green with the number eight.

  “Antler has a track team. Maybe you can be on it.”

  He frowned. “I don’t know how I would do it without Arham. We always paced each other. By the way, you do kind of look like a Martian.”

  “Huh?”

  He tapped my helmet.

  “It’s pink,” I said. “Martians are green.”

  “Who knows if Martians are green?”

  “My dad said you could use his helmet until you get one.”

  When Joe didn’t respond, I said, “It would probably make your mom feel better after what happened.”

  Joe frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “The accident she saw before you were born?”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “What did your mom say about the bike?”

  “Well, I’m working on it.”

  We walked together down the McKnights’ long driveway. It ended a few yards before Uncle Cal’s mobile home, where he stood next to a shiny bike. Not only had Uncle Cal fixed the brakes, he’d given it a new paint job, too.

  We stared at the metallic blue finish.

  “Is that the same bike?” Joe asked.

  “Oh, I gave it a spit shine.” Uncle Cal took out a cloth from his back pocket and wiped an imaginary smudge on the back fender.

  “Man! Thanks,” Joe said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know. But I did.”

  “What do I owe you?”

  “Owe me?” Uncle Cal scowled. “Well, could you get me a pair of those spiffy shoes?”

  “Ferris said I could have them,” said Joe. “He was going to throw them out, but I think they’re cool. Comfortable, too.”

  “I’m kidding. That’s not my style.” Uncle Cal was one of those Texans who wore
cowboy boots almost every day.

  “Well, thanks, again,” Joe said.

  He seemed uncomfortable saying it. Maybe it was hard to say thank you for something his dad might have done had he been alive. Or maybe because Joe couldn’t forget that Uncle Cal was crushing on his mom.

  “You should let me pay you,” Joe said, walking the bike down the driveway.

  “Just wear a helmet,” Uncle Cal said before he went back inside.

  When Uncle Cal disappeared, Joe asked, “How about that Gossimer Pit? Or is that a rumor?”

  “Follow me,” I told him. “But I can’t stay long. I have to report to work soon.”

  We pedaled to the western edge of town, where Allsup’s sat, and turned south. The dried-up small playa lake was located in a field. One of the old NO FISHING, NO SWIMMING signs was still posted. It was ten feet at the deepest, and sometimes it did almost fill up if we had some heavy rains. But that was rare. When Mr. Gossimer was alive, he kept it filled with a hose connected to his well. But there hadn’t been any complaints since it had become a pit.

  Joe stared at the bicycle tread patterns creating a mosaic covering the surface. I had a hunch I knew what he was thinking, that this wasn’t what he thought the pit would be, that there was something better in New York.

  “Well?” I said.

  A big grin spread across his face. “Awesome!”

  Finally something from Antler had impressed him. It felt like a door opening. Maybe it would lead to something else that might make him happy here.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  We rode and rode, crisscrossing the pit. At some point, Joe got carried away and did a wheelie. Then he checked my reaction and fell.

  I jumped off my bike and rushed over to him.

  He brushed himself off, then he sprang to his feet. “Well,” he said, “are you ready to start on our project?”

  “What project?”

  “The Zachary Beaver Project.”

  I let out a big sigh and glanced down at my watch. My work shift would start in five minutes.

  “What are you afraid of?” Joe asked. “That he’ll tell you he hated Antler? Couldn’t wait to get away?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “My dad could be right. Something could have happened to him.”

  “Well, if it did, you don’t have to tell him. It would probably only take a phone call. And think about how happy your dad would be if you found him and everything was great. Maybe Zachary lost weight. Maybe he’s a runner.”