by Susan Patron
“Well,” Lincoln said, straight-faced, to Ollie, “looks like it was a good thing you wore all that safety gear.”
“Safety gear,” Justine repeated, frowning, as she spun the wheel of the pizza cutter. Lucky was used to the way that Justine was always tapping or clicking or rapping or flicking—making little noises not on purpose but because the engine inside her seemed to operate at a faster speed, like the whirring of a hummingbird’s wings.
Brigitte turned to her. “What? Justine, something is wrong?”
Justine rubbed her arms like someone trying to warm herself, though the temperature was already up close to the eighties. “It’s Miles. He’s supposed to be here. He said he’d meet me right here. I shouldn’t be worried, since the kingdom of heaven is within him, within all of us, right this minute. But this morning he got so mad at me. We argued when I explained that he cannot have a burro of his own.” Justine touched the gelled tips of her spiky hair. “He’s been asking for days and days, and he won’t listen when I say no. So he stomped outside just before I came by to help with the refreshments. I haven’t seen him for over an hour.”
Brigitte touched Justine’s arm and said, “Probably you do not need to worry. All the people in Hard Pan love Miles and watch out for him. It is like Lucky is saying always to me: What is the worst thing that can happen?”
Shouts from the crew up on the plateau by the mine made all seven of them (including HMS Beagle) turn to look, as a Caterpillar engine rumbled and began very slowly to tow a slat-sided wooden cabin down the dirt road to where they were waiting.
Paloma gripped Lucky’s hands. “Here it comes!” she said. “Let’s be the Hard Pan cabin-moving cheerleader team!”
Although they had occasional slight difficulties with their new flip-flops because they tended to fly off during sideways leg kicks (which was very exciting to HMS Beagle), all in all their jumping jacks and other moves were nicely coordinated and very enthusiastic. Lucky knew both Lincoln and Ollie were watching them as much as the cabin-moving, and she felt pretty sure that she and Paloma looked every bit as cool as real junior high cheerleaders, if not cooler.
17. a glitch
Everything was going fine with the operation. The Cat loader slowly gained speed and momentum as it towed its cargo down the hill. The star of the event, the cabin itself, looked prettily old-fashioned, with its wood-shingle roof and clapboard siding. Every member of the crew was shouting directions, questions, comments, and orders to every other member of the crew. They were having a wonderful time.
Klincke Ken wasn’t worried about the brake problem, the problem being that the loader didn’t have any. He wasn’t worried because he’d planned it all out. The kids were out of the way, safely behind the designated viewing area. The other spectators had been ordered to stay well behind the trailer and under no circumstances whatsoever to go in front of his loader. He would simply sail along at a reasonable pace; there was no need to come to a standstill anywhere on his route. And once he arrived at the destination, he’d ease the Caterpillar in low gear up an ingenious inclined ramp that he’d built especially for this purpose. The ramp would bring the loader to a stop. Since he knew it would all go as planned, Klincke Ken had not seen any point in telling anyone that the salvaged towing vehicle had no brakes.
He sat in the driver’s seat and flashed a huge, brand-new, triumphant Grizzle White Enamel smile as he sailed down the road. The cabin, nearly as wide as the dirt road, lumbered along behind him on its dolly made from parts off the abandoned eighteen-wheeler and the lowboy trailer, the clapboard walls creaking, shingled roof flapping, windows rattling, chains whipping, huge tires grinding into the pavement. The noise was deafening. It was a glorious spectacle. A line of dusty vehicles and crew and onlookers followed in Klincke Ken’s wake, looking like a Fourth of July parade that had been lost for a long, long time in the desert.
Lucky saw movement to her right, out of the corner of her eye, and she turned toward it just as Lincoln did. A small orange animal in the distance was darting across the road.
“Kirby!” Lincoln said. It was Klincke Ken’s little ginger mouser.
Following a few yards behind the cat was Chesterfield, who had clearly escaped his bedspring fence. Chesterfield was similar to all burros in that he did not care to be told what to do. He liked to do what he wanted to do. And apparently he did not want to be in Klincke Ken’s yard, but did want to be in the middle of the road. Because when he came to an exactly perfect middle-of-the-road spot, he stopped. And that is where he stayed. He crooked one leg at the ankle, like a gentleman waiting for his turn at golf, and swished a fly with his tail. Kirby curled up in the shady place on the ground under his belly. She understood that Chesterfield had found the one good spot—not a little ahead nor a little back but right there. Naturally, all she wanted was to share that spot with him.
Since Lucky was squinting straight toward the bright mid-morning sun, she couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as if Chesterfield had an extra pair of legs—or was it some kind of shadow movement—something on the burro’s other side. She used her two hands to shade her eyes, frowning, finally realizing that the head belonging to the extra legs was obscured by Chesterfield’s great head, and that the extra legs could belong to only one short unaccounted-for person: Miles.
The official viewing station was situated where the dirt road from the plateau at the mine met the paved road into Hard Pan, allowing people there a clear view both of the cabin’s starting place and all along the trajectory, like the leg of an L that continued downhill toward Brigitte’s Hard Pan Café. They could see the crew as it accompanied the cabin down from the plateau, and they could see Chesterfield fifty or sixty yards to the east. But because there were shacks and trailers and houses along the present part of his route, Klincke Ken could not yet see his beloved cat and burro right in the middle of the road he was about to turn onto, nor the small boy on the other side of the burro. But what he could see was that the loaded-up cab was moving faster than he expected.
Ollie saw it too. “It’s fast,” he said. “That burro better move it.”
He tossed his skateboard on the road and tore off toward Chesterfield, one foot churning the blacktop as his skateboard gained momentum. With the Beag at her side, Lucky broke into a run after Ollie, calling back something over her shoulder, ignoring Brigitte’s “Stop!”
Justine grabbed Brigitte’s hand. “What did she say? Something about Miles? Do you see him? I don’t have my glasses.” She squinted in Lucky’s direction.
Paloma yelled out, “Oh, my God, he’s in the road—he’s on the other side of that burro—” She began waving her arms and shouting, “Get back! Get back!”
Justine cried out as Brigitte called, “Lucky!” and then both of them were also flying down the road, Justine in the lead.
Lincoln darted across the pavement, just in front of where the approaching Cat and its load would make the wide turn.
“Lincoln!” Paloma screamed across at him. “What are you doing? Why isn’t Klincke Ken slowing down?”
“I’m jumping aboard while he makes the turn,” Lincoln shouted back. “May need help!” He meant, of course, Klincke Ken.
But Paloma thought he meant that he might need help, so she nodded, readying herself to climb on from her side as the contraption rounded the turn.
18. an unexpected outcome
Klincke Ken took the corner just a bit too abruptly, which caused the whole building to shift. The cabin was chained to the phone poles and to the dolly, but the chains were not ratcheted too tightly, allowing for a little movement. Not enough for the cabin to slip off, but enough for it to tip and to slide out a bit over the edge of its platform.
Since he was so busy overcorrecting the imbalance this caused, and a great deal of advice and warnings were being hollered by the bystanders who trotted along behind—not that Klincke Ken paid the slightest attention to them—he didn’t notice Lincoln and Paloma on either side of him. But as Lincoln had g
uessed, turning the corner forced Klincke Ken to downshift and the loader to slow down to the pace of a slow jog, making it possible to hop on. The gigantic rear tires of the loader presented a logistical problem: You had to avoid those tires. However, there was a space behind them, behind Klincke Ken in the driver’s seat, where, by trotting alongside and gripping the edge and then jamming one foot onto a little low metal platform, a person with good timing could scramble aboard. Paloma obviously had the same idea. She tore her leggings, lost a flip-flop, stubbed her toe, and scraped her knee, and Lincoln, trying to favor his injured right wrist, banged his elbow—but both of them managed to climb up and hang on.
The cabin-moving crew and spectators were triumphant at the success and brilliance of the first and most problematic leg of the project. As they reached the now deserted official observation area, they figured the kids had gone on to wait at the cabin’s final destination; their view ahead was blocked by the cabin itself. So they continued following along behind in a straggly bunch, discussing the finer points of Klincke Ken’s achievements so far.
All except Mrs. Wellborne, who was alarmed on not finding Paloma at the viewing station, where she was supposed to be. She had a terrible blinding worry about Paloma, so she took off her elegant shoes and trotted barefoot in the sand bordering the road, dodging bushes and snake holes, trying to maneuver around Klincke Ken and his load in order to get ahead of it.
In her mind, timed to the slapping of her flip-flops on the pavement, Lucky heard a chant. The words burned in the flame of her original what-if-the-Café-disappeared thought that had then led to the visit of the county health department inspector. As she pounded toward Miles and the animals, the words drummed in her ears. What-if, what-if, what-if, what-if. What if Klincke Ken’s contraption couldn’t stop in time? What if people got killed? It would all be her fault. Her fault, her fault, her fault, her fault. She ran faster.
And then, to her amazement, Justine shot by, zooming ahead easily.
And ahead of her, Miles was trying to get Chesterfield to move off the road. He must have seen how close Klincke Ken was, and he was not going to leave Chesterfield in its path, no matter what. He was being so typically Miles! And why the heck wasn’t Klincke Ken slowing down? Was he crazy? Didn’t he see them? And at that moment, her flip-flop came down on a rock. Her ankle buckled and she flew forward, flat on her face.
Klincke Ken gave the loader some gas as he came out of the turn. He was feeling thrilled, exultant, and optimistic. After wrestling with the Cat’s gears and its steering wheel, he felt he had the unwieldy cabin steady again, and not in danger of slipping off. But suddenly there were two kids right behind him, climbing onto his loader—what in tarnation? Then he saw it was only Lincoln and a girl, but still he was thrown by this unplanned-for event. He twisted around to frown at Lincoln, who shouted, “Help?” which just plain made Klincke Ken mad. People asked him for help all the time, and usually he was happy to do what he could, but right now? At a time like this? He was let down, shaken, disappointed to realize that Lincoln—always a serious, smart boy—was not being more respectful of the importance of this operation.
“Later!” Klincke Ken shouted. “I’m a little busy!” He resolved to ignore those two and turned back around to face front and the home stretch. And what he saw caused him to rise up in his seat. Kids! And women! Half the blasted town, it looked like—all over the road! One boy ahead of the others on a skateboard; then Justine, it looked like, with HMS Beagle streaking beside her; then someone—it must be Lucky—who was down, lying on the road near the side; and Brigitte pulling up the rear, and zigzagging behind them but thank God off-road, another woman in a billowing dress. And what they were all running toward about fifty yards ahead was that little boy Miles, and he was pulling on . . . Chesterfield! Klincke Ken felt his heart thump hard against his chest, like it was trying to get out. Chesterfield! And Kirby! Right in the middle of the street.
He glanced to his left. Trailers and houses lined the road, big liquid propane tanks between each building. The other side was the desert, after a soft shoulder and a sandy drop of about four feet. Klincke Ken faced the horror of his situation. He could not stop the loader. If he drove to the left, anybody inside those houses would be killed and he’d certainly rip into one of the propane tanks, causing an explosion and massive fire. If he plowed straight ahead, he’d hit Chesterfield, Kirby, and women and children. If he drove off the road to the right, where he’d seen many upside-down vehicles over the years, the weight and momentum of the cabin and dolly would cause them, and naturally the Cat, to flip over. The two kids behind him would fly off and get their necks broke, or they’d get crushed, all three of them would, under the vehicle. So Klincke Ken gripped the wheel and pressed on, panic-stricken, stunned, and desperate for a miracle.
Ollie sped on, knees bent, taking advantage of the downhill slope of the blacktop, maneuvering as best he could along its rough surface. His plan was to leap his board—to do an ollie—just as he passed behind the burro, and as he sailed by he’d slap the animal’s rump hard to make it get the heck off the road.
But before he even had a chance to do this, the sound that his skateboard wheels made—a loud grating noise Chesterfield had never heard and did not care for in the least—gave the burro a bad opinion of the developing situation. Another thing Chesterfield did not like was the way the boy was coming up very fast behind him. The reaction was instinctive, a reflex that burros have perfected over the thousands of years they’ve lived among humans. And Chesterfield timed his move exactly, kicking out with his back legs at exactly the right moment. He just wanted that fast-moving noisy boy to quit bothering him. Fortunately for Ollie, those powerful hooves made contact with the skateboard rather than directly with the boy, who flew backward and landed on a pile of abandoned rimless tires on the side of the road.
Kirby objected. Too much kicking, shouting, running, noise, commotion! She wailed and skittered away toward home. This electrified Chesterfield, who bolted after her.
Then Justine reached the scene. She scooped up Miles under one arm and dove to the desert side of the road, followed by HMS Beagle, the three of them rolling to a breathless, gasping stop on soft sand.
Lucky, having just fallen, lay in a kind of trance, the breath knocked out of her and no new breath coming for what seemed a long while; one part of her knew she needed to get up but another part decided it would wait for another few minutes until her thoughts got clearer. Then a cry broke through, and at the same time Lucky felt herself being yanked off the road, grasped under her arms by Brigitte’s strong hands. A second later, as she and Brigitte looked up, the loader and its cargo charged by. Mrs. Wellborne, stopping for breath, turned in surprise to see her daughter standing behind the driver, sailing past.
In the time it took Klincke Ken to blink, the road before him had become wondrously clear. He believed it was a miracle. One second the great mass of machinery bore down on people and animals and the next second not a boy, not a girl, not a woman, not a dog, cat, nor burro in sight. Klincke Ken pressed on ahead, certain he didn’t deserve the good fortune that had just come his way but glad to accept it. The two in the loader behind him cheered loudly. Klincke Ken didn’t even hear them as he contemplated the glory and the terror all of them had just survived. The sky had never in his life been so blue, the air so pure, or the sun so brilliant.
* * *
Finally the Caterpillar wheezed to a stop a few yards short of its destination, having run out of gas due to a second slight miscalculation of Klincke Ken’s. Several pickup trucks took over, chaining the cabin to their rear tow bars. In a kind of dusty, noisy truck ballet, the vehicles coordinated their moves, inching the cabin off the dolly with a shrieking of joists and clanking of chains and revving of engines, up the slight ramp and onto the steel rail foundation. The little cabin extended the C shape of the three soldered-together trailers. They formed a curve like a crescent moon, with the Café tables grouped in its hollow and the g
reat Mojave Desert beyond, all the way to the horizon.
While these final maneuvers were going on, everyone who had been involved in rescuing Miles, Chesterfield, and Kirby, plus rescuers who had themselves become rescuees, got wiped off, cleaned up, bandaged, congratulated, admonished, reproached, and admired. Lucky and Paloma escaped into the crowd as soon as they could. Mrs. Wellborne soaked her feet in a basin of warm water with Epsom salts as Mr. Kennedy tried to reassure her that, whereas Lincoln’s and Paloma’s acrobatics had been a bit risky, the two of them had shown courage and ingenuity and heroism. Mrs. Wellborne said she preferred virtues like being sensible, cautious, and careful. Mr. Kennedy confided that, in fact, he worried about Lincoln going off to England all alone. So then it was Mrs. Wellborne’s turn to cheer him up by reminding him that Lincoln was a fine, smart, thoughtful boy. Mr. Wellborne and Brigitte arrived with glasses of champagne for a toast to the Café. And they all had a sip and agreed that growing up is tough, especially for the parents.
Meanwhile, Klincke Ken, Short Sammy, Pete, and Stu Burping examined the cabin all around. They tramped inside with spirit levels and plumb bobs and straightedges. They came back out and declared the building safe and sound. A cheer went up as Lucky and Paloma sprinted in, followed by Brigitte, followed by everyone else, so the girls soon popped outside again for air.
“It’s great,” Paloma said as they limped backward—they had matching stubbed big toes—for more of a distance view, “which, I can’t believe how huge it seems.”
“Pal,” said Lucky, “check out the hero over there.”
Ollie was reenacting the morning’s adventures, with Miles playing the parts of Chesterfield, Kirby, and himself. Justine was hugging both boys, and Mrs. Prender was providing cold sun tea. Lucky said, “Do you believe this? I’m sure that both of us are going to get in trouble later—‘you need to make better choices, you need to use better judgment’—right?” Lucky folded her arms—her skin burns resembled Ollie’s skateboard road rash—like a seriously angry principal. “But do the guys get in trouble? Not that I noticed.”