Which, of course, happened to be Rodeo’s neck.
The results were both instantaneous and dramatic.
There was a high-pitched screeching sound that at first I thought was coming from Ivan, but then realized was actually coming out of Rodeo’s mouth. He leaped to his feet with the most speed and athleticism I’d seen him muster since the time he surprised a raccoon in a campground outhouse.
Ivan, superstar kitten that he was, managed to keep his grip on Rodeo’s neck through all the screeching and the leaping. Once Rodeo had shot to an upright position, Ivan decided he’d rather not be attached to a screaming, vertical hippie. He disengaged and leaped down to land on the nearby horizontal, silent couch.
There was a moment of breathless quiet; Ivan stood with his back arched and all his fur puffed out, looking about as fierce as a two-pound cotton ball could look. Rodeo stood with wide eyes and bleeding neck, panting and leaning away from Ivan like he was a king cobra about to strike. He was wearing nothing but a ratty pair of tighty-whities and a look of utter shock.
I saw my chance to take control of the situation.
“Oh,” I said to Rodeo with a casual smile. “You’re up!”
Rodeo blinked at me, still breathing fast through his nose, then shook his head.
“What … What … What in the…” He rubbed at his neck and his eyebrows shot up when he saw blood on his fingers.
“Rodeo,” I said pleasantly, “this here’s Ivan. Ivan, this is Rodeo.”
Rodeo shook his head again.
“Who the hell is Ivan?”
Rodeo’s breathing was starting to settle down a bit and his eyes looked slightly less frantic, so I figured it was a good time to forge ahead.
“Ivan is my kitten. I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you about him.”
“You have?”
“Yes, sir. But I was waiting for a chance for you guys to be formally introduced. Which I guess is right now.”
“Well, Coyote, you picked a helluva way to introduce us,” Rodeo said, dabbing tenderly at his neck.
“I didn’t exactly pick it, Rodeo,” I pointed out in my defense, “and your screaming sure didn’t help things.” But Rodeo shot me a pretty clear look, so I changed course quick.
“Look, I’m sorry. I’ll admit this wasn’t the ideal way to bring up the subject of getting a kitten.”
“You think?” Rodeo asked in a tone I thought was unnecessarily nasty.
“Easy, man,” I said, holding up my hands for calm. “The eggs are already broken, so we may as well enjoy the omelet.”
“Enjoy the omelet?”
“You know what I’m saying. Let’s make the best of this.”
“And what exactly is this?”
“This is me. Getting a pet.”
Rodeo sighed and closed his eyes and started to shake his head, so I jumped in quick.
“Now, listen. I know we’ve had this conversation before, but this time is different. Ivan and me have really gotten to know each other over the last eighteen hours. He is unusually restrained and dignified for a cat of his age. An old soul, Rodeo. A fellow traveler.” I could hear my words speeding up, the desperation seeping into my voice. “He was born for the road, and we’re already fast friends. You won’t even notice him, Rodeo, I promise. He won’t be any bother to you, and to me he’ll be … he’ll be…” Everything, I wanted to finish, but my words cut off.
Rodeo tsked his tongue and rubbed his bearded jaw.
“Pets, Coyote,” he said, shaking his head. “Come on. You know this. Pets, they’re a no—”
He was gonna say it. I saw it coming a mile away. Rodeo was gonna pronounce pets a no-go, and once Rodeo decided something was a no-go, he never wavered on it.
“I need him,” I cut in, before he could make it official. It wasn’t something I’d planned on saying. It just came out. I knew there were plenty of fancier arguments I could make—arguments about how lonely I was, or how responsible I’d be, or how I’d take care of him all the time and all that—but in the crush of the moment, all those arguments ran away. And I was just left with three dumb little words, hanging there in the air right between Rodeo’s “no” and his “go.”
Rodeo stopped, his mouth hanging open. His eyes crinkled up.
“I need him,” I said again, softer. There was a little break in my voice that surprised me, a tightness in my throat I wasn’t expecting. A wetness to my eyes I had to blink away quick.
Rodeo looked into my swimming eyes.
“Yeah,” he said. “And that’s the problem, sugar. It ain’t good to need things that you can lose.”
“Please, Rodeo,” I said, and I said it right into those ever-loving eyes of his.
“Aw, honey pie,” he said. His voice wasn’t much more than a whisper.
I didn’t say anything.
He blew a big breath out through his lips.
He stepped toward me and reached up with a thumb and wiped at a tear that was tickling down my cheek. He shook his head again, but this time there was a smile hiding in his beard.
“Well,” he said, and held out his hands. “Let me see the little guy.”
I didn’t dare let the little flutter of hope in my heart take wing. But I stooped down and scooped up Ivan—who’d calmed down back into a normal kitten shape and size.
I placed Ivan’s warm little self into Rodeo’s grubby hands.
Rodeo cupped him in his hands, turned him around nice and easy, and then held the kitten up to his face. Ivan’s whole precious little body nestled in one of Rodeo’s palms.
Ivan sat, happy as you please, in Rodeo’s hand. He took Rodeo’s unblinking gaze and gave it right back to him. He didn’t meow or tremble or purr or wiggle. That wasn’t Ivan’s way. And Rodeo didn’t oooh or aaah or make kissy sounds. That wasn’t Rodeo’s way. Those two just stood there a minute, looking at each other.
But something must’ve passed between them, between that skinny kitten and the scruffy hippie.
I saw it in Rodeo’s eyes. They didn’t go distant. They sparkled and softened.
He blew out a resigned breath.
“Darn it, Coyote,” he said, but he said it soft.
That little hope in my heart stretched its wings just a bit wider.
His eyes left Ivan’s and found mine.
“We’ll give him a test. Two hundred miles.”
My hope started fluttering for real. Mile tests were something Rodeo and I did from time to time, trying something out: a new album to listen to, a different flavor of air freshener, whatever. It was a waiting period to see if we liked something, to see if it fit with our distinctive scene.
“A thousand miles,” I countered.
“Five hundred,” he said. “Final offer.”
I stuck out my hand and he shook it with his free one. Ivan perched in his other hand the whole time, watching the negotiation.
“Thanks, Rodeo. You won’t regret it.”
“Well. We’ll see about that. He wakes me up like that again, he’s heading straight out the nearest window.”
I grinned.
“That was quite a launch you pulled off there, old man. You darn near hit your head on the ceiling.”
“It was not funny,” he said, but I could see him fighting his own smile.
“You were shrieking like a dang car alarm,” I added through a laugh.
He shook his head, but his smile broke through clear this time.
“I thought a badger had snuck on the bus and gone for my jugular,” he said. “Took ten years off my life.”
“Aw, it’s good for you. Gives your heart some exercise.”
Rodeo snorted, then narrowed his eyes appraisingly at Ivan.
“Don’t get too attached, pudding pop. Five hundred miles. That’s all he gets.”
I reached out and took Ivan back, holding him warm against my stomach.
Rodeo wiped his hand off on his belly. Please—like Ivan had any germs Rodeo had to worry about catching.
Rodeo jerked his head toward the front of the bus.
“Write down the mileage. The sooner we can get to five hundred miles and bid this bundle of trouble farewell, the better.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Put some pants on,” I said. “I’m in the mood for biscuits and gravy.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
Well, no surprise: I was right about just about everything. Ivan fit in with me and Rodeo like a slice of cheese between two pieces of bread.
He made himself right at home, Ivan did. He slept wherever the heck he felt like and whenever the heck he felt like it. He roamed and rambled around the bus, sniffing and investigating and generally just being adorable.
Now that he was out in the open, I gave him an official tour of his new home.
“This here is a 2003 International 3800 bus,” I told Ivan, cradling him in my arms. “Her name is Yager.” Once upon a time, our home had the words “VOYAGER DAY SCHOOL” painted in black on her yellow sides, but when we’d bought her, Rodeo had scratched most of those letters off to give her a new, less institutional-sounding name. She was long and sturdy-looking, with a handsome hood sticking out in front of her like the prow of a boat. Yager was not one of those flat-nosed buses. No, sir. Those may be all right for getting back and forth from school, but they’re nothing that anybody would call a home.
“And this is the cockpit,” I continued, holding Ivan out so he could see it good. He took a look at the driver’s seat and the dashboard and the big ol’ steering wheel. There was a white ceramic sculpture of a pug on the dashboard, looking out at the road before us. We called him the Dog of Positivity, and Rodeo insisted he was a sort of canine guardian angel, keeping us happy. Ivan gave him a curious sniff. Rodeo, sitting in the driver’s seat, slid a snotty look at Ivan and said, “This is my zone right here, cat. Stay out of it,” but I just turned and whispered into his ears, “He doesn’t mean that, Ivan. You go wherever you want.”
Behind the driver’s seat were two rows of bus seats, the only ones that Rodeo had left in when he’d converted it to a full-time residence. Behind the second row was Rodeo’s blanket pile on one side and our kitchen area on the other. We didn’t have running water or anything, so it was really just a cupboard and a counter and a big cooler where we kept milk and stuff. Ivan seemed especially interested in the cupboards of food, but I kept us moving.
Next to the kitchen was our garden, which was a shelf against the window that had a bunch of tomatoes and lettuce and stuff growing in pots. I also had a couple of pots of sunflowers going, and they were looking great … about four feet tall and each one holding up a gorgeous, bursting yellow flower that leaned over toward the sunlight. I don’t think there’s about a darned thing in the whole world that’s more happy and hopeful than a big blooming sunflower. Ivan, sniffing and batting at the nearest bloom, seemed to agree. He’s a smart one.
Across from the garden was a big bolted-in armchair we called the Throne. I can personally vouch that it is a fantastic reading chair—soft enough to lean your head back and relax, or big enough that you can lay sideways and drape your legs over one of the arms if you feel like it. It was conveniently located next to our main bookshelves, which were always crammed full with a rotating selection of me and Rodeo’s favorite books.
In front of the shelf was the couch, a giant, cushy flower-print number. It was ancient and threadbare and most of the springs had been broken since the ’80s. It was hideous and monstrous and absolutely perfect. It was the kind of couch you stretch out on and then all of a sudden you wake up and it’s an hour later and you never even realized you were falling asleep.
Then, of course, there was my room. I got the whole back of the bus, with the dangling curtain giving me my privacy and space. It wasn’t big, but it was mine. It had room for me and my bed and a bookshelf and my clothes, and since that was all the stuff I had, that was all the space I needed.
“And that’s it,” I said, plopping down on the couch with Ivan. “Your new home. Whaddaya think?”
Ivan’s baby blues were looking right into mine. He rubbed up against my chin and purred, which I took as a stamp of approval.
I could see pretty soon that Rodeo was getting fond of Ivan, though he sure tried to hide it from me. The first time Ivan tried to settle into Rodeo’s lap while he was driving, Rodeo made a big deal about pushing him off and griping about it. Later, though, I looked up from where I was reading and saw Ivan curled up in Rodeo’s lap, eyes all closed and happy, with Rodeo’s dirty fingernails scratching at his head. I wanted to jump up and gloat about it, but I knew better; I’d won a battle, but it was best to hold off ’til I’d won the war.
Ivan soon found his favorite spot for when we were on the move: He stretched out right up on the dashboard, pressed up against the windshield, basking in the sunlight and lazily looking back and forth between Rodeo singing behind the wheel and the world blurring by outside the window. Rodeo acted like he hardly noticed his new driving partner, but sitting close one morning I heard Rodeo mutter when Ivan ambled up and leaped into his spot, “Oh, there you are!” and I smiled wide but kept the little victory to myself.
Then there was this: The night before we hit five hundred miles, we were camping on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, somewhere outside Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We’d had a fine night, singing together by a campfire with Rodeo strumming away at his guitar and me at my ukelele, soaking in the coolness of the night air and the spectacle of the stars shimmering above us. Ivan sat on my lap the whole time, dozing or blinking into the fire. When it was shut-eye time, though, I somehow lost track of him in all the in-and-out of getting our chairs and whatnot back aboard the bus … and like that, he was gone without a trace. I was just about sick, running all around, shouting his name, throwing all sorts of fits. Finally Rodeo got me calmed down and put me to bed, telling me he was sure Ivan’d be back by morning, once his belly got empty. I couldn’t sleep, of course, but knelt on my bed with my head sticking out my bedroom window, whispering his name into the night. That’s what you do, right? When someone you love is gone? You call their name out into the darkness? Then, just like that, I heard him: meowing up at the front door. My heart was a sugary burst of fireworks and I bolted for the front, but stopped short at my doorway curtain. ’Cause I saw that Rodeo had beat me there. The bus was dark except for the small yellow glow of Rodeo’s bedside lamp. He already had the door open, and I saw his head disappear as he bent down to pick up Ivan. He shut the door and stepped up by the steering wheel and I saw that he was holding Ivan close, tight up against his chest, and then he dropped his mouth to kiss the top of Ivan’s head. Then, just barely across that dark distance, I heard Rodeo murmur, “Welcome back, compadre. You had us worried sick, buddy.” Rodeo gave him another kiss and set him down gentle and I slipped back behind my curtain. I was smiling to myself in the shadows. Us. Huh. Now, that “us” was really pretty darn interesting. Yessiree, it was. The thing was won and I knew it right then, and it was only a matter of waiting for the odometer to make it official. A minute later Ivan poked his nose through the curtain and then the rest of him followed and he jumped up and joined me on my bed. I grinned at him and scratched his stupid wandering-away-and-worrying-me-sick little head. Ivan, guiltless and unapologetic as a cash-flush con man, closed his eyes and leaned into my fingers. “Well, Ivan,” I whispered, “I think you did it. I think you found yourself a home.”
And, sure enough, he had.
Because this was how it all played out. We rolled right through Ivan’s five-hundred-mile moment. And we didn’t say a darned thing. We just kept rolling, Ivan right there with us, and that’s just how it was.
We both knew it, of course. I’d pointed it out that morning, when we’d started driving.
“Four hundred miles, Rodeo,” I’d said. “Ivan’ll hit five hundred this afternoon, likely.”
Rodeo sipped from his Styrofoam cup of coffee.
“Mmmm” was all he said, bli
nking all slow and acting sleepy like it wasn’t a big freaking deal.
We’d taken our time that day, not really racking up the miles. Stopped for a long lunch, dawdled in a tree-shaded park, pulled over for a swim in a muddy river.
But then, well after lunch and closer to dinner, it happened. The odometer ticked right over the number we both knew was exactly five hundred bigger than it had been when we’d had that early-morning bleeding-neck conversation. It was a number I’ll remember to my dying day: 248,845. I was not-so-casually leaning over Rodeo’s seat when that last little white five rolled onto the meter, then held my breath for Ivan’s last mile, eyeing that digit ’til my eyes burned from not blinking, and then it did it: ticked from five to a beautiful six. That was it. Ivan had ridden with us for five hundred miles.
I looked out of the side of my eye at Rodeo, who was still sitting there all nonchalant, one hand draped over the steering wheel, the other picking at something between his teeth.
“Rodeo?”
“Mmm?”
I opened my mouth, ready to just flat-out ask, but then I reined myself in. Rodeo was well aware we’d hit five hundred. He was playing possum, and I knew from experience that Rodeo was sometimes best approached in a sideways direction.
I cracked my knuckles and looked away, playing my own casualness against his.
“Give me a once-upon-a-time,” I said lightly.
I saw him hide a smile in his beard.
“All right. Let’s see.” He screwed up his eyes in thought and took a swig of root beer. Then he nodded and switched off the radio. “Okay, honeycake. Here we go. Once upon a time, there was a crow and a sparrow. The sparrow was a pretty little thing, with bright eyes and a sweet nature and the prettiest song you ever heard. The crow, though, he was an ornery old cuss. He’d lost one eye, and he was missing feathers here and there, and he had a wing that was busted and all bent, so he couldn’t fly. He just hung around in their old tree, singing with the sparrow and eating whatever measly bugs he could find in the branches. But they were tight, these two, and through wind and rain and, heck, even hurricanes, those two stuck together.”
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise Page 3