The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise

by Dan Gemeinhart

  My book was way more interesting than saying goodbye to any dumb boy holding a stupid hubcap.

  Come on, Coyote—it sucked. It really, really sucked. Not the book. The saying goodbye to the stupid boy. That sucked. I blinked and I flared my nostrils and I clenched my teeth and I reminded myself that it was all right, that I was all right, that everything was all right.

  “Hey there, sweet daisy,” Rodeo called out as we rumbled back toward the street. “Give me a once-upon-a-time.”

  I closed my book and took one big ol’ heart-cleaning, mind-clearing breath and threw something like a smile onto my face. That was the thing to do, I knew. That was how we rolled. I guessed.

  “Once upon a time,” I began, “there was a … a horse.”

  “Ooh, I love horse stories. Hit me, kid.”

  I could see that Lester was watching me from the seat across the aisle. I didn’t feel like being watched. I set my book down and leaned my forehead against the window.

  “Well, she was a fierce horse. Always swore that no person would ever ride her. She galloped across the prairie alone, mane and tail whipping in the wind. She was free.” I swallowed, looking hard for some sparkle to put into my voice. I couldn’t quite find it.

  “All right,” Rodeo coaxed, “and then…?”

  I breathed in, breathed out. The bus felt so empty around me I couldn’t hardly concentrate at all.

  “And then. And then, one night, she was running along, and … and an owl flew along beside her. And he looked down at her. She was racing her shadow in the moonlight.”

  “Oh, yeah. Killer image, Coyote.”

  “And the owl said … um … he said … well, he asked her…”

  “What’d he ask her?”

  I looked up at Rodeo. He was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, bobbing his head, moving in his seat a little. There was a little smile on his face. He was always like that when we got moving again.

  I stared at him.

  I’d made a friend. And we’d just left him behind. We’d just left him behind. Now I was all alone again. Rodeo knew all that. He knew every bit of it. And he was sitting up there smiling and bouncing in his seat and bopping his head to the music.

  “What’d he ask her?” he said again.

  “Are you happy?” I asked him. My voice was raspy when I said it, kinda whispery and hoarse. I don’t know why.

  Rodeo stopped drumming and bouncing. He looked back at me, his forehead crinkled.

  “Why’d he ask her that?” he said.

  I opened my mouth. But before I could answer, Lester interrupted.

  “Hey! Hold up, man. Something’s up.”

  I followed Lester’s pointing finger and saw him.

  Salvador, running after us across the parking lot. Still holding that stupid hubcap in one hand. He was sprinting and waving his free arm at us.

  Rodeo pumped the brakes and we eased to a stop and Salvador came huffing up to us.

  My heart was doing something crazy in my chest, but I ignored it and jumped up and was standing on the steps when Rodeo swung open the door.

  Salvador was standing there, chest heaving.

  “Hey,” he said between gasps, and I couldn’t read his face. It looked kinda mad but not at me, and kinda excited but not necessarily in a super happy way, so I said, “Uh, what’s up?”

  He squinted at me sideways and said, “Can we, uh, get a ride?”

  My heart dropped because without even realizing it, something like hope had sprung up inside me when Salvador had come running, but it died again with that stupid question. I’d thought he was coming back, but all he needed was a ride to their hotel or something.

  “Oh. Sure. Where to?”

  Salvador shook his head.

  “You’re not gonna believe it,” he said, and I said, “Okaaaaay. Where?” and he shook his head and looked away and then looked back at me and he kinda squint-smiled with one side of his mouth and said, “Um … you ever heard of Yakima, Washington?”

  I’d like to say I was all cool about it.

  But, nah. Not really. Come on, Coyote—not even close.

  I whooped so hard it hurt my throat a little and I jumped down to give that Salvador a big ol’ hello-again-and-welcome-back hug that darn near knocked him down.

  Turns out I was wrong about Petoskey, Michigan. I kinda love it.

  And it turns out I was wrong about goodbyes, too.

  The best kind of goodbye is the kind where you don’t actually have to leave the person behind.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  And just like that, our bus was back to being full.

  For the first time ever, Rodeo skipped the three questions for our new rider, I’m guessing because she was really just joining folks who were already on and so that was, like, a loophole or something. Salvador and Ms. Vega and Ms. Vega’s sister, Concepción, all piled up onto Yager with their suitcases and duffels and hubcap. While Ms. Vega explained what was going on to Rodeo and Lester, I dragged Salvador back to my room so he could give me his version.

  We sat down at the edge of my mattress and he laid it all out for me.

  “Okay, so this is, like, a total train wreck,” he said.

  “What happened to the job for your mom?”

  “There never was a job,” Salvador spit, his face tight with anger. “Chris told my tía there was a job, but turns out Chris was full of crap, which is no surprise to anyone except my tía because Chris has always been full of crap. So they get up here and my tía keeps asking about where the job is and Chris keeps lying and stalling and then she wakes up this morning and there’s some dumb note from him saying he’s sorry but he’s just, like, not ready for all the responsibility of a relationship or whatever and he’s gone, like totally gone, with his car and his stuff and most of their money.”

  “You serious?”

  His eyes flashed at me.

  “Does it sound like I’m joking?” he snapped, and I pulled my head back, but he clicked his tongue and turned his eyes down a little and said right away, “I’m sorry. I’m just, like, super pissed.”

  “No, no, I get it. That’s crappy.” I reached back and scooped up Ivan from where he was curled up at the end of the bed and handed him to Salvador. Ivan shot me an ears-back look, but he’s chill so he went with it.

  Salvador sat with Ivan in his lap and scratched his head, and Ivan leaned into it and started purring and I saw Salvador’s shoulders relax just a tad. Cat therapy works. I sat for a minute, letting Ivan work his magic. Then I pushed on.

  “So, um … Yakima?”

  “Oh. Well, that’s an actual job. Not through Chris, either. My tía used to work with a lady and they were “tight” and when all this started to go down my tía called her. She’s working at a hotel in Yakima. Actually, her and her husband, like, own it? Anyway, she says she’s got jobs for my mom and my tía, one hundred percent for sure. We just gotta get there. I’m sorry we keep messing up your plans.”

  I spread my hands and grinned.

  “Are you kidding? This is perfect! Now we have an excuse to go all the way to Washington!”

  I kinda expected Salvador to smile back and maybe give me a high five or something, but he just nodded and looked down at his hands and I remembered the secrets he’d shouted and realized that this whole thing probably wasn’t as much fun for him as it was for me. I took my smile down a notch and said, “Salvador, I’m really sorry all this is happening to you and your mom,” and he shot me a suspicious look and said, “Sorry? You’re not breaking our promise, are you?” and I said, “Of course not,” and he nodded and said, “Good,” and then we both agreed it was probably time for a game of Uno.

  * * *

  Rodeo is always saying how the universe seeks balance. Just like with a lot of things Rodeo says, I’m not entirely sure what he means, but I do know that only a few hours after the bad news about Chris and the jobs and everything, the universe gave us another passenger, and she was most de
finitely on the positive side of the scale.

  Her name was Val, and this is how she ended up with us.

  We’d driven all the long day through the upper peninsula of Michigan. Salvador’s aunt volunteered for a three-hour driving shift, which I thought was awful nice. I spent most of it sitting up behind her with Ms. Vega, chatting and laughing. They were close, those two. They told me all sorts of funny stories about when they were growing up. There was quite an incident involving ketchup squirted on a white quinceañera dress, and something about their mom walking in on Salvador’s mom with a boy. They wouldn’t give me all the details on that one, but the embarrassed blood running to Esperanza’s face pretty much told me what I needed to know. It was nice, spending time with sisters who knew each other and loved each other. Plus, Concepción had a laugh like I’d never heard, loud and sudden and rowdy. I couldn’t help but laugh along when she did, even if I didn’t get the joke.

  Anyway, sometime late that evening, when we were out of Michigan, through Wisconsin, and into Minnesota and it was already starting to get dark and some folks were settling into sleeping positions, we stopped at a gas station to give Yager a fresh tank. I was a desperate kind of starving and headed into the little store and got me one of those spicy hot dogs they always have spinning on those rolling stove things. I love ’em. Give me one of those and a cold bottle of Squirt (which I also bought, of course) and I’m in heaven. I honestly ain’t sure exactly what Squirt is supposed to taste like, but I do know that what it does taste like is absolute refreshing perfection.

  I was already one bite into the dog and heading back out to Yager when I saw her.

  Well, really, I heard her.

  She was sitting on the pavement up against the store, and she sniffled. Just a little sniffle, but it caught my ear and I stopped in my tracks and then backed up a step to stand in front of her.

  She was wearing ripped-up jeans and a black hoodie and she had a nose ring, which I’ve always thought are kind of awesome. When I stopped, she looked up at me and I saw her eyes were all red-rimmed.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  Her eyebrows dropped and her eyes narrowed like she was getting ready to answer all tough, but then the toughness in her eyes gave way to wetness. She rolled her eyes and I saw them fill up before she looked away from me.

  “No,” she answered, and her voice broke when she said it.

  “What’s the matter? You thumbin’?”

  She blinked at me.

  “What’s that mean?” Her voice was hoarse.

  “You know. Hitchhiking. Looking for a ride somewhere.”

  Her eyes filled up again.

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Well, where you headed?”

  She shrugged again, then coughed out a dry laugh with no funny in it whatsoever.

  “Away.”

  “You running away?”

  She snorted.

  “Not exactly. More like kicked out.”

  “Kicked out? Of your home? How come?”

  She looked at me a second, sizing me up, then shook her head.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  I took a swig of my Squirt.

  “Try me.”

  She sniffed, scratched at her neck, then said, “My parents just found something out, and they don’t … approve of who I am. Of what I am, I guess.”

  “Well, what are you?”

  The girl swallowed a couple times, then said in a broken voice, “I’m gay.”

  I didn’t say anything. That didn’t seem like any kind of reason at all to kick a perfectly nice person out of her house.

  But when someone’s hurting, you gotta do something. Always kindness, like Rodeo says.

  So I set my bottle of Squirt down on the curb and took my spicy dog in both hands and carefully ripped it into two pieces, right in the middle. I held half of it out to her.

  “Wanna share?” I asked.

  She shot a cautious look at the half hot dog between us, then took it.

  “Careful,” I warned as I sat down beside her. “It’s spicy. There’s jalapeños cooked right into it.”

  She took a bite and I asked, “What’s your name?”

  She answered around her mouthful of hot dog.

  “Valerie.” Then she swallowed and added, “Val.”

  “My name is Coyote. Nice to meet you.” I held out a hand and she shook it.

  The girl sniffled and then took another bite and while she got to chewing, I got to thinking.

  Now, obviously I was thinking of giving this girl a ride. I don’t care who you are, if you see some girl crying at a gas station at night, you can’t help but feel like you oughta help ’em if you can. Just look at that nosy lady who called the cops on me when Rodeo left me behind the night I met Salvador. There is such things as good help and bad help, though, and I was more interested in seeing if I could give Val the good kind. Plus, that bit about Val’s parents really got my fur up like Ivan’s when he sees a dog. My very favorite aunt—my mom’s sister, Jen—is gay, and her wife, Sofia, is my very favorite aunt-in-law, and the thought of someone hating on them just ’cause of who they love made me want to put on boxing gloves.

  Also obviously, though, I couldn’t do anything more to mess with my timeline. But if this Val girl didn’t care where she was going, it wouldn’t slow us down one bit to help her out and let her on board. Heck, if she had her license, she could even help drive and get us there sooner, maybe.

  But thirdly obviously, Rodeo has rules about taking in runaways. Anyone who’s under eighteen is a no-go, for lots of good reasons having to do with the law and whatnot.

  There were a lot of “obviouslies” bouncing around in my head during that first conversation with Val.

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  She looked me up and down.

  “Nineteen,” she said.

  “Nineteen? Huh. You look young. Still living with your parents?”

  “I’m going to school. Or I was, anyway. Community college.”

  I looked around the parking lot. It was a busy interstate truck stop, with plenty of folks coming and going. Not all of them were the kind of folks you’d want to leave someone crying with, if you know what I mean. I looked at Val, sitting there on the cement with tear-puffed eyes and no home to go to.

  There’s so much sadness in the world.

  I took a second and rinsed the spicy out of my mouth with Squirt.

  “Well, you wanna come with us?”

  Val narrowed her eyes.

  “Who?”

  “Me and Rodeo. We’re in that bus over there. We got a few other passengers, too. We’re heading west, toward Washington State by way of Boise, Idaho. We could drop you off anywhere you wanna go.”

  Val eyed the bus.

  “You’re not, like, weirdos or something, are you? You’re not dangerous?”

  “Oh, we’re definitely weirdos. But we ain’t the dangerous kind.”

  She snorted. Then she tilted her head.

  “I actually was kind of thinking of heading to Seattle. I got a cousin there who’s pretty cool.”

  “Well, that’s perfect! Meant to be.”

  Val chewed her lip for a second. Then she closed her eyes, opened them, and stood up.

  “Okay. I guess.”

  “Great. First I gotta ask you some questions, though.”

  One minute and three questions later, Val was following me up Yager’s dirty steps. Rodeo had taken over the wheel, and he pursed his lips at Val.

  “Who’s this?”

  “A new fellow passenger, Rodeo.” I did my best to sound confident and enthusiastic.

  Rodeo blew a long breath out through his nose.

  “This bus,” he said, keeping his voice low so Val couldn’t hear, “is a home for two people.” He held up two fingers to make his point. “You. And me. And we now have”—he looked around the bus, his lips moving as he counted—“seven people on board. Seven, honeybear. And a cat.”
<
br />   “Yeah,” I said, holding up my hands, “but it’s built to carry fifty-six, right?” which I could tell from the look on Rodeo’s face the moment I said it was actually not a good angle for me to take.

  “I already asked her the three questions,” I said.

  “Really.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s her favorite place?” he asked, and I could tell he was testing me and I resented that, for sure.

  “Her grandma’s kitchen,” I said with some brass in my voice to let him know I didn’t appreciate him thinking I was lying about asking her. “On a Sunday morning.”

  Rodeo pursed his lips.

  “It’s a good answer,” I said.

  Rodeo stewed a moment longer, then nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said, “it is.” But then he shook his head and looked out at the nighttime parking lot of fluorescent lights and gas station litter.

  I didn’t say anything. I knew we was teetering right on the edge of his kindness and I didn’t wanna push him out of it. Plus, I knew him. I knew my dad. You give him the chance, his kindness wins every time.

  And, sure enough.

  Rodeo turned in his seat. He turned and looked into Val’s eyes. He looked into them slow and quiet and gentle. And he smiled a smile that was small but still showed the white of his teeth.

  And he said, right into Val’s eyes, “Howdy. What’s your name?”

  She cleared her throat.

  “Val. Sir.”

  “How old are you, Val?”

  “Nineteen. Twenty in May.”

  Rodeo nodded.

  “All right. You can call me Rodeo. There’s food in the cupboard there if you’re hungry.”

  And Rodeo turned back to the windshield and turned the key and good ol’ Yager rumbled to life.

  I pulled Val up behind me and she gave me a look, eyebrows all crinkled up.

  “What the heck was that?” she whispered.

  I put a hand on her shoulder.

  “That was you getting a ride. Pick out a seat, Val. Make yourself at home.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX