Everyone was quiet and resting or reading or looking out the window or dozing. Lester was back to snoring in Rodeo’s blanket pile.
I dozed off, too, apparently. Not sure for how long. But when I woke up, I noticed two things: It felt like I’d been asleep for hours, and the bus wasn’t moving.
I sat up. Gladys jerked upright with me and bleated. A sleepy little what’s-going-on-and-what-time-is-it kind of bleat. I pressed my face to the window.
We were parked at a gas station. In the middle of nowhere, it looked like. There were no other houses or businesses or nothing. I jumped up and threw back my curtain door.
Then, I noticed two more things: There was no one in the driver’s seat, and it was quiet.
Interstate highways, the big four- or six- or even eight-lane kind we were traveling on, make a kind of noise. All the time. It’s the noise of hundreds of sets of tires humming on asphalt. If you’re anywhere within about a quarter mile of one, or even farther sometimes, you can hear it. That sound had been the background noise to my life, and I noticed when it was gone.
Well, it was gone.
Out the windows, I saw darkness. I saw some trees. I saw a measly little two-lane road. I saw no exit ramps. I saw no big green highway signs. I saw no headlights.
I walked quick to the front of the bus, past all the sleepers, my stomach tightening and twisting. Lester sat up when I passed him and asked, “Where are we?” through a yawn, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t know where we were. But I knew where we weren’t.
The only sound was Gladys clip-clopping behind me.
The front of the bus was deserted. The keys were gone. The lights were off. The door was closed.
I jerked the door open and jumped down off the bus and closed the door in Gladys’s face and hurried into the gas station.
There was one guy behind the counter, and he looked very bored and very tired. He was watching a little TV on the counter. He turned his head when the bell above the door jangled as I walked in.
“You’re up awful late,” he said in a friendly-enough voice.
“What time is it?”
He peered at a clock up on the wall.
“Almost four in the morning. Past your bedtime, I bet.”
“Where are we?” I asked.
But at that moment, Lester came barging through the door behind me, clothes all sleep-wrinkled and his eyes puffy and blinking. “Coyote, where are we?”
I turned to the clerk with questioning, urgent eyebrows. He gave me a confused look back.
“You’re in Wallowa. Well, just outside Wallowa, really.”
I held my hand out to Lester and barked, “Phone!”
He fished it out of his pocket and handed it over and I got to tapping and then I got to swearing.
“What?” Lester asked.
“Wallowa,” I answered, holding up the phone so he could see it. “Wallowa, Oregon. This town is not on the way to Poplin Springs.” Lester’s mouth dropped open when he saw the map I was holding up. “Not even close. We’re, like, four hours off the route. In the wrong direction.”
My head shot to the clerk.
“Where’s Rodeo?” I asked him.
“Rodeo?” the guy answered with a baffled look. I didn’t have time for his ignorance.
“Rodeo?” I hollered, heading toward the back of the store. “Rodeo?”
I pushed open the door to the men’s room.
“Rodeo?” No answer. I kicked open the door to the only stall. Empty.
I stomped back out into the store.
“Where is he? Where’s Rodeo?”
The clerk was standing up now, clearly pretty alarmed by the girl walking around his store and ransacking the men’s room.
“Rodeo? You mean the bearded fella?”
“Yes! Where. Is. He.”
“He bought a sixer of beer and headed out the back door. Is he your dad or something?”
“Something,” I answered, and ran out through the back door with tears in my eyes and my hands in fists and my heart breaking and beating and breaking and beating.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
It wasn’t hard to find Rodeo.
The moon was bright. Darn near full. There was a little path winding out from the back of the parking lot and down through some trees.
I walked along the path, through the trees, under the moonlight, and down to a little river.
It wasn’t big, but it was pretty there in the silver light.
Out a ways in the water was a little sandbar island. On that island was a log, washed up and setting there. And on that log was Rodeo, sitting with his back to me. I stepped out of my flip-flops.
The water wasn’t that cold, and it wasn’t that deep. Didn’t even come up to my knees. It was August, after all. I barely noticed it.
The island sand was soft under my bare feet. It would’ve felt good.
I came around to stand in front of him. He didn’t even look at me. Just lifted the bottle to his lips and took a long, gulping drink.
“Rodeo.”
Nothing.
“Rodeo!”
Finally, his eyes slid to me.
“What?”
I hesitated. I was good at Rodeo. I knew, usually, how to push him. How to pull him. How to play him. But this … this was different. This was bad.
“I … I don’t like when you drink, Rodeo.”
Rodeo’s eyes filled up.
“Yeah? Well, me neither, little bird.” He leaned his head back, took another drink. “But here we are.”
I just stood there, looking down at him, my mind stumbling, my blood pounding.
He looked up at me.
“We ain’t going,” he said.
“Yes, we are,” I answered.
“Nope. I ain’t going back. And neither are you. I ain’t jumping into quicksand, sugarplum, and I ain’t letting you jump in, either. We’re staying safe, you and me, together.”
“No, Rodeo, I have to—”
“No. It’s a no-go, period. I’m sorry. But this ends now. Before you get hurt.”
I took one breath. Then another. Hard breaths. Breaths that stuck in my throat and stung my nose. Breaths that fought with sobs for room in my lungs.
It was time. Time to put it all out there.
No regrets, sister.
“Too late,” I said, and Rodeo squinted up at me and said, “What?” and I said, “Before I get hurt?! It’s too late for that, Rodeo. Way too late. I’m already hurt. I been hurt. I been hurting for five years. By you. You’re hurting me right now. So don’t sit there and tell me this is about us not getting hurt. It ain’t. It’s about you, which is all it’s ever been about.”
Rodeo’s mouth was hanging open.
“No, little plum, no. Listen, we don’t need this, we don’t need to…”
“I need this. I do. I can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing anymore. I can’t. I need to do this. And I … And I … And I need you, Daddy.” Even in the moonlight, I saw him go pale when I said that word I hadn’t been allowed to say in five years. So I said it again. “I need you, Daddy.”
The sobs won, then. They pushed the breathing out. And all the moonlight looked like diamonds through my tears.
Rodeo rocked back. He looked away from me, hard. Not just with his eyes. With his whole head, off into the darkness.
“Hey,” he said, his voice trembly. “Hey, now, you know you can’t call me—”
“Why? Why, Daddy?”
I felt like a little girl, calling him Daddy. But I didn’t care, not at all. I already felt like a little girl anyway, with my voice all broken and tears running hot down my face. And I didn’t care, not at all. My feelings were so big they were choking me and squeezing the air out of my lungs and pushing the tears out of my eyes and I couldn’t breathe or see and all I could do was feel, feel, feel.
I wanted to feel like a little girl. I wanted to. I wanted to feel like a little girl who has a daddy who wraps his arms around
her and makes everything okay. I wanted to feel like a little girl who has a daddy, period.
“You know why, Coyote. You know why, partner.” His voice was hollow, tender, begging.
“I’m not your partner,” I gasped out through my crying. “I’m your daughter. One of your daughters.”
“Stop it, Coyote,” he said sharp. But the words were sharp with fear, not anger. “That’s enough, now. We are deep in no-go territory here.”
“I. Don’t. Care. Why can’t you be my dad? It’s what you’re supposed to be. It’s what I’m supposed to call you.”
Rodeo’s chin dropped to his chest. “You know why. Because when you call me that, I … I hear them. I can hear their voices saying it when you say it.”
Lord, he sounded so sad. But that was all right. ’Cause I was sad, too.
“Then you’re lucky,” I said. “You’re so darned lucky and you don’t even know it. Because I never hear them. I used to. Right after. I’d hear them. Ava. Rose. Mom.” I saw each name hit him like a slap, but I didn’t slow down. “I’d hear them when I woke up. I’d hear them in the middle of the night. I’d hear some kid talking in the next aisle in the grocery store, and I’d swear for a second it was one of them. But I don’t anymore, Daddy. I don’t ever hear them. I barely even remember what their voices sounded like. And I hate it. And you’re trying to keep them quiet? I’d give anything to hear them again.”
Rodeo shook his head. “That ain’t no way to live, sugarbear, living in the past like that. We need to live for right now, for right now today, for—”
“No. I’m done with all that garbage. I been listening to your excuses for five years, and I’m done with that.
“‘Remember’ ain’t a past-tense word. It’s a right-now word. The kind of person I wanna be, right now today, is the kind of person that remembers my mama and my sisters, right now today. And tomorrow. And every day. I’m not gonna go one more day without them, not one more minute, not one more second. I can’t. I’m not saying I missed them. I’m saying I miss them. Right now, today. And I’m not saying I loved them. I love them. Right now. Today.”
My dad blinked up at me. He was crying. It just about killed me. But. Oh well.
My job wasn’t to take care of him. Not anymore.
My job was to take care of me.
Then he said it. He said it so quiet I barely heard it. Said it so small that his lips hardly moved. But he said it.
“Me, too.”
My breath caught in my throat. I gasped. A little gasp. But a gasp, still.
I lowered my voice. Made it soft. I had three words to say, and I said ’em hushed like a prayer.
“Say my name.”
There was a pause.
“Coyote.”
“No. That ain’t my name. Say it. Say my name, Dad.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Shook his head.
I wanted to hug him. I wanted to kneel down in the sand and take his hands in mine. I wanted to use my T-shirt to dry the tears off his face.
But I did not. Nope. I stood there. I stood there strong.
So he stood up. Stepped toward me. Wrapped me in a hug. Said, “Come on, little bird,” in his broken voice.
But I didn’t hug him back.
I reached quick into his back pocket. And I pulled out Yager’s keys. I stepped back and gave Rodeo a shove, soft and small but a shove all the same, and he kind of dropped back down onto the log, his eyes looking unbelieving at the keys I held.
“Lester can drive,” I said. “I’ll come back and pick you up after. But I don’t have time to wait. I’m going.”
He shook his head.
“Don’t leave me, Coyote.”
“I don’t want to. But you gotta say my name. ’Cause if you can’t say my name, that means I don’t matter to you. And if I don’t matter to you, then … Well, I don’t know.” My voice cracked, froze, caught its balance, and stumbled on. “I … I know you don’t need me, Dad. But I need you. I need a dad. Even if you don’t need a daughter.”
His jaw dropped open. He took three big breaths right in a row.
“Oh,” he said, and then “Oh,” and then he dropped the bottle he was holding. And he fell forward onto his knees.
“Honey,” he said, “how could you … how could you think that I don’t … need you? You are all I’ve got. You are all I care about in this whole world.”
I couldn’t see anything now. I blinked, but it didn’t do any good.
“Then prove it. Say my name. My real name. Please.”
He reached up. He grabbed my hands. And he said it:
“Ella.” He choked a little, but then he cleared his throat and said it again. “Ella. I love you, Ella. I love you, Ella.”
And he hugged me. He hugged me tight around my waist and I stood there getting hugged by my dad, crying.
“Let me tell you something,” he said. “You know that third question? The sandwich question? You know why I ask that one?”
“Heck no,” I said.
“It ain’t about their answer. I don’t care what they say. I don’t even listen. I don’t even look at ’em when they answer it. I look at you, Ella. I watch you, watching them. And I can tell by the way you look at ’em whether or not we should let ’em on board. That’s all.”
He let go and leaned back so he could look me in the face.
“You’re my compass. You’re what tells me which way to go whenever I’m lost. Which is darn near all the time. That third question don’t mean nothing, sweet girl. You’re the third question. And you’re the answer, too.”
I looked down at him.
“Dad,” I said.
And he said, “What?”
And I said, “I need to go home. And I need to go there with you.”
And he said, “Okay.”
And then he said, “I’m so sorry.”
And then I said, “I don’t need you to be sorry sitting here. I need you to be sorry sitting on that bus.”
And then he said, “Let’s go.”
And that was that.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
We had time to make up. Time, and miles.
With Rodeo’s little four-hour detour—eight hours, round trip—our timeline was out the window. It was a six-hour drive to Poplin Springs, and it was a little after four in the morning. The soonest we could get there was ten A.M., well after the bulldozers would start up. If we were lucky, that is, and didn’t have any flat tires or busted brakes or blown carburetors or anything like that. It was a race, pure and simple. It was just a matter of hoping we got there before, and not after. The upside was that now we were going right through Yakima, where about half our group was getting off. I mean, technically that’s an upside.
We raced. Through the early morning and through a pretty decent chunk of the Pacific Northwest, we raced. Up hills and down hills and over rivers and around mountains, we rumbled along. Sometimes some of us slept. Most of the time most of us didn’t. We stopped and did a couple of crazy gas fill-ups working as a team, with Rodeo filling the tank while the rest of us ran in for snacks or cleaned the windshield or hit the bathroom or walked Gladys. Everything was done at a run so we could hit the road again lickety-split. We tried turning on the radio a couple times, but no song ever seemed to fit quite right, so we mostly rode in silence.
The sun came up. Towns little and big blurred by. I spent half my time sorta not sleeping and half my time looking at the clock and half my time checking how many more miles we had to go.
We got to Yakima a couple hours after sunrise. Concepción had called ahead, so her friend was up and waiting, and her and Ms. Vega and Salvador hauled all their stuff off Yager and onto the sidewalk.
My feelings about goodbyes hadn’t changed, though, so I didn’t stick around. I couldn’t. I was exhausted. I was scared. I was sad. I couldn’t hardly sit still or see straight. There was no way I could throw a hey-there-my-best-and-only-friend-I-guess-this-is-goodbye-forever on top
of it. I was feeling about seven different kinds of alone, and I really didn’t wanna make it eight. So I took Gladys and walked her up the street a bit for a potty break, which she apparently desperately needed. I’d never known a goat could hold so much. I waited until the sidewalk was empty so I knew the Vegas had all gone into the house and out of my life forever, and then Gladys and me walked back to Yager and up the steps and I made it a few steps toward the back before I froze solid in my tracks.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, and Salvador answered, “I’m going with you. I asked my mom. She said it was all right.”
“She did?”
“Well, she said no first. Like, six times. But then she said yes.” He flashed a Salvador smile at me. “Rodeo said you could swing back and drop me off after. I wanna make sure you get it.”
I smiled. Well, I assume I smiled. I couldn’t actually feel much besides crying and sniffling and falling forward to wrap my arms around that Salvador in a fierce, grateful hug. Salvador hugged me back. Gladys bleated. I grabbed a seat, and we were off.
It was eight thirty on Wednesday morning. Up there, two hours away in a place I used to call home, they were probably firing up the bulldozers.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
Behind us, the lights were flashing. The siren was singing its wee-ooo-wee-ooo song.
Rodeo’s hands were clenched tight around the steering wheel. Yager rumbled and grumbled underneath us.
We weren’t slowing down.
Me, Lester, Salvador, Ivan, Gladys, and Val were all shooting each other looks. It was a lot of looks.
“Hey, Rodeo?” Lester called out. “I, uh, think he wants you to pull over. Just a hunch.”
Rodeo didn’t answer. He kept driving, eyes on the road ahead.
“Rodeo?” Val said. “You hear that, right?”
Rodeo just shook his head and muttered something to himself.
Gladys bleated anxiously.
I stood up and walked to the seat behind him.
“Rodeo,” I said, quiet and easy. “What’s going on?”
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise Page 20