Rodeo took another swallow of his root beer, and Ivan chose that opportune moment to come toddling up with a yawn and hop up on Rodeo’s lap. Rodeo didn’t even look down, but he scratched gruffly at Ivan’s head and kept talking and didn’t shoo him down.
“So one day, old Crow sees something down there on the ground under the tree. It’s … It’s … a french fry.”
“A french fry?” I asked dubiously.
“Yes, a french fry. Dropped, no doubt, by some careless girl with bad habits such as dropping french fries and interrupting stories. So, old Crow decides to go get this wayward fry. But he can’t fly, right? So he hops down, branch to branch, and then finally that last long drop to the earth, and he lands with one helluva clumsy crash. But he grabs it and looks up and realizes: ‘Well, crap, I shoulda thought that through.’ He’s feeling pretty hopeless down there, flightless and stranded, but then who shows up?”
“A hungry fox?” I guessed.
“No. It ain’t that gruesome a story. It’s Sparrow, of course. And that sparrow? Well, she was something else. All heart, that one. And she got right up under big ol’ crotchety, broken-winged Crow and she beat her wings something fierce and at first nothing happened, but then Crow, he started flapping his wings, too—best he could, anyway—and with the help of that remarkable little sparrow, darned if that old crow didn’t fly again for the first time in a long time, right up into the branches of that tree. And there they sat, the crow and the sparrow, side by side, up in the bright blue sky where they belonged, sharing that french fry. The end.”
I nodded thoughtfully.
“Not bad, Rodeo. Not bad. That crow must’ve sure loved french fries, though.”
Rodeo shook his head.
“Nah,” he said, still scratching at Ivan’s head. “He didn’t at all, really.”
“What? Then why’d he flop all the way down to the ground to get one?”
Rodeo looked down at the perfect kitten in his lap, then back out at the highway winding its way through Colorado pine trees.
“’Cause the sparrow loved french fries, Coyote. And the crow loved the sparrow.”
I smiled then, just to myself, and sat back in my seat and blew out a big sigh I’d been kinda holding in since that odometer had ticked over to that magic number.
That Rodeo, he’s something else. From time to time he can be darn near clever and poetic in spite of himself.
CHAPTER
FIVE
We stayed that night in a campground at a place called Turquoise Lake, in Colorado. It was a real, honest-to-goodness campground, with numbered camping spots and picnic tables and crusty metal fire pits.
The second we came to a stop in an empty camping spot I was out the door, Ivan in my arms, ready to go exploring. I wandered down to the lake, sniffing at the smells of cooking hot dogs and toasting marshmallows, dodging the kids zipping around on bikes.
I steered clear of the kid-crowded gravelly beach full of splashing swimmers, knowing Ivan wouldn’t appreciate all that ruckus and horseplay. Instead, I found a little quiet spot off by itself, where the lake lapped up under the shade of some trees. I kicked off my flip-flops, sat down on a log, and slipped my feet into the coolness of the water. Ivan wriggled out of my hands and stepped with cautious paws along the log, bobbing his head curiously at the water.
“Oh. My. God.”
The voice made me just about jump out of my skin. I jerked back so fast I nearly tumbled backward off the log. It rocked underneath me, and Ivan crouched low, digging his claws into the wood.
Once we were both steady, I looked up to where the words had come from.
There was a girl about my own age, sitting up in the tree above us. She was resting in the crook of two branches, a book held open on one knee. She had round horn-rimmed glasses and a look of utter seriousness on her face.
“Sorry if I scared you,” she said. “But that is the cutest kitten. I. Have. Ever. Seen.”
I smiled up at her.
“That’s probably true,” I said back. “They don’t come much cuter.”
“Can I hold him?” she asked, and I shrugged and nodded and she closed her book with a snap and hopped right down to join us. I scooped up Ivan and held him out to her. She tossed her book back into the bushes and took Ivan nice and gently, just like you oughta.
She spun him around so they were facing each other. Ivan hung limp in her hands, looking her right back in her wide eyes.
“Oh, man,” she breathed. “I’m, like, dying from the cuteness. What’s his name?”
“Ivan,” I answered. “After the book. You know, The One and Only Ivan?”
Her eyes shot sideways to me.
“Are you kidding me? That’s, like, my favorite book.”
“Me, too!” I said, warming right up to that girl. There’s nothing like a good book for bringing folks together. I jutted my chin at her book lying in the bushes.
“Whatcha reading now?” I asked her, and she answered, “Anne of Green Gables,” and I said, “Oh, lord, I love Anne of Green Gables!” and she grinned at me and cocked her head and said, “Wanna come to our camper for dinner? We’re having tofu sausages,” and then she saw my are-you-serious face and she assured me, “They’re way better than they sound … Pretty yummy, actually,” and I shrugged and said, “Sure,” and then I asked, “Can I bring Ivan?” and she smiled and said, “You better!” and I laughed and stood up and we headed off together and that was that.
Sometimes making friends is tough, and sometimes it’s as simple as finding someone who loves books and kittens as much as you do.
The girl’s name was Fiona, and even though she gave me a look when I told her I went by Coyote, she didn’t make a big deal out of it—always a good sign in a human being.
We spent the afternoon mostly at her family’s site, playing with Ivan and comparing favorite books and avoiding her little brothers.
Her family was her mom and her dad and her two little brothers, Alex and Avery, who were kinda annoying but mostly cute, and Fiona was right: Tofu sausages, if you put enough ketchup on ’em, aren’t half-bad.
After dinner her dad took the boys down to the lake to burn off some energy, and it was just me and Fiona, sitting around the table and talking. Fiona’s mom puttered around, tidying up the campsite and jumping into the conversation from time to time. It felt like a family. Like a sister and a mom. I liked it. I wouldn’t have been willing to admit right then that it felt like that, or that I liked it—but it did, and I did.
Fiona and me mostly just gabbed about books, but we also covered other important topics like favorite pizza toppings, the worst songs on the radio, and national politics. Ivan scampered around us, sniffing for food and batting at anything that caught his eye.
I was having a fine time, right up until Fiona heaved a big yawn and griped, “Man, I’m tired. Avery and Alex claim to be afraid of the dark whenever we’re camping and they kept the flashlight on practically all night. So annoying.”
“I know all about that,” I said, pulling Ivan back from the bag of marshmallows he was sniffing. I guess I was all swept up in the relaxed family vibe they were throwing off, ’cause I kept talking without even thinking about it. “My sisters used to always keep the hall light on and—”
But then I caught myself. And I stopped quick and tried to think of something to change the subject, but it was too late.
“I didn’t know you had sisters!” Fiona’s mom cut in with a smile. “Are they here camping with you?”
“No, ma’am,” I whispered, shooting a careful look up at our campsite. I squeezed Ivan into a tight hug and kissed his head before letting him go.
“Where are they?”
I swallowed. Looked up toward Rodeo and our bus. I knew I shouldn’t answer. I knew I should come up with an excuse and make a gracious exit. But there was no way Rodeo would be able to hear me. And maybe I didn’t want to leave my new friend and her nice mom. There’s nothing wrong with that, right?
“They’re … They’re dead, ma’am. They were killed in a car accident five years ago.”
I could feel Fiona and her mom’s eyes on me but I kept mine on Ivan, waiting for the night to slide back into the nice, easy normal it had been before. Come on, Coyote—as if.
“Oh, dear. Oh, I’m … so sorry. That’s just awful. How … awful.”
I wanted to say something breezy and light and I even opened my mouth, but for once I came up short.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her mom put her hands on Fiona’s shoulders, pulling her close in a little from-behind hug that made me sort of ache in a weird, quiet way.
“I just can’t imagine,” her mom said, her voice faltering. “If something ever happened to Fiona or the boys, I’d just … Well, I don’t even know. I can’t imagine how your mother dealt with such a loss.”
I flicked a ball of tinfoil, sending it skittering off the table. Ivan scrambled after it in hot pursuit. I kept my eyes down, on Ivan.
“Well, then, I guess she was lucky, ma’am. She died in the accident, too, so she didn’t have anything to deal with. I suppose the loss was all me and my dad’s.”
There was another silence, stiff and heavy. I wished Fiona would say something. I could feel her looking at me still, wordless, and I didn’t like it.
I ain’t broken. And I ain’t fragile. And that’s that.
Finally, I managed to swallow down whatever feelings had gotten stuck in my craw.
I brought my eyes up, wide and daring and ready, to meet Fiona’s and flashed her a smile.
“Hey, wanna come see our site?” I asked.
Fiona was biting her bottom lip, but she raised her eyebrows and gave me an eager nod.
“Where is your family staying, honey?” her mom asked, and her voice was different than it had been all night and I was ready to get out of there, away from her careful voice and sympathetic eyes.
“We’re just three spots up. The end spot up by the campground host.”
Her mom’s eyebrows shot up.
“That big yellow school bus? That’s your camper? How hilarious!”
I wasn’t exactly sure what was so hilarious about it, but I nodded anyway.
“Yes, ma’am. That there’s Yager. Built to carry up to fifty-six children and a driver, but we’ve retrofitted her, of course, and taken out most of the seats.”
“That is just so … interesting,” her mom said. “What an idea! Do you camp in it often?”
I shrugged.
“Mostly during the summer. The rest of the year we usually just pull off and park in a parking lot when it’s bedtime.”
Her mom’s smile dimmed noticeably.
“You mean, you … you live in that bus? All the time?”
“Yes, ma’am. Have for the last five years.”
“You don’t … have a home?”
I frowned.
“Of course we do. It’s parked right up there.”
“Oh. Yes. Well.” She cleared her throat. “So it’s just you and your dad, living on the bus?”
“And Ivan,” I said, holding him up with a smile.
“Of course,” she said back, but her smile looked pretty thin at the edges and her voice was more careful than ever. She stretched her neck a bit, looking up toward our site. “Is that your dad there? Up on the table?”
I stood up, and sure enough there was Rodeo, sitting up top of the picnic table, strumming away at his guitar. He was shirtless, naturally, and he’d untied his hair from the sloppy braid he’d had it in all day, so it was poofed out all wild and frizzy around his head.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, setting Ivan on my shoulder. “But don’t tell him that.” I looked away from her frown, down to Fiona. “Come on, I’ll show you my library.”
Fiona started to stand up, but her mom still had her in that backwards hug and she kept her hands on her shoulders, holding her down.
“Actually, hon, it’s pretty late. Time to start getting ready for bed, I think.”
Fiona scowled.
“What? Come on, Mom! It’s not even dark yet!”
“I’m sorry,” her mom said firmly, then looked at me. “But maybe you could come down and join us for lunch tomorrow?”
I knew the game. I’d seen how she’d looked at Rodeo, and I knew how he probably looked to her. It wasn’t her fault, not really. She hadn’t met him yet, hadn’t gotten close enough to look into his eyes. She didn’t know that if she actually did meet him, Rodeo’d probably become one of her very favorite people. I didn’t hold it against her. None of us knows what we don’t know, I guess.
“Thank you for having me for dinner,” I said, and I gave her a real smile, too.
“Wanna swim tomorrow morning?” Fiona asked.
Now, here’s the thing: I knew I wouldn’t be doing any swimming in the morning. Rodeo had his heart set on some eastern Carolina barbecue, and we were making tracks that way as fast as we could. We’d be pulling out the next day before sunrise, when Fiona and her family would still be asleep.
But here’s another thing: I know goodbyes. And I hate goodbyes. The best kind of goodbye is the kind you don’t even say.
So I smiled at Fiona and gave her a big nod.
“Absolutely.”
She grinned at me.
“Awesome. Come down after breakfast.”
“You got it. See you then.”
I thanked her mom again and gave Fiona a hug and then walked off up the road. And that right there was the perfect goodbye in my book. Easy-cheesy.
I walked back up to my freak dad and our hilarious, horrifying home and I didn’t have downcast eyes or any sort of heavy heart. Nope. It was all right. It was all right. There was nothing to cry about. There was nothing to cry about.
Sure, I woulda liked to have had another day there. Sure, I woulda liked to hang out with Fiona and talk about books and share secrets and build forts. Sure. But that didn’t matter. We always kept moving, Rodeo and me. That’s the way it was. That’s the way it’d been for years. That’s the way it was gonna be always, I thought. That’s the way it had to be, I thought.
I had no way of knowing right then that it was all about to change. In a huge way.
CHAPTER
SIX
It was weeks later that it happened, and hundreds of miles away.
It all started at three o’clock in the afternoon on a Saturday, which I know for sure because I call my grandma every Saturday at noon, Pacific time zone, no matter what. Rain or shine, no matter what middle-of-nowhere place we happen to be at, I call her and we chat.
Now, Rodeo wants nothing to do with cell phones and our bus don’t exactly work with a landline, so obviously I have to be the one to call her. Which means that every Saturday around eleven o’clock I start keeping my eyes peeled for a pay phone. Since everyone’s got a cell phone in their pocket these days, pay phones are pretty tough to find. You have to find just the right kind of gas station—usually an old one with flickering lights and a wooden counter and dusty cans of chili on the shelves. If there’s no pay phone to be found, then I gotta start asking strangers if I can borrow their cell phone. It’s not as tough as you might think, if you pick the right kind of person. Find an old lady with a nice face and smile wrinkles all around her mouth and ask her if you could please borrow her phone to call your grandma, it’s a yes darn near every time. Say “excuse me” and “ma’am” and it’s practically a guarantee. They just about fall all over themselves trying to snatch their phone outta their big ol’ purse, and half the time they end up showing you pictures of their grandkids.
That’s what I did on that Saturday when everything started going crazy. We’d driven late the night before and I’d just reluctantly woken up from an afternoon nap, so I was dead on my feet and yawning when I managed to find a woman with a cell phone she’d let me use.
“Hi, Grandma!” I said, plenty loud
so the lady who’d loaned me the phone would know I wasn’t scamming her.
“Hello, honey!” my grandma answered, sweet as an oatmeal cookie. “Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice!” It was the same thing she said every Saturday, but it always gave me a happy little tingle.
“Where are you this week?” she asked.
“Ummm … Hold on a sec.” I covered the phone with my hand and asked the phone lady, “Excuse me, ma’am. Where are we right now?”
“You’re outside of Naples, dear,” the woman answered with a nod and a face-wrinkling smile.
“Uh-huh. That’s Florida, right?” Last time I’d been paying attention we’d been in Alabama, so it was a fair question.
Her smile flickered a bit and her eyebrows furrowed.
“Of course.”
“Thanks,” I mouthed, then turned around to get a little privacy.
“Naples, Florida,” I told Grandma.
“How is it?”
“Hot,” I answered. I looked around. “This gas station has showers, which is nice. Rodeo really needed one.”
“Hmm. And how is your dad doing?”
“Rodeo is doing all right,” I answered, gentle but firm. I love my grandma something fierce, but she refused to call Rodeo “Rodeo,” and not calling someone what they want to be called seems fairly indecent to me. “Well, just as all right as he always is.”
“Um-hmm,” my grandma said. She knew Rodeo, so she knew what I meant. “And how’s little Ivan?”
“Not so little!” I said. I’d taken to sending pictures of Ivan to Grandma from time to time, like postcards. “He’s grown a ton since the last you saw. He’s not hardly a kitten anymore at all. He’s tall and slender and regal and all kinds of smart. You’d love him.”
Grandma laughed softly in my ear.
“Yes, I’m sure I would, dear. Maybe someday you could come back this way and I’ll get a chance to meet him.”
It’s what she said almost every Saturday, and just like every Saturday I had to kind of dodge it. She knew as well as I did that that’d never happen.
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise Page 4
