“I know what to do,” I said. “I know how we can get it fixed.”
“Wait a minute, honeybear, we can’t just—” Rodeo started to say, but I spun in the gravel so he was at my back. I was done with him.
“Lester,” I said, “get out your phone. Please.”
I knew we had one chance to get old Yager fixed. Who in the world has school bus parts, and maybe even a mechanic who knows how to work on them? Well, a school district. Obviously.
We’d done it before, Rodeo and me. Needing a part or a little expertise, we’d called whatever school district we were closest to and chatted with their bus garage and, for the most part, found the folks there to be pretty darn helpful and kinda interested in seeing what we had going on with Yager.
I searched around on Lester’s phone and found the phone number of the closest school district. I pressed “the Call button,” and when I heard it ringing I handed it over to Rodeo. He was still sitting there all slack-boned, his face tired and neutral.
We waited while Rodeo squinted at the horizon, the phone pressed to his ear. After a bit he shook his head and hung it up.
“No answer,” he said with a halfhearted shrug. “It’s August. No one’s gonna be working at the schools in August. It’s hopeless, baby.”
I was breathing fast through my nose, chewing on my bottom lip.
Rodeo looked up at me, his magical eyes not the slightest bit magical right then for me.
I turned around, stared off at the hills, my heart broken and my mind racing.
Hopeless. It’s not a word I really cared for at that particular moment.
It did feel hopeless, there by the side of the highway with no help in sight.
But, here’s the thing: Hope is a lot like parking lot cigarette butts—always there if you look hard enough.
My mind clicked. I spun back around. When I spoke, I spoke to Lester and Salvador.
“We don’t need the schools,” I said. “We just need the bus mechanic.”
Lester just blinked at me. But Salvador’s eyes lit up.
“The school district website!” he shouted, then he bent down and snatched the phone from Rodeo’s limp hand. “Let’s see if it has, like, someone’s name. Then maybe we could call them at home or something.”
Lester grinned.
“Brilliant.”
Turned out it was brilliant. There on the district website, under “Our Staff,” it had a long list of all the folks who worked there, with nice little smiling pictures next to the names. Down at the bottom, under “Support Staff,” was a picture of a lady with big hair and bright red lipstick and a big smile, and the title “Transportation Maintenance Director,” which Lester assured us was probably the title we were looking for. Her name was Tammy. I kid you not.
Tammy’s last name was Smet, so Lester searched for Tammy Smets in Anaconda, Montana (which was where we were, more or less), and he found a number.
“It’s ringing,” he said, and Rodeo reached up for the phone. But Lester just gave him a look. A serious look. A quiet look. And he said, kinda soft, “No, man. I’ll talk to her.” Rodeo just scratched his nose and looked away.
We all stood there waiting breathlessly for a minute and then Lester said, “Hello? Is this Tammy Smet?” and me and Salvador exchanged quick little nervous-happy let’s-see-how-this-goes smiles and then Lester said, “Well, my name is Lester and you don’t know me, but I got a little question for you. Well, a big question,” and then he turned and walked off a bit, away from the road and toward the trees, and we couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore, but he said a lot.
I saw him talking into his phone, up there, in the shadow of the Idaho pines. He talked with his mouth, with his eyes, with his face, with his hands, with his heart. He paced and he nodded and he shook his head and sometimes he talked high and sometimes he talked low.
I watched him, a lump in my throat. ’Cause he was doing all that talking for me.
I loved that man, watching him talking for me by the side of the road. And I knew he loved me, too. Because that’s what love is. Caring about what the other person cares about because you care about them. And want them to be happy. Right?
I don’t know what he said. But he must’ve said it good, because a few minutes or a few lifetimes later, he came walking over to us and he put his hand over the phone and said, “What kind of bus is this?” and I answered, “This is a 2003 International 3800 school bus,” and it might seem odd that I’d have that memorized, but it ain’t, because most kids have their addresses memorized, right? Yager’s license plate is Washington State JFS1150, by the way.
Lester did some more talking and then he handed the phone down to Rodeo, who was still sitting in the dirt.
“She needs to talk to you,” he said, and Rodeo just looked at the phone for a second, but then he took it and he answered a few questions about brake parts and part numbers and stuff and then he said, “Uh-huh. Okay. Yep.” And then he said the best thing of all: “All right. I’ll see you in a little bit, then.”
And I guess he probably hung up, but I didn’t see it because I was too busy high-fiving Salvador and hugging Lester and doing a dance right there on the exit-ramp shoulder.
I didn’t hug Rodeo. I didn’t high-five him, either.
* * *
Tammy Smet showed up about an hour later in a big, rumbling diesel pickup truck. She had a toolbox and some work gloves and a whole bunch of parts and I’d just about never seen a prettier sight than her getting out of that truck and saying, “Howdy.”
Lester shook her hand and Rodeo shook her hand and then she got to me. She looked me in the eye and asked, “You the girl?”
I shrugged.
“I’m a girl, ma’am. Don’t know if I’m the girl.”
“You’re the one he told me about, though?”
“Yeah, probably.”
She looked into my eyes a second longer, then pulled something out of her shirt pocket. It was a picture. A picture of a lady who looked an awful lot like Tammy. Friendly eyes. A big, warm smile.
“That’s my sister,” Tammy said. Then she added, “Charlene,” and she added it soft.
“She looks nice.”
“She was.”
I looked up at Tammy and she looked down at me and then she said, “Let’s get this ol’ girl back on the road.”
I smiled big and she smiled back. She started toward her truck, then stopped and turned to Rodeo.
“Uh, we will need to talk about money, though.”
Now, Tammy was good people. But obviously she couldn’t go around giving away expensive bus parts that the school district had paid for to any stranger that passed through town.
“Of course,” Rodeo said when she told him how much the parts would cost. “We’ll pay you for all parts and labor, no problem.”
“Well,” Tammy said, “the parts you will need to pay money for. The labor, though, is something else.”
“What kind of something?”
“Lester over there tells me y’all are heading toward Poplin Springs.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“And that’s on the way to Silver Bar, right?”
Rodeo squinted.
“I suppose so,” he answered all cautiously.
“Well, that’s just perfect!” Tammy beamed.
“How so, sister?”
“It just so happens that I got an item that I been trying to get to Silver Bar. But I been so busy, I haven’t had the chance. And then along you come, heading that way, needing a favor.”
Rodeo sniffed.
“I don’t need a favor. I can pay you for all parts and labor.”
“Fine. You don’t need a favor. And I don’t really need your money. But you do need a new brake line. And I do need something taken to where you’re going. And that’s what I call just perfect.” Tammy smiled, and there was a tough little glint in her eye. She was good people, that Tammy, but she also knew how to get what she wanted. Nothing wrong with t
hat.
Rodeo shot me a what-did-you-get-us-into look and cocked an eyebrow at Tammy.
“This, uh, item. It is … legal to transport?”
Tammy’s eyes darted away for a second.
“Yeah,” she said, but she sounded awful vague when she said it. “Well, it ain’t necessarily illegal.”
Rodeo spit out a sunflower seed shell.
“Uh-huh. What is it?”
Tammy grinned her biggest grin yet.
Four hours later, we were back on the road.
The brakes were fixed and working like a charm. We could stop whenever we wanted, which is really what you’re shooting for when it comes to brakes.
Salvador and Val were back on the couch, playing Uno. Ms. Vega and Concepción were chatting in one of the bus seats. Lester was trying to get some sleep on Rodeo’s blanket pile. Ivan was conked out back in my bed.
Rodeo was driving, and he was doing a nasty combination of fuming and sulking, so I was doing my best to leave him alone while also keeping an eye on him.
We were moving. We’d lost about five hours altogether and the sun was almost setting, and I knew that getting there was gonna be a close call, but it sure looked like I was gonna make it. Home. I was gonna make it home. I was bouncing and tapping my feet; my heart and my stomach were fighting a war. My heart was trying to clap and sing a hallelujah song, but my stomach was pacing back and forth, wondering what in the heck I’d gotten us into. I felt like you do when you’re sitting at the very tip-top of a roller coaster: You’re happy, you’re excited … but you’re also holding your breath for what’s coming next.
But thanks to Tammy, I did have something else to help occupy my racing mind.
I was sitting in the first row of bus seats, right behind Rodeo. I was perched at the edge of the seat, way over by the aisle. I was sitting there so I could have my arm around Gladys, to keep her calm while we drove.
I guess I should mention: Gladys was a two-hundred-pound Finnish Landrace goat with long white hair and an impressive pair of elegant horns, and she needed a ride to Silver Bar, Washington.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
Gladys, like Val and Salvador and Lester and Esperanza and Concepción, was a great addition to our troupe.
Gladys belonged to Tammy’s daughter, Jessica, who had recently moved to Silver Bar. Gladys, who had been raised and bottle-fed by Jessica, was not a big fan of the move. She’d been moping around for weeks, Tammy had told us with a sad shake of her head. So there was to be a reunion between Gladys and Jessica. We and our bus were the means for that reunion to be possible.
The whole thing was very sweet and exciting. Well, I thought the whole thing was very sweet and exciting. Rodeo and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on that particular issue.
“We can’t have some damned goat in our home making a mess of our floor!” Rodeo had insisted. He’d darn near raised his voice, so I’d known he was serious.
“Oh, Gladys is house-trained,” Tammy had assured us.
“Gladys?” Rodeo had exclaimed, momentarily distracted. He got back on track pretty quick, though. “You can’t house-train a goat.”
Tammy’s eyebrows lowered and she cleared her throat.
“Maybe you can’t house-train a goat. But apparently I can.” And then she added, a little less confidently, “But, uh, you should probably pull over every couple hours and walk her around a bit. Just in case.”
I liked Tammy.
Rodeo and Tammy stared at each other for a minute.
“This is ridiculous,” Rodeo said.
Tammy softened her tone.
“Look. I really need to get Gladys to Silver Bar. She misses her mama. A goat is a loyal animal. She won’t be any problem, I promise. Well, maybe not promise, exactly, but I bet, anyway. Think of her like a dog. She’s been a housegoat her whole life.”
“Housegoat?” Rodeo sputtered, but Tammy kept going.
“Those are my terms, buddy. Come on. This is a win-win. A win-win-win-win, if you count Gladys and Jessica. I’d really appreciate it. I’m helping you. Please. Help me out here.”
Oh, that Tammy. I don’t know if she was really that good at reading people or she just got lucky, but that was the perfect way to end an argument with Rodeo. He ain’t good at being bullied. But he’s exceptionally good at helping folks who need it. Always kindness. More or less.
Rodeo looked deflated. He was beat, and him and me both knew it. He now had a promise to keep and a kindness to offer and maybe he coulda fought one of ’em, but he was defenseless against both of ’em together.
He pointed a finger at me, but it was more of a surrendering finger than an angry finger.
“You’re cleaning up any messes that goat makes,” he’d said, and that was that.
Gladys had bright green eyes that always looked like they were laughing, and a braying bleat that cracked me up every time. She was a real people-goat, too, always wanting to be right by my side no matter where I was. I tried to get her to hop up on the seat next to me and I swear she was just about to, but then Rodeo put a kibosh on that.
Ivan was surprisingly low-key about the whole thing. He gave her a fair amount of owl-eyed staring when she first scrambled on board and his introductory sniffs were cautious at best, but within a few minutes they’d done some cordial mutual nose-sniffing, and within twenty miles he seemed to have forgotten that Gladys hadn’t always been a part of our pack. He’s some kind of cat, that Ivan.
Gladys did manage to eat basically an entire tomato plant before Salvador stopped her, but I think that’s understandable behavior even for a well-behaved housegoat. All in all, bringing Gladys on board was a real upgrade for our group experience.
Around bedtime on that last night, I was sitting back on the couch reading by what was left of the sun’s light shining through the bus windows. Ivan was snoozing on my lap. Gladys was curled up by my feet, blinking slow and sleepy. I suppose it was a pretty odd and specific scene.
Salvador was at the other end of the couch, just about ready to finish The One and Only Ivan. He was loving it. Obviously.
Lester walked back and sat down in the Throne. He shot a look at Rodeo up driving, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and asked me in a low voice, “Is he gonna be okay?”
I knew what he was talking about. Ever since the secret, and especially since we’d gotten the brakes fixed, Rodeo had been quieter and quieter. His eyes didn’t have their sparkle. His answers were short.
“Sure,” I said. “I mean, he’ll be okay. He ain’t happy about it, but he’ll be okay.” I think I was saying it to reassure myself as much as Lester. “He’s been avoiding this for five years,” I went on. “It’s really hard for him. But he knows how much it means to me. It’ll be okay.”
“You really haven’t been back in five years? At all?” Salvador asked.
I shook my head.
“Not even close.”
“How you feeling?” Lester’s voice was soft, his eyes deep into mine.
“Good. Well … kinda scared, I guess. And sad. Rodeo is right … it is sad to think about it. To think about them.” I took in a breath, let it out. “But it’s worth it. I think remembering them and being sad about it is way better than forgetting about them.”
Salvador nodded and Lester murmured, “That’s right.”
I thought I was done talking, but then without planning it I said, “I miss them.” I blinked fast and looked down. I rubbed at my eyes with the backs of my hands. “I keep remembering this one thing. There’s this hill we used to sled on in the winter. Close to our house. We’d drag our sleds up there, and sometimes for fun, we’d all squeeze onto our one long sled. Mom at the back ’cause she was the biggest. Rose at the front ’cause she was the smallest. Ava and me in the middle. We had to kind of hug each other to stay on the sled and our legs were all tangled up and it was stupid and hilarious and…” I broke off. In my mind, I could hear us all laughing, feel the arms around me, see the sunlig
ht glaring off the white snow. “And fun. So … happy. But then … the accident was so sudden. And me and Rodeo left so soon.” I squinched my eyes shut tight. “And sometimes it feels like that moment is just on pause. Like once I get home, our life will start right back up again. I’ll be back on that sled. And they’ll be with me.” I shook my head. “But I know that’s not true. Out here, on the road, it’s been easy to feel like they’re just back there. Waiting. But once we get there—I mean, they won’t be. I know that.” I tried to swallow the strangling lump out of my throat. I looked up at Lester, then Salvador, blurry through my tears. “I really, really need that box. I do. But I’m just … I’m just afraid. Afraid of how gone they’ll feel once I have it.”
Lester’s eyes were shiny. He was biting his bottom lip.
Neither one of them said nothing. But Salvador reached over. And he held on to my hand. And he squeezed it.
“This is gonna be hard. It’s gonna be really hard.” My voice started with a tremble, but I dug down to my heartbeat and ironed it out. “Like losing ’em all over again. But maybe I have to lose ’em all over again to get ’em back. And I have to get ’em back. I have to. No matter what.”
It was a good moment, I suppose. A strong moment, and true. In a movie, there’d be an orchestra playing in the background. Good stuff.
I had no way of knowing, though, that it was the moment right before everything unraveled.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
It was the middle of the night. Or at least it felt that way. Rodeo had driven all the long evening, turning down offers of help from Lester and Concepción and Ms. Vega. “Nah,” he’d said each time they’d asked, “I’m good.” But he wasn’t. Not at all.
After a late potty break I noticed that Gladys was looking a little sleepy, so I wandered back to my room with her and lay down on the bed and she lay down on the floor next to me and kinda curled her legs up under herself and laid her chin on the bed, which was freaking adorable.
Ivan seemed to be picking up on my human emotional turmoil, and he stuck close by me, following me around in the bus, watching me out the windows when I was outside pottying Gladys, jumping right up on me when I lay down.
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise Page 19
