The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise

by Dan Gemeinhart

  Rodeo said something to me, but he said it so low I couldn’t hear the words.

  “What?”

  He said it again, and this time I heard him.

  “I promised you.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And we’re almost there, so…”

  “You know how the cops are,” he said. “They ask questions, they make us wait, they make calls. It could be hours, honeybear. And I blew it, I gave us no time to waste. We don’t have time to stop.”

  “It’ll be all right, Rodeo. You were just speeding a little, I bet. We’ll get a ticket, maybe even just a warning, be on our way, no biggie.”

  Rodeo shook his head.

  “I gotta feeling about this one. And I promised you.”

  “Sure. But you gotta pull over.”

  The patrol car accelerated and pulled up beside us. The siren was earsplitting now.

  “This is the Chelan County sheriff,” an amplified voice commanded. “Pull your vehicle to the side of the road immediately.”

  I felt Lester settle into the seat next to me. We traded worried looks.

  “Hey, man,” he said to Rodeo, “I’m, like, sure he wants you to pull over now. And, no offense, but we aren’t outrunning him in this old bus.”

  Rodeo didn’t respond. The officer repeated his command over the loudspeaker.

  “Rodeo, listen to me,” I said, my voice rising. “If you don’t pull over, you’re gonna get arrested. And then we’ll never get there. And you’ll have broken your promise for sure. Please, Rodeo. Just pull over.”

  Rodeo just swallowed.

  So I reached forward, and I flicked on the turn signal.

  And, real easy, I pulled the steering wheel with one hand, just kinda easing us over toward the shoulder.

  Rodeo blew out a deep breath. But then he nodded. And he took his foot off the gas and he tapped the brake and then we rattled to a stop there beside the highway. The cop pulled off on the shoulder in front of us.

  Rodeo killed the engine. He was looking up ahead at that cop, who was grabbing his stuff and starting to open his door. I saw that Rodeo’s hand was shaking.

  The cop rapped on the bus door.

  You know, some folks look like they start the day already half–pissed off. This particular officer of the law looked more like he started at a solid three quarters.

  Rodeo jerked the door open and the cop stepped slowly up the stairs, one hand resting ready on the butt of his gun and his eyes darting quick around. In his other hand he held a crumpled piece of paper.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said to Rodeo, and there wasn’t a word of it that sounded sincere.

  “Mornin’, officer. Is there a problem?”

  The cop was taking his time, climbing up all cautious, and he hadn’t gotten to the top step yet where he could see us all. He stopped, trying to peek over the railing, his hand still down by his weapon.

  “How many passengers you got on board, sir?”

  “Counting animals?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Well, we got five people and one goat and one cat. If you count animals as passengers, which I would in these particular animals’ case, then I guess the answer’s seven passengers in total.”

  The officer’s eyes narrowed. He stayed put on that second-from-the-top step.

  “Any minors on board?”

  “Yes, sir. Two minors on board. Coyote here, and Salvador in the back.”

  “Any weapons?”

  “No, sir. Was I speeding, officer?”

  “Nope,” the officer answered, and stepped up to the top step. He looked toward the back, taking in Yager and her crew. If I was forced to describe the look on his face in one word, I’d have had a hard time deciding between “nauseated” and “hostile.”

  “I thought you said you had five passengers.”

  “I said seven,” Rodeo clarified. “Counting Ivan and Gladys.”

  “Well, I’m seeing only four.”

  Rodeo and I both turned and looked.

  There was Lester beside me, of course.

  Salvador was sitting back on the couch.

  Gladys was curled up in Rodeo’s bed pile, nibbling at the corner of a blanket. I’m guessing the cop wasn’t counting her.

  “Where’s Val?” I asked.

  Salvador looked at me quick and gave a small shake of his head, but it was too late. I’d let the cat out of the bag.

  The cop’s eyes glittered at me.

  “Val?” he said, and then his eyes slipped to Rodeo and he said, “Don’t move,” and then he pulled his pistol out of its holster and walked down the aisle toward the back of the bus, gun held down low.

  My heart thudded and my armpits flushed hot when he pulled that gun out. My mouth went dry. I’m just not a gun person, unless it’s a water gun, and even then I’d rather just get wet on my own terms, thank you very much. I had a hard time breathing when I looked at the black, deadly thing … but I couldn’t tear my eyes off it.

  About halfway back, the cop stopped.

  “Valerie Beckett?” he asked.

  There was a resigned sigh. Then Val stood up from where she’d been crouched behind the Throne. She sat down in the Throne, her eyes wet and full and downcast. She was hugging herself like she was cold, even though Yager wasn’t anywhere near chilly.

  “Valerie Beckett?” the cop asked again, then held up the crumpled paper in his hand and darted his eyes back and forth between it and her. “It’s you, isn’t it? Are you okay, miss?”

  Val didn’t answer. She just swallowed and looked away.

  The cop looked back at Rodeo.

  “And why, sir, didn’t you care to tell me about this minor?”

  “She’s nineteen years old,” Rodeo said, but his voice was kinda thin-sounding.

  “I’m sorry,” Val said, and she didn’t say it to me or the cop. She said it, her voice cracking, right to Rodeo.

  “Oh, no,” Rodeo said quiet, and closed his eyes.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “How long have you been transporting Ms. Beckett, sir?” the cop asked, gun still drawn, voice tight.

  “Since Minnesota, sir, but she told me—”

  “Minnesota? Are you aware that it’s against the law to transport a minor across state lines without their parents’ permission?”

  “She told me that—”

  “Her parents reported her missing two days ago. They suspected kidnapping. Then her cousin said she got a call last night, said this young lady was on her way to meet her in Seattle. Riding in an old school bus. We’ve all been looking for her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Val said again, and Rodeo just sat there with his eyes closed, and I said, “What’s going on?” again, but it was like no one could hear me.

  The cop backed up so the wall was behind him and he could see all of us.

  “Is anyone else also here against their will?” he asked.

  “I’m not here against my will,” Val protested, her voice small. “Officer, I told them that I was—”

  She was cut off by a crackle from the radio clipped to the cop’s uniform. He snapped it free and held it up to his mouth.

  “Dispatch, this is Griffith. I have that Minnesota girl from the APB here in custody, and have apprehended the suspect as well. We’re on Highway 4 westbound at mile marker one-zero-eight. Please send backup, over.”

  Rodeo shook his head, but it looked more like defeat than argument.

  “Officer,” he said, finally opening his eyes, “No one is here against their will. Val told me she was nineteen, and I—”

  “That’ll be enough, sir. I’m gonna need you to go ahead and stand up nice and easy and put your hands in the air.”

  I gasped and jumped up to protest, but I saw the cop stiffen and tighten his grip on his gun and Rodeo looked me in the eyes and said quiet but firm, “No, honeybear. Don’t. It’ll be all right,” and then with just about the saddest eyes you could imagine, that brokenhearted hippie stood up slow and
careful and put his skinny arms up in the air like he was some sort of criminal.

  Lester put his hand on my arm, and it was just as quiet as Rodeo’s voice and just as firm.

  “Nobody move, now,” the cop said, and then he made his way up to the front. “Turn around, put your hands behind your back,” he said when he got up to Rodeo, and he clipped his radio back to his uniform and pulled a pair of handcuffs off his belt, real honest-to-god handcuffs.

  Rodeo blinked. And then Rodeo, that crazy, beautiful, ridiculous freak, he looked that cop right in his eyes. Rodeo turned those magical eyes of his on the cop, looked right past his drawn gun and dangling handcuffs, and just looked him right in the eyes.

  “Please,” he said, “this is all a misunderstanding. I swear.” His voice was tender, his face open, his eyes magnetic. “Please. I made a promise to my daughter. That we’d get to where we’re going. And a promise is a promise, right?” He smiled a little when he said that, just a little. “Please.”

  Rodeo turned those magical eyes of his on that cop and just said, “Please.”

  The cop stood looking into Rodeo’s eyes.

  And then the cop smiled.

  “Well, I didn’t realize you made a promise to your daughter, sir,” the cop said, and Rodeo’s small smile grew. “And I couldn’t care less,” the cop continued. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back and do it now or I will forcibly subdue you. And quit staring at me like that.”

  I guess magic doesn’t work on some sorts of folks.

  “You can consider that promise broken, buddy. You aren’t going anywhere, and neither is this bus or anyone on it ’til we get to the bottom of this. Y’all are done traveling today, and you are under arrest.”

  So that’s what happened. Rodeo’s smile faded to nothing and he shuffled in a circle and put his hands behind his back and the cop took his keys and slapped the handcuffs on, and I just sat there watching. It didn’t seem real, didn’t seem like it could actually be happening. It was, though.

  Rodeo turned to look at me, and his eyes just about tore me apart.

  “I’m sorry,” he mouthed, and I just nodded.

  The cop said all those words about the right to remain silent and all that jazz and then he walked Rodeo down the steps and barked at the rest of us to follow him.

  Our quest was over.

  Eight miles short.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-NINE

  “Tis sucks,” Salvador said.

  “Yeah, man. You could say that,” Lester replied, then spat in the dirt at his feet.

  We were all sitting on a log that was about ten feet from the highway. The cop was standing off a ways, talking back and forth on his radio. Yager was parked and locked up, the keys in the cop’s possession. He’d let us open most of the windows a bit before we got off, but I was still worried about Gladys and Ivan getting too hot in there.

  By now, we’d figured it out, between what the cop had said and the pieces that Val was able to tearfully choke out to us. Val was not a nineteen-year-old community college student. She was a seventeen-year-old junior in high school. The rest was all true, though. The fight with her parents, them not accepting who she was. They hadn’t kicked her out, exactly, but they’d told her basically that she could either be who she wanted to be, or she could live under their roof. Not both. They’d thought she’d surrender. Instead, she’d run away. When she didn’t come home or show up at a friend’s house, they were sure she’d been abducted by some creep on the mean streets of Minneapolis.

  Val had said she was sorry about a dozen times until Rodeo had finally said, his hands cuffed behind his back but his eyes and his voice gentle and sincere, “Val, it’s all right. I ain’t mad at ya. At all. I’m rooting for ya, kid. Okay?” and she’d blinked at him a couple times and then started crying again and said, “Okay,” and then, “Thanks,” and I remembered all over again why I love Rodeo (not that I’d ever really forgotten).

  The cop stomped back over to us with a look on his face like he’d been chewing on lime peels.

  “All right. We got a bit of a situation here and your job is to listen to what I say and then do it. Got it?” He shot a tough glare around at all of us like we were a group of hardened convicts or something. “Sheriff’s office is a little understaffed at the moment, and the only other officer on duty is a couple hours away on a domestic call. I can’t fit you all in my squad car, and I’m not about to sit around on the side of the highway for a couple hours. So.” For a second I thought he was gonna let us all go and my heart started to flutter, but then he grimaced and shook his head at us like it was all our fault and said, “You,” pointing at Val, “and you,” pointing at Rodeo, “are coming with me. I’m gonna take you to the sheriff’s office, where you will call your parents, and you will be held until such time as charges are pressed and bail is posted.” His gaze slithered from Rodeo and Val to the rest of us.

  “You,” the cop said, pointing a finger way too close to Lester’s face, “Lester Washington. You are gonna wait here. I’ll be back in twenty minutes, and you will be here. I have your driver’s license and I have your keys, and if you are not sitting right exactly here when I get back, you’re looking at resisting arrest and fleeing the scene of a crime and criminal noncompliance and a heckuva lot more trouble than you want. Understood?”

  Lester just pursed his lips and nodded and the cop took an angry step closer. “Understood?” he asked again, raising his voice. Lester looked at him. “Yes, sir,” Lester said.

  “And that goes for you two kids, too,” he said, turning to me and Salvador and jabbing his ugly finger at us. “Got it? Right here.”

  “Aren’t you gonna handcuff us, too?” Salvador asked flatly.

  The cop narrowed his eyes.

  “We don’t handcuff kids, kid.”

  Salvador just rolled his eyes and looked away.

  “Come on,” the officer said, motioning for Rodeo to stand up. Rodeo gave me an apologetic look and rose to his feet, and the cop grabbed him by the elbow and started walking him toward the cop car. After just a couple steps, though, Rodeo skidded to a halt.

  He turned and fixed me with a serious, heavy look.

  “You gotta do this, little bird,” he said. “Down through the clouds. Go to your roots. Remember Eureka.”

  My breath caught. My brain clicked and sparked and sputtered and whirred like Yager’s engine roaring awake on a cold winter morning. I tried to look calm, but I knew my eyes were wider than Salvador’s saved hubcap. To most folks, Rodeo’s words would’ve sounded like some hopeless woo-woo hippie nonsense. I knew this for a fact, because the cop snorted and said, “I don’t got time for your woo-woo hippie nonsense. Get moving.”

  But I knew exactly what Rodeo was telling me to do.

  I gave him a quick nod, my mind still trying to find traction. He smiled at me, a small smile that had a little encouragement in it but plenty of worry, and then he turned and let that bully with a badge drag him off toward the police car, and he ducked his head and sat down in the back seat and the door slammed closed behind him.

  Val, still sniffling, followed the cop’s commands and sat in the front seat.

  “Stay put,” the cop shouted at us with one more angry point, then he got in and the cop car started up and peeled away with a spit of dust and gravel, lights and siren blaring.

  We all sat there, watching.

  “Nice guy,” Lester said.

  I looked at the glum pair of folks I was sharing that log with.

  Lester looked troubled but stubborn, eyebrows furrowed in anger but chewing his lips anxiously.

  Salvador looked kinda sad and kinda scared and kinda mad at the same time.

  I’m guessing I looked kinda freaked out. Maybe a little excited. But mostly freaked out.

  Because I wasn’t totally sure what was gonna happen next.

  But I was totally sure that when that cop and his pointing finger came back in twenty minutes, I sure as heck wasn’t
gonna be there.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY

  “What do you mean, you’re going?”

  “I mean, Lester, that I’m going. On to Poplin Springs, like we planned.”

  Lester screwed his eyes at me.

  “Girl. How in the world are you planning on—”

  “You heard Rodeo,” I said, standing up. “All that stuff he said? That was him giving me permission. In code.”

  “Code?”

  “Yeah. ‘Through the clouds.’ That’s the hatch up to the roof.” I saw Salvador lower his eyebrows and nod, catching on. “I know how to drive her, Lester, I promise, but I ain’t got time to explain it all. That cop is coming back and I need to be extra gone by the time he does.”

  I turned and started toward Yager, but Lester jumped up and grabbed my hand.

  “Hold on. We can’t do this. I’ll be in trouble, like serious trouble, and—”

  “I know,” I said, pulling my hand gently free. “That’s why you’re staying. He’s got your license, and you would be totally busted if you left. But I’m just a kid. Worst I get is a couple days in juvie or whatever, and I can live with that. I’m going, I’m going alone, and I’m going now.”

  “No.” It was Salvador speaking up this time. “You aren’t going alone.” He rose to his feet. “I’m going with you.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lester said, standing up himself and raising his hands. “Hold on a hot minute.”

  “Yeah,” I said, tossing an are-you-kidding-me look at Salvador. “Hold on. What?”

  Salvador shrugged, but his eyes were all attitude.

  “You know you gotta do this. You gotta. And you know together is better than alone. So let’s do it. Together.” He looked at me, those eyes of his all intense and probing and sparkly. Then he said it. He didn’t say it begging, or pleading. He just said it human. “Come on, Coyote.”

  Now, here’s a thing. When someone you trust—maybe even someone you love, but not in that way—looks you in your eyes and talks to you and it sounds just like you talking to yourself, here’s what you should do: You should listen.

  So I did.

  I mean, I glared at him and made my lips into an angry line and flared my nostrils. Obviously. But then I cocked an eyebrow and turned on my heels and walked off toward Yager.