By ten thirty the next morning, they were somewhere in Pennsylvania, driving through the Appalachians. The dog, which Adele had christened Zeus when she discovered that Jack hadn’t named it yet, wasn’t enjoying the ride. It had hunkered down on the backseat as soon as they’d gotten on I-80, and it kept whining. Adele finally crawled into the backseat and sat with its head in her lap.
“Thank God you like dogs,” Jack said.
She smiled at him in the mirror.
“Who doesn’t like dogs?”
He wanted to say something more. He wanted to talk to her. But he just didn’t know what to say. He never quite knew what to say to her, unless she said something first.
“Zeus doesn’t really fit him,” he said after a while. Adele grinned.
“I think it does,” she said. She jumped back into the front seat. “You know who Zeus was, right? Father of the gods? He overthrew his father Cronos…”
And she was off, telling him all about Zeus and his reign as leader of the gods. She talked for nearly an hour, and when she was done, Jack said, “So. He got around, is what you’re saying.” He looked at the pointer in the rearview mirror. “You’ve got a lot to live up to, buddy.”
Adele laughed so hard at that that she nearly cried. Jack laughed too, though not as hard, but he laughed more because she was laughing than because of what he’d said. He couldn’t help it. She had an infectious laugh.
“Is that all you got out of it?” she gasped finally. “His conquests?”
“Come on,” Jack said. “Come on. You keep telling me about people he raped or abducted or seduced, and you think I won't get that out of it? Sleeping with people is half his fucking story.”
“Fair enough,” Adele said, grinning. “Now you tell me a story.”
Jack’s grey eyes flashed over her.
“I don’t know any stories,” he said, but she rested her chin on her fist and said, “Tell me about the rodeo.”
“That’s not a story,” he said. “That’s just something I did.”
“Tell me.”
He ran a hand over the stubble on his jaw and then looked at her. Her eyes were smiling at him.
“You really want to know about it, huh?” She nodded. “Shit. Okay. But I’m not a story teller, okay? I can’t tell a story like you can.”
“Thought you said it’s not a story,” Adele said.
No arguing with that, Jack thought. He tried to think back. Ten years ago, when he was thrown off his last bull. Eight years before that, when he rode into his first arena, a swaggering kid of eighteen. It was a long time to get back to, he thought. To the beginning, assuming she wanted to hear about everything – every bull ride, every calf-roping or barrel-racing or steer-wrestling. He wasn’t even sure he could remember everything. He’d had his share of concussions over the years.
“My dad,” he said, and then he wasn’t entirely sure why he’d said it. “My dad, he, uh – he grows corn. And soybeans.”
“Sounds exciting,” she said with a grin.
“Yeah, he thinks so. My brother does it too, now, but he doesn’t like it. Keeps food on the table, is what he says. He’s got a wife and a couple of kids. Maybe if I’d settled down I’d be doing it, but I didn’t want to and I didn’t have extra mouths to feed, so I did rodeo. Learned all the roping and riding on my grandfather’s ranch when I was sixteen. Wasn’t real big, he got into organic ranching in his forties and never went back, and it’s not easy keeping up a big farm when it’s all organic. Kept maybe five hundred head of cattle.”
“That’s small? Five hundred cows?”
“Relatively speaking,” Jack said. “I guess to some city folk who’ve never seen a cow in their life, five hundred is a lot, but the big ranches’ll have a couple thousand.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It’s a sight – even my grandfather’s, when you were up on a hill with five hundred steers all spread out below you… They did a rodeo every year, just for the fun of it, but it kept all the hands up on their skills – gotta rope calves to brand ‘em, stuff like that. So I stayed there for two years and then left and started competing in real rodeos. That, now – I mean, when you’re calf-roping and you know your horse better than you know yourself, and you know it knows exactly where the calf is going – or when you’re barrel-racing and you’re so focused that you forget there’s anyone watching you until you gallop back to the gate and hear the crowd roaring – or when you drop onto that bull and feel it alive and quivering beneath you and then it explodes out of the gate – I can’t even tell you. Those idiots at Yeehaw’s? They think that machine is the real deal. They could never imagine what it’s really like.”
He didn’t realize how quickly he’d started talking, or that he’d lit up while doing so, or that Adele, watching him from the passenger seat, thought he’d never looked quite as handsome as he did right now.
“If you loved it so much, why’d you quit?” she asked.
He sobered immediately, the glow of his glory days forgotten.
“The last bull,” he said. “Monster almost killed me.”
And he was done talking.
He half-expected her to ask more questions, but she left him alone and stared out the window at the mountains. He wasn’t sure whether or not he was glad of that. He just knew he didn’t want to talk about the rodeo anymore. He didn’t want to tell her about Apache Devil, the great red bull who threw him off in a second and a half – not before it broke his nose with a head-toss – and then dragged him through the arena, still kicking and bucking. His hand had been caught in the rope. And in the two minutes between the time he managed to free himself and the time the rodeo clowns got Devil away from him, the bull broke three of his ribs. He’d blacked out and woken up in the hospital.
Hours later, somewhere in Ohio, the car began losing speed.
“Shit,” Jack said.
“What is it?”
“Serpentine belt, most likely. Been meaning to get that replaced.”
He steered the Taurus toward the upcoming exit. It died on the shoulder just off the freeway.
“Shit,” Jack said again.
“Shall we push?” Adele asked.
“Have to. Come on.” They got out of the car. Jack opened the backdoor and whistled. The pointer jumped out, wagging its tail. “You too, Zeus.”
“What, you’re gonna make him push?” Adele said with a small smile. “I’m not sure he’ll be much help.”
“No, but at least he’ll make the car lighter. Come on. To the right, there’s a gas station that way.”
It started to rain when they made it to the end of the off-ramp. Jack scowled, but Adele laughed and threw her head back to let the rain run over her face.
“Come on, Jackie, it’s an adventure! Let’s go.”
They pushed harder and finally managed to get the car into the parking lot of the gas station down the road. They slumped against the hood.
“Thank God,” said Jack. Then, “Hey. A tow-truck.”
The nearest auto repair was fifteen miles away. All the mechanic said was, “Gonna be a few hours. Maybe a coupl’a days, depending what your problem is.”
“It’s just the serpentine belt!”
The mechanic was unfazed.
“Don’t know that for certain. Might want to find a place to stay.”
Jack kicked the nearest tire, and Adele put a hand on his arm.
"Come on. We could be here a while. Come, Zeus."
The pointer barked and followed them out to the road. Aside from the mechanic's, a chapel, a convenience store, a bar, and seven houses nestled in a cleft of the surrounding hills.
"We'll find something," Adele said.
"There's nothing here."
"Come on. I'm sure someone can tell us where there's a hotel."
A hotel, Jack thought. He hoped it wouldn't be awkward, but he couldn't help feeling that a shared hotel room was sure to have embarrassing insinuations. But Adele didn't seem bothered by that, if the idea had occurred to her, so Jack decided to let it go.
An older man on the porch of the first house called out to them as they passed by.
"Y'all need a place to stay?"
They stopped and looked up at him. He wore overalls and a baseball cap and was clean-shaven. A gray-haired woman rocked in the chair beside him.
"You folks know a place?" Jack asked.
The man stuck his thumbs in his pockets and seemed to swell with pride. He jerked his head toward the house.
"We got the Keegan Motel out back."
Jack and Adele looked at each other. Adele shrugged.
"Let's see what you got," Jack said.
The man introduced himself as Mike Keegan and led them around the back of the house. There they saw five white fourteen-by-sixteen sheds lined up about ten yards back from the house. A faded, hand-painted sign stuck in the ground before them read KEEGAN MOTEL. Mike unlocked one of the sheds, revealing a full-sized bed, a shabby rust-colored couch, and a night-stand with an old-fashioned alarm clock, lamp, and coffee-maker. A second door led to a bathroom barely big enough to house the toilet inside.
"'Fraid you'll have to come in the house if you wanna shower," Mike said. "We never put in proper bathrooms, seeing as how the only guests we get are wayward motorists."
Jack pulled out his wallet.
"Not a problem. We'll just be here the one night. How much you asking?"
"Twenty bucks, thirty if you want breakfast and dinner, but you don't pay til you leave. Here's your key. Mind the dog doesn't soil the carpet. My wife'll have a fit."
"Thanks," Adele said. As soon as Mike left, the dog hopped on the couch and curled up, but Jack shoved it off.
"No dogs on the furniture, same as at home. Besides, this is my spot." He sighed. "You know I could've had you home in another three hours?"
Adele plopped down beside him.
"Even making stops for the dog?"
"Okay, three-and-a-half hours. God, this is stupid. I meant to get that replaced, too."
"Look," Adele said, "we're going to be here a while whether we like it or not. We might as well enjoy it." She patted his knee and stood up. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" he asked, following her to the door. "Stay, Zeus."
"The bar. Where else is there?"
"Good point," Jack said. The dog howled as they shut the door.
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