By a great stroke of luck, her father wanted to treat him and Mike to milk shakes at the soda fountain, and in a heartbeat Clay was sitting next to Marilyn at the counter. “We’re going to see everything, go everywhere, do everything,” he declared. “At the ends of the roads we’re going to take off with our backpacks.” He hoped Mike was hearing this—he needed to be reminded—but Mike was a few feet away at one of the tables and busy talking to Marilyn’s father.
Marilyn had the bluest eyes. She looked interested in what he was saying. What did she think of him?
“We call our trip the Big Wander,” he told her. “I can’t believe we’re finally on the road after thinking about it for so long. What makes it even better, we have this uncle we haven’t seen for a couple of years…. Nobody know’s what’s happened to him, and we’re out to find him. Did you ever hear of Clay Jenkins, the rodeo star?”
“I guess not,” Marilyn said apologetically.
“He was All-Around Cowboy in 1956. That means he was the world’s best. Here, I’ve got a few pictures in my shirt pocket.” He showed her his favorite first, Uncle Clay under a black cowboy hat with that trademark smile all over his face, standing by a fancy pickup that had his name and a bucking Brahma bull painted on the side. Then he showed her the one with Uncle Clay in all his sequins and bangles standing in front of bright lights that spelled out MADISON SQUARE GARDEN.
“That’s the biggest belt buckle I ever saw.”
“That’s for All-Around Cowboy,” Clay said proudly. “He did it all—he rode bareback broncs and saddle broncs, bulldogged steers, even rode the bulls. He hit all the big-time rodeos, like Pendleton, Cheyenne, the Calgary Stampede…. Wait, there’s one more.”
Clay took another photograph from his pocket and held it out. Uncle Clay’s face didn’t show very well under his black Stetson, and his chipped tooth and three-day beard made him look a little like an outlaw. He wore jeans, a long-sleeved plaid shirt, and a silk neckerchief, and he was leading a burro.
“He doesn’t look the same.”
“Well, it’s our most recent, from two years ago. He’s older—it was taken after he left the rodeo. The last we knew, he was trying to make a living as a uranium miner.”
“‘The Lonesome Trail,’” she read from the border at the bottom of the picture. “Where is he now?”
“That’s just it,” Clay said. “We don’t really know, and that’s what’s going to make it interesting. All we know is where he was when that picture was taken—near Grants, New Mexico, at the Bluewater uranium mill. And he was leaving there. He could be anywhere from Tucumcari to Mexican Hat.” They were just names off the map, but they sure sounded good when he said them.
“Mexican Hat. Why do they call it that?”
“Because people wear sombreros a lot there, I’m pretty sure.”
Clay noticed Mike’s smirk, but Mike kept on talking to Marilyn’s parents, telling how they’d saved up for the trip and assuring them that their mother was all in favor of it.
Before any time at all, their milk shakes were dry and they were standing outside shaking hands and saying good-bye. Clay noticed someone in the station wagon, a boy a year or so younger than Mike. “My brother,” Marilyn explained. “He’s not in a very good mood. I think he’s just tired of our trip and being jammed in with all of us.”
Awkwardly, Clay reached to shake Marilyn’s hand. It wasn’t anywhere to be found, but finally she produced it, which was a relief.
“Good luck finding your uncle,” Marilyn was saying.
“You too,” he replied, and flushed as he realized it hadn’t come out right.
She chuckled, and then her family all turned for the station wagon.
“Did you get her address?” Mike asked under his breath.
Clay felt his face flushing red and his throat going tight. It was all he could do to wave as the station wagon pulled out. “What was I supposed to—”
Mike was shaking his head. “I’d swear your last name was Pigeon.”
“It’s not like I’ll ever see her again….”
“You never know, Clay, you never know. You could have written her at least.”
I could have, Clay thought. Why didn’t I think of that?
“You were too wound up to think,” his brother said. “I saw you. You’ve never kissed a girl, have you?”
“’Course I have.”
“Yeah, right. That’s why your face is bright red. You’re the worst liar I ever saw. All good things in all good time, Clay Pigeon. Look, you’re tall, you’ve got that dark hair, and you’re handsome—the girls are going to be knocking down your door.”
“Sure, Mike.”
“You check the oil while I make a call, okay?”
It was time for Mike to disappear into a phone booth again and talk, talk, talk with his girlfriend, Sheila. Every day, and sometimes twice, Mike would slide into a phone booth and then afterward drive in a trance for a hundred miles. Clay had a bad feeling. He didn’t even want to think about it. The Big Wander was supposed to be better than all the old days put together when they were hiking in the Cascades, swimming rivers, busting salmon and steelies, messin’ around. But Mike’s heart wasn’t really in it.
The oil was down a quart—no surprise. At least we’re on the way, Clay thought. Fifteen hundred miles from home and out in the middle of Arizona. Maybe Mike will snap out of it. The only trouble was, he’d been this way all spring, like he’d even forgotten he had a brother and the Big Wander was coming up. In the days just before the trip it was a matter of holding your breath and ducking out every time Mike seemed to be getting worked up to making a speech or something. If it hadn’t been for the blowup with Sheila, Mike might’ve called the whole trip off.
Back on the road, Mike didn’t speak for a long time, except to mutter, “In search of the ‘Real West’ …” Clay didn’t want to ask him what he was getting at. As the shadows grew long and they drove through the Painted Desert, Clay could see the Real West out there, glowing and magical, beyond the billboards. Mike was missing it, but there was no budging him when he was in a funk like this.
Eventually it was starting to get dark, and KOMA was beginning to come in. KOMA would make his brother feel better. They’d never heard such a great radio station. It played all the great songs and it seemed to reach about everywhere, as if most of the country was in the neighborhood. The deejays would announce dances from Tyler, Texas, clear up to Aberdeen, South Dakota, and from Columbia, Missouri, all across to Needles, California.
“Ricky Dare here, riding your way on the big signal coming at you from Ok-la-homa City, Ok-la-homa, playing the songs you want to hear when you want to hear ’em, and that’s right now. From John in Cody, Wyoming, for Betty Ann in Casper, here’s Gene Pitney and ‘Only Love Can Break a Heart’….”
Unfortunately for Mike, the signal faded just as the song began. Mike was in the mood for sad songs, sad love songs. Clay glanced at his brother, who was reaching for the dial and trying to get that song back. Mike was hurting, it wasn’t hard to tell.
It wasn’t as easy to talk to Mike as it used to be. For the last year it seemed like all his brother thought about was his girlfriend Sheila. There hadn’t been time for him and Mike to do things anymore.
Now that Mike and Sheila had broken up, you couldn’t just ask what had caused the big blowup. Clay felt bad for him but really was thankful it had happened and Mike had wanted to get out of town. Otherwise all those old plans for the big road trip would have been just a pipe dream. The phone call from Uncle Clay had helped too, but the call wouldn’t have been enough.
I’d be mowing lawns this summer, Clay thought, and Mike would be pumping gas and hanging out with Sheila. We wouldn’t be together out in the middle of the desert heading for New Mexico and points beyond, that’s for sure.
Clay started to write a postcard.
“Who you writin’ to?” Mike was still trying to tune KOMA back in.
“President Kennedy.”
“Oh, yeah? No kiddin’? Just thought you’d stay in touch with the president?”
“Well, you know, I think he’s the greatest … and I always kind of wanted to write to him.” Clay was a little embarrassed now, but at least his brother was back poking fun again. “I figured out that we wouldn’t be doing this trip if it weren’t for him.”
“How’d you figure that?”
“Well, I think it’s because of President Kennedy that Mom got the idea about going to Guatemala for the summer, about helping other people—you know.”
“‘Ask not what your country can do for you …,’” Mike began, imitating the president’s voice and Boston accent to perfection, “‘ask what you can do … for your country.’ Is that what you mean?”
“Yeah, sort of. If she hadn’t come up with such a great idea for her own summer, she might not have been so easy on us about being gone so long—you know, if we were leaving her home by herself.”
“So we have the president to thank? Pretty farfetched, if you ask me.”
“And just think if we find Uncle Clay! Then she’ll really be proud.”
Mike tried the radio dial again. “That’s just a long shot, you know.”
“We’ll find him. I have this feeling.”
Mike hooted. “You didn’t even find out where he was when he called!”
“I know, I know…. I could hardly hear a thing. It was a bad connection. Really bad. I just couldn’t think.”
“Yeah, I know, you got so excited. Well, we know he was in Bluewater a couple of years ago, that’s a start. Clay, you have your own unique style, I’ll have to give you that.”
Mike had a big grin across his face. Clay was sure that the farther Mike got away from Seattle the better he would feel. This was beginning to be just like the old days. And the whole summer was stretching out in front of them.
Clay returned the grin, brandished his ballpoint, and went to work on his postcard:
Dear President Kennedy,
My brother Mike and I are big fans of yours. My mother wanted to join the Peace Corps, but she’s a teacher and couldn’t be gone for two years. But this summer she went to Guatemala with a church group called Amigos.
Mike and I, we’re out looking for our uncle. You may have heard of him—Clay Jenkins—used to be a famous rodeo cowboy. Keep up the good work.
Your friend,
Clay Lancaster
“I had to kind of squeeze it in,” Clay said as he finished up.
“You think he can read your chicken scratch?”
“Do you think it will get to him if I just address it to the White House in Washington, D.C.?”
“Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. I don’t see why he wouldn’t get it, and he ought to like that eight-foot trout lashed to the horse. Probably don’t see many of those in Washington.”