The back windshield was completely smashed, but there weren't any holes from the buckshot. I felt myself over, making sure I didn't get tagged. I was good. If Dad had been shot, he'd be the last one to say it. And he was too busy tearing down the dirt road, hell for leather. A giant plume of dust spun up behind us. I looked out the side window.
"Coffee, get 'cher head inside!" he yelled.
"I don't think they're following us," I said, rolling the window up.
He peered hard into the rearview, looking for headlights, then eased off the gas.
"Maybe they were just blowing off steam. You must have stomped 'em pretty hard."
"Yeah," he said, keeping his eyes on the road.
I looked around the new truck. It was awesome, chrome finishes, leather interior, automatic everything, even seat warmers! My buns were already starting to get toasty.
Dad must have won it off the ranch owner. Those rich guys never can stay away from a good game. He hadn't even bothered to clean it out before tossing his keys into the pot. There was a vintage Michael Jordan bobblehead stuck to the dashboard, some change in the ashtray, a photo of some kids, grandkids probably, and a half-eaten bucket of fried chicken. I reached down and picked it up. It smelled kinda fresh, and my stomach said we hadn't eaten since breakfast. I rolled down the window, tossing out a few bones, then held a piece out for Dad. "Leg?"
"No," he said, pulling a bag of sunflower seeds from his shirt pocket. He popped a few, then pulled out a blue bandana. It was tied in a loop, and he hung it around the rearview mirror like always. Even all folded up, I could spot the horseshoe logo of the Herradura tequila company. It was our own special luck charm. A long time ago, Dad had bought it when hiking through Mexico, just to keep the dust out of his face. One night, he and some friends walked into a bar. That's where he met Mom. She was traveling with friends too. Dad didn't have anything to get her number with, so she wrote it on the bandana with a silver Sharpie. You can still make out the numbers. I think she'd be proud of us, traveling all over, being a real team.
I took another bite of chicken. It was cold but still crunchy. "Too bad," I said, with my mouth full. "I bet we could've eaten off those cowboys for days."
"Hmph," said Dad, checking the map on his phone. "I got a meetin' tomorrow. We're going to Dallas."
"Dallas? What's there?" I pulled off a crispy bit of chicken skin, popping it in my mouth.
"A big score." He looked around, adjusting all the mirrors.
"What? You never said anything about that."
"It ain't for you to know."
"Come on, is it like some kinda secret? You can't trust me."
Dad looked over, like he was sizing up a pot. "You know enough already."
"Oh wow!" My eyes were getting big, making it up as we went. "If it's a big score, then it's a big game. And that means… celebrities. Uh, jeez… Who lives in Dallas? Mark Cuban? Selena? Troy Aikman? Usher? You're telling me Usher is going to be at your game?"
He just looked straight ahead. The headlights only seemed to cut about a hundred feet of the dark, dusty road ahead.
"At least I can help you train. We're like a team."
"No."
"Oh come on. I always help you train. You said it yourself. I'm one of the best, even better with cards than I am with horses."
"We ain't gonna be doing this much longer," he said, coming to a crossing, driving straight through, ignoring the stop sign.
"What'a you mean?"
"This is gonna be our last score."
"Last? You mean no more games? But I like traveling with you."
He looked over, raising an eyebrow. "This ain't no kinda life."
"It's the best kinda life. We get to hang out all the time. We make bank every night, eat barbecue and sushi, sometimes at the same time! What other kind of life would be better than this?"
"It ain't a way for you to grow up."
"But—."
"After this, we'll have enough to settle down. The way your mom always wanted. Get a house, maybe even a ranch. We won't have to travel no more."
"A house!" I said, throwing the bone back in the bucket.
"We ain't talking about it anymore."
"But, Mom never—."
"I said that's enough!"
I slumped even further into the seat. By now, the seat warmer had gotten all revved up, burning my buns. How do you turn that stupid thing off anyway? I missed our old Chevy.
Dad came to the end of the dirt road. A sign said, Dallas 96 Miles. He turned onto the asphalt. I crossed my arms, pretending to go to sleep.
***
I awoke to a blaring horn and headlights glaring in my face. Oncoming traffic whooshed by. "Stupid idiot!" Dad yelled, leaning his head out the window.
I could see the city… Dallas… skyscrapers stacked up like a handful of glow sticks. A big hotel had moving lights all up and down the front of it. "Go Mavs" raced across its curved surface. We drove over a bridge that curved around and ducked under four levels of other bridges. It was like concrete spaghetti.
Every time we came into Dallas, I'd try to spot one thing, the old neon-red Exxon Mobile pegasus. The pink pegasus spun on its pedestal, atop an old building. Half logo, half ballerina. Dad said it used to be the tallest building in town. Now, it was pretty short-stacked up against all those skyscrapers. But still, it said something about this place. I looked at it as long as I could before drifting back to sleep.
***
"Time to go," Dad said, giving me a hard shove. I rubbed my eyes, looking out the front window. We'd stopped. A big neon cowboy stood over us, holding up a glowing sign. His hand blinked back and forth, waving. Buzzing letters said, Traveler's Rest Motel, It's what your dogs have been barking for. I turned to get my bag, then remembered, I didn't have one. When you're on the road, you shouldn't get too attached to things. After a couple of occasions, when we had to ditch our stuff in a fast getaway, I learned to keep a few things on me at all times. My current must-have list included my phone, my Jr. Roping Champion belt buckle, and a picture of Mom tucked into my wallet. I had a collection of hotel keycards going for a while, but Dad told me to stop pinching 'em when he saw they were dinging him an extra 20 bucks every time.
I rubbed my eyes, shuffling up to the motel. Dad already had the keycard in hand and buzzed us through the gate. We walked past the pool. It was lit from below. The underwater lights cast a warbling pattern up onto the rooms. We clunked up the stairs to room 210 and went in.
Inside were a couple of twin beds with bland, brown bedspreads. The whole place smelled like low-rent air freshener, and the TV must have been transported here from the '90s. It wasn't even a flatscreen. And it was paired up with an equally ancient VCR player. A box of old movies told me that Netflix was a no-go. At least it was a suite. It had a little kitchen, fridge, and a lumpy old couch. It's the kinda place you stay after being evicted. I'd know. I sat on the bed, pulled off my boots, then emptied my pockets. Big mistake.
"What the heck is that?" said Dad.
I just sat looking at him. In my hand were my winnings from the night. It was about $40 in ones, all I could grab in the heat of the moment, but still an impressive-looking stack.
"I told you you weren't supposed to play!"
"Uuuhm…" A gambler's always gotta keep his wits about him, even if he's dog tired. I had to think fast. "But you let me play last time." Yeah, that'll work.
"That was training. That's different."
"I don't see how. There's cards and chips and everything."
"It ain't for money," he said, looking out the peephole and locking the door.
"Why are you training me if you're never gonna let me play?"
"It's not training for you, it's for me."
"But I'm good, I even beat you sometimes."
"One time." Dad tossed the gym bag on the bed.
"Still, I'm better than most people out there. You showed me everything you know—."
"Not everything."
"All that stuff is just going to waste. Why can't I play?"
"You know good and well why."
"Yeah," I crossed my arms. "You promised or something."
"That's right." He unzipped the bag. Inside were stacks of cash, a random collection of watches, a leather sap, a pair of yellow work gloves, and a bunch of other things that'd come in handy in case of a bug-out: toothbrushes, underwear, that kinda stuff.
"It don't make any sense. How can you make promises about what I can or can't do?"
"That's what it's like to be a father."
"I mean Mom wasn't… You know how she was… in the hospital. She wasn't even all the way thinkin'—."
"Don't talk about your mother like that!"
I turned away, looking out the window, the pool lights dancing around the courtyard.
"I promised your mother you wouldn't play, and you ain't playin'."
"Why? So I wouldn't be like you?"
He gave me a hard look, and threw one of the toothbrushes on my bed.
"It don't make any sense—."
"Conversation over," he said, cutting me off. "Now, hand it over." He stuck out his palm.
"But."
"Now!"
I slammed the $40 into his hand. That's the punishment for playing poker. Dad keeps my loot. Then I huffed my way under the covers, not looking at him, and sure as heck not brushing my teeth.
"We gotta get up early tomorrow." I could hear him putting his watch and phone on the nightstand. "I got that meeting. Real soon, we'll put all this behind us."
I pulled the covers up around me. My face had gotten wet. I wiped it off with the sheet.