They were having a great time, though, and Caleb loved riding shotgun as they sped up one road and down the next, warm drafts of air blowing through their hair. It reminded Caleb of when his dad was on call at the country club, and let him sit on his lap and steer the lawn tractor across the greens on pleasant summer evenings. On this unexpected road trip they’d reeled in more than fish: they’d reeled in one new adventure after another. Caleb had seen his first drive-in movie in some desolate outpost of New Mexico, a horror flick in which a kid his age grew up in the wild, slept in caves, and became a wolfman. He’d seen his first card game when his father played a few hands at a Nevada casino. And he sported a new outfit every day thanks to the purchases his dad made in Abilene their first night out. He could look like a neon sign if he wanted: turquoise tees and salmon-colored shorts, kryptonite-green sweatshirts and windbreakers of ruby red and lavender. But now, nearly a week later, most of Caleb’s clothes were ready for the washer/dryer, and he wondered when he and his father would return home. He missed Mom and Adam, his step-dad. He missed his friends, his dog Cassidy.

           They were now in California, his dad told him so. In a national park. There was lush forest all around, pines and redwoods that stood taller than skyscrapers. Earlier that day Caleb heard woodpeckers tapping out there own version of Morse Code, saw thunderclouds unleash a lightning strike on a nearby valley and even saw a mama bear and her cubs alongside a creek while on a short hike from the campsite. But this wasn’t the middle of the wilderness. There were cars here and parking lots. And lots of people. It was the kind of place you could get lost in—swallowed up by the afternoon crowds if not by the surrounding terrain.

           Lying in the tent and thinking of all those trees, all those vehicles, all those faces, finally got Caleb in the end. Long after the sun rose his father had to practically kick him awake. 

           Later that morning they parked the convertible in one of the packed lots after taxiing up to a nuclear family and claiming their soon-vacated spot. Not long after the pair stood before the most impressive waterfall the boy had ever seen. It looked like something worthy of worship. It made him feel small, though. And made him realize how far he was from home.

           “Hey, little partner, what do you think about that up there?  Bet you’ve never seen a shower like that before.”

           “We learn about waterfalls at school,” Caleb said. 

           “Yeah, but this is the real thing,” his dad said. “You can’t explain this in books.”

           A herd of tourists, cameras and camcorders strapped ‘round their necks and speaking exotic languages, trekked from a tour bus and arrived beside them at the bottom of the falls. Caleb’s awe for the cascading water and majestic surroundings was undisturbed, that is until his father made remarks under his breath about the new visitors, comments the boy didn’t understand. Then his dad’s cheeks turned a healthy shade of red, and his fists clenched at his sides when a bumbling, would-be Ansel Adams almost backpedaled onto their toes. 

           “Let’s get out of here,” his father said.

           “Already?” the boy said. He enjoyed the tingle of waterfall mist that touched his skin, and the summery smell it made on hitting the warmth of the paved walkway. But when he looked at his father he didn’t speak another word; he simply followed him back to the car.

           That afternoon, after a lunch of hot dogs and baked beans they’d cooked over an open campfire, they packed their tent and gathered their belongings. “Time to get a move on,” his father said, slamming the trunk.

           “Where are we going now, Dad?”

           “Any requests?” he asked, as he opened the driver-side door.

           “Someplace with a bed and shower. You know, a motel or something.”  Caleb was beginning to feel crusty and savage-like from all the camping. He felt at times like the boy in the movie he saw, the one raised by wolves. 

            “You want some amenities tonight, some creature comforts?” his father said. “Somewhere like that fancy-ass hotel we stayed in after visiting  the Alamo?”

           The boy beamed a wide brimming smile as he opened the passenger door and scooted into his seat.

           “Well, I think something can be arranged, we’ll see,” his father said as he turned over the ignition.  “Don’t expect anything too posh, though,” he said, before reaching over to grab and pinch a wide patch of the boy’s cheek. 

           They swung by a snack and gift shop just outside the park. Many of the store’s customers were buying film, postcards, and propane canisters. Others stocked up on water, paper towels, toothpaste and such. Caleb’s father queued into the long line for checkout with a basket of several food items and a bottle of whisky. Rather than wait with him, the boy headed to the newspaper stacks by the exit door. He started pawing through a USA Today when his father surprised him with a heavy hand to the shoulder. Caleb dropped the paper to the wood paneled floor.

           “What are you looking at?” his father asked in a genuinely curious tone.

           “Nothing. Just wanted to see the comics.”

           His father swiped the fallen paper and returned it to the top of the stack. “Well, now’s not the time.”

           The boy stood in place.

           “C’mon little man, let’s go,” his father said. He cradled bag of groceries in one hand, and took Caleb’s hand with the other. He practically dragged Caleb through the door, down the steps and across the parking lot back to the car. 

                                                                                   ***

           They drove, top down, first one highway then another. The boy gazed to the side of the road and watched objects whiz by at great speed: abandoned old shacks, barbed-wire fence posts, and fresh roadkill. It was rather hypnotizing and—with his father silent—Caleb soon lost himself in thought. In the past he and his father camped and fished for up to three or four days at a time, but never this long. Back then they’d phone Mom every night. That was before the divorce.

           “Dad, can we call Mom? I want to tell her how things are going.”

           His father kept his eyes focused on the road before them. “I told you, Caleb,” he said. “She and Adam are on their own getaway.”

           “So we can’t call her?”

           “I don’t think so, partner,” his father laughed. “She‘s in Europe, on vacation like us. She gets Adam all to herself,” he said, hooking the boy’s far shoulder and pulling him closer despite the speedy clip, “and I get my own special time with you.”

           “Dad, when are we going home, back to Texas?” Caleb blurted out.

           But for the hum of the car’s engine and the swoosh of the passing breeze, silence immediately ensued.

           “In due time,” his father said finally. “After we’ve lived a little.”

           The boy was confused. What were they were doing if they weren’t living? He turned his gazed back to the side of the road and regarded road signs and advertising messages on the sides of barns. He grew sleepy as he wondered how far it really was to such places as Fresno, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, other than 32, 252, and 430. He dozed off for a while and next thing he knew it was dark. Just as he grew accustomed to the oncoming headlights they pulled into a roadside motel.

           “C’mon sleepy head,” his father said, as the convertible came to rest on a gravelly slope. “Let’s get ourselves a room. You’re sleeping on a real bed tonight, soldier.”

           The boy followed his father into the motel office, a shotgun-shack design of frontier accommodation. Lots of plywood, shellacking stain, and carved redwood burls.  An elderly man with thick glasses greeted them at the dingy counter just as the string of gumball-sized bells above the front door stopped their tinkling. Lights flickered from a room behind the desk, apparently from a television set as a weatherman’s voice delivered the forecast. 

           “Hello,” the desk clerk said simply.

           “We’ll need a room. Two beds,” Caleb’s father said.

           “Cash or credit?”

           “Cash.”

           While his father dealt with the particulars, Caleb ambled over to the wooden display stand that was bursting with tourist brochures. Photos of giant Sequoia redwoods, old-fashioned trains and cavern chambers adorned many. He grabbed one on whitewater trips and looked inside. He saw sheer excitement: rafts plunging down imposing rapids, water fanning like plates of glass to the sides; men, women and children with oars in their hands and effortless smiles on their faces. The boy now hoped he and his father might stop for such a trip on their journey home. He folded the brochure, stuffed it into his coat pocket, and returned to his father’s side.

           “A6,” the old desk clerk said. He grabbed the room key from its perch and dangled it from his fingertips as he brought it to the counter. Caleb’s father took the key, and the man’s bushy white eyebrows poked high above the ridge of his glasses. “You look familiar,” the man said.

           “Think I stopped here about a year ago. After a fishing trip on the Tuolumne.” He smiled and put a hand on Caleb’s head. “I told you about that trip, didn’t I Son? I caught a 19-inch cutthroat on a wet fly. He was a helluva fighter.” 

           Caleb nodded, but really, it was news to him.

           “A fisherman, huh?” said the man, as pensive as a chemist with a bubbling test tube. “Well, that must be it … Mr.…Hickok…” he said, poring over the signature in the registry.

           Before the boy could express his surprise, his father shepherded him out the door “But, Dad. He called you Mr. Hiccup.”

           His father laughed and laughed. “Hickok is what he said, Caleb, ‘cause that’s the name I gave him.” 

           “Why?” the boy asked.

           His father pulled out the pint of bourbon he’d stashed in his jacket, unscrewed the cap and took a healthy pull. Caleb watched his face sour.

           “We’re going by the name of Hickok because we’re outlaws now. Just like in the Old West.”    

           “Outlaws? For real?”  Caleb stopped before they reached the room, crossed his arms and stared at his feet. His father, who now jiggled the key into the door lock, not only looked different these days, he talked different, too.

           “Don’t worry, kiddo” his father said. He retraced his steps, lifted Caleb from the concrete pathway and draped him over his shoulder. “We’re just having a little fun.”

                                                                                   ***

           That night the boy watched a little TV, but his father grabbed the remote from the edge of the bed and shut the “damn thing” off when he returned from the bathroom after taking a shower. He explained that Caleb needed to read more often, and presented a few Sports Illustrateds he’d stored in his travel bag. And, as his father nursed a tall one—straight up, his own reading material simply the label on the bottle—Caleb found an interesting story on super-cross dirt bike racing. It included full-page shots of riders flying off muddied hills and into a backdrop of postcard blue sky. But Caleb soon grew weary and was asleep before he finished the article, the magazine balanced on his chest.    

           Later that night, as his father snored away from the twin bed across from his, Caleb woke from a dream in which his father and mother were together again. They sang and whistled as they cleaned out the garage together. Caleb whistled too as he rode circles in the driveway on his hand-me-down ten-speed. Now, as he turned over in bed, the warmth of the reverie sent him right back to sleep and into dream mode. But he couldn’t recapture that earlier moment—the one on the bike—and when he awoke for good he realized he’d been victimized by nothing but a big fat fantasy. A scene that not only wouldn’t happen again, but one that hadn’t happened at all. Caleb still rode the stingray when his father left home. Adam had given him the ten-speed.

           As the soft light shone in from below the blinds, Caleb observed his snoring father. He looked so strange: the lengthening beard, the dark hollows around the tired eyes. And with the covers riding his waist, he could see his formerly rock-hard father was developing a notable paunch. Caleb tried not to wake him as he flipped the magazine pages he read, finishing the article from the night before and starting in on another.

           It wasn’t long before his father stirred and rolled out of bed. Caleb dressed as his father shaved. When his father returned to the room he said, “Guess what, we’re going home. We’ll be back in a couple days, Son.”

           Caleb felt jolted with Christmas morning-like energy. He generously offered to take the luggage out to the car, and his dad tossed him the car keys before heading to the motel office to check out. Caleb left moments later with their bags. 

            The boy had just popped the trunk when he heard crunching gravel. He looked up to see a black sedan pull into a nearby spot. A well-dressed Asian woman in flats popped out from the passenger side and made a beeline towards him. 

           “Are you Caleb Glass?” she asked without hesitation. 

           Caleb was speechless but for one word: “Yes.”

           “My name is Leslie. Leslie Yee,” she said. “I’m here to help you.”

            Flurries of gravelly dust rose everywhere as other cars pulled up, one right in front of the motel office. Caleb spotted a man enter the building. Two others waited outside. The man who drove the first car, the one next to him, got out and spoke through a headset. Caleb’s eyes met his and the man turned away as if embarrassed. The woman bent down and put her arm on Caleb’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered.

           Caleb shook her off; he felt short of breath. “Don’t!” he yelled. The morning sun beat down, and its rays reflected off the black sedan’s windshield. Caleb wanted to run off—into his father’s arms—but he stumbled. Then he felt himself in a bear hug.

           “It’ll be okay,” the woman said again. 

            
            A commotion took place at the office door, and Caleb turned to see a trio of agents lead his father through the doorway, head down, arms handcuffed behind his back. It was just like they did it on TV and in the movies. The boy never answered as his father yelled: “Do you still love me, Caleb?” while pushed into the backseat of another shadowy sedan before he was driven away.

           “Everything’s okay. You’re safe now,” the woman said, forcing a smile. “You’ll be home soon.”

           Caleb felt a cold sweat. The man with the headset, tall and with a mustache, came over to him, but the woman waved him away. She whispered in Caleb’s ear again, “You’re going home. Everything’s going to be okay.”

           Caleb wiped the tears that streaked his cheeks. He grabbed the river rafting brochure from his coat pocket. He hurled it to the pavement and squashed it beneath his feet