PART 5 – Names in the Dust
They crossed into northern Arizona the next morning, past red rock canyons and sandstone cliffs that rose like monuments to things long buried. The truck rumbled steadily beneath them, but the silence inside the cab was different now—comfortable, like old denim.
Caleb had taken to watching the road signs. He read them out loud sometimes, just to feel the names on his tongue.
“Holbrook,” he said. “Gallup. Window Rock. Cool names.”
Earl nodded. “Names carry weight out here.”
The boy shifted in his seat. “Do you think I should… change mine?”
Earl raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Caleb shrugged, picking at a frayed thread on his sleeve. “Sometimes it feels like I don’t want to be the same person I used to be.”
Earl considered that.
“You don’t have to change your name to be new,” he said. “You just have to live different going forward. The rest comes.”
Caleb was quiet for a long time. Then he whispered, “My last name’s Monroe. I just don’t use it much.”
“Well,” Earl said, “now I know it. Doesn’t mean I’ll call you by it, unless you ask.”
Caleb smiled faintly. “I like that.”
They pulled off in a small roadside park to eat lunch. A single cracked picnic table sat under the wide branches of a cottonwood, its bark peeling like old paint.
Buck bounded into the grass, chasing invisible things.
Earl unpacked lunch slowly—peanut butter sandwiches again, with carrot sticks and dried fruit. Caleb didn’t complain. He’d begun to eat whatever Earl offered without hesitation, which said more than words ever could.
“I used to think grown-ups had it all figured out,” the boy said, munching on a stick.
Earl gave a dry laugh. “We just get better at faking it.”
Caleb tilted his head. “Did you ever screw up real bad?”
Earl stopped chewing. He looked at the distant hills for a moment, then back down.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Plenty. But the worst was letting her drive herself to her last appointment.”
Caleb didn’t say anything. He just listened.
“She asked me to go,” Earl continued. “But I had a delivery north of Amarillo. Figured it could wait. But the dispatcher pressured me—said they’d pull the contract if I didn’t show.”
He looked down at his hands, lined and weathered.
“Wasn’t even a wreck. Just her heart. Quiet, sudden. By the time I got to the hospital, she was already gone.”
Caleb’s voice was barely a whisper. “That’s not your fault.”
“I know,” Earl said. “But I still carry it.”
That night, they stopped near the edge of a reservation. Earl had planned to sleep in the cab again, but Caleb pointed to an old campground with cabins nestled among pine trees.
“Let’s stay there,” the boy said, eyes bright. “Just for one night.”
Earl hesitated. It wasn’t about money—he had enough saved. It was about comfort. About not getting used to things he couldn’t keep.
But he gave in.
The cabin was simple—two cots, one bare bulb, and a woodstove that smelled faintly of ash and pine tar. Buck padded in like he owned the place, circling once before plopping on the rug with a sigh.
Caleb opened the window and breathed in deep.
“Smells like… trees and cold air. Like we’re farther from everything bad.”
Earl lit the stove. “That’s the point.”
They ate warmed-up beans and canned soup by lantern light. No TV. No phones. Just two spoons clinking against metal bowls and the soft huff of an old dog sleeping soundly.
Before bed, Caleb sat up on one elbow.
“You think I’ll be okay?” he asked.
Earl, already in his bunk, looked over.
“I think you already are,” he said. “You just need someone to remind you when you forget.”
The boy lay back down, eyes fixed on the ceiling.
Outside, the wind moved through the trees like a lullaby.
PART 6 – Something Like Trust
Morning in the woods came with birdsong, sharp pine air, and the soft creak of old floorboards under Earl’s boots. He moved slowly, quietly, not out of pain—but reverence. The kind of stillness a place like this demanded.
Caleb was already awake, sitting cross-legged on the rug next to Buck, feeding him small bites of leftover bread. The dog accepted each one with the patience of a monk.
“You sleep alright?” Earl asked.
Caleb nodded. “First night in a long time I didn’t wake up scared.”
Earl poured water into the kettle and set it on the tiny stovetop. “The quiet helps. It’s loud out there in the world—noise you don’t even notice ‘til it’s gone.”
Caleb glanced at him. “You think we could stay here?”
Earl looked out the window at the cabin’s crooked porch rail, the birds flitting between pines, the soft smoke rising from their stovepipe like a whisper.
“Maybe for a day,” he said. “But the road’s still waiting.”
They packed up by midmorning and rolled out onto Route 87, heading north toward Flagstaff. The road curved and climbed, pine giving way to red clay and high desert once again. They rode with the windows down.
Caleb leaned out with his eyes closed and his hair whipping in the wind.
“I used to dream about running,” he said. “Far, far away. But I never dreamed about being in a truck.”
“You think you’ll keep dreaming now?” Earl asked.
The boy opened his eyes.
“Maybe different ones.”
They stopped at a roadside flea market just outside of a Navajo trading post. The tables were lined with rusted tools, turquoise rings, old tin signs, and stacks of dog-eared paperbacks. Caleb wandered off, leaving Earl and Buck by a stall that sold tooled leather goods.
Earl found a keychain with a stitched longhorn on it—stiff and dark, just like the one Lorna used to carry. He thumbed the edges, remembering how she used to spin it around her index finger while humming old Patsy Cline tunes.
“How much?” he asked the vendor.
“Three bucks.”
Earl nodded and passed over a five. “Keep the change.”
A few minutes later, Caleb returned holding something behind his back.
“What’s that?” Earl asked.
The boy revealed a small silver tag with a paw print etched into the center. “It’s for Buck. I thought maybe… if we’re a team, he should have something that says he belongs.”
Earl didn’t speak. He reached out and turned the tag over—it was blank on the back.
“I can carve a name into it later,” Caleb added quickly. “With one of those tools from the station.”
Earl nodded slowly. “He’ll like that.”
The tag went on Buck’s collar before they pulled away. The dog didn’t notice, but Caleb did. He rode the next thirty miles with his hand resting on Buck’s back, like he was tethered to something finally real.
By sundown, they reached the edge of the Grand Canyon. Earl hadn’t planned to stop—but Caleb insisted.
“You’ve seen it, right?” the boy asked.
“More than once.”
“I haven’t.”
So they stopped.
They stood together near the South Rim, the wind cold and pure as it rolled off the abyss. The canyon yawned beneath them, layered in color and time, every crevice a story whispered into stone.
Caleb stepped forward and leaned on the rail.
“It’s like looking into forever,” he said.
Earl didn’t respond. He was watching the boy’s face.
Caleb turned. “Why’d you really bring me?”
Earl furrowed his brow. “I didn’t bring you. You came with me.”
“Same thing,” Caleb said.
Earl took a long breath.
“Because the road was too quiet. And I think Lorna would’ve wanted me to make room.”
“For what?”
“For somebody else.”
Caleb stared at him for a moment. Then nodded, just once. “Okay.”
That night, they camped under the stars again—this time with nothing around them but sky and silence.
Buck lay in the dirt beside the fire, the new tag on his collar catching the flicker of flame.
Caleb stretched out on a rolled-up blanket.
“Earl?”
“Yeah?”
“You ever think maybe the people who leave… don’t really go anywhere?”
Earl looked into the fire, letting the question hang in the crackle and smoke.
“Sometimes,” he said. “Sometimes I think they’re just waiting for us to listen.”
