The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise

Coyote begins looking for places on the road with pay phones so she can call her grandmother, who she calls every Saturday. She cannot find a pay phone and neither she nor her father have cellphones, so she borrows a phone from an elderly woman to call her grandmother in Washington. They have a typical conversation, repeating many of the same things that they usually say to one another. Her grandmother asks where they are, and Coyote asks the woman whose phone she borrowed their location. She tells her grandmother that she and Rodeo are in Naples, Florida. As her grandmother is about to hang up, she tells Coyote that the little park at the end of the street where she lived five years ago is about to be torn down for a new roadway. Her grandmother tells her that the park is to be bulldozed on Wednesday. Coyote immediately reacts, saying she is returning to Washington.

Since her conversation is taking place on Saturday, Coyote realizes she and her father must drive from Naples, Florida, to Washington in four days. Coyote expresses complete determination that there is no doubt she is coming back. She says, “Then I said something I hadn’t said in over five years.