He Started It

We’re at the Gunfighters Wax Museum in Dodge City, which is conveniently located in the same building as the Kansas Teachers Hall of Fame. The building, the sign, everything about it screams the 1960s.

‘This is where your grandfather brought you?’ Felix says.

Krista is so annoyed. ‘What was wrong with him? Why would he do that?’

‘Same reason they’re here,’ I say, nodding to the people coming out of the museum. More than one family and lots of children are here today. ‘Everybody loves death.’ ‘And teachers,’ Eddie says.

Portia waves at us from the car. ‘I’ll stay out here and rest my ankle.’

That ankle has become an excuse for Portia to skip anything she doesn’t want to do. Either that or the damn thing is really broken. I don’t call her on it, though. Arguing about every little thing is what makes people hate you, especially when it comes to family. They’re the least forgiving of all.

Inside the museum, a helpful woman sells us two-for-one tickets to both museums, beginning with the Teachers Hall of Fame. Grandpa had skipped that. He said we could learn about school when we were in school, but not when we were on vacation.

‘School’s overrated anyway,’ he said.

‘Did you even graduate?’ I said. Rude? Sure, but I was a kid. This kind of brutal honesty is supposed to be funny.

Grandpa didn’t think so. He pounded his fist against the hood of the van. ‘How did you turn out to be such a little shit?’

I stepped back, away from his hands, and I shrugged. Probably would answer the same way today.

This time we walk through the teachers museum before heading upstairs to see the gunslingers. None of us have any kids, let alone any old enough to be in school, but we do it anyway.

Upstairs we find Buffalo Bill, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Calamity Jane – they’re all preserved here in Dodge City, staged in vignettes of the Old West. The old wax figures look more like mannequins than people. They scared the hell out of me when I was twelve.

So did the head of someone I’d never heard of. That’s the display: a severed head still bloody at the neck. Now it’s not scary at all.

‘Okay,’ Felix says, snapping a picture on his phone. ‘This is pretty cool.’

‘You mean, this is pretty creepy,’ Krista says. ‘Your grandfather was obsessed with violence, wasn’t he?’

Eddie and I exchange a look.

‘Maybe,’ he says.

I shrug. ‘Possibly.’

Definitely.

The most bizarre part of the museum is Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman, who appear without explanation. Twenty years ago, they made Portia cry. I can still see her running away, sobbing, and Grandpa chasing after her. Too bad we didn’t have camera phones then.

No one cries today. We only laugh at how crazy it all is, but I have to admit it’s entertaining.

When we’re finally done and go back outside, Portia is leaning against the back of our car, scrolling through her phone with one hand and holding a gigantic soda cup in the other.

‘Anything?’ Krista says.

‘Nope.’

Neither of them mentions the truck everyone is looking for but hasn’t seen. Not today.

Dinner is at a barbecue joint, because barbecue is the only appropriate food to eat when you’re in the Queen of Cowtowns. We go to a hokey place with a plastic cow hanging from the ceiling and faded gingham curtains. Our waitress wears a Betty Sue name tag and I’m 100 percent sure it’s fake.

‘I’ve gained weight,’ Portia says. ‘My shorts are getting tight, so we have to stop eating this crappy food.’

‘It’s been less than a week. You aren’t gaining weight, you’re retaining water,’ I say.

She ignores me. ‘Tomorrow I’ll find a place for us to eat salads with vegetables instead of fried meat.’

‘That sounds great,’ I say.

‘I’m serious,’ Portia says.

‘Oh, I know.’

Krista is the only one who doesn’t laugh. Her mood, which had started out pretty good today, has deteriorated ever since the museum. This is not the road trip of her dreams.

‘Just tell me,’ she says. ‘Are we going to stop at every creepy, violent attraction along the way?’

‘Not every one,’ Eddie says.

‘But there are more,’ she says, burying her head in her hands. ‘This is the weirdest road trip ever.’

She’s right, it is, and that’s not even including Grandpa’s ashes.

‘You don’t have to be here,’ Eddie says to Krista. ‘You can fly home. Enjoy yourself while we finish this trip.’

She lifts her head, staring at Eddie like she forgot that part. Krista isn’t really a part of the trip. ‘That’s true,’ she says.

‘You should just go,’ I say. ‘Why force yourself to be miserable?’

Her eyes brighten a bit. ‘I mean, we’re probably halfway done anyway, right?’

‘Something like that,’ I say.

She wants to go. Eddie lives in a nice house on the beach. It’s the same one he lived in with Tracy and now with Krista. It’s modern, with clean lines and lots of windows facing the gulf. With a new wife and an expensive house like that, it’s no wonder Eddie needs this inheritance.

‘It probably wouldn’t be a big deal to drop me off at an airport, would it?’ Krista says.

‘Not at all,’ Eddie says. The idea is gaining traction for her, and for him. He’s starting to look relieved she might be gone soon. ‘It’s barely a detour.’

Lie.

I say nothing. It’s better if Krista gets home as quickly as possible. Whining never helped anything, and she’s been doing it a lot.

Eddie turns to Felix. ‘You could go, too. No reason for you to traipse around the country like this, either.’

‘Yeah,’ Felix says. ‘But I wouldn’t feel right about it, not with that truck following us. I’d probably just worry.’

Krista’s face changes. She’s remembered the pickup.

I could kick Eddie. And Felix.

‘I forgot about that,’ Krista says. ‘If I left, I’d just sit around wondering if you guys were okay.’ She turns to Eddie. ‘I’d probably be calling you all the time, driving you crazy.’

He sees his mistake. Swallows hard. ‘You wouldn’t have to do that. We’ll be fine.’

‘No, no. I’ll stay,’ Krista says, looking like she’d rather do the opposite. ‘I should stay.’

‘Great,’ Eddie says. ‘Whatever you want.’

‘So what’s next on the list?’ Krista says, rubbing her hands together. ‘The town with the most gruesome serial killer? The museum of horrible ways to kill someone?’ She looks at Eddie. He turns to me.

‘Beth’s the one who remembers everything,’ he says.

Portia motions to the waitress, pointing to her beer mug. ‘I swear, I don’t know how you do it,’ she says to me. ‘I try to block it all out.’

I smile. I do remember everything, that’s true. Really, it isn’t that hard.

It also helps to have the book I brought. Everyone thinks I’m reading a big family saga because that’s the cover I put over the journal. Felix won’t touch it because he only reads nonfiction. Family sagas aren’t his thing.