The Sneakies in Las Vegas

“I’m all in.” July 8, 5:30 a.m. CST Curtis, Nebraska Early in the morning, before Mom and Dad woke up, Coby Jay Evans squished his last disguise into the suitcase. He hid it under his bed and sat at his desk to check on any final correspondence. Failure was not an option. He turned the code wheel to a rotation of 7 to read the message: “Xihn zilayn ni vuwe siol ohxylqyul, nii.” He laughed when he decoded, “Don’t forget to pack your underwear too.” Coby’s mom and dad were going to Las Vegas to renew their wedding vows. In a few hours, Grandma would arrive from Buffalo Gap, South Dakota, to babysit. Since he was way too old to be called a baby, he preferred to call her his “bodyguard.” He had never been on a vacation of any magnitude. Every time he asked, “Can I come too?” he received the same answer, “Of course, when you are big enough.” He was tired of hearing about the vacations of his friends and waving bon voyage to them. Today it was his turn. A phone call would signal the start of a secret mission, something bigger than a vacation. Coby was eager to get out of Dodge. Dodge City was a town in the Wild West. It was the setting of an old black-and-white television series called Gunsmoke. In almost every episode, the sheriff would point at the bad guys and tell them to “get the **** out of Dodge by noon or suffer the consequences.” Coby’s grandpa said the phrase—minus the bad word, of course—every time he left town for some fun. “Dodge” for Coby was Curtis, Nebraska. Curtis was located south of the old Oregon Trail in the canyon lands of Nebraska. Cattle ranches stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction. “There are more cows than people in Nebraska,” Grandpa told him. Curtis was the largest little city in Frontier County. It was so large people traveled there from miles away because it had a movie theater, swimming pool, library, golf course, and two large parks. Yet Curtis was so small it had only one traffic light, one grocery store, one fast-food diner, and one small shopping mall. Coby’s favorite place was Mill Park, the park west of town. He tubed down its river, walked the railroad tracks, and sat under the bridge. He and his friends built forts out of the fallen branches, sat on the fence surrounding the rodeo arena, and played baseball on the top field. He loved living in a small town because it gave him freedom. But the freedom came with a price. The price? All the people in town knew where he did and didn’t belong at any given time. His sparkling blue eyes and his dimples made him look like he was always up to some kind of mischief. So every time the house phone rang, his dad would look at him. “Who’s calling to tattle this time?” Dad would ask. “Anything I should know about before I answer? Anything besides ‘I didn’t do it’?” Coby would shrug his shoulders and say, “I don’t know.”