Coyote secretly sneaks a kitten named Ivan onto the school bus and hides him in her bedroom.

Coyote meets Fiona at an RV park, but Fiona's mother refuses to let her visit the bus after seeing Rodeo.

Coyote's grandmother reveals during a phone call that the park in Poplin Springs will be demolished on Wednesday.

Coyote tricks Rodeo into heading west by claiming she dreamed about a pork chop sandwich from a Montana cafe.

Coyote overhears Lester at a diner talking about needing a ride to Boise and recruits him as a second driver.

The bus leaves without Coyote at a gas station; a boy named Salvador helps her escape police attention and reunite with Rodeo.

Coyote persuades Rodeo to let Salvador and his mother Esperanza board the bus after their car breaks down.

The group detours to Michigan to drop Esperanza off with her sister Concepción.

Coyote meets Val at a Minnesota gas station, a teenager kicked out for being gay, and invites her aboard.

Salvador performs a ten-minute violin piece for his mother on stage at the empty Billings Center for the Performing Arts.

Rodeo pulls the bus over and demands the truth; Coyote confesses about the memory box and their true destination.

The bus's brake line fails while Concepción drives downhill; she swerves through traffic and brings the bus to a stop.

Coyote finds Rodeo sitting alone in a river at night and demands he commit to finishing the trip to Poplin Springs.

A state trooper discovers Val is underage and arrests Rodeo; Rodeo gives Coyote a coded message to drive the bus herself.

Coyote digs the memory box from a debris pile at the bulldozed park and opens it together with Rodeo.

Coyote, a twelve-year-old girl living on a school bus with her grieving father Rodeo, learns that a park in her hometown is about to be demolished — the park where she buried a memory box with her mother and sisters before they died in an accident five years ago. She tricks Rodeo into driving west and collects passengers along the way, including Lester as a second driver and a mother-and-son pair who need a ride across the country. After a detour to Michigan and a runaway teenager named Val joining them in Minnesota, Coyote's secret mission unravels when Rodeo demands the truth and refuses to return home. A brake failure, a midnight confrontation in a river, and a police arrest all threaten to stop the trip in its final miles. Coyote ultimately drives the bus herself, digs up the memory box just before it is lost forever, and opens it together with her father under a shade tree.

The journey's pivotal moments from Ivan's adoption to the memory box.

Coyote tells Rodeo a story about a lonely girl with no friends or pets to soften him up about the cat.

Ivan is discovered sleeping on Rodeo's neck; Rodeo negotiates a 500-mile trial period to decide whether the cat can stay.

Rodeo finds Ivan after the cat wanders from the campfire at night, kisses him, and carries him back to the bus.

Lester describes his love for Tammy and his musical life; Coyote learns her family's love letters to each other are in the buried box.

Lester answers Rodeo's three questions about his favorite book, place, and sandwich and officially joins the cross-country trip.

Before boarding the bus, Salvador pries a dented hubcap off his family's broken car to keep as a reminder of it.

Coyote and Salvador climb to the top of the moving bus at night and shout their deepest secrets into the dark.

Salvador runs back to the bus in Michigan and asks if his family can ride along all the way to Yakima.

Val spins an elaborate lie to the arts center security guard, convincing him Salvador is auditioning for Juilliard.

The passengers confront Rodeo one by one, each urging him to continue the trip to Poplin Springs.

A repair woman named Tammy delivers the brake parts in exchange for the group delivering her 200-pound goat, Gladys, to Silver Bar.

Lester stops the bus at a Boise intersection and decides he cannot return to his girlfriend Tammy after all.

Coyote and Salvador find the spare key hidden in the bus's tomato plant roots and sneak the bus away from the roadside.

A police officer pursues the bus on the interstate; Coyote fakes past the exit then cuts sharply onto it at the last moment.

Coyote's grandmother arrives at the park and Coyote sprints across the field to embrace her.

Long before Coyote's urgent quest fully reveals itself, her quiet daily life with Rodeo is built from small rituals, careful stories, and guarded routines that hint at the grief neither of them will name. The bus gradually fills with passengers, each carrying their own history — Lester's complicated love for a woman he cannot quite fit with, Salvador's keepsake hubcap salvaged from a life left behind, and Val's raw wound from parental rejection. Along the way, the makeshift family creates genuine moments of connection, from shouting secrets off the roof of a moving bus to staging a surprise concert that brings Salvador's mother to tears. When the group must solve a series of crises — a shattered brake line, a repair woman's unusual demand, and Rodeo's midnight disappearance — they pull together with creativity and loyalty. The journey ends with tearful goodbyes, a long-awaited grandmother's embrace, and the quiet beginning of a life no longer spent running.

The smaller moments and relationships that shaped the cross-country trip.

Coyote casually reveals to Fiona's mother that her own mother and two sisters were killed in a car accident five years ago.

Coyote tells Rodeo a story about the day she and her mother and sisters buried the memory box in the park.

Coyote calculates she has 96 hours and needs 60 hours of driving to reach Poplin Springs before the park is destroyed.

Coyote steps into a gas station during Rodeo and Lester's argument and comes out to find the bus has left without her.

Coyote reveals to Salvador that Rodeo changed their names and bought the bus after the accident, and they have driven endlessly ever since.

The whole group sings along to Rodeo's guitar; when the song ends, Coyote is suddenly overcome by an intense and unexpected sadness.

During a riverside swim, Salvador reveals his father was physically abusive and explains why he dropped his father's last name.

Salvador confronts Coyote and asks whether the endless traveling life truly works for her; she picks up Ivan and retreats to her bedroom.

At the riverside, Salvador guesses Coyote's true destination; she shares the secret and makes him swear not to tell Rodeo.

Salvador reveals he is a skilled violinist who was supposed to perform a concert for his mother but never got the chance.

Lester gives his phone to Coyote and asks her to call Tammy to explain that their relationship cannot work despite their love.

Rodeo announces the broken brake line will take at least two days to fix, seemingly ending any chance of reaching the park in time.

Coyote wakes to find the bus has traveled four hours in the wrong direction and Rodeo has disappeared into the night.

Worker Travis helps Coyote dig through a mountain of debris at the park until her shovel strikes the buried metal box.

Coyote tells Rodeo she wants to find a real permanent home; he agrees to search and begins calling her Ella again.

The story's emotional core rests on a series of quiet revelations and gut-wrenching turning points that force Coyote and those around her to face what they have been avoiding. Coyote drops the truth about her mother and sisters into casual conversations before anyone fully grasps the weight of it, and she makes a series of calculated decisions — calculating drive times, sharing her secret selectively, and keeping it hidden from her father — that keep the mission alive. Every passenger reaches a moment of reckoning: Salvador admits his father's abuse, Lester accepts that loving someone does not mean a relationship can work, and Rodeo is ultimately forced to speak the names of those he lost. The obstacles of the final miles — a brake collapse, a wrong-direction detour, and a tense police chase — test every character's resolve to its limit. When Coyote's shovel finally strikes the buried box and she tells Rodeo she wants a real home, the journey stops being a rescue mission and becomes the start of something new.

The discoveries and decisions that drove Coyote's quest and transformed everyone aboard.