"It isn't all," Louise Crenshaw returned sharply. "Not by any stretch of the imagination. If Joey Rothman has been out of his cabin past curfew every single night, why haven't you reported it before this?"
"In case you haven't noticed, being your brother's keeper went out with Cain and Abel."
"Mr. Beaumont, Joey Rothman is here for treatment."
"So am I, lady," I pointed out. "My treatment and nobody else's. I'm not paying good money to come here and baby-sit some young punk who's walking around with his brains in his balls, someone who told me Ironwood Ranch should be renamed Mustang Ranch II, if you get my meaning, Mrs. Crenshaw."
She met my gaze with a brittle stare. "That will be all, Mr. Beaumont."
"You're damned right that's all, because I'm tired and hungry. I'm going to go have breakfast. When the deputy gets here, call me." With that, I stalked out of the office, leaving Louise Crenshaw sitting alone at her desk in isolated splendor.
As I walked toward the dining room and smelled the enticing odors coming from the kitchen, I realized just how hungry I was. Good food is a major part of Ironwood Ranch's treatment program. The idea is that addicts shove all kinds of unhealthy substances into their bodies while neglecting most other forms of nourishment. I had expected the normal tasteless institutional fare, but the cook, a short but exceedingly wide and usually smiling Mexican lady named Dolores Rojas, wasn't the normal institutional cook.
Dolores and her husband, a bowlegged cowboy named Shorty, had been at Ironwood Ranch for twenty years. Her domain was the kitchen, while he ran the stables. Her responsibility was to feed everybody, while his job was as general handyman in addition to looking after the small string of saddle horses that were still used for occasional client trail rides and outings. On the side he boarded and trained a small number of privately owned animals. Dolores and Shorty lived in a modest but immaculate trailer parked down the hill near the stable.
Breakfast wasn't actually served until eight, but I had fallen into the habit of coming down earlier than that for a jolt of Dolores' eye-opening coffee. I would stand there on the sidelines and watch her unhurried but purposeful mealtime preparations. It was through these early morning chats with Dolores Rojas that I had learned scraps of Ironwood Ranch history that weren't necessarily part of the group treatment catechism. In addition, I had picked up some invaluable firsthand knowledge about Mexican cooking.
When I got there that morning, Dolores was busily patting white dough into paper-thin tortillas which she baked quickly on something that looked like an inverted metal disc-maybe part of an old-fashioned plough-which had been placed over one of the gas burners of the immense, old-fashioned stove. Dolores Rojas prided herself in serving only freshly made tortillas.
"What's for breakfast this morning?" I asked, taking my cup of coffee and sidling up to the serving window.
"Chorizo and eggs." she answered.
Prior to Dolores my knowledge of Mexican food had been strictly limited to what was available at a place in Seattle called Mama's Mexican Kitchen and those south-of-the-border aberrations served by various fast-food chains. Dolores dipped out a spoonful of something that resembled reddish-colored scrambled eggs, put it in one of the still-warm tortillas, wrapped it expertly into a burrito, and passed it to me.
"Sausage," she said. "Hot sausage and eggs."
The spicy, eye-watering mixture wrapped in the tortilla bore little resemblance to the sausage and eggs my mother used to make, but it was nonetheless delicious.
"Wonderful," I said, chewing.
Dolores nodded in satisfaction. "Good. Now get out of here and let me finish."
I took the hint, my coffee, and the remainder of my burrito and went over to stand by the window. The rain had let up, at least for the time being. People were beginning to venture out of their cabins and meander up to the main hall although I noticed a group of several people head off in the opposite direction.
Soon Ed Sample, an attorney from Phoenix, joined me by the window. "What's going on down there?" I asked.
"River's up," he said, sipping his own coffee. "Unusual for this time of year, but then so are the rains."
"You mean there's actually water in the river?"
When I first arrived at Wickenburg, I had crossed the bridge over the Hassayampa River on my way to Ironwood Ranch. I recalled seeing an official-looking sign that proclaimed NO FISHING FROM BRIDGE although no water had been visible in the dry, sandy bed. With the onset of the rains, however, a sluggish, muddy stream had appeared.
"Somebody said it's about eight feet deep right now."
"Eight feet?" I repeated, astonished. "Where'd it all come from?"
"Drainage from up in the mountains. As much has soaked into the ground as it can handle. The rest is runoff. From what Shorty Rojas said, it could go over the banks sometime today. By the time all the water drains out of the high country, we could have a real serious problem down here."
"Great," I said. "That's all we need."
Ed Sample looked at me appraisingly. "You ever see a flash flood in the desert, Beau?"
I shook my head.
"Every year or so we get a carload of tourists washed away. They see what they think is a few inches of water in a dip and they end up being washed downstream by a wall of water."
"You mean those DO NOT ENTER WHEN FLOODED signs are serious? They're not some kind of joke?"
"Not at all," he replied.
That gave me something to think about. Maybe the NO FISHING sign wasn't a joke either.
People were beginning to carry filled plates away from Dolores' serving line. I refilled my coffee cup, set it at an empty table near the window, and went to collect my own plate. In addition to the chorizo, eggs, and tortillas, there was also a selection of fresh fruit. Despite my earlier sampler burrito, I was still hungry. I carried my food-laden plate back to the table.
I had barely sat down when Michelle Owens edged into the chair next to me. She looked wan and sallow. Instead of a plate, she carried a cup of hot water and a fistful of saltine crackers. I've been a father, and I know the drill. Saltine crackers are the order of the day for someone suffering from morning sickness. Once more I was supremely grateful that this pale-faced young woman and all of her problems were none of my concern.
"Where's Joey?" Michelle whispered. Evidently her choosing the seat next to mine was no accident.
I glanced at her. Michelle Owens was plain, amazingly plain, hardly the type of girl to appeal to someone with Joey Rothman's flashy sense of panache. Her hair, a dismal, cheerless brown, had a slight tendency to curl at the ends, but there had been no effort made to style it attractively. Her eyes were red and swollen. She wasn't wearing any makeup, and her naturally pale complexion had a grayish tinge to it, probably as a direct result of continuing bouts of morning sickness. She still wore braces. Pregnant and still in braces. No wonder her father was pissed.
"Where is he?" she asked again, more urgently this time. "I went by the cabin to see him, but he wasn't there."
"I'm sorry, Michelle, but I can't help you," I answered kindly. "As far as I know, he never came home at all last night."
Her lower lip trembled and she ducked her head while two fat tears spilled out of the corner of her eye and dribbled down her cheek. "What if my father…" she began, then stopped.
"What if your father what?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Never mind. It isn't important."
Just then one of the counselors, a lame-brain named Burton Joe, brought his plate to our table. He sat down across from Michelle and smiled at her beatifically.
"And how are we this morning?" he asked. It was the medical rather than the royal we, insinuating and saccharine. "Feeling better?"