“She might,” I said. “When she can think straight.”
“Well, anyway, Sergeant Torrez said you were headed up this way, and that he thought you had Francisco with you.” He nodded toward the sober-faced Francis. Holman’s accent made the little boy’s name sound like someone from Cleveland running the California city’s name through his nose. “I wanted to intercept you before you wheeled in. If mama catches sight of him, she’s going to go ballistic.”
“Then do us a favor,” Estelle said. “Take Mrs. Cole down to the SAR headquarters and get her involved looking at maps or something. Or sleeping. We’ll be at the campsite for about fifteen minutes.”
“Doing what?” Holman frowned.
“I’m not quite sure yet,” Estelle replied.
“Not a return of Tom Sawyer, I hope,” the sheriff said, and when he saw the puzzled look on my face, he added, “Remember the missing marble? Wasn’t that what it was? A marble? A cat’s-eye?”
I looked askance at Holman, who pushed himself away from the Blazer’s door and straightened up. “See, now you should read some of the classics, Bill. Tom Sawyer and his buddies lose a marble, and Tom’s heard this old wives’ tale about how they should throw another one after it, saying, ‘Brother, go find your brother.’ The idea is that the second one will land next to the first, and you’ll find ’em both.”
“Did it work in the book?” I asked.
“I don’t remember,” Holman said.
“It took three tries,” Camille said quietly from the back.
“We’re not sending Francis out to look for another three-year-old, Sheriff,” I said, and he nodded. He still glanced at Estelle again, ever hopeful that she’d tell him what was on her mind.
Chapter 9
Yellow marker tape was grotesquely attractive mingled with the deep browns and greens of evergreen trees, with the plastic snarled in the mistletoe-stunted limb wood and looping from trunk to trunk.
The camper had long since been moved, but one of the deputies had strung the plastic tape so that the area where their truck had been parked was included within the boundaries. If the auxiliary officer Holman had mentioned was on duty, he was invisible.
Estelle stopped the Blazer on the two-track road and leaned forward on the steering wheel, hands clasped together, frowning out through the windshield. If we didn’t turn and look out the rear window, where we could catch glimpses of half an acre of parked vehicles two hundred yards down the road, we could have imagined that we were alone on the mesa.
“What are you thinking?”
She grimaced. “Beautiful spot, isn’t it?”
“No,” I said. The ground was strewn with trash, from yellow plastic oil jugs to the ubiquitous beer cans to part of an old sofa that was nestled between two pinons. Several scrap pieces of lumber had been nailed between two other trees close by, forming a crude shelf. I could picture myself trying to shave while standing in front of that shelf on an icy morning, dipping my frosted razor into a blue enamel pan water was beginning to sport a frozen skim on the soapy surface. “I haven’t seen too many hunting camps that were things of beauty.”
Estelle climbed out and walked around to my side to unleash the kid from the backseat. I grunted my way out and leaned against the Blazer.
“Smells good, though,” I said. And it did. The juniper was rich, especially where the truck had brushed against the limbs. Through the trees, I could hear dogs and voices where the searchers combed the Pipes just to the north. Farther away, a dull thudding marked where one of the Huey helicopters worked the edge of the mesa.
“Do you need your jacket, Dad?” Camille asked.
I don’t know why that irritated me, but it did. She sounded like she was taking care of some old man who was convalescing and fragile, sure to come down with a fatal something if an errant breeze tickled him the wrong way. That was unfair, of course, since she’d been pretty good so far-a quiet traveling companion and not too pushy about my habits.
She held out the jacket, and I shook my head.
“This is where they were camped,” Estelle said. She had unbuckled the kid, and they stood hand in hand, Francis looking tiny and helpless framed by those ancient gnarled trees. Estelle walked forward a few steps and knelt by the ring of campfire stones. “Just far enough in from the rim that they had some protection from the wind.”
I walked up and stood beside Francis. He was exactly the right height for me to rest my hand on the top of his head without bending down. When I did that, he shifted his weight so that he leaned against my leg, and I grinned.
Francis was as brave a three-year-old as I’d ever known, including four of my own at various times in the distant past. And his first reaction to this spot was to snuggle close. Whether or not Estelle had other reasons for bringing the youngster along, his behavior was certainly enough to feed her intuitions.
I took a deep breath and went down on one knee, the kid between me and Estelle. I heard a small click behind me and turned my head, to see Camille winding her camera.
“Oh, that’s nice,” I said, and she made a face.
“Tiffany Cole said that this is just about where they were sitting,” Estelle said. She stretched out an arm. “The truck was over on that side, between the fire and the two-track. That means that little Cody was playing over by those trees.” She stood up, keeping Francis’s hand in hers. “The truck tracks are clearly visible.” She walked slowly away from the fire circle, her son in tow.
After ten yards, she stopped and looked back at me. “This is a nice soft spot, under this grove of junipers,” she said.
“You said that the youngster was digging? Digging with a stick was how you put it.”
“Right. That’s what his mother said. Just on the other side of the truck. And there are plenty of marks around here, even after all the adult feet stamped things flat.” She swiveled at the waist, gazing off into the trees. Francis leaned against her, still tightly clutching her hand. “Come here, sir,” Estelle said, and beckoned me.
I trudged over and she indicated the ground under the nearest pinon, soft and inviting with the thick scatter of needles. It looked soft and inviting anyway. Before I had a chance to remind her that those cussed things could be as sharp as carpet tacks and as sticky as old gum on a hot sidewalk, she sat down, cross-legged, and patted the ground. “If I get down there, I’m going to need a crane to pick me back up,” I said.
“It’s a good place to rest,” Estelle said. I glanced back at the Blazer. Camille was rummaging in her voluminous handbag, no doubt for more film. I took the plunge before she could record the episode on film.
Estelle encircled her son at the waist, hugging him close. As she talked to me, her breath whispered right beside the child’s ear.
“Suppose he’s playing right here. This is the only spot that makes sense, and this is where his mother remembers him being.” She lifted one of Francis’s arms as if he were a rag doll and pointed with it off to the left, past the Blazer. The youngster giggled and squirmed closer. “That’s the direction of the fire.” She swung Francis’s arm and pointed off into the woods. “In the dark, it would be just about impossible to walk in that direction.”
I ducked my head and looked past them at the dense limb wood. Both pinon and juniper were the kind of evergreens that went for the tender parts of the body, with sharp prongs, wild shapes, and lots of dead limb wood to cut, grab, and scrape.
“He wouldn’t have gone far, that’s for sure.”
Estelle nodded, hugging Francis. “That’s for sure.” She lifted the kid’s arm once more, pointing in the direction we’d come in the Blazer.
“Now, that way, it’s easy walking,” she said, bending her head close to her son’s. “Look way down the road, hijo. Do you see where we turned the corner by those trees? See where the fence comes in and then crosses the road?” Francis nodded. The fence was no more than thirty yards away.