“A little. You say Patrick found the child?”
“Over yonder past the big stock tank, across the road there.” He waved a hand generally toward the south. “The boy’s up in some rocks, and the footing gets kinda nasty when it’s wet like this.”
“He wouldn’t come down?” Francis asked.
Herb shook his head and took a deep drag on the cigarette. He glanced back at Francis. “Ain’t you one of the docs over at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“This is Dr. Guzman,” I said. “You know Estelle.” Torrance nodded and butted out the cigarette. “It’s their son who was abducted last night. You may have seen the bulletin on television.”
Torrance jerked upright and swiveled to look straight at me. The steering wheel twisted to follow his head and we swerved dangerously close to his front gate support. He jerked the wheel back. “Abducted? That right?” We charged out onto the county road and turned left. “Well hell. No, we didn’t catch that. How’d that happen, anyways?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, and let it go at that.
Herb didn’t press the matter. “No wonder the child won’t come near nobody. He’s got to be scared plumb to death, out all night. I left Rory there to keep an eye on him while I called you. I figured another little while wouldn’t hurt him none. Better than taking a fall.” He turned to Estelle. “I told the boy not to chase after him. Runs like a little rabbit, Patrick was sayin’. He don’t want to have anything to do with strangers, that’s for sure. I thought that maybe he didn’t speak any English.”
“He speaks English just fine,” I said, not bothering to add that little Francis was also choosy about whom he spoke to.
We drove two miles on the county road and I began to get nervous that Herb’s “over yonder” was somewhere in Mexico. The road began to climb gradually as it made its way up the back side of San Patricio Mesa, a broad, flat buttress of land crisscrossed by narrow, deep canyons whose southern boundary was the valley carrying State Road 56 to Regal.
The road wound around several large rock outcroppings that looked as if they shed parts during the infrequent cloudbursts, then, where the country opened up for a bit, we passed by a windmill that was missing all but three of its blades. A small barn, its adobe and stone back wall collapsed inward, stood beside a rusted stock tank. Thirty years before, it might have been an outfit to make a rancher proud.
Fifty yards farther, Herb turned the truck left across a cattle guard and onto a narrow, muddy two-track that slithered through cactus and greasewood for a hundred yards toward an enormous galvanized water tank. The windmill there turned lazily, its Aer-motor-Chicago rudder keeping track of the fitful breeze. Twenty or thirty cows stood close by, watching our approach with interest.
“There we are,” Herb said.
“Where?”
He pointed off to the right with the butt of an unlit cigarette toward a small black vehicle. “There’s Rory’s Jeep. And if you look just past that grove of brush, up in them rocks?” I did and saw nothing except brush and rocks.
A figure appeared out of a grove of stunted junipers and lifted a hand in greeting.
“That’s Rory,” Herb said. The truck slowed to a stop and Estelle and Francis were out and away before I could even find the door handle.
The water tank and windmill nestled in a small amphitheater, the limestone rocks forming a jumbled wall on the east and north. The rocks weren’t particularly high, but they afforded ample protection for ground squirrels, pack rats, rattlesnakes, and three-year-old Francis Guzman.
I first caught sight of a small patch of blue, and as I drew closer, I could see that the child was sitting on his haunches, leaning against a boulder that was about the size of a small sedan. “How the hell did he get up there?” I muttered.
When he saw his mother and father, he stood up, and that brought me to a halt. The drop-off in front of him was six or eight feet. “Mama,” he shouted. He turned and scrambled out of sight for just a moment, then appeared around the side of the rock on top of which he’d been sitting. His father ran to meet him, using his hands to steady himself as he made his way up through the jumble.
Herb walked up beside me and lit another cigarette. “I just figured that it was safer to let you folks handle this, ’cause, of course, I thought…” he said, letting the wetback explanation trail off. “After Patrick took that header, Rory helped him back to the truck. He was hurtin’, so they just up and left the child. Didn’t figure he’d go anywhere. Patrick busted his leg just above the ankle.” The rancher sucked air through his teeth. “He said he saw the boy down by the tank when he was driving in, and the kid just took off. Rory said they called to him, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to trust nobody he didn’t know. That’s why we got to thinkin’ that he’d probably been dumped by some wetback family, you know.” He glanced at me. “And after Patrick fell, why I just thought, Hell, if he’ll just sit there…”
“Thanks, Herb,” I said. I watched the two figures merge, and then Dr. Guzman turned around, his son in his arms, and carefully picked his way back down through the rocks. Estelle went up to meet them, and for a while the three of them formed a single huddle.
“I’d sure like to know what sort of person would just leave a kid out in the middle of nowhere, though,” the rancher said. He sauntered back toward the truck, muttering to himself. I turned and went with him. The cattle were starting to move toward the truck, their interest piqued. They stopped a dozen yards away, chewing thoughtfully.
“Did you see any traffic last night or early this morning?” I asked.
“No. Sure didn’t pay any attention,” he said. “What’s the deal, anyway?”
I told him briefly what had happened, and what kind of vehicle we were looking for, but he shook his head. “Whole United States Army could have driven by and I wouldn’t have noticed,” he said. “The kids had a couple of TV videos from town, and that was enough noise for anybody.”
“What time did everyone turn in?”
Herb shrugged. “Probably close to midnight.”
“And you didn’t hear anything after that?”
“No, not that I paid attention to. It’s a county road, after all. Fair amount of traffic, especially with the bar down at the main road there.”
I turned and grinned. Estelle and Francis were walking back on either side of their son, each holding one of his hands. He was refusing to walk, but he bounced off the ground every second step or so. I could hear his little high-pitched voice jabbering away in Spanish. My blood pressure drifted down a couple notches when I saw that he wasn’t wearing pajamas.
“?Padrino!” the child bellowed when he was a dozen yards away. If I had been Estelle or Francis, I’m not sure I’d have been able to let him go. But they did, and he charged forward. I bent down to scoop him up. His jeans and cotton jacket were grimy and damp, and his hair smelled like one of the little sheepdogs over at Herb’s house.
“These aren’t mine,” he said, getting right to the important stuff first. One arm was around my neck, and he reached down with the other to touch the toe of one of his fancy blue-and-white sneakers.
His face was dirty and tear-streaked. “Whose are they, kid?” I asked, taking his tiny hand in mind.
“They’re Cody’s,” he said soberly.
I looked at Estelle. I’d never seen tears in her eyes before. “Were you with Cody?” I asked. The child twisted in my arms and looked over my shoulder toward Herb Torrance and the big pickup. I could feel his grip around my neck tighten. “That’s okay,” I said. “He’s a friend.” The grip didn’t loosen.
“He’s in the bus,” the child said.
“Who else was in the bus, hijo?” Estelle said. He dug a knee into my belly as he twisted and reached out with both arms to his mother. I handed him to her and he flung both arms around her neck.