Nothing but Trouble_ A Kevin Kerney Novel - Michael Mcgarrity [119]
“Where’s Patrick?” Kerney asked as he stepped onto the patio.
Libby got to her feet. “He went to use the bathroom just a few minutes ago.”
Kerney searched the bathrooms, found them empty, and went through every other room of the sprawling house looking for Patrick. By the time he’d finished, Libby and the children were inside.
“How long has he been gone?” he demanded.
“No more than three or four minutes.”
Kerney circled the house. Behind the backyard it was all desert. Cactus, creosote, and fluff grass peppered the chaparral slope of the low hills, and rock-strewn, sandy arroyos flowed down from brushy mountain hogbacks. How far could a three-year-old wander in five minutes?
Driving up, he hadn’t seen Patrick on the street, but he checked around the adjacent houses anyway, yelling his son’s name as he ran, his heart pounding in his chest. He entered the chaparral, zigzagging to cut Patrick’s trail, hedgehog cactus thorns biting at his legs. A startled Gambel’s quail rose up from the underbrush, sounded a sharp quit quit in alarm, and fluttered away. He cut across an arroyo, looking for a sign. There were the distinctive four-point-star tracks of roadrunners everywhere, and long, thin lines of snake trails etched in the sand, but no footprints.
Kerney stopped, gathered his breath, bellowed Patrick’s name, listened, and took a long look around before running with his head down, eyes scanning the ground, until he reached the wide mouth of another arroyo that curved toward the valley floor. There, two hundred yards from the house, he found tiny shoe prints in the sand. Up ahead he saw Patrick sitting on a boulder with tears streaming down his face.
“Are you all right?” Kerney asked as he reached his son and pulled him into his arms.
Patrick sniffled and nodded.
“Did you hear me calling for you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you answer, sport?”
Patrick rubbed his nose. “ ’Cause you sounded mad at me.”
It kicked Kerney in the gut that Patrick didn’t know every tone of his voice. “I’m not mad,” he said. “I was worried about you. What are you doing out here?”
“I was looking for you,” Patrick replied.
“Well, here I am, okay?”
“Okay.”
With Patrick in his arms Kerney turned to see a half-dozen men fanned out behind the row of houses, coming in his direction. He whistled, waved, and held Patrick above his head for all to see. The men stopped and waved back.
“What are they doing?” Patrick asked.
Kerney lowered Patrick to his chest, kissed him on the cheek, and started back toward the house. “Looking for you.”
“I wasn’t lost, Daddy,” Patrick said.
“I know you weren’t. But no more of this, champ. You stay with Libby and the other children. Okay?”
Patrick nodded. “I saw a big snake. It curled up and rattled its tail.” Kerney’s legs turned to stone and he stopped in his tracks. “Did it bite you?”
Patrick shook his head. “Nope.”
Back at the house Kerney thanked the men who had started to search for his son and accepted Libby’s apology. She promised that Patrick would never be out of her sight again.
He told Libby that Patrick would be with him for the rest of the day, put him in his car seat, and drove away. “How about some ice cream?” he asked.
Patrick’s face lit up and he kicked his feet. “Ice cream,” he echoed, apparently without the slightest inkling that he’d panicked his father almost beyond belief.
Chapter Thirteen
Surrounded by a windswept desert broken only by the silhouette of the Florida Mountains to the east and the Tres Hermanas to the south, Deming sat sun blistered under a yellow, dust-filled morning sky. A town of modest homes ringed with patches of grass, house trailers on scrub acreage, and a main commercial strip that paralleled the interstate and the railroad tracks, Deming drew its lifeblood from travelers and truckers, and blue-collar retirees seeking the sun and affordable housing.
Billboards cluttered the sides of the highway, advertising lodging, fuel, and food. Warning signs advised travelers that the interstate would be closed during severe dust