Desert Rose

by Victoria Hardesty

  John stubbed his toe on a loose rock he didn’t see. It tore a small hole in his slipper. “We’re going to have to be more careful. Thankfully, we have a full moon out tonight. Let’s take it slow and look before we take another step. We can’t afford to get hurt out here. We have nothing to use for bleeding. Heaven forbid we break anything,” he said to his wife. He was more worried than he let on. If either of them was injured out in the desert, there was no reason to believe someone would find them anytime soon. They had water, but that wouldn’t last. They had no food. They had no protection from the sun. They didn’t know where they were. He continued to encourage Rhonda. “Take it slow and easy, honey. We’ll get there,” he said.

  John and Rhonda struggled on for the better part of two hours before coming to another decent rise in the landscape. “I think we are far enough away from the camp now. Let’s get to the top of that rise and see what we can see or hear. Remember, we’re looking for a soft glow along the horizon that might indicate the lights of a town. Either that or maybe we can listen and hear some traffic noise on a paved road, okay?”

  Rhonda was more tired than she’d ever been in her life. She was not just tired from wandering around in the desert for several hours, but the stress of being a hostage and the stress of not eating properly and the stress of the heat in the room they were held in all mounted up into fatigue she’d never experienced before.

  “Why don’t we find a place where I can stop and wait. You go ahead. I have water with me. Come back and get me when you find us help,” Rhonda finally said to John.

  “Absolutely not!” he told her. “I’m not leaving you. We stick together until we find civilization again, okay.”

  John puzzled their situation out in his head. When they left the ranch, he was certain they traveled toward the west. When they reached the highway, the truck turned right onto the highway. That would be to the north if his first assumption was correct. When the truck turned off the highway toward the mobile home, the truck turned right again. That would put them traveling to the east. He’d been on a highway a couple of times before that went north from their original location. The desert along that highway had towns alongside, but they were many miles apart. Some seemed abandoned. He recalled there were areas out in the desert favored by dirt bike riders. There were a few main roads off the highway used by the dirt bike people who hauled their campers and trailers out into the desert for weekends. He began to look for signs of dirt bike paths as they continued walking in what he hoped was a southwesterly direction. They would have to find one of those main roads and follow it to the highway.

  He put his arm around his wife’s shoulder and squeezed it. “We’re going to find a road soon. I just know it,” he whispered in her ear.

  They walked for another three hours under the light of the full moon. John was excited when he began to see signs of dirt bike paths. He didn’t want to follow them because he knew they could go in any direction. He had to stay on his path if they were ever going to find a road.

  When John turned and saw a slight rosy glow on the horizon behind them, he knew for sure they were walking to the west. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. He knew the sun’s rising would create new problems for them. They were more visible for one thing and the sun’s intense heat could cause devastating effects. They had to find help soon and get to shelter. For as far as he could see, there was nothing that would give them shade and protection from the sun. They kept on walking.

  “Do you see that?” he asked Rhonda with hope in his voice. “That looks like a real road.”

  “I think you may be right,” she said. “It’s bare dirt, but it’s wide enough to be a road.”

  Newly energized by the sight of the road, they increased their speed until they reached it. It was indeed one of the main dirt bike roads into the desert. Weekends were busy with bikers coming in with trucks hauling their campers and travel trailers out into the desert. They walked through one of the campsites. The rock fire-ring protecting the long extinguished campfire was clear enough. They saw tire tracks from trucks and bikes covering the ground. Heavy bootprints showed where they’d made camp and relaxed in the evenings after a day of tearing up the desert.

  John studied the truck and trailer tire prints. The ones leaving the campsite, the ones not driven over, all pointed in the same direction. He and Rhonda walked in that direction, to the west. They traveled several miles before they saw anything moving. It was a car driving north on the highway. John picked his wife up and spun her around, lifting her completely off the ground. “We’ve found it! We found the road out of here! All we have to do is flag someone down.”

  Rhonda had tears in her eyes again at the sight of that single little blue car. It represented hope to her.

  CHAPTER | THIRTEEN

  As soon as the deputy permitted them to take the horses back to Hartley Ranch for rehabilitation, Ginny and Mike started loading them in their trailer with the help of Maryann and Charles Carnegie. Once the last one was in and tied and the rear trailer door secured, Mike and Ginny jumped into their truck for the trip home. Charles and Maryann followed them back to the ranch.

  “I’ve got to get ahold of Esteban Garcia,” Mike said. “I’ve got to find out what he knows about this.”

  “You’re right,” Ginny said. “I can handle the horses with Brody, Maryann, and Charles while you try to reach him. I want to be there when Doc Martin shows up. I want him to see the horses to be sure we’re covering all the right bases.”

  The couple sat quietly in the truck for the next several minutes, “You know, I’d like to talk to you about something,” Ginny said.

  “Go ahead,” Mike answered her, glancing at her profile for a second before turning his eyes back on the road.

  “I had a conversation with Maryann at the ranch before the deputy showed up and while he was talking to you and Charles. She told me some pretty interesting things. That young lady has an unusual “spidy-sense” of some kind. She told me that she and Becky Howard had been trying to reach Mr. Garcia for over a week with no luck. She got a bad feeling about the horses she’s never even seen before. She talked her grandpa into driving all the way to the ranch this morning to check on them. And, thank goodness she did! Look at what we found. If she hadn’t shown up, those horses would have died within a day or two from the looks of them.”

  “That is pretty weird,” Mike acknowledged. “Did she tell you why she and Becky were trying to reach Mr. Garcia?”

  “Yes, she did. You know she’s a good friend of our Brody. He thinks a lot of her too, by the way. She’d talked to him about why he didn’t have a horse of his own. Apparently, he fell in love with that little chestnut mare we have in the back, Rosie. He told Maryann he loved that filly when she was born and loved her as she grew up. It broke his heart when she left one day while he was at school. He’s never looked at another horse like that since.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Mike asked crinkling his brow. “Brody never said one word to me about that filly. I didn’t know he was especially attached to her.”

  “I didn’t either,” Ginny admitted. “We could easily have talked Mr. Garcia into selling her to us before he took her home. I know he likes her, but his heart was always with Cutter.”

  “Is that why Becky and Maryann were calling Mr. Garcia? Were they trying to buy the horse for him?”

  “Exactly!” Ginny said. “Maryann told me when neither she or Becky could reach Mr. Garcia at his home in San Juan Capistrano or at the Hacienda Rancho, she got worried and had a feeling there was something terribly wrong having to do with six horses. She would have no way of knowing how many horses Mr. Garcia had at the time. But that’s why she came out this morning.”

  Mike had a puzzled look on his face. He stared straight ahead at the road, but the wheels inside his head were spinning like crazy. “Do you think she has a special sense for these things?”

  “You mean like extrasensory perception? I call it her “spidy-sen
se”. I don’t know, but this is not the first time something unusual has come up in her case. Do you remember me telling you about the first time she rode La Duquesa?”

  Mike shook his head but kept his eyes on the road ahead.

  “I saw an essay she’d written for school. A teacher friend of mine showed it to me. It told about how she rode a silver mare bareback in the moonlight in her dreams. That’s how I happened to bring her on to work off riding lessons in the first place. That essay she wrote included a drawing she’d done of herself riding the mare. The first time she rode Quesa, she did some strange things. She removed the horse’s bridle and saddle, then her shoes before she hopped on the horse. She started out riding at the walk and the trot. Then at the canter, she assumed the exact position she’d drawn in that picture. The sun was going down so I saw this in the sunset, but I have to tell you I got chills down my spine looking at her. She and the horse were an exact copy of her drawing, right down to the plaid shirt she wore and the little “L” shaped tear on the left knee of her jeans. I still have that drawing in my office. I’ll show it to you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Mike questioned her.

  “Honestly, I didn’t believe it myself at the time. But it was enough that I felt drawn to helping her, and that’s when I wrote to her grandparents and told them about her. Now, I’m beginning to believe there’s more to this than I originally thought. I think when Maryann’s little “spidy-senses” go off, I want to know about it right away!” Ginny laughed.

  Mike chuckled. “I think you’re right. You let me know if that ever happens again. I’d like to know too.”

  CHAPTER | FOURTEEN

  Mike pulled the truck and trailer down in front of the main barn when they got back to the ranch. Charles Carnegie parked in the parking area and came to the barn with Maryann to help unload the horses and put them in stalls. Brody came to join them. Mike pulled the first gelding out. Brody took the lead rope from him and led the horse to a stall. Ginny pulled the second horse out and handed him off to Maryann to put away. Mike pulled the third horse out of the trailer. It happened to be Rosie. She turned her head and spotted Brody coming out of the barn stall. She squealed, lept backward and pulled the lead rope clean out of Mike’s hand. She spun for the barn and charged at Brody squealing like a baby horse. She put on the brakes in front of him and pushed her nose in his chest, making little squeaky noises and nickers of sheer happiness. Brody threw his arms around her neck and pushed his face into her skin. Even with his eyes closed, the smile on his face would have lit up the moon in broad daylight.

  Mike, Ginny, and Charles Carnegie stood watching the boy and the horse with their mouths open. None of them expected this scene. Maryann stood to one side of the barn laughing out loud.

  “Guess she’s happy to see you,” Maryann told Brody.

  “Yeah, I guess she is. I’m happy to see her too. I missed her,” Brody finally answered, stepped back and picked up the end of her lead rope. He stood and scratched her withers and talked under his breath to her. She calmed right down. “Come on Izzy, let’s get you in a stall so I can go find you some goodies, shall we?” he told her. They walked to the next open stall and walked in side by side. He scratched her itchy places and removed the halter before backing out of the stall and closed the door. Rosie became agitated and screamed out for him, throwing herself from side to side along the front wall of the barn in a panic. Her eyes never left him.

  Brody walked back to the front of the stall and began talking to her in a low and soothing tone. “Hey, you don’t want to get upset and make all this fuss. I’m just going to find you some goodies. You be a good girl now and wait for me. I’ll be right back, I promise!”

  Rosie calmed right down and noodled in the feeder for a little grain left there by the previous occupant. Brody walked into the feed room and found a couple of horse cookies and took them back to Rosie. She ate them from his hand, smacking her lips and licking his palms while she squealed with delight.

  Mike and Ginny looked at each other incredulously. “Did you know anything about this?” Mike finally asked her.

  “No! The first clue I got was what Maryann told me at the ranch before we loaded the horses up,” Ginny admitted. “I had no idea these two were so close.”

  “Let’s get the other two out of the trailer so I can get it put away. Then I have to call Esteban Garcia and let him know what’s going on here.” Mike walked back inside the trailer and unhooked Rosie’s mother. He handed her off to Maryann. He unhooked the last horse and walked it out to Ginny, closed the trailer, jumped in the truck and drove to the parking area.

  As soon as Mike unhooked the trailer from his truck, he parked the truck, asked one of his guys to clean out the trailer and returned to the barn office. He dug in the files and found Esteban Garcia’s cell phone number and dialed it. He listened until the voice mail announcement came on and left him a message. “Esteban, this is Mike Hartley. I need to speak with you urgently. Please call me back at the ranch when you get this message no matter what time. It has to do with your ranch in Apple Valley and your horses. Thank you.”

  He came out of the office and found Ginny. “You know, if there was no answer at home in San Juan Capistrano and no answer at the Hacienda, they could be in Spain. The family does go there often because they have relatives there. I remember him telling me his wife’s parents live there. If so, with the time difference it’s in the middle of the night there. I’ll give it a few hours before I try calling again.”

  Ginny was getting small amounts of fresh hay and soaked pellets to the five new horses in the barn while she waited for Doc Martin to arrive. She went into the stalls and checked every horse over before he got there. She noted hock sores, sores on front knees and fetlocks and hip bones from laying on the hard desert soil. The scrapes happened when the horses moved around while getting back on their feet. Ribs, spines and hip bones were protruding on each horse, but she’d seen much worse in the past. She knew decent food, added slowly, would bring them around in a few weeks. She just wanted Doc Martin’s opinion in case there was something she’d missed in her examinations.

  Doc Martin arrived, looked the horses over and agreed with Ginny’s evaluation. He pulled blood from each of them and told her he’d get back to her if he found anything there he didn’t expect. He reviewed her feed schedule for the horses and agreed with that as well. Since the horses were owned by a friend of the Hartley’s and they were very sure the horses were up to date with their vaccinations, Doc left to see a patient with an emergency within a few minutes.

  Ginny was walking out of the barn when the phone rang in her office. She picked up the phone and listened. “Oh, Esteban, I’m so glad to hear from you. Let me get Mike for you.”

  She went to the barn door and called out to Mike. He hurried back to her office and picked up the phone.

  “Hello, Estaban. Good to hear back from you so soon. Where are you now?” Mike said, then listened intently. “Must be the middle of the night for you then,” Mike answered. “I’ve got something to tell you,” he said and filled Esteban Garcia in with as much as he knew. He gave him the deputy’s name and contact phone number off the card the deputy gave him at the ranch. “Okay, I’ll talk to you in a few minutes then,” Mike said and hung up the phone.

  “They are in Spain. Louisa’s mother is ill. They were called over there a month and a half ago,” Mike told Ginny. “Esteban is making travel arrangements right now. He’s coming home. He’s pretty upset about this. He knows Cutter is missing along with John and Rhonda. I told him I’d wait for his call. It’s going to take him at least 24 hours to get home with customs, driving time and the long overseas flight. I’ll wait here and see if there’s anything we can do on this end to help,” he explained to his wife. “If Cutter were mine, I’d be doing the same thing.”

  CHAPTER | FIFTEEN

  Wayne and Dave drew the short straws and were the ones who had to give the hostages their bathroom
break while Pat fixed breakfast. They walked down the hallway to the master bedroom with their bandanas up over their noses and their hats pulled low on their brows as usual. Dave had his gun out because Wayne needed both hands to open the handcuffs. Wayne threw the door open and stepped inside and halted. Dave nearly ran him over. “Look! They’re gone!” Wayne shouted.

  “Wadda ya mean they’re gone?” Dave shouted back at him.

  “Look around dummy,” Wayne’s voice cracked. “The window is open, the bed is empty, and the handcuffs are hanging from the headboard posts. The hostages are not here! That’s what I mean. They are gone!”

  The commotion in the bedroom attracted the other two men. Merle came stomping down the hallway with Pat right behind him.

  “What’s going on in here?” demanded Merle.

  “The hostages are gone, Merle. This is what we found when we opened the bedroom door just now,” explained Wayne. “They managed to unlock the handcuffs, open the bedroom window, and they are in the wind by now.”

  Merle looked around the room in a second. They were gone. How long had they been gone? How far could they have gotten? “Let’s go see if we can see them. Each of us takes a different direction. Let’s go now!”

  The four men rushed out of the mobile home and headed in different directions. They each looked for a hundred yards or so. “They went this way,” shouted Pat from the truck and travel trailer. “They took water with them.” He followed what tracks he could find for a way and still did not see any signs of life. “They are long gone by now!” he shouted to the others.

  The men gathered at the steps of the mobile home. “What are we gonna do now?” asked Pat. He thought maybe they should have just shot them and dumped their bodies down a mine shaft after all. The hostages had been a real pain since they stole the horse.