Desert Rose

by Victoria Hardesty

  “It’s a long shot, but probably a better shot than Cutter has otherwise. I have several spare batteries, and we can charge them up with a car charger. We need someone to get us there to the search area and stay with us while we look for him.”

  “Okay, let’s get to the house and look on your computer and see if we can pin down the search area first before we ask for a driver to take us,” she suggested. “Maybe John or Rhonda can help us with that.”

  Brody and Maryann put their horses away and gave them treats before walking to the back patio to make their suggestion. The adults looked at them like they were crazy at first, but once they explained the technology and how they intended to handle it, it began to make some sense to them. Charles and John volunteered to go with the two youngsters on the search mission. They began making a list of supplies they needed to take with them, including food and water and maps. They knew they would have to end searching before dark because the drone did not have lights and Brody would not be able to manage it in the dark.

  John and Rhonda come into Brody’s room while he pulled up topographical maps of the general area so they could get an idea of where to begin the search. It looked so small on the monitor. When Maryann looked at the scale in miles, it began to sink in for her just how huge this project was. She needed to get home for her things and get back to the ranch with her grandfather with his Jeep gassed up and ready to go.

  Brody spent that time putting together the equipment he would need for a search of that magnitude. Aunt Ginny put together a backpack with food and water for him and an extra one for the others. One of the adults would remain with Maryann at the car monitoring the photos and communicating with Brody while one would accompany Brody and his drone. Cell phones did not always work out in the desert so Brody brought along two extra radios that should cover the voids in communications with spare batteries for them as well. Charles was going to have to keep the Jeep running most of the time, so he brought extra gasoline for it in two five-gallon cans.

  When they finished packing all the equipment and supplies in the Jeep, there was barely room for Maryann and Brody in the back seat, but they squeezed in. The Jeep was a pretty deluxe version which had numerous charger ports in back, front and in the console, so they plugged everything in they could to charge them up during the drive. Charles drove while John watched to find the dirt road they’d used to get to the highway. He remembered there was a tattered flag on a post on the south side of that road.

  John pointed out the tattered flag as soon as he saw it. Charles slowed the Jeep and turned off the highway a short distance and stopped. John got out of the Jeep and looked ahead of it for slippered footprints he and his wife made on their way to the highway the day before. He found them! He rushed back to the Jeep and climbed in. “This is it!” he told them. “Let’s take it up the road and see if we can find the campsite we came through. That would be a good place to begin the search.”

  They looked at several possible campsites before they found the one John and Rhonda left their slippered footprints through. They stopped the Jeep and began hauling equipment out. Brody took the drone out of its case and set it on the hood of the Jeep before turning it on. He turned the controller on and tested it with the drone. The drone lifted off the Jeep hood perfectly and hovered above the campsite while Maryann got the video up on the laptop. The picture was very clear, and the GPS coordinates showed in the lower corner of the monitor. Brody made sure he had his cell phone in his pocket and one of the radios on his belt. He and John began walking along the route that seemed right to John. They stopped about a hundred yards from the campsite and radioed back to the Jeep to be sure everything was working correctly. Maryann confirmed the video was great and everything seemed to be working perfectly.

  John remembered the way from the day before fairly well at first. After the sun rose, their vision of their surroundings was more clear than they were before the sun came up. They moved well and found slippered footprints every once in a while for several hours. John kept an eye on the time. They were getting quite far from the campsite and would have to turn around to get back before the sun went down again. Brody sent the drone higher and in a wide arc above and in front of them searching. They saw nothing but dirt, rocks, desert plants and a few dirt bike tracks.

  The farther they got from the campsite, the less sure John was of the direction they needed to go. He turned them around and headed for camp before it got too late for the search to continue that day. He was disappointed. He’d hoped this search would be easier than it was and he became more concerned they might not be able to find Cutter at all. He spotted another “road” of sorts that looked like it had been traveled on by vehicles other than dirt bikes. He had Brody check that road out with the drone and see if it connected to anything close to the campsite they were using as a base camp. It did! They could use that road to get farther into the desert with the Jeep, so he and Brody didn’t have so far to walk back to camp. They could expand their search area better tomorrow.

  The searchers packed up their gear and got back to the highway just before sunset. Nobody had much to say on the drive back to Hartley Ranch. Brody and Maryann felt they could find Cutter easily with the drone and laptop. They didn’t realize how large their search area was and they knew every minute counted for Cutter. If Cutter was out of food, he could last a few days. If he was out of water, he couldn’t.

  CHAPTER | TWENTY-FIVE

  Esteban Garcia leaned over the counter with his head in his hands. What should he do next? He thought about it for a few minutes, trying to clear his mind. He was tired from lack of sleep and worry. But he couldn’t sit here in San Juan Capistrano doing nothing! He had to do something. He popped the tape out of the answering machine and pushed it deep in his pocket thinking how glad he was he’d not upgraded the machine to one of those all electronic ones that had no tapes. With his “old school” machine, he could give the tape to the sheriff’s department as evidence. He hauled his bag upstairs to his bedroom and tossed most of what he’d brought home on the bed. He took his shaving kit and a change of clothes and stuffed them into a smaller case from his closet and walked down the hall to his son’s bedroom.

  “Come on, Stevie, we gotta go. I need you to drive me to Hartley Ranch.”

  “Really, Dad, you want me to drive you?” Stevie said with some enthusiasm. It was the first time his dad asked him to drive him anywhere since he took the driver’s education course and prepared to take his license exam.

  “You bet. You slept on the plane, and you slept most of the way home in the limo. I’ve not gotten any sleep so it would not be good for me to try a two-hour drive right now.”

  “Sure, Dad. Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to Mike and Ginny Hartley’s place in Pinon Hills. I’ll give you directions. I need to get there so I can be there while we figure out this mess with the horses and John and Rhonda. Okay? Bring a change of clothes. I don’t know where we’ll end up staying for the night.”

  Esteban and Stevie threw their small bags in the back seat of Esteban’s car and climbed in. Esteban directed his son to the freeway and gave him directions as he drove. During a long stretch on the toll road, Esteban called Mike Hartley and told him they were on their way up to see him.

  Ginny worried what to do with all the people. She knew John, Brody, Maryann, and Charles wanted to get back out in the desert early tomorrow to continue the search. That meant John and Rhonda needed a place to stay for the night. With Esteban and Stevie coming, they were not sure if they’d want to drive all the way to the Hacienda Rancho to spend the night and come back in the morning. She called Rose Wilcox, Maryann’s mother and asked her if her guest room was open for the night. Ginny explained what was going on. Rose told her that her guest room was open and Charles and Celeste, Maryann’s grandparents had one available too. In the crisis, everyone’s door was open for family and friends. Ginny stopped worrying about that. Things would all sort themselves out the way the
y should.

  Esteban and Stevie arrived at Hartley Ranch a few minutes before the searchers returned from the desert. Esteban had enough time to tell Mike about the ransom call that came in on his answering machine and pulled the tape out of his pocket to show Mike. Mike took him to his office and called the detective working the case. He explained who Esteban was and put him on the phone. Esteban told him about the ransom demand he’d found on his answering machine when he got home, told him he had the tape in his pocket to turn over to him, and gave him the phone number he was supposed to call to confirm he had the message and would comply with their demand. He had called the number from home. The phone rang a few times; then an automated voice came on saying the voice mailbox for the phone had not been set up and the call disconnected.

  “But the phone number rang when you dialed it?” the detective asked him.

  “Oh yes, it rang five times before going dead,” Estaban explained. “I only called it once though.”

  “If this is a ‘burner’ phone and they realized you weren’t going to call, they may have just left it in the old mobile home when they took off. I will have our people start working on that angle. If they just left it at the place where they were holding their hostages, there’s a chance it still has some charge in the battery. If our people can figure out the service provider from the phone number and start chasing it down, maybe we can get a location by pinging the phone and getting it’s GPS. That’s good news. Let’s hope it stays charged until we can ping it.”

  “That is maybe good news then?” Esteban sounded hopeful.

  “Let’s see what our people can find on that phone number. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out anything.”

  Charles, John, Maryann, and Brody arrived back home shortly after Mr. Garcia made the call to the detective. Mike and Ginny introduced Charles Carnegie and Maryann. Esteban hugged them all and thanked them for what they were doing to help find his Cutter. He looked about ready to collapse so Ginny walked him to their guest room and insisted he get some sleep.

  Brody looked at Stevie. “Hey, you want the top or the bottom bunk, your choice? You can stay with me in my room.” Stevie grabbed his case and walked down the hall with Brody to his room. Brody looked up to Stevie. Stevie drove his dad’s car on the freeway all the way from San Juan Capistrano to the ranch! Brody had driven farm vehicles around and parked the truck a few times but had never driven off the ranch before. He had to wait almost two years before he could apply for his driver’s license. Stevie was a hero to him at that moment.

  Charles drove Maryann home and dropped her off before heading up the mountain to his own home. John and Rhonda followed Charles home and spent the night with him and Celeste since John needed to be up early to begin the search in the morning with Charles and the two youngsters.

  Stevie chose the bottom bunk and nearly fell into bed. It had been a tiring long day since he and his dad left Spain. He was nervous driving from home to the High Desert, and that exhausted him even more. He was asleep the minute his head hit the pillow. Brody had hoped to talk to him before going to bed himself but could see that wasn’t going to happen. He left his room and closed the door behind him. He walked back to the kitchen to see what Aunt Ginny and Uncle Mike were doing. It was a tiring day for him too. He was disappointed they didn’t find Cutter. He was concerned for the horse. He worried if he wasn’t able to spot him tomorrow, they might not find him alive.

  Ginny asked Brody to join her and Uncle Mike in the kitchen for a cup of coffee together. Ginny thought Brody showed a lot of maturity in the search for Cutter. She and Mike offered him more adult treatment than they’d given him in the past.

  While Brody was busy adding cream and sugar to his cup, Ginny asked him, “Why didn’t you tell us how you felt about Rosie before she went home? We had no idea you were so attached to her or we would have tried to make it possible for you to keep her.”

  He looked up from his cup while he stirred the sugar. “This is like a déjà vu conversation,” he said. “I think I had this same conversation with Maryann.”

  “Well?”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you the same thing I told her. I’ve been so grateful to you and Uncle Mike for taking me in when I had no one, that I didn’t feel right asking you for the luxury of my very own horse. You’ve already done so much for me. I would have ended up in foster care somewhere if you hadn’t taken me home. My dad’s parents were already gone, and my dad had no brothers or sisters. Your parents were much too old to raise a four-year-old, and you have no other sisters or brothers either. I was an orphan with no family but you and you took me in. You adopted me. I’m legally your son. How much more could I ask from you?”

  “But we love you, Brody. We’d do anything to make you happy,” Ginny said. Mike nodded his agreement without saying a word.

  “I know you love me. You know, we three are the only ones that know what happened after the accident. I don’t remember much about it; I remember we’d had a wonderful day at the ranch, good food, and I was getting sleepy after my dad pulled out on the highway. The last thing I remember clearly was my mother screaming. Then the world went crazy. When the car stopped moving, it was silent except for my brother whimpering. A strange man pulled me out through the window and held me as I cried. Then I heard the sirens and saw all the flashing lights, and I cried for my mommy. That man just held me and tried to comfort me. I remember the ride to the hospital in the ambulance with my brother, but he’d stopped whimpering. I remember you and Uncle Mike were there. I know I had nightmares about that for a long time and every time I cried, you’d come into my room and hold me until I stopped crying. You and Uncle Mike had no experience with children before you brought me home. I don’t know how you did it. You have been my heroes.”

  “Brody, you were our family and family always does the best for family. If you don’t take anything else from this experience, please remember this,” Ginny said softly.

  “Aunt Ginny, you and Uncle Mike didn’t have to take me in, but I love and respect you for doing it. You know, Rosie went home two years ago. I’ve learned a few more things since then. I’ve learned that I love the ranch life. I have so many advantages other kids don’t have. I get to see new life on the ranch when foals are born, when cows are born, when the barn cats have their kittens, when the hen’s chicks hatch. I don’t have time to spend on video games and playing on my phone all the time, but I’ve gotten to see life, the good and the bad. That is what I want for my children. I’ve been thinking I’d love to help Uncle Mike and you to run this ranch when you want to retire. I want to go to college at Cal Poly in Pomona like you both did so I don’t have to leave here. I want to find me a wife who loves Arabian horses like you and I’d love to work with Uncle Mike to learn the why and the how and the what he does so I can do it and let you enjoy your old age knowing you’ve trained me to run things the way you did it. I’ve thought about this and even picked out a place on the ranch where I think I’d like to build a home to raise my own family. I know I’m almost 15, not 21, but I’ve been thinking about my future. And I’m so glad you took me in and gave me the opportunities you’ve given me.” Brody’s manner changed, and he grinned at his aunt, “ Except I need a new Xbox so I can learn to beat the pants off Maryann. She’s got the newest one. Speaking of Maryann, that girl is something else. You know this whole drone search for Cutter was her idea, don’t you? She heard us talking, heard about Cutter and what’s happening to him, and she put this all together. She’s amazing. And she kills me with my games when we have time to play them.”

  Uncle Mike sat listening and was dumbfounded to hear what Brody had to say. He couldn’t have been more proud of a son if he’d been born to him. He’d just heard what every father would love to hear, that his son wanted to follow in his footsteps. And he admired Brody for his ability to tell him and Ginny about it. Mike didn’t think he’d had that kind of courage to speak with his father when he was Brody’s age. But it all worked out for Mike. His
older brother took over the business in Montana when their parents retired. He ran it into the ground because he wouldn’t do things the way his parents did them. He lost everything. Fortunately, his parents didn’t live to see the bank foreclosure. His brother took his family to Helena and got a job selling tires to support them. With Brody, he specifically said he wanted to know the what, why and how he and Ginny ran the ranch. If he found a better way, that was okay, but he’d at least have their foundation and he wanted it. He didn’t think he was smarter than his parents, who couldn’t possibly know anything, right off the bat the way his brother did. Mike felt his legacy was safe in Brody’s hands – someday.

  Mike drained his coffee cup and cleared his throat. He was never much for words. “I’m proud of you, son, and I love you very much.” It was the first time Mike called him that.

  Aunt Ginny pushed her cup aside, leaned over and kissed Brody on the forehead. “I’m proud of you too. And I love you. But it’s time for you to get to bed. The others will be here early in the morning.”

  Clyde got up from his comfortable spot on the rug and wagged his tail as he followed Brody to his bedroom. Brody was tired. It had been a long day. It was still early, but he decided to get some sleep. Just as he turned the doorknob on his bedroom door, the phone in his pocket started ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket, saw it was Maryann, and answered, “Hello.”

  CHAPTER | TWENTY-SIX

  The minute Maryann got home she dashed off to her bedroom and picked up the phone. She called Becky and filled her in on the day and the search for Cutter. “I think that was the first time I’ve ever seen a grown man cry,” she told Becky. “Mr. Garcia is so upset about Cutter. I think he must feel about that horse the same way I feel about Quesa, and you feel about Ali. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if someone dumped Quesa in the desert without food, water, or shelter. I’d be crazy frantic to find her. That’s why tomorrow is so important. Brody and I talked about it after we got back today. With the updates we heard from the cops, Cutter may have been left out there two whole days already. Tomorrow will be three for him. If they didn’t give him water, he could die before we find him. We have to find him!”