Telling Fortunes in Phoenix

Eddie

Eddie was a regular guy and loved a regular life. He’d hated the late nights and sudden call-ins of his early career, the constant disruption of his routine and the toll on his little family, but now his seniority allowed him to hand off much of that to underlings so that he could spend time with his daughter. Though she had her own social and scholastic matters to interrupt their evenings she wouldn’t be with him much longer and he treasured their time together. In another year she’d be in college and she was determined to live away. Even if she went to Arizona State University in Phoenix, she’d told him, it was time to leave the nest.

So he came home each night and if she wasn’t out they would eat dinner together. Her homework was way over his head by now but she’d work in the same room with him or out by the pool while he swam laps. He adored that kid and she showed every sign of loving him back.

During the full moon he necessarily had at least one very late night, but usually made it back to Phoenix in time to get his daughter off to school. Now the night stretched ahead of him without the usual satisfaction of a job well done and money made. Darn that Mexican kid!

The truck’s cargo bay had been locked during the trip to Johni’s ranch so the child must have stumbled off into the desert and passed out before getting in. Chaco always wanted to get back to Mexico right away and would have left on foot the moment the truck drove off. That was his habit but if he’d found the boy he would have texted.

Eddie shook his head. He’d been on search and rescue missions looking for lost children but success often depended on the child calling out when a rescuer came near. He could still remember that three year old. They should have gotten dogs. She must have fallen asleep because the search party had followed a grid and she could only have been a yard or two away from the searchers. The sun revealed her little corpse under a bush the next morning, curled in a ball. It had been a cold night.

Tonight was warm but finding a sleeping boy in the desert in the dark… He couldn’t believe he hadn’t counted heads. Or had he? Who knew, you do something a few hundred times the details blur.

He returned to the rendezvous spot, a one hour drive, most of it over rough track. His eyes were peeled for a boy walking or hitching a ride. The loud sound of a vehicle could be heard for miles in the empty desert and the child, frightened and alone, would be looking for help. Or hiding.

At the meeting place Chaco was gone and the fire pit cool. Despite the bright moon Eddie pulled out his powerful flashlight and circled the spot, looking for tracks leading away, methodically sweeping the ground in widening circles and calling out as he went. The desert floor was hard and covered with rocks but Eddie went at it methodically, going out to a hundred yards, investigating any depression and searching beneath each cactus. He found nothing.

After an hour’s search he gave up. The moon was far down the western sky and Eddie drove slowly, obsessed with searching now, seeing imagined figures disappearing into the dark at every turn. When he got to the highway he had cell service and texted his daughter. He’d never get home before light.

He’d seen her yesterday morning. She’d been working on some project all week and told him she’d be at Sandy’s house in the evening. She might spend the night. After keying a brief message he turned off his phone, hoping he hadn’t awakened her. Darned kids slept with their phones these days and he had no intention of getting involved in a text chat with her at three in the morning.

He was bleary with fatigue when he got back to the ranch. Although there was a light in the kitchen he stayed in his car enjoying the peaceful hush of the yard. He hated Johni’s house. Rolling down all of the windows to catch the sweet desert air he put the seat back and dropped into sodden oblivion.