The Middle of Somewhere (19 page)

“All right,” he said abruptly. “When was this guy supposed to be in Hays?”

“Tomorrow.”

“That means he'll be camping there tonight. I'll get the bike and go to Hays and check it out. You'd better stay here.”

“Stay here?!”

“In case Gee turns up. Don't get too far from the pay phone. I'll take this number along and call as soon as I know anything.”

That was the plan and he was sticking to it. I followed him out to the RV and suggested we ought to call the
police, but he didn't think much of the idea. “And tell them what? That we think Gee sneaked into a cannon? We can handle this without the establishment, Ronnie.”

This was his contrariness showing, though I had to admit, as he roared off on the Yamaha, he looked up to handling anything. Still, if one Gee-seeker was good, five or six more would be that much better. I turned it over in my mind while searching the store and the restaurant and the parking lot twice—then the question was taken out of my hands.

“Did you lose something, honey?” asked the store clerk while I stood near the magazine rack looking a little lost myself.

BECKI, read her name tag. She looked so sympathetic I couldn't hold back. “Yes, ma'am—my little brother.” As I explained the situation, her eyes got wider and wider, and when I got to the part about my grandfather not calling the police, they bugged right out.

“If that's not just like a man! I never heard of such a stubborn—of all the—don't you worry, honey, I'm calling the highway patrol this minute.”

Not only that, but after getting more details from me, she put out an Amber Alert right there in the store, just by raising her voice: “We have a missing child—a boy seven years old with light brown hair, wearing cutoffs and a red T-shirt. Please report if you have seen this child.” Then she turned on the outside speaker and repeated the announcement. Everybody was looking around as though they expected to see my brother behind the potato-chip bags or under their front axle. It was all pretty intense until a
Kansas Highway Patrol car arrived, then people started quietly paying for their gas and slipping away. The authorities would take care of it.

Within the hour, four troopers in three cars turned up, meaning I had to repeat the whole story to each one. All of them seemed skeptical that Gee would do what I was sure he did. Plain old kidnapping was more along their line, but if they knew my brother they'd understand that any kidnapper would think twice before nabbing him. At least Officer Hadley, the first one to appear, got on his radio with a fellow patrolman in Hays and asked him to track down Cannonball Paul.

While this was going on, I heard the pay phone ringing and almost knocked down a little girl while rushing to answer it.

Pop's voice sounded thin against the road noises in the background. “I'm right outside of Hays. Just got here— thought I'd call and make sure Gee hasn't turned up. I guess he hasn't.”

“No, but—”

“I'm going to head to the fairgrounds and see if that guy's checked in yet.”

“Pop, I—”

“There's too much noise here. I'll call back later. So long.”

The phone clicked in my ear before I could tell him to expect a patrol car or two. The troopers were discussing strategy outside, so that's where I went to share the latest news: “My grandfather is at Hays. He's going out to the fairgrounds.”

They told me they'd put out an Amber Alert for my brother so that every police officer, convenience-store clerk, and gas-station attendant in Kansas would be watching for the aforementioned seven-year-old with light brown hair, brown eyes, and a red T-shirt. Somehow this didn't make me feel one bit better.

Don't get me wrong—Amber Alerts are terrific and avert many a tragedy, I'm sure. But this was
Gee
. This was my brother. None of your ordinary kidnap scenarios seemed to apply.

I wandered back through the store, where Becki was telling every customer to be on the lookout for a seven-year-old boy with light brown hair, et cetera. In the back lobby I collapsed on a bench between the pay phone and the brochure racks, trying to remember what Kent Clark said about dealing with a crisis.

He wrote a whole chapter about Advantaging Your Anxiety, but “anxiety,” to him, seems to mean stuff like losing a pile of money from a bad investment or having the transmission in your Lexus fall out—not misplacing a family member who's accidentally almost killed himself lots of times. My Anxiety squatted like a big concrete garden toad on my chest, so heavy I could hardly breathe. Where was the advantage in that?

Not that I thought Cannonball Paul was dangerous— or was he? I pulled one of his cards from the brochure rack and stared hard at it, as if studying his face would give me a clue to his character.

The silver suit and golden helmet kind of screamed for your attention, so you didn't notice much about the face.
But that might be because there wasn't much to notice. He was young, or at least not old, with blond hair combed straight back from a face that was not gorgeous but hardly ugly. The most striking thing about him was the pose: feet apart and chin up, one hand on his hip. Like, CAPTAIN AMERICA SAVES THE WORLD.

Just sitting here was going to drive me nuts. I took the phone book off its shelf under the pay phone and looked up “Hays, City of.” There were listings for the fire department, the collector, the police, the mayor … some of which might be useful. I reached in the pocket of my shorts for my ever-ready pencil stub and felt one of my business cards. It was the one with Howard's cell phone number on it.

My hands were shaking, but after a couple of tries on the pay phone I managed to punch in all the calling-card numbers, plus the cell-phone number. Then I listened for the ring with my heart pounding in my ears.

After five rings, and my heart almost giving up, I heard a click. Then a voice: “Hey.”

“Howard?” My own voice sounded like it was climbing a pole, but I got the squeak under control and spilled out the whole story: hasty departure from the campground, Chalk Pyramids, Cannonball trailer, highway patrolmen. The order was a little mixed up, but he seemed to get most of it. A few seconds passed before he asked, “Where did you say you were?”

I told him. After a few more seconds, he said, “You're not gonna believe this, but I'm only about forty minutes away. Had to deliver some hay to a ranch in Rush County.”

“Where's that?”

“Where I'm taking the hay? Over by the Barbed Wire Museum.”

Barbed Wire Museum? Only in Kansas. “Howard— can you come?”

He could have asked,
What for
? I wasn't sure how to answer in a way that made sense, but what I really wanted was to do something besides wrestle a stone toad—namely, go to Hays and look for Gee myself. Howard had the wheels. But did he have the will?

“Sure,” he said.

By now most of the patrolmen were gone, but Officer Hadley came in to say good-bye for now and to pat me on the shoulder. “Just stay put so we can reach you. And don't worry. Becki said she'd look after you, and we've got the whole state looking for your brother.” I just nodded, my mind about fifty miles away.

During the next half hour—the longest half hour of my life—the store manager brought me a Coke and a plate of nachos, and Becki sat with me during her break. I was too jumpy to appreciate it. Finally, I hinted around that I could use some quiet time, and they more or less left me alone.

When the blue-and-white pickup finally pulled up in front of the glass doors, it looked as beautiful as a limousine. I gave it
a just a minute
wave and dashed back to the counter.

Becki was checking out a customer, still giving her description of Gee like she knew the poor little boy. I snuck up on the opposite side of her and slipped one of my cards halfway under the register. It read:
Left with a friend. Call 555—7890
[Howard's number]
if you have info
.

In the lobby I paused to make sure no one was looking, then darted out the doors and hopped in the truck. “Thanks,” I gasped. Howard nodded at me and gunned the accelerator. As we roared past the RV lot, I shouted, “Wait!”—almost hitting the windshield when Howard hit the brakes. “We'd better take Leo.”

“Right.” Howard pounded on the side of the truck cab. “Hey, Leo! Come on, boy!” With no hesitation, the dog leapt off the bike trailer and bounded over, clearing the tailgate with a mighty bound. When he was settled, thumping his tail so hard the back window rattled, Howard shifted gears and pulled out of the lot. “Which way?”

I pointed to the right and he turned the wheel, joining a line of vehicles waiting at the stoplight. Directly ahead, I-70 hummed with cars and semis. “Oh, man,” Howard said.

“What?”

“I forgot about the interstate. I'm not used to …”

“Used to
what
?” I practically shouted.

“Traffic,” he said as the light turned.

Stay calm
, I told myself. “Howard? It's green.” He moved forward, but so slowly the driver in the SUV behind us gave a blast on the horn. “Look, no sweat. My dad was a truck driver. The interstate was his office. Seriously. He was always complaining about bad drivers on ramps and how it's supposed to be done. So I can talk you through it. Come on, let's do this. How about a right-turn signal… Good, but give it some gas.”

Biting his lip, he turned onto the entrance ramp and nervously tapped the accelerator. Up we went, slowly drawing level with the semis that roared by so fast they created
their own wind tunnels. I'll admit, trucks had never looked so big and mean before. “Don't look behind you!” I told Howard. “I'll watch back here, just keep your eyes on the road. Turn signal… No,
left
turn signal.”

“I knew that,” he said quickly.

“Don't slow down! Just keep steady. … You're doing good.”
Whoosh
! A cattle truck whizzed by so close the pickup wobbled. “Okay, now speed up—no,
don't
!” The SUV passed us with another angry honk. “Same to you, guy! Now it's clear. Step on it, Howard. STEP ON IT!”

He stomped the accelerator and nudged over into the right lane, wincing as another huge tractor rig buzzed his left. “You
did
it!” I squealed, bouncing on the seat. “Now we just go with the flow.”

His hands were still gripping the wheel too hard. “Wait'll I tell my folks. No, on second thought, maybe I'd better not.”

“What
did
you tell your folks?”

“The truth. Well, enough of it. Told 'em something came up and I had to give a ride to a friend.”

“They trust you to take off like that, without knowing who the friend is?”

“Sure.” The tone of his voice made the question sound kind of silly. If he ever screwed up really bad, like losing his little brother at a truck stop, his parents' attitude might change. But for now, I didn't mind him being Mr. Perfect.

Howard pushed the old truck up to sixty miles per hour before speaking again. “One time last spring? My little sister got lost in a Wal-Mart store in Scott City. Got away from my mom while Tyler and me were playing
Carnivore's Castle in the electronics. We looked all over that store. Inside and out. Store manager made an announcement and all that. Somebody in the lawn and garden found her asleep. Behind the compost bags.”

“Well, that's nice,” I said after a pause.

“All I mean is. Almost all these cases turn out okay. Thousands of kids get lost every year. …”

“And most of them get found,” I finished for him.

“Yeah.” I knew we were both thinking of the ones who didn't.

By now it was about one p.m. on a bright sunny day, and up ahead of us the highway disappeared. I'd noticed this in the Coachman: you can see the asphalt in front of the hood, and feel it rumbling under the wheels. But farther ahead, whole patches of road seem to shimmer and vanish. They were like huge puddles of… nothing. It's freaky—you know it's a mirage but still can't help wondering if the next few hundred yards are going to be there when you reach them. When I'd noticed this before, the wondering was kind of a game. Now it was anything but.

My eyelids were getting too heavy to prop open. The steady hum of wheels pulled me down into a rumbling, gritty state that some might call “sleep.”

“Hey,” Howard said. “You awake?” I sat up in time to see the HAYS CITY LIMIT sign flash by. “We'll need directions to the fairground—”

“Over there.” I pointed to a green sign with white letters: ELLIS COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS/NEXT RIGHT.

“Got it.” Howard took the exit (getting off was a lot
easier than getting on) and turned at the first left. Two more signs showed us the way after that, and before long we were on a quiet two-lane road with a water ditch down one side and more trees than I'd seen together since we left Melba's campground.

“How far
is
it to this place?” I was getting ready to leap out of the window with impatience, when I heard a tapping sound.

It was a scratching, really, made by Leo's claws as he swiped at the glass. I'd almost forgotten about him.

“What's up with that dog?” I exclaimed as Howard slowed the truck to a crawl and looked over his shoulder. With the engine noise cut back, we could hear Leo whine for our attention. When he had it, he backed up a few feet and almost-barked.

“What do you think that means?” I asked Howard.

“I think we'd better have a look.” Shifting in reverse, he backed up slowly while Leo turned circles in the truck bed. Suddenly, he lunged at the tailgate.

“Stop!” I had my hand on the door latch, popping it open when Howard hit the brakes. Jumping out of the cab, I ran to the spot where the glint of wheel spokes had caught my eye.

Sprawled at the bottom of the ditch was my grandfather, his face under the helmet as pale as dust.