Things had been rather quiet since my last bout of trouble. I stayed close to home while Rusty recovered from a broken leg. I’d managed to leave behind the nightmares and I was moving forward. It was hard to do at home. Left in an empty house with nothing but a few chores to do, my thoughts would catch up to me. It was a constant battle to put the trouble behind me and go forward when there was nowhere to go. Each night I had dinner on the table and we ate together, just the two of us. The hills were calling but I stayed home anyway. Rusty could see that it couldn’t last much longer. I was going to go nuts.
“I need my Jeep back,” I said one night at dinner.
“Do you want to go look? It can’t hurt to look at cars at night. There’s no sales people to bug you.”
“I want my old Jeep back. Not the new one. The one I had when you and I first met. That Jeep and I were friends. We knew each other. We thought alike. It takes a long time to break in a Jeep. The new ones aren’t friendly like my old Jeep was.”
“Cass, you’re talking like your car had feelings. It was just a machine, a tool to get you from one place to another. Do you want to look for a used one?”
“No, it’s just not the same letting someone else break in your Jeep for you. Why can’t Jeeps be like Levi’s? Wear ‘em, wash ‘em, go horseback riding in them and they fit. Maybe it’s the metal in the Jeeps. Metal would be harder to break in than cloth.”
He smiled and shook his head. Sometimes Cassidy logic eluded him.
“I still think we should get you a sexy sports car.”
“No way, I’d get stuck my first trip into the boonies.”
“How about a motorcycle to go with it? You could take the bike out into the hills. It would be small enough that you could wrestle it loose if you got stuck and you’d still have a car to drive to town in.”
“Can we find an insurance company that will take me?”
“Cass…”
“I’m not kidding, three cars in the past few years. I wouldn’t insure any of my cars!”
My first Jeep was car bombed by Tyrone Trent to make a point to the police. My BMW was rolled when Trent decided the Jeep wasn’t a big enough point to the police. He’d followed me and forced me off the road in a wild car chase through the desert. The new Jeep was tossed in the California Aqueduct to make Rusty think I was dead. He didn’t believe the ploy for a second. But nevertheless, I’d gone through three cars in a very short span of time. Maybe a motorcycle would be the way to go. I’d had a license since I was a teenager.
“I’ll go look tomorrow. I can ride into town with you and by the time I walk to a dealership it’ll be open.”
“You’re not walking. Take the Explorer. I can use another car.”
And so I found myself a dirt bike. A street legal dirt bike. One I could wrestle over just about anything. I took it out in the hills and put on the speed. Yes! I could fly out into the hills with this. I could wind up the arroyos and find tracks where even the Jeep couldn’t go. I was free again!
After putting the bike through every test I had handy, I stopped at the top of a hill out in the desert to check the time on my cell phone. Yikes! I better get back to town. Rusty would be getting off work soon.
I was riding to the station, feeling slowed down by the stop and go of city traffic, when I saw an ambulance ahead. Its lights were not on, so I pulled up beside it. Landon was driving it, so I stayed with it until he got curious. Then at the next light I took off my helmet. His expression was plain, oh, no, not a bike. He opened his window.
“Pull over,” he yelled, “next driveway!”
“Okay,” I replied.
When the light turned green I sped off, found out the next driveway was where the ambulance company was based and turned in. Landon got out of the ambulance and stood there hands on hips while I took off my helmet.
“Well, at least you got a helmet, too. Are you insane? The Jeep wasn’t enough trouble? You’re going to kill yourself with that thing.”
“I was careful. I bought one I could handle. If it gets stuck I can just wrestle it loose. It flies over the hills and it handles the arroyos well. I was just heading to the station to meet Rusty for dinner. He was the one who suggested a motorcycle. He thought it would be more maneuverable in the hills. What do you think?”
“I think it’s going to be a week or less before we’re scouring the desert looking for you.”
“That’s why I got bright green. I thought it would stand out.”
“Great, glad to hear you’re thinking ahead.”
“You can’t fool me. You want to try it out. You want to do all the things you don’t want me to do. Admit it.”
“That’s different. I’m not a trouble magnet.”
“So, you admit it?”
He grinned.
“Ha, I told you,” I said. “I’m off to the station.”
“When do I get to try it?”
“After Rusty. He hasn’t seen it yet.”
I parked the bike at the station and went in to Rusty’s office. I peeked in the little window and knocked like I always did.
“You found one,” he said smiling.
“How did you know?”
“Helmet hair. We see a lot of helmet hair in this profession.”
“Rats.”
“So what did you get?”
“You know me. I got a workhorse, street legal, dirt bike, two-fifty so it’s light and maneuverable. I tried moving a four hundred around. It was too heavy to be practical for me. I wanted to get a four hundred so it would be better for both of us but I couldn’t talk myself into it.”
“You’ve got your wheels again. You just can’t go grocery shopping on it. So what are you going to do about that?”
“I don’t know, what would Skipper drive?”
I look a lot like a Skipper doll. Some Halloweens I even dress up like Skipper to hand out treats. Since I have more of a military background I kind of think of myself as Skipper meets GI Joe. I’m petit, blonde, with a knack for being dead on with a gun. I prefer not to use one though. Being a trouble magnet, I walk a very fine line when it comes to loaded weapons. I worry that I’ll need one and I worry about what I might have to do if I carry one. I own a handy little 9mm. I have to for my work. When I get a call I need to be prepared to look and act like a cop. That’s another area I have trouble with. Technically, I’m a tracker but the police have an odd assortment of jobs that trackers can get called on for.
“Skipper would ride around in Barbie’s bright pink convertible,” Rusty said. “But I can’t see you doing that.”
“Me neither.”
“Before the car, though, we’re getting you a leather jacket. One tumble on the bike and you’d be full of gravel.”
“I feel silly. Green bike, white and green biker jacket. All I want to do is ride around in the hills. I’m not going to be racing or motocrossing or doing anything dangerous. I’m just looking for tracks.”
“Oh yeah? How fast did you get it up to when you were ‘just testing it out’ in the hills? You said it flies over the hills. That means you were going fast enough to need a leather jacket. And wear your helmet, too.”
Sigh, yes Daddy, I thought.
Benny Trujillo stopped at our table, noted the helmet on the table and me in the biker jacket.
“Are you nuts?” he said to Rusty. “She’s going to kill herself with that thing!”
“I will not,” I replied. “I’ve ridden motorcycles before. I only wrecked one once!”
Both guys looked at me.
“A long time ago…I was just a kid.”
“You’re just a kid now,” Benny said.
“I was even more of a kid. I was fourteen. I told you about that,” I said to Rusty. “It was right after Barton Fartston stuffed me in my locker. My dad was mad because I wrecked the bike and somehow between the two incidents I broke a leg and my dad was mad because we’d never know if Barton broke it or the accident broke it.”
“Ah, yes, right before the barrel racing competition. I remember now.”
Benny huffed, “And you don’t think she’s hell on wheels. If she was like that at fourteen, you better hang on Rusty! You’re in for the ride of your life.”
To make matters worse, Landon walked in. He swaggered over.
“I knew I could find you here,” he said. “Gotten a ticket yet?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I’ve only had the bike for six hours. Besides, the cops stick to pavement.”
Now all three guys were wondering. I thought I better shut up.
I decided I better get dinner on track. “Benny, I’ll have the Enchiladas Diablo.”
“Are you sure? You know that one’s spicy.”
“I’m feeling adventurous tonight.”
“Is that bike bringing out the Mexican in you? Because you’re asking for spicy, like Mexican spicy.”
“That’s okay, I like spicy sometimes.”
“Okay, one Enchiladas Diablo and one pitcher of water. Rusty?”
Rusty ordered a combination, a nice, safe mild combination, probably just in case I couldn’t eat the enchiladas. Landon joined us and ordered carne asada.
Benny Trujillo and his brother owned Trujillo’s Bar and Grill. Most of the cops and rescue workers frequented the place, knowing they could find a friend there in the evenings. With Benny Trujillo and Landon knowing about the bike, it didn’t take long for word to get around the station and speculation abounded. Pretty soon there was a pool going on betting on what kind of trouble I’d get into next. Rusty wasn’t betting. He preferred to let them think he trusted me with the bike.
For a few weeks I kept the station waiting, the pool increasing in value a little each day. I took the bike out almost every day for a few hours. I tracked coyotes in the desert. I found little used mountain roads that took me into the backcountry of the forest. I took the bike out to the hills where kids rode on weekends. While they were in school I skimmed over the jumps, racing over their paths. I was ecstatic. One day I sped through the foothills following Sunset Drive to Lost Hills Road. I pulled up to my house and Landon was standing in my driveway looking very serious.
“You need a cell phone inside that helmet. How soon can you be ready?”
“What’s going on?” I asked as I pulled off my helmet.
“Strict has been calling. I told him I’d stop by and pick you up. That was an hour ago.”
“I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“Does that mean I can ride the bike for ten minutes?”
“Sure,” I said, opening the garage door. “Just leave it here when you get back.”
I rushed into the house, grabbing the phone as I went by.
“Rusty?” I said as I heard the phone being picked up in his office.
“What is it?” he asked already worried.
“Nothing, I’ve just got a search. I don’t have any details yet. Landon was waiting for me when I got home. I guess Lou has been trying to call so I am kind of rushed. Can you get the details from Strict?”
“Yeah, I’ll call after dark like usual, and get the update.”
“I’m sorry the notice is so short. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll have to take the big pack, since I don’t have any idea how long it is.”
“Take care of my girl out there.”
“I will.”
“How much water do you have?” Landon asked when I came outside with my pack.
“Three days worth, like always.”
“Three desert days?”
“Oh hell, this is a desert track?”
“A car broke down out in the back country. The driver tried to hike out.”
“Don’t they usually do an air search first in cases like this?”
“Been there, done that.”
“Oh, where can they be if they aren’t visible from the air? You can see beetle bugs from a low flying helicopter out in the desert. There’s nothing to hide them.”
“That’s what we are hoping you can tell us.”
“Okay, let me fill up the camel pack and I’ll be ready.”
I took the pack into the house and filled the built in water reservoir. This was going to add another couple of pounds to my pack but it couldn’t be helped.
“Okay, pack, hat, hiking boots, water and more water. I think I’m ready.”
I closed the garage door and we were off.
“How long has our ten sixty-five been missing?”
“Just long enough to do an air search. It hasn’t been a day but we wanted to get a jump on it because of the water situation.”
“Good idea, I’ve been in their shoes. It’s no fun walking the desert with no water.”
Base camp was over a mile away from my starting point. An officer drove us to the car where I was able to get an idea of what I was in for. I got a good look at the tracks, the stride, and the kind of person I was working with. It was a young woman. She had done a lot of walking around her car. She popped the hood open and looked around inside. The tracks at the front of the car showed a lot of weight on the front part of the foot. She’d done a lot of looking around under there. Probably didn’t understand a lick of it. She’d left the hood up as a sign of distress. She opened up the backdoor and poked around inside, pulled something out and headed down the road.
We got back in the car and drove a mile or so back down the road and the officer let us out where the tracks left the road. I looked off into the distance to see what had drawn the woman’s attention enough to cause her to leave the safety of the road. There were buildings off in the distance. I thought if they were visible they were reachable. The air search would have covered the whole area between the car and any nearby buildings. I was sure the search had been extended to those buildings and any buildings close by. So, where was our ten sixty-five? It was up to me to find out.
“Does this woman have a name?” I asked Landon as I followed the tracks.
“The car is registered to a man. Our ten sixty-five is a woman, so no, not so far.”
“You should be doing the tracking,” I told Landon. “This is easy. You should get some practice in.”
“The tracking is your job.”
“I may not always be around. It can never hurt to have another skill.”
“Oh yeah? If I can track Strict will send me out without you. I wouldn’t want that to happen.”
“You don’t have to tell him you can track.”
“If I’m tracking I can’t watch you.”
“I ought to smack you one.”
“In my dreams.”
The tracks led on through the desert. This girl was not used to hiking. Her tracks were not sure. They tended to falter a lot. The first half mile off road she did well, but then she began stopping briefly and awkwardly. Her footprints looked like she was shifting a heavy object around trying to find a way to carry it comfortably. Who would try to carry a heavy object on a cross country desert hike? It was insane. She needed to conserve her energy. The heat and the lack of water would exhaust her resources quickly even without carrying unnecessary burdens. What could be worth the risk of dehydration just to carry it out?
I stopped at one of her, now frequent, stopping places and examined the tracks carefully.
“What’s up?” Landon asked.
“Something’s going on here. Something we should know about.”
Normal, heavy tracks leading in. Pressure points shifting out and back with the right foot, forward and out with the left foot. Feet spread slightly, then moving to normal standing position. A couple of steps and another quick shifting and she was off again. This went on for over a mile before I figured out what was happening. I stopped to examine a resting spot. It wasn’t in the shade when I got to it but it would have been earlier. Even while resting she carried this thing, whatever it was. Next to the print where she sat was an odd dent in the ground. I got out my magnifying glass. It was smooth and rounded and small. Only about a half inch long. My trouble radar was nagging at me. It was the edge of a shoe, but not the woman’s shoe. It was too small.
“Landon, we now have two ten sixty-fives.”
“What?”
“I’ve been wondering what this woman was carrying across the desert. It’s a child. This little dent in the sand right here is from the back of a child’s shoe.”
“How old?”
“Young enough to be carried for two and a half miles. Maybe the kid was sleeping when the car broke down. We’ll just have to watch for little kid tracks.”
The mom began taking breaks frequently. She stopped every couple hundred feet or so. She was not used to walking long distances. She had a heavy burden, no water. When her steps began wandering I worried. Then she began stumbling frequently. If she went down she tended to stay down for a moment, gathering her strength. At last she set the child down. And he crawled through the dust a little ways before she gathered him up. When the mom saw the baby crawling away she scrambled after him but her strength didn’t last long. About a hundred yards later, after her unsteady footsteps became more and more erratic, I found the print of a woman’s body in the sand and the brush, brush motions of a crawling baby. He crawled over to a mesquite tree and pulled himself up, then toddled around. He went back and checked on mom and then toddled off to investigate his surroundings.
I sat for a moment, gathering my feelings. One year old, loose in the Mojave Desert. As long as he didn’t run into a snake I thought he’d be okay. He’d be hungry and thirsty but not as bad off as his mother. He was still rested.
“The mom is more likely to need medical attention. I’ll follow the baby. You stay on the mom’s trail. Don’t move on unless you know it’s the right way. She’s been pretty easy to track. She’s going to need you when we find her. The baby might be fine. It shouldn’t take me long to find him. He couldn’t have gone far.”
Babies are easy to track. They don’t think about their tracks, they scuff a lot. They’re slow. This baby toddled around looking at the various desert plants. Every once in a while he turned back to keep track of his mother. Gradually his interests brought him farther and farther from his mother’s side. I found several branches that had been mangled in his investigations. I hoped he hadn’t eaten any of the plants he handled. And I hoped he didn’t investigate any cactus.
I heard him long before I found him. Loneliness and a tumble had frustrated him. He sat in the middle of the desert crying his little lungs out. I continued to follow his tracks until I was certain where he was. When I approached he wasn’t sure he wanted to play with a stranger. He stood unsteadily and got ready to run. I jogged up and scooped him up before he could decide whether I was friend or foe. No matter what conclusion he came to, I had to get him back to his mom. Unfortunately, not being a mom, I didn’t even think of what my actions might do. I pulled him up and set him on my hip with a big squiiiiish. Oh, yuck, arg! His diaper was full! And I had zero diaper changing supplies, not to mention, I’d never done it before. All I knew was it was necessary for everybody’s well-being that the baby’s diaper was changed as needed. Okay, well, so far we weren’t in too bad of shape. I thought Landon would have some disinfectant wipes in his first aid kit. Maybe we could figure something out.
“Where’s your mama?” I asked the squalling, squirming bundle in my arms. I followed my tracks back to my starting point and took off after Landon. He hadn’t gotten far. He was making very slow progress from track to track.
“I’ll trade you,” I said walking up with the baby awkwardly trying to squirm loose, dirty diaper smells wafting skyward.
“Cassidy, just act like you mean business. Act like you know what you’re doing and kids assume you do.”
“But I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve never even babysat. Jesse did all that. I helped with the foaling. I know what to do with a baby horse but I’ve never dealt with a baby human.”
He took the baby from me.
“Hey, buddy! Come to Landon. What have you been up to? Did you see the desert? Where’s your mom?”
He turned his nose up at the diaper.
“Yuck, you’ve got a mess in there. Let’s clean you up.”
He set the little boy down and fished around in his backpack. Disinfectant wipes and a protective waterproof pad were the best we could come up with so he folded it this way and that until he had a diaper sort of arrangement. He deftly changed the baby’s diaper.
“Someday you will learn how to do this. There’s nothing hard about it. Just act like a mom and go through the motions like you mean business and they usually calm down. They just need to know someone is in charge. Especially these little ones. Then when they get to be about three the uniform is the big attraction. They will listen to anybody in a uniform. They think the job is cool. So you make them your special buddy, keep a calm firm attitude.”
“But I don’t have a calm, firm attitude.”
“You do when it comes to tracking.”
“Tracking doesn’t involve people. It’s people I have a hard time with.”
Landon rolled up the dirty diaper into a nice compact package and used the Velcro tabs to fasten it closed.
“Pack it in pack it out,” he said handing me the package.
Okay, I could live with that. At least he didn’t make me change the diaper. I put the diaper in my trash bag, wound it up tight, and stuck it in my pack, then I focused on the trail. The mom had lain on the desert floor long enough for junior to get out of sight. When she came to the mom had been frantic. She didn’t know to look for tracks so she just walked around frantically calling to her little boy. There was nowhere to look. When we stood where she had stood the desert was open. No place for a baby to hide. She walked around and around afraid to leave the area but knowing she had to. Which direction? She couldn’t even begin to guess. One was as good as another to find a lost baby. She started circling but she lost her bearings and the circles wandered farther and farther from the starting point and farther and farther from safety. Landon carried the baby as I followed the trail. The little boy carried one of Landon’s extra water bottles just like he would a baby bottle. His dark eyes watched everything around him. He’d had his first haircut and looked too grown up behind the baby face.
“Can you say mama?” Landon asked him. “Say MAMA! real loud. Maybe she will hear you.”
He kept up a constant chatter asking the baby questions he knew he’d never get an answer to, just to keep him busy. He fished out his keys and let the baby play with them. Into his mouth they went. Landon seemed unconcerned.
The mom’s circling became more and more erratic. She stopped often. She stumbled often. I could feel her fear. In the middle of the desert, lost baby, no water, flagging energy. What could she do? She had to find her child. The desert was too big. If she left she’d never be able to find the same area again.
I began to see a disturbing trend. When the mom fell she didn’t get up and keep going; she was becoming distraught. She would lie on the ground and strike the ground with her fists. She curled into a fetal position. The trail was leaching into my brain. It happened a lot to me. I’d profile as I went and read things into it that were remarkably vivid. I began to feel the feelings I imagined the person I was tracking was experiencing. I was feeling desperate even though I knew it didn’t do any good.
“Cassidy, you need to stop. You’re putting too much into this. We’ll find her today. All the tracks are fresh. I think junior here needs a snack. Did you bring any cookies?”
I sighed and stopped. I took off my pack and rummaged around until I found the cookies.
“You can’t just give him one though. They have nuts. You asked for nuts so now you get to pick them out before you give them to the kid. I can’t stop. I need to keep going. I know what it feels like to be in the middle of nowhere with no water. I wasn’t sure I’d make it and I knew what I was doing. This woman doesn’t and she knows it. We need to find her.”
The radio crackled. I expected it to be Strict asking Landon for a status update. Instead it was a different voice. He asked to talk to me on the telephone. I wasn’t sure if I could get a good signal but I gave him my number.
“Cassidy?” he asked.
“Yeah, what’s up?” I asked.
“It’s Antonio.” Antonio Rodriguez. He worked for the fire department.
“What’s up?” I asked again, wondering what the fire department had to say about this little search.
“It’s my wife, Cass, can you find her?”
Antonio’s wife and little boy?
“Yeah, I’ll find her. The tracking is easy. It’s only time and a lack of water that is the problem.”
“Where are you?”
I checked the GPS and read off the coordinates.
“What’s she doing clear out there?”
“She’s looking for something. She keeps circling. She thinks she is circling the area she last saw what she is looking for but her circles are off so she’s basically doing this huge corkscrew trail deeper into the desert, thinking she is making wider circles around one point.”
“What could she be looking for?”
“Don’t worry, we’re onto it. By the way, what’s your little boy’s name?”
“Ricardo, but we call him Ricky, why?”
“He’s doing great. He’s here with us. Don’t worry, we’ll find Eva. I just need to stay on her trail. I’ll find her today. I need to track but you know how to reach me. Try not to worry.”
I ended the call and pocketed my phone.
“The baby’s name is Ricky. We need to finish this. Landon, it’s Antonio’s wife. No more profiling. I’m just going to follow this trail. Today. We’re not leaving her out here tonight. When we find her we’re flying out. She’s in no shape to hike out. The only reason she’s still on her feet is because she’s searching for Ricky.”
“Hey Ricky!” Landon said cheerfully. “Where’s Ricky? Where is he?” Landon turned his face away and quickly looked back. “There he is!” Ricky hit him in the eye with the water bottle.
Okay, Cass, make this one fast track. You’ve only got four hours of daylight. Hit this trail and hit it hard.
“Look out Ricky! It’s Dangerous Tracker Woman! She’s gonna find your mom. Stay out of the way!”
I didn’t know how much of this baby talk I could stand, so I hit the trail. Hard. Eyes to the ground, I kept to the trail. The spiral turned into more of a scalloped pattern because when Eva’s tracks crossed I took the more recent path. It was quicker than following her actual trail.
If Landon needed help he knew where to find me. He lagged behind, juggling Ricky, occasionally letting him walk, then picking him up when the pace was too slow. Ricky got cranky and bored. The keys were not enough entertainment for him. We couldn’t stop to entertain the kid so we pressed on, cranky baby and all. I was hoping Eva would hear him and come running. She didn’t and that had me worried.
I tracked harder. We hit a patch of hard pack. Nearly sandstone, it had been swept clean by the desert winds. This told me just how desperate Eva’s situation was. I could even track her here. If she’d just been walking her steps would have been invisible but she wasn’t walking. She was in a mad rush, scrambling. It spoke volumes about her mental state. I stuffed my thoughts away and only looked at the tracks.
A short time later I was watching the ground when I heard a cough. It wasn’t a simple, something-doesn’t-feel-right cough. It went on and on. I glanced back at Landon. He was fine. But he had heard it too. I looked around and Eva stood in the distance, hands braced on her knees, coughing like crazy, still scanning the desert for Ricky. I jogged over to her.
“My baby!” she managed to say between coughs.
“It’s okay, we found him. Landon’s bringing him. It’s okay.” I took off my pack and found a water bottle. I opened it and handed it to her but she staggered off to meet Landon.
“Oh, my baby! Mi hijo, mi hijo.” She sank to the ground crying, cradling her little boy. Just rocking back and forth crying. I had to turn away. I got choked up. Landon gave me a hug, giving Eva and Ricky a few minutes before he had to return to business.
“Ten sixty-five found,” he told Strict.
“Ten forty-five?”
“Ten twenty-three.” Stand by.
“Ten four.”
Five seconds later my cell phone rang.
“Antonio, she’ll be fine. We just can’t get near her. She’s too busy hugging Ricky. She’s fine. She’ll need fluids, but she’s fine.”
“I’ll never complain about rescuing you again. You’re an angel. Cassidy… thanks.”
“Thank you, Antonio. We’ll meet you in town. Bring a diaper bag if you can.”
Landon gave Strict our coordinates and asked for a lift out. When he finished he turned to Eva. She still didn’t want to turn loose of Ricky.
“Come on Ricky,” I said, prying the boy loose. “We have to let Landon work. Let’s go for a walk.” Then to Landon, “Where are those cookies?”
“We’ve got time, cook up the macaroni and cheese you’re always cursed with. Why do you buy that stuff if you don’t like it? Kids cannot live by cookies alone.”
“What if I want a cookie?”
“Then they’re in the bag beside my pack.”
I fired up my stove and heated water but I didn’t let it boil. When it was just starting to steam I turned it off and poured some into the pouch of macaroni and cheese. I sealed the top and let it cook. Ricky tried to grab hold of anything I was touching. I had to keep him close, yet not let him touch anything that might burn him. I handed him little bits of cookie. I ate the bits with nuts and he ate the bits without nuts. I thought that to be a mom you’d have to grow an extra arm or two. Then I had to cut up all the noodles. Cutting up noodles in the bottom of a foil pouch with a short handled plastic spoon was more challenging than tracking down Eva. Yep, I thought, just give me a plot of ground and some tracks. That I can do. Trying to play octopus with a hot stove and a baby? Cutting up slippery noodles in a slippery bag just so the baby could eat? No thanks.
We got our lift into town. Ricky checked out fine. Antonio showed up, diaper bag in hand, and did a quick change. Then he went to see how Eva was doing. I ended up with a cranky baby in a busy hospital. As darkness settled in Rusty called Strict and got an update, finding out we were at the hospital. I was never so relieved to see him as when he walked through those double doors. He saw me pacing the halls with a cranky kid in tow, tired and dusty from the trail, full backpack and gear. He came to my rescue. He took the pack back out to the truck. I’d rather he took the kid. I didn’t know what to do with a kid in a hospital! No toys, no kid type food, no experience. All I could manage was to keep him out of harm’s way. After that I was lost. Rusty came back shortly and took Ricky off my hands. My arm was numb from carrying him around. I thought he weighed a ton but when Rusty picked him up he suddenly got little again. I sat in the lobby with a sigh of relief.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said and disappeared.
The few minutes stretched out and I wondered if we were spending the night there but at last Rusty reappeared.
“Are you ready to head for home?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah. How’s Eva?”
“She’ll be fine. There’s just a lot that they need to attend to so I told Antonio we’d take care of Ricky until things settled down.”
“You did what!” I said.
“I told him we’d babysit. Just until Eva’s released.”
“Rusty! I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby! I don’t even know how to talk to a baby! I haven’t changed diapers! I’ve never even babysat and now you want me to keep a one year old for days? What do I do with him?”
“Practice,” he said matter of factly. “There’s nothing much you can do wrong at this age. I got his car seat, diaper bag, a little bit of food. He’ll be fine. I’ll help.”
“You bet you will. You’ll be lucky to get to work tomorrow.”
“Babe, you are worrying over nothing. I bet Eva is released tomorrow. It’ll be great.”
Yeah, great for who? I thought.