Chapter 3

“IT’S UP HERE,” Mike yelled, waving to the others to pull up beside his quad runner. “Varner,” he read aloud, pointing to a sagging maroon mailbox, complete with bullet holes and a crooked lid. Hanging, bent over, from a skinny post, the mailbox looked like a rag doll with a loose head. It marked the dirt road leading to Silas’s house.

Winnie, in her distinctive pink helmet, soon rolled up next to Mike, followed by Spence. Ben lagged behind, as usual.

“Way up, eyes,” Ben mumbled excitedly from behind the deep charcoal-colored visor of his helmet. “No what I aww?”

While Winnie and Mike stared with irritation, Spence took the initiative. “Ben, sound is an acoustic energy,” Spence lectured knowledgeably, “which is transferred through a medium by wave vibration.”

Ben seemed confused. He cocked the knob of his still helmeted head sideways, like a large but not overly bright bird.

Spence adjusted his body on the quad to better face Ben as he lectured. “The density of the medium and the obstacles in the path directly affect the acoustic vibrations and can inhibit a full dynamic response as well as reduce frequency range.” Spence finished by lifting his eyebrows and inquiring, “Is this getting through to you?”

Ben stared, speechless, his head panning across Winnie, Spence, and Mike like the Plexiglas dome on a surveillance camera. “Whugh?”

Mike chuckled, sighed, and leaned toward Ben’s helmet. With a flick of his fingers, he casually flipped open the face mask.

“I couldn’t hear a word you just said,” Ben complained, shaking his head.

“No kidding,” Winnie replied.

Spence looked satisfied as he lounged back comfortably on the quad and crossed his arms over his chest. “My point exactly.”

“What?” Ben asked.

“Never mind, Ben,” the voices of the three Last Chance Detectives chimed together.

“What did you want to tell us, anyway?” Mike asked.

Ben thought a minute, as if he had forgotten what it was he wanted to say. “Oh, uh . . . yeah. I saw Mr. Varner’s mailbox up there, uh, right there,” the large, curly-haired boy replied, pointing.

“Is that all?” Winnie sighed. “Thank you, Ben. How could we manage without you?” she added with acid wit completely lost on Ben.

“Let’s go already,” Mike ordered. “The day is wasting.” He throttled up the engine and pivoted his quad toward the lane leading to the miner’s shack. Knobby tires sprayed a rooster tail of gravel high behind him as he raced ahead past the mailbox and up the dirt road.

“Hold it right there!” Silas Varner cried as he kicked open his front door. The splintered and weathered door clattered against the river-rock wall of the cabin. The greasy stubble that covered his cheeks and the sagging bags below bloodshot eyes proclaimed that Silas was far from well.

The gang stood in stunned silence, uncertain how to proceed since Silas had not turned out to be a “sweet old man.” Winnie shot Ben a hard, angry I-told-you-so look, which the stocky boy ignored with a shrug and a duck of his head.

“What do you kids want?” Silas demanded gruffly, taking another swig of caramel-colored liquid from a flat glass bottle. The prospector then let the flask dangle from a limp arm. His other hand absently rubbed his injured ribs.

Ben, Winnie, and Spence, slightly intimidated, huddled together looking to Mike for leadership.

Accepting the responsibility, Mike turned to address the miner. “Hi. Are you Mr. Varner?”

“What’s left of him,” Silas said, eyeballing them suspiciously. “Do I know you kids?” He downed another swig from the bottle. The old man’s mouth hung slightly open, and he panted as if he had just run up a flight of stairs.

“Um, I’m Mike Fowler,” Mike replied politely. “These are my friends: Ben, Winnie, and Spence.”

“Fowler,” Silas croaked in a tone reminiscent of windblown gravel scraping across bare rock. “Ah yeah . . . Last Chance Gas, out on 66?”

“Yeah,” Mike replied. “Pop’s my grandfather.”

“Uh-huh,” Silas snapped, wiping his scruffy upper lip on his brown leathery wrist. There was an uncomfortable pause and then, “Whaddya want with me?”

Mike took a step forward. “We heard,” he said, pointing at the others, “about what happened last night and wondered if we could just look around.”

“Yeah,” Ben announced. “We’re looking for hair.”

“Winnie shot Ben a disapproving look. Spence dropped his head suddenly and covered the action by pretending to check his watch.

“Hair?” Silas repeated with surprise. He looked at the yard and the desert beyond as if only just then realizing that he was standing outside. Swinging his bottle as he gestured around, part of the fluid sloshed out, but the desert rat seemed not to notice or care. “Well, I seen some around by the . . .” He paused forgetfully, confused by too many different thoughts crowding into his fuddled brain. “Seein’ how you’re the only ones in town that believe me . . . you got five minutes.”

“Did you say you know where some is?” Mike asked.

“No, I didn’t!” Silas yelled grumpily. “I said you got five minutes! That’s all!”

Mike thanked him, and as the other three sleuths spread out in different areas of the yard, Mike stood near the fence. Winnie searched the ground around the side of the cabin, while Spence looked inside a pieced-together plywood toolshed. Ben moved slowly around the gravel parking area, while Mike made up his mind and entered the front gate. Silas watched them intently, almost as if they were grazing chickens hunting for worms and he was seeing that they did not stray too far.

“So, you’re John’s boy,” Silas said to Mike in a matter-of-fact voice.

Mike looked up at the porch, startled by the unexpected topic of conversation and instantly captivated by what Silas had said. “You know my dad?”

“Vic knew him,” the prospector said, nodding once and pursing his lips. “Followed him around like a puppy.” Then he added in a more harsh, disapproving tone, “It was always John this and John that.”

“Vic is one of my dad’s friends?” Mike asked in a questioning tone. “Is Vic your son or something?”

“Was,” Silas answered bitterly.

“Oh,” Mike replied in embarrassment. The boy’s spirits, which had risen suddenly at the mention of his father, plummeted just as rapidly.

Silas leaned heavily against the pine post that supported the porch roof. “He could have stuck around here and helped me make this a good ranch,” the miner grumbled. “But your old man talked him into running off and joining the service.” He paused a moment to swallow the lump in his throat. “They sent him back in a casket, just like your old man.”

Mike’s father, an Air Force pilot, had disappeared on a mission during the Gulf War. His plane was known to have been shot down, but the fate of Major Fowler was unknown.

Ben broke off from his search to glare at Silas and then looked to Mike with sad eyes. Spence peeked around the building in disbelief at what Silas had said.

“My dad’s not dead,” Mike argued. “He’s . . . missing.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Silas responded cruelly.

“No,” Mike shook his head in denial. “They’re wrong, and someday I’m gonna prove it.”

The awkwardness of the moment was interrupted by a sudden shout. “Hey!” Winnie proclaimed from inside the dog pen. “I found something.”

Spence, Ben, and Mike hurried across the yard, near the enclosure where Winnie crouched.

“What is it?” Ben asked. Winnie stepped back, revealing the Border collie, Jake, lying on his side in the dirt and heat. The animal was obviously weak and helpless.

“I just found him like this,” she told them.

“Hey, you kids get away from there!” Silas Varner ordered.

Mike backed away from the cage, turning to plead with the miner. “But, Mr. Varner, there’s something wrong with your dog!”

“How’s that?” the gravelly voiced prospector demanded.

“Well, he looks real sick or something,” Ben answered.

“Leave ’im alone!” Silas said. The old man stomped down hard as he took a step off the porch. He jarred his cracked ribs and winced with the pain. “He’ll be all right.”

Winnie stood angrily at the door of the pen. With her fists on her hips in exasperation she shouted, “You can’t mean that you’re going to just leave him here like this!”

Silas bit hard on his lower lip. Aroused, he announced, “He’s my dog. I can do whatever I please!”

Stunned, the gang looked at each other.

“But he’s hurt! He needs to see a doctor,” Winnie protested, looking down at Jake with sympathy and concern.

“Hah,” Silas laughed, deliberately mocking her. “That crazy vet in town would just love to send me one of his big, fat bills.”

Winnie continued trying to convince the man. “But, Mr. Varner—”

“Listen, missy,” Silas retorted, “I can take care of what’s mine. You just mind your own business.”

Winnie turned to Mike as he embraced the sick dog, holding it tightly to his chest. She whispered, “Mike, we can’t just leave him here.”

Feebly, as if trying to add his own plea for help, the dog tried to lift its head but failed.

“Oh, Mike,” Winnie continued as she lovingly stroked Jake’s soft fur. “Just look at him. We’ve gotta do something!”

Mike clamped his jaw down tight as he made his decision. He picked up the dog and carried it out of the pen toward the quad runners.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Silas cried in outrage.

Mike cleared his throat and said bravely, “I’m sorry, Mr. Varner, but your dog or not, he’s going with us to see a doctor!”

“He is not!” Silas screamed, moving to intercept the kids. “You put him back! Now!” The prospector coughed painfully, clutching his side, before faltering and staggering back. “Now, or I’ll . . .” Silas sputtered, unable to continue.

Mike carefully loaded the injured animal into the rack on the back of his quad.

“Can we just do this?” Spence whispered.

Winnie put her arm around Spence’s shoulders and said to reassure him, “Spence, Mike’s right. We’ve got to take Jake to see a doctor.”

Silas continued to mutter protests and half-completed threats, while Spence, still looking uncomfortable, turned to Ben for approval. Ben plopped down on the seat of his quad and shrugged.

Silas, regaining his breath, bellowed, “You kids won’t get away with this! That dog is my property. I’ll call the sheriff!” The old prospector shook his fist in anger and frustration. “Do you hear me?”

Mike, Winnie, Ben, and Spence ignored Silas’s warnings as they rode out. The four departing quad runners raised plumes of dust. The cloud of brown haze hung over the scene, like the gloom in the old man’s mind, until long after the Last Chance Detectives and Jake the Border collie had disappeared.