The Desert Thieves (11 page)

“That's him, I swear!” Diane cried, pointing.

“Which one?” Joe asked.

“Going into the café on the other side of the plaza,” Diane said. “The one holding his hat in his hand and smoothing back his hair.”

Joe stifled the impulse to floor the car and race around the plaza. He knew that the man might duck away if he was aware that someone was after him. Instead Joe pulled the car into a parking place near the restaurant.

“Are you going to confront him?” Diane asked.

“Oh, no,” Fenton said. “Nothing like that. For now we're just curious. We don't want to get the guy stirred up so he runs.”

“How about a soft drink?” Joe asked Diane as they all got out of the car. “In that café.”

“Sure,” Diane answered. “Are we going to follow him?”

“At a distance,” Joe said. “If he's the one who put the snake in our motor home, he might recognize us. We have to be careful.”

Once inside the café, they spotted the cowboy Diane had identified, sitting near the rest rooms in the back with another man, who was wearing a plaid shirt.

“Are you still sure it's him?” Joe asked.

“Yes. Remember, I'm a scientist-in-training,” Diane answered. “I have an excellent visual memory.”

“You two find a booth so they can't see you,” Fenton said. “Order a coffee for me. I've got an idea.” With a nod to Joe, he left. About ten minutes later he came back, carrying a denim jacket and a cap.

“Put these on, Joe,” he said. “You need a disguise.”

Seeing that the cap was too large, Joe started to adjust the tabs in back. But Fenton stopped him. “Pull it down low,” he said.

When Joe was ready, Fenton said, “You can't see it from your side of the table, but there's a telephone alcove by the rest rooms. It's right by their table. Go back there and pretend to make a phone call. Listen to what they're saying, if you can.”

“Be careful, Joe,” Diane said.

“No problem,” Joe said as he got up. Keeping his face turned away from the cowboy and the man in
the plaid shirt, he walked back to the telephone, dropped in a quarter, and pretended to make a phone call.

The men weren't talking much. They seemed more interested in wolfing down their hamburgers.

“We got it on the map?” the cowboy asked. The other man's reply was indistinct. But after a few moments Joe heard the cowboy say, “So tonight is the last one? I thought we were gonna do a few more.”

“We were,” the man in the plaid shirt said. “But the boss says those pesky kids are getting in the way. This one's the last.”

They talked some more, but Joe couldn't hear what they were saying.

Then he heard the man in the plaid shirt say, “You ready, Slim?”

“Yeah,” the cowboy said, standing up. “Let's get out of here.”

As they ambled to the register, Joe got his first good look at them. He recognized Slim, the cowboy, as the man they had seen in Grish's office the day before. The man in the plaid shirt was shorter and stockier, with long dark hair. So, according to Diane, Slim had been hanging around the campground, Joe mused. Perhaps Diane was right, and Slim was the one who'd planted the rattlesnake in their motor home.

After the two men left, Joe returned to the booth in time to see his father put a few bills on the table.
Fenton handed him a burger and said, “Sorry, son. You'll have to eat it on the way.”

Joe shrugged at Diane as she slid out of the booth. He took a big bite of the burger and, with his mouth full, said, “Oh, well, that's the life of a detective.”

When they got outside, they saw the two men climb into a pickup truck and drive off.

“Hey, that's Kidwell's truck,” Joe said. “I saw it parked at Grish's office.”

“Let's go,” Fenton said, heading for the car, Joe and Diane hustling behind him.

“What did you hear inside?” Fenton asked as Joe started the car.

“Those two were talking about doing their last job tonight. And the cowboy's name is Slim,” Joe added, pulling into traffic.

“Did they say why this was going to be their last job?” Fenton asked.

Joe grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “They said something about some pesky kids getting too close.”

“I see,” Fenton said. “Well, pesky kid, let's not let those guys get too far ahead of us.”

They continued a few blocks through town, following Kidwell's truck until it turned in to a motel parking lot and stopped next to a yellow van.

“Hey!” Joe exclaimed. “That's the yellow van that drove by when our fuel line was cut.”

“You didn't tell me your fuel line was cut,” Diane said. “You just said it was broken.”

Joe didn't answer. He was watching the men enter a small bungalow unit.

“How did those guys know where to find us to cut the fuel line?” Joe asked. “Perez was with us, and I never saw Kidwell until we got to the site. Neither one of them could have radioed for these guys to come and cut our line unless the guys were waiting to do something like that all along.”

“Joe, look at that semi,” Fenton said pointing. Across the parking lot, among the cars, was a tractor-trailer truck. A few spaces away was a heavy-duty flatbed truck with dual rear tires. On the back of the flatbed was a large winch.

“Dad,” Joe said, “I think we've found the thieves! This stuff could nail them red-handed.”

“What are you talking about?” Diane asked.

Joe briefly told her about the cactus rustlers, and she looked shocked. “I didn't know anything about this,” she said, “and I've been here for weeks.”

“The head ranger has been keeping the investigation under wraps because of regulations,” Fenton said. “And we need to check out a few things before we can point fingers. Please don't discuss this with anyone.”

“That's true,” Joe said. “Dad, I'm going to park down the street. I think we can check out these trucks without being noticed from the motel. Diane, why don't you wait in the car?”

“I'd rather come along,” she said.

Joe didn't argue. He drove down the street and
parked, and the three of them sauntered back to the parking lot.

Approaching the flatbed truck, Joe reached into his back pocket and pulled out the pad on which he'd written the tire dimensions. Then, producing a measuring tape, he knelt to check the size of the truck's tires. “We've got a match,” he said.

Fenton nodded, keeping an eye on the bungalow door.

The semitrailer's tires also matched the dimensions he and Frank had jotted down.

“I think we should take a peek inside the semi,” Fenton said.

Joe glanced toward the bungalow. “I guess it's now or never. I hope the door doesn't squeak.”

“Do you think we might find an organ pipe cactus?” Diane asked.

“Maybe,” Joe said. He unlatched the rear door and pulled it partly open. He made out the shape of a large organ pipe cactus lying on its side with the arms pointing toward the door. It had a wooden frame around it.

“They seem to know what they're doing,” Fenton said.

Joe nodded and said, “I wonder how many cacti are in there.” He swung up into the dark trailer, with Fenton close behind him. They walked toward the front, slipping along the side beside the big cactus. Farther into the semi, they could see two more plants, both of them in wood frames.

“Let's go, Joe,” Fenton said. “We can call the police from a pay phone— Wait,” he added, slipping by Joe. He pulled out a handkerchief, then reached down and used it to grab something tucked below the cactus. It was a shovel. “There'll be fingerprints on this thing.”

Joe jumped down, but Fenton stopped to examine the shovel in the sunlight. “Well, look at this,” he said. He bent and held it out for Joe and Diane to see. Carved into the metal shank of the shovel was the name David Kidwell.

“So Grish was right,” Joe said.

They heard voices. Joe looked up at his father. Someone had slammed a bungalow door, and the voices were headed their way.

“Let's get out of here,” Joe whispered. He grabbed Diane and ducked behind the car next to the trailer just as Slim and the man in the plaid shirt came around the back of the trailer. There hadn't been time for Fenton to jump out. He sneaked back into the darkness.

Slim was saying, “I'll drive this rig, and you take the flatbed. . . . Look at this. You can't even close the door right. Did you get the shovel stowed in? You better have. I'm tired of you forgetting things.”

Oh, no, Joe thought, a lump in his throat. They'll find Dad if they look for the shovel. He got ready to jump Slim, who had his hand on the door, if the man made a move to climb inside.

“Who made you the boss?” the man in the plaid
shirt shouted angrily from the front of the flatbed. “I remembered the shovel. It's in there by the cactus. I'm going to start this thing up now.”

“Okay, okay,” Slim said. “Don't get all riled up. I'll check the tires.” As his partner started up the flatbed's engine, Slim latched the semi's door and slammed the bolt. Joe wanted to shout something out, but all he could do was grit his teeth and pound his fists on his knees. His father was trapped inside the trailer.

Goes Down Joe's heart sank. He thought quickly. “Hang on,” he whispered to Diane. “As soon as the truck starts to move, I'll get to the back of the trailer and unlatch the door. The driver has to back up before he can pull the rig out of the parking lot.”

“Are those the rustlers?” she whispered.

He waved off her question and waited for his chance. But instead of backing out, the semi pulled forward in a wide arc, narrowly missing the cars parked in front of the bungalows. It headed out onto the street and away. Right behind it went the flatbed.

As soon as the trucks were out of sight, Joe grabbed Diane's hand and dashed for the car. They got in, he started the engine, and they sped through
town, heading for the highway toward Organ Pipe. Once out on the highway, Joe pushed the speedometer up to the limit.

The trucks were nowhere to be seen. Joe knew they couldn't have gotten too far ahead of him. He should have caught up with them easily. “They must have taken another route,” Joe said. He slowed down enough to make a U-turn and raced back to town.

Heading for the south end of town, Joe said, “Organ Pipe is off to the southeast, so they must have come in this direction.” He drove through the dusty residential streets, looking for a road that led out of town. His stomach tightened into a knot as he thought about the trucks, with his father inside one of them, getting farther away with every second.

“You know what we need?” Joe said to Diane. “We need Frank and a good map. There must be a back road through here that goes to the park. Where else could the trucks have gone?”

He turned the car around again and sped back to the highway. In the twenty-minute drive back to Organ Pipe, his mind raced ahead, going over clues. The two men in the trucks were obviously working with someone who knew what he and Frank were up to. But who was it? Professor Townsend was out of the picture—Diane genuinely seemed to know nothing about the case, and if the professor were involved, Diane would be, too. He wondered how Frank's talk with Perez had gone. Almost certainly Kidwell was one of the crooks.
They were using his pickup, and his shovel was in the trailer with the cacti. Since Perez had some kind of connection with Kidwell, that meant that Perez was probably involved, too.

Joe knew that he and Frank would have to work quickly to get their father out of danger. He hoped Grish would be able to suggest some kind of back route the trucks could have taken from town.

Diane interrupted his thoughts. “Joe, are we going to call the police when we reach the park? Don't you think they could help?”

“Maybe,” Joe said. “We'll call them from Grish's office.”

“I got the license plate numbers of the trucks,” Diane said.

“Terrific!” Joe said. “I was so worried about my father, I didn't think of it. Maybe the thieves won't open the door until they've dug up another cactus. That could be hours from now, which buys us some time.”

“And it will be dark in less than an hour,” Diane said. “That means your father can hide in a corner of the trailer until he has a chance to get away.”

“That's true,” Joe said. “In the meantime, we need to find them.”

They were approaching the park office and the turnoff for the campground. As they passed the office, Joe noted that Grish's truck was parked by the building. He decided to go straight to the campground to find Frank.

As Joe pulled to a stop, tires squealing, Frank
came out of the motor home. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“They've got Dad,” Joe said. He and Diane got out of the car. Diane went straight to her father's trailer while Joe explained the situation to Frank, including finding the shovel.

“We need that topo map,” Joe said, “the one Grish gave us. I lost the trucks in town and I think they took an alternate route into the park.”

Frank went inside for the map, and Diane returned with her father.

“What's going on here?” Townsend asked, his face showing genuine concern. “Diane tells me your father may have been kidnapped by a gang of thieves.”

“Not exactly kidnapped,” Joe said. “But he's trapped inside their truck.”

Frank came out with the map, and they spread it on the picnic table. Joe gave Townsend a brief rundown of what had happened during the afternoon.

“Do you know of any way to get to the park from Ajo other than along the highway?” Joe asked Townsend.

Pointing at the map, Townsend said, “The town of Ajo is up this way. As you can see, there are no alternate routes into the park from that direction, unless the thieves have created their own road. I've driven and hiked all over that area.”