“RL. RL Milam.”
“What brought you to Odessa, RL Milam?”
“Just RL, and, that’s a private matter.”
Hunter didn’t want to start trouble, “How about this: Next time you want to check on me, pull up beside and ask. How’s that?”
“I can do that.” He touched his lip with a forefinger like an idea popped in his head. “While we’re talkin’, you want to go out sometime? Maybe Saturday?” She was so fine looking, he had to ask.
Hunter looked at him like she couldn’t believe it. “I appreciate being asked, I really do, but not until permafrost is six feet thick in Odessa and the Devil’s wearing a parka.”
RL said, “I’ll take that as a maybe.”
Hunter gave him a small smile. “I’ll see you on down the road, RL.” She got in her pickup and drove around him and out of the hospital parking building, travelling down city streets, back to I-20, and on to Monahans. She stopped and bought a Dr. Pepper and a package of salted peanuts, drinking the soft drink down a few inches, then put the peanuts in the bottle. She hopped in the pickup and turned off I-20 toward home, turning up the bottle occasionally to get both the sweet soda and the salty, chewy peanuts together in her mouth.
RL called Ellis and filled him in.
Chapter 6
Adan left Dario and his mother at her small house across the river from Lajitas. She told him, “Come back whenever you wish.”
“I will.” He shook Dario’s hand, then left the small house and, after searching the river bank for Border Patrol and not seeing anyone, crossed the river again and blended into a group of other young people at the golf course. He purchased a Big Red soda and a Snickers bar, then went to the rock near the putting practice green and sat in the shade, watching a man and two women practicing their game, stroking the dimpled white balls across the smooth grass toward perfectly cut round holes in the practice green.
He spotted Benton Sellers, the elderly man who tipped him so well last week, and Benton came to stand beside Adan, smiling. “Adan, you know much about Mexico, things to see over there? My friends were thinking of going over and having a look-see.”
“There are many things. What types of things would you wish to see?
“Things out of the norm. Not tourist things. Some of the unusual, isolated things. But, not dangerous.” He laughed.
“Adan named several places, and Benton nodded, “How about old churches?”
“There is one I know of, a good drive from here because you have to go to Ojinaga first. It is in a lonely place. A white church with two towers, and a wall of mountains in the distance behind it, the Sierra Del Carmen mountains.”
“Is the priest there?”’
“Oh no, it is abandoned, has been for years, as long as I’ve lived. It is near a place called La Linda, a ghost town now that the road across the border is closed.” He reached into his back pocket and removed the old, plastic covered photo of his mother standing in front of it. “This is what it looked like, but worse for wear now. Drug runners used it for a while, then the military, and then someone set a fire inside. But it still looks nice at sunrise. The light makes it appear white and clean. It is a long way, though.”
Benton looked at the photo, “You mom is beautiful.”
“Thank you.” He felt no need to tell the man she was dead.
“Who took the photo?”
“I did,” he lied. His father had taken it before Adan was born. Adan’s mother told him about it, about the trip to the church, and his father talking to the people at the fluorspar mine in La Linda. She always made it sound like a special place.
Benton looked at the photo a moment longer, “You want to take us there, me and a couple of friends?”
“I don’t know.”
“We can only play golf so long be
fore we get bored. I’ll pay you, and buy all the food.”
Adan thought about his plans to go to the Corazon Ranch to look for evidence of his father, “I can’t right now, I have some errands to do.”
“How about in a few days, when you’re free? I’ll pay you a hundred dollars.”
A hundred dollars! Adan nodded, “When I am free, I will take you and your friends. You will need vehicles with the four-wheel drive, and good tires because of the thorns and sharp rocks. We will need to take a shovel, in case we are stuck. The travel is about 12 or 13 hours each way. You will need enough gas, food and water for that long, and sleeping bags for overnight.”