“Yeah, that one. He’s out there in the pasture, walking like he’s out for a stroll.”
“Where is he goin’?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Probably Terlingua. That’s the direction he’s headed.”
Anselmo said, “Make a call.”
Ben pulled out his phone and punched in the number.
Ellis answered, “What’s up?”
“We found that kid, Adan. He’s walking through the desert and paralleling highway 118.”
“You got your partner with you?”
“Yep.”
“Take care of it.” He paused, “I thought that kid died in the desert somewhere.”
“Tougher than he looks.”
“Evidently. Finish it this time.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Got you, jefe.”
He hung up. “So, what’s the game plan?”
Ben said, “Get ahead of him and set up an ambush.”
“Are we gonna shoot him?”
“That’s a last resort. This is a kid. I think we can handle him, don’t you?”
“Okay. We might have to chase him some on foot.”
“We’re both in shape, we walk all over this desert, I think we can catch him if we need to.”
“Let’s go get the little bastard.”
They turned around and drove towards Terlingua, with Santiago Peak seven miles off their left window. Ben said, “There’s a ranch gate up there in the next set of low hills, I have a key and we can go in there, be right in his path.”
Anselmo nodded, and they drove until Ben pointed ahead, “There, that red gate.” He used the key and they were on the ranch in seconds, soon finding a good ambush point where the hills closed and there was a narrow pass through them no wider than two people abreast could walk. “We get down there, we have him.”
“Not down there. Did you look close?”
“What?”
“All that brown down there, that’s dog pear, and it is thick as hell.”
Ben knew what dog pear was, some of the worst cactus anyone could encounter in the desert. It grew short, not higher than six inches, and clumped together in patches that could cover an acre or more. The cactus limbs were shaped like the fruit on prickly pears, but earth-colored and covered with tough spines three inches long. Those pod-like pieces broke off easily, and because of the stiff thorns would be sprung from the ground and often into the stomachs and legs of horses, and the buttocks and thighs of careless men and women.
Last year, Ben found one deer standing in the center of a patch, with so many nodes of cactus stuck on its legs and stomach that it wouldn’t move rather than feel more pain. Coyotes had chased it there, but hadn’t gone in the thorns themselves. Ben knew from painful experience how severe the sticks could be. The thorns also had a rough surface that, when stuck in, would resist pulling out. Like a porcupine quill, one old man told him. Pliers were handy in a ranch vehicle, and the dog pear thorns were where they had good use.
He looked into the other draws around them, and each was heavy with the pear, and some were choked with it. The small hill tops were clear, but in almost every draw around them, there was the cactus.