“And?”
“No people,” he said.
“Where’d they find it?”
“Three miles south, stuck in an irrigation ditch.”
“Near a road?”
“Uh-huh. Tracks of three men led from the ditch to where a vehicle picked them up.”
“Damn.”
Hondo said, “That about sums it up.”
“They could be anywhere now.”
“We’ll keep looking. I want them.” I knew what he meant.
The drive to Los Angeles was no fun, both because of our failure to catch the Kiowa and his henchmen, and because my hip throbbed like a big old toothache. The more I attempted not to move, the more it bothered me, and then when I did move, it felt like someone scraped a wood rasp in the wound.
“Quit squirming,” Hondo said.
“My hip hurts. I was shot, you know.”
“Tis but a scratch,” Hondo said in his best Monty
Python voice.
I laughed, and that made my hip hurt, which made me laugh harder, and that started Hondo laughing. It brought us out of our gloomy state and I drove toward the glow of the City of Angels with a renewed determination to find the Kiowa and his men.
Chapter 10
When we reached the office, we spotted Juan sitting near the door, with his knees up and his back against the wall. He’d parked his old pickup farther out in the parking lot. He stood and dusted off his pants as we exited Shamu. “Hello, amigos,” he said.
I said, “Good to see you.”
Hondo opened the door and we followed him inside. Juan said, “I have informations.”
Hondo said, “If it’s about the Kiowa, we want to hear it. We lost him and his two friends up in Bakersfield.”
“All my friends in the camp, they are afraid. They leave the camp like me.”
“What happened?”
“The Kiowa came and burned the houses. He say to theem, You leave, you go away, an’ don’t say notheeng to Baca or Wells, or I come for you and your families and kill everyone. He scare everyone very bad.”
“Were you there?”
“I hid. My friend, he say the Kiowa asked for me, but my friend tell him I left. The Kiowa knows I help you.”
Hondo said, “You’ll stay with us.”
“For a leetle while. My family in Mexico, I have fear for them. The Kiowa, he knows my place there.”
I said, “Do you know where he is now?”
“No.”