Carlos peeled out quickly, turning immediately around the corner and up the road that led to the mine. Robbie and David were caught off guard and their bodies slid down the truck bed and hit the tailgate as Carlos pulled away. They instinctively looked around them for a place to hang on to. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a handhold anywhere. Carlos was speeding toward the mine and the boys’ prone bodies slid across the truck’s bed as Carlos accelerated through each turn in the road.
After a few minutes, the road changed as Carlos reached the end of the asphalt and the road became dirt. The vibrations below them were even more intense and they could now feel every bump of the road as the truck’s wheels passed over what seemed like thousands of little potholes. Outside of the camper shell, a thick dust cloud had begun to emanate from behind the vehicle. After banging their heads a bunch of times, the boys instinctively placed their hands underneath their skulls to prevent hitting their heads too hard on the truck bed.
Suddenly there was a hard dip beneath them and their bodies were immediately hurled against the ceiling of the camper shell, smashing their heads with a double thud before crashing back down on the truck bed. They screamed involuntarily with fear and immediately felt the truck came to a sliding stop in the dirt. They heard the cabin door open and knew they’d been discovered.
Opening their eyes again – they hadn’t realized they had shut them - they found Carlos looking at them through the camper shell glass, looking dumbfounded. Then he went around the back of the truck and opened the window, still not quite believing his eyes.
“What are you guys doing here?” David and Robbie looked at each other frantically. Luke tried to stammer out a few excuses but Carlos interrupted him: “You could have been really hurt. Do you know how fast I was going? I didn’t know you were back here. Are you guys crazy?”
Finally, David simply said: “Robbie came inside and I tried to get him back, but it was too late.”
It wasn’t totally true and, from the corner of his eye, David could tell Robbie was giving him a dirty look. It wasn’t unusual for David to sometimes excuse his actions by saying Robbie got him into it. In fairness, it was true often enough, and Robbie usually didn’t mind, unless he got in trouble too. But he was often given the benefit of the doubt by his parents. They knew he didn’t always understand every situation he got himself into. But they also knew he sometimes liked to pretend he didn’t understand certain things, which his parents knew. He had learned to be judicious in how often he employed that tactic.
As it turned out, Carlos didn’t have much time for their excuses. He rubbed his face up and down with his hands a few times and shook his head.
“Alright, hop out now, quickly. Let’s put you in the front, and I want your seatbelts on. Otherwise, we’re not going anywhere.”
The boys briskly hurried inside the truck’s cabin while Carlos did a tour of the truck’s outside to make sure he had not gotten any flat tires from the large pothole that had caused his truck to go airborne. Then he joined the boys inside the cabin and pointed out the seatbelts to them. He turned on the ignition and then turned to them.
“Listen very carefully. I don’t have time to go back, and…” He spat out some air from his lips in frustration. “Who knows? Maybe this trip is a waste of time anyway. But I don’t know what I’m driving into. So, when we get there, you’re gonna stay right here in the car, and you’re not gonna go anywhere without my permission, understood?”
The boys nodded and Carlos drove off again, but a little slower this time. He felt the weight of the responsibility of having these two young boys with him. At some point during the drive, he formally introduced himself and asked the boys for their names again. As they exchanged words, Carlos found himself impressed with their resourcefulness - even if he was still upset with them for having stowed aboard his truck. He decided it would probably be safe enough for them to stay in the vehicle while he scoped out the situation. He had no choice if he wanted to make haste.
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After the initial excitement, everyone got quiet and Carlos focused on the road. The landscape had slowly begun to become hillier again and they seemed to be headed towards a couple of smaller mountains. After some ten minutes, the truck began to slow down and rolled to a stop on the side of the road near a gravel driveway that sloped down into a gully and around a bend somewhere farther down. A rusted signpost on one side of the driveway displayed a faded metal sign that read Red Gully Mining Co. and, below that, NO TRESPASSING in big red letters.
Carlos exited the vehicle and squinted his eyes to look down the driveway, but the bend in the driveway prevented him from seeing anything beyond a couple of hundred yards. He came back to the truck and grabbed a headlamp that was attached to an elastic band. He draped the headlamp around his neck. Then he grabbed a pocket knife that he tucked into one of his boots. He pointed to a bag that Sally had given him.
“Hand me that please,” he said to Robbie, who obliged him. Carlos took a water bottle out of the bag and took a few deep swigs. Then he put the cap back on and put it back in the bag. “I’m not gonna take this with me. It’ll slow me down.”
He looked down for a moment, as if collecting his thoughts. Then he continued with instructions for the boys.
“Ok, listen up. I’m gonna take a walk down the driveway and see if I see anyone – I don’t wanna take the truck down, just in case there’s trouble. I don’t think I will, ‘cause this mine’s been shut down for decades. The mine itself was boarded up a long time ago - I guess sometimes teenagers come out here and throw rocks at the old equipment or something, but that’s about it. Nevertheless,” he continued with a growing seriousness in his voice. “It’s too hot out here, and there’s too much I don’t know about this situation, to leave you guys here by yourselves for too long.”
“I’ll leave the keys in the truck. Keep it running to keep the AC on.” Then he pointed to his wristwatch. “Do you guys have watches?”
Both boys lifted their hands to show him their wrist watches.
“Good,” he said. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and laid it on the seat. “If I’m not back in exactly twenty minutes. I want you…” he eyed them both in turn. “…to use my phone and call for help. You know how to go to the contact list, and dial the number, I assume?”
David was almost offended. “Of course”, he said defensively. Carlos nodded.
“Alright, so Sally’s number is in there. Sheriff Morton is in there – probably half the town is in there. So, if one person doesn’t answer, call the next person. It doesn’t matter who you get, the point is to get someone to let them know what happened and where you are.”
The boys nodded in agreement and Carlos continued.
“The code to get into the phone is 1,3,9,7.” He picked up the phone and showed them the keypad. “I don’t have anything to write with right now, but if you look at the keypad, it’s like you’re marking the four corners of a square, starting with 1, then right to 3, then down to 9, then left to 7 – like a clock. That’s how you remember it, ok?”
“Got it. Yeah, we’ll definitely remember that - right Robbie?” He turned to his brother who nodded. Robbie took pride in his ability to memorize numbers too.
Carlos exited the truck again and gave them a final goodbye through the open window.
“Alright boys. Here I go.” He pointed to the bag from Sally again. “Drink the water, it’s probably close to one-hundred degrees already. You should drink before you’re thirsty, to keep from getting dehydrated. You can eat the sandwich too, if you want.”
“Thanks! Good luck,” David said.
Carlos winked at him and smiled for the first time since they’d met. Then he turned around and began his descent down into the gully.
? 2025 Gil Pedro Bento. All Rights Reserved
