More digging by Ms. Hanrihan, detailed in an additional handwritten report, revealed that Mr. and Mrs. Dodson had paid the hefty fee at a gay conversion camp, Serenity Sleepaway Camp, in upstate New York and had planned to send Kell there, only he must have found out and run away.
Ms. Hanrihan, perhaps as an afterthought, had written down her phone number, and added,Please call with any questions.
Marston sat back to let the waitress deliver his pulled pork sandwich, with a side of fries, extra sauce on the side. It smelled amazing, and he inhaled the scent as he let his mind drift over the photo of Kell. It was the only one in the file because, of course, there would be no other intake photo from the local police department or any juvenile record photo because Kell was a good kid. Pure and simple.
The photo of him smiling, hands on his hips, those long legs bare, hair tousled around his head, might have proved it by being the only photo, if it could have.
The fact that Kell had waited until school let out to run away told its own story. The fact that Kell had been on the road for two years before being arrested added another layer to that. He’d been careful, he’d been clever enough to avoid drawing attention to himself, at least up until his arrest, which had occurred in the main Cheyenne train yard, the Union Pacific Rail Yard.
Kell had been seen slipping between the round house and the steam shop, and then was crossing over the tracks, all of which was illegal.
When he’d been arrested, he’d had two bottles of water on him, and a turkey sandwich from Jimmy John’s, but no receipt. Jimmy John’s did not want to press charges, according to the arrest report.Let the kid have the food,the manager had stated when questioned by the police.
Union Pacific was not so kind, but perhaps with good reason. It was dangerous to walk around a rail yard, as Kell had been doing, and it was dangerous to ride in open box cars or in the well of a grainer, which was what he’d also been doing. He had, in fact, been heading back to one particular train, where evidence of his backpack and blanket, that he’d stored in one of the wells on a grainer car, waiting for his return after he’d stolen the food and water, had been discovered.
Union Pacific was within their rights to press charges, though the terminal master and yard manager both made it clear that, at least as far as they could see, Kell hadn’t damaged anything or interrupted the regular function of the yard.
He was just passing through, I guess, the yard manager had responded when interviewed.But it’s dangerous, so dangerous, for him to have been there. The terminal master had added,It’s illegal to ride without a ticket.
The judge had given Kell ninety days, which, all things considered, would not be too bad, but then Marston had never been to prison. He turned another page to reveal the pair of intake photos from the Cheyenne Police Department.
In them, Kell looked at the camera while holding a modern ID board, giving his name, offender number, location, and date. His face was much thinner than the track and field photo, his eyes glittering with a much darker light, his hair a dark, angry sprawl around his head, going into his eyes.
So much had changed in the two years after Kell left home, and time and life and the open road had left its mark on him. He was bone and skin and fear in those intake photos, one from the front, the other from the side.
“Can I get you anything for dessert, hon?” the waitress asked, startling Marston out of his thoughts.
“No, I’m good, thank you,” he said. “Just the check, please, when you can.”
She pulled her tablet out of her apron, tapped on it a few times, then gave him the total. He paid with his credit card, took the receipt, and drank the rest of his iced tea.
Standing up, he took the file, got in his truck, and drove to a little, no-name gravel area along the South Platte, just behind the Fresh Foods, where Main Street turned into Highway 85 headed south.
Maybe he could have gone further along the river to a place that was quieter, as he had the road noise on one side and the low chatter from a team of men unloading a truck in back of Fresh Foods. But the view was good, the gravel area sloping down to the South Platte, two twin grain towers providing a frame of sorts on one side, the summer-lush cottonwood trees on the other, to the endless stretch of land beyond.
The summer prior, he’d driven to Torrington for something or other for Leland, and had seen the spot and stopped. Now and then, he would come back to watch the sunsets, alone but surrounded by the low bustle of the small, high prairie town.
On impulse while standing there, the sky darkening behind him as the sun slipped behind clouds, settling down in preparation for slipping below the horizon, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Ms. Hanrihan’s number. She picked up almost right away.
“Sheila Hanrihan speaking,” she said.
“Ms. Hanrihan, this is Marston Cleary,” he said, eschewing the traditional hello, as she had done. “I am employed by Farthingdale Ranch and work with the Farthingdale Valley Fresh Start Program. We have with us Kelliher Dodson, who was recently arrested for trespassing, and is now doing his parole with us.”
“Kelliher Dodson?” She asked, in the ruminative way of someone pulling up a mental file. “The runaway,” she said now. “Two years ago. June. Has he been found? Is he okay?”
“Uh.”
Marston paused. Kell might not want his parents to know where he was or perhaps that he was even alive. Kids ran away for a reason, and being newly out as gay, being threatened with a pray-away-the-gay camp would be a strong incentive.
“He is okay,” said Marston. “He’s doing quite well in the program, too. But I’m suddenly thinking he might not want to contact his parents or for them to know where he is. Maybe I shouldn’t have called.”
“He was seventeen then,” she said quickly. “He’s nineteen now, no longer a minor. Even if he is found, he doesn’t have to return home. Though I imagine—” She paused, now, too, and Marston had the sudden idea that they were both moving through the conversation very carefully. “His mother might very much want to know that he’s okay, but his dad wouldn’t care. He—”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Marston held the phone to his ear and waited, squinting at the bright flare of light as the sun truly set and the sky began to turn shades of purple-pink and bright-fire orange.
“The file has been closed because he’s no longer a minor, though I imagine the missing person’s report is still open, but that has nothing to do with my office,” she said, finally. “Whoever arrested him might not have done a nationwide search, so they won’t know about the missing person’s file. You might consider letting them know, because some man or woman is babysitting that file, right this minute, using up energy they don’t need to use on it anymore. As to our records, I can’t tell you a lot, you know, because the information in the file is confidential. But I will tell you this. The mom was crying, and the dad was not. He was stone cold the whole time. So angry. That’s the difference between them, and very hard to convey in the file. Just a feeling, you see. But he was the reason they wanted to send him away and not her. Another thing—”
“Yes?” he asked, taking a deep breath, being his most patient self.
