Three strands of barbed wire separated us from the pasture. There was a corral to our right.
"All right!" I said. "We've found a house!"
Craig LaRotunda
Craig LaRotunda
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"Yes!" Andrew yelled.
As we celebrated, six dogs came charging from the house. Five small ones, one huge one. They barked as they ran.
Evan and Andrew screamed. I grabbed Evan, lifted and swung him into the corral. I helped Andrew up over the fence and then turned, pulled out my knife and waited for the dogs to arrive.
Before they reached the fence, a man emerged from the house and yelled to the dogs. The dogs stopped and began meandering around with their tails wagging. I pulled Andrew and Evan from the corral, and we walked to meet the man at the fence.
I explained our problem. He told us to meet him at his gate. He'd drive us into Globe.
"Yes! Thank you! Oh, man. Thank you so much. Guys, tell him thank you."
They already had.
He drove us to a motel in Globe. I called home from the lobby. I was hoping my wife was still at home, hopefully just a little mad and a little worried.
I got our answering machine.
"If this call is regarding the whereabouts of Robert Nelson, or Andrew or Evan Nelson . . . ." She said she could be reached on her cell phone. I called and couldn't reach her.
My hands began shaking. I called her sister in Gilbert. My wife had left at 4 a.m. with a neighbor. They had driven to meet with the Pinal County Sheriff. They had search and rescue crews out looking for us.
The motel clerk gave me the sheriff's office number. I frantically told the dispatcher who I was and that we had made it safely to Globe. Within a minute, the dispatcher reached the detective in charge of the search, who then reached my wife.
"She's been notified. She knows you're all right," the dispatcher said a few minutes later.
"Thank God."
It took 20 minutes for my wife to arrive from north of Roosevelt Lake, where she'd been searching. A sheriff's office detective arrived first, asked some questions and was kind enough not to make me feel any more like a fool.
My wife arrived. She was quivering as she jumped from the truck. She ran and hugged the boys. We hugged.
"I'm so, so happy to see you," she said. "I've never been so scared in my life."
"I'm so, so sorry this happened," I said. "I'm an idiot. I got lost. The signs were weird. But then I was stupid. I mean, I think it's my fault. I'm an idiot. But we're fine. The boys are fine. Everybody is fine. The car is not fine. I mean, it really isn't fine. But everybody is fine."
"I don't care about the car," she said. "I only care about you guys."
"Yeah, screw the car," I said. "Everybody is fine."
Our neighbor drove us all back down toward Chandler. Traffic stopped near Apache Junction. There was a fatal multicar accident up ahead.
But we were fine. And never before had we so deeply appreciated the fact that we were all fine — and all fine together.
We finally arrived at our home in south Chandler, just another tract home among millions in the Valley, built of bad pine and Styrofoam and chicken wire and mud. I have complained often about the soullessness of this house and this suburbia.
It felt full of soul that evening.
And then we put the children to bed. And then my wife and I talked about what's important in life.
And then she fell asleep.
And then I began thinking about the van. And the cost of having it towed. And the chances that it actually was towable. And the cost of having it fixed, if it could be fixed, if it could be towed. And the embarrassment of telling the story.
As midnight approached, my skewed priorities in life slowly got back to normal.
