Leon Uris by A God in Ruins Page A

barely kissing a great old pine tree. He’d stay here. Town was still two switchbacks away. Well, what’s the difference? he thought, I don’t belong to anyone. I’m no one.
    A flashlight beam hit his face.
    “Holy Mary, is that you, Quinn?”
    “Ugh.”
    “Are you hurt?”
    “No, no, I’m okay.”
    “Oh, my God,” she whispered when she saw the agony worn like a Pagliacci mask.
    “Who are you?”
    “It’s Rita Maldonado.”
    She found a rag and wiped his face carefully and put handfuls of snow on the rising lumps and bruises.
    “What the hell you doing out on a night like this?” he groaned.
    “I was at the movies and, if memory serves me right, you were the one in the ditch trying to climb this tree. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
    “No, I swear I’m okay.”
    “Looks like you’ve just seen the abominable snowman.”
    “Yeah, maybe I have.”
    “All right, then, I’ll run you home,” she said.
    “No. I have no home.”
    “Oh, God,” Rita mumbled. “Come on, now, I’m taking you to my house. I’ll call the sheriff and tell him where your Jeep is. Come on, now.” She half dragged him to her pickup and plopped him on the seat and buckled him up, then got behind the wheel.
    “What are you doing driving? You’re only thirteen years old,” Quinn growled.
    “I’m going on fourteen and I’m very mature for my age. Besides, I baby-sit the sheriff’s kids. He just doesn’t want me to drive during the daytime.”
    Rita was right about one thing, she was mature.
    They sputtered on the slick track up to the next shelf and turned into a one-lane road affording another fabulous view down to Troublesome Mesa. The Maldonado spread was highlighted by a few acres of level lawn filled with wild sculptures and a flying-wing house.
    Reynaldo Maldonado, only a seven-year resident, had brought a measure of fame to Troublesome by selecting it for his studio and home.
    He had done it all, from picking cotton in Texas to doing prison time in Cañon City. He did it by being a roustabout, by smuggling on the border, by boiling booze, by selling peyote.
    His early primitive drawings were of the usual Mexican rage against exploitation, and he worked to become one of the nation’s foremost portrait artists and sculptors. Although he was always thought of as being Mexican, he was actually third-generation American. His only marriage was to a fair, blond Minnesota girl who died of breast cancer and left him with a six-year-old daughter.
    Her death settled his wild ways, and for the sake of Rita he found Troublesome Mesa.
    Maldonado’s home had become a sort of sanctuary for the high school children of the area. He spun rapturous tales, he sang and played the guitar, he had lots of nudes on his walls and pedestals. For years Maldonado was an in-and-out figure at the University of Colorado, where he taught to small groups, at random, about an array of worldly subjects. He was a Colorado “treasure.”
    Rita helped Quinn up the back porch steps. Mal flicked on a light for them. “What you got there, Rita?”
    “Quinn O’Connell.”
    “Quinn, you look like a yard of dirt road.”
    “I’m all right. I mean, I’m not hurt. I mean, I’m hurt but I’m not hurt…nothing’s broken or anything.”
    Rita unlaced his shoes, gave him a big robe from the hot tub, and ordered him to take a shower. Each time the icy fingers brought him closer to awareness, the whap from Dan hit him again. All right, he told himself, pull it together.
    “I’d better call your home,” Mal said a few minutes later.
    “No.”
    “What do you mean, no?”
    After a time he said, “We had some words.”
    “I’m calling him. If Rita was out in this weather, I’d want a phone call no matter what had transpired.”
    Everyone knew, Quinn thought, that Mal was an artist with an eccentric leaning. He heard Mal’s muffled voice from the next room.
    “You’ll stay with us tonight. Eaten?”
    “I wouldn’t mind something warm.”
    As