“I’ll call Commissioner Callaway,” he said. “He handles trouble involving those kids.”
Eli ran before the number connected.
On the second afternoon, a tourist couple allowed him to use their satellite phone. Eli called emergency services and reported an injured man below mile point 4.7.
Deputy Odell Trosper arrived thirty minutes later.
He searched the canyon for eight minutes, never walking close enough to see the hidden motorcycle or Eli’s windbreak. Then he returned to the road and told the boy nothing was there.
“You imagined it,” Trosper said. “Go back to the youth home.”
Eli followed the deputy from a distance.
He watched Trosper call Douglas Callaway.
The third morning brought an HOA cleanup crew collecting trash along the highway. A woman named Nadine listened carefully to Eli’s story and offered him water.
For one hopeful moment, he believed her.
Then she said, “Mr. Callaway is wonderful with children. Let me call him.”
Eli ran again.
Four adults had heard him.
Four adults had either abandoned him or tried to send him directly to the man who caused the crash.
That was when Eli stopped looking for help from the road.
Instead, he began hunting for evidence.
He found a curved fragment of red taillight six feet from the tire marks. A chrome trim clip remained attached, stamped with a number identifying it as a part from a 2022 Cadillac Escalade.
Near the shoulder, he found a silver cuff link engraved with the initials D.C.
He also pressed wet clay into the tire track left beside the motorcycle’s skid mark. After six hours in the sun, the impression hardened enough to preserve the tread pattern.