by Rilla Askew
But when the vehicles pulled in and parked, they turned out not to be news vans but big F-350 pickups pulling horse trailers. What in the world? Baffled, Sweet sat in her car. In a minute Clyde Herrington tapped on her window. She turned the key, glided down the glass. “Where’s Terry?” Clyde said. Sweet half opened her mouth, couldn’t think of anything. She shrugged. “When he gets here,” Clyde said, “let him know he’s welcome to ride that red mare of mine if he wants. I’m not gonna saddle her till I see if we need her.” He withdrew into the dark yard. Another truck and horse trailer pulled in. Soon there were seven trucks and trailers. Sweet could hear the thunk and rattle of shod hooves on metal flooring as the men backed their horses out of the trailers, the chink and clink of bridles, the soft creak of leather, murmured voices. Holloway’s cruiser drove into the barnyard then, red and blue lights flashing, followed by a white Latimer County Sheriff’s Department pickup and, yes, five TV news vans. She knew without being told that Arvin Holloway had hatched up this little showcase, a horseback search party, something showy and western, for the big-city news. She’d bet anything he’d contacted the stations himself.
Soon there were floodlights revealing a dozen or so ranchers in cowboy hats and Carhartt jackets milling about, coughing in the morning air, sharing thermoses of coffee. She prayed the kids would stay put across the pasture. Surely they wouldn’t try to come back here. All this light and noise here at the barn, truck doors slamming, generators humming. Please, honey, Sweet said in her mind to Misty. Y’all be still, be silent. Be smart. Please, God, let the baby sleep. Don’t let her wake up and get scared and start crying. The sheriff sauntered to the barn and positioned himself in front of the open door, waiting for the floodlights to be set for the cameras. At least with all these trucks and vans, Sweet thought, the tire marks from Juanito’s pickup will be wiped out. But what about inside the barn? She quickly got out of the car and hurried over, halting just outside the circle of light. “Morning, Sheriff,” she said, running her fingers back through her uncombed hair.
“Well, if it ain’t Sweet Georgia Brown herself. Come out for the mountain search, did ya?” Holloway looked past her toward the milling ranchers behind her. “Where’s that ornery husband of yours?”
“Oh, him and some of the guys he works with are covering the south pasture.” She was amazed at how easily the lie came to her. “They’re fixing to head on up over the ridge from there.”
“In the dark?”
“They wanted to get an early start.”
“I don’t know how much earlier start a person needs than five A.M.” Clearly Holloway didn’t like anybody getting a jump on him, stealing his thunder in any possible way. He eyed Sweet in her bulky sweatpants and bunchy sweatshirt. “Hadn’t seen them oatmeal cookies you promised.”
“I’ve had a few other things on my mind, Arvin.” She tried to hold the dislike out of her voice; it wouldn’t help to make him mad.
“Is that right.” His face suddenly became very serious and official looking. He barked at a passing deputy. “Hector! You bring them graphs and maps like I asked you? Well, get ’em the hell over here! What d’ya think I’m standing here for, waiting on you to get in the blame mood?” Positioning himself in the glow of the portable lights, Holloway made a great show of unrolling the topographical maps, holding them up and pointing to the squiggly lines and whorls, ordering this bunch to cover this ridge, that bunch to cover that one, while the cameras hummed ever so faintly.
“Mrs. Kirkendall?” It was the brunette from Channel 2. “I wonder if you’d be willing to say a word for us? Maybe, you know, make an appeal from the family?”
“I already did that,” Sweet said.
“Yes, ma’am,” the reporter said. “But 2News Working for You has such devoted viewers. Isn’t it possible one of them might have seen something?” She lilted the words, coaxing gently. “They might catch you on tonight’s broadcast and come forward. Sometimes an appeal from the family can really help.” She glanced toward the barn where Holloway was holding forth on how rough the terrain was—too rough for vehicles, even jeeps, he said. A four-wheeler or a four-footed mule, that’s what you needed, and even a four-wheeler couldn’t get through the underbrush, them searchers would have to get off their fat fannies and walk. He was looking at the ranchers when he said it, but they were all local men; they didn’t need to be told how rough this country was. The sheriff’s little speech was meant for the TV crews, who were lapping it up. As Sweet watched, the Channel 2 news reporter very studiedly turned her back on the sheriff; she held her microphone a respectful distance from Sweet’s face, nodded almost imperceptibly to her cameraman, who adjusted his lights, started shooting. Sweet thought to herself, Keep them occupied. Keep them busy. Don’t give them any reason to go wandering around. She kept her eyes on the reporter’s face. A pretty girl, not much older than Misty Dawn, with good skin and perfect teeth and two last names, Logan Morgan, Morgan Logan. A girl who’d almost certainly never had a member of her family arrested. Or deported. Or lost.
“My nephew is a little innocent child,” Sweet said. “He didn’t have anything to do with those Mexicans, or with his grandpa helping them. But folks have been saying terrible things. Do you know some of the things they’ve been saying?” The reporter smiled encouragingly. “I don’t care what the law is,” Sweet said, “that little boy doesn’t deserve to be missing. This family doesn’t deserve it. Wherever Dusty is, he’s probably so scared. We had that bad rain night before last, he’s probably out there in the woods alone, cold and frightened . . . looking for shelter.” A thought struck her then, so crisp and clear it was almost like somebody said the words in her brain: the old coal mine. Maybe Dustin had taken shelter in that old mine. Sweet almost called out to Holloway to ask if they’d thought to go inside the mine to look, but she caught herself. The mine was sunk into the ridge on the south side of Cedar Creek, and the low-water bridge that crossed the creek to get there was only a couple hundred yards past the place where Misty and Juanito were hiding. “We appreciate what the sheriff is doing,” Sweet went on, “all the volunteers, but they’re fixing to head south into the mountains on horseback. I don’t know why my nephew would go there. I think it’s more likely he went west.”
“West?” the reporter chipped, a quick, bright-eyed sparrow. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, Wilburton’s west of here. That’s where his grandpa’s in jail. I can’t see Dusty going some other direction. I think he might’ve set out for the jail on one of the back roads. There’s lots of woods between here and Wilburton. My husband is out there searching now. We tried to tell this to Sheriff Holloway, but it’s hard to get him to listen.” For the first time ever, Sweet smiled at Morgan Logan, Logan Morgan. “You’re a pretty girl,” she said. “Reckon you could get him to listen to you?”
Monday | February 25, 2008 | 7:00 A.M.
Hunter’s Ridge Apartments | Oklahoma City
“You’re going to have to go down there, babe,” Charlie said, reaching for the jelly. Monica got up from the breakfast nook, carried her plate to the sink and scraped her untouched poached egg into the disposal, put the plate in the dishwasher. She stood looking at the television across the apartment. There was the kid’s face again, that same grade-school picture. The banner underneath read:
Monica turned and poured the rest of her coffee down the sink. “You got to grab back the reins,” Charlie was saying. “Tell it your way.”
“I know that! Don’t you think I know that?” She stepped across the room and fumbled under the scattered newspapers for the remote. As long as the coverage had stayed local, the spin had remained positive. Local media understood that Oklahomans, certainly the hefty majority of white Oklahomans, supported her law. But then the kid had to go and disappear, and once the news went national, the whole story line changed. They kept running this same picture of the kid over and over, his sad eyes and shaggy hair, that a
lmost smile. On the screen an overly serious female reporter was intoning about “little Dustin Brown, who vanished from the family farm in southeastern Oklahoma after the arrest of his grandfather . . .” intercut with aerial scenes of the search site. The anchor’s talking head reappeared framed by changing boxes showing the kid’s picture, the sheriff in front of a microphone, men on horseback, a stock-footage view from the upstairs gallery of the empty House floor. Monica switched off the TV, went to the bedroom to finish dressing. She heard the television click back on. Charlie and his damn clicker. She grabbed her green velvet jacket from the hall closet. Charlie was staring into his open laptop on the coffee table. “Good luck, babe,” he said, without looking up.
The drive to the capitol was too short; she needed more time to get her presentation together—not her presentation for House Bill 1906, which was coming up for the floor vote this afternoon and for which she’d practiced diligently all yesterday evening, but her presentation of Oklahoma State Representative Monica Moorehouse: her calm, unruffled answers, her self-deprecating smile. She pulled into a Starbucks drive-through. Four cars ahead of her. Fine. She tugged down the visor mirror. Oh, the cucumber slices Kevin recommended had helped not at all. She patted the fatty skin under her eyes. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. How had she lost control of the narrative? Her absence. Her silence. That’s what Charlie kept saying. But House Leadership wanted her to keep a low profile until after today’s vote—and yes, all right, she’d been glad to acquiesce. She’d spent the weekend on the phone with the Speaker and the majority floor leader, or walking Penn Square Mall in headscarf and sunglasses, or lying in bed with cucumber slices on her eyelids.
On Sunday morning she told Charlie to go on to church without her. “No way, babe,” he said. “Then they’ll know you’re in town.” Which was true. Her technique for avoiding church more often than she could bear it was to let the people at Saint Luke’s Methodist in Oklahoma City think she was at church in McAlester, and the congregation at Grand Avenue United Methodist in McAlester assume she was staying in the city this weekend. This way she only had to put in an appearance at one or the other every third or fourth Sunday during legislative session. This weekend was supposed to be one of her appearance Sundays, but like Charlie said: no way. She had called Kevin in the afternoon to ask if she could stop by (Ah, no, mon ami, I’ve got tres, tres special company!), did the brisk-walking routine at the mall again, worked a dozen find-the-word puzzles, went to bed straight after 60 Minutes.
The last several days had been like a yo-yo, up and down, up and down. It was so hard to tell what people were thinking—especially Leadership. Everybody was so maddeningly tight-lipped, waiting to see which way the political winds were going to turn. Well, everybody who counted was mum, that is. There were plenty legislators from both sides of the aisle who were more than glad to rub up against her, metaphorically speaking; they loved all the national attention. But the real powers that be realized that this much uncontrolled media glare had the potential to go against them. Oh, everything would have been fine, absolutely fine, the immigration issue nothing but a win-win for them, for the state, for future elections—if not for that damn kid.
Monday | February 25, 2008 | 7:00 A.M.
Brown’s farm | Cedar
Would they never get gone? Sweet thought. It seemed to take forever for all the ranchers to mount up and head out in the rosy predawn light, three deputies riding with them. The cameramen were still coiling up their lengths of electric cords, repacking their equipment, when Holloway strolled over to where she sat in her car with the motor running and the heater on. She cracked the window as he bent down to peer in. “Why’d you tell that sassy reporter we oughta check the back roads? You know we’ve done searched this whole valley.” Sweet didn’t answer. “You might as well go on home,” Holloway said, his voice decidedly unfriendly. “We’ll call if we find anything.”
“I’ll wait here.”
“Suit yourself.” Holloway squinted at her a moment as if he expected her to say something, but Sweet turned her face to the windshield, stared at it until she heard the sheriff’s cruiser start and drive off. Still for another few minutes she waited. She didn’t trust but what Holloway would turn around and come back, just purposely trying to catch her at something.
The longer she sat waiting, the more convinced she became that Dustin really was hiding in the mine. It made some kind of crazy sense. He didn’t want to be found. He thought he could stay hidden until people quit looking for him, and then he’d walk back here to the farm and stay by himself—and the old coal mine was a perfect hideout. She’d bet anything he liked to play there, the same way Sweet and Gaylene used to play there when they were kids. If their daddy found out they’d been in the mine, he would have a fit—the place was too dangerous for kids to play in, he said—but Sweet had usually managed to make sure he didn’t find out. She had loved that place, she and Gaylene both. The clean, dry, shaley space at the mine’s mouth, their perfect little room with its clear stream running through the center, and the air wafting out of the dark cave behind, always the just-right temperature, warm in winter, cool in summer. Sweet swallowed deep, put the Taurus in gear, headed across the barnyard toward the south pasture, her eyes skimming the rearview and side mirrors, checking all around.
Near the edge of the trash dump she stopped the car and got out. She couldn’t see Juanito’s truck anywhere. The tire marks were distinct along the rim of the gully right up to the wide sandstone place where the grasses gave way to rock and hardpan, and there they disappeared. She eased carefully along the edge of the gully. All the old junk was still here: rusting carcasses tipped along the ledge and down into the ravine, the dead water heaters and empty water cooler casings, worn-out pieces of farm equipment, the ancient white wringer washer she could remember from when she was a kid, and all the old bald tires and empty oil cans and plastic bleach jugs, and in the bottom of the gully piles and piles of blackened residue from the burn barrel dumped for decades from the back of Daddy’s truck. But the huge white Dodge Ram was nowhere in sight. “Misty Dawn!” she called softly. “Juanito?” She listened, heard nothing. “Hey, you kids!” she said a little louder. “It’s all right now. They’re gone!”
At last she heard the crunch and break of sticks, the rustle of dried oak leaves, and soon Juanito emerged from the tangled underbrush on the other side of the ditch, way down to the left. He was carrying the baby, her lavender-clad legs dangling almost to his knees. Misty Dawn was behind him. Good Lord, how did they get all the way back in there? Sweet called across to them: “What did y’all do with the truck?” Misty Dawn motioned toward the creek. They came on, and Sweet made her way toward them until they were directly across the ravine from each other. “What was that all about?” Misty panted. “Who was it?” The girl’s fear wasn’t masked by fake boredom now—she was breathing hard, her face red and puffy, her eyes huge.
“Folks looking for your brother. They’re gone now. Hey, it’s good you hid the truck, though.” Sweet scrambled down into the gully. The bottom was pure muck—tannish wet clay mixed with God knew what kind of gunk. She reached up a hand and Juanito helped her climb up. “How did y’all get over here?” she said, scraping muck off her boots with a stick. Misty Dawn pointed farther east along the ditch to where it grew narrower and shallower as it ran under the old barbed-wire fence. A little farther along past that, the fence was down, and Sweet could see broken underbrush where the truck had busted through. The tailgate was just visible through the scrub. “Hooray for four-wheel drive,” Sweet murmured. “Listen, hon, y’all are going to have to stay here while I run to Wilburton and cash a check. I couldn’t find my credit card.” She held up her hand at Misty’s protest. “Not long! Forty minutes, tops. But let’s drive over and take a look in the coal mine first.”
“What for?”
“Your brother.”
“Dustin’s in the coal mine?”
&nbs
p; “I don’t know. I just . . . got a feeling. Come on.” She squeezed past them, began to wind her way down the old abandoned mining track toward the creek. The kids stayed close behind as she picked her way through the scraggly young cedars and scrub oak growing up in the road, but Sweet could hear, before she saw, that they were going to have to go back and get Juanito’s truck. The rock low-water bridge was ordinarily dry, the creek a sluggish brown moccasin flowing underneath, but a good rain like they’d had on Friday could turn the creek into a torrent. If Dusty did go to the mine, Sweet thought, he couldn’t have gotten back to this side if he’d tried—and pray God he hadn’t tried. The water wasn’t exactly a torrent now, but it was well up over the bridge, muddy as creamed coffee, and rushing fast. It could sweep a person away easily, especially somebody as light as Dustin—or Misty’s skinny husband, for that matter. Sweet motioned them to turn around and go back. The baby stared at Sweet over her daddy’s shoulder as they retraced their steps. Juanito unstrapped the car seat and set it in the truck bed while Sweet tried to tell him that he should let her drive, she knew the old track, exactly where the bridge was, but he acted like he didn’t understand. He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the truck. Misty sat in the middle holding the baby, her thighs jammed up high because of the hump under her feet. “No, mami,” she said. The child was squirming, trying to wiggle off her lap. Misty Dawn rattled off some Spanish, but Lucha wouldn’t quit wriggling.
