Bent Road - Lori Roy [12]
“I’ll need for any of you kids to talk with me if you’ve seen our Julianne of late,” the sheriff says. “Some of us men have already been out looking but I’d like the rest of you gentlemen to join us in a search. We’ll start our looking in town and work our way out. Orville and Mary say the girl’s prone to going off alone. A hungry stomach’ll probably bring her home, but the more of you can help, the quicker we’ll all get home to Sunday supper.”
Taking a step backward because the shade from the steeple keeps falling away from him, Daniel sees the crippled boy leaning on the bumper of a truck parked across the street, rubbing his thighs with the palm of each hand. Waiting until the boy glances his way, Daniel gives a wave. The boy waves back, pushes himself off the bumper and walks across the street. Step, step, pause. Step, step, pause, until he reaches the tip of the shade where Daniel stands.
“Hey,” the boy says, crossing his arms and leaning against the white wooden fence that separates them from the cemetery.
“Hey.”
“Name’s Ian.”
“I’m Daniel. This is Evie.”
Evie blows a tuft of dandelion feathers at Ian.
“What do you think?” Ian asks, nodding at the sheriff still standing near the church doors.
“Didn’t know her.”
“She’s younger.” He dips his head toward Evie. “More about her age.”
“Sounds like she’ll be home by dinner,” Daniel says, watching all the Bucher brothers meet up at the truck Ian had been leaning against. Like the red ants in Mama’s kitchen, they keep coming, one after another.
“Like hell,” Ian says, shuffling closer. “I know what happened. I know exactly what happened.” He pauses and looks around like he’s afraid someone might hear. “After Jack Mayer escaped from Clark City, he snatched her right up. That’s what happened.”
Daniel crosses his arms over his chest. “Think I might have seen that Jack Mayer,” he says. “The night we got here. Pretty sure I saw him.”
“At your place?” Ian says, shifting his weight from his short leg to his long one. “You catch him stealing food?”
Daniel shakes his head. “Back that way. On the drive in. Saw him running across the road. Car might have hit him. Can’t be sure. He must have been black as midnight because I could barely see him. Just like you said.”
“It was a tumbleweed,” Evie says, peeling apart a dandelion stem and draping the thin pieces across her bare knee.
Daniel nudges her with his foot. “Wasn’t a tumbleweed.”
“Over on Bent Road?” Ian asks. “Where the road takes a hard turn? That where you saw him?”
Daniel nods.
“Could have happened. That’s the only spot that still has water this time of year. Everything else has dried up. That’s where a fellow’d have to head.” Ian looks up at Daniel and smiles. “Yeah, could have happened just that way.”
“Sure, I guess.”
All night, Daniel had lain awake, imagining the whites of Jack Mayer’s eyes shining outside his bedroom window, which he had locked and checked twice. Probably chains hung from both wrists and he did all his traveling at night because his coal-black skin hid him in the darkness. Jack Mayer is a big man, that’s for sure. Even in the dark, at the top of Bent Road, Daniel could judge the man’s size. Hearing a rattle inside Ian’s chest, Daniel takes a step backward.
“Yep, snatched her up,” Ian says. “Probably right out of her own front yard. ’Course, that means you didn’t hit him with your car. Would have been dead if you did. Couldn’t swipe Julianne Robison if he was dead.”
Evie brushes the rounded, fuzzy tip of another dandelion against her cheek and looks up at Ian, her pinched eyebrows making a crease above her nose.
“Maybe,” Daniel says, glancing down at Evie. “Or maybe she just wandered off.”
“Nobody wanders off for a whole night.” Ian gives a wave to the group of brothers across the street. “Hey,” he says. “I got to go. We’re going searching for her. Me and my brothers. Be out all day.” He takes a few steps, his left foot swinging out because