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“You heard, huh?”

“Sir, twice I drove down to McAlester on my day off, see what I could find out about Frank Miller.”

“The convicts talk to you?”

“One did, a Creek use to be in his gang. He said it wasn’t a marshal shot Skeet Harris in the gun battle that time. It was Frank Miller himself to get Skeeter out of the way so he could have his wife.”

“You learned this on your own?”

“Yes, sir. It was after that witness in Coalgate said he spoke of getting married. I thought it must be to Faye—don’t you think? I mean if he’s so sweet on her he killed her husband? That’s what tells me he hides out there.”

Bob Cardell said, “Well, we been talking to people, watching every place he’s known to frequent. Look it up, I’m sure Faye Harris is on the list.”

“I did,” Carl said. “She’s checked off as having been questioned and deputies are keeping an eye on her place. But I doubt they do more than drive past, see if Frank Miller’s drawers are hanging on the line.”

“You’re a marshal four months,” Bob Cardell said, “and you know everything.”

Carl didn’t speak, Bob Cardell staring at him.

Bob Cardell saying after a few moments, “I recall the time you shot that cattle thief off his horse at four hundred yards.” Bob Cardell saying after another silence but still holding Carl with his stare, “You have some kind of scheme you want to try.”

“I’ve poked around and learned a few things about Faye Harris,” Carl said, “where she used to live and all. I believe I can get her to talk to me.”

Bob Cardell said, “How’d you get so sure of yourself?”

Marshals dropped Carl off a quarter mile from the house, turned the car around, and drove back to Checotah; they’d be at the Shady Grove Café. Carl was wearing work clothes and boots, his .38 Special holstered beneath a limp old suitcoat of Virgil’s, a black one, his star in a pocket.

Walking the quarter mile his gaze held on this worn-out homestead, the whole dismal hundred and sixty looking deserted, the dusty Ford coupe in the backyard abandoned. Carl expected Faye Harris to be in no better shape than her property, living here like an outcast. The house did take on life as he mounted the porch, the voice of Uncle Dave Macon coming from a radio somewhere inside; and now Faye Harris was facing him through the screen, a girl in a silky nightgown that barely came to her knees, barefoot, but with rouge giving her face color and her blonde hair marcelled like a movie star’s. . . .

You dumbbell, of course she hadn’t let herself go, she was waiting for a man to come and marry her. Carl smiled, meaning it.

“Miz Harris, I’m Carl Webster.” He kept looking at her face so she wouldn’t think he was trying to see through her nightgown, which he could, easy. “I believe your mom’s name is Atha Trudell? She worked at the Georgian Hotel in Henryetta doing rooms at one time and belonged to Eastern Star?”

It nudged her enough to say, “Yeah . . .?”

“So’d my mom, Narcissa Webster?”

Faye shook her head.

“Your daddy was a coal miner up at Spelter, pit boss on the Little Gem. He lost his life that time she blew in ’16. My dad was down in the hole laying track.” Carl paused. “I was ten years old.”

Faye said, “I just turned fifteen,” her hand on the screen door to open it, but then hesitated. “Why you looking for me?”

“Lemme tell you what happened,” Carl said. “I’m at the Shady Grove having a cup of coffee, the lady next to me at the counter says she works at a café serves way better coffee ’n here. Purity’s, up at Henryetta.”

Faye said, “What’s her name?”

“She never told me.”

“I use to work at Purity.”

“I know, but wait,” Carl said. “The way you came up in the conversation, the lady says her husband’s a miner up at Spelter. I tell her my dad was killed there in ’16. She says a girl at Purity lost her daddy in that same accident. She mentions knowing the girl’s mom from Eastern Star, I tell her mine belonged too. The waitress behind the counter’s pretending not to listen, but now she turns to us and says, ‘The girl you’re talking about lives right up