“Sheriff,” said Teddy.
Cal answered him but didn’t look up. It wouldn’t be any easier finding the boys if they’d taken off to the south. An eighty-acre cornfield could be just as disorienting as any cedar swamp. And who knows if those boys would stay on the roads or even near them. Kids could take off when they were afraid. Cal had seen it happen. They could run in circles. In the academy in Texas, Cal once assisted a search for a lost child that lasted two rain-soaked days and covered five ranches. The child was found, safe but cold, wrinkled as a prune, hunkered beneath a willow tree less than five hundred yards from his own front door. The child hadn’t answered anyone’s call. He just hid. Cal decided he would have Bobby continually check both properties, Ted’s and Breadwin’s, in case the thing resolved itself in such a way.
“Sheriff,” Teddy said again.
Cal looked up.
“I know where them mugs went.”
Cal tried not to reveal his certainty that Teddy was losing his grasp. Teddy stood in the corner of the kitchen, holding a sheet of notepaper in his hands.
Cal forced a smile and looked back at his map. “That’s real good, Ted.” This confirmed his decision to exclude Ted from the search. It wasn’t just fire, it was confusion. He’d give the old man something to do at home to keep him occupied, something important-sounding, like manning an old radio.
“They’re in the forest.”
Cal looked up again, concealing nothing this time.
“Your mugs are in the forest?”
Ted held up the piece of paper he found. There was writing on it.
“The boys left a note. They stopped here for supplies. They’re headed north through the forest, to the armory.”
Cal stood straight up. “To Ironsford?”
Teddy nodded. “It’s where Fish’s dad served.”
Cal swallowed, looked at the floor. The thought of two boys trying to cross ninety miles of woods was unthinkable. It made Cal nervous, and the search just got a whole lot worse. Gone was any hope of cornfields or sidewalks or civilization.
“I know where they’ll go first,” Teddy said. “There’s a path they frequent that goes as far as the river. After that, we’ll need horses. I got horses.”
Ted was back in the plan. He had to be. If Teddy knew how to get to those boys before they got too deep into the forest, Cal was all for it. There are bad things in those woods, both two- and four-legged. Cal felt like cussing, despite his relief.
“At least this means they’re on their own, that they haven’t been—taken.” Cal paused on the word. “But they must have seen something, seen who it was shot Breadwin.”
Teddy shook his head, his mouth tight in disagreement.
“What?”
“There’s more,” said Teddy. He stopped and held out the note for Cal to read. Cal stepped forward to take it. Teddy’s eyes glistened in the dim kitchen light.
Cal straightened the wrinkled note, began reading aloud: “Fish had me put this note on your fridge to tell you we are running away.” He stopped and skimmed the rest and pushed his lips together, swallowed.
When he looked up, Teddy’s eyes were red-rimmed and wet, but then a different sort of question rose in his expression. Ted held his nose in the air a bit, as if he’d smelled something. Cal had forgotten about the whiskey in his stomach and stepped immediately back across the kitchen.
“This is all right, Teddy,” he said. “This is okay. We know where they are and where they’re headed.”
“There’s more to it,” said Teddy, and Cal heard the deep reluctance in the words.
Cal waited. Looked at him. The question was gone from Teddy’s face. There were more important things to worry about than why the young sheriff has whiskey on his breath. Maybe Teddy hadn’t smelled it at all.
Teddy closed his eyes as he spoke. “The note says they’re off to meet Fish’s dad at the armory.”
“Makes sense. It’s a person to run toward.”
Teddy shook his head. He took off his cap and wiped back his gray hair.
“Fish’s father is dead.” The kitchen fell silent. “It’s why Fischer’s mom sends him up here to stay with me during summers.”
“But the note says—”
“Bread wrote the note.” There was impatience in Teddy’s voice now. “Fischer must never have told him the truth.”
Cal stared at the note. Something turned deep in his gut, a memory of some old familiar sensation.
“Those boys,” Teddy spoke slowly, “are running through the woods toward something that ain’t there.” He took a rattling breath.
Cal folded his map. “I’ll be back here at dawn, Ted. I’m gonna wake up Bobby. Be ready to leave.”
Teddy remained slumped back against the kitchen counter. He stared at the floor.
“Teddy, you all right for this? You don’t have to come.” Few locals knew the woods better than Teddy Branson—except maybe Burt Akinson, who was not Cal’s first choice of guides—but he also didn’t want to drag a man into a search if he wasn’t clear-headed.
Teddy stood up straight, pulled his cap down tightly on his head. He took a breath. “Can you ride a horse, Sheriff?”
“I was planning on taking my truck.”
Teddy shook his head. “The boys are on foot. We will be too. I’ll saddle my mare for you. All roads end at that river.”
As the door closed behind him, Cal cussed under his breath. In his truck he took out his whiskey bottle, held it almost to his lips, and then he cussed at it and capped it and drove away.
CAL WALKED UP THE STEPS OF A SMALL GREEN HOUSE NORTH OF Claypot and looked for a doorbell in the starlight. Jacks stood by his side, sniffing the concrete steps. Weeds grew up alongside the porch, but so did lilies and some kind of good-smelling shrub that pricked his finger when he touched it. Cal straightened his vest, quietly cleared his throat. He had almost knocked on this door
