She stepped from the car and walked toward the barn. The sheriff’s truck was parked between the barn and the stable, as was Teddy’s. A small sedan Tiffany didn’t recognize was parked in the driveway near the house. There was no sign of the dog. A cow looked at her from the stable, as if waiting for her to do something interesting, and then it scratched its forehead on a fence post.
Tiffany was losing steam. “You seen a dog?” she asked the cow in a quiet voice. The cow licked the post where it had scratched its head and stepped away toward its feed.
Tiffany began to cry. The wind out here in the farm fields felt cooler than it should have. It stripped the sunlight from her body. She folded her arms around herself as she walked to the house. Maybe she’d sit on the porch awhile, wait for the dog to show up, or for the sheriff to come back so she could tell him she failed. The sheriff would probably be nice about it, which would be the worst part, because she knew he’d never trust her again, and their relationship would forever be reduced to thirty-second conversations about the price of gas and empty coffee carafes. Tiffany’s eyes blurred as she pulled herself up the front porch. She felt her throat tighten. She just couldn’t hold it in.
As she turned to sit, the front door swung open. Tiffany stood and took a startled step backward. A tall woman with dark hair and reddened eyes stood in the doorway. She was holding a balled-up Kleenex in one hand and the box in the other.
“Who are you?” asked the woman. There was confusion in her eyes, as if she’d been woken from sleep, or hadn’t slept at all. There was something familiar about those eyes too, their fierce competence, the way they were set in her face over that slim nose.
“My name’s Tiffany,” she said, wiping a tear from her face with the heel of her hand. She didn’t like for strangers to see her cry. She didn’t like for anyone to see her cry. The woman handed her a Kleenex. As Tiffany reached forward and begrudgingly took it, she realized who the woman must be.
“You’re Teddy Branson’s daughter, aren’t you?” asked Tiffany, pressing the Kleenex against her cheekbones.
The woman nodded.
“I’m so sorry to—” Tiffany paused. She could hardly describe to herself what she was doing here. “I came out here looking for a dog, the sheriff’s dog.” Tiffany waved her crumpled Kleenex out at the fields and her eyes blurred over with tears again. “And I thought he liked me, and I bought his dog a stupid cat, and now he’s not going to talk to me again.” She felt miserable gushing like this, but it didn’t matter. Not much did. All seemed lost in that bright morning light, those brown empty fields. “And you,” she went on, feeling even lower, “you’re here to find your boy.” Tiffany’s voice broke completely as she said it, guilt upon guilt, waves of it.
The woman stepped onto the porch and gave Tiffany another Kleenex. She looked out at the fields and the forest behind them. She looked at the young woman with purple hair crying on her dad’s porch.
“Come inside,” she said.
Tiffany let herself sob, feeling both pathetic and grateful.
“My name’s Miranda,” said the woman. “And I don’t mind company.”
Seven
“STILL TOO SHORT,” SAID FISH. “WE NEED LONGER ONES.”
Bread’s shoulders dropped. He held in his hands a bouquet of spruce roots not much longer than flower stems. He dropped them on the moss, wiped his hands, and trudged back to the small grove of spruce trees to try again. “Longer roots, longer roots,” he mumbled. “I can’t find no longer roots.”
Fish thought better of responding. After his grandpa and the sheriff crossed the river, the boys moved about a mile downstream, until they found a clearing in the cedars. Foot trails no longer existed, and they often had to force their way through brambles and tangles of pine. The woods left little sign of their passage. The wall of thorns and sap closed behind them, and they got to work on their raft.
Fish looked up at the sun. It was high in the sky now, well past noon. He’d busied himself for most of the morning trying to cut down
