town to wear a necktie every day. He was also the main deacon in the church, and, by common consent the man most likely to marry Peach if she ever remarried. Charlie was a widower, and richer by far than Benny had ever been. Nobody liked him, not even Peach, but she was too practical a woman to let that stop her if she took a notion to marry.
When Roscoe saw them coming he snapped shut his whittling knife and put the stick he had been whittling in his shirt pocket. There was no law against whittling, but he didn't want to get a reputation as an idler, particularly not with a man who was as apt as not to end up the next mayor of Fort Smith.
'Morning, folks,' he said, when the two walked up.
'Roscoe, I thought July gave you instructions to look after Elmira,' Peach said.
'Well, he said take her a fish if I caught one, but I ain't caught any lately,' Roscoe said. He felt a little guilty without even knowing what was wrong, for Elmira had not once crossed his mind since July left.
'If I know July-and I do know July-I bet he said more than that,' Peach said.
'Well, he said to carry her some groceries if she asked, but she ain't asked,' he said.
'When have you seen her?' Charlie Barnes asked. He was looking stern, though it was hand for a man so short and fat to really muster much sternness.
The question stumped Roscoe. Probably he had seen Elmira recently, but when he thought about it he couldn't think when. The woman was not much for traipsing around town. Right after the marriage she had been seen in the stores some, spending July's money, but he couldn't recollect having seen her in a stone in recent days.
'You know Elmira,' he said. 'She don't come out much. Mainly she just stays in the cabin.'
'Well, she ain't in it now,' Peach said.
'We think she's gone,' Charlie Barnes said.
'Why, where would she go?' Roscoe said.
Peach and Charlie didn't answer, and a silence fell.
'Maybe she just took a walk,' Roscoe said, although he knew that sounded weak.
'That's what I thought yesterday,' Peach said. 'She wasn't there yesterday and she ain't there today. I doubt she'd take no overnight walk.'
Roscoe had to admit it was unlikely. The nearest town, Catfish Grove, was fourteen miles away, and not much of a destination at that.
'Maybe she just don't want to answer the door,' he said. 'She takes a lot of naps.'
'Nope, I went in and looked,' Peach said. 'There ain't a soul in that cabin, and there wasn't yesterday, neither.'
'We think she's gone,' Charlie Barnes said again. He was not a talkative man.
Roscoe got up from his comfortable seat. If Elmira was indeed gone, that constituted a serious problem. Peach and Charlie stood there as if they expected him to do something, or tell them right off where she had gone.
'I wonder if something got her?' he asked, thinking out loud. There were still plenty of bears in the woods, and some said there were panthers, though he himself had never seen one.
'If she wandered off, anything could have got her,' Peach said. 'Could have been an animal or it could have been a man.'
'Why, Peach, I don't know why a man would want her,' Roscoe said, only to realize that the remark probably sounded funny. After all, Peach was related to her.
'I don't either, but I ain't a man,' Peach said, giving Charlie Barnes a hard look. Roscoe thought it unlikely that Charlie wanted Elmira. It might be that he didn't even want Peach.
He walked to the edge of the porch and looked up the street, hoping to see Elmira standing in it. In all his years as a deputy he had never heard of a woman just getting lost, and it seemed unfair that it should happen to July's wife. There was nobody in the street but a farmer with a mule team.
'Why, I'll go have a look,' he said. 'Maybe she just went visiting.'
'Who would she visit?' Peach asked. 'She ain't been out of that cabin more than twice since July married her. She don't know the names of five people in this town. I was just going to take her some dumplings, since July is gone off. If I hadn't done it I doubt she would have even been missed.'
From her tone Roscoe got the clear implication that he had been remiss in his duty. In fact, he had meant to look in on Elmira at some point, but the time had passed so quickly he had forgotten to.
'Well, I'll go right up there,' he said, trying to sound cheerful. 'I expect she'll turn up.'
'We think she's gone,' Charlie Barnes said, for the third time.
Roscoe decided to go at once to keep from having to hear Charlie Barnes repeat himself all morning. He tipped his hat to Peach and started for the cabin, but to his dismay Peach and Charlie stayed right at his heels. It disturbed him to have company, but there was nothing he could do about it. It seemed to him curious that Peach would take Elmira dumplings, for the two women were known not to get along; it crossed his mind that Elmira had seen Peach coming and gone into hiding.
Sure enough, the cabin was empty. There was no sign that anybody had been in it for a day or two. A slab of corn bread sat on the cookstove, already pretty well nibbled by the mice.
'She mostly sat in the loft,' Roscoe said, mainly to hear himself talk. Hearing himself was better than hearing Peach.
'There ain't nothing up there but a pallet,' Peach said.
That proved to be the truth. It was not much of a pallet, either-just a couple of quilts. July, being the youngest of the Johnson family, had never had any money and had not accumulated much in the way of goods.
Roscoe racked his brain to try and think if there was anything missing, but he had never been in the loft before and could not think of a possession that might have been missing-just Elmira.
'Didn't she have shoes on, when they got hitched?' he asked.
Peach looked disgusted. 'Of course she had shoes on,' she said. 'She wasn't that crazy.'
'Well, I don't see no shoes in this cabin, men's or women's,' Roscoe said. 'If she's gone, I guess she wore 'em.'
They went out and walked around the cabin. Roscoe was hoping to find a trail, but there were weeds all around the cabin, wet with dew, and all he did was get his pants legs wet. He was growing more and more uneasy-if Elmira was just in hiding from Peach he wished she'd give up and come out. If July came back and found his new wife missing, there was no telling how upset he'd be.
It seemed to him the most likely explanation was bears, though he knew it wasn't a foolproof explanation. If a bear had just walked in and got her, there would have been some blood on the floor. On the other hand, no bear had ever walked into Fort Smith and got a woman, though one had entered a cabin near Catfish Grove and carried off a baby.
'I guess a bear got her unless she's hiding,' he said, unhappily. Being a deputy sheriff had suddenly gotten a lot harder.
'We think she's gone,' Charlie Barnes said, with irritating persistence. If a bear had got her, of course she would be gone.
'He means we think she's left,' Peach said.
That made no sense at all, since the woman had just married July.
'Left to go where?' he said. 'Left to do what?'
'Roscoe, you ain't got the sense God gave a turkey,' Peach said, abandoning her good manners. 'If she left, she just left-left. My guess is she got tired of living with July.'
That was such a radical thought that merely trying to think it gave Roscoe the beginnings of a headache.
'My God, Peach,' he said, feeling stunned.
'There's no need to swear, Roscoe,' Peach said. 'We all seen it coming. July's a fool or he wouldn't have married her.'
'It could have been a bear, though,' Roscoe said. All of a sudden, it seemed the lesser of two evils. If Elmira was dead July might eventually get over it-if she had run off, there was no telling what he might do.
'Well, where's the tracks, then?' Peach asked. 'If a bear came around, all the dogs in this town would have barked, and half the horses would have run away. If you ask me, Elmira's the one that run away.'
'My God,' Roscoe said again. He knew he was going to get blamed, no matter what.
'I bet she took that whiskey boat,' Peach said. In fact, a boat had headed upriver only a day or two after July left.
