Kind of Kin (16 page)

“I think so.”

“Drive out there and park, but don't use your headlights. One of you needs to walk in front with the flashlight, shine it low on the ground in front of the tires, don't be waving it around. Hear?” Misty nodded, told Juanito. Sweet could see the quick comprehension in his face. He slipped around the front of the truck and climbed up, started the motor. Sweet guided him in backing out with low sweeping motions of the flashlight, then handed it to Misty. She waited until the truck rumbled around the side of the barn and disappeared into the dark pasture. Good thing that battery's low, she thought. A passerby wouldn't even notice the dim light bobbing along close to the ground—though who she thought might be passing by at this hour, she couldn't say. Just
them
somehow. The strangers who'd been hounding her. She didn't use her own headlights until she was well out of the yard. Her mind was moving fast.

The main thing was money—well, wasn't money always the main thing? But in this case it really was. She didn't like using the credit card; they'd gotten into such a mess, her and Terry, but that was a few years ago, and it was almost all paid off now. Sweet had cut up all their cards, including their ATM cards because they'd both gotten in a bad habit of stopping at the E-Z Mart to get cash and paying those stupid fees, and then they'd end up broke before the end of the month and have to start charging gas and groceries on the credit cards again. So she'd cut up everything except their two VISA cards, which she'd put in an empty Cool Whip tub and filled it with water and stuck it in the freezer. They were only supposed to thaw them out in case of an emergency, but what would you call this if not an emergency?

When she arrived at the house, though, she couldn't find the container. She took everything out of the freezer, every tray of chicken legs and tube of Jimmy Dean sausage and box of frozen peas, laid them all in the sink, but the white tub wasn't here. For a moment she panicked, thinking somebody had broken in, until she realized it was Terry. At the Black Angus Motel in Poteau. Using the credit card.
Their
credit card. She thought back to their final fight Thursday evening, Carl Albert sobbing and hiccupping in the hallway, Terry stuffing his things in a duffel bag in the kitchen, yelling at Carl to get what he wanted from his room because they were not coming back! She'd been pacing and fuming in the front room and she didn't watch him, but of course he would have just grabbed the whole Cool Whip tub; he wouldn't have taken time to stick it in the microwave to thaw it and retrieve only his own card. Hardly.

Now what? she thought. Now what. She sat on the wooden stool at the kitchen counter with her hand on her purse. She didn't need to take out her check register; she knew what it said. The number would not have magically improved since she wrote their tithe check yesterday morning. But that deposit wouldn't have been made yet, would it? She could call Brother Oren. A wave of relief swept her. Yes. She'd call the preacher as soon as it got to be a decent hour, ask him to hold on to the check till next week, and when the bank opened in Wilburton she'd go to the drive-through and get cash. It'd be broad daylight by the time the kids got on the road, but that couldn't be helped. They couldn't go without money. Sweet doubted they even had enough gas to make it to Fort Smith. She began to gather a few items. They would have a long wait in the truck. She unplugged Terry's rechargeable flashlight from the pantry outlet, grabbed a bag of chips and an unopened jar of salsa, stopped by the hall closet and got down an old quilt, then snuck out to her Taurus and coasted back out of the driveway with her lights off.

As soon as she hit the gravel turnoff to the farm, she knew she'd made a mistake. In the rearview she saw not one set of headlights but two. How dumb could she be? She should have told the kids to drive on to Wister, she'd catch up with them there. They were hemmed in now—the pasture fence was all grown up with briars and those ugly little wahoo trees; Daddy hadn't sprayed or cleared it in years. The only way out for Juanito's truck was back here through the barnyard. Sweet pulled over close to the house, thinking maybe she could draw the reporters this direction. Her mind clicked fast, trying to come up with some kind of a story for what she was doing out here in the dark at this hour, alone.

But when the vehicles pulled in and parked, they turned out not to be news vans but big F-350 pickups pulling horse trailers. What in the world? Baffled, Sweet sat in her car. In a minute Clyde Herrington tapped on her window. She turned the key, glided down the glass. “Where's Terry?” Clyde said. Sweet half opened her mouth, couldn't think of anything. She shrugged. “When he gets here,” Clyde said, “let him know he's welcome to ride that red mare of mine if he wants. I'm not gonna saddle her till I see if we need her.” He withdrew into the dark yard. Another truck and horse trailer pulled in. Soon there were seven trucks and trailers. Sweet could hear the thunk and rattle of shod hooves on metal flooring as the men backed their horses out of the trailers, the chink and clink of bridles, the soft creak of leather, murmured voices. Holloway's cruiser drove into the barnyard then, red and blue lights flashing, followed by a white Latimer County Sheriff's Department pickup and, yes, five TV news vans. She knew without being told that Arvin Holloway had hatched up this little showcase, a horseback search party, something showy and western, for the big-city news. She'd bet anything he'd contacted the stations himself.

Soon there were floodlights revealing a dozen or so ranchers in cowboy hats and Carhartt jackets milling about, coughing in the morning air, sharing thermoses of coffee. She prayed the kids would stay put across the pasture. Surely they wouldn't try to come back here. All this light and noise here at the barn, truck doors slamming, generators humming. Please, honey, Sweet said in her mind to Misty. Y'all be still, be silent. Be smart. Please, God, let the baby sleep. Don't let her wake up and get scared and start crying. The sheriff sauntered to the barn and positioned himself in front of the open door, waiting for the floodlights to be set for the cameras. At least with all these trucks and vans, Sweet thought, the tire marks from Juanito's pickup will be wiped out. But what about inside the barn? She quickly got out of the car and hurried over, halting just outside the circle of light. “Morning, Sheriff,” she said, running her fingers back through her uncombed hair.

“Well, if it ain't Sweet Georgia Brown herself. Come out for the mountain search, did ya?” Holloway looked past her toward the milling ranchers behind her. “Where's that ornery husband of yours?”

“Oh, him and some of the guys he works with are covering the south pasture.” She was amazed at how easily the lie came to her. “They're fixing to head on up over the ridge from there.”

“In the dark?”

“They wanted to get an early start.”

“I don't know how much earlier start a person needs than five
A.M.
” Clearly Holloway didn't like anybody getting a jump on him, stealing his thunder in any possible way. He eyed Sweet in her bulky sweatpants and bunchy sweatshirt. “Hadn't seen them oatmeal cookies you promised.”

“I've had a few other things on my mind, Arvin.” She tried to hold the dislike out of her voice; it wouldn't help to make him mad.

“Is that right.” His face suddenly became very serious and official looking. He barked at a passing deputy. “Hector! You bring them graphs and maps like I asked you? Well, get 'em the hell over here! What d'ya think I'm standing here for, waiting on you to get in the blame mood?” Positioning himself in the glow of the portable lights, Holloway made a great show of unrolling the topographical maps, holding them up and pointing to the squiggly lines and whorls, ordering this bunch to cover this ridge, that bunch to cover that one, while the cameras hummed ever so faintly.

“Mrs. Kirkendall?” It was the brunette from Channel 2. “I wonder if you'd be willing to say a word for us? Maybe, you know, make an appeal from the family?”

“I already did that,” Sweet said.

“Yes, ma'am,” the reporter said. “But 2News Working for You has such devoted viewers. Isn't it possible one of them might have seen something?” She lilted the words, coaxing gently. “They might catch you on tonight's broadcast and come forward. Sometimes an appeal from the family can really help.” She glanced toward the barn where Holloway was holding forth on how rough the terrain was—too rough for vehicles, even jeeps, he said. A four-wheeler or a four-footed mule, that's what you needed, and even a four-wheeler couldn't get through the underbrush, them searchers would have to get off their fat fannies and walk. He was looking at the ranchers when he said it, but they were all local men; they didn't need to be told how rough this country was. The sheriff's little speech was meant for the TV crews, who were lapping it up. As Sweet watched, the Channel 2 news reporter very studiedly turned her back on the sheriff; she held her microphone a respectful distance from Sweet's face, nodded almost imperceptibly to her cameraman, who adjusted his lights, started shooting. Sweet thought to herself, Keep them occupied. Keep them busy. Don't give them any reason to go wandering around. She kept her eyes on the reporter's face. A pretty girl, not much older than Misty Dawn, with good skin and perfect teeth and two last names, Logan Morgan, Morgan Logan. A girl who'd almost certainly never had a member of her family arrested. Or deported. Or lost.

“My nephew is a little innocent child,” Sweet said. “He didn't have anything to do with those Mexicans, or with his grandpa helping them. But folks have been saying terrible things. Do you know some of the things they've been saying?” The reporter smiled encouragingly. “I don't care what the law is,” Sweet said, “that little boy doesn't
deserve
to be missing. This family doesn't
deserve
it. Wherever Dusty is, he's probably so scared. We had that bad rain night before last, he's probably out there in the woods alone, cold and frightened . . . looking for shelter.” A thought struck her then, so crisp and clear it was almost like somebody said the words in her brain: the old coal mine. Maybe Dustin had taken shelter in that old mine. Sweet almost called out to Holloway to ask if they'd thought to go inside the mine to look, but she caught herself. The mine was sunk into the ridge on the south side of Cedar Creek, and the low-water bridge that crossed the creek to get there was only a couple hundred yards past the place where Misty and Juanito were hiding. “We appreciate what the sheriff is doing,” Sweet went on, “all the volunteers, but they're fixing to head south into the mountains on horseback. I don't know why my nephew would go there. I think it's more likely he went west.”

“West?” the reporter chipped, a quick, bright-eyed sparrow. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, Wilburton's west of here. That's where his grandpa's in jail. I can't see Dusty going some other direction. I think he might've set out for the jail on one of the back roads. There's lots of woods between here and Wilburton. My husband is out there searching now. We tried to tell this to Sheriff Holloway, but it's hard to get him to listen.” For the first time ever, Sweet smiled at Morgan Logan, Logan Morgan. “You're a pretty girl,” she said. “Reckon you could get him to listen to you?”

Monday | February 25, 2008 | 7:00
A.M.

Hunter's Ridge Apartments | Oklahoma City

“Y
ou're going to have to go down there, babe,” Charlie said, reaching for the jelly. Monica got up from the breakfast nook, carried her plate to the sink and scraped her untouched poached egg into the disposal, put the plate in the dishwasher. She stood looking at the television across the apartment. There was the kid's face again, that same grade-school picture. The banner underneath read:

Monica turned and poured the rest of her coffee down the sink. “You got to grab back the reins,” Charlie was saying. “Tell it your way.”

“I know that! Don't you think I know that?” She stepped across the room and fumbled under the scattered newspapers for the remote. As long as the coverage had stayed local, the spin had remained positive. Local media understood that Oklahomans, certainly the hefty majority of white Oklahomans, supported her law. But then the kid had to go and disappear, and once the news went national, the whole story line changed. They kept running this same picture of the kid over and over, his sad eyes and shaggy hair, that almost smile. On the screen an overly serious female reporter was intoning about “little Dustin Brown, who vanished from the family farm in southeastern Oklahoma after the arrest of his grandfather . . .” intercut with aerial scenes of the search site. The anchor's talking head reappeared framed by changing boxes showing the kid's picture, the sheriff in front of a microphone, men on horseback, a stock-footage view from the upstairs gallery of the empty House floor. Monica switched off the TV, went to the bedroom to finish dressing. She heard the television click back on. Charlie and his damn clicker. She grabbed her green velvet jacket from the hall closet. Charlie was staring into his open laptop on the coffee table. “Good luck, babe,” he said, without looking up.

The drive to the capitol was too short; she needed more time to get her presentation together—not her presentation for House Bill 1906, which was coming up for the floor vote this afternoon and for which she'd practiced diligently all yesterday evening, but her presentation of Oklahoma State Representative Monica Moorehouse: her calm, unruffled answers, her self-deprecating smile. She pulled into a Starbucks drive-through. Four cars ahead of her. Fine. She tugged down the visor mirror. Oh, the cucumber slices Kevin recommended had helped not at all. She patted the fatty skin under her eyes. It wasn't supposed to go this way. How had she lost control of the narrative? Her absence. Her silence. That's what Charlie kept saying. But House Leadership wanted her to keep a low profile until after today's vote—and yes, all right, she'd been glad to acquiesce. She'd spent the weekend on the phone with the Speaker and the majority floor leader, or walking Penn Square Mall in headscarf and sunglasses, or lying in bed with cucumber slices on her eyelids.

On Sunday morning she told Charlie to go on to church without her. “No way, babe,” he said. “Then they'll know you're in town.” Which was true. Her technique for avoiding church more often than she could bear it was to let the people at Saint Luke's Methodist in Oklahoma City think she was at church in McAlester, and the congregation at Grand Avenue United Methodist in McAlester assume she was staying in the city this weekend. This way she only had to put in an appearance at one or the other every third or fourth Sunday during legislative session. This weekend was supposed to be one of her appearance Sundays, but like Charlie said: no way. She had called Kevin in the afternoon to ask if she could stop by (
Ah, no,
mon ami
, I've got
tres, tres
special company!
), did the brisk-walking routine at the mall again, worked a dozen find-the-word puzzles, went to bed straight after
60 Minutes
.

The last several days had been like a yo-yo, up and down, up and down. It was so hard to tell what people were thinking—especially Leadership. Everybody was so maddeningly tight-lipped, waiting to see which way the political winds were going to turn. Well, everybody who counted was mum, that is. There were plenty legislators from both sides of the aisle who were more than glad to rub up against her, metaphorically speaking; they loved all the national attention. But the real powers that be realized that this much uncontrolled media glare had the potential to go against them. Oh, everything would have been fine, absolutely fine, the immigration issue nothing but a win-win for them, for the state, for future elections—if not for that damn kid.