Before the TVA came along, flooding caused Ellard’s neighbors as much or more grief as being run off their land by the government would. He couldn’t help thinking back to the flood of 1925 on his way out to the Walker farm to search for Gracie Dodson, especially since James’s father Earl Dodson had been among the many lost that season. It was the worst flood Yuneetah had ever seen, the whole valley devastated. He heard when it was over there was a steamboat in the middle of the street in Chattanooga. After the waters receded he went out in rubber waders to see what he could do for the town and came upon Wayne Deering stumbling around with one brogan on, the other sucked off by the sump. Not much remained of Wayne’s hog farm by the river. His two eldest sons were with him but his wife and three other children were missing, swept away when the porch they stood on was rent from the house. It didn’t take Ellard long to find the body of Wayne’s daughter slathered in clay on the riverbank. Farther down shore he spotted a mattress lodged in the branches of a sweet gum. He waded out and shinnied up the tree high enough to look down on the mattress, soaked and matted with vines. Lying in the middle was the smallest Deering, a baby in a nightshirt waving its arms and legs, its jaw trembling and its lips blue. As Ellard shifted his weight shavings of bark fell into its eyes. When it turned red in the face and began to wail, Ellard knew that it would live. He clung to the sweet gum branches for longer than he should have, too stunned to reach for the baby. Wayne’s wife washed up dead the next morning with the wreckage on a raft of barn board. But the third Deering child had seemed to vanish. No body was ever found. Ten years later Ellard was still looking for him, beating the bushes for his bones. Not finding him numbered among the regrets he counted alone in his apartment at night. Ellard had been a younger and more hopeful man back in 1925. Now, after twenty years as sheriff, he thought a second missing child might be more than he could stand.
With his mind wandering, Ellard was startled when James’s Model A Ford loomed out of the rain ahead. By then they were within sight of the Walker farm, which meant James had walked over five miles to town. Ellard guessed without looking at his pocket watch that it was sometime around eight o’clock. He guided the car through the slough and around the truck as well as he could, his wheels spinning but not getting stuck. James didn’t look at the mired Ford as they passed. He kept his eyes on the rills streaming down the window until Ellard turned beside the cornfield, headlamps cutting through the downpour and sweeping the stalks. But partway up the track Ellard slammed on his brakes. Something else had appeared like a ghost in the glow of his headlamps. It took an instant for him to recognize Annie Clyde Dodson. He’d come close to running her down. She came around to his side of the car and took his arm as soon as he stepped out, her fingers biting in deep. “Come,” she panted, water dripping off her chin.
Ellard stood in the rain trying to light the lantern he’d brought. “Hold up, Annie Clyde—”
“That old woman’s lying,” she said.
“If you’ll just be still for a minute—”
“Beulah Kesterson claims he was with her.”
Ellard’s eyes flicked to James. “Can you fetch us another lantern?” he asked. After James disappeared in the dark he turned back to Annie Clyde. “I need you to talk sense.”
“What did James tell you?”
“That your little one slipped off from the house.”
Annie Clyde shook her head. “No.”
“Well, what did happen then?”
“Somebody took her.”
“You seen somebody take her?”
“I saw him with her.”
“Who did you see?”
“Amos.”
Ellard covered her hand with his own. “Amos was here?”
“He was down there in the corn.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Come on,” she repeated. “We don’t have time.”
“Wait, now,” Ellard said. “Let’s figure this out.”
She snatched her hand away. “I’m trying to tell you. There’s a footprint.”
“All right,” he said, stepping back some. “Here comes your husband with the light.”
When James reached them, the lantern he carried haloed in mist, the three of them headed out to the hayfield together. Ellard’s thoughts were racing. There were few people he disliked, but Amos was one of them. Ellard’s father had been kind to Amos because he was an orphan. He had taught Ellard and Amos both to shoot. Ellard thought back to the night that, for the first time, his father allowed the boys to carry rifles. They were around ten years old. It was November and cold on the mountainside where they turned loose the hounds. While they trudged over the crackling leaves Amos’s eyes were fixed on Ellard and not the path before them. As Ellard’s father went on with the neighbors in their mackinaws and caps, Ellard lagged behind. Amos matched his stride, holding back even though he was nimble enough to move faster. Then the dogs took off baying and the men ran after them. Ellard hustled to keep up, but their lanterns grew farther off. Soon the high yelping of the dogs faded and the men were out of sight over a ridge. There was silence except for the sound of his feet on the trail. He could barely make out the faint glow of light through the woods ahead. Clumsy in the oversized boots he was wearing, Ellard tripped forward and lay in the powdery snow. He was about to get up when he heard the cock of a rifle. He turned himself over on the frozen ground and saw Amos standing above him with the gun pointed at his heart. He gaped up at the other boy’s soulless face, unable to breathe. At the age of ten, Ellard already had a sense of his fate being decided. He covered his eyes. There was nothing but the cold and the yelping dogs. In his mind he saw the hounds gathered around the tree, leaping over each other to get at the coon as it clung to the tip of a branch. He waited for the gunshot, but nothing happened. “Blam,” Amos said. Ellard uncovered his face. Amos lowered the rifle. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “I was just funning you.”
There was no way of knowing why Amos did such things or when he would do them. He was unpredictable. Ellard had learned back then to stay away from him. He had felt from the time they were children together in the hollow that darkness seeping out of Amos. In later years he’d had clearer reasons, but as a boy Ellard couldn’t have explained his loathing. It seemed they were born enemies. Of course, it was hard to tell if Amos had enough human feeling in his breast to love or hate Ellard either one. At the least, he was a troublemaker. As sheriff, Ellard had kept the town as ordered as his rooms at the courthouse. He had seen himself to Yuneetah’s upkeep, appointing crews to repair any storm damage done to the roofs each spring and to dig drainage ditches along the roads. The town was for the most part peaceful, until Amos would arrive. He always brought disorder. There were more fights for Ellard to break up, more farming accidents. There seemed even to be more deaths of natural causes when Amos passed through. He never left Yuneetah without making some manner of mess, if it was only a shattered storefront window. One autumn he had failed to smother a campfire he’d lit in Buck Shelton’s back field and burned down the pole barn. Ellard was sure Amos had left that fire going on purpose.