Emerging from the corn to cross the yard she nearly slipped again as she had at the riverside, the ground a leaching mouth that sucked at her shoes, patterned by treads from all those that had come and gone. There were footprints under the elm and the apple tree of every shape and size, the whole farm tracked over. If the one print she believed had belonged to the drifter remained it was mixed up among the rest. Walking with her eyes lowered to watch her own feet, she didn’t see the government man standing on the porch until she started up the steps. Right away she recognized him, from a month ago when their positions were reversed. He stood above her now under the pouring eave, his umbrella propped beside the front door instead of James’s gun. As if he had already taken possession of the place. He looked wrong with the unpainted door and the peeling clapboard of the house behind him. He seemed untouched by the weather, the slicker he wore over his charcoal suit the only evidence he’d come through it. He took off his fedora to reveal a head of dark golden hair. They looked at each other, his eyes very blue. “How long have you been here?” she asked, glancing over to see his black Dodge coupe near the end of the track as if he’d made it no farther, its wheels sunk into the marshy grass.
“Not long. I hoped you’d be back.”
“Who sent you?”
“Pardon?”
“Who made you come?”
“Oh. My chief sent me.”
“Why didn’t he come himself?”
“Well,” Washburn said, fidgeting with his shirt collar. “I volunteered. I was sorry to hear about your daughter. I came out here to see what I could do for you and your husband.”
“No, you didn’t,” Annie Clyde said.
Washburn stared at her. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“You came out here to run me off. Same as you did before.”
“Not at all, Mrs. Dodson. That’s not so. I came out here to let you know we’re doing everything we can to aid the law in finding your daughter. You can rest assured of that.”
“So I ought to go on and leave it up to you. Is that it?”
“No, ma’am. I didn’t say that.”
Annie Clyde forgot her chilled and aching bones, her shaky legs. She came up the steps onto the porch until they stood toe-to-toe. “I’m not going anywhere without my child. I don’t care if I have to row out of here in a boat. If Ellard tries to arrest me, I’ll shoot him. He’s a nice man, but I’m not above it. You go back and tell the bastards that sent you the same thing.”
“Please, Mrs. Dodson,” Washburn said. A lock of hair had fallen out of place on his forehead. He held his hat between them and she felt its crown against her belly. He seemed more human then, too much like her husband. She wished that he didn’t. “I want to be of service.”
“You mean to help me look for my little girl?”
“Yes,” he said. “I intend to help with the search.”
“You might as well not.”
He gaped at her dumbfounded.
“If you’re looking for a dead body floating in the water, you’re not going to find one. I’m telling you, she didn’t wander off and drown. She was taken. But nobody will listen to me.”
“I’ll listen to you. I’m on your side.”
“What do you think you can do for me?”
“I’ve spoken to Sheriff Moody. I’ll make sure he has whatever resources he needs at his disposal, and I’ll do what I can to get your little girl’s picture in the Knoxville newspapers.”
“You haven’t said her name. Do you even know it?”
Washburn glanced down at his fedora, sullied by her dress front. “Yes. I know it.”
“We named her Mary Grace, after both of our mothers. We call her Gracie.”
“I know her name—”
“What if her last name was Lindbergh?”
He blinked at her, speechless again.
“What would you do for her then?”
“Mrs. Dodson—”
“We read the newspapers. They come to us late, but we get them. Even way out here, we’ve heard about that Lindbergh baby. You think the Lindberghs have heard of Gracie?”
Washburn was losing his composure. “I sympathize with your situation, Mrs. Dodson. I’m asking you to cooperate with me, for your daughter’s sake. You need my help.”
“You’re not helping me,” Annie Clyde said. “You’re holding me up.”
“Please,” he said, and moved as if to touch her. She shrank from his hand, backing out of his reach. She felt weak. One finger laid on her shoulder might break her down. She stepped around him and made for the door. When she yanked it open she could smell coffee and bread. Her stomach seized with hunger. She was about to shut the door in the government man’s face when she saw the Winchester leaned against the wallpaper in the shadows at the foot of the stairs. James must have figured he wouldn’t be using it. Without hesitation she reached out to grab it, all thought of food and rest driven from her mind. Holding on to the rifle, she felt renewed somewhat. She felt like she could walk a piece farther. She took up the lightweight gun and turned to face Washburn again. “Gracie’s not dead,” she told him. “I’m going to find her.”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”
“You’ll go home, Mr. Washburn. If your vehicle’s stuck somebody will push you out.”
“If you’ll just give me a chance—”
“If you don’t get out of my way,” she said, “I’ll have to point my husband’s gun at you.”
Washburn held her gaze as long as he could. “I’ll be here when you get back,” he said.
“Get out of my way,” she ordered, and he stepped aside. She felt his blue eyes on her as she went down the steps and out of the yard, across the track toward the slope leading into the hollow. He called after her as she climbed over the split-rail fence marking the boundary of her property and she almost turned around. If she went back he would come with her and she wouldn’t be alone in this, even if he was only pretending to believe her. At least she wouldn’t be heading off to shoot a man and bring Gracie home by herself. At the last second though she came to her senses, pulled herself upright and squared her shoulders so Washburn could see her resolve. She kept moving ahead with only her husband’s Winchester rifle for company.
Halfway up the hillside weariness overtook her. She panted as she tripped on roots and rocks, skinning her knees and palms. By the time she reached the graveyard, a shady plot of grass bordered with white pickets, she was winded and had to lean on the gate. The cemetery was within a hair of the taking line. A few weeks ago James had offered to help move these graves for the power company. He would have dug her parents up and had them shipped by train to Michigan, but Annie Clyde was leaving her people to lie in peace. From where she stood she could see her father’s headstone. Sometimes she came to sit against it, comforted by the granite at her back, as firm and rough as his hands had been. It was easier there to remember how she took off her shoes to walk behind him as he plowed. To remember the rattle of the harness as he drove the mules, his soft voice urging them. Annie Clyde’s mother had saved for months to pay a stonecutter to carve Clyde Walker’s name on his marker. Now Mary’s grave was there beside her husband’s, too meager a headstone to cover the person she’d been. Annie Clyde would have given anything to talk to her parents. But they were gone and she was on her own.