“What do you mean, she’s gone?” buck said.
The girl before him held her head in her hands. “Farrie’s never done this before.” Her voice was rough with tears. “Ever since she was born, practically, my little sister’s never gotten mad with me. And she’s never, never run off.”
Buck looked around. The kitchen was littered with dirty dishes and pots and pans. Scarlett Scraggs was not a neat and orderly cook. After a moment’s hesitation he drew up a chair and cleared a space between the platter of french fries and the garbanzo beans with tomatoes.
“Scarlett, let’s take this from the beginning.” He couldn’t help noticing that in spite of her air of misery, she was wearing her dark hair pulled back with a blue ribbon again and looked adorable. “We’re talking about your sister Farrie?”
She nodded, eyes downcast.
Buck had come into the kitchen wanting an explanation. After all, some Scraggs-appointed boyfriend had tried to kill him. Now, at the sight of Scarlett’s tear-stained face, he found all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and comfort her, kiss that luscious, downturned mouth, the tousled gypsy hair. It was a feeling that slightly amazed him.
He cleared his throat. “Your little sister’s gone somewhere,” he said, “without telling you?”
She shook her head. “Not ‘gone somewhere,’” she corrected him, “she’s run away.” Her voice dropped even lower. “Farrie hates me.”
He found that hard to believe. Not the way Scarlett hovered over her. Besides, the goblin child couldn’t have gone far; it was raining.
“Hates you? How could anybody hate you, Scarlett? Didn’t you say you’ve practically dedicated your life to her? What did you fight about?”
Her eyes slid away. “It was just something to do about us. Talking about where we belong.”
He was seeing Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs being devious. Buck wondered what they had really talked about. He opened his mouth to find out more but the wall telephone in the kitchen rang. With a groan, he got up to answer it.
Scarlett lifted her head to watch Buck lean up against the kitchen wall with his head bent, frowning, as the voice on the other end said something at length.
Buck Grissom was young, but you could just tell by looking at him how powerful he was as sheriff; people jumped when he spoke. And he nearly always scared Farrie half to death. He was a big man, crisp and neat in his tan uniform. His shoulders stretched his shirt tight, and below, his trousers stretched just as tightly across his muscular backside.
It had taken a lot out of Scarlett to explain to Farrie about Devil Anse, how he wanted Scarlett to be friendly with Buck Grissom the way he’d wanted her to be with Loy Potter’s son. Only this time it wasn’t just a ’93 customized six-cylinder Dodge pickup Devil Anse was aiming for, but the sheriff himself.
In return for doing what he said, Devil Anse expected to get a lot, like the sheriff’s looking the other way as far as Scraggs family businesses were concerned.
Watching Buck now, Scarlett couldn’t help wondering if Buck had made up his mind about Devil Anse’s offer. He was hunched against the wall, his hand on the back of his neck, rubbing it as he talked. For a moment she almost felt dizzy. Why not, a little devil in her head whispered, pick up from where they had left off? That is, letting him kiss her?
She was so taken with this idea that she jumped when Buck suddenly roared: “Television crew? George, are these people out of their minds?”
Scarlett’s heated, forbidden thoughts faded and she gave herself a shake. What she had told her little sister was right, that in the end what Devil Anse wanted her to do would bring only trouble not only to Buck Grissom, but to all of them. The only thing to do was leave Nancyville. Since the sheriff’s department still had their money they would have to hitchhike, and even Scarlett didn’t like to think about how they would manage.
When she’d told all this to Farrie, her sister cried, “Sheriff Buck wasn’t being good to us just because of Grandpa’s idea – he likes you, Scarlett! He doesn’t act like Devil Anse!”
“Well, he’s thinking about it.” Even while she said it Scarlett remembered his arms tight around her, the strange mystery of his kiss. “Grandpa made his offer, and he says Buck’s thinking it over.”
Farrie had jumped to her feet. “I don’t care what you say, we’re not leaving! I won’t listen to you! Mr. Ravenwood told me I’m going to be the Spirit of Mistletoe on the Living Christmas Tree, I’m going to sing a part all by myself!”
Farrie was working herself up to be sick, Scarlett knew. She reached out for her, but her sister backed away.
“We can’t leave!” Farrie wailed. “Do like Devil Anse says, Scarlett! If the sheriff wants you to be nice to him – do it!”
Scarlett’s mouth fell open in surprise. But before she could stop her, Farrie had stormed out of the kitchen.
In the upstairs hall she leaned over the banister to yell, “If you make me leave, Scarlett, you’ll be sorry!”
It was what children always said, Scarlett told herself, when they were mad. She left it at that and went back to her cooking. All afternoon she’d thought Farrie was in the front part of the house, sitting by the tree she’d finished decorating, watching the lights.
But when Scarlett looked for her some time later, Farrie was gone.
Buck hung up the telephone. “We’ve got to hurry, if we’re going to look for your sister,” he told her.
What he didn’t say was that in just a few short minutes, according to the department dispatcher, the delegation of Hare Krishnas along with a television news crew from an Atlanta television station would be arriving at the house.
According to George the dispatcher, Nancyville’s mayor and city council members had ducked a confrontation at the courthouse that afternoon. When the Atlanta television news crew wanted to know who enforced the ruling about religious displays on county property the answer had been: the sheriff. It had only taken them seconds to pile into their cars and start for Makim’s Mountain.
“Come on, hurry!” Buck pushed Scarlett toward the kitchen door. When the television people arrived he had to have both Scraggs sisters accounted for, but preferably not hanging around where anyone would notice them. It wasn’t every north Georgia sheriff who had a resident sexpot in the house. And a child he couldn’t reasonably explain.
First they had to locate Farrie. “Let’s start upstairs,” Buck said.
Scarlett didn’t resist as he hurried her down the hall. “You’re looking for clues,” she said breathlessly.
“Yeah, clues.”
The truth was, Buck didn’t have a clear idea of what he was going to do. He had only a few minutes left before the media arrived and he was no expert on missing kids; little Farrie could be anywhere.
Upstairs, he dragged Scarlett to his sister’s old bedroom and threw open the door. But when Buck saw what was on the bed, he swore.
The new clothes, or at least new to the youngest Scraggs, were laid out neatly on top of the ruffled bedspread: a blue and white windbreaker, a knitted cap with a big white pompom, a pair of mittens. Even a peach satin outfit and oversized hat that looked familiar.
Scarlett picked up the hat and held it to her, looking stricken. “When I went to look for Farrie, I saw she’d left all her clothes here. She didn’t even take her warm church coat.”
Buck had a sinking feeling. This much he did know about runaways: they frequently left things behind as a kind of message. And the one from Farrah Fawcett Scraggs said just what it looked like. Good-bye.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at Scarlett. It was bad enough to search for a runaway in summer or spring when the weather was good; a night out in the open then was not exactly fatal. But this was a child who had a hard time taking care of herself even in the best of circumstances. Now it was winter in the mountains with a cold rain falling and night coming on.
So were the Hare Krishnas, Buck thought grimly. And the Atlanta television crew.
Somehow, he told himself as he picked up the telephone on the night table by the bed, he was going have to get through this and make it right. If he didn’t, he might be the first Grissom to leave the profession of law enforcement in the three generations since Grissoms had been Jackson County sheriffs.
He rang his office direct. Madelyne Smith had already gone home, but Moses Holt was still there.
“Mose,” Buck said, “I need some help right away.” He watched Scarlett, her head bent, stroking the roses on the big floppy hat. “I need an expert tracker. We may have a lost child. I want you to find Deputy Kevin Black Badger and send him out to the house.”