Tim Gautreaux - The Missing

Snaking out of the pines, the railroad traversed three miles of scrub country, cut-over land crowded with brambles and trash-wood saplings. Soon the engineer was blowing the whistle for the little wooden station, and Sam felt the air brakes grab. He looked at August.

“Showtime,” the boy said.

They got up and stepped off onto the platform. A man wearing a tailored suit was standing next to the bench outside the station, a streamer of tickets in his hand. A woman was struggling with Lily, who was angry at being held and kicking her legs, her face red and running tears. “I want Vessy,” she wailed. “Where’s Vessy gone?”

“Oh, hush up,” the woman snapped. “Aren’t you glad to see us? What’s the matter with you?”

Sam and August walked up, the sheriff dawdling behind as if he didn’t know anyone there. Sam looked around but saw only an old Ford and no horses. “Where’s Ralph Skadlock?”

The man looked at him blankly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

August drew close and looked at Lily, smiling.

“Get away,” the woman told him, a shining alarm rising in her eyes. “What do you want?”

“That’s my sister. Let her look at me.” And when the child did turn around, she gave him the look of a baby who hadn’t seen her brother in many months. She wriggled out of the woman’s grasp and stood there on the rough planks. Lily shaded her eyes and peered up at him but said nothing. The sheriff made a clucking noise in the back of his mouth and looked away.

“I know who you are,” Sam said. “You’re the Whites from Graysoner, Kentucky, and that girl was stolen from Krine’s department store in New Orleans.”

Acy White looked at the conductor, who had his watch in his hand. “Will you board us?”

The conductor looked at the sheriff and the child. “I can’t stop you from getting on if you got a ticket.”

“Well, come on, then.” He made a move toward the coach.

Sam grabbed his arm. “We’ve come for the girl.”

“Get your hands off me. I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is our daughter, Madeline.” He grabbed Lily by the hand but Sam pulled him away from the train and the two of them stumbled backwards across the platform and fell against the bench. Lily began to shriek and August kneeled next to her as Sheriff Tabors went over and began to separate the men.

The agent dashed outside, shouting, “Everbody calm down. What’s this all about?”

Sam had banged his shoulder against the bench, but even the pain couldn’t overcome his worry that the Whites would get Lily on the train and slip away with her. He couldn’t show up empty-handed in New Orleans and have to tell Elsie they’d lost her again. He got untangled and stood up. “You’re not getting away with this. I know what you did, and I’ll follow you until you’re both in the jailhouse.”

At the word “jailhouse,” Mrs. White reached into her purse and brought out a nickel-plated revolver and pointed it at Sam, her mouth open and trembling.

“Take it easy,” Sheriff Tabors said. “Let’s sort this thing out.”

She shifted her aim to the lawman’s forehead. “You stay on the platform, whoever you are, or I’ll blow your brains all over this god-forsaken station.” She was sweating and didn’t look at all well, more like a woman who’d made a monthlong journey on foot.

“Damn it,” Acy White said. “Let’s just get on.” He grabbed Lily and took his wife by the arm, and they stepped up into the coach.

Before getting on, the conductor turned around and faced the platform. “I wouldn’t board if I were you.”

“I sort of have to,” the sheriff said, pushing back his coat and putting a big hand on his revolver. His face was flaming, and his eyes showed he was furious.

Sam put a hand on his shoulder. “Step over here a minute.” He motioned to the station agent to join them. “Why didn’t this crew pick up those two flatcars of barrels about three miles back?”

The agent’s eyes moved off, as though he’d been caught in a lie. “It don’t really matter none. They’ll get ’em Monday for sure.”

“When we passed the switches, those boys in the yard were waving for your train to stop. Can you cut the crew an order to back to that switch and get their cars?”

The agent pulled his watch. “I reckon. It ain’t like this outfit runs on a tight schedule, if you know what I mean.” He looked at August and the sheriff. “What’s this all about with children and barrels?”

“I think I just figured it out myself,” the sheriff said. “Just write the order and hand it up to the engineer. It’s Ned running the engine today, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Never mind the conductor, he’s occupied. Come on.” The sheriff motioned them along to the engine and they climbed into the cab. Soon the agent came running alongside and handed up a new flimsy. The engineer pulled the Johnson bar into reverse, tugged three short blasts from his whistle, and began backing the train hard.

The three of them stood behind the engineer, staying out of the fireman’s way as he shoveled a thin layer of coal on the boiler’s grates. Over the engine noise Sam hollered, “What you gonna do about her pistol?”

“I think she was just trying to scare us off,” the sheriff told him. “I’d bet she wouldn’t use it.” About three miles from the station, as the barrel mill came into view, he leaned over and hollered something to the engineer above the hiss and chuff of the locomotive. The old man stopped the train, and the three of them slid down the grab irons and walked back to the coach. The sheriff went up first and walked the aisle to where the Whites were sitting with Lily jammed between them, crying silently, her nose running, her eyes cloudy with confusion and grief. He looked around at the five other passengers and told them to stay in their seats.

“Who are you?” Acy White said with the calm assuredness of one who thinks he’s in charge.

“These two men say that little girl isn’t yours.”

The wife began to stand, but the sheriff held up his hand. She looked at it and kept rising, lifting her chin as well. “You three men are the abductors.” She turned to the other passengers. “They’re trying to steal my baby,” she said, her voice nearly screaming. The three farmers and two drummers watched placidly, their heads moving from the sheriff to the finely dressed woman.

“We need to talk to the little girl,” the sheriff said, reaching for the child.

Acy White said, “Don’t,” but it was unclear whom he was addressing, and in the next instant the nickel-plated revolver came up in her hand, aimed at the sheriff’s head, and went off. An orange dart of fire and rotten-smelling smoke bloomed into the aisle as the bullet went through a clerestory above a farmer’s head, and the startled sheriff backhanded the gun out of her grasp, sending it over the next seat, where it clattered to the floor.

“Lady,” he told her, his voice shaking, “assault with a deadly weapon is a felony in Mississippi.” He spread his coat and both Whites focused on the sizeable badge pinned on his vest.

“But we’re in Louisiana,” Acy White protested, his eyes suddenly sick and weak.

“Not anymore. I figure we’re a mile inside the state line.” He pulled back his coat on the other side to show his gleaming Colt. “And you’re both under arrest on that charge. Now let me see that child.”

Sam turned to August. “You’re on, boy.”

He stepped around the sheriff and pulled her gently into the aisle. “Hey, Lily.”

The girl looked at him hard and said nothing.

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Acy White said. “Conductor, I insist you get this train moving in the direction it’s supposed to. She’s our child. She doesn’t know this young man.”