“What do you mean, no breakfast?” the warden said, still holding the dipper.
“Just that.”
“Why?”
“Nothing to eat.”
“What about coffee?”
“No coffee.”
“Tea?”
“No tea. No bacon. No corn meal. No salt. No pepper. No coffee. No Borden’s canned cream. No Aunt Jemima buckwheat flour. No nothing.”
“What are you talking about? There was plenty to eat last night.”
“There isn’t now. Chipmunks must have carried it away.”
The warden from down state had gotten up when he heard them talking and had come into the kitchen.
“How do you feel this morning?” the hired girl asked him.
The warden ignored the hired girl and said, “What is it, Evans?”
“That son of a bitch came in here last night and got himself a pack load of grub.”
“Don’t you swear in my kitchen,” the hired girl said.
“Come out here,” The down-state warden said. They both went out on the screen porch and shut the kitchen door.
“What does that mean, Evans?” The down-state man pointed at the quart of Old Green River which had less than a quarter left in it. “How skunk-drunk were you?”
“I drank the same as you. I sat up by the table—”
“Doing what?”
“Waiting for the goddam Adams boy if he showed.”
“And drinking.”
“Not drinking. Then I got up and went in the kitchen and got a drink of water about half past four and I lay down here in front of the door to take it easier.”
“Why didn’t you lie down in front of the kitchen door?”
“I could see him better from here if he came.”
“So what happened?”
“He must have come in the kitchen, through a window maybe, and loaded that stuff.”
“Bullshit.”
“What were you doing?” the local warden asked.
“I was sleeping the same as you.”
“Okay. Let’s quit fighting about it. That doesn’t do any good.”
“Tell that hired girl to come out here.”
The hired girl came out and the down-state man said to her, “You tell Mrs. Adams we want to speak to her.”
The hired girl did not say anything but went into the main part of the house, shutting the door after her.
“You better pick up the full and the empty bottles,” the down-state man said. “There isn’t enough of this to do any good. You want a drink of it?”
“No thanks. I’ve got to work today.”
“I’ll take one,” the down-state man said. “It hasn’t been shared right.”
“I didn’t drink any of it after you left,” the local warden said doggedly.
“Why do you keep on with that bullshit?”
“It isn’t bullshit.”
The down-state man put the bottle down. “All right,” he said to the hired girl, who had opened and shut the door behind her. “What did she say?”
“She has a sick headache and she can’t see you. She says you have a warrant. She says for you to search the place if you want to and then go.”
“What did she say about the boy?”
“She hasn’t seen the boy and she doesn’t know anything about him.”
“Where are the other kids?”
“They’re visiting at Charlevoix.”
“Who are they visiting?”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t know. They went to the dance and they were going to stay over Sunday with friends.”
“Who was that kid that was around here yesterday?”
“I didn’t see any kid around here yesterday.”
“There was.”
“Maybe some friend of the children asking for them. Maybe some resorter’s kid. Was it a boy or a girl?”
“A girl about eleven or twelve. Brown hair and brown eyes. Freckles. Very tanned. Wearing overalls and a boy’s shirt. Barefooted.”
“Sounds like anybody,” the girl said. “Did you say eleven or twelve years old?”
“Oh, shit,” said the man from down state. “You can’t get anything out of these mossbacks.”
“If I’m a mossback what’s he?” The hired girl looked at the local warden. “What’s Mr. Evans? His kids and me went to the same schoolhouse.”
“Who was the girl?” Evans asked her. “Come on, Suzy. I can find out anyway.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Suzy, the hired girl, said. “It seems like all kinds of people come by here now. I just feel like I’m in a big city.”
“You don’t want to get in any trouble, do you, Suzy?” Evans said.
“No, sir.”
“I mean it.”
“You don’t want to get in any trouble either, do you?” Suzy asked him.
Out at the barn after they were hitched up the down-state man said, “We didn’t do so good, did we?”
“He’s loose now,” Evans said. “He’s got grub and he must have his rifle. But he’s still in the area. I can get him. Can you track?”
“No. Not really. Can you?”
“In snow,” the other warden laughed.
“But we don’t have to track. We have to think out where he’ll be.”
“He didn’t load up with all that stuff to go south. He’d just take a little something and head for the railway.”
“I couldn’t tell what was missing from the woodshed. But he had a big pack load from the kitchen. He’s heading in somewhere. I got to check on all his habits and his friends and where he used to go. You block him off at Charlevoix and Petoskey and St. Ignace and Sheboygan. Where would you go if you were him?”
“I’d go to the Upper Peninsula.”
“Me, too. He’s been up there, too. The ferry is the easiest place to pick him up. But there’s an awful big country between here and Sheboygan and he knows that country, too.”
“We better go down and see Packard. We were going to check that today.”
“What’s to prevent him going down by East Jordan and Grand Traverse?”
“Nothing. But that isn’t his country. He’ll go some place that he knows.”
Suzy came out when they were opening the gate in the fence.
“Can I ride down to the store with you? I’ve got to get some groceries.”
“What makes you think we’re going to the store?”
“Yesterday you were talking about going to see Mr. Packard.”
“How are you going to get your groceries back?”
“I guess I can get a lift with somebody on the road or coming up the lake. This is Saturday.”
“All right. Climb up,” the local warden said.
“Thank you, Mr. Evans,” Suzy said.
At the general store and post office Evans hitched the team at the rack and he and the down-state man stood and talked before they went in.
“I couldn’t say anything with that damned Suzy.”
“Sure.”
“Packard’s a fine man. There isn’t anybody better-liked in this country. You’d never get a conviction on that trout business against him. Nobody’s going to scare him and we don’t want to antagonize him.”
“Do you think he’ll cooperate?”
“Not if you act rough.”
“We’ll go see him.”
Inside the store Suzy had gone straight through past the glass showcases, the opened barrels, the boxes, the shelves of canned goods, seeing nothing nor anyone until she came to the post office with its lockboxes and its general delivery and stamp window. The window was down and she went straight on to the back of the store. Mr. Packard was opening a packing box with a crowbar. He looked at her and smiled.
“Mr. John,” the hired girl said, speaking very fast. “There’s two wardens coming in that’s after Nickie. He cleared out last night and his kid sister’s gone with him. Don’t let on about that. His mother knows it and it’s all right. Anyhow she isn’t going to say anything.”
“Did he take all your groceries?”
“Most of them.”
“You pick out what you need and make a list and I’ll check it over with you.”
“They’re coming in now.”
“You go out the back and come in the front again. I’ll go and talk to them.”
Suzy walked around the long frame building and climbed the front steps again. This time she noticed everything as she came in. She knew the Indians who had brought in the baskets and she knew the two Indian boys who were looking at the fishing tackle in the first showcases on the left. She knew all the patent medicines in the next case and who usually bought them.
She had clerked one summer in the store and she knew what the penciled code letters and numbers meant that were on the cardboard boxes that held shoes, winter overshoes, wool socks, mittens, caps and sweaters. She knew what the baskets were worth that the Indians had brought in and that it was too late in the season for them to bring a good price.
“Why did you bring them in so late, Mrs. Tabeshaw?” she asked.
“Too much fun Fourth of July,” the Indian woman laughed.
“How’s Billy?” Suzy asked.
“I don’t know, Suzy. I no see him four weeks now.”
“Why don’t you take them down to the hotel and try to sell them to the resorters?” Suzy said.
“Maybe,” Mrs. Tabeshaw said. “I took once.”
“You ought to take them every day.”
“Long walk,” Mrs. Tabeshaw said.
While Suzy was talking to the people she knew and making a list of what she needed for the house the two wardens were in the back of the store with Mr. John Packard.
Mr. John had gray-blue eyes and dark hair and a dark mustache and he always looked as though he had wandered into a general store by mistake. He had been away from northern Michigan once for eighteen years when he was a young man and he looked more like a peace officer or an honest gambler than a storekeeper. He had owned good saloons in his time and run them well. But when the country had been lumbered off he had stayed and bought farming land.
Finally when the county had gone local option he had bought
