"All night long," she said. "Now go fetch some eggs."
I followed my father out of the house, down the back steps, until I saw something that stopped me cold. The sun was barely up, but there was plenty of light. There was no mistake in what I was seeing.
I pointed and managed to say only, "Look."
My father was ten steps away, heading for the chicken coops. "What is it, Luke?" he asked.
In the spot under the oak tree where Pappy had parked his truck every day of my life, the ruts were bare. The truck was gone.
"The truck," I said.
My father walked slowly to my side, and for a long time we stared at the parking spot. The truck had always been there, forever, like one of the oaks or one of the sheds. We saw it every day, but we didn't notice it because it was always there.
Without a word, he turned and walked up the back steps, across the porch, and into the kitchen. "Any reason why the truck would be gone?" he asked Pappy, who was trying desperately to hear a scratchy report from some faraway place. Gran froze and cocked her head sideways as if she needed the question repeated. Pappy turned the radio off. "Say what?" he said.
"The truck's gone," my father said.
Pappy looked at Gran, who looked at my father. They all looked at me as if I'd once again done something wrong. About this time my mother entered the kitchen, and the entire family marched single file out of the house and right up to the muddy ruts where the truck should've been.
We searched the farm, as if the truck could have somehow moved itself to another location.
"I left it right here," Pappy said in disbelief. Of course he'd left it right there. The truck had never been left overnight anywhere else on the farm.
In the distance Mr. Spruill yelled, "Tally!"
"Somebody took our truck," Gran said, barely audible.
"Where was the key?" my father asked.
"By the radio, same as always," Pappy said. There was a small pewter bowl at the end of the kitchen table, next to the radio, and the truck key was always left there. My father went to inspect the bowl. He returned promptly and said, "The key's gone."
"Tally!" Mr. Spruill yelled again, louder. There was a flurry of activity in and around the Spruills' camp. Mrs. Spruill emerged and began walking quickly toward our front porch. When she saw us standing beside the house, gawking at the empty parking space, she ran over and said, "Tally's gone. We can't find her nowhere."
The other Spruills were soon behind her, and before long the two families were looking at each other. My father explained that our truck was missing. Mr. Spruill explained that his daughter was missing.
"Can she drive a truck?" Pappy asked.
"No, she can't," Mrs. Spruill said, and this complicated matters.
There was silence for a moment as everybody pondered the situation.
"You don't suppose Hank could've come back and got it, do you?" Pappy asked.
"Hank wouldn't steal your truck," Mr. Spruill said with a mix of anger and confusion. At that moment almost anything seemed both likely and impossible.
"Hank's home by now," Mrs. Spruill said. She was on the verge of tears.
I wanted to scream, "Hank's dead!" and then run into the house and hide under a bed. Those poor people didn't know their son would never make it home. This secret was becoming too heavy to carry alone. I took a step behind my mother.
She leaned close to my father and whispered, "Better go check on Cowboy." Because I had told her about Tally and Cowboy, my mother was ahead of the rest of them.
My father thought for a second, then looked in the direction of the barn. So did Pappy, Gran, and finally the rest of the group.
Miguel was slowly making his way to us, taking his time, leaving tracks in the wet grass. His dirty straw hat was in his hand, and he walked in such a way that made me think that he had no desire to do whatever he was about to do.
"Mornin', Miguel," Pappy said, as if the day was off to the same old beginning.
"Senor," he said, nodding.
"Is there a problem?" Pappy asked.
"Si, senor. A little problem."
"What is it?"
"Cowboy is gone. I think he sneaked away in the night."
"Must be contagious," Pappy mumbled, then spat into the grass. It took a few seconds for the Spruills to add things together. At first Tally's disappearance had nothing to do with Cowboy's, at least to them. Evidently they knew nothing about the couple's secret little romance. The Chandlers figured things out long before the Spruills, but then we had the benefit of my inside knowledge.
Reality slowly settled in.
"You think he took her?" Mr. Spruill said, almost in panic. Mrs. Spruill was sniffling now, trying to hold back her tears.
"I don't know what to think," Pappy said. He was much more concerned with his pickup than with the whereabouts of Tally and Cowboy.
"Did Cowboy take his things with him?" my father asked Miguel.
"Si, senor."
"Did Tally take her things with her?" my father asked Mr. Spruill.
He didn't answer, and the question hung in the air until Bo said, "Yes sir. Her bag's gone."
"What's in her bag?"
"Clothes and such. And her money jar."
Mrs. Spruill cried harder. Then she wailed, "Oh my baby!" I wanted to crawl under the house.
The Spruills were a beaten bunch. All heads were down, shoulders shrunk, eyes half-closed. Their beloved Tally had run away with someone they considered low-bred, a dark-skinned intruder from a godforsaken country. Their humiliation before us was complete, and very painful.
I was hurting, too. How could she have done such a terrible thing?
She was my friend. She treated me like a confidant, and she protected me like a big sister. I loved Tally, and now she had run off with a vicious killer.
"He took her!" Mrs. Spruill bawled. Bo and Dale led her away, leaving only Trot and Mr. Spruill to tend to the matter. Trot's normally vacant look had been replaced with one of great confusion and sadness. Tally had been his protector, too. Now she was gone.
The men launched into a windy discussion of what to do next. The top priority was to find Tally, and the truck, before she could get too far. There was no clue as to when the two left. They had obviously used the storm to cover their getaway. The Spruills had heard nothing during the night, nothing but thunder and rain, and the driveway passed within eighty feet of their tents.
They could've been gone for hours, certainly enough time to drive to Jonesboro or Memphis or even Little Rock.
But the men seemed optimistic that Tally and Cowboy could be found, and quickly. Mr. Spruill left to unhitch his truck from the tents and tables. I begged my father to let me go with them, but he said no. Then I went to my mother, and she held firm, too. "It's not your place," she said.
Pappy and my father squeezed into the front seat with Mr. Spruill, and off they went, sliding on our road, tires spinning, mud slinging behind them.
I went past the silo to the weedy remains of an old smoke shed and sat for an hour under the rotted tin roof, watching rain drip in front of me. I was relieved that Cowboy had left our farm, and for this I thanked God in a short but sincere prayer. But any relief in his departure was overshadowed by my disappointment in Tally. I managed to hate her for what she had done. I cursed her, using words Ricky had taught me, and when I had spewed forth all the foul language I could remember, I asked God to forgive me.