The girl probably thought she was being sly, sneaking around back of his tractor shed like that. Lawrence Teasdale wasn’t fooled for a second. He watched her through the kitchen window. She was long, coltish, maybe eighteen or so. So hard to guess anyone’s age these days. And you couldn’t call her a girl. These days you were supposed to say young woman.

Okay, a young woman then. Who just disappeared behind my damn shed. Foolish. But youngsters are always getting into foolishness. You were prone to acting the fool yourself if you care to remember that far back. Ancient history now.

Lawrence watched the shed, knew exactly where the intruder would be hiding. The Teasdale bottomland was flat and open. Not good country for sneaking. And the nearest neighbor was a country mile down the road. The girl was here for a reason, and that reason most likely had nothing to do with him. But it damn sure might have something to do with his wife.

The old farmer shook his head. Like he needed any more worry. His wife Brenda missing for two days and no idea where she was. Heart tore out of his chest worrying over her. Four decades married, rarely apart, and never out of each other’s thoughts. Where the hell could Brenda be? And now he had to run off a damn trespasser. Like any more heartache was needed.

He poured out the last of his coffee and set the mug in the sink.

“Flap.”

The dog was at his knee in a blink. A blue heeler, head cocked, alert. Chocolate eyes, black eye patches, a brindle muzzle. The last two days and nights, Flap padded the empty rooms searching for Brenda. Looking back over its shoulder at Lawrence as if waiting for some kind of explanation. Damn good dog.

Lawrence lifted a battered straw hat from its peg beside the kitchen door. He fit the hat over his nappy grey hair and snugged it. The shotgun he left behind. Brenda would not approve of him pointing a scattergun at a young woman, trespasser or not.

Flap was out the door like a shot. Lawrence followed at a slower pace. No need to hurry. That girl wasn’t going anywhere Flap couldn’t find her.

His boots crunched across the gravel farmyard. Flap stopped and looked back, trying to figure out where they were headed. Lawrence tapped his thigh and Flap wheeled back. Half a tick and the dog was at his heel, ready to work.

The shed was a factory job, pea green corrugated steel over a bolt-together frame. New compared to the barn his great-granddad had built. Lawrence loved the red plank barn, just as he loved every square foot of the family farm. But the barn was drafty and hard to heat. The new shed was practical, even if it was ugly. Had its own propane tank out back to run the heater. Big tank protected by a chain-link fence.

That’s where the girl would be hiding.

Man and dog reached the back corner of the shed. Lawrence peered around the edge, saw two skinny ankles and a pair of sneakers peeking out from under the far side of the propane tank. Flap tensed at his master’s knee, waiting for a command. Lawrence stepped around the corner and flicked his hand.

“Get ‘er.”

The dog took off like a rocket and disappeared around the far side of the tank. Lawrence saw the girl’s feet backpedal, heard the thump of her body hitting the steel wall. He ambled after the dog, shaking his head at the whole sorry business.

The young woman was pressed flat against the shed, arms splayed out to either side. Looked like a butterfly about to be pinned to a board. Skinny White girl, scared blue eyes, dirty blonde hair, wearing a ragged oxford and jeans torn at the knees.

Flap dodged a half circle in front of the frightened woman, holding her like he would a stubborn stray calf. Lawrence felt half disgusted with himself. This scarecrow girl needed a few square meals a whole lot more than she needed more scaring.

“Flap, heel.”

The dog made one more pass to show everyone who’s boss, then tucked in beside Lawrence’s knee. The girl looked at Lawrence, dropped her eyes to Flap, then back to Lawrence. Had a puzzled look on her face, like she’d never seen a man and a dog before.

“I think I got the wrong place.”

First words out of her mouth and the plain truth. Lawrence worried a scab on his left knuckle, waiting for more, but the girl didn’t offer any. He left off the scab and gave her his best hard look. Tried anyway. His wife never failed to tease him when he tried to be stern. Said it made him look like a bullfrog.

“You’re trespassing on my land, Miss. So I agree you’ve got the wrong place. Who do you belong to?”

“Don’t belong to nobody.”

Lawrence felt a touch of a smile breaking through his stern. Good answer. Some folks never learned that lesson.

“Sorry, Miss. Meant to say who is your family.”

“Taggart. I’m Gillian Taggart. Folks call me Gill.”

Taggart was a name any young woman might want to run from. A big clan and no strangers to trouble. Lawrence didn’t know any Taggarts personally, but he’d heard the talk. Poaching, stealing equipment, stray livestock gone missing.

The Taggart clan was as well acquainted with the law as they were with trouble. They were the county moonshiners when Lawrence was a young man. A normal enough vice. But these days they cooked that damn meth.

The sheriff knew all about it. A likable enough fella, Sheriff Adams, but the man couldn’t find his ass with both hands free. Just like he couldn’t find Brenda. Told Lawrence they’d hold off on reporting a missing person report for another day. Said his wife was probably visiting relatives or something. Asked if maybe he and Missus Teasdale were going through a rough patch. Nothing to be ashamed of. These things happen. Lawrence had snorted in the man’s face and stomped out.

The Taggart girl was staring at him, and Lawrence realized his thoughts had drifted.

“All right, Miss Gillian Taggart, why don’t you tell me why you’re hiding behind my shed?”

“I was looking for Missus Teasdale. Brenda Teasdale. But I guess I got bad directions.”

On any other day, Lawrence might have laughed. A White girl looking for a White woman sees a Black man standing in front of her. Can’t reconcile the two, even these days. And to be fair to the girl, a good many Black folks tripped over the same thing.

But today wasn’t a laughing day.

“Nothing wrong with your directions. This is the Teasdale farm. My name is Lawrence Teasdale. I’m Brenda’s husband. Why don’t you come on up to the house and tell me what this is all about.”

* * *

Gillian’s story was not pretty, but it came as no surprise. Lawrence had heard the same often enough. Brenda Teasdale ran the Greenbriar County Women’s Center. His wife brought home stories. Had to. Some burdens were too heavy to carry alone.

For two decades, Brenda unloaded the horrors that went on right here in their own county. Men abusing their wives, their children. Battered women, pregnant girls, and behind it all a blizzard of alcohol and drugs. Lawrence sat at the kitchen table, held her hand, and listened. He understood how hard Brenda fought, and what a lucky couple they were.

Now he sat at the same table listening to a strange girl. He did not hold her hand. Gillian Taggart sat ramrod straight on one of the old ladder-back chairs. The width of the table kept a proper distance between the girl and the old man.

She told her story with no window dressings and without tears.

“Then my uncles found out I’d been talking to Missus Teasdale. Somebody must have seen me in town, I guess. They locked me in an old trailer out back of the house. I had to wait until they were all passed out before I broke out a window. I’m sorry, Mister Teasdale. I didn’t know where else to go. The center was closed, so I figured I’d best come out here and talk to Missus Teasdale.”

“You got no need to be sorry, Gillian, not now that I’ve heard what you had to say. How old are you? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I’m sixteen, sir. And please, call me Gill.”

Lawrence pondered the mess. Brenda would know what to do, but Brenda wasn’t here. Finding her was the only thing that mattered, and now he had a runaway teenage girl sitting in his kitchen. If his wife could see him, what would she say? The answer to that one was easy. Brenda would expect him to do the right thing, always, no matter what.

He pictured her sitting in one of the empty chairs, watching him wrestle with the situation. Like a ghost. No, that thought was more than he could bear. And it wasn’t true. Brenda was alive. He could feel it. His love was still in this world.

I know you’re out there, darling. I can feel you. Where the hell are you?

Never mind that right now, Lawrence. I’ll be back. Right now, you’ve got to help this girl.

“Mister Teasdale?”

“Sorry, Gillian. I mean Gill. I was thinking things over, trying to figure what’s best to do. We could call the sheriff.”

Gill shook her head, emphatic. Her blonde hair swung back and forth.

“Wouldn’t do no good. I’m underage. The sheriff will just cart me back home. I’ll be in for a beating, probably worse. Please don’t do that. Brenda, sorry, Missus Teasdale, she’ll know what to do. Can’t I stay here until she gets home? I promise not to be any trouble. I can help out. I’m a hard worker.”

Lawrence felt a surge of hopelessness like a wave threatening to break over him. Not being a hopeless man, the emotion felt alien, useless. He shook it away and spoke to the girl.

“It’s not a matter of you helping or not helping. Fact is my wife has gone missing. It’s been two days. No note, no phone call. Been worried sick. Nothing like this ever happened before.”

“You said Brenda’s been gone two days?”

“That’s right. She left Wednesday morning on her way to the center. Just like always.”

Gill raised one hand to her mouth. Lawrence watched what little color there was drain from the girl’s face. She’d gone white as new paper.

Lawrence was a practical man not given to premonitions. And yet he experienced a sudden flash of the future, of what this young woman was about to say. Gill Taggart sitting at his kitchen table and his wife’s absence were not coincidental.

“Mister Teasdale, I think I know where your wife might be.”

“Then you’d best tell me.”

“I’m sorry if I done harm. I never meant to.”

Fear rode up Lawrence’s spine, but he thought of his wife and pushed it down. The next words out of his mouth might just as well have been Brenda’s.

“Gill, let’s leave off with apologizing, okay? You’re the victim here, not the bad guy. Please, just tell me what happened.”

The pale young woman nodded, fingers covering her mouth. She puffed out a long breath and dropped her hand to the table.

“I had an appointment at the center on Wednesday. Ten o’clock. That’s a good time to slip away because the men are still sleeping it off. Anyway, right at the end of our session, your wife told me she was thinking of going out to our place. A home visit she called it. I remember thinking she was angry. Not at me, you understand, but at what we’d been talking about.”

Lawrence understood exactly what might have angered Brenda. His wife possessed a finely tuned sense of justice, and a righteous anger when she believed the scales of justice had tilted out of balance. She was also fearless.

“What happened then?”

“I said the menfolk didn’t take to strangers. She laughed about that like I’d made a joke. She didn’t say any more about it. Our time was up, so I headed back home. It wasn’t an hour later that Terry and Jonas grabbed me and hauled me out to that stinking trailer.”

Lawrence felt a weight in his chest, the burden of needless suffering and pain inflicted on the weak and the innocents of this world. But this pain was not far away. It was immediate and personal. This young woman sitting across from him, tears in her eyes. And his wife Brenda, his precious wife.

“And you think maybe Brenda went out to your home place and something happened?”

Gill nodded her head quick and sharp as the tears dripped down her cheeks.

Lawrence felt a wave of anger surge through his chest, the familiar anger of a younger man. Felt like that bad cousin who’d show up once in a blue moon. Appeared out of nowhere—hey how you fellas? Then drag the whole bunch of them into trouble.

But this was different. This wasn’t about angry young men getting into trouble. Lawrence was past all that. He was a grown man with every right to be angry. These ignorant peckerwoods had taken his wife, his one and only Brenda.

Maybe they thought their white skin would buy them a get-out-of-jail-free card. Would’ve in the past, but that was back then. Just how stupid were they?

One minute to load the dog and shotgun into the pickup. A half-hour drive to the other side of Greenbriar County. Five minutes later Lawrence would be leading his wife back to the truck. If those crackers got in his way, it would be their misfortune. He had right on his side. Course he was angry, but it was righteous anger.

Then he heard the stern voice of his great-aunt, a sweet, wise woman twenty years gone. Auntie Sarah, who’d smack you with a spoon quick as looking, and who could quote scripture better than any preacher. Her voice was strong. Sounded like she’d just sat down at the table wearing her Sunday Baptist hat.

‘Lawrence, you best remember James one-nineteen. Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.’

Lawrence pushed himself up from the table. Gill’s eyes followed him, wide and full of tears. Flap was up in an instant, nails clicking against the linoleum. Instead of walking to the kitchen door for his hat and shotgun, Lawrence stepped to a china hutch on the far wall.

An old bible rested in a place of honor behind the middle of three glass-front doors. Lawrence swung open the center door and lifted the Teasdale family bible from its prop. He returned to the table, sat, and thumbed open the black leather cover.

Lawrence was not religious, nor was his wife. But this bible contained the Teasdale history. The list of names ran to nine generations, with his own name the last entry, born nineteen fifty-nine. A lineage stretching back to the Reconstruction. The first was Prince Teasdale, a freed slave who adopted the name of the nearest hamlet in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi.

The second generation and a red cross inked beside a name. A young man’s life cut short by a lynch mob. Then the entries shift location as the family fled Jim Crow. Two states north to Greenbriar County, but not out of the storm. There are two more red crosses on the yellowed parchment.

His ancestors do not speak to him, not even Auntie Sarah. They offer no advice. The names bear silent witness. Lawrence Teasdale is alone with his anger, his lineage, and the weeping stranger sitting at his kitchen table.

I could swap her. Drive this girl back to her people, hand her over, collect my Brenda, and be gone. Sure, I could do that. Have Brenda back safe but never be able to look her in the eye. Never want to face a mirror again, either.

Lawrence closed the bible and puffed out a long breath.

“Y’all aren’t much help.”

“I’m so sorry, Mister Teasdale. I’ll do whatever I can to make it right.”

He’d forgotten the Taggart girl altogether. This wasn’t her doing. Lawrence forced a smile onto his face.

“I’m sorry, Gill. Talking to myself. Bad habit. Comes with age.”

“What are we gonna do?”

The girl was biting her lower lip, scared to death.

“We’re going to get us some help.”

Lawrence reached for the telephone. He pulled a phone number from his memory and stabbed it out on the old push buttons. The receiver bleeped in his ear. Then three long rings before a woman’s voice answered.

“Greenbriar District Attorney, how can I help you?”

“Morning, Sally. This is Lawrence Teasdale.”

“Howdy, Mister Teasdale. What can I do for you?”

“Wondering if I could speak to Trevor Johnson.”

“You’re in luck. He just stepped into his office. I’ll put you through.”

Lawrence heard a few clicks, twenty seconds of hold music, and then a familiar voice.

“Hello, Lawrence. How’s farm life?”

“Not good, Trevor. I got a problem. It’s about Brenda.”

“Tell me.”

* * *

Assistant District Attorney Trevor Johnson was all too familiar with the name Taggart. He also knew the lawyer who defended the Taggarts. The man did a brisk business with the clan.

That was the first phone call he made after Lawrence Teasdale hung up the phone. The conversation between Assistant DA Johnson and the Taggart lawyer was short, sharp, and one-sided. Johnson advised the man in no uncertain terms that an army of deputy sheriffs, and quite possibly the FBI, would be performing a very thorough search of each and every Taggart property within the hour.

He further advised the shyster that Old Man Taggart had sixty minutes to put the fear of God into his brood. Sixty minutes, and not one minute more. Failing that, someone would be facing charges of unlawful imprisonment, kidnapping, and whatever else the deputies dug up during their search. Then he hung up, and not gently.

Over the next two hours, phone lines buzzed back and forth across Greenbriar County. A very angry patriarch paid a personal call on a few of his relatives. There were threats of severe bodily injury. The men on the receiving end of these threats knew that they were hearing promises.

A very short while later, Missus Brenda Teasdale was escorted to her car by two very contrite Taggarts. The last phone call Trevor Johnson made was to the Teasdale farm. He told his old friend Lawrence that Brenda would be home in thirty minutes. And she was.

That happy reunion between Brenda and Lawrence Teasdale was a turning point for the couple. Never having been blessed with children, they now had a teenage girl living in the old farmhouse. Gillian Taggart applied to become a ward of the state, citing abuse at home. Trevor Johnson was happy to shepherd her application, with temporary guardianship being awarded to the Teasdales. That guardianship would become permanent if the Assistant DA had anything to say about it, and he did.

Gill brought a new dose of energy to the Teasdale farm. Sometimes it was a bit overwhelming for Brenda and Lawrence, but they both did their best. For her part, Gill vowed to be the best teenage daughter in Greenbriar County. She succeeded more than half the time.

There were problems as well. In a few short weeks, Flap the dog turned traitor. Every school morning, the blue heeler herded Gill to her bus stop. And every afternoon, Flap waited for her and herded her back to the farmhouse.

The old farmer grumbled about having to share his damn dog, but the deed was done. There wasn’t much else for her husband to grouse about, so Brenda only smiled. Let the man complain. He was a good husband to her, and she was a good wife to him. They were a lucky couple, and she knew it. She had married a man who knew how to do the right thing. And now they had everything they needed and more.

Lawrence got on with things as best he knew how. No one had declared an extended vacation. He still had a farm to run. And now that Gill was around, everything seemed to take twice as long. The girl was into everything, asking questions, trying to help, and generally getting in his way. Her and that damn traitor of a dog. For the life of him, Lawrence could not remember being happier.