The Missing Girl Read online

  In the town it was generally believed that the girl had been killed and ‘You know,’ and her body buried in a shallow grave somewhere east of Jones Pass, where the woods were deepest and ran downhill and for miles along the edge of Muddy River; knowing folk in town who had hunted the pass and Bad Mountain were quoted as saying that it would be mighty easy for anyone to miss a body in them woods; go ten feet off the path and you’re lost, and the mud that deep already; it was generally conceded in the town that the girl had been followed in the darkness by a counselor from the camp, preferably one of the quiet ones, until she was out of sight or sound of help. The townspeople remembered their grandfathers had known of people disposed of in just that way, and no one had ever heard about it, either.

  In the camp it was generally believed that one of the low bloods around the town – and try to match them for general vulgarity and insolence, and the generations of inbreeding that had led to idiocy in half the families and just plain filth in the rest – had enticed the girl off into an assignation on the mountain, and there outraged and murdered her and buried her body. The camp people believed that it was possible to dispose of a body by covering it with lime – heaven knew these country farmhands had enough lime in a barn to dispose of a dozen bodies – and that by the time the search started there wasn’t enough left of the body to find. The camp people further believed that it was no more than you might expect of a retarded village in an isolated corner of the world, and they thought you might go far before you met up with a lower and a stupider group of clods; they pointed with triumph to the unusual lack of success of the Camp Talent Show early in the summer, to which the townspeople had been invited.

  On the eleventh day of the search, Chief Hook, who perceived clearly that he might very well lose his job, sat down quietly for a conference with the girl’s uncle, Old Jane, and Will Scarlett, who had emerged from the infirmary on the ninth day, to announce that she had for a long time been renowned as a minor necromancer and seer, and would gladly volunteer her services in any possible psychic way.

  ‘I think,’ said Chief Hook despondently, ‘that we might as well give it up. The boy scouts quit a week ago, and today the girl scouts went.’

  The girl’s uncle nodded. He had gained weight on Mrs Hook’s cooking and he had taken to keeping his belt as loose as Chief Hook’s. ‘We haven’t made any progress, certainly,’ he said.

  ‘I told you to look under the fourth covered bridge from the blasted oak,’ said Will Scarlett sullenly. ‘I told you.’

  ‘Miss Scarlett, we couldn’t find no blasted oak,’ Chief Hook said, ‘and we looked and looked – No oaks in this part of the country at all,’ he told the girl’s uncle.

  ‘Well, I told you to keep looking,’ said the seer. ‘I told you also look on the left-hand side of the road to Exeter.’

  ‘We looked there, too,’ Chief Hook said. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You know,’ said the girl’s uncle, as though it were a complete statement. He passed his hand tiredly across his forehead and looked long and soberly at Chief Hook, and then long and soberly at Old Jane, who sat quietly at her desk with papers in her hands. ‘You know,’ he said again. Then, addressing himself to Old Jane and speaking rapidly, he went on. ‘My sister wrote to me today, and she’s very upset. Naturally,’ he added, and looked around at Old Jane, at Will Scarlett, at Chief Hook, all of whom nodded appreciatively, ‘but listen,’ he went on, ‘what she says is that of course she loves Martha and all that, and of course no one would want to say anything about a girl like this that’s missing, and probably had something horrible done to her …’ He looked around again, and again everyone nodded. ‘But she says,’ he went on, ‘that in spite of all that … well … she’s pretty sure, what I mean, that she decided against Phillips Educational Camp for Girls. What I mean,’ he said, looking around again, ‘she has three girls and a boy, my sister, and of course we both feel terribly sorry and of course we’ll still keep in our end of the reward and all that, but what I mean is …’ He brushed his hand across his forehead again. ‘… What I mean is this. The oldest girl, that’s Helen, she’s married and out in San Francisco, so that’s her. And – I’ll show you my sister’s letter – the second girl, that’s Jane, well, she’s married and she lives in Texas somewhere, has a little boy about two years old. And then the third girl – well, that’s Mabel, and she’s right at home with her mother, around the house and whatnot. Well – you see what I mean?’

  No one nodded this time, and the girl’s uncle went on nervously. ‘The boy, he’s in Denver, and his name is –’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Chief Hook. He rose wearily and reached into his pocket for a cigar. ‘Nearly suppertime,’ he said to no one in particular.

  Old Jane nodded and shuffled the papers in her hand. ‘I have all the records here,’ she said. ‘Although a girl named Martha Alexander applied for admission to the Phillips Educational Camp for Girls Twelve to Sixteen, her application was put into the file marked “possibly undesirable” and there is no record of her ever having come to the camp. Although her name has been entered upon various class lists, she is not noted as having participated personally in any activity; she has not, so far as we know, used any of her dining-room tickets or her privileges with regard to laundry and bus services, not to mention country dancing. She has not used the golf course nor the tennis courts, nor has she taken out any riding horses. She has never, to our knowledge, and our records are fairly complete, sir, attended any local church –’

  ‘She hasn’t taken advantage of the infirmary,’ said Will Scarlett, ‘or psychiatric services.’

  ‘You see?’ said the girl’s uncle to Chief Hook.

  ‘Nor,’ finished Old Jane quietly, ‘nor has she been vaccinated or tested for any vitamin deficiency whatsoever.’

  A body that might have been Martha Alexander’s was found, of course, something over a year later, in the late fall when the first light snow was drifting down. The body had been stuffed away among some thorn bushes, which none of the searchers had cared to tackle, until two small boys looking for a cowboy hideout had wormed their way through the thorns. It was impossible to say, of course, how the girl had been killed – at least Chief Hook, who still had his job, found it impossible to say – but it was ascertained that she had been wearing a black corduroy skirt, a reversible raincoat, and a blue scarf.

  She was buried quietly in the local cemetery; Betsy, a senior huntsman the past summer but rooming alone, stood for a moment by the grave, but was unable to recognize any aspect of the clothes or the body. Old Jane attended the funeral, as befitted the head of the camp, and she and Betsy stood alone in the cemetery by the grave. Although she did not cry over her lost girl, Old Jane touched her eyes occasionally with a plain white handkerchief, since she had come up from New York particularly for the services.

  Journey with a Lady

  ‘Honey,’ Mrs Wilson said uneasily, ‘are you sure you’ll be all right?’ ‘Sure,’ said Joseph. He backed away quickly as she bent to kiss him again. ‘Listen, Mother,’ he said. ‘Everybody’s looking.’

  ‘I’m still not sure but what someone ought to go with him,’ said his mother. ‘Are you sure he’ll be all right?’ she said to her husband.

  ‘Who, Joe?’ said Mr Wilson. ‘He’ll be fine, won’t you, son?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Joseph.

  ‘A boy nine years old ought to be able to travel by himself,’ said Mr Wilson in the patient tone of one who has been saying these same words over and over for several days to a nervous mother.

  Mrs Wilson looked up at the train as one who estimates the probable strength of an enemy. ‘But suppose something should happen?’ she asked.

  ‘Look, Helen,’ her husband said, ‘the train’s going to leave in about four minutes. His bag is already on the train, Helen. It’s on the seat where he’s going to be sitting from now until he gets to Merrytown. I have spoken to the porter and I have given the porter a couple of dollars, and the porter has promised
to keep an eye on him and see that he gets off the train with his bag when the train stops at Merrytown. He is nine years old, Helen, and he knows his name and where he’s going and where he’s supposed to get off, and Grandpop is going to meet him and will telephone you the minute they get to Grandpop’s house, and the porter –’

  ‘I know,’ said Mrs Wilson, ‘but are you sure he’ll be all right?’

  Mr Wilson and Joseph looked at one another briefly and then away.

  Mrs Wilson took advantage of Joseph’s momentary lapse of awareness to put her arm around his shoulders and kiss him again, although he managed to move almost in time and her kiss landed somewhere on the top of his head. ‘Mother,’ Joseph said ominously.

  ‘Don’t want anything to happen to my little boy,’ Mrs Wilson said with a brave smile.

  ‘Mother, for heaven’s sake,’ said Joseph. ‘I better get on the train,’ he said to his father. ‘Good idea,’ said his father.

  ‘Bye, Mother,’ Joseph said, backing toward the train door; he took a swift look up and down the platform, and then reached up to his mother and gave her a rapid kiss on the cheek. ‘Take care of yourself,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t forget to telephone the minute you get there,’ his mother said. ‘Write me every day, and tell Grandma you’re supposed to brush your teeth every night and if the weather turns cool –’

  ‘Sure,’ Joseph said. ‘Sure, Mother.’

  ‘So long, son,’ said his father.

  ‘So long, Dad,’ Joseph said; solemnly they shook hands. ‘Take care of yourself,’ Joseph said.

  ‘Have a good time,’ his father said.

  As Joseph climbed up the steps to the train he could hear his mother saying, ‘And telephone us when you get there and be careful –’

  ‘Goodbye, Goodbye,’ he said, and went into the train. He had been located by his father in a double seat at the end of the car and, once settled, he turned as a matter of duty to the window. His father, with an unmanly look of concern, waved to him and nodded violently, as though to indicate that everything was going to be all right, that they had pulled it off beautifully, but his mother, twisting her fingers nervously, came close to the window of the train, and, fortunately unheard by the people within, but probably clearly audible to everyone for miles without, gave him at what appeared to be some length an account of how she had changed her mind and was probably going to come with him after all. Joseph nodded and smiled and waved and shrugged his shoulders to indicate that he could not hear, but his mother went on talking, now and then glancing nervously at the front of the train, as though afraid that the engine might start and take Joseph away before she had made herself absolutely sure that he was going to be all right. Joseph, who felt with some justice that in the past few days his mother had told him every conceivable pertinent fact about his traveling alone to his grandfather’s, and her worries about same, was able to make out such statements as ‘Be careful,’ and ‘Telephone us the minute you get there,’ and ‘Don’t forget to write.’ Then the train stirred, and hesitated, and moved slightly again, and Joseph backed away from the window, still waving and smiling. He was positive that what his mother was saying as the train pulled out was ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ She blew a kiss to him as the train started, and he ducked.

  Surveying his prospects as the train took him slowly away from his mother and father, he was pleased. The journey should take only a little over three hours, and he knew the name of the station and had his ticket safely in his jacket pocket; although he had been reluctant to yield in any fashion to his mother’s misgivings, he had checked several times, secretly, to make sure the ticket was safe. He had half a dozen comic books – a luxury he was not ordinarily allowed – and a chocolate bar; he had his suitcase and his cap, and he had seen personally to the packing of his first baseman’s mitt. He had a dollar bill in the pocket of his pants, because his mother thought he should have some money in case – possibilities which had concretely occurred to her – of a train wreck (although his father had pointed out that in the case of a major disaster the victims were not expected to pay their own expenses, at least not before their families had been notified) or perhaps in the case of some vital expense to which his grandfather’s income would not be adequate. His father had thought that Joe ought to have a little money by him in case he wanted to buy anything, and because a man ought not to travel unless he had money in his pocket. ‘Might pick up a girl on the train and want to buy her lunch,’ his father had said jovially and his mother, regarding her husband thoughtfully, had remarked, ‘Let’s hope Joseph doesn’t do things like that,’ and Joe and his father had winked at one another. So, regarding his comic books and his suitcase and his ticket and his chocolate bar, and feeling the imperceptible but emphatic presence of the dollar bill in his pocket, Joe leaned back against the soft seat, looked briefly out the window at the houses now moving steadily past, and said to himself, ‘This is the life, boy.’

  Before indulging in the several glories of comic books and chocolate, he spent a moment or so watching the houses of his hometown disappear beyond the train; ahead of him, at his grandfather’s farm, lay a summer of cows and horses and probable wrestling matches in the grass; behind him lay school and its infinite irritations, and his mother and father. He wondered briefly if his mother was still looking after the train and telling him to write, and then largely he forgot her. With a sigh of pure pleasure he leaned back and selected a comic book, one that dealt with the completely realistic adventures of a powerful magician among hostile African tribes. This is the life, boy, he told himself again, and glanced again out the window to see a boy about his own age sitting on a fence watching the train go by. For a minute Joseph thought of waving down to the boy, but decided that it was beneath his dignity as a traveler; moreover, the boy on the fence was wearing a dirty sweatshirt, which made Joe move uneasily under his stiff collar and suit jacket, and he thought longingly of the comfortable old shirt with the insignia ‘Brooklyn Dodger’, which was in his suitcase. Then, just as the traitorous idea of changing on the train occurred to him, and of arriving at his grandfather’s not in his good suit became a possibility, all sensible thought was driven from his mind by a cruel and unnecessary blow. Someone sat down next to him, breathing heavily, and from the quick flash of perfume and the movement of cloth that could only be a dress rustling Joe realized with a strong sense of injustice that his paradise had been invaded by some woman.

  ‘Is this seat taken?’ she asked.

  Joe refused to recognize her existence by turning his head to look at her, but he told her sullenly, ‘No, it’s not.’ Not taken, he was thinking, what did she think I was sitting here for? Aren’t there enough old seats in the train she could go and sit in without taking mine?

  He seemed to lose himself in contemplation of the scenery beyond the train window, but secretly he was wishing direly that the woman would suddenly discover she had forgotten her suitcase or find out she had no ticket or remember that she had left the bathtub running at home – anything, to get her off the train at the first station, and out of Joe’s way.

  ‘You going far?’

  Talking, too, Joe thought, she has to take my seat and then she goes and talks my ear off, darn old pest. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Merrytown.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  Joe, from long experience, could have answered all her questions in one sentence, he was so familiar with the series – I’m nine years old, he could have told her, and I’m in the fifth grade, and, no, I don’t like school, and if you want to know what I learn in school it’s nothing because I don’t like school and I do like movies, and I’m going to my grandfather’s house, and more than anything else I hate women who come and sit beside me and ask me silly questions and if my mother didn’t keep after me all the time about my manners I would probably gather my things together and move to another seat and if you don’t stop asking me –

  ‘What’s your name, little boy?’

 
; Little boy, Joe told himself bitterly, on top of everything else, little boy.

  ‘Joe,’ he said.

  ‘How old are you?’

  He lifted his eyes wearily and regarded the conductor entering the car; it was surely too much to hope that this female plague had forgotten her ticket, but could it be remotely possible that she was on the wrong train?

  ‘Got your ticket, Joe?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Sure,’ said Joe. ‘Have you?’

  She laughed and said – apparently addressing the conductor, since her voice was not at this moment the voice women use in addressing a little boy, but the voice that goes with speaking to conductors and taxi drivers and salesclerks – ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got a ticket. I had no time to get one.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ said the conductor.

  Would they put her off the train? For the first time, Joe turned and looked at her, eagerly and with hope. Would they possibly, hopefully, desperately, put her off the train? ‘I’m going to Merrytown,’ she said, and Joe’s convictions about the generally weak-minded attitudes of the adult world were all confirmed. The conductor tore a slip from a pad he carried, punched a hole in it, and told the woman, ‘Two seventy-three.’ While she was searching her pocketbook for her money – if she knew she was going to have to buy a ticket, Joe thought disgustedly, whyn’t she have her money ready? – the conductor took Joe’s ticket and grinned at him. ‘Your boy got his ticket all right,’ he pointed out.