Page 38 of Rowe

From a porch across a drainage ditch, an elderly man rocked slowly in a chair and watched. Dante lowered the window.

“Sir, you know who owns these cows?”

The old man considered the question for so long that Dante wondered if he had fallen asleep with his eyes open.

“Cows know,” said the old man.

“I'm asking you.”

“I heard you,” he smirked.

“We need to get through.”

“So do they, apparently.” Dante held up Mara's photograph.

“You seen this woman?” The man leaned forward.

“Might have.” Every window in the convoy came down.

“Where?”

“Other side of Bayou Batiste.”

“How do we get there?”

“Back up to the blue mailbox, turn where the pecan tree used to be, go past the church that burned but ain't the church that burned last year, then take the road by Miss Ruby's place.”

Dante stared.

“Where's Miss Ruby's place?”

“Past where the pecan tree used to be.” The old man resumed rocking.

An hour later, after finding three blue mailboxes and two churches that appeared never to have burned, Dante's team arrived at a dead end occupied by six goats and an abandoned shrimp boat.

One goat climbed onto the hood. Nobody wanted to be the first man to call Victor Rossi and explain the goat.

The second team did better for almost twenty minutes.

They stopped at a gas station where the cashier, a broad woman with silver hair piled high enough to interfere with ceiling fans, studied Mara's picture while chewing gum.

“Pretty girl.”

“You seen her?” asked Sal Muro.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you're buying something.”

Sal purchased six bottles of water, beef jerky, a bag of pork rinds, and a ceramic frog wearing sunglasses. The woman looked at the photograph again.

“Nope.”

Sal's expression hardened.

“You said depends.”