Back in Hopetown, Mr. Page had confirmed his account of Friday evening. As the community’s oldest resident, he’d taken it on himself to keep the peace in town. “It’s been some problems with the new folks moving in,” he said without getting specific. “So I make it a point to keep my eyes open.” He’d been doing patrol on horseback, he said, “when I saw the boy locking the boathouse there.” He gestured to the same rambling shed Quinn had pointed out. “I gave him a nod, but he ain’t speak. The way they raised him, you know,” he said, looking at Darren. Turned out, Leroy Page didn’t like the boy much, didn’t like his mama or the trash she’d been bringing around Hopetown.

Still, he and the men were offering to help.

The older Native man, Donald Goodfellow, said he could get a search team together in less than an hour. Word had spread, and Donald would wish the same thing done if it were one of his kids. The teenager on the other horse was his son Ray. Sheriff Quinn said everybody was getting a little ahead of themselves.

“Heading to talk to the boy’s grandmother right now,” he said. “Probably get this straightened out before the sun sets.” His manner was relaxed in a way that Darren couldn’t understand or entirely abide. He asked the old man to describe what the boy was wearing, to be crystal clear about what time of night it was.

Leroy Page frowned, working to get the answer just right.

It was the watery look of the cataracts in his eyes that made Darren realize the man was probably in his eighties. When he’d come off the horse to give his account of Friday night, Darren had read the age in his bones, the slight droop in his posture. He was an elderly man with poor vision upon whose recollection of seeing Levi the sheriff had set a theory: Levi had made it home on Friday night and disappeared around here. Darren thought the sheriff was relying too heavily on unverified facts. He mentioned the water again, but Quinn waved it off. “It only looks deep,” he said. “But Caddo ain’t but about four feet in some parts. Ain’t been nothing you could drown in since the steamboat days, when the water table was higher.” Still sounded pretty deep for a nine-year-old.