“Nooo,” he said thoughtfully, “never found him. It was ’fifty-seven when I started my research. You can guess how popular it was back then, especially after Little Rock when Eisenhower sent the troops in. People weren’t always helpful. Anyhow, Moses McCarroll’s wife had died in nineteen thirty-nine, and the boy just disappeared. Never found any relatives who would talk about it.”

“Know who I might try?”

“Most everyone’s dead, Mr. Shaw. Except Luther Channing.”

“The assistant prosecutor?”

“That’s right. Channing’s retired now, but still alive. One of my students tried to interview him not too long ago and got thrown off the porch. He’s a steely bastard. Wouldn’t talk to me, either.”

“I’ll try him anyhow. Thanks, Professor.”

“No thanks needed. Mrs. Cantwell was one I always felt sorry for. Tried talking to her once at her house. When I said what I wanted, she began shaking her head. Could hardly talk. Finally she said she was sorry and shut the door. Two weeks later I got a note apologizing. I remember it: small, ladylike writing—I’ve still got it somewhere. Said she understood my reasons, but she couldn’t speak of it and hoped I understood. I never published it, felt too badly for her. She was just a child back then, too.”

“Yes, sir. She was.”

There was a long silence. “Mr. Shaw,” he said slowly, “that boy, if he’s still alive, is over fifty now.”

“I know.”

“If I follow your reasoning, that would be a terrible circle, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would. But then people’s lives seem to be full of them.”

“Well, let me know if you find him.” He spoke heavily, as if feeling the weight of the past. “Though I almost hope you don’t.”

I said I could understand that, and hung up.

I called the Kells to give Kris Ann the telephone numbers and ask her to stay. Just a few more hours, I promised. Then I went to the car and drove north toward Grangeville.

Seventeen

SEVENTEEN

Yellow stripes split the two-lane blacktop in a blur racing backward toward Birmingham. Ahead the road ran through fields of crops and rock and harsh red clay, hacked from pine forests and marked by stunted oaks. Amidst a sprawling cornfield the sun-blackened figure of a farmer hoed patiently. Now and then I passed desultory civilization: junkyards, stores, trailers, road-houses, Baptist churches and cemeteries—the small towns whose people lived, died, hunted, prayed, made love and whiskey, and were carelessly killed in a sun so hot it took the stomach from you at midday. Vaporous heat rising thinly from the road lent the landscapes a cruel, shimmering beauty. Birmingham had ceased to exist.