“Peavo and Moody went down to John’s Creek,” Taylor added.

“That’s a good place to look,” Whitlow agreed. “There’s a couple of good fishing spots on it.” He asked for some of Matthew’s clothing and Howard went into the house and returned with a shirt. “He had it on yesterday,” Howard said. “Ada hadn’t got around to washing it.”

“That’ll do,” Whitlow told him, and he took the shirt and pushed it against the faces of the dogs, encouraging them with the kind of whisper that men made with dogs, “All right, girls, get a smell. Come on, now.” The dogs rubbed their noses against the shirt, made deep-chested sounds, pranced, strained against their leashes.

“They got it,” Whitlow said. “Let’s go down by the road. No reason to turn them loose here, since the boy’s smell is all over the place.”

At the road, Whitlow let the dogs explore the ground until one of them paused, sniffed, gave a short bark that had the sound of a word if a dog could make words.

“She’s got it,” Whitlow said excitedly, and he released the leash around the dog’s collar, and then did the same with the other dog.

“Go on, girl, find it, find it,” Whitlow urged.

The dogs began to circle, their noses skimming the ground, and then one of them begin to sprint away and the other followed. “Let’s go, boys,” Whitlow called, fast-walking after the dogs.

“Somebody bring them lanterns.”

The men followed in a pack, holding lanterns and flashlights in front of them

On the porch of the house, Ada and Howard Reynolds watched with Eleanor and the other women. The lights of the lanterns and flashlights had the look of fireflies fading into the murky gathering of night.

EIGHTEEN

The trail the dogs followed led along the road until it veered into a pasture and then into woods. It was a wandering, zigzag trail and the dogs seemed, at times, confused by it, pausing in their lumbering trot, their heads swiveling to keep track of the scent of Matthew Reynolds.

Whitlow was not sure the dogs had the scent at all.

“It don’t make sense,” he complained. “I never seen them running around so much, like they chasing their own tail. That boy must of been all over this place.”

The men agreed.

“Looks to me like they could be headed down toward John’s Creek,” one of them said.

“Could be,” Whitlow judged, “but they going the long way around if they are.”

The moon, fading from its night of being full, made pools of light in patches where trees had been cleared or had fallen from storms, and the men talked of how tricky night light could be, even for people knowing the land and the shape of the hills that cupped the valley. They told stories of how they had been fooled by night light while night hunting, not knowing north from south or east from west.

It would be easy for a boy like Matthew to get so turned around he could be down in Georgia, thinking he was headed to his grandfather’s house, they said.