Matt's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Matt reached the edge of Ruso by late afternoon. The road widened and the first thing he saw was not a building but a tree. Someone had trained it into a wide crown at the town line, apples and pears growing together on twisted trunks, flowers packed around the base in a low ring of red and white. A bench sat under it. Two old men were on the bench, talking quietly, not watching him. No one else was on the road. A town that let its border tree grow like that was not a town under siege. It was a town that had time. Matt slowed his steps and thought about what that meant for a girl who had come here to disappear. He walked in past small houses with swept porches. He found the feed store two streets in. The building was wood-framed with a broad front window and a plain painted sign above the door. Sacks of grain sat stacked on the porch. The window was clean. A hand-lettered card in the corner listed prices in a careful, even script. He did not go in. He crossed the street and stood in the shade of a covered walk where he could see the door. A saloon sat opposite the feed store, gray boards and a trough out front. Matt went inside and took a stool at the far end of the bar where he could still see the street. He ordered coffee. On the bar between him and the next stool lay a woman's necklace, forgotten or set down, a braided leather cord strung with pale and black beads and a white tooth pendant. He picked it up. The clasp was whole. The cord was not cut or broken. Someone had taken it off and laid it down on purpose. He set it back where he found it and watched the feed store door. At six o'clock a woman came out with a broom and swept the porch. She wore a work apron over a plain dress. She swept slow and even, corner to corner, then leaned the broom by the door. A man passed on the walk and she raised a hand to him. He tipped his hat. She said something and he laughed. She went back inside and came out a minute later with a watering can and tended a row of pots along the rail. She locked the door herself when she was done. She kept the key on a cord around her neck. Matt paid for the coffee and stepped out into the last of the light. She had swept her own porch. She had greeted a neighbor by name. She wore the key. No one stood at her shoulder, and no one watched her from a window. She had not been taken. She had chosen this. He buttoned the blanket tighter against his ribs and walked back toward the saloon to find a room. He would come to her tomorrow, on her terms, at her door.