DEAR JULY-

Ellie took off just after you did. My opinion is she won't be back, and Charlie thinks the same.

Roscoe's a poor deputy, you ought to dock his wages over this. He didn't even notice she was gone but I called it to his attention.

Roscoe has started after you, to give you the news, but it is not likely he'll find you-he is a man of weak abilities. I think the town is a sight better off without him.

We think Ellie left on a whiskey boat, I guess she took leave of her senses. If that's the case it would be a waste of time to go looking for her, Charlie thinks the same. You had better just go on and catch Jake Spoon, he deserves to pay the price.

Your sister-in-law,

MARY JOHNSON

July had forgotten that Peach had a normal name like Mary before his brother gave her the nickname. Ben had found Peach in Little Rock and had even lived there two months in order to court her.

"What'd it say?" Little Joe asked.

July didn't want to think about what it said. It was pleasanter to try and keep his mind off the facts-the main fact being the one his mind was most reluctant to approach. Ellie had left. She didn't want to be married to him. Then why had she married him? He couldn't understand that, or why she had left.

He looked at Joe, angry with the boy for a moment though he knew it was wrong to be. If Joe had stayed in Fort Smith, Ellie couldn't have left so easily. Then he remembered that it was Ellie who had insisted that the boy come along. None of it was Joe's fault.

"It's bad news," July said.

"Did Ma leave?" Joe asked.

July nodded, surprised. If the boy could figure it out so easily, it must mean that he was the fool for having missed something so obvious that even a boy could see it.

"How could you guess?" he asked.

"She don't like to stay in one place too long," Joe said. "That's her way."

July sighed and looked at the letter again. He decided he didn't believe the part about the whiskey boat. Even if Ellie had taken leave of her senses she wouldn't travel on a whiskey boat. He had left her money. She could have taken a stage.

"What are we gonna do now?" Joe asked.

July shook his head. "I ain't got it thought through," he said. "Roscoe's coming."

Joe's face brightened. "Roscoe?" he said. "Why'd he want to come?"

"Don't imagine he wanted to," July said. "I imagine Peach made him."

"When'll he show up?" Joe asked.

"No telling," July said. "No telling when, and no telling where, either. He don't have no sense of direction. He could be going east, for all we know."

That possibility alone made his quandary more difficult. His wife had left for parts unknown, his deputy was wandering in other parts unknown, and the man he was supposed to catch was in yet other parts unknown.

In fact, July felt he had reached a point in his life where virtually nothing was known. He and Joe were on a street in Fort Worth, and that was basically the sum of his knowledge.

"I guess we better go find your mother," he said, though even as he said it he knew it meant letting Jake Spoon get away. It also meant letting Roscoe Brown stay lost, wherever he was lost.

"Ellie might be in trouble," he said, talking mainly to himself.

"Maybe Roscoe's found out where she is," Joe suggested.

"I doubt it," July said. "I doubt Roscoe even knows where he is."

"Ma probably just went to look for Dee," Joe said.

"Who?" July asked, startled.

"Dee," Joe said. "Dee Boot."

"But he's dead," July said, looking very disturbed. "Ellie told me he died of smallpox."

From the look on July's face, Joe knew he had made a mistake in mentioning Dee. Of course, it was his mother's fault. She had never told him that Dee had died-if he had. Joe didn't believe he was dead either. It was probably just something his mother had told July for reasons of her own.

"Ain't he your pa?" July asked.

"Yep," Joe said proudly.

"She said he died of smallpox," July said. "She said it happened in Dodge."

Joe didn't know how to correct his blunder. July looked as if the news had made him sick.

"I don't think she'd lie to me," July said out loud, but again talking to himself. He didn't mean it and couldn't think why he had said it. Probably she had lied to him right along, about wanting to be married and everything. Probably Dee Boot was alive, in which case Elmira must be married to two men. It seemed hard to believe, since she didn't seem to enjoy being married much.

"Let's go," July said. "I can't think in all this bustle."

"Ain't you gonna look for Jake in the saloons?" Joe asked. After all, that was what they had come to Fort Worth to do.

But July mounted and rode off so fast that Joe was afraid for a second he would lose him amid the wagons. He had to jump on his horse and lope, just to catch up.

They rode east, back in the direction they had come from. Joe didn't ask any questions, nor did July give him the chance. It was almost evening when they started, and they rode until two hours after dark before they camped.

"We better find Roscoe," July said that night, when they were Camped. "He might know more than Peach thinks he does."

Suddenly he had a terrible longing to see Roscoe, a man who had irritated him daily for years. Roscoe might know something about Ellie-she might have explained herself to him, and Roscoe might have had his reasons for concealing the information from Peach. It was quite possible he knew exactly where Ellie was, and why she left.

By the time he lay down to sleep he was more than half convinced that Roscoe knew the truth and would put his mind at ease. Even so, as it was, his mind was far from at ease. He was tense with anger at Peach for being so open with her opinions, particularly the one about Ellie being gone for good.

Joe was sleeping with his mouth open, snoring softly. July wondered that he could sleep so soundly with his mother missing.

The stars were out and July lay awake all night, looking at them and wondering what to do. It occurred to him that Ellie was probably camped under the same stars, the same sky. He began to have strange thoughts. The stars looked so close together. As a boy he had enjoyed good balance and could cross creeks by stepping on stones and rocks. If only he could be in the sky and use the stars like stepping-stones. In no time he could find Ellie. If she went toward Kansas, then she was only a few stars to the north, and yet, on the earth, it would take him days to get to her.

The plains were still and silent, so silent that July felt that if he spoke Ellie ought to be able to hear him. If she was watching the stars, as he was, why wouldn't she know that he was thinking of her?

The longer he lay awake, the stranger he felt. He felt he was probably going crazy from all the strain. Of course the stars couldn't help. They were stars, not mirrors. They couldn't show Ellie what he was feeling. He dozed for a little while and had a dream that she had come back. They were sitting in the loft of their little cabin and she was smiling at him.

When he awoke and realized the dream wasn't true, he felt so disappointed that he cried. It had seemed so real, and Ellie had even touched him, smiling. He tried to go back to sleep so the dream would return, but he couldn't. The rest of the night he lay awake, remembering the sweetness of the dream.