If Catfish Had Nine Lives(110)

            “That’s a shame he wasn’t there. Where was he?”

            “I didn’t ask. Go ahead, hold it. Jake’s not around, so he can’t cringe or chastise.”

            I lifted the mochila out of the trunk and handed it to Gram. She was gentle and more curious than I would have predicted she’d be. She opened two flaps on one side and looked inside. When she turned it to look into the other two, something fell out and to the ground.

            “Oh, no. Sorry,” Gram said.

            “A letter? Jake and I looked though it thoroughly, Gram; there was no letter.”

            “You must have missed it. Let’s see what it is. Be careful. It will probably be very delicate.”

            “Should we call Joe over? I mean, it’s a letter from a mochila; maybe he should see it too?” I said as I crouched to pick up the weathered envelope. Time had made it look like someone had spilled coffee on it and wadded it up before straightening it again.

            “Makes sense to me,” Gram said.

            I held the letter as I stood up with the intention to signal Joe to join us. But as I glanced over at the group, I was stopped by the look on Jake’s face as he talked to Orly. Something was wrong.

            With letter in hand, and with Gram and the mochila behind me, I made my way back to Orly’s tent.

            “What’s going on?” I asked Jake.

            “I couldn’t find Esther. I told Orly, and he said that he saw her with Vivienne earlier, walking along the back of the campsite.”

            “I told them to stay out of the woods,” Orly said as if to somehow appease Jake.

            “And then he mentioned that Esther and Vivienne were two people who had access to his truck,” Jake continued, worry now pinching his voice.

            “Well, yes, but they’re on a list of about six people, Jake. I’m sure those two are fine. I didn’t mean anything by it. Sorry.”

            I wasn’t sure they were fine. And I wasn’t totally aware of what I was doing as I stuffed the letter into my pocket. I wanted to find Esther and Vivienne before I did anything else.

            “We’ll find them,” I said to Jake. “Come on.”

            Those who were paying attention would have seen me, Gram, Jake, and Orly tromping toward the thick woods. But Gram and I both saw that Jerome and Joe and a horse were part of the pack of explorers, too, though they were mostly silent. I sensed that Jerome was somehow out of sorts, but he stayed close by.

            “Orly, how far away are we from the spot where Teddy was found?” I said.

            Orly shrugged. “I didn’t find him.”

            He had mentioned that, and he’d mentioned that one of the cowgirls had found him, but I’d never asked for a name. I remembered that I had been so worried about Teddy’s state that I’d missed that important question. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t, but I didn’t hesitate to ask it now. “Who found him? Which cowgirl?”

            “Vivienne,” he said. “She helped him back to the tents.”

            I looked into the copse of trees and felt small and unsure. I’d been in the woods plenty of times, and I could easily find my way out, but there were so many options as to which path Vivienne and Esther might have taken if they had, in fact, gone into them.

            “Should we split up?” I said. “Orly, you go with me or Jake. We know our way around in there. We won’t get lost.”

            “Wait a minute, Betts,” Joe said at the same time Orly said, “I’ll go with Miz.”