“How you doing?”
“Oh, fine I suppose,” Emma says, touching her neck. “True believers have to learn to let things go of course. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.”
“So I am told,” Deputy Cagle says.
“Still, that must have been hard,” he says. “Being your first boy and all. Isn’t that what you told us? That he was your first boy?”
“That’s right, deputy. First and only, David was. Father did the arranging. He didn’t let me out before that. It wasn’t time, he said.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure a pretty girl like you must have run across some other boys. Parents don’t know everything a child does. Even a preacher’s daughter might have a secret, huh?”
“No sir,” Emma says, looking at the ground.
She twists her dress nervously at the questioning in a side-to-side sashay of sorts, revealing her ankles. The deputy looks at them.
“Well,” he says. “Spec I better go. It’s getting late.”
“Yes. And I still have work to do,” Emma says. “The chores around here are never done.”
The deputy turns to walk away, but he stops and reaches into his pocket.
“Hey,” he says, as if he were waiting for the right moment. “Just remembered. I found this and wondered if was yours?”
The deputy pulls a bobby pin from his pocket, holding it out before his face for Emma to see.
“Oh,” she says.
“Yep. Found it on the floor of the barn, in a pile of hay -- like a needle in the haystack. I was thinking it might be yours.”
“Well, no,” Emma says. “I don’t know how it could be. As I told you, I don’t go over there.”
"I have seen you wear these before," the deputy says. "At Christmas. You had bobby pins in your hair on Christmas."
"Certainly I'm not the only girl that wears bobby pins," Emma says.
“Very well,” the deputy says. “But there ain’t many folks who come around here. You are the only girl in these parts for miles. And here I find this bobby pin in a pile of hay in that barn across from your house. Just seems strange. That’s all.
“Maybe the preacher’s daughter decided to cross the road,” he says.
“Shucks,” the deputy says. “I don’t know. But I’ll get on out of your way. Let you finish your chores.”
Emma senses the deputy isn’t really through with her at all.
“Wait, deputy,” Emma says. “It’s possible I could have gone over there. Just walking around. I don’t recall for sure. But, maybe if you show me where it was, where you found it, it might help me to remember if I was there or not.”
“Maybe,” the deputy says. “Worth a try I suppose.”
They walk across the road and toward the barn side by side in a slow gait. Emma looks at the deputy’s left hand, taking note he isn’t wearing a wedding band.
“Are you single?” Emma asks.
“Yes ma’am,” he says. “Free like the wind as they say. I was married once, but that didn’t work out so well. Got divorced about the time I moved up here from Fort Payne. Needed a change.
“Seems my wife had a different idea about what marriage meant than I did. I caught her and my best friend at the house one day. Liked to have killed both of them.”
“Why didn’t you?” Emma says.
The deputy smiles.
They reach the barn doorway and the deputy points to a corner.
“There,” he says. “I found it over there.”
“Let me see,” says Emma, strolling over slowly.
In the corner, Emma turns to face the deputy. Her heart flutters. Her pulse quickens. She thinks of Michael.
“Maybe,” she says, slowly, sashaying the hemline of her dress to reveal her ankles. “Maybe…maybe I was here.”
“The truth comes out,” the deputy says, moving closer to Emma.
“Come here, Deputy Cagle, and I will show you where I was, exactly.”
The deputy fronts Emma.
She reaches out her arms to his waist, grabs him, and pulls him toward her. Deputy Cagle stands more than six feet tall, and he’s in full uniform with boots, making him tower over Emma.
She looks up to him, and smiles.
“Maybe,” she says, pulling the deputy’s face downward toward hers, while speaking in breathy tones. “Maybe I was here.”
“I’m listening,” the deputy says.
He opens his mouth and thrusts he tongue inside Emma’s mouth.
She opens wide, and lets him in.
The deputy thrusts his torso against hers. She drops to the ground, and pulls the deputy down with her, on top.
“He was here,” she whispers, thrusting her crotch against his. “He was right here.”