YONDER IT IS, SHERIFF SAID the sheriff’s deputy.

All right. Go on to the top and turn around.

They drove on up the deeply mired road fishtailing slightly and unreeling long slabs of wet mud from under the tires until they came to the loop at the end of the road. Coming back down you could see the ruts where they went off into the weeds and you could see where the young trees were crushed and where the tiretracks went on down the side of the mountain.

Yonder she lays, said the deputy.

The car was turned on its side in a deep ravine some hundred feet below them. The sheriff wasn’t looking at it. He was looking back up the road toward the turnaround. I wisht we’d of been here three days ago when they was still some snow on the ground, he said. Let’s go down and look at it.

They stood on the side of the car and raised the door up and the deputy descended into the interior. After a while he said: They ain’t a damn thing in here, Sheriff.

What about in the glovebox?

Not a thing.

Look up in under the seats.

I done looked.

Look some more.

When he came up out of the car he had a bottlecap in his hand. He handed it to the sheriff.

What’s that? said the sheriff.

That’s it.

The sheriff looked at the bottlecap. Let’s get the turtledeck open, he said.

In the trunk was a spare tire and a jack and a lugwrench and some rags and two empty bottles. The sheriff was standing with his hands in his pockets looking back up the side of the ravine toward the road. If you wanted to get from here to the road, he said—which you would if you was here—how would you go?

The deputy pointed. I’d go right up that there gully, he said.

So would I, said the sheriff.

Where do you reckon he went?

I don’t know.

How long did you say his old lady says he’s been gone?

Since Sunday evenin.

They sure the girl was with him?

So they say. They was engaged.

Maybe they took off through the woods or somethin.

They wasn’t in the car, the sheriff said.

They wasn’t?

No.

Well how did it get here?

I believe somebody’s shoved it off in here.

Well maybe they run off together. Might better find out how much he owed on the car. That could be what …

I done have. It’s paid for.

The deputy nudged a few small stones with the toe of his boot. After a while he looked up. Well, he said. Where do you reckon they’ve got to?

I reckon they’ve got to wherever that gal got to that was supposed to be with that boy we found up here.

She was supposed to of been goin with that Blalock boy we talked to.

Yeah, well. These young people keep pretty active some of em. Let’s go up here.

They walked up the road to the turnaround. On the far side they found shoetracks in the mud along the edge of the road. Further down the circle they found more. The sheriff just sort of nodded at them.

What do you reckon, Sheriff? said the deputy.

Why nothin. It could just be where somebody got out to piss. He was looking off down the road. Do you reckon, he said, that if you was to shove a car off from along in here it might get as far as where we’re parked down yonder fore it left the road?

The deputy looked with him. Well, he said. It’s possible. I’d say it might could.

So would I, said the sheriff.