No, last but not least, Scarlett thought, studying her sister standing in front of her in Mr. Ravenwood’s Spirit of the Mistletoe costume, there was Farrie. She didn’t know how she was going to get Farrie out of Nancyville when her little sister thought all these things that were happening were wonderful. The new life they’d been looking for.

But after Christmas, Scarlett knew, they would be plain old Scraggses again. The social worker, Miss Huddleston, would be back in town and Farrie most likely would be turned over to the court. She had heard enough about the Jackson County welfare department to guess it wasn’t likely they’d give Farrie back to their grandpa to raise. They’d put Farrie in a foster home, or a home for children who needed special care -

And Scarlett would never see her again.

“What’s the matter, Scarlett?” Farrie peered up into her face. “You look so sad. Aren’t you happy we’re going to have a Christmas this once?”

Scarlett frowned. “We had Christmas before,” she said, jerking the pieces of plastic mistletoe into place. “I got a doll from the church over at Toccoa when I was little, and we had some kind of Christmas nearly every year since you were born. Maybe not so as you’d notice it much, but we had it.” She picked up a plastic mistletoe berry that had fallen out of Farrie’s headdress and tossed it on the table. “This stuff! Last Christmas I shot real mistletoe out of oak trees and we sold it.”

“With Uncle Lyndon Baines’s twenty-two,” Farrie reminded her.

Scarlett shrugged. “Anybody can shoot mistletoe out of a tree with a shotgun.”

“We made fifty-seven dollars,” Farrie remembered, “but Grandpa took it away from us.”

“Well,” – Scarlett leaned back on her heels to look at Farrie full-length – “that’s why we ran away.”

Something was happening to her little sister. In her long white angel dress, topped now by the big, full wreath of plastic mistletoe resting on her wiry hair, Farrie glowed. For the first time it seemed to Scarlett that Farrie was looking more like other little girls. Her face wasn’t so pinched, she didn’t seem so thin, her funny little grin wasn’t so elvish. And tonight was Farrie’s night.

Mr. Ravenwood had put Farrie on the top of the tree as the Spirit of Mistletoe for the final number. The closing song sung by the entire tree, plus Farrie’s solo, would be spectacularly joined by all the church bells in downtown Nancyville: the First Methodist, the Nancyville First Baptist, the Makim’s Mountain Presbyterian, and St. George’s Episcopal Church, which had a real carillon played by computer program.

“I guess I’m happy we’re having Christmas here,” Scarlett said reluctantly. There was no need to let her little sister suffer just because she was out of sorts. “It could be a lot worse.”

She looked up at the kitchen clock. It was almost noon and she had to fix lunch. That at least would make her feel better; planning something for Farrie and herself to eat from the cookbooks.

Nevertheless, the doleful feeling wouldn’t go away. Scarlett wished it was five o’clock, and time for the Heamsteads to pick them up for the performance. But that was still hours away.


* * *

A trickle of blood from the cut on his eyebrow where the cretin in the cowboy hat had hit him made its way down into the corner of Buck’s eye, partly fogging his vision. He wasn’t bothered so much by the cut, nor even the rabbit punch old Devil Anse had delivered to his abdomen in a fit of temper, as he was by the cold.

Buck figured from the looks of the misty sun over the tops of the pines that he’d been tied to the tree for about an hour. After punching him up, the two Scraggses – one, he gathered, was the girls’ uncle Lyndon Baines – and the two Potters, father and son, had gone down to their pickup trucks to drink beer and talk things over. The more beer the louder the talk. He could hear them distinctly now, discussing profits in the hijack turkey market.

Buck tried his legs experimentally. He could hardly stretch them out, they were so cramped. The Scraggses had him restrained with his own handcuffs, a prime humiliation for any law officer, and his right shoulder and where he was sitting on the half-frozen ground had gone numb.

In a little while the Scraggses and what Devil Anse called the family of the “betrothed” – the Potters, father and son – would come back up to persuade him to adopt their current business agenda. Lay off investigating Jackson County truck hijackings, was the message. Especially turkeys. And lay off the entire spectrum of Scraggs enterprises.

And oh yes. Make up his mind about Scarlett.

They were actually stupid enough to think they’d make him cooperate by beating him up. The jerk in the cowboy hat had been particularly happy to slug him twice in the face while yelling about what he’d probably done to his girl. With, of course, Buck couldn’t help thinking, the permission of her grandpa. After they finished this round of beer they’d be back again.

It could go on all afternoon, he thought, checking the slant of the cloud-covered sun. In the meantime, there was the Living Christmas Tree waiting down at the courthouse, and soon, Junior Whitford’s committee. And, Buck remembered with a groan, the Atlanta TV cameras. It was too much to hope for a miracle, that the news crews would stay away.

Out of the corner of his eye he was aware of a persistent, slight movement in the trees. Now, as he squinted against the gray light he saw it was the Scraggs dog back there, hiding and watching him.

Fat lot of good the animal had done him. Since it had fallen or been thrown from the truck, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of it. Certainly not while the Scraggses and Potters were beating their current revised business demands into him.

Now that the blood from his cut was no longer seeping into his eye, Buck could see the dog better. The thing knew it, too: it lifted that huge black tail and whacked it in the pine needles several times.

Suddenly inspired, Buck lifted his handcuffed hands and wiggled one finger.

Come closer.

To his surprise the Scraggs dog obeyed, crawling on its belly until it was at the edge of the trees but still in the shade.

Well, that was progress. Hope began to stir, unwillingly. “Go get Farrie,” Buck whispered hoarsely.

The dog wagged its tail again.

Damn, it was too much to hope the thing had any sense! He remembered the time when the little sister was hiding, and Scarlett’s remark that the dog knew where she was but wouldn’t tell. He’d half believed it, then.

“Listen, I need help,” Buck rasped. He realized he was pleading with a dumb animal. “Go get help, understand?”

The Scraggs dog wagged its tail again.

Despairing, Buck suddenly had a bright vision of the one good thing he could think of in spite of the Scraggses and in spite of everything. A warm, lovely presence that put its slender arms around him and chased away his misery, his humiliation, the terrible cold.

Scarlett.

“Go,” Buck told it, “get Scarlett.”

When next he looked, the dog was gone.

Sixteen

Scarlett had not only fixed lunch, she’d peeled a bowl of apples and made two apple pies with fancy lattice crusts, but she still felt jittery. Farrie sat at the kitchen table and watched as she started on a package of Betty Crocker brownie mix she’d found in the Grissoms’ pantry.

“If you’re going to sit around in that Spirit of Mistletoe dress, you’re going to have to be careful,” Scarlett said as Farrie took the brownie bowl to lick. “It’s too late to wash and dry it if you spill something.”

Farrie nodded, busy with the chocolate batter. She’d kept her plastic mistletoe headdress on, so ready for her big night that she couldn’t bear to take any part of her costume off.

Although they both jumped, it was something of a relief to hear Demon’s wild barking, followed by the scratching at the back door. The next instant they knew what it meant.

“Something’s happened to Buck,” Scarlett cried.

They both raced to open the door. Demon came hurtling in, not stopping to be petted, circling the kitchen table and barking.

“She don’t want to stay,” Farrie shouted.

Scarlett bent to touch Demon’s coat. It was icy cold. “She’s been out somewhere with him. I know Demon would never leave Buck unless something’s happened!”

Suddenly Scarlett knew what that look meant in Devil Anse’s eyes that morning when he’d gotten out of the pickup truck at the Living Christmas Tree. Those eyes that singled her out held a warning not to do anything, no matter what happened.

The dog circled the table again restlessly, still barking her low, rasping woof, woof.

Scarlett leaned over it. “Where’s Buck?” she cried.

Demon barked again and raced for the door. The dog sat down in front of it, tail pounding furiously.

Farrie threw up her hands, her face wrinkled in anguish. “Something’s happened for sure, Scarlett!” she screeched. “Is it Devil Anse? Is he going to hurt Sheriff Buck?”

Scarlett’s legs gave way under her and she had to sit down. Something awful had happened to Buck. She could guess what that was, since Demon had come back without him.

Oh, glory, she prayed fervently, don’t let Devil Anse do anything to Buck! There was no limit to what her grandpa could do, mean as he was!

Scarlett looked slowly around the kitchen. It had all been a dream, she thought. A dream that someone like Farrie and herself could live in a real house, so solid and comfortable, and full of love, like real people. Without being discovered for what they were.

Scraggses. Outlaws. People that no one in their right mind would want to have anything to do with.

What had just happened – what had probably happened to Buck by now if Devil Anse had him – proved that, all right.

She took a deep breath. “We’ve gotta stop Grandpa,” she said, looking across the kitchen table at Farrie. “Buck’s been good to us like nobody else has ever been.”

She saw her little sister think it over a minute. Then Farrie nodded in agreement.

“And if we do,” Scarlett said slowly, “we can never come back.”

Farrie’s eyes widened. “Whatcha going to do?”

Scarlett shrugged, a little sadly. “I guess you could call it burning our bridges behind us.”

This time, they both knew, Devil Anse had gone too far. Sheriff Buck Grissom was different. He was different because Scarlett loved him. And if Devil Anse thought he could do anything he wanted to Buck, he had a big surprise coming.

The bigger surprise the better, Scarlett told herself vengefully. The second mistake Devil Anse had made was thinking she’d forgotten how to act like a Scraggs. Because right now she had just the thing a Scraggs would do in mind.

“If Devil Anse hurts Buck,” she vowed as she untied her apron, “I’m going to make him sorry that he ever had any kin at all.” She started toward the hallway. “What’s in that gun case in the den?”

Her sister was right at her heels. “Two Uzis, an AK-47,” Farrie answered promptly, “and two sawed-off twelve-gauges.”

“You’ve already opened that case to look, haven’t you?” Scarlett didn’t wait for an answer. “Go pick that lock again,” she told her sister, “and get the shotguns.”

Unlike most Scraggses Scarlett hated guns. Which didn’t keep her from being an unerring shot. She knew Devil Anse wouldn’t be so nice-minded when it came to Buck; he’d shoot him dead if he had to.

Well, she could be tough, too, Scarlett thought, when it came to someone she loved. She’d already proved that with Farrie.

She stopped short in front of the den. “Oh, damn, we need a car! What are we going to do for transportation?”

“Mrs. Grissom’s Buick Park Avenue?” Farrie looked hopeful. “It’s in the garage.”

Scarlett turned to her. “What can you do with that?”

“Oh, I love Buicks,” Farrie breathed. “I can get in with a coat hanger.”

“Then let’s do it,” Scarlett said.

She gathered up the weapons herself. It took agonizing minutes to find the ammunition for the shotguns, but she finally discovered it in Buck’s desk drawer in the den. When she went out to the car Farrie had the Buick’s door unlocked and was sprawled on the seat working on the steering column, with only her little feet sticking out from under the long skirt of the Angel’s gown.