Deputy Holt reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his face. “Buck, I never heard no young woman talk like that. I swear, there’s just no telling the words that are going to come out of that mouth!”

“Where’s my sister?” Scarlett O’Hara gripped the bars with both hands. “My little sister Farrie’s run off in the cold, and she’s lost and it’s your fault, you old -”

Buck stepped toward her. “That’s enough of that.” The steely authority that had made his late father famous and which he had passed on to Buck in a considerable degree made the girl suddenly close her mouth. “Now let’s hold it down,” he ordered.

Scowling, the Scraggs girl tilted her head back to get a good look. The fluorescent light of the cell block illuminated Buck’s square-jawed face and stern, unfriendly expression.

Buck was thinking Miss Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs looked wild and unmanageable. On the other hand, from her nearly bare feet to the top of her gypsy-black curls she projected so much – Buck’s mind stumbled over the thought – well, sexual attraction that the effect on the public at large was worrisome.

“How old is the little sister?” he asked.

“Ten, eleven, somewheres around there,” the deputy answered.

“And this one?”

Mose Holt shrugged. “She won’t say.”

Buck studied her. If the other Scraggs girl wasn’t more than eleven years of age, then half the case was out of his jurisdiction. The younger half.

“Susan,” he said, “I’d be obliged if you’d rout old Ancil Scraggs out of the hills and get him to come down and claim his relatives.”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than they were subjected to a truly anguished screech.

“Don’t do that! Oh, please don’t get my grandpa!” the figure behind the bars yelled. “Please, mister, I’ll get that old witch another mangy cat in place of the one Demon tore up – me’n my little sister’ll do anything! But don’t let Devil Anse come for us!”

Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs clutched at the bars of the cell with an expression that was genuinely heartrending.

“Please, mister,” she pleaded, “I’m nineteen years old, I’m full grown, I can do what I want, can’t I? My little sister and I didn’t do any harm sittin’ on the curb waiting for the Greyhound bus that goes to Atlanta until that ole cat jumped on Demon. You gotta let me go, so I can go find Farrie!”

Buck turned to Susan. Who was staring at the prisoner, appalled.

“You gotta,” the voice in the cell yelled belligerently. “We didn’t break the law, me’n Farrah Fawcett! We were just running away!”

Two

Scarlett watched the man she knew by now was the sheriff talking to the tall blond woman. Once he took her hand, but she quickly moved it out of the way.

“I’ve never heard of a runaway Scraggs,” the woman was saying. “Although I suppose any child in their right mind would want to get away from that horrible crowd.”

The big redheaded sheriff said, “This one’s hardly a child.”

They both turned to study Scarlett. Who hunched her shoulders in the gray jail blanket the deputy had given her, and glared back.

Although Scarlett would never let them see it, she was worried sick. Her little sister was somewhere out there in the town of Nancyville, and it was growing dark. Farrie didn’t even have any money. Scarlett had the sixty-three dollars for the bus tickets and the extra she’d taken when she’d raided the black iron pot where Devil Anse kept his cash.

The only good thing Scarlett could think of was that at least Farrie had the good pair of shoes, the pink and white sneakers Scarlett had bought for her last summer. She’d kept the rubber sandals for herself. They were the reason her feet were so numb with cold now that she could hardly feel them.

The worst part, Scarlett knew, was that there was no telling where Farrie and Demon were now. And it was snowing; Scarlett had seen it as she was coming into the jail.

She heard the blonde say, “Well, Buck, you can’t hold her on vagrancy, I don’t care what that old crank, Della Stevens, told Mose.”

“Assault, Susan,” he told her, “not vagrancy. Attempted assault.”

She snorted. “Assault on Della’s cat? It’s as mean as old Della is!”

Scarlett pressed her face against the bars, listening. This wasn’t turning out at all the way she’d planned it. By now the Greyhound bus to Atlanta had come and gone, instead of taking them away from Catfish Holler and their grandpa and the rest of the Scraggses. Farrie and her dog, Demon, were wandering around somewhere in Nancyville, and there she was. In the county jail!

The thought made Scarlett’s mouth tremble, and she bit back hot tears. No need to cry, she told herself fiercely, you know it never gets you anywheres.

Nobody was coming to help. Help, she well knew, was for other people. Scraggses who cried got hit, whopped on the head, and made fun of. Crying was the most useless thing anybody could do. Along with praying.

“The youngest girl should go into a shelter,” the woman was saying. “That takes a court order.” She hesitated. “Good heavens, relatives should be present in court. Can you imagine all those Scraggses -”

The sheriff’s expression was grim. “That will be the day, when I have to round up the Scraggses to appear on a runaway case. Believe me, Susan, if I ever get them into court I’m going to prosecute the whole tribe for manslaughter, hijacking, armed robbery – everything else they’re wanted for.”

Scarlett studied the sheriff with narrowed, suspicious eyes. He didn’t talk about Devil Anse the way other people did. Like they’d do anything to stay out of his way.

“I just can’t turn her loose, Susan. Listen, can’t you put her over in the Hardee County shelter with her little sister? That is, when we find her.”

“Are you kidding?” The woman turned to him. “Buck, you’re not going to make me give up my Christmas vacation! Why, even if I could find somebody brave enough to take in a couple of Scraggses over the holidays – which is highly unlikely – there’s the prospect that Devil Anse would be coming to town to claim them. Ugh! Why do I keep thinking in terms of armed attack, siege, home invasion, ambush -”

“Don’t be melodramatic, Susan,” the sheriff said coldly. “It’s not called for.”

“Melodramatic?” The social worker put her hands on her hips and faced him. “Look, I didn’t volunteer for this. You called me, remember?”

Scarlett was thinking the woman was right. At any minute now Devil Anse would find out that his granddaughters were missing. And so was his money.

She took a deep breath. She was never going back, neither was Farrie. That’s what she’d promised.

“I’m not going to miss my meeting in Atlanta,” the woman was saying firmly. “And this girl isn’t in my jurisdiction, anyway. Frankly, I was glad to get Scarlett O’Hara off my hands when she left high school. Buck, just do what your dad always did.”

“Don’t drag my father into this,” the sheriff growled, “I know how you feel about him, Susan.”

“I wasn’t dragging your father into anything! Besides, I know your mother wouldn’t object.”

The sheriff’s jaw tightened. “You don’t have to criticize my mother, either.”

She stared at him. “Look, Buck, I know the Scraggses are not the most rewarding project to get involved in here at Christmas. I’ve chased them from one end of the county to the other and they’re hopeless. The men won’t let the women and children have any contact with strangers, they’re too afraid the government will find their stolen-car chop shops and the rest of the rackets they’re into up there in the hills, and prosecute them.” A little pleadingly, she touched him on the sleeve. “I’ve paid good money to attend my meeting and have my holiday, Buck, don’t ask me to give it up. Anyway, the county doesn’t have the money to put the Scraggs girls up in a motel, much less pay a matron to supervise them. And you can’t leave them alone. I don’t see that you have any other choice.”

The sheriff looked like a thundercloud. The last thing he wanted for Christmas was Devil Anse’s granddaughters. “Dammit, Susan, if it comes to that, I’d pay their motel bill myself!”

She suddenly looked at her wristwatch. “Good heavens,” she exclaimed, “I haven’t got time for this! It’s a good thing I’m all packed and my bags are in my car outside.”

She started toward Scarlett, the sheriff following. “Susan,” he was saying, “why don’t we leave her here in the cell block and see how things work out?”

“You can’t do that. Scarlett’s not a criminal. And as a Scraggs, she’s got enough against her as it is. Scarlett,” she said, “do you understand what we’ve been talking about? When your sister is found the sheriff can’t keep her in jail. And we don’t want to send you back to your grandfather without a court hearing. Sheriff Grissom agrees with me that we need to move you out of here.”

“Now just a minute,” the sheriff said, “I didn’t say -”

“Scarlett O’Hara,” the woman went on, “Sheriff Grissom has very kindly offered to take you home with him.”

Three

A gust of wind swept into Nancyville from the heights of Makim’s Mountain, making the tinsel garland on Main Street whirl in the winter light. The same blast swept across the windshield of the Blazer with enough sleet to blot out Sheriff Buck’s vision. Muttering under his breath, he switched on the wipers, then turned the heater to Defrost.

Beside him the Scraggs girl was still clawing at the Blazer’s locked door. It had taken a good bit of Buck’s strength and all of Susan Huddleston’s guile to get her into the county police vehicle, and once inside Scarlett had been sure she’d been tricked, that she was under arrest and on her way to the state pen. Screaming, she’d attacked the inside of the Blazer in a fury. She was still at it.

“You gotta let me out of here, I ain’t done anything!” She pounded the door handles and window glass with both fists. “I mean it, you gotta let me out! I gotta go look for my little sister!”

“Stop that!” The screaming in the close confines of the Blazer was fraying Buck’s temper; he was used to more orderly prisoners. Except, he reminded himself, Scarlett Scraggs wasn’t exactly a prisoner. “Sit down,” he ordered. “And act decent!”

As he said it, Buck realized that “decent” wasn’t a word that one could use to command the Scraggses. Unless he was mistaken, Scarlett’s mother was the Scraggs who’d left Devil Anse’s youngest son to run away with a country and western guitar player from Nashville. It was unlikely that Elvis Presley, Farrah Fawcett, or Scarlett herself had been exposed to any sort of stable home life.

For the second time that afternoon Buck experienced an unsettling nervous cramp in his stomach. His mother – whatever her past experiences with his father’s Christmas strays and vagrants from the county jail – had never coped with a true Scraggs. Bringing this half-wild creature home, not to mention the other sister when she showed up, filled Buck with foreboding. And he was not used to feeling that way. Not since Susan Huddleston announced she was calling off their engagement.

That, he told himself sourly, was another thing.

He still couldn’t fathom how his ex-fiancée could make him feel so guilty, when the damned engagement was over and done with a long time ago. He should have put the Scraggses up in a motel. They could have found some way around regulations.

The girl beside him had stopped banging on the door. Now she slumped in her seat, substituting the earsplitting howls for subdued, but just as nerve-racking moaning. Buck glanced at her. Her head was bent, her face hidden by a mop of hair that fell forward.

“Farrie’s out there, in all that snow and cold.” A gulping sound that might have been a sob broke from her. “And you’re gonna take me someplace” – she turned, the gypsy eyes gleaming at him balefully – “to do whatever it is you think you’re gonna do to me!”

“What I’m going to do to you?” Buck stepped on the brakes in surprise. The Blazer bucked in protest, then skidded sideways on the sleety road. Scarlett Scraggs clutched the dashboard and screamed.

Buck snarled something under his breath.

“There, you cussed,” she screeched. “I heard what you just said!”

At that moment the county dispatcher called on the police radio. “Sheriff, your mother’s been trying to get you.”

“Even I know a sheriff,” the Scraggs female was screaming, “ain’t supposed to cuss like that!”