“He just got a head for that,” agreed Ruth Ann. “Ain’t nuthin’ the man can’t fix or build.”
“Any idea where he might have gone? You said a truck was missing?”
“Yeah, but he’s got a plane too,” said Gabriel.
“What kind of plane?” Michelle said quickly.
“Little single-engine Cessna.”
“Why would he need a plane?”
“He a pilot in Vietnam,” answered Ruth Ann. “And he go up to the old mine sometimes. Fly to get there.”
“What old mine?”
Gabriel explained about the coal mine. He finished by saying, “It was an old Confederate prison one time, Mr. Sam told me.”
“A prison,” Sean said, looking at Michelle anxiously. “You think he might have gone up there?”
“If the plane is gone, that’s where he went. Only place he goes in it.”
“You think he took Tippi up there?”
“Don’t think so. All the equipment and what-not she needs, don’t think it would fit on the plane. It’s pretty small.”
“So where do you think she is?”
Gabriel thought about this. “Mr. Sam built a little one-room house a ways from here on land his family owned. Nothing there, really. No electricity or anything so I don’t think Miss Tippi would be there.’Cause she would need the electricity for the machines.”
“Why’d he build a place like that, then?” asked Michelle.
Gabriel shrugged. “Don’t know. He built it himself. Took him a long time.”
Sean looked nervously at Michelle before turning to Gabriel. “Do you think you can show us how to get to the mine?”
“I know it if I go with you.”
“Gabriel!” exclaimed his mother.
“I don’t know the directions to tell’em, Momma. But if I go I know the way.”
She looked anxiously at Sean. “He’s been real good to us, Mr. Sam has. If he done anything bad it be for a good reason, you can count on that.”
“He left us his house and property,” volunteered Gabriel.
“And he give Fred a thousand dollars cash. Fred told me,” added Ruth Ann.
“You think he believed he wouldn’t be around much longer?” said Sean.
“Who knows how long they be around?” countered Ruth Ann. “Drop dead tomorrow, any of us. Lord’s will.”
“Who else is up there at the mine, you think?” asked Sean.
Gabriel answered, “Maybe Daryl, his son. Maybe Carlos.”
“How about a guy named Kurt Stevens?”
“Mr. Sam said Kurt left town, headed on,” said Gabriel.