The winter had been especially cold this year. Since Christmas, we’ve had over 60 inches of snow. There has been no chance of some melting relief with the temperatures constantly in the twenties or below. We all felt the chill; it was in our bones, freezing our blood, our minds and our emotions. Some found comfort in the arms of a lover in front of a fireplace; others found solace in the warmth of alcohol, while others, myself included, found it easier to just freeze with the weather.
A six-year-old girl was reported missing Monday morning, January 8th, at 9:37 a.m. The school called the missing girl’s mother at approximately 8:00 a.m. to find out why she hadn’t arrived. It is not uncommon to have a child sick during the cold winter, however, it was uncommon that Mrs. White hadn’t called to let the school know that she was keeping Kylie home for the day. The story turned suspicious when Kylie’s mother claimed that she had dropped her daughter off at the side entrance of the school at exactly 7:24 a.m., six minutes before the bell would ring and signal the start of the school day. Her teacher claimed that the child wasn’t in her seat, nor had anyone seen her before the start of class. The girl was easily missed; blonde hair, blue eyes, blood red lips and snow white skin-a child like this would be common in any other school, but here, out of only 237 grade school and high school aged children taught together in the small school house, little Kylie was the only one who fit that description. Everyone in the town would eventually hear of her disappearance, but they printed it in the local paper anyway.
Kylie also stood out in the town of 1354 people, most of them from Native American descent. Everyone knew each other’s name. It felt like a large extended family. On summer holidays, everyone gathered in the park. On the Fourth of July the children would put on a play before a display of bright and exciting fireworks. The Christmas pageant was the same every year with same songs and the same dances. This last Christmas, however, one person was missing from the festivities. Will Brown disappeared three days before Christmas, most likely during the snowstorm. Some think that he will appear after the snow melts in the spring. I was hoping we would find him before that, but as each day passed it was increasingly unlikely that we would find him alive.
Will wasn’t anything extraordinary to most people, but he was a part of the town. He ran the hardware store off of Hwy. 51 and Main Street. It was a small Coast-to-Coast Store; barely had any stock, but it had enough for what folks needed around here, and not much more. His wife reported him missing Thursday, December 21st at 9:24 p.m. Will closes the store habitually at 7 p.m. and when he hadn’t shown for dinner, Mrs. Brown became worried. His car was still parked in the employee lot behind the building. For some reason, I didn’t think Will made the attempt for home that night. I didn’t think he was alive either.
Christmas came and went. New Years came whether I wanted it to or not. It was off of vacation and back to work in a town where hardly anything ever happened. Then the call came through to the dispatcher that Mrs. White couldn’t find little Kylie.
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