The handwriting was neat and cultured, belonging to a woman named Martha Hendricks, who identified herself as the aunt of Thomas, the boy who had gone to live with his Barrow cousins eight years earlier.
He explained that over the years he had written several letters to Thomas, sending them by regular mail to Forsyth, but had never received a reply.
She understood that young men often neglected correspondence, but something about that absolute silence bothered her.
Would the sheriff be so kind as to inquire about the well-being of his nephew?
Galloway folded the letter and looked out the window at the town square, where farmers were loading their carts and women were buying dry goods.
He was 58 years old, a former Union Army tracker who had witnessed more violence than his fair share during the war and who had subsequently come to the Ozarks in search of peace.
He had served as sheriff for almost 15 years, a position that consisted mainly of settling property disputes, chasing the occasional horse thief, and deliberately turning a blind eye to the bootlegging operations that everyone knew existed in the remote valleys.
The cases of missing persons in the Ozarks were complicated matters.
Young people were constantly leaving in search of better opportunities elsewhere.
The women got married and left.
Sometimes, people would simply wander into the forest and never be seen again, victims of accidents or deliberate decisions.
The distances were enormous.
The population was dispersed and data recording was, at best, irregular.
Galloway had no agents deployed in remote areas.
He could barely afford to pay the two men who worked in the village.
Communication was limited to news brought by travelers and mail delivered by traveling postmen.
A man could commit a murder in one valley and no one in the neighboring valley would find out for months, if ever.
This was the reality of law enforcement in rural areas in 1896.
And Galloway understood that his authority only extended as far as the communities were willing to recognize it.
In places like the deep canyons where the Barrows lived, that recognition was minimal at best.
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