The Wild Path

by Sarah R. Baughman

  Dad takes a ragged breath, and then I know maybe he’s as confused as I am. “I miss him too, Claire,” he says. “But I think he’s right where he needs to be. For now.”

  We turn onto a narrow dirt drive choked with maples. Our truck bounces up and down in the ruts rain made, and Dad takes it slow. The driveway feels long, but it empties into a clearing with a small ranch house ahead and a large barn on the right. A cedar-pole fence, crooked in spots but strong, rings a pasture twice the size of ours, but I don’t see any horses. No hay tossed on the frozen ground. No water trough. Even from the outside, the barn feels empty.

  Dad pulls the truck up and turns off the engine. “Well,” he says. “Ready?”

  I nod and pull my backpack over my shoulders, the box weighing it down.

  Dad walks to the house first.

  “Wait!” I can feel the sparrows flying in already, pulsing their wings. “Wait a second.”

  But Dad lifts his finger and presses the bell. “It’s best to get started, Claire, honey,” he says, holding his hand up for a high five. “You’ll be fine.”

  The sparrows rustle wildly then, and their little feet skitter under my skin. I push my palm against Dad’s and he squeezes, filling me with some warmth just as the door opens and a man with wispy gray hair and skin the color of straw fills the frame. A shaggy dog threads itself between his legs and rushes out.

  “Taffy!” the man says sharply. “Taffy, stop that, now.”

  But as soon as I see his dog, the sparrows begin to settle. I stand perfectly still on the doorstep, keeping my eyes low and my palms open for her to smell.

  I feel Taffy’s heart quieting as she loops around me, her nose pushing my ankles. I stroke her head and rub her furry chin.

  “Welcome, Claire,” Mr. Hamilton says. “That dog’s not too fond of strangers, but it looks like she approves of you.”

  “I love animals,” I say, standing up to shake Mr. Hamilton’s hand. I look quickly at his eyes, because I know I’m supposed to. But I feel better looking at Taffy.

  “Well, come on in,” Mr. Hamilton says, then looks at Dad. “It’s good to see you again, George. Been a long time. You’re all grown up.”

  Dad laughs, then takes Mr. Hamilton’s hand. “Yes. How’s Owen?”

  “Busy in Boulder,” Mr. Hamilton says. “Different world out there.”

  “Sure must be.” Dad steps in, but lingers in the doorway. “We’ll have to catch up, but I want to be sure Claire gets her interview done first.”

  “How about we talk out on the side porch?” Mr. Hamilton says. “I still have screens in the windows to catch the fresh air. It’s a little chilly, but the sun’s shining now, and we might not have too many more days like this.”

  “Perfect,” Dad says. “I’ll take a stroll around those nice fields you have past the porch. I know Claire would prefer doing the interview without me hovering just over her shoulder.”

  “It can be hard to talk to a new person,” Mr. Hamilton says, so quietly the sparrows calm even more, their wings making only the tiniest flutters. I can tell they’ll fly away soon. “Feel free to join us anytime, or explore.”

  “I might take a look around your barn too,” Dad says.

  “Have at it.” Mr. Hamilton leads us through his living room and out to the screened-in porch, where autumn sun bathes the walls in gold. “Not much there anymore. Not like you remember.”

  “Things change.” Dad taps me on the shoulder. “I’ll check back in soon, Claire. Ten minutes?”

  “Fifteen should be good.” I want enough time to show Mr. Hamilton the box without Dad walking in and seeing it. It’s not that I want to keep it a secret forever. I just need to figure out exactly when and what to tell him. Dad nods, then steps out the porch door and strolls toward the fields.

  Mr. Hamilton gestures for me to follow him to one end of the porch, which is crammed with plants and overstuffed furniture. A cat walks delicately across the top of the couch, its tail high in the air.

  “Move over, Mitzi.” Mr. Hamilton lifts the cat gently, extracting her claws from the fabric, and sets her on the floor. She stalks to my feet and starts to purr.

  I perch on the edge of a chair opposite the couch and stroke Mitzi’s head.

  “So,” Mr. Hamilton says, “you have some questions for me.”

  “A few,” I say. “Do you mind if I record you?”

  “Nothing to hide here,” Mr. Hamilton says. “I guess I have a question for you first, though. I know you told me what was in that box, but could I take a look at it, please? If you brought it, that is.”

  I open my backpack, pulling the box out. “I haven’t shown it to my parents yet.”

  “I’m sure they’ve never seen it before,” Mr. Hamilton says. “It was your mom’s great-grandfather who bought that farm from my grandparents. She wouldn’t have known their last names from that long ago.”

  “Wait,” I say. Wind swoops through my chest, scattering the sparrows. “Our house used to belong to the Hamiltons? Jack used to live there?”

  I had barely dared to think it. But it turns out I was right.

  Mr. Hamilton nods. “No reason for your mom to know that kind of connection, though. It was a long time ago.” He reaches for the box and runs his hand over the top, then blinks a few times, staring like it’s a block of gold. Slowly, he lifts the lid.

  “Wow,” he says, so softly it sounds like a breath instead of a word.

  “You’ve seen it before?” Suddenly I remember when I was in second grade and lost my favorite doll for a whole winter. I only found her in spring when the snow finally finished melting and I saw I’d dropped her in the garden, in between rows of thick kale we’d left in the ground after it got cold. Mr. Hamilton’s looking at the box just like I looked at my doll.

  But he shakes his head. “Only heard about it,” he says. “My dad—that’s Jack, from the picture you found—would talk about it sometimes, especially as he got old, but honestly, I just thought he was confused. Pretty much everyone did, toward the end.”

  “Why did they think that?” I can’t imagine hearing about the box and not wanting to at least look for it.

  “After Dad’s accident, the whole family was completely rattled,” Mr. Hamilton says. “Dad maybe most of all. Didn’t want any part of that old place anymore. Thought it was bad luck.”

  “Where did they go?” I ask.

  “They bought this place instead.” Mr. Hamilton gestures out the window at the barn, the fences, the evergreens beyond. “Worked any way they could without horses. Had some milk cows once, raised some pigs. My grandfather—that would be Jack’s dad—worked in the mill for a while.”

  “So if they left,” I say, “how did this box get into our barn?”

  Mr. Hamilton smiles. “For that, I need to rewind a little ways,” he says, and holds up the article. “This tells you Jack’s horses fell through the ice—so they died, right?”

  “Of course.” It makes me sad to think about the horses slipping away, but at least Jack was lucky to live.

  Mr. Hamilton’s sandpaper voice gets so soft I have to strain to hear him. “Well, my dad thought they didn’t.” He chuckles to himself, shakes his head. “I never believed it—still don’t. But Dad—Jack—he was convinced they figured out a way to escape.”

  I feel something surge through me, and it isn’t the sparrows with their nervous flutter and frantic song. It’s something stronger. It’s a wave, a glittering push and pull, and I lean forward, ready to listen.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Horses couldn’t survive that icy water.” I shake my head, trying to figure out how the pieces fit.

  “I agree,” Mr. Hamilton says, holding his hands up. “Like I said, Dad’s stories never made sense to me, but I do remember one he always shared about the summer three months after his accident. He had a boat out on Pine Lake and was trying to catch some perch, when he saw something in the water.”

  Mr. Hamilton shakes his head, looks down again
at the bits, then lifts the leather harness piece out of the box. “He told me he paddled closer and saw… well, exactly what we’re looking at right here. Bits and harness. Just floating.”

  My brain scrambles to calculate. Bits are solid metal, and leather absorbs every inch of water—that’s why harnesses and tack get heavier when they’re wet. They’d never float.

  “Ever since the accident,” Mr. Hamilton continues, “all my dad wanted was evidence that the horses hadn’t died. He was just a kid when it happened. Believing the horses were really gone was probably too painful.”

  “So… what did he do?” I ask.

  “Well, he reeled in his line and forgot about fishing, at least for the time being,” Mr. Hamilton says. “Then he headed over to where he saw the bits and harness floating, and he picked them up.”

  Mr. Hamilton grabs the harness piece and unrolls it. He freezes for a second, and his eyes get wide. But then he chuckles. “Leave it to Dad to come up with the most harebrained possible explanation.” He glances back at me. “I don’t know how carefully you looked at this when you found it in the box. Did you see what’s etched in the corner?”

  He holds the leather out toward me, and I hesitate just a moment before taking it. I squint at the spot where Mr. Hamilton’s finger points and see a letter: H. Someone had carved it, maybe with a knife point. The edges aren’t perfect, but it’s there for sure.

  “Dad always told me he knew the leather had come from his harness before he even pulled it out of the water,” Mr. Hamilton says. “But he turned it over to make sure, and when he saw that H, he knew it was his. So he brought that and the bits into the boat and sat there for a while, wondering what to do next.”

  “Wait.” I’d been thinking so hard about how tack could be floating in the first place when Mr. Hamilton told that part of the story that it still hadn’t really sunk in. Now it does. “You’re saying Jack found the leather and bits in Pine Lake, right? That’s near my house. But didn’t the horses fall through the ice on Cedar Lake? That’s all the way over in Belding.”

  Mr. Hamilton smiles. “First of all,” he says, “you should know that Dad’s imagination stretched, well”—he raises one hand above his head and taps the air—“pretty much this high. But yes, according to him, these items in the box proved the horses escaped Cedar Lake and ended up miles away, exactly like you said.”

  “How?” Images of the lakes shimmer. I’ve been swimming in them as long as I can remember. Every birthday party I had was a barbecue on one of the beaches, the smell of charcoal heating in the little grills set up under the trees, sand sticking to our wet feet and fingers. We’d look out at the water and it seemed so easy to know what it was, top to bottom. What if I was missing something the whole time?

  But Mr. Hamilton’s already shaking his head. “Who knows? He never could quite explain that part. I remember him saying the horses must have scrambled out somehow and made it to shore, then pushed over the mountain to Pine Lake and walked across—it would’ve still been frozen—to get into the woods.”

  “It doesn’t seem possible,” I say, but everything inside me says it must be. I remember the part of Pine Lake I hadn’t expected to find. Clusters of stones ringing a circle of darkness, where waves push against sand. What’s beyond that darkness? Where does it lead?

  Mr. Hamilton laughs. “I definitely wouldn’t call it possible. I’d call it a good story, told by a person who needed one. Any psychologist today would probably say it was a response that helped my dad cope with the trauma of his accident.”

  “But what if he was right?” I ask. “Nobody ever proved the horses died for certain, right? Nobody ever found them?”

  Mr. Hamilton’s eyes sparkle. “I’m not sure how hard they looked, but Dad did like to say there were always hidden paths. Ways out and through nearly anything, even when people didn’t want to see them. Sounds like you two might look at the world in about the same way.”

  I do like the idea of a way out. A path I could find, made just for me.

  “Let’s say it’s true.” My voice sounds louder, stronger. “Why wouldn’t the harness be attached to the horses anymore? How would they have gotten them off?”

  “Dad figured they helped each other out somehow,” Mr. Hamilton says. “Probably bit the leather clean through as they were crossing the ice. If they did, snow would’ve covered what they left behind pretty quick, so at least the part about not finding anything until summer, when the snow was long gone, makes sense.”

  “Wouldn’t the horses have come back to Jack eventually, though?” I can’t imagine Sunny and Sam getting lost and not finding their way home, no matter how long it took.

  “I asked him that,” Mr. Hamilton says. “But Dad used to shrug and tell me they must have found freedom in the woods, and liked it. He never seemed to begrudge them that.”

  I imagine the horses running away, their wet tails streaming.

  But I don’t think they pulled themselves back onto what was left of Crystal Lake’s ice. I don’t think that’s how they got away.

  It’s hard to believe that two horses could make their way from one lake to the other unnoticed, even as inky dark crept over the winter evening. Even if they had somehow stumbled up the stony bank and wandered over frozen corn stubble, then over the forested Pebble Mountain… there would have been some evidence left behind. Hoofprints, maybe. Someone would have seen.

  They must have escaped another way.

  “What about the stone?” I pick it up, roll it in my palm.

  Mr. Hamilton looks surprised.

  “Even if Jack’s story isn’t true,” I continue, “I get why he kept the bits and harness piece. They’re something to remember the horses by. But what does a stone have to do with it?”

  “You’re asking good questions,” Mr. Hamilton says. “Exactly what an interviewer should do. I’m sorry I don’t have better answers, because I don’t remember Dad telling me about the stone. It’s certainly a beautiful one.” Then he shrugs. “Dad was a bit of a collector. Could have been something he found that he just wanted to keep, though it doesn’t look like the rocks I’ve seen around here.”

  My legs tingle. All I want is to return to the woods and find that ring of stones again. I think the darkness carved out of that hill by the beach could explain how Jack’s horses escaped. And how wild horses, so many years later, still live half hidden in the trees.

  “Do you think that maybe his story could be true?” I ask. “Now that you’ve seen the box, I mean?”

  Mr. Hamilton smiles and bounces the stone lightly in his palms. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again and shakes his head. Mitzi leaps up onto his lap, and he strokes her back while she purrs.

  “It’s funny,” he says. “This is the box Dad always told me about. He said he hid it up there, in the barn that used to belong to his family, so the story checks out in that regard. But finding it just means that yes, he tucked something away for safekeeping before his family moved. It doesn’t prove all the rest.”

  “But these have to be his.” I point at the worn H in the leather. “That’s not just anybody’s.”

  “Sure.” Mr. Hamilton nods and holds the strap up, letting it dangle from his fingers. “But remember, the family stopped using horses after the accident. It’s not like they were taking great care of their tack anymore. Dad could’ve found this stuff anywhere, before they left the farm. He could have made it fit any story he wanted.”

  “Do you think he hid something in your barn too?” I ask, glancing out the window. I see Dad still walking the fence line, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Because this is where he moved to, right? This is where you grew up?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Hamilton says. “But like I told you, the family stopped working with horses, and I know that was hard for my dad. Might be why he spun so many stories about them. Couldn’t get them out of his head. There wouldn’t have been much around for him to hide.”

  I hear my voice swimming through thick
ened air, and I realize I haven’t felt the wisp of feathers since we started talking. “Do you want me to look anyway?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Sun glistens, turning leaves into gems: ruby, emerald, topaz. I try to keep up with Mr. Hamilton. He might be old, but he moves fast.

  Dad waves at us from the entrance to the barn, and I jog over to meet him.

  “How’d the interview go, kiddo?” He pulls me into a quick hug.

  “It was really… interesting,” I say. Thoughts gather, rustling thick like leaves.

  Dad claps Mr. Hamilton on the back. “Thanks for taking your time. Every once in a while I looked back and saw you two chatting through the screen. Looked like you had lots to discuss.”

  “Claire is a great conversationalist,” Mr. Hamilton says. “She kept me on my toes.”

  Dad smiles, but I can tell he’s holding in a laugh. I don’t blame him. I’m not sure anybody but Maya and Andy would call me a “conversationalist.” But with Mr. Hamilton, talking wasn’t so bad. Somehow all my wanting to know about Jack and the horses rested on the sparrows like a gentle hand and kept them quiet.

  I twist the door latch open. The warm dark of this barn feels exactly like mine, and it smells the same too: like dry hay and sweet grain and sawdust gathered in piles.

  “She’s not shy about some things,” I hear Dad telling Mr. Hamilton as I step inside and get my bearings. Instinctively I reach for a light switch on the wall, and a sticky yellow glow fills the barn.

  On my right are two rows of stalls, dusty and gray, a concrete aisle running between. I glimpse what could definitely be a tack room at the end of the row of stalls, and is that a saddle horn, just visible inside the half-open door? There’s no milking parlor like I’d expect for cows, or chicken wire or cages for rabbits or anything else. This looks like a barn for horses.

  It takes me a while to register what I see on the left, but as soon as I do, I have to catch my breath. It’s small for what it is, but there’s no mistaking: It’s a completely closed-in, weatherproof riding arena. A fence circles soft dirt, and I even think I can see the leftover prints of hooves, deep and shadowed.