by James McGee
On ancient maps, it was the custom to indicate unexplored regions with representations of winged beasts and the inscription Here be dragons. There were no such drawings on the maps of the north-eastern states currently in circulation. The cartographers had made do with a one-word inscription: Couxsachrage. An ancient Indian word; to some, it translated as the Habitation of Winter. To others, the Dismal Wilderness. But these definitions were the white man’s interpretation. To the tribes of the Six Nations there was but one name, one meaning:
The Hunting Grounds.
By the time the end of the column came into the colonel’s sight, the rest period had drawn to a close. Canteens and pipes had been stowed and packs shouldered. From his stops along the line and the briefings he’d received from his officers, all appeared to be well. There had been some griping from the civilians about the heat and the brevity of the halt and the pace at which they were being forced to walk, but the complainers had been mollified by the news that, all being well, at the speed they were travelling they would reach their destination the following day. With spirits lifted, the overall mood had become one of increased optimism. Or so the colonel thought until he came upon his second-in-command, who was looking anything but cheerful.
Scott was talking with a heavy-set civilian whose face was hidden by a wide-brimmed hat. A grubby, once-white shirt and a pair of mud-stained breeches showed all the evidence of the march. He was one of a small group of similarly attired and weary-looking men and women that had attached itself to the rear of the column, tucked in among the last few horses of the baggage train.
At the colonel’s approach, Scott turned, his normally laconic features uncharacteristically tense.
Johnson felt the first flicker of unease. “Captain?”
Taking hold of Johnson’s halter Scott steered the horse to one side. “We have a problem, Colonel. It appears we’re missing a civilian.”
“Who?”
“One of the children.”
Johnson steeled himself. A missing adult would have been bad enough. A child was far worse. “Do we have a name?”
“A lad named Hooper, Matthew Hooper.” Scott hesitated. “I understand you know him, sir.”
“Is he missing or merely mislaid?” Johnson tried to keep his voice calm.
“Sir?” Scott frowned.
“You’re certain he’s not with us. You’ve checked the rest of the line?”
“Not yet, not personally. The reverend has.”
“Reverend?”
“Reverend De Witt, sir.” Scott nodded back towards the civilian with whom he’d been talking. “The boy was travelling with the pastor and his family. It was Lieutenant Wyatt who arranged it. The boy’s an orphan. He—”
Johnson held up a hand to belay Scott’s explanation. “I’m familiar with the boy’s background. It was I who directed Lieutenant Wyatt to find him a suitable guardian.” He looked towards the pastor, who’d been joined by an equally stout, apprehensive-looking woman whom he assumed was the pastor’s wife.
“Colonel …” De Witt stepped forward. He did not extend his hand but indicated the woman. “My wife, Esther.”
“Madam.” Johnson regarded them both for several seconds before asking, “You’re positive the boy’s not with the column?”
“We’ve checked all ways, Colonel. Up and down. He’s not here.”
“When did you see him last?”
The pastor hesitated, took off his hat and wiped the brim. He looked uncomfortably at his wife, who stared back at him helplessly. “Truth is, Colonel, I can’t rightly say. Not to the minute. It would have been a while ago. An hour maybe, possibly two.”
Dear God, Johnson thought. He stared at the man. “There’s a big difference, Reverend. It’d help if you could be more precise. Was it one hour or was it two?”
It was the woman who answered, with a wavering note in her voice. “It’s been nearer two, I think.”
De Witt shifted awkwardly. “Thing is, Colonel, it’ll sound like I’m making excuses, but the boy has a tendency to keep to himself. A lot of the time, he’ll ride on ahead; other times he lags a ways behind. We kept our eye on him at the beginning, but then we got used to him drifting off. It was plain he preferred his own company. He’d ease back to us eventually, during rest periods, but mostly during our night stops when we’d be taking supper. Esther and I got to thinking that maybe he was afraid of the dark and was having bad dreams over what had happened and didn’t like being alone then …” The pastor paused and looked up. “You know about …?”
Johnson nodded. “Lieutenant Wyatt informed me.”
“A terrible thing for a child to witness,” Mrs De Witt said, her voice sounding as if it was about to break. “Just terrible.”
“And he’s not spoken about it,” De Witt said. “Not once.”
His wife shook her head. Her eyes were clouded with sorrow. “It’s not right, Colonel, him keeping that sort of thing bottled up inside, especially at his age.” She looked up. “We thought it would come out, given time. But—”
“So you’ve no idea when he left the line?” Johnson cut in. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
De Witt shook his head. “No, Colonel. I mean, no, we don’t know.”
“Maybe he broke off to take a squat,” Scott suggested, “and got left behind.”
It was a possibility, Johnson thought, though on the face of it an unlikely one.
For the civilians, answering calls of nature was just one of the many challenges of the march. Those who felt impelled to relieve themselves had to make do with finding a convenient tree or a clump of underbrush to go behind. The soldiers and the Indians were long used to a lack of amenities but to those less worldly, attending to such a basic need in public was a salutary experience, even though everyone was subject to the same indignity. When the column was on the march it didn’t grind to a halt because one person was caught short between rest stops. If you had to go, you moved off the path, found a spot to carry out your business and then you rejoined the line, without taking too long about it. It had become a common sight to see people slip away. It wasn’t as if they required an armed escort to accompany them.
But if that’s what had happened, Johnson thought to himself, the boy wouldn’t have moved that far off the trail. It wouldn’t have taken him a couple of hours to catch up, surely?
“What do you want to do, sir?” Scott asked, breaking into Johnson’s thoughts. “Reverend De Witt tells me the lad has his own horse, which makes it even more curious that he hasn’t caught us up, the rate we’re moving. Unless he got thrown,” he added pensively.
“Oh dear Lord!” Esther De Witt gasped. “The poor child could be lying hurt somewhere!” Mortified, she stared at her husband. “It’s our fault, Thaddeus. We should have been more mindful.” No longer able to suppress her emotions, her face finally crumpled and she began to sniffle.
Damned right, you should, Johnson thought, though his anger was assuaged by the sight of the woman’s obvious and genuine distress. And could he place all the blame for the boy’s absence at the De Witts’ door? From Lieutenant Wyatt’s account of the catastrophic events at the Archer farm it was clear that the boy had suffered massive turmoil. Who knew what went through a twelve-year-old’s mind at a time like this? Could it be that the lad was trying to return home?
Johnson looked along the line. The troops were forming up, awaiting the order to move out. Even the civilians were looking restless, wondering why the march hadn’t resumed.
He turned to Scott. “Pick a search party. Four men, including a tracker. Give them horses; cut out some of the baggage animals or commandeer civilian mounts.”
“Yes, sir,” Scott said.
“Trouble is it’s not just when; we don’t know where he left the damned column, either,” Johnson said pensively. “When you checked the line, Reverend, you did enquire if anyone had seen him leave – correct?”
“No one noticed, Colonel.” De Witt stared bleakly back alon
g the trail, as if by sheer force of will he could make the boy reappear.
“How long should they search for?” Scott asked quietly, with a sideways glance at the pastor’s wife who, having controlled her sobs, was now dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
Johnson looked through the trees to the expanse of unbroken blue high above them. There were, he thought maybe six or seven hours before sunset.
“Until it’s too dark to see.”
“And then? You want them to stay out?”
The inference in Scott’s voice echoed the question he’d been about to ask himself.
“Advise them they’ll require one night’s provisions. I expect to rendezvous with the Marine at noon tomorrow. Tell whomever you assign that’s when I want them back with us. They’re to give themselves time to repair to Bulwagga for embarkation. We cannot – we will not – wait for them. Make that clear.”
“Yes, sir.” Scott’s grim expression said it all. If the search party failed to find the boy in time, they were consigning him to the perils of the forest, which meant his chances of survival were not merely remote, they were non-existent.
For a brief moment Johnson found himself debating the wisdom of sending four trained soldiers to look for one missing child in ten thousand square miles of wilderness, even though he knew that to consider any other course of action was unthinkable. Had it been any one of the other civilians, he’d have given the same order. Be they Loyalist, slave, servant or prisoner, his commitment was to transport every single one of the civilians to safety. No one would be left behind, not if he could help it. Especially not Ellis Hooper’s boy. Hooper had been a good man, a loyal soldier who’d given his life for the Crown. Sending out men to look for Hooper’s missing son was more than a matter of guardianship or trying to make up for the De Witts’ negligence – if that’s what it had been. It was about duty. He owed Hooper and his boy that much.
“We’ve probably traversed at least three crossing places since the lad was last seen,” Johnson said. “So make sure the search party marks its trail. We don’t want them wandering round in bloody circles, too.”
“You think that’s what happened?” Scott enquired doubtfully. “He found his way back to the road and then took the wrong path?”
“If he’s not lying injured somewhere, it’s a possibility. In these backwoods all it takes is one wrong step and then every damned tree starts to look like every other damned tree. Easy enough for a grown man to lose his way, never mind a twelve-year-old boy with no woodcraft. Put yourself in his shoes.”
Scott didn’t have to. He was already there.
A twelve-year-old boy with no family to come back to and no one to miss him, Johnson thought grimly.
“I’ll go and select the men,” Scott said.
Johnson did not speak.
“He’s not all alone,” a voice said, as Scott hurried off. “Tam’s with him.”
Johnson turned.
The speaker was a small girl seated atop a grey mare. Until that moment, Johnson had been too preoccupied to notice her as anything other than background scenery.
“Libby?” the preacher enquired cautiously. He turned to Johnson. “My daughter, Colonel.”
“Tam?” Johnson said.
“The boy’s dog,” De Witt explained.
Johnson cast his mind back to when Lieutenant Wyatt had returned to the Hall. The boy had been over by the tethering line. There had been a dog there with him then, some breed of hound; big, with shaggy fur, a typical farm dog, no doubt used to herd sheep or cattle – children, too, probably.
“Anyone seen the dog?” Johnson asked.
De Witt and his wife shook their heads. “Can’t say as we have,” the pastor said.
There was a collective shaking of heads from the other civilians in earshot.
Johnson dismounted. Careful not to intimidate the girl, he smiled as he walked towards her. “Hello, Libby. I’m Colonel Johnson. So, you’re a friend of Matthew’s, then, are you?”
The girl rewarded the question with a shy nod.
Johnson made a slight bow. “Well, I am most honoured to make your acquaintance. Y’know, I’ve a daughter, too. She’s called Mary. She has blonde hair and she’s very pretty, just like you. She has a baby brother. He’s called William, after his grandfather.”
Johnson felt the lump rise in his throat, as it did whenever he thought of his children, for there had been a second boy, christened John, born five months after Johnson’s escape from the valley. As a babe in arms when Johnson’s wife, aided by friends, made her own escape from the family home, the infant, along with his older brother and sister, had survived the flight from Albany to New York and thence to Montreal, only to succumb to a fever a few months before his second birthday. There wasn’t a day that passed when Johnson didn’t bring his dead son’s face to mind or think of the first time he’d held him in his arms.
“Tell me, Libby,” he said, blinking away the memory and speaking softly, “did you see where Matthew went?”
He doubted the child had any concept of time. It made more sense, therefore, to ask her if she had seen the boy leave rather than to enquire when he had left the column. That’s if she’d seen anything in the first place, of course.
The girl regarded him solemnly for several seconds; then her gaze dropped.
“If you know something, Libby,” Esther De Witt urged, her eyes red-rimmed, “you tell the colonel. There’s a good girl.”
The girl hesitated, then, in a smaller voice, she said tentatively, “Tam ran away. Matthew went to look for him.”
“You saw him go?” Johnson said, maintaining his smile and keeping his tone level.
Dipping her head, the girl regarded Johnson from beneath her eyelashes. “He told me not to tell.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from Mrs De Witt.
“Well, you’ve done exactly the right thing, telling us, Libby,” Johnson said before either of the girl’s parents could respond. Though how far it added to their store of knowledge, he had no idea. Against hope, he asked, “Do you remember when he left? Was it a long time ago or was it not so very long? Can you recall?”
“She’s not going to know that, Colonel,” the pastor cut in, with a note of censure. “She’s only nine.”
The little girl frowned as if trying to concentrate. “It was near that big old tree we passed,” she said eventually, her head lifting. She looked towards her father.
A tree? Johnson thought desperately. In a forest of trees? Well, that’s damned helpful. That certainly narrows it down.
“Which tree was that, Libby?” the pastor enquired gently.
The girl’s face brightened. “You remember! You said it was just like the one behind our house. The one without the branches.”
Johnson turned, fixing the pastor with a penetrating look. “Branches? Do you know what she’s talking about, Reverend?”
De Witt was staring at his daughter. “You’re sure, Libby? That’s where you saw Matthew go to look for Tam?”
The little girl dipped her head vigorously.
“What tree, Reverend?” Johnson sensed the girl start and realized he’d posed the question more sharply than he’d intended. He turned quickly. “That’s splendid, Libby. You’ve been most helpful.” Patting her on the knee, he said, “Y’know, when we get to Montreal, I shall take you to meet my Mary. I’ve a feeling that you and she could become great friends. What do you say to that?”
After giving the suggestion deep consideration, the little girl gave another solemn nod.
“Excellent!” Johnson said. “It’s settled then.”
As the pastor’s wife stepped in to speak to the girl, Johnson pulled De Witt to one side. “What tree, Reverend?”
De Witt frowned. “There was a giant oak behind our cabin. It was struck during a lightning storm and I had to saw the branches back. I—”
“Not that bloody tree, man! The one on the damned trail!”
The pastor reddened. Recov
ering, he said, “It was similar, an old oak tree. It looked as though the branches had been cut away a long time ago, to clear the road.”
“How far back?”
The pastor thought about it. “Four, maybe five miles. I seem to recall there was some sort of mark carved into the bark.”
“Mark?” Johnson said, pulse quickening. “What kind of mark?”
“It might have been an H, though I could be mistaken.”
God love the Engineers!
At the sound of hooves approaching, Johnson looked up. It was Scott, accompanied by four men on horseback; irregulars by their dress. One of them, a hard and capable-looking individual, wore a corporal’s chevrons.
“Name?” Johnson enquired.
“Stryker, Colonel,” the corporal said, saluting.
“Captain Scott’s explained the situation? You know what’s required?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good. It appears we have some new information to aid you. Who’s the tracker here?”
“We can all follow a trail after a fashion, Colonel, but it’s Private Fitch who has the gift.” The corporal indicated a lean, sharp-nosed soldier mounted on his right-hand side.
Fitch touched his cap respectfully. “Colonel.”
“There’s a large oak by the side of the trail; four, maybe five miles back,” Johnson said. He turned to the pastor. “East side or west?”
“West,” De Witt said, after another moment’s consideration.
“It’s old,” Johnson said, “and it carries the highway mark. You might be able to pick up the boy’s spoor from there. You know he’s mounted?”
“Yes, sir,” Fitch said.
“There’ll be paw prints, too, hopefully. His dog. That’s why he left the trail – the hound ran off. Needless to say, the boy is your priority, nothing else.”
“Colonel Johnson,” De Witt said from behind.
Johnson turned and discovered that while he’d been relaying instructions to the soldiers De Witt had taken his daughter’s place in the mare’s saddle.