I’d seen nothing going upstream and had been walking back for only a few minutes when Benji’s whistle reached me. There was a shrill urgency to it, so I quickened my pace.

He was standing not far from where we’d first come out of the woods.

It took me a moment to catch my breath.

I was stunned as he explained what the foot and claw prints meant. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t noticed.

He said, “Don’t feel bad. It would be like speaking French, I guess; if you don’t know it, you don’t …”

He peered at the river.

“Benji, what is it?”

He said, “The light has changed since we first got out here. Look.”

I followed his pointing finger. The only thing I could see was a stick at a forty-five-degree angle perhaps ten yards from the shore.

Benji waded into the water up to his knees.

He reached down and pulled out something long, muddy, and dripping.

An old musket!

Benji looked toward the woods and, pointing at a spot that looked to me the same as every other, said, “There, that’s where he went into the woods.”