AT DUSK, I headed back to Hopersville. Among the trees, charcoal-colored in the dim of approaching night, fires burned, little oases of light, islands of welcome. I was thinking about the Schofields, about how, from the moment they’d laid eyes on a kid who was no kin to them, they’d taken me in, showed me kindness, generosity. Love. I wanted to hold on to that, and the only way I could think of was to return to their camp. In a way, like going home.
As I came along the river, a figure rushed to greet me in the near dark. My heart leapt at the hope that it would, by some miracle, be Maybeth. But after a moment, the man’s limp told me exactly who it was.
“Buck,” Captain Gray said, a little out of breath. “I figured you might wander back. You need to leave. Right now.”
“Why?”
“Some people came looking for you today. One of them was a cop, a county sheriff.”
“Warford? Big red-faced man?”
“That was him.”
Sheriff Shoot First And Ask Questions Later, I thought to myself.
“What did the others look like?” I asked.
“There was another man—tall, slender, black hair, dark eyes.”
“Clyde Brickman. And was the other one a woman?”
“Yes, his wife, I believe. You know them?”
“Yeah, and they’re all bad news.”
“They said they’d heard about a kid with a harmonica staying in camp. Wanted information. About him and a little girl he might be with.”
“Nothing. But they were offering money, and desperate as we all are, I’m sure they had some takers. You need to make yourself scarce.”
“Thanks,” I said. Then I said, “When you get to D.C., give ’em hell.”
“That I will,” Captain Gray said with a solemn nod.
I quickly returned to camp. In the time we’d been on the outskirts of Mankato, because we’d seen no one anywhere near our little copse of poplars, we’d grown a bit careless, and I found that Albert had built a fire. He had the pans from his military mess kit over the flames, and I smelled hamburger frying.
“Put out the fire,” I said.
He looked up, the features of his face all drawn taut, ready to argue. “Why?”
“The Brickmans are here and Sheriff Warford’s with them.”
Emmy had been sitting cross-legged watching Albert cook. I heard her catch her breath. Mose was on the far side of the fire, where, whenever he was in our company, he’d been keeping himself separate from the rest of us. He’d been hunched over, staring thoughtfully into the flames, but at the mention of Brickman and Warford, he sat upright, rigid.
Forrest said calmly, “I believe I hear the river calling you again.”
Albert doused the flames and we ate our hamburgers very rare on white bread and in sullen silence. I don’t know about the others, but I’d begun to hope that maybe we had outrun the Brickmans or at least had outlasted their anger, and they’d returned to Lincoln School, content to resume their reign of terror over all those we’d left behind. Now, in the dark around the dead campfire, I was afraid that we would never be free of them, that there was nowhere we could run that they wouldn’t follow.
“First light, we’re on the river,” Albert said. “We’ll be out of here before anybody’s stirring.” Then he said something that hit me like a rock. “Will you come, Mose?”
I couldn’t see Mose’s face clearly in the dark, but I could see his hands as he lifted them and signed, Don’t know.
I didn’t sleep much that night. It wasn’t just my usual insomnia. It was the world I knew breaking apart. I got up and walked to the river’s edge, sat on a big rock, and stared up at the two connected stars, Maybeth’s and mine, which would always point north. That’s where the river would take us next. The moon hadn’t risen yet and the river was a dark flow, and although I’d once thought of it as a current that carried with it the promise of freedom, now it seemed to offer only disappointment.
Then I had a thought so black that I could taste its bitterness: Why had we ever left Lincoln School? It was a hard life, sure, but it was also, in its way, predictable. The police weren’t after us there. The Brickmans were demons, but I knew how to deal with them. Albert and Mose were almost finished with their schooling and would be free to do as they chose, and as for me, I could manage the years I had left. Here, on the river, there was no certainty except that the Brickmans and the police would hound us until we were caught. I was sure a night in the quiet room would seem like a picnic compared to what awaited us after that.
IN THE RAT gray light before dawn, we rose and quietly loaded our canoe. Mose helped, though he gave no indication whether he’d continue with us. I was worried about his answer, so I didn’t ask. It was Emmy who finally broached the subject.
“Please come, Amdacha,” she said, using his Sioux name. “We’re family.”
Mose looked at her a long time, then a long time at the river. Finally he signed, Until I know you’re safe.
I understood that it was only for Emmy he was agreeing to come, not Albert or me. Family? Dead as the hope with which we’d begun our journey.
“What are you going to do, Forrest?” Albert asked as we prepared to shove off.
“You could come with us,” Emmy offered.
Forrest gave her a grateful smile but shook his head. “No room for me in that canoe of yours. Besides, this is my home. I’ve got family here. Time I visited them.” He looked to Albert. “You’re on your way to Saint Louis, but you’ll have to visit another saint first. Saint Paul. I know folks there, good folks, who’ll be happy to help you.”
He took a scrap of paper and a stubby pencil from his shirt pocket, scribbled something, and gave it to my brother. He shook Albert’s hand, then mine, then tousled Emmy’s hair.
He turned to Mose, Amdacha now, and put his hand on his shoulder. “Wakan Tanka kici un.”
Emmy whispered to me, “May the Creator bless you.”
Amdacha held the stern while Albert climbed into the bow and Emmy and I took our place in the center of the canoe. Amdacha stepped in, lifted his paddle, and Forrest shoved us into the current.