Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

“I didn’t think this would come so soon,” Crispin said when Duncan turned to him.

“You know you’ll see me again,” Duncan promised, extending his hand. “It’s the way of particular friends.”

“I know.” There seemed to be no other words they could speak. The former slave covered Duncan’s hand with both his own, clasping it in silence for a long moment.

Duncan embraced each of the children. “You have a new teacher now, much wiser than me,” he told them. “His name is Crispin.”

Outside on the riverbank, he embraced Sarah tightly, for a long time. As he kissed the top of her head and they stepped apart, she entwined her fingers in his for a moment, as they had on the ship. His shoulder was still wet with her tears when he stepped out of the river, into the forest. He had traveled for several minutes downstream, in the direction Jamie had gone, before he halted, looking at a small flower growing out of a rock in a pool of dappled sunlight, finding himself on his knees as he gazed at it.

At the steady gait of a forest runner, it took him less than two hours to reach the broad chestnut above the pool he had visited after he had fled Edentown-the only mark he had recognized on the map made in the library that morning. The old Indian was praying beside the huge tree, his hand on a root, but surprise froze his tongue a moment as Duncan silently knelt beside him. A wise and kind grin rose on his wrinkled face. As Conawago resumed his prayer, Duncan produced several leaves of tobacco and began gathering wood for a fire, watching the sky as he worked, wondering how long it would be to first snow. It would take them at least a month if they were to visit all of the ancient trees Conawago had marked on his map.