At last he allowed himself to bring forth, queasily, the memory that had been threatening to surface for hours. It was of Bear last summer, little and strong, sitting on a stump beside Carl as he planted flowers in the earth. The boy had been whittling contentedly, something of his own creation. Then, hearing a low male voice calling for him, he had paused in his efforts, and stiffened.

Carl had glanced up at him. Watched him for a moment, waiting for him to respond.

He hadn’t.

“That your dad calling?” Carl prompted him, gently. Again came the voice: “Bear Van Laar! Peter Four!”

Bear shook his head. “That’s my grandfather,” he said. And then, so quietly that he almost couldn’t be heard: “I don’t like him much.”

At that he collapsed his little knife, sighed heavily, and put it into his pocket. He stood, shoulders hunched, and walked in the direction of Self-Reliance.

•   •   •

It was 8:45 now. The sun was down. They walked back through the somber main room, which had emptied a bit since they’d entered. Then out through the front door and onto the lawn, plump with groundwater, squelching with each step. There was a very full moon that night, so bright that it cast faint shadows in their wake. The four of them and Vic Hewitt walked north, in the direction of the path through the woods that the boy and his grandfather had taken together earlier in the day.

“Do you know what he was wearing?” Bob Alcott asked Hewitt.

“Short pants, as I recall,” said Hewitt. “And a red shirt, I think. Short-sleeved. Least that’s what he was wearing when I saw him this morning.”

“Long pants,” said Carl, reflexively. He remembered this well. The boy had cuffed them in order to tie his shoes.

A pause.

“Oh?” said Hewitt.

“I think so.”

“How come?”

“I think I—saw him. Out front of the main house. Right before I left.”

Vic Hewitt looked at him hard. “What time would that have been?”

“Three thirty or so.”

All of them looked off toward the woods.

“Carl,” said Vic. “Any reason you wouldn’t have told us that earlier?”

Carl thought. “It just came to me,” he said. “Just now.”

•   •   •

Shattuck, bearing the single flashlight they’d found in the truck, swung it back and forth across the tree line at the edge of the lawn. With every sweep of light, the forest’s density was underscored. Parts of it looked positively thicket-like. Impenetrable. The only clearing was the entrance to the path in question. The last place Bear was known to have been.

“Should we shout for him?” said Carl.

Hewitt hesitated. “Don’t think so,” he said, finally. “Got no response all day. Hate to agitate the family further. Let them rest awhile.”

Shattuck nodded. He aimed the flashlight in the direction of the path, again, and then shone it back toward the house before speaking. When he did, his voice was measured.

“Look,” he said. “The four of us could head into those woods and swing our one flashlight around awhile. See if we find any tracks. Or we could go back to the house, dig up some more flashlights, or some torches. Have everyone fan out again. But with the number of folks you already had out here tramping around, I think we’d be better off bringing a hound in before the boy’s scent is gone completely. Don’t you?”

Vic Hewitt nodded. He wasn’t meeting their eyes. He was looking in the direction of the woods.

“Ask me,” said Shattuck, “I think we’d be wise to call the staties in. Only if you’re asking.” It was what Carl had been thinking, too. What all of them were thinking, no doubt.

Hewitt gave no response. He was listening.

“Vic?” said Shattuck. “You all right?”

A sudden rush of movement in the woods. The frantic rustling of a trapped animal. From the cleared path toward the mountain emerged a small figure, running flat-out.

For a moment, everyone was hopeful.

But it wasn’t Bear. It was a girl, Carl saw. Shattuck swung the light in her direction. Her face was white and panicked, her mouth open in a sort of silent wail. Her clothes were damp; her hair matted to her head, her long braid a sodden rope that hung heavily over one shoulder and down the front of her.

“What’n the hell,” said Hewitt, lowly, and only then did Carl realize who it was.

Hewitt strode quickly in the direction of his daughter, Tessie Jo.

The rest of them remained in place.

Carl

1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975

Tessie Jo was taken—mouth open, eyes closed—into her father’s arms, and then into the great room, and then down the hall, where a bath was run for her by one of the maids while, in a nearby room, her father calmed her down.

The few remaining guests scattered. The volunteers—Carl in the lead—excused themselves, and returned to the front lawn, where they stood, hands in pockets, wondering what to do.

Bob L. spoke first. “You think she saw something?”

Dick Shattuck: “Let’s hope so.”

But Carl had a different idea. “They were friends,” he said. “Good friends. Bear followed her everywhere. Looked up to her. Had a crush, maybe.”

The other three looked at him.

“Maybe she’s just upset he’s gone,” said Carl.

And this, indeed, was the word handed down by Vic Hewitt, when he came striding down the hallway again: the girl was in shock. She was tired and cold and starved, out in the woods with no food or drink since afternoon, when Bear was first reported missing. She was terrified of losing her friend—one of the only friends she had, said Vic—adding that she’d never gotten along well with the kids at her small school. For now, Tessie Jo had been fed soup by Darla McCray and put to bed, still shivering. The hope was that she wouldn’t get sick.

All four men received this information, nodding. And then Vic told them that they should go home, get some sleep. He’d take it upon himself to keep watch overnight. Tomorrow, the five of them, and the state police, would start over. With hounds, this time.

As the truck pulled out of the driveway, they saw Vic in the dim light cast forth by Self-Reliance. He was walking toward the woodshed. He would build a campfire for his solitary watch, thought Carl; maybe the blaze, or the smoke, would draw the boy back toward the house.

To that point, Carl had resisted allowing entry to a feeling that had been hovering on the outskirts of his consciousness. But from the back of the pickup truck, he watched as the lights of Self-Reliance turned off one by one, and he at last allowed himself to think it: if that were his boy, lost in the cold woods overnight—down with an injury, perhaps—well, he would still be out there searching. Calling Bear’s name until his own body gave out.