The toddler had been lost for more than three days and his
mother’s hope dissipated with each passing hour. His sisters did their best to
comfort the woman, who clung to his older brother like a rag doll. The house
had been searched from cellar to attic, as well as the dairy barn and sugar
house. The uncles had combed the pastures, the maple groves, the heavily mossed
ravines, and pined capped peak of Lincoln Mountain. The boy hadn’t been found
anywhere.
The fireflies glittered above the new corn and the moon rose
large over the White River rapids at the fork in town by the covered bridge.
Each day more people came from town to help in the search, and by nightfall all
were somber with exhaustion and deflated hopes.
It was a relief when the cock finally crowed and the first rays
of dawn speared the sky illuminating the church steeple in crimson, rose, lavender
and peach. Ribbons of morning fog lifted from the tilled fields as men in
overalls and caps and women in calico dresses and straw hats set off once again
looking for the wayward child.
“Momma,” the eldest daughter bent over her mother. “I’ve
made you some coffee.”
The woman rocked her son, resting her chin on his sleeping
head. She stared at the lampshade with red rimmed eyes. She hadn’t slept in
days.
“Here, let me take Liam. You should eat something.” Her
mother looked up and surrendered her first born son into the arms of his
sister.
“The cows,” started the older woman and made to rise from
her chair.
“Amy’s already gone after them, mum.” The girl put her hand
on her mother’s shoulder. “Just eat.”
Rena felt her mother’s pain. Her own heart had shattered upon learning of
her favored brother’s disappearance. At just two, she wondered how he could
possible survive all alone with the moose and the bears and the snakes and the
river and the ravines. Heck, even the
bulls could do the boy harm if he got anywhere near them. Without food or water? He’s just too little,
she thought, and with each new dawn her hope began to dwindle.
Hal Harper had come the day before to help and he was back
again this morning. Rena watched him join the men near the red barn as she stood
by the window releasing her ample hair from its pins, ran her fingers through
it briefly, and rerolled it. They had been friends since birth, as often
happens in small country villages such as theirs. He had been the one who taught
her how to swim and where the secret cave was behind the Grasonville Waterfall.
In fact, that’s where she got her first kiss. He had grabbed her hand when she
was standing at the back of the crowd watching the Fourth of July fireworks and
they had run all the way to the river. Her sister Nina had seen them run off
but hadn’t told a soul.
As the men dispersed, Rena heard her mother put the dish in
the sink and shuffle up to her bedroom where—she prayed—the woman would finally
sleep. Hal looked over his shoulder at
her, but she couldn’t smile. Instead, she prayed that he’d find her baby
brother today. The young man seemed to comprehend the message, and nodding to
her, he pulled his cap on and strode off like a man with a purpose.
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