The Hollow Tree (10 page)

“I am not a rebel! And I’m not a thief! Please, will you let go of me? I won’t run, I promise, I won’t, and I can’t think with you holding me like this. Please, you’re hurting me.”

The boy gave Phoebe a long, suspicious look. Slowly he took his hand away. Backing up a step, rubbing her arm to get the blood running
in it again, Phoebe tried to digest his news. What was she to do? If what the boy said was true, who could she give Gideon’s coded message to? And who would help those Loyalist families?

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.” The boy shifted his weight from one long, skinny leg to the other. The anger had faded from his eyes, eyes that were a startling bright blue in a face that was otherwise very ordinary looking. He had a wide mouth and a blunt nose, and those eyes set in a square face almost completely covered with freckles. Tufts of reddish-blond hair poked out from under the fur cap pulled low over his forehead.

“Anyways” — he frowned at Phoebe — “you ain’t said what you’re doin’ here dressed in them Indian clothes, tryin’ to steal a boat to get to a place that’s as cleaned out as a chicken coop after the fox has been. There ain’t likely to be none of us Loyalists left in these parts, neither — we’re all gone. So there’s nought fer a spy to do.”

“Gone? All the Loyalists are gone? Where?”

“I can’t say fer all of us, but the rebels come to our place two nights since. Middle of the night. Neighbours, they was, and they booted us out of our beds and said we had to git. Tried to take me along with ’em to fight in their consarn army, but I got away and hid in the woods ’til last night. I snuck back to get our boat, and rowed up here to catch up with Ma ’n’ the little
ones. I ain’t got time to stand here all day gab-bin’, but I ain’t leavin’ until I find out what you’re up to.” With an impatient gesture he pushed his cap back from his forehead, revealing the frayed edges of a dirty bandage.

“Oh, what happened to you?” Instinctively Phoebe stretched her hand towards him.

“Aw, I got into a tussle with the varmint who was fixin’ to cart me off.” He tugged the cap back down over his forehead. Unexpectedly he grinned. His whole face lit up, and Phoebe wondered, suddenly, why she had thought him so ordinary-looking. Then he frowned again. “I ain’t settin’ one foot afore the other until you tell me what you’re doin’ here,” he said stubbornly.

Phoebe didn’t know what to say. What could she tell him? She couldn’t tell him about Gideon or trust him with either the coded message or the names of the Loyalist families. For all she knew he might be lying to her,
he
might be a rebel spy. “I’m on a mission,” she said finally, “or I was on a mission — to Fort Ticonderoga — but, if it’s true that there’s nobody there, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

He stared at her, not believing or not taking in what she had said, Phoebe wasn’t sure which. Then he shrugged his shoulders resignedly, and looked up at the sky, where dark clouds were gathering in the east. “I got to head out,” he said. “It looks like rain — or snow,
more like — and I got to find Ma. She set out north for the Iroquois River up in Canaday. And, if I was you, I’d head right on back to where I come from.”

Back to where I come from. Everything the boy had been saying suddenly struck Phoebe like a physical blow. The breath went out of her, her shoulders sagged. Back. Back over those mountains. She couldn’t. And she knew, with a shiver of horror, that she could not go back to Orland Village. She had carried Gideon’s message, had done the work of a Loyalist scout. These men who had hanged Gideon would hang her, too. She saw a long canoe gliding on the lake towards the south near the opposite shore and a flock of ducks fly into the air in alarm. They did not seem real. Nothing seemed real.

“You can’t just stand there,” the boy said impatiently. “There’s wild animals hereabouts ’n’ there’s soldiers in the rebel fort up top of that mountain only a mile back. Get yourself on home. I’m settin’ off to find Ma and Miz Anderson.”

Anderson. Phoebe stiffened in surprise. Anderson was one of the names in Gideon’s message. She knew those names by heart, she had read them over so often. Could this be the same family? “Are you related to the Andersons?” she asked. “I mean the family of Septimus Anderson who lives near Skenesborough, New York.”

“Not me, I’m Jem Morrissay. Andersons live a couple of miles up the road from us.”

Morrissay, another of the names. They must be the families on her list. And they were not safe. She had come too late, just as Peter Sauk had feared.

“Jem Morrissay,” she began. She was going to ask about the Colliver family, but he interrupted her.

“See here, how do you know … Oh, Jehosaphat!” In one swift movement, he grabbed Phoebe by the arm and shoved her towards the boat.

She heard a low growl, and Bartlett emerged from the underbrush, his snout stained a deep red.

“He’s bleeding,” gasped Jem. “Sure as shootin’ his ma’s gonna be right behind him, set to kill. If you can run, you’d better start,
COME ON!”

Phoebe yanked her arm free. She dropped to her knees beside the bear. “Bartlett, I forgot all about you, I’m sorry.” She stroked his rough fur. “I’m sorry. Wherever did you find berries with enough juice for this much red?”

“Jehosaphat!” Jem’s voice was shaking. “You must be addled!”

Phoebe looked up. “He won’t hurt you and he has no mother. His name is Bartlett.”

“Bartlett? Bartlett? Where’d he get a name
like that?” Jem’s face was flushed with embarrassment.

“I gave him the name. He made me think of Old Mistress Bartlett back in Orland Village. You see, her hair is the colour of bear fur, and she eats as much as her pig, so she’s big, not tall, mind, but, well, my cousin Gideon says three axe handles across the beam. I think maybe only one and a half, but she does look a bit like a bear.”

Jem looked at Phoebe as if he really did think she was mad. “Where’d you get him?”

Phoebe stood up. Bartlett whined. She leaned down and stroked his head, again murmuring soft encouragements to him. She felt better. Bartlett’s berry-stained snout and Jem Morrissay’s discomfort at having been so scared seemed so ridiculous that they had restored her balance. “In a tree,” she said. “I found him in a tree.”

“Where’d you come from?”

“Over the mountains by the Connecticut River.”

“You never did! A little gal like you, rigged out in squaw clothes? You and … and that bear to see a general at Fort Ti who ain’t even there? I don’t believe you.” He crossed his arms and glowered at Phoebe.

“I didn’t know he wasn’t there.”

“How come you wanted to see the General
anyways?” Jem seemed to have forgotten that he was in a hurry to find his mother.

“It was because of the mission to the General I was entrusted with,” Phoebe answered stiffly.

“Well, there ain’t a British general to see until you get to Fort St. John’s, up on the Iroquois River, the one that runs north from the lake up to the St. Lawrence. That fort’s near a hundred miles from here, in Canaday. And the forts south of here is all took by the rebels. I’m off now.” He turned away, then, an instant later, he swung back. “And, if you’re minded to get up to Fort St. John’s, you can get yourself — and that bear — up there howsomever you come here. You ain’t comin’ along with me. I got enough to look after.” He climbed purposefully up the slope to the path. When he reached it, he set off towards the north. He had only gone a few paces when he slowed, stopped, then turned around.

“I can’t just leave you here, blast it! Come on. Ma’ll know what to do with you. But God save you if you turn out to be a rebel spy.” Suddenly he grabbed Phoebe’s arm. “Don’t say nothin’,” he whispered; “there’s a whole passel of men out there on the lake. They’re paddlin’ this way, and there’s no sayin’ who they are or what they’re up to. Come on!”

Dragging Phoebe after him, Jem started along the path, crouching low and running as fast as he could, with Bartlett right behind.
Phoebe did not utter a sound, did not try to free herself, although her wrist, where Jem held her, was beginning to hurt — she was working too hard just to keep from hitting her head on low tree branches and stumbling on the rocks and roots in the narrow path.

When they had gone a good distance north of the men on the lake and Jem had slowed down, Phoebe pulled herself free of his grip. “Thank you,” she said primly. “I can manage without your holding onto me.”

“Don’t you worry. I don’t figure to look after you, and I’ll tell you right out, I ain’t takin’ that bear to Canaday. No matter what you say, I ain’t takin’ no bear up to Canaday.”

“You don’t need to.” Phoebe was equally indignant. “If you’re going to Fort St. John’s in Canada, march yourself right along. You don’t need to look after me or the bear. We can find our own way, just as we’ve been doing for at least three weeks now.” She meant it. At least, she meant to mean it. She was not willing to become indebted to this cross boy who distrusted her.

“Well, you can do as you please, but this ain’t the best time in the world to be traipsin’ through the woods on yer own.” Jem turned his back to her and, as she’d bidden him, marched off.

Phoebe was tired and hungry and she had
never felt so alone in her life. Not when her father died, not when Gideon died and Anne turned on her. Not when she reached the source of Trout Brook and thought she was lost for ever. The only direction life had at this moment seemed to be to follow this irritating boy. And if she were to follow him to where his mother and the Anderson woman were, there might be comfort and kindness with them. And she had no will to start out again on her own. So she followed him. Bartlett followed her.

They hadn’t gone more than a few yards when a dark shape leapt from a tree onto Phoebe’s shoulder. Claws dug through her tunic into her skin. She jumped. And she screeched. Jem spun around.

“Where’d that cat come from?” he bellowed.

Phoebe looked nervously around to see if their noise had attracted attention. Jem lowered his voice to an enraged whisper. “I ain’t takin’ no cat. Ain’t it enough you got that blasted bear? You didn’t say there was a cat.” He let out an exasperated sigh. “Where’d he come from?”

“From home. He followed me.”

“He got a name, too?”

“His name is George.”

“George? For George Washington, I guess.”

“No, he’s named for—”

“I know, for some stupid-looking fella with red hair and a set of whiskers.”

“No, it was more his ears and the way his eyes stare.” Phoebe pulled George from her shoulders and shook him. “You scared me out of whatever wits I have, George. I thought you were a catamount.” George jumped to the ground.

“You got any more family that come along over the mountains with you like Bartlett and George? Mebbe a nice friendly rattlesnake?” Without another word Jem started off again, walking at a furious pace.

“Jem Morrissay,” Phoebe said timidly.

He didn’t reply. He just walked faster, and Phoebe had to run to keep up with him.

“Jem Morrissay.” Again.

He still did not reply.

“Jem Morrissay, you’re going in the wrong direction. You’re taking us east.”

“I come the way the path come.”

“It had a branch.”

“Huh?”

“The path. It had a branch off to the east. That’s the one we’re on.”

He looked at her suspiciously.

“Jem Morrissay, why would I mislead you? Look at the trees.” She showed him where the moss grew and pointed at woodpecker holes that made almost straight lines, which meant east. Without a word of thanks, he retraced his steps to where the paths separated, and they started on the northward one again. Until they heard
voices coming towards them. They got off the path then and hid in the thick bushes until the people had passed, two men and a woman talking in loud, cheerful voices about “the trouncing they’d given old Gentlemen Johnny and his redcoats at Saratoga and Freeman’s Farm.”

In about an hour, they reached the place near Chimney Point where the path crossed the military road. There they left the path and moved inland into the forest in order to avoid the road and the ruins of the old, burned-out French settlement that gave Chimney Point its name. “It’s only that old chimney and a lot of rubble, but God knows who might be camped there,” Jem said.

It was not really cold, despite the threatening snow, and Phoebe was not uncomfortable as she walked steadily and silently. She was glad the land near Lake Champlain had no high mountains. And she was glad, as she had been so often, of the deerskin leggings and tunic that did not catch on every bush and bramble she had to push from her. The way through the forest was dim. The pines and spruces cast thick shadows over the bare branches of the hardwood trees. The spicy scent of the evergreens was strong in the damp lakeside air. Small animals scurrying away from their scent and the thumping of their passing, Bartlett and George snuffling along behind her, and the harsh cries of
the jays and the piping sounds of chickadees and kinglets announcing that strangers were on the way accompanied her thoughts.

She was trying to make some sense of all that had happened. From the moment Jem had said, “There’s no one at the fort,” the dispiriting thought had been creeping up on her that she had once again been stupid, really stupid. How could she have believed that, alone, without any knowledge of the war’s battles and the movement of soldiers, she could carry out a soldier’s mission? If only she had stayed in Orland Village! She knew that Anne’s hysterics never lasted forever; she would have gotten over them. They could be comforting each other with the rest of the family in front of the warm fire in the kitchen. Instead, she was following a strange boy through the wilderness, a boy who, if he could be believed, was part of one of the families she had set out to save — too late. The realization of what she had thrown away for what she now saw as high folly sank into her as though she had swallowed a lead weight.

After they were sure they were well past the ruins at Chimney Point, Jem led the way back to the path along the lake, although he did have the grace to mumble that he didn’t suppose he was “all that much of a guide.” But, before they went on where the path led north, away from the shore, they slid down the slope to the lake
for a drink. Gratefully Phoebe cupped her hands and drank until the water was dripping off her chin. Jem put his face right down into the water and sucked it up the way a horse does. He wiped his mouth with his hand and sat back on his heels. He watched Bartlett wade into the lake and George sniff at its shore. He looked at Phoebe, one eyebrow raised.