Finding the North Star

CH 11 ACROSS A LAKE AND DOWN A CANAL

The night was cold and with the fire banked up high to stay lit late into the night, the men sat and talked. After her trial by water Becky truly felt like one of their number as she snuggled under a great pile of blankets to listen.

They boasted about fish they had caught, and compared how fast their times had been on the river. They talked about the logging camps and the cold they would endure through the long winter months; and the trees, hard as iron that did not give up their lives easily.

Lively and Ed listened, then joined in with a detailed story of their own about how they just shot a rabbit apiece.

"The place is crawling bunnies," Arlen joked. "It'd be hard to not hit the odd one."

Then John put in his story of how they had escaped from the farm, even Becky's part in it.

"You can trust Becky to keep her cool," he praised, "just like today on the river."

Becky heard for the first time how he shook off the two constables chasing him.

"They were on either side of me and gaining fast, so I headed straight for a fence and took it as easy as anything. They ended up on the same side of it as me. Unfortunately, not on their horses."

Maurice laughed looking at Becky. "Not many girls your age can say they have had such adventures. Running from the law, and now with this bunch of vagabonds on the river, shooting rapids."

Even Lively and Ed looked at her differently.

Mary was the first to want to go to bed.

"Do you want to sleep in the tent with me Becky?" she offered, gathering a pile of blankets.

"No. I want to stay here," Becky said, irritated that she had even been asked. "You can sleep in the tent."

So she stayed put and Mary went off to bed. She got as close to the fire as she dared and tried to stay awake for as long as she could - it wasn't very long.

The morning camp activities were becoming routine for Becky and she allowed herself to doze, comfortably aware that breakfast was being made and all she had to do was sit on her bed and eat it. She smelled the coffee gurgling away in the pot just as sleep pulled her back in. Her Dad always started the morning with coffee and she dreamed again of the dresser where the cups were kept. This time, her hand closed on something, grasping it hard before it disappeared, wanting to bring it with her into wakefulness. She looked down and nothing was there. That's when she woke and found her hands clenched around a corner of blanket.

Mary was just coming out of the bush that grew thickly around the camp when Becky crawled out from under her blankets.

It was still cold. There had been a light frost in the night and the grass was dusted white. Maurice sat at the fire, nursing a steaming tin cup. Becky watched him watching Mary cross the clearing, her head turned to the river as she combed her long, wet hair. She had a dreamy, faraway look and was humming to herself.

Becky wondered if she had been at her strange bathing ritual again and blushed.

He raised his cup. "Coffee Mary?"

Mary saw that Becky was awake, "I have to show Becky the bathing spot, but when I come back . . . ."

"I'll have one waiting."

Becky climbed out of bed in the clothes she had worn for three days now. She hated the idea of taking a cold bath and said so.

Mary handed her the soap and some clean underwear. "Your last bath was days ago." She picked up a pot of hot water from the edge of the fire and covered it with a towel. "That, young lady, is long enough."