Chapter One

We crept toward the old shack on our bellies, crab-crawling over moss and oak leaves. Elsbeth breathed softly to my left, just out of sight. Siegfried took the lead, several feet ahead of me. Behind us, the horses stood tethered to maple saplings; they munched steadily on the sweet leaves with a rhythmic crunching sound, their tails swishing against the sting of deerflies.

“Gus?” Elsbeth’s whisper glanced off the air. “Do you think anyone lives here?”

I pressed a finger to my lips. “Shh. I think I heard something.” I was glad I’d left Shadow at home. That little beagle would’ve betrayed us, running all over the woods baying at every new scent he found.

Siegfried raised a hand, signaling us to stop. He’d heard it, too. It was a keening sound, a high-pitched wail that was speech but not speech, closer to song, but with no melody I recognized.

Ice crawled down my spine and tingled in my toes. My heart pounded against the soft earth beneath me. I chanced a look at Elsbeth, whose eyes had gone wide with what some people might think was fear. But I knew better. Excitement lurked behind those big brown eyes. She didn’t scare easily now that she was eleven.

Wood smoke escaped the chimney in a lazy tendril, spreading into gray softness that filled the air with the aroma of campfires on cold winter mornings. Whoever lived inside this remote, ramshackle cabin must have just started a cooking fire, for the scent of wood smoke was soon followed by the clanging of a cast iron pan and the distinctive scent of bacon.

Siegfried glanced back at us, motioning toward a tumbled-down stone wall. He hopped to his feet and scrambled toward the cabin, chest tucked tightly to his knees. Although I was a full year older than the twins, I often let Siegfried lead. He was the one with the compass and the navigational skills, and took us on excursions into the forests behind the Ambuscade.

While we lay on our bellies watching the cabin, I couldn’t help but remember snatches of Mrs. Wilson’s history lessons last year. Even though we’d often played around the Ambuscade Monument, which was back in the field we’d just crossed, I really hadn’t appreciated the importance of the area until she started telling us the story.

She said Washington sent John Sullivan and his men to fight for the settlers in 1779. They’d attacked the Indians, and had burned villages, cut down apple orchards, and destroyed families. It had been a real slaughter.

But it was hard to know who to root for, because some of Sullivan’s men had been later ambushed by British troops and some Iroquois Indians. Fifteen men were massacred very close to where we lay. Two of the officers, Boyd and Parker, were captured and tortured in Little Beard’s village in a town we now know as Cuylerville.
A plaque stands there today, marking the spot where they were tortured. Now, in 1965–a hundred and eighty-six years later–I stared at it in fascination whenever my father drove us past it on the way to Letchworth State Park.

Siegfried poked my side and pointed to the house, where a shadow crossed the window. I nodded and watched.

Elsbeth lay snug against me behind the stone wall. She nudged me in the ribs and whispered so close to my ear it tickled. “Someone’s in there!”

A one-sided conversation had started up inside the cabin. I strained to hear, trying to calm the heartbeat in my ears that pounded over the words I couldn’t make out.
I listened to the deep male voice. Gruff and playful, he seemed to be discussing plans for the day. But no one answered him.

I scanned the area. Siegfried noticed and followed my gaze. No telephone poles or wires. No electricity. Unless he had one of those walkie-talkies like they used in the war, he must be talking to a mute person or to a very soft-spoken person.

I noticed several cracked windows and wondered why the man inside hadn’t fixed them. The front door looked solid, made from rough planks, but the roof dipped and waved near the chimney. I imagined when it rained it probably dripped from the ceiling into buckets. Globs of tar and different colored shingles plastered the roof in various spots. A beat-up Ford pickup was parked under the trees in the back.

Siegfried crawled around the edge of the wall. We followed him, creeping closer to the side of the shack until we were right under the window with two cracked panes.
Now we could hear better. The man’s rumbling voice gave me chills.

“Why don’t you want me to go?”

Silence.

“Okay. So come with me. What’s the big deal?”

More silence.

The man groaned. “Nobody will see you. You can wait outside.”

The twins and I exchanged puzzled looks and moved closer to the window.

The deep voice spoke again. “What? Who’s outside?”

Siegfried’s eyes grew round as fireballs. I tensed. Elsbeth grabbed my arm and squeezed. Heavy footfalls thundered across the floor and the window above us flew open. The blast of his voice came milliseconds before his head poked out.

“What in tarnation are you kids doing?”

Frozen in place, we stared at the man, whose grizzled face twisted in fury. A tangled white beard hung six inches beneath his chin, resting on a red-and-white checkered flannel shirt. Black suspenders looped over his shoulders, and his gnarled hands batted the air in front of his face. He yelled louder this time. Three crows cawed and abandoned their perch in the giant cottonwood overhead.

“Well, speak up! What the hell’s going on here?”

Elsbeth spoke first, shocked into her native language. “Es tut mir leid.”

When the man squinted his eyes in confusion, she recovered.

“Um. Sorry, sir. We didn’t think anyone lived here.”

We scuttled backwards on our hands and feet, our backsides scraping the earth like bouncing bulldozers. Siegfried jumped up and pulled his sister to her feet.

I stumbled back against the wall, ramming my spine against the stones. I winced, scrambled to my feet and stared at the ground. “We’re sorry, Mister. We were looking for a fort.”

The sound of a rifle cocking made me look up again. A long barrel poked out the window, aimed at my chest.

“If you kids aren’t gone by the time I count to five, you’re dead meat. Now scat!”

I don’t know if he actually counted or not. The blood rushed in my ears and drowned out all sounds. We raced to our horses, swung onto their backs, and galloped down the woodland trail to safety.

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