Captain Mark Halloway's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Captain Mark Halloway hated this fort, but he hated losing men more. Three days ago, Daniel Crewe walked past the north wall and never came back. Now Halloway stood in the snow-packed yard, watching soldiers load wooden crates onto a wagon. He had not wanted this posting. A superior officer had sent him here to open trade with the Blackfeet and keep the peace. Instead he kept writing names in a ledger of the missing. Private Tim Smith hauled a crate up onto the wagon bed and did not set it down gently. He slammed it. The horses shifted in their harness. Daniel had been his bunkmate. Their last words had been an argument about boots left by the door, and Tim had not stopped thinking about it. "You're going," Halloway said. "Daniel went north along the river. You follow it. You find him." Tim straightened. His face was too young for the cold. "I find him. Yes, sir." "Take enough food for a week. Powder, dry wood, a blanket roll." Halloway nodded at the crates. "The river bends hard past the pines. Stay on this side of it." "And if he's dead?" The question landed flat in the yard. Halloway did not answer fast. The Blackfeet had come to him with stories. A thing larger than a wolf. A thing that walked upright. He had written it in his report as folklore. He still believed that. "Then you bring back what's left," Halloway said. "And whatever took him." Tim stared at him. "Something took him. Something took him, and nobody here will say it." "Folklore doesn't take men, Private." Halloway heard how thin it sounded. Tim shouldered a pack. He loaded a short-handled axe, a rifle, and a sack of hardtack. He checked each strap twice. Then he walked to the gate and waited for it to open. The soldiers dragged the timber gate wide. Beyond it the land ran white and empty to the snow-dusted rocks along the river. Wind cut through the opening. Tim stepped into it alone. Halloway watched the private shrink against the snow. The boy moved steady, head down, following the water north. Smart. Careful. Maybe careful enough. Then Halloway saw them. On the far ridge, past the pines, figures stood against the white. Blackfeet. Four, maybe five, wrapped in hide. They did not move. They watched the private walk into the open the way men watch a deer step toward a trap. Halloway's chest tightened. He raised a hand to call Tim back. The wind swallowed his voice. Tim kept walking, smaller now, nearly to the bend where the river turned behind the trees. The watchers on the ridge turned their heads and followed the boy with their eyes. Then they looked across the valley, straight at Halloway. One of them lifted an arm and pointed north, past the private, toward something Halloway could not see. He shut the gate himself. He had sent the boy out. Now he had to decide whether to go after him.