Who Am I? Chapter 9

The horses' traces were securely hooked to the buggy and Amos and his twelve-year-old son, Jerome, were in the process of trying to shovel snow away from it with their feed scoops in order to lighten the load.

"Hello, there!" called a voice from down the road. They looked up to see two of the men from the inn come gliding toward them on skis, snowshoes strapped to their backs.

"John! What on earth are you doing out on a day like this?"

"I could ask the same of you. Is this their buggy?" John gestured to the wreckage his neighbors were trying to extricate from the snow.

"You know anything about this?" Amos asked cautiously over the wind.

"Actually, yes. The woman made it to our place with the horse," shouted John, straining to be heard above the wind. "Is her husband here?"

"Ain't seen nobody. The dogs about drove us crazy yesterday afternoon but this is all we found." Jerome nodded in agreement. "You say you have the horse?"

"Here, let me help with that," called Henry as he turned to help Jerome with the shoveling while the older men talked.

"The woman showed up yesterday at the height of the storm with the horse. Said she couldn't find her husband… Erik. I think she said. Matty got her dried off and put her to bed."

"Well, if she had the horse, then he was throwed clear or is on foot," suggested Amos. "But I didn't see anyone north of here along the road!"

"And we didn't see anyone between here and the inn!" They both looked off into the woods as John pulled the collar of his heavy coat closer around his neck. He called to the younger men, "Boys! Leave that for now. We need to look for her husband! Let's start searching the woods and hope he isn't under all this snow somewhere!" John and Henry had removed their skis when they arrived. Now they unslung their own snowshoes and donned them before heading into the woods.

The four set out, an arm's length apart, combing the woods close to the road and working their way out. It wasn't long before Henry shouted, "Over here! I found something!" He pointed to a smudge of blood on the side of a small tree, well downhill from the wrecked carriage. .

Digging in the snow around the tree, Jerome came up with what looked like pieces of a warped porcelain plate. "What do you make of this, Papa?" he asked, handing the irregular pieces to his father. They passed the pieces around, everyone shaking their heads.

"Looks like scrap from someone trying to make plates," quipped Henry.

Jerome shrugged his shoulders before stuffing the pieces into a pocket. He looked at something John was holding. "What's that?"

"Guys, it looks like her husband was here," as he showed them the bloody handkerchief. "But where did he go?"

"Over here!" called Henry from about 40 feet farther away from the road. Once the others had stumbled through the deep snow to reach him, they found he was looking through a very soggy leather gentleman's wallet.

Amos looked around, puzzled. "What was he doing over here?"

John took out a large knife and cut a blaze in the bark of the tree closest to where his son had found the wallet and another on the tree with the blood smudge and where the handkerchief had been found. "Maybe tomorrow this infernal storm will die down so we can continue the search!"

"Let's get back and dig out the buggy! Maybe we'll find some of their stuff you can take back to the inn with you!" shouted Amos. "Better yet, help us get the buggy back to the house, and Mary can fix us all something to eat and warm you up. Then you can take the team home with you and bring them back in the morning! That way you don't got to carry their stuff through the snow on foot!"

"Yeah. I like that plan," shouted John. "Let's do it!"

oo00O00oo