The sledge was ready, he shut the door of his house with pointless care, he whistled to Red, who came to his side at once, bounding through the deep snow. Ned leaned forward, took the weight of the toboggan and stepped forward on his snowshoes, finding the sledge slid easily behind him, and Quiet Squirrel’s snowshoes made shallow tracks. He turned east, going alongside the river past the gate at the end of the common lane of Hadley, unrecognizable in drifted snow, and then into the trees of the pine plain of Hadley forest, and then beyond the settlers’ stone marker post, bearing the initials of the friend he would never see again, into the forest of the new lands.

He walked for an hour, following the river as it curved to the north, his eyes dazzled by the sunshine on the snow. There was a frozen lake to his right and Ned, glancing up from the way before him, checked as he saw a figure through the haze of snow which was making the whole world into a blinding mist.

It was the silhouette of a man, crouched on the ice, a cape thrown up over his head so that he could look down into the icy water below. His left arm moved slightly, as he jiggled the little decoy fish, dancing it in the water so that the big fish that dozed on the bottom of the icy water would come up, the other hand holding the spear, ready to stab the hidden fish in the dark waters below. The figure was so clear that Ned bit back a shout of greeting, and started to undo the harness to the toboggan so that he could approach Wussausmon quietly. As his cold fingers fumbled with the bindings he knew that he was deeply glad to say good-bye, glad that they would have one moment together before their ways went forever apart. He loosed himself from his burden and stepped towards the lake, as he thought that only to Wussausmon could he explain why he was going. The only man in this new world who would understand the division of loyalty that was pulling him north, into unknown country, and away from both his own people, and the strange people that he had come to love.

He got himself free of the harness and stepped onto the frozen lake and then hesitated. Now he looked again, there was no one there. There was nothing in the blank whiteness, no figure bulky in furs bending over the hole, no fishing bag laid on the ice, no spear, no freshly dug ice hole filling with black water—nothing, there was no one there but the unbroken ice of the lake and the whirling drifting whiteness of the snow.

“Wussausmon?” Ned whispered. “John?”

There was no answer. There was no figure bending over a hole in the ice. The long level whiteness of the pond stretched forever, there was no one there. There had never been anyone there.

A cold wind, whispering up the river valley, reminded Ned that he had to make ground away from Hadley before he set a camp for the night, and that there was no time to linger here, looking for ghosts. He thought that his mother and his sister would tell him that this was the sight, and that he had said good-bye to Wussausmon for the last time, as the man waited for his fish, poised with his spear in his hand, most truly himself in his furs, on the ice, hunting as his people had done for hundreds of years, listening as he always did for the sounds beneath the wind, watching as he always did for the movement in the dark water below him.

Ned retied his harness, looking down at his dog. “You didn’t see him, did you, Red?” he confirmed. The dog wagged his tail, stood to leave.

“Good-bye then,” Ned said uncertainly into the wind, and took the weight of the toboggan for the first pull, as it shifted from the snow and then glided behind him. He walked slowly and steadily, turning north, tracing the course of the frozen river, the setting sun coldly bright on his left cheek, following a native path that was somewhere under the snow, the story holes hidden but still there, leading him one step before another, with a bleak determination, as if the only way to be a free man is to walk, one step before another without stealing, without lying, without leaving anything more than footprints which were quickly blown away in the snow.