He was tired and needed to sleep. There was a small covered porch on the front of the tavern. He would stay put and curl up out of the rain. The tavern owner won’t mind, he thought.
He fell asleep quickly, but the morning sun seemed to rise just as fast. He rubbed his still-tired eyes and stretched his stiff bones.
He was close now. He could feel it. Only one day’s walk to the river, and then another day or two before he would be looking for Nathaniel Greene and his band of Rhode Island militia. Not wanting to waste any more time in Marlborough, he set off down the road. As he strode out of town, he wondered where Thomas the Terrible had taken off to last night. Gabriel had gone out the door of the tavern just a minute behind Thomas, but there was no sign of the man. He must have a house some place nearby, he thought.
The more distance Gabriel put between himself and Marlborough, the stranger the man’s story seemed to him. It was like waking from a dream that at first seems real, but begins to fade the longer you’re awake. He was having doubts about whether he should really follow through on his promise to look for the treasure on his way to Boston. What if it took him so far out of his way that he ran out of food? He was already hungry from his morning of walking, so he stopped off the road for a bite to eat. Peering into the small cloth bag, he saw how meager his provisions really were. The food would only last a few days, and that would be stretching it.
Gabriel took some nourishment, found a small pool of fresh rainwater to drink from, and set back down the road. If he didn’t hear the sound of the river along the road as Thomas said he would, he would not stray from the path to look for the treasure. Just as he made this decision, the faint sound of gurgling water came to his ear. He almost wished he hadn’t heard it, but there it was, growing louder with every step.
It was late afternoon. He stood in the road, listening to the unmistakable sound of rushing water. He knew what he had told Thomas the Terrible, and he couldn’t back away now. He had to leave the road and follow the river. He stepped off the path into a densely wooded area with enormous trees that created an interwoven canopy of leaves and branches. He turned and took one last look at the road — the road that would take him to Cambridge where the militia was camped. Then he turned back to the dark woods and strode ahead toward the sound of flowing water.
Passing under the canopy of green overhead, Gabriel found the river, swollen and nearly cresting its banks. He would have to bushwhack along the river, as brush, bramble, and vines were growing on the forest floor beneath the canopy of the large trees. He paused for a moment to take in the different kinds of trees — walnut, hickory, sycamore, cherry, poplar, some pine, and numerous large oak. How would he ever find a single oak with a “T” carved in the bark?
Walking along the river, Gabriel pressed his way through the brush, sometimes needing to take out his knife to cut away at some thorn bushes blocking his path. He was thankful he had saved his knife and drum but still lamented the fact that he lost nearly everything else in the raging river. Was this the same river that had stolen his coins in the flood? Was this the river Thomas the Terrible meant? Would it take him to Cambridge as Thomas claimed?
Gabriel walked along the river’s edge the rest of the afternoon. Making slow progress, he came across two very small waterfalls that only dropped a few feet. There was no steep cliff to scale, so he quickly dismissed any thought that these would be the waterfalls where Captain Tew left his treasure.
The branches overhead blocked out so much sunlight, it was hard to tell what time of day it was. Still, Gabriel sensed the night. He relished the thought of a bright fire. Then he realized he didn’t have his flint rock with him. “Blast!” he said out loud.
He yearned for a warm fire as he shivered at even the thought of the coming cold, dark night in the middle of this dense wood. He had spent other nights on his journey without a fire, but none so far from the road in such a dense forest — one sure to hold panthers, bears, wolves, and coyotes. The hazy green light quickly gave way to darkness, and a cool mist seemed to rise from the forest floor. He didn’t even have a blanket to wrap around him. He felt naked. It was as if the forest was closing thick claws around him that would not unclench until morning came.
With the white mist wafting in the air, visible only with the last glimpses of light, a thought crept into Gabriel’s mind: What about the ghost of Thomas Tew?
“Stop thinking about that nonsense,” he scolded himself. “There’s no such thing as the Ghost of Thomas Tew.”
Still, he wished Thomas the Terrible had not mentioned anything about his grandfather’s ghost roaming the woods, sword drawn, looking for the bandits who tried to steal his treasure. Well, thought Gabriel, I’m not a bandit, so what would he want with me, anyway?
Gabriel arranged some pine needles into a bed and laid down. There was only a sliver of moon, and what light it and the stars may
