Reilly looked away to the opposite shore. “For argument’s sake, Captain. If what you say is true, what would you suggest I do?”
“Provide me now with a deposition regarding the facts of the incident.” Reilly threw his head back with a roar of laughter and Buchan was forced to raise his voice. “And when the time comes testify before the grand jury in St. John’s.”
“You’ve not heard a word of my story this morning now, have you?” Reilly got to his feet and looked down at the officer. “You could write the deposition yourself and have me sign it and I could repeat it word for word at the courthouse. What would you have, d’you think? The oaths of an Irish thief and a Red Indian with little more English in her head than a cow. You might as well ask a jury to take the oath of the devil himself.” He took a long breath and looked back towards the boats on the shoreline. “They look about ready to leave, Captain.”
Buchan nodded distractedly and pushed his notebook into a tunic pocket. Reilly leaned down to offer a hand and helped him to his feet.
Peyton and Mary had already boarded the cutter and Buchan climbed in to join them. Annie Boss and several of the children were on the beach to wave the party off and they stood there until both boats had disappeared around the first bend in the river.
“Up there a long time,” Annie Boss said, still looking out across the water. “What you tell that man?”
“Except for one small detail,” Reilly said, “I told him the truth.”
Annie turned to look at her husband. From the band of his trousers beneath his shirt he removed a small calfskin-bound journal. He looked drained, despondent.
“I told him I was a poor pickpocket,” he said.
The journal was perfect-bound, the signatures sewn firmly into the spine. Six inches by four or so, Peyton guessed, about 150 pages. The pale calfskin cover was smooth and cool to the touch.
Buchan had gotten himself into a small frenzy searching for it the night they’d put into Boyd’s Cove. He patted the pockets of his coat, rooted through a leather satchel. He spoke in a fierce whisper to several of his marines who went off to search the boats. When they came back empty-handed he sent them off to look a second time. He stood before the fire, face blank with attention as he walked back through the events of the day, trying to locate it in his mind. There was his interview with Reilly on the weir that morning when he had it in his hands. After that he could not place it.
Peyton said, “Is there anything I can help you with, Captain?”
Buchan turned to him suddenly. He looked like a sleepwalker startled awake on a street outside his house. “No. No,” he said slowly, as if he was just beginning to recognize his surroundings, to place himself. “I don’t believe you can.” He said this as if it was an accusation. He gave up the search then and took a seat beside Peyton in front of the fire. They both smoked their pipes slowly, tamping the bowls with their thumbs.
Buchan said, “I admire your father, Mr. Peyton. I admire the loyalty he inspires.”
“He is what he is, sir. There’s no puzzle to what John Senior thinks of this or that. Every man on the shore knows where he stands in my father’s eyes.”
“He’d have made a fine officer.”
“He wouldn’t have been much for taking orders from superiors.”
Buchan made a noise to say he could see his point.
Peyton said, “You have a boy of your own now, Captain, have I heard right?”
“You have. Born in St. John’s two winters past.”
There was a rush of laughter from a group of Blue Jackets huddled on the other side of the fire. Mary lay asleep under a blanket beside Peyton and he looked down to see if the noise had disturbed her, but she didn’t stir.
“And you, Mr. Peyton,” Buchan said. “It’s about time for a wife and family?”
Peyton relit his pipe. “It was something I once considered. I seem to have lost the fire for it. John Senior was my age and then some when he married. Perhaps I’ll bide my time the same.”
“Turning after a father in all things,” Buchan said. His voice had a sad, mildly scolding tone.
Peyton looked down at the sleeping woman again. “She’s sound to the world,” he said.
Three days later the party returned to the house on Burnt Island. They’d had no luck sighting any recent campsites near Boyd’s Cove and abandoned any hope of contacting the Beothuk on the coast. They settled on a winter expedition to the lake as soon as the weather allowed it. The following morning Buchan and the marines left for Ship Cove. He’d made no further mention of his missing journal and seemed to have given it up for lost.
John Senior passed it to Peyton that afternoon, when they were down in the cutting room away from the women. “Joseph Reilly brought that across Wednesday past. Said you had asked for it.”