The pastor hesitated, took off his hat and wiped the brim. He looked uncomfortably at his wife, who stared back at him helplessly. “Truth is, Colonel, I can’t rightly say. Not to the minute. It would have been a while ago. An hour maybe, possibly two.”

Dear God, Johnson thought. He stared at the man. “There’s a big difference, Reverend. It’d help if you could be more precise. Was it one hour or was it two?”

It was the woman who answered, with a wavering note in her voice. “It’s been nearer two, I think.”

De Witt shifted awkwardly. “Thing is, Colonel, it’ll sound like I’m making excuses, but the boy has a tendency to keep to himself. A lot of the time, he’ll ride on ahead; other times he lags a ways behind. We kept our eye on him at the beginning, but then we got used to him drifting off. It was plain he preferred his own company. He’d ease back to us eventually, during rest periods, but mostly during our night stops when we’d be taking supper. Esther and I got to thinking that maybe he was afraid of the dark and was having bad dreams over what had happened and didn’t like being alone then …” The pastor paused and looked up. “You know about …?”

Johnson nodded. “Lieutenant Wyatt informed me.”

“A terrible thing for a child to witness,” Mrs De Witt said, her voice sounding as if it was about to break. “Just terrible.”

“And he’s not spoken about it,” De Witt said. “Not once.”

His wife shook her head. Her eyes were clouded with sorrow. “It’s not right, Colonel, him keeping that sort of thing bottled up inside, especially at his age.” She looked up. “We thought it would come out, given time. But—”

“So you’ve no idea when he left the line?” Johnson cut in. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

De Witt shook his head. “No, Colonel. I mean, no, we don’t know.”

“Maybe he broke off to take a squat,” Scott suggested, “and got left behind.”

It was a possibility, Johnson thought, though on the face of it an unlikely one.