Chapter 3
August 20th 1967
The Milowski family walked much further than they had intended to find the ideal picnic spot, choosing a wide open meadow where Bruce could play with little chance of hurting himself. From where they sat on a spread of blankets, the field of vision was uninterrupted for hundreds of yards.
His grandfather stared up between the rocky crags at the top and pointed. "Can you see that bird, Bruce?"
"You've got good eyes," Mrs Milowski said. "I wouldn't have noticed it."
"Do you have binoculars?"
"No, telescope," he said. Although he'd lived in England for twenty years, a trace of Eastern European accent remained in his voice.
"Let me see." He held his hand out.
He focused on the bird. A buzzard. "There, at top of cliffs. Probably, he lives there."
He handed the 'scope over to Bruce's father, who trained it first at the sky, and then at the craggy outcrop.
"You want to look, Ellen?"
"Maybe later," she said, tending to the baby.
"You, Bruce, you look…" He pulled the boy in close and passing the telescope over, showed him how to work the adjustment wheels. "Remember, if you can't see, turn those buttons I showed you."
Fascinated, he stared through the lens, sweeping the skies and the landscape. On the other side, lower down, he caught a flash of bright colour. Keeping it within sight, he fiddled with the controls until he brought the object into focus. It was a girl, a young woman dressed in purple, undoing her hair.
He lowered the telescope, and compared the image with what he could see with his naked eye. The difference amazed him.
His mother's voice drew him away from the distant world he'd discovered. "Bruce, put that down for a minute and come and eat."
When they had finished their food, Bruce amused himself by laying on his front staring at the intricacies of the grass below his face, constructing fantasy adventures which involved cutting his way through the jungle, battling giant ants and spiders. Quite suddenly, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the sky. Something had unsettled him. He didn't want to lie there anymore. "I'm bored, can I go and explore?" he asked none of the adults in particular.
His father and grandfather were deep in conversation, his mother although busy with his two-year-old baby sister, turned her attention to him.
"Do you want to go off and play?"
"Can I?" he said.
"Yes you can, Bruce, but I want you to stay where I can keep an eye on you," she said.
Over the course of the next few minutes, he edged further away.
Mrs Milowski called out, "Don't go any further, Bruce!"
"I won't!" he shouted.
Looking back to gauge her reaction, and waving to reassure her, he managed to inch his way towards a fence separating the meadow from another field, a hundred yards away. On the other side, the vegetation was quite different from the one he was in now.
He paused, uncertain, looking back at his family. His mother, distracted by his sister's crying, had turned away to soothe her and the men were still engrossed in deep conversation.
He dropped to his knees and slid under the barbed wire, careful not to catch his clothes.
When Mrs Milowski realised that Bruce had vanished, she cried out, "Bruce, where are you? I told you not to wander off," she wailed, and then panic rising, she shouted at the top of her voice, "Bruce!"
Both men stood up, their faces registering immediate concern as they scanned the meadow, looking in all directions. "What are you talking about? Where was he when you last saw him?" Her husband asked.
"He was over there," she said, pointing over to the edge of the field. The little girl sensed something was wrong and began to cry. Mrs Milowski hugged her tight.
"Find him," she told them, clasping the child's head to her shoulder. She bit her lip, keeping her face hidden from the little girl, and her eyes squeezed shut. A large tear rolled down her cheek.
The men sprinted to the fence where Bruce had been just a few minutes earlier. His father vaulted the wire and crossed to the other side of the field calling his son's name. Bruce's grandfather bent to pass between the strands, and then standing upright on the other side, eased his palms into the small of his back to help it straighten up again. He watched his son a hundred yards away, charging in and out of the trees, wasting his efforts. The young … they have so much energy.
Eyes half closed; he stared through the ferns. The narrowing of vision enabled a sharpening of focus, and he was able to dismiss the animal runs at low-level, and pick out the fronds most likely bent by the shoulders of a child.
"Wait, I have found his path!" The old man waded through the undergrowth with a speed that belied his seventy-five years of age.
He pointed through the trees, and said, "Bruce went that way." A startled look crossed his face. "Mother of God, we must be quick. He is in danger!"
Bursting through the undergrowth, driven by fear, they followed a trail only his grandfather could see.
