The Liars

by Ida Linehan Young

  “I came courting when Philip was gone.”

  “I didn’t see you when Philip was away.”

  “No, but you didn’t tell him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He would have said. He has a big mouth like his mother. She’s gone now, too.”

  “What have you done?”

  “You know it’s what you wanted.”

  He was so matter-of-fact. Nancy almost believed he saw nothing wrong with what he had just done. Maybe he didn’t. She had heard the rumours. He’d killed his first wife, thrown her from the cliff above their house. Now he killed her Philip and possibly Philip’s mother.

  “You’re mine, Nancy. You will always be mine.”

  “You killed my husband.”

  “Yes, it’s what you wanted.”

  “Ezra, I never wanted this.”

  “You did. You kept my gifts.”

  “I didn’t say anything to Philip so he wouldn’t be angry.” She regretted that now.

  “You wanted this.”

  “You must be mad. I never wanted this.”

  “You wanted this. You’re my woman now.”

  “I’m your woman now?” Nancy repeated flatly.

  Ezra grabbed her arm and yanked it. She yelped. He stood, went to Philip, and dragged the body from the path and rolled him into a dry gully. The dead man lay face down and almost hidden beneath the overhanging limbs of a large spruce. Ezra gathered sticks and rocks and tossed them toward the body.

  Nancy stared, transfixed. This would be her husband’s grave. As Ezra moved to conceal the man she’d married, a cool breeze crossed her cheek. Run, Nancy, run. She didn’t know if it was the wind or her thoughts that roused her. Her hand fell on a soggy stick as she braced herself to stand. She grabbed it and crept the short distance to where Ezra crouched, his back to her, gathering debris to cover Philip’s body.

  With all her might, she raised the stick and brought it down upon him. Blood seeped through the matted black hair on his head as he slumped forward. She turned and ran.

  First, the running was just to get somewhere else. Away. She feared for her life. Nancy imagined him having her in his sights. She weaved through the naked birch trees to make his line of sight more difficult. She waited for the yawning hole in her back, for the pain to fell her. It didn’t come. She imagined the whisper of his sealskins right behind her, and she unwittingly braced for the fall when the tackle came. But it didn’t.

  A glance from the rise she was traversing caught no movement from Ezra where he slumped near his kill. He hadn’t recovered yet. But he would be undaunted—he was an excellent tracker. It was only a matter of time before he’d be upon her.

  Nancy determined he would have to work for it. She had to get as far as she could and look for a place to hide. With her heart beating out of her chest, her feet seemed as if they had grown wings. Perhaps Philip was somehow carrying her in spirit. She gasped aloud at the thought. Philip was gone. Her Philip. Her provider.

  She could hear Philip’s voice on the wind. Nancy, Nancy. She followed the sound through the birch and into the spruce. The thick green boughs struck at her and beat at her face. They tripped her, but she didn’t fall as she frantically and blindly ran through the brush. Nancy held up her arms to protect herself as she scampered through the forest. She grabbed the nettled limbs to keep herself upright as she plunged forward. Every step was away. At least she hoped it was.

  She had heard stories of people getting lost and circling and being found dead within a few miles of their point of origin. Would she ever be found? Would her finder be Ezra?

  Maybe she’d killed him. Her blow could have rendered him unable to move. Was that too much to hope for?

  Nancy had always been wary, yet intrigued by him. She had been privy to the hushed rumours about him and his first wife. The poor young girl had been beaten senseless so often that it was a wonder it hadn’t happen sooner than it had. She hadn’t lasted a year. Then, just a few months later, Ezra had married Philip’s mother, a woman more than twice his age.

  Philip was livid before the wedding and the most vocal of the three sons. They had threatened Ezra about being harsh to their mother. Then she had turned on them, one by one. When Nancy went to their house with Philip, Ezra had always smiled at her and tried to talk to her. She’d avoided the encounter if possible.

  Only for fear of what Philip would do if he lost his temper, she would have stayed away. But she accompanied her husband to intervene if needed. At least that was what she told herself to justify the mystery of the man who, if she was honest with herself, drew her there.

  When Philip and his brother were away on overnight hunting trips or gone to Zoar for missionary work, she’d find rabbits or moose or caribou outside the door in the morning. She believed they were gifts from Ezra. She dared not tell Philip. Secretly, she liked the forbidden attention.

  Philip’s brother Malcolm usually accompanied him on the trip between Nain and Zoar, but he’d had an accident during the seal hunt. A stray bullet had shattered his leg, and he was recovering. Ezra had been at the hunt. She wondered, now, if this had all been planned.

  It was thirty miles or so by land between the two Moravian Missions in Nain and Zoar. When the harbours were frozen among the dozens of islands, the trek was much shorter. This time, with an early spring thaw, the ice wasn’t safe to walk, so they took the land route instead.

  Philip’s brother Paul and his wife, Nancy’s sister Irene, had just had their third child. Nancy was excited to see the new little one. She’d suggested she take the journey with her husband to keep him company.

  The terrain was rugged and rocky, making for slow progress. They had used a night camp south of Makhavinekh Lake, which they had reached early the evening before. They had a simple breakfast of dried seal meat and bread that morning before setting out for Zoar.

  Nancy enjoyed walking with Philip. They talked and laughed like they had done when she had first gotten to the Moravian Mission encampment at Nain. She was happy that she had gone with him.

  Ezra must have followed them. And now the unthinkable had happened. Now, her breathing laboured, she began to slow. The woods became very dense, and the trees closed in on her. The whoosh of rushing water meant a river was close. She slowed a little and picked her way toward the sound.

  Nancy. Nancy. Philip was whispering her name. She followed the voice. It wasn’t Philip—it was Ezra. He had come to the river, upstream from her. He was standing at the edge of the rock face, high above her position, and was calling her name. She panicked. He would climb down, and that would be the end of her. He scowled as he raised his gun.

  Huge boulders were like sentries around her in the narrow gorge. She was bordered by sheer cliffs and a steep climb through the trees. The water rushed by a short footfall away. Nancy was trapped.

  A fleeting thought went to Ezra’s first wife, and Nancy could see herself on the cliffs above and Ezra pushing her off. She now realized she had been a fool not to tell Philip about Ezra’s gifts, and along with Philip, she would pay for that stupidity.

  The sky darkened, and a gust of wind rushed violently along the edge of the rock face. She thought her name was whispered once more—Nancy. The wind whipped through her clothes, so she shuffled her feet to hold her position and wait for the gunshot. A loose rock shifted beneath her, taking her off balance. She fell backward, flailing her arms to stay upright, and screamed as she toppled and plunged into the icy dark flow. Nancy caught a glimpse of Ezra leaving his lookout, but he was out of her sight when she hit the water.

  She tumbled and twisted and swirled in the deep pool that had formed at the river bend before she was spat out into the main current and hurled downstream. A battered and limbless log bobbed boldly beside her. Nancy grabbed for the closest yellowed knot, but the tree pulled away
from her and she went under a second time. Cliffs narrowed into a chute and the tree hit a submerged rock, halting long enough to turn and allowing her to catch up. She grabbed it one more time and flung herself over the top between the slippery spikes. Grabbing hold of one, she managed to pull her body forward to balance on the slick, wet surface.

  The water’s movement sped up as the river narrowed. Nancy kicked her legs to try and guide her makeshift raft through the rough currents that formed near the next bend. She was bobbing on the white crests of river waves and moving fast when the land fell away. The river widened between great stands of thick green forest, and the rushing water emptied her into a lake.

  Nancy’s clothing dragged at her, its weight trying to pull her from her roost. The current slowed, and she drifted to shore.

  Her mind went to Philip. Philip was gone. Surely, after causing Ezra all this trouble, she’d be gone, too. But today it would be on her own terms, if only she could make it. She kicked and guided the log toward the far shore.

  Nancy’s energy was fading as the cold slowly claimed her. She tried to make herself move, but her legs stopped obeying. With what little effort she had left, her gentle movements were enough to ground the log about half a mile from the mouth of the river. She dragged herself ashore and stumbled underneath the low-hanging limbs of ragged spruce, curling into a ball before rolling onto her back.

  Bedraggled and soaking wet, she lay prostrate, shivering, waiting for death. Her end wouldn’t be swift nor merciful, but it would be of her own doing and not that of Ezra at the top of a ravine. She’d be as alone in death as poor Philip was in his. Out of sight, Nancy hoped Ezra wouldn’t find her.

  Her gaze grew hazy, and warmth crept through her veins as if she were resting by a blazing fire. She stopped shivering. Nancy, Nancy was in the stillness. But she was confused. It wasn’t her name. It was the brush of the trees shifting, then a hollow snarl. She was too weak to save herself. She hoped death would take her before . . .

  Too late. The hot breath on her cheek, the soft growl, the wet nose, sent shock through her. Panic welled in her, but her body wouldn’t respond. She was unable to help herself.

  “Get away.”

  Was it her voice or somebody else’s?

  “Get.”

  Something yelped. She squeezed her eyes shut, and she struggled to pull herself into a ball. Hands were upon her. She was being tossed, and moved, and covered, and picked up. Was this how it ended?

  She moaned.

  “Hold on, Lavinia. Hold on.” It was a man’s voice. It was Ezra. No, not Ezra.

  She was weightless and drifting. Fragrant fir limbs swept a soft touch across her face. Warmth penetrated through her clothes. She faded in and out. Breathing became a struggle. She couldn’t tell if the raspiness was hers. Nancy tried to concentrate, but the fog persisted and finally took her.

  6

  The crackle and hiss of burning wood awakened her. A weight was on her. Nancy pushed and met little resistance. She squirmed and opened her eyes. Chopped logs lined the ceiling above her. She was roused by a whimper somewhere nearby through the wall, then a growl. She was naked and warm. Was this death?

  Pushing herself up on her elbows, she glanced around. A young, dark-haired man not much older than her own twenty years was coming toward her. She screamed. A dog barked near her elbow, and the man pushed it out of the way. He opened a door in the one-room shack, and the dog disappeared into the light.

  “Where am I? Who are you?”

  “I’m John. John MacDonald.” His voice had a hint of an accent not common to the Labrador. “Who might you be?”

  “I’m Na—” She paused. “I’m Alice.” Her middle name. A distinctive caw somewhere in the distance finished her name. “Alice Crowe.”

  If he didn’t believe her, it didn’t register on his features. His blue eyes showed no sign of malice. Nancy saw her long brown skirt hanging near the open fire and gasped, remembering her nakedness. She huddled beneath the skins that covered her.

  “They’re dry now. I’m sorry I had to remove them. You would have died.”

  John retrieved the clothing and laid the bundle on the edge of a stump that seemed to serve as a chair. From a pile of chopped wood in the corner he threw a few sticks on the fire and left without saying a word.

  Nancy waited until his voice trailed off as he talked—to what she guessed were the dogs—as he moved away from the cabin. She scrambled from under the soft caribou hides, quickly dressed, then found her seal boots, turned upside down on two green sticks near the fire. The warmth was immediate after she shook them and pulled them on over her bare feet.

  Sitting back on the skins, she took in her surroundings. The room was small, with just the bunk, a rock fireplace, a couple of stumps, one bigger than the other—she guessed one was used as a table and one as a chair—and a door made from thin strips of wood that swung on rawhide hinges. There was no window, the floor was packed earth, and the seams between the small logs in the walls were stuffed with long-dried moss. The many cracks of light suggested it hadn’t been stogged within the last year or maybe two. Surely this could not be home to John MacDonald.

  Something rustled outside, and dogs barked. Ezra was here. Panic rose in her gullet. There was nowhere to hide. She grabbed one of the sticks that had held her boot and pointed it at the door. Sweat broke out on the back of her neck as she stood her ground.

  There was a quick knock on the door. The rescuer called to see if it was all right to come in. Nancy dropped the stick and slumped back on the bunk. He eyed her from the door, taking notice of the slender wooden limb near her feet.

  “No harm will come to you from me,” he stated simply. “I’m not in the habit of hurting women.”

  Nancy blushed. Should she tell him that it wasn’t him she feared?

  “Who’s Lavinia?” A sudden intake of breath indicated she hadn’t heard him wrong.

  “You stay out of my business and I’ll stay out of yours,” he said too quickly.

  She nodded. “Where are we? How far from where you found me?”

  “Half a day.”

  “Half a day?” she stammered. “You carried me for half a day?”

  “Well, I couldn’t very well leave you there.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “I was pulling out my traplines. Can you cook? I have a rabbit outside.”

  Nancy nodded once more. “Is there somewhere close to where you found me where you could have crossed the river?”

  “Not on foot now that the ice is thin.”

  “So, it wouldn’t be easy to cross?”

  “If you’re looking to get to the other side, we’d have to go almost to the coast. Maybe go to Zoar. The Mission boat might be in. I don’t have the means to get you across.”

  “I can’t go to Zoar,” she said flatly. That’s where Ezra would go looking for her. Or would he dare? She couldn’t be sure. What would he tell everyone? Would he track her here? Would he kill this man who’d rescued her? “I can’t stay here, either.” She fell back on the bunk once more. “It’s not safe here.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s Ezra the Esquimeaux,” she said.

  “I’ve heard the name. He’s in Nain.”

  Reluctantly, Nancy told him about the events of that morning. She couldn’t believe they had taken place just a few hours ago. When she finished, she burst out crying. She pushed her head into the furs on the bunk.

  John was poking at the fire when she sat up once again. She wiped at her eyes while taking big gulps of air to quash the grief.

  “It’s getting late. We’ll cook the rabbit and decide what to do in the morning.”

  “But what if he finds us?”

  “The dogs will know if anybody’s coming. I’ll keep the gun close. You’re safe here.�
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  “That’ll have to do,” she said. She didn’t trust herself to say much more. Panic was saturating her core, and she had to concentrate to prevent it from overwhelming her.

  An easy silence followed while he prepared the rabbit to roast over the fire. Nancy didn’t offer to take on the chore. He must have skinned and gutted it outside, as only the pink flesh was stretched on the spit. Her stomach gurgled when the smell of the meat wafted to her nostrils.

  “There’s no oil lamp here,” John said. “Just the light of the fire for company.”

  “I’m tired. It won’t be a problem,” she said. It had been the same at home. The winter had been full of dark nights until the seals arrived. It was only then that they’d had oil for their lamps.

  Poor Philip. He would be cold tonight. No matter what became of her, she wouldn’t leave him there. He deserved better.

  Sometime later, she cried herself to sleep in the darkness, longing for his warmth by her side.

  7

  The dogs woke her. Nancy didn’t know if it was night or day, but she could see a grey light through the cracks near her head. Her heart raced, and she bolted up from the bunk. There was a caribou hide folded on the ground in the corner of the room.

  A man’s voice drifted in, talking quietly, yet firmly, to the dogs. His words didn’t have an air of urgency. It wasn’t Ezra. It was morning.

  The room was warm. There was a leg of rabbit and a piece of dried bread on a tin plate laid near the fire. She turned toward John as he entered the room.

  “There’s some water on the stump,” he said casually as he nodded toward the door. “The dogs are out front in the trees. Stay to the back of the cabin and you should be fine.”

  Nancy grabbed the edge of her skirts, lifted them, and headed outside. The dogs barked, and he whistled for them to be quiet. The morning air was cold and crisp. She quickly attended to her business, washed her hands, and splashed her face with the tepid water in the tin pan by the door before heading back inside.