“I’d appreciate that.”
The opening door allowed in a billow of snow that settled as soon as Lance pulled it shut behind him and Gid.
Mrs. Huber fluttered her hands. “Let me take your coat, Harriet. We’ll get you closer to the fire. Mr. Huber ought to be back soon. He walked to the stand of maples at the bottom of the hill—has some notion of widening the field that way.” While I unwound my scarf and started on the mittens, she said over her shoulder, “Heat some water, Fran.” Beaming at me: “You must tell me about your plans. The Genesee Valley! All the rage in these parts, too—and so exciting. I want Middleton news, as well. Last I heard from your mother, she was nursing a houseful of invalids. You, especially, suffered, I recall her—” She gasped.
In the process of removing my cape, I had pushed back the hood.
She stared at my cropped hair in horror and even jerked sideways to glance at my back, probably hoping to discover my tresses bound in a tight bun. “Oh, dear!”
I nervously plucked at my fringe.
Wide-eyed, she gave her head a little shake and pressed her lips together as if regretting the outburst, then started over with “Let me take your cape, Harriet. Come to the fire. Right here, it’s the best chair. You must be hungry.”
“Thank you.” I gratefully fell into the rocker and leaned forward to seek the warmth.
Mrs. Huber situated Gid’s and my boots on the hearthstone.
Her daughters, one with the teakettle dangling from a hand, stood frozen, their mouths hanging open.
I slouched under the inspection and scrunched the fabric of my skirt. It’s only hair. Not like I’m missing a limb.
Their mother shooed them. “Warm the biscuits and broth, Kate. Fran, bring up a jar of my strawberry jam.” The girls jerked into action, and Mrs. Huber pressed a hand to her cheek, her gaze sweeping my head again. She made a sound of distress. When my brother and her son returned, she hurried their way, as if relieved to escape the sight of me, and set about getting them situated, taking Gid’s winter gear, urging him to the other rocker, and chattering the entire time.
Lance followed my brother but paused by the fire to add a piece of wood. Rising, he turned and parted his smiling mouth, poised to speak.
Immediately, the smile reversed itself. After a moment of stunned silence, he coughed, sidled to Gid’s other side, and began to question my brother on his planned purchase of land, wanting the particulars on the parcel’s size and his intentions for it, practically performing an interrogation.
In short, avoiding an interaction with me.
I wrinkled my nose at the fire and fought the urge to reassure him on my equal lack of interest. No need to panic, young man.
Mr. Huber entered the house, shrugged off his coat, and carried his ax to the hearth. Upon spotting me, the big man did a double take, then struggled to erase his astonishment as Mrs. Huber presented my brother and me. “How do you do?” He pasted on a smile, bowed, and swiftly sidestepped toward the men. After sitting heavily beside his son, he reached for a jar under the bench, scooped out some fat, and began rubbing it over his ax’s blade. Soon, he was adding his own questions about the Holland Land Company to his son’s inquiries.
I was fine with being ignored and avoided, fine with not talking. Chilled to the bone, I only wanted to get warm, eat, and sleep. I held my hands to the fire, anxious to accomplish the first two goals so I could seek the reprieve of the last. Meanwhile, Mrs. Huber shared recollections of my mother, their youth, and wintertime capers, her tone wistful but her eyes militantly averted from my cropped hair.
The daughters weren’t nearly as discreet. They wasted no time in warming up our supper, clearly impatient to resume their ogling. Mrs. Huber ordered the girls to serve Gid and me where we sat by the fire.
As hungry as I was, I had difficulty enjoying the food, all too aware of the girls’ stares.
Kate’s stitchery was an untouched puddle of threads in her lap. Interrupting her mother’s ice-skating account, she blurted, “Was it the sickness that made you go bald?”
“Kate.” Mrs. Huber stopped knitting to elbow her daughter.
“She’s not bald,” Fran said. She was sitting at my feet, toying with her long red braid while eyeing my short hair. “Bet it was awfully pretty. So golden … like the blond locks of a fairy-tale princess.”
“Was it the sickness, dear? Did it”—Mrs. Huber cleared her throat—“fall out?”
Everyone, even the men, gazed at me expectantly.
I shook my head and met my brother’s wry glance. “It was just a bad case of lice.”
A squeak escaped Kate, and Fran, horror filling her face, fell backward and held her hair protectively behind her.
“They’re long gone now,” I said quickly.
“Of course they are,” Mrs. Huber said, frowning at her daughters. “The pests can’t survive without hair for nesting.” She sighed over her knitting. “But what a shame, what a terrible shame, for Fran’s right—your hair must have been a glorious sight, as pale as it is. Still, it will grow, never fear, and in just three or four years you’ll have your crowning glory back again.” This last assurance she spoke mostly to Lance, her gaze earnest.
He flared his eyes at his mother in warning before shifting a frown in my direction. With a shake of his head, he dismissed me. Then he turned to Gid and asked him about the girth of his cattle.
* * *
After being subjected to so much undesirable attention at the Hubers’, I imagined the rest of our journey would prove uncomplicated by comparison. I was wrong. It was pure work: sometimes tedious, sometimes hair-raising, and almost always freezing. Alternating with relatively uneventful days sprang stretches of terror, the sled slipping backward when the oxen lost their footing on an icy incline, our road narrowing to little more than a snowy trail snugly winding around a mountain with the yawning gulf below, a stream’s ice cracking ominously under the weight of our crossing sleigh, and the world disappearing completely one afternoon when snow began to fall in earnest, and the wind blew hard, and whiteness, spewed from the clouds and whipped up from below, thoroughly blinded us.
I steadied oxen, dragged aside downed tree limbs blocking our way, shoveled, trudged, and leaped. And, happily, no petticoats tripped me. No skirts slowed me down. My pantaloons especially pleased me, but I appreciated the sturdy warmth of all my gear.
The only thing I missed was my hair—though not in the way Sally Huber would assume. I didn’t long for it as a lost symbol of my femininity (how stupid; men could grow their hair out, too, if they wanted!); I merely wished for its warmth. When I’d worn it in a braid or a loose, low bun, it had partly covered my neck. Now, unless I remembered to wear a scarf, I felt the bite of the wind on my skin. I spent many hours hunching my shoulders, shivering, and sticking my gloved hands in the pockets of the woolen coat I’d appropriated from Gid’s boyhood wardrobe.
“Put on your scarf,” my brother would sigh, his exasperated tone telling me he was getting sick of reminding me.
I would. Then the next day I’d forget again.
Even more than my gloves, the coat pockets protected my hands. Before we left home, I’d improved them with extra lining, and they were deliciously warm, twin havens against the benumbing cold. In the right pocket I carried around a small treasure and rubbed its smoothness. This was a habit I probably should have broken, since it frequently turned my thoughts toward home and everything and everyone I was missing. Yet, conflictingly, the small charm comforted me in stressful circumstances, like when the axle broke or Fancy went temporarily missing or the mountains, my sleeping giants, slipped from view.
It was the spile Daniel Long had given me a year ago. Every so often, in the rare moments my brother and I weren’t side by side, I’d take out the sugaring spout and trail my finger along the carefully carved vine and D.U.L., the three initials I used to mock with the self-assurance of a vain girl certain of her superior appeal.
Finally, I’d trace the in
itials Mr. Long had included to tease me. H.S.L.: Harriet Submit Long. She was someone I’d almost met. We’d passed each other in another life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We stared at the dilapidated tenement for a long time. The porch steps didn’t just head up but also keeled sideways and, in two places, sagged before finishing at a porch that was smeared with tobacco-spit slime. The front door was cracked open. Slurred voices and laughter, drunken like the stairs, spilled out of the taproom. To the right of the door, an unseasonably warm breeze swung a painted sign that read TICKLENAKED TAVERN. Behind us, two rickety shacks of slapped-together, ill-fitted logs slumped on the yard between several tree stumps.
Around these remains of trees, chickens wandered in their peculiar fashion, like stout women skirting puddles while wearing too-small shoes with too-high heels. They pecked at the yard, which was unctuous with mud, and circled a solitary young man, my age or a bit older.
This person was neatly dressed in delicate yellow pantaloons, a long-tailed blue coat, and boots that, although caked in mud on their lower halves, brilliantly gleamed around the top tassels. His cleanliness, in contrast to Gid’s and my filth, would have sufficed to surprise me. His present occupation guaranteed my astonishment: perched on a stump, with a beautiful chestnut horse tethered to the post behind him and a case open on his lap, he was inspecting a fiddle’s strings.
A ruckus brought my attention back to the alehouse. Rear first, a body tumbled through the door. It fell toward the porch, emitted a giggle, and crashed back until it sprawled, arms and legs splayed, like an ugly mat. After disgorging it, the door swung shut.
From our sleigh, Fancy barked once, then, perhaps observing this individual’s unthreatening position, returned her silky head to her paws and closed her eyes.
“The devil!” I bent to get a good look at the supine body. “Is he dead?”
Frowning, Gideon grabbed my arm and yanked me away.
“Dead drunk,” the man on the stump answered without taking his eyes off his instrument. He pinged each string and murmured, “No harm done. The E’s a little flat, but that’s more the fault of the thaw than the villains.” He reached up and soothed the neck of his horse. The animal answered the caress by dipping her head and snuffling the man’s palm. “They’re gone now. Don’t you fret.” The thick woods resounded with a sudden crackling, like ground-borne thunder. At my startled look, the young man smiled sardonically. “Breaking river ice.” He splayed a hand. “Welcome to the Genesee Valley in the springtime.”
“Spring,” Gideon groaned, and cast a mournful glance at our sleigh. From the seat, Fancy raised her sleepy head again and peered inquisitively back at him. I knew what Gid was thinking. We would have to take the runners off the chain-locked wheels and turn our sled back into a wagon. No point in trying to drive a sleigh when winter gave up its white. Already we’d spent the better part of the journey between Albany and Canandaigua dragging over snow that was half mud. Indeed, just a short while ago when we’d stopped to dispatch a letter to our family, the sleigh had almost gotten stuck in the postmaster’s yard. The wheels wouldn’t fare much better than the runners if the snow and ice disappeared—not on the wet, pitted, uneven, tree-strewn cart tracks that apparently counted as serviceable lanes in these parts. Too mucky. We’d sink.
The tavern blared another scream of laughter. Just as Gideon reached for the latch and lifted his foot to step over the unconscious person blocking our way, the young man on the stump suggested mildly, “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”
Gid hesitated and turned to face the stranger. “Er … why?”
The man rested the fiddle in the case with the kind of tenderness one might perceive in a new mother situating her firstborn in a cradle. He shut and latched the case, then stood. “Because you’ll encounter a nest of vipers, that’s why. First they’ll jostle you to a table. Then they’ll chuckle and pat you on the back and ask you all sorts of chummy questions. Then they’ll send a couple of rascals into the yard to inspect your enticingly loaded sleigh. Then they’ll steal whatever they want from it.” He raised his shoulders in an elegant shrug. “I know. Minutes ago, I fell prey to a variation on that theme. They removed the sacks of potash I’d hoped to sell. They nearly stole my horse. I managed to secure the latter at the cost of the former—and saved my violin, too, thank goodness.” He patted the case, doffed his beaver hat, and bowed. “Allow me to introduce myself. Phineas Lionel Standen: violinist, horseman, and impoverished farmer. And you are?”
“Gideon Winter.” My brother took a cautious step back from the door and, jerking his head to indicate I ought to follow, made his way down the crooked stairs to the sludgy yard.
I trailed slowly, my backward gaze more wistful than nervous. After all of these horrid days and nights, how I wished—nay, yearned—for hot water and a cleansing bath. I itched. I stank. My apparel (my precious, meticulously sewn, and precisely fitted apparel!) was no longer the least bit smart but shockingly filthy. And, oh, to sleep in a bed again! I’d enjoyed a real bed only once during this vicious journey, when we’d stayed with the Hubers. But that had been weeks ago. I was sick of sleeping in that wagon.
Phineas Lionel Standen was staring at me expectantly.
“Oh. Sorry. Frederick.”
“Just Frederick?”
I gave my brother a sour look. “Mostly just Freddy.”
Gid cleared his throat. “Freddy’s a foundling.”
“Ah.” Phineas eyed me dispassionately. “You’ve more height than years, I think”—his sigh, profound and weary, prefaced a shake of his head—“and your whole long life ahead of you.” His tone made it clear I was not in an enviable position.
A laugh escaped me. “I guess a disease could always put the period to my existence sooner rather than later.”
One corner of his mouth slid up. “You’ll have plenty of opportunities in this wilderness to make a fragment of your life sentence. Wait until mosquito season. Wait for the fever and ague. Wait until your store of wheat runs out. Wait until the feed’s gone and you have to hope your oxen can survive by browsing on parched foliage throughout the winter. Wait until you start browsing right alongside them. Starvation. Bears. Wolves. Rattlesnakes.” He glanced at the tavern. “Drunkenness. So many simple ways to cut short the complicated syntax of our worldly composition.”
I closed my mouth, glanced at Gid, then managed weakly, “Thank the Lord for heaven.”
“Well, it’s the least he can promise after punishing us with so much hell.”
The blasphemous remark, blandly made, left my brother and me speechless.
Our new acquaintance didn’t seem to notice. He was brushing his horse’s pretty coat with his hand. After shifting the fiddle case, he turned to face the animal’s tail and leaned into her side to urge her to raise one of her hind legs. He held the hoof, inspected its underside, and asked, “Where are you heading?”
“The town of Gaines,” Gideon said. “Eventually.”
Phineas immediately released the horse and straightened. “Really? That’s remarkable.”
The boyish pleasure lighting his face warmed me to him.
“Though I suppose it shouldn’t shock me,” he conceded. “It’s our area that’s currently getting settled, after all. But still. First the brothers and now two more neighbors. Gaines will be a metropolis before we know it.”
“You’ve met Robert and Edward Welds, then?”
“You know them?”
“Yes, indeed. We’re all from Middleton, New Hampshire.”
“So you must be the friend Robert mentioned.…” Phineas’s gaze swung in my direction before returning to Gid. “I was expecting a solitary traveler.”
“I picked up Freddy along the way.” Phineas didn’t respond, merely waited with his eyebrows raised, so my brother added, “He was stranded.”
“Desperate and on the run,” I corrected, intent on savoring my exciting, albeit fictitious, past.
“After getting out o
f a bad situation with an unkind employer,” Gid said.
“A vicious blackguard of a silversmith,” I clarified, “who beat me and threatened to kill me if I didn’t slave night and day and answer his every unreasonable demand.”
My brother briefly closed his eyes.
Phineas nodded slowly, his expression bemused. “Got to watch out for those wicked silversmiths.”
“An unsavory bunch,” I agreed.
“Will you search for your family?”
“Can’t.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You’re Mr. Freddy of Unknown Parentage. I wonder what happened to your folks.”
“Highwaymen, I suspect.”
He smiled. “You would.”
I waved a hand at his case. “Do you always travel with your fiddle?”
“If I want to protect it from several grubby, sticky hands intent on ruining it, I do.” He pulled gloves of York tan from his coat pocket and, with his odd elegance, slipped them on. Then he brushed the tiniest speck of flint off his coat sleeve. “Marian can’t seem to keep the buggers in check and, more often than not, accuses me of too poorly understanding and appreciating the inquisitive minds of youth. Inquisitive!” He gave a disdainful sniff. “Obnoxious, more like it.” He tapped the case. “It’s safer with me. Two things matter in my life: my music and my sweetheart.”
“Marian?”
“Ha. That’s a good one. No.” His arm went up and hugged his horse’s neck. “This creature. Sweetheart.”
Gid and I nodded. What was there to say? The man loved his horse.
“Now. What did you mean by ‘eventually’?”
My brother frowned. “Eventually?”
“Yes. You said you were traveling to Gaines eventually.”
“Oh. Well, we will, but first we need to head to the Holland Land Company in Batavia to make the purchase and deposit.”
“Which article did you choose?”
“I didn’t. The Welds brothers recommended the two hundred acres west of them.”
Phineas blew a silent whistle and wagged his head.
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