The Beloved Wild

by Melissa Ostrom

  “I suppose I could just slip inside and gather the things in your room,” Phineas said, his face politely turned away from my tears.

  Gideon shook his head. “Fancy’s still in there. You know how loyal to Freddy she is. She’s sure to get anxious and bite you if you try to carry her out—probably bark up a storm, too. We’ll have everyone in the whole tavern out here inspecting the situation.”

  “I haven’t paid the bill yet, either.” I unfolded my old dress.

  Phineas frowned. “What do you have that for?”

  “I wore it to escape.”

  A laugh burst out of him. “I can’t believe a soul would mistake a lanky stick of a boy like you for a girl.” Chuckling softly, he shook his head. “A girl!”

  Gideon stared at him in consternation.

  I choked on a sob of a laugh and wiped my face with a sleeve. “Gid, you know he’ll recognize both of us as we are right now. And he knows I’m—I tried to escape as a female. Our best bet is for me to hide until he comes out. As soon as he leaves the yard, I’ll slip inside to pay the bill and grab my things. You and Phineas can stay out here and finish packing.”

  Gideon scratched his head. “But he’ll know you’re here when he sees me.”

  I shoved the dress at him. “Not if you’re wearing this”—I plopped my old bonnet on top of the folded dress—“and this.”

  Phineas burst out laughing again.

  Gideon gaped. The gape turned into a glare. “No way. No chance in hell.”

  “Please, Gid. Please. You have to help me. I can’t let him find me like this. I can’t. I just can’t!” My voice had risen alarmingly.

  And this—combined with a streaming of fresh tears—turned my brother into a reluctant accomplice.

  Before five minutes had passed, in the relative privacy of a dim barn stall, Gideon Winter became Mrs. Standen, and Phineas—ever one to welcome an opportunity for foolishness—dove into his role as Gid’s husband.

  He played the part dotingly. From my hiding spot behind the barn, I watched him hand my brother into the wagon, adjust the bonnet that hid his too-short locks, tuck the lap blanket around his person, and squeeze his hands meaningfully. For his part, Gid sat as stiff as a statue of someone miserable, maybe a martyred saint, but he grimly remained in character, at least until his pretend husband raised one of his hands to his lips to bestow a kiss. Then he slugged Phineas in the head.

  Phineas rubbed his crown. “Now, is that how a good wife should greet her husband’s expressions of affection? You promised to love, honor, and obey, remember, my precious sugarplum, my little honeyed love bun, my delectable punch of rum. Truly, I’ve a mind to take a strap to your sweet bottom and teach you a lesson you won’t—”

  “Shh.” Gideon jerked his chin toward the door.

  Daniel Long had stridden outside.

  Daniel Long. I could not believe it. My eyes feasted on the sight of him.

  He stood for a moment by his horse, absently rubbing her neck, as he perused the yard, his gaze stilling for a moment on our wagon.

  Phineas had resumed his tender ministrations, patting Gid’s tightly folded hands, teasingly touching Gid’s chin, which was tucked to his chest, then leaning in closer, as if to whisper a few endearments in my brother’s ear. Our friend could have played Macbeth (or more fittingly, Puck) on Drury Lane. He was that convincing.

  And apparently convincing enough for Mr. Long. At last my Middleton neighbor broke his stare and mounted his horse. I waited, my heart pounding, until he left; then I crept toward the men. Gid had wrenched the bonnet off his head and sat scowling. Phineas was practically mute with laughter, hardly able to form a word through his breathless mirth.

  I couldn’t join either extreme reaction. I was remembering how Daniel had looked—his dear, familiar handsomeness, his tall, strong frame—and how, inexplicably, the entire time I’d leaned against the rough back wall of the barn, I’d half hoped he would find me. Only fear that the discovery would arouse his disgust checked that hope. He had enough reasons to disdain me. I couldn’t bear to give him more.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Less than an hour later, with our wagon packed and hitched to the oxen, Fancy fed and snoring softly at my feet, Phineas in the lead, and Gid back to looking like a man, we resumed the final leg of our trip, following an old Indian trail straight north toward the lake.

  Within minutes of our leaving Batavia, the forest engulfed us. On either side of the rough path, ancient trees curled over the wagon and made a tunnel for our passage. The early April sunlight penetrated the canopy in a shattered brilliance, dancing on the dew of countless leaves.

  “I can’t believe Daniel came after you,” Gid said quietly. “You all right?”

  I shook my head and turned away. I didn’t want to discuss Daniel Long, couldn’t bear it. Should I have let him discover me and faced his shock? Was escaping that reaction worth never talking to him again? Regret plagued me. Adding to my depression was the fact that I’d lost my lucky spile. The absence of the spout felt horribly symbolic, prophetic. I wasn’t allowed anything, not even a reminder, of Daniel.

  This sobering conclusion kept me from joining in on Phineas’s banter. Gid wasn’t much use to Phineas, either. I could tell my brother was subdued—and anxious to get to Rachel Welds.

  On three occasions along this stretch leading to Barre, the wilderness opened. Every time, a rough clearing appeared, ragged with stumps and uneven fields. In each center, a rude cabin squatted, its window protected with oiled paper and its roof covered in peeled bark, and around each cabin, oxen browsed. On the first property, a cow trudged among them. The other two places also sported sheep. On account of the bells tied around their necks, the animals chimed as they moved.

  Outside the third log house, a woman holding up the end of her apron scooped feed from her makeshift pouch and scattered it for pecking fowl. Upon our appearance, she turned and waved.

  She looked thrilled to see people. Setting aside my personal misery, I urged Gid to stop, so we could exchange some words with her. “It’s the polite thing to do.”

  He shook his head. “I want to reach Barre.”

  With just a shouted greeting, we journeyed on. Soon the thick forest absorbed us again.

  Robert and Ed had sent my brother one letter since they’d settled in these parts. From that missive, Gid knew how to locate the Lintons’ place. Yet when we neared the location, we were hard-pressed to trust the brothers’ directions.

  The Lintons had started pioneering more than a year ago. However, of the few homes we’d passed, this one showed the least amount of improvement. If anything, the crooked cabin seemed ready to collapse, as if sunk under a curse of quickened age. Perhaps it had been poorly constructed or damaged in a storm. Regardless, its dilapidated condition suggested a complete indifference to the notion of upkeep.

  Evidence of slovenly living was also spewed around the wretched dwelling. Eight barefoot children loitered in a yard of muck and refuse. A few pigs roamed between broken bits of boards, snuffled into mounds of rotting food, and split the air with squeals whenever one of the urchins, raucously laughing, pulled a tail or attempted a ride on one of their backs. I’d tied Fancy to the wagon seat to keep her from jumping out, but she strained against her tether and growled menacingly. She didn’t think much of this place, either.

  When the children noticed our presence, their disturbing activities came to an end. They watched our approach, only breaking their motionlessness to scratch a head or groin. Eventually, the tallest one shoved at the pig closest to him with a dirt-blackened foot and ambled forth, his finger plugging his nose.

  Phineas, who’d brought his horse to our side, stared aghast at the homestead, and when the nose picker held his finger close to his eyes, inspected his finding, and slurped it with apparent gusto, our fastidious friend visibly shuddered. “This is where Rachel lives?”

  “Heaven help her,” I breathed. I couldn’t believe it myself.

  Gi
d mutely shook his head.

  While the ill-mannered child threaded his way around the yard’s filth, stopped near our wagon, and gaped, the others flew into the house through an entrance covered with a stained blanket. They erupted out of it again, this time with a man, a woman, and a second woman in their wake.

  The man barked a greeting as he crossed the yard. He was a shocking sight: his muscular frame so covered in reddish-gray hair that he seemed part bear. The frizzy tresses hung in his eyes and knitted his chin, throat, and chest together in a wild mat. His apparel was as threadbare as the children’s. He wore a shirt that fluttered open nearly to the navel and hole-riddled pants. And he must have injured his leg, for he limped and used a short tree limb as a walking stick.

  The woman who followed kept her head down, her shoulders hunched, and her hands and arms hidden in the folds of her black shawl. Her light brown hair, dressed in a thick bun, as gleaming as any girl’s, strangely contrasted with her wrinkled face. She reminded me of the house: prematurely aged, folding in on herself.

  Not until I registered the identity of the second woman did I find my voice and answer the man’s greeting. I jumped out of the wagon and began striding across the yard.

  It was Rachel.

  While I tried to make out my pretty, robust, neat-as-a-pin singing companion in the disheveled girl, Rachel was clearly trying to figure out me. She watched my approach with bewildered amazement. When I was within arm’s reach, she whispered, “Harry?”

  I gave the briefest shake of my head. I’d have to explain Freddy, but that couldn’t happen now.

  Gid also began walking toward the house.

  Rachel drew a fast breath but didn’t speak.

  Suddenly, Phineas yelped. He stood a distance behind my brother, peering in anguish at his recently polished boots. Despite enjoying dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of acres, the Lintons obviously didn’t take the time to empty their chamber pots at a safe distance from the cabin. The yard was rank with waste.

  And something else. When the hairy man—Mr. Linton, I presumed—swung his cane to whack one of his children out of his way, teetered closer, and opened his mouth to slur, “How do you do?” I determined the second essence: pure alcohol. His whole person stank of whiskey.

  He ramblingly introduced himself. My brother had barely finished reciprocating when Mr. Linton clumsily twisted and said to the woman behind him, “Don’t just stand there with your mouth at half cock, you idiot. Get some refreshments for our guests.” As she skittered back to the house, a ghoulish smile parted the fur across his face. “We ain’t got more than a handful of potatoes to feed you, but there’s whiskey. Always plenty of whiskey.” He laughed uproariously at this. Except for his retreating wife and Rachel, the rest of his household joined in on the guffaws.

  Taking in their vacant gazes, I couldn’t help but wonder if the children were inebriated as well. A wave of horror washed through me. I felt like a girl who’d gone to a trickling stream to fetch water and discovered a glutted river instead, one with a crumbling bank and a dangerous current intent on nabbing and drowning me. The situation was totally unexpected. Horribly foreign. It was hell.

  How had Rachel endured this?

  “Thought you’d try your hand at pioneering, did you?” Mr. Linton shook the head rug that was still parted for that gash of a smile. “The wondrous Genesee Valley. The oh-so-great Holland Land Company. Bamboozlers, the whole lot of them. Well, you’ll find out. You’ll find out for yourself. Wheat’s a damned bit easier to distill than it is to mill and turn into money. You grow your grain and then what? No mill in these parts, not quite yet anyway. So you lug it for days to the nearest place along the river and find no cash market for your efforts. You’ll learn. Oh, you’ll learn.” He gave vent to another round of cackles.

  “I see,” I said. Since Gid had apparently lost his ability to speak and Phineas had stopped a safe distance from our weird gathering (no doubt fearing further indignities to his person), I cleared my throat and asked, “How many acres did you purchase?”

  “Just shy of two hundred, and lousier land you never saw.” He elaborated, delivering a rant against the “swampy hell of a wilderness.”

  I wasn’t listening closely. My mind was fiercely engaged with another matter entirely.

  What were we going to do about Rachel?

  I couldn’t leave her here. I wouldn’t. Not only did she appear miserable and half starved, she looked frightened. For good reason. I’d suffered this place for a mere few minutes and was already scared witless. I sidled closer to her. My breath caught. There were bruises along her neck, as if someone had battered, even tried to strangle, her.

  Mr. Linton stopped complaining and lazily followed my gaze. When his bloodshot eyes, like twin fires in a thicket of brush, settled on Rachel, he cackled again. “Pretty minx, isn’t she? But damme, too sullen by half. Quit your moping, slut!” And, with a snorted hiss, he raised his walking stick and jabbed her side.

  I gasped and instinctively reached for her, but Rachel had stumbled back, crossing her arms to shield herself.

  My mind spun. I could barely absorb what had just happened, let alone make sense of the disturbing implications. Oh, Rachel, Rachel, what terrors have you faced in this cesspool of depravity?

  Amazed my brother hadn’t rushed to Rachel’s side, I whirled on him. My dumbfounded horror grew. He was staring, wide-eyed with shock, at the ground, and when he did glance up at Rachel, another emotion flitted across his face. Not love. Not compassion.

  Disgust.

  The reaction was gone as quickly as it had appeared. But I recognized it—I knew I had—and so did Rachel. She dropped her gaze.

  I shot him a furious look, unimpressed with the belated apology that now suffused his features.

  While the children resumed their torture of the pigs, Mr. Linton started another drunken monologue, this one on the vicious creatures that slunk out of the forest and gobbled up his chickens.

  I stiffened with cold disdain. No forest dweller could be more vicious than him. Interrupting the diatribe, I said tersely, “Thank you for your offer of refreshments, but we can’t stay. The brothers Welds are expecting us. Rachel? Are you ready to go?”

  Her gaze flew up.

  “Go where?” Mr. Linton barked. His fire-red eyes slid over Rachel. “She can’t leave. ’Tain’t decent, her living with those boys and no female to chaperone her.”

  He was lecturing me on decency? “She won’t be living with her cousins. She’ll be staying with the Standens. The missus there will be her companion until…” I scrambled to think of a long-term plan for my friend that justified her parting from the Lintons and blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Until my house is up and Rachel and I can get married.”

  This announcement at last galvanized my worthless traveling companions. Gid squeaked, “What?” Phineas, in a manner out of keeping with his usual eloquence, blabbed, “Er … huh?”

  Rachel said immediately, “Yes, of course, dearest.” Her face shone with relief and hope and something else. Panic. She glanced meaningfully at our wagon. Hurry, the look said.

  Mr. Linton appeared poised to argue, so I asked her quickly, “Shall I wait here for you to collect your things?”

  She threw an uneasy peek over her shoulder and vigorously shook her head.

  “Want me to go with you?”

  She began sidestepping toward the wagon. “That won’t be necessary.”

  I caught the hint: time to bolt. “Thank you again, Mr. Linton,” I said, treading backward.

  Phineas observed me with amazement. “Engaged, my ass,” he muttered under his breath, when I was close enough to hear him. “You take chivalry seriously, I’ll grant you that.” Then he began retreating, too, leaping a zigzag around broken crockery and waste, until he reached Sweetheart. He pulled himself into the saddle.

  My brother, in contrast, stayed put, shock alive in his bearing.

  “Gid,” I called.

  He jerke
d into action, mechanically repeated my thanks, and sprinted to the wagon, passing Rachel and me in his haste.

  After hefting himself onto the seat, he put out his hand for Rachel.

  She ignored the offer, urged me up next, then scrambled in on her own. This put the three of us hip to hip, with Fancy barking at our feet.

  Mr. Linton had started to stalk us, his progeny trailing him like an army.

  “Now wait one minute—one minute!—you damned jackanapes.” His drunken command had taken on a querulous quality. “You can’t make off with that girl. Rachel, I order you to come down from there, ya hear?” His red eyes glaring his rage, he paused to reinforce his command by pounding the ground with his walking stick.

  Phineas clucked his horse into a canter. Though our oxen couldn’t hope to emulate that pace, they hurried up the rutted trail, too. Gid cracked the whip in the air to urge them to go faster.

  Mr. Linton’s furious shouts (“You thankless girl! Come back here, I say—come back here!”) faded, then disappeared altogether as we put some forest between our wagon and the dreadful man. I was wholeheartedly grateful for the thickness of the wilderness. It felt like an armor protecting us from the enemy.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  To drive, Gid obviously had to occupy a portion of the seat, but he might as well have been invisible for all the attention Rachel and I gave him. Our heads touching and backs bowed, she and I made a huddle on the bench, like two exchanging secrets.

  “Are you all right?”

  Her breath left her in a quavering sigh. She briefly closed her eyes. “Grateful. How did you know to save me?”

  “I didn’t. We were just planning to visit.”

  She gave Gid on my opposite side a hard look.

  He deserved it. Stupid, callous boy. “Never thought I’d find you in such a…” What to call that awfulness? I swallowed hard and finished gruffly, “Nightmare.”

  “It was. God help me, it was.” Her hands shook. She clasped them in her lap, checking the tremor. “What are you doing, going by the name of Freddy?”