“Aye, that he did. But he cannot know exactly where they are. They might have gone back to Île d’Orléans or Point Lévis, opposite the city. Even if we come across them, Wolfe won’t be onboard. He’s the one who needs to hear what I have to say. He makes his decisions alone.”
Another peal of laughter from the beach speared the tension growing between them. “Your ultimate aim is Quebec, is it not?” Catherine reasoned. “So is Wolfe’s. You said yourself that Holmes may have returned there. So, too, Wolfe could be moving even now toward the city. If it comes down to a chase—our bateau in pursuit of a warship—we both know we’d never catch him.” She paused to let this sink in, scanning for any ears too close. “Aim true, Samuel. We’ll intercept the first English ship we come to, and they can send word with better channels than you and I have.”
He didn’t reply. Catherine stepped away from him, for she had said her piece and wished to end the matter there.
Slowly, he pulled back with the pole, then jerked it to set the hook. The tip of the willow cane arched.
Having shed her leggings, Catherine hastened to the water’s edge and stepped into the river. Bending low, she scooped up a walleye with the net, releasing the pressure on Samuel’s pole. It weighed five pounds or near it, she judged, which would make a fine meal for the three of them.
She carried it back to Samuel. Mindful of the fish’s strong jaw and sharp teeth, she held it while he removed the hook. He bent his head so that his chin grazed her temple. “Tomorrow, it’s our turn to swim,” he whispered. “We’ll take the bateau. After dark.”
Staring at the walleye’s cold, dark eyes, Catherine could only pray her counsel had been wise, and that they would not be caught.
Catherine could not stay asleep. Rolling to her side on the fur-topped ground, she bent her arm beneath her head and pulled a blanket over her shoulder. Her body was now firmly in the rhythm of retiring early and rising again before midnight. All the better, she reflected, for by this time tomorrow, she would be back on the shining obsidian river.
Only six miles separated them from Quebec. Fewer than that, certainly, until they would meet an English ship.
Her thoughts circled back to Joseph, Bright Star, and Thankful. She wore a track in her mind exploring every uncertainty surrounding each fate until she finally brought them to God in prayer. Please heal them, please protect them, please carry them safely home, be it Your will. It was a different sort of prayer than she liked, admitting that God’s plan might not be hers.
Stifling a groan, she abandoned all pretense of rest and stood. Pulling her stroud blanket about her shoulders, she slipped her feet into her moccasins. Her loosely plaited hair swung at her waist as she passed the guttering fires of the soldiers.
A lone figure already strolled the beach. Even before she could see his face, his gait and frame revealed him. Samuel neared, and her heart twisted with that blade of joy and sorrow.
“Couldn’t sleep?” He rubbed at a muscle in his shoulder, belying a soreness he would not admit.
Stars shone in the sky above them like chips of glass thrown across an unending bolt of black velvet. “There’s too much to think about. And wonder,” she added.
“You wonder why you agreed to come.”
“As if you ever would have given up your begging.” It was an attempt to make light of the risks she took and the circumstances leading up to their flight. It failed.
He stepped closer. “I’m sorry, Catherine, for what happened to Joseph. I’m sorry the ones you love were ever endangered.”
The ones I love. Catherine peered into the deep wells of his eyes and wondered if he knew he was among them, in spite of everything. Her love for Samuel had been through the fire and come out altered, but it remained. There were different kinds of love, indeed.
“I knew there would be dangers.” She tugged the blanket more tightly about her. “It was my choice to come. And after you told me about Lydia, it was my choice to stay with you. I don’t regret it.”
“We’ll see if you feel the same way tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. I can’t begin to thank you. Nothing I say or do would be enough.”
She didn’t argue.
The river lapped at the shore, glittering in the moonlight. It was both calming and bittersweet, for it was the rhythmic backdrop behind uncounted memories with Samuel. “After all we’ve been through,” she whispered, “I wonder if I’ll ever hear the river again without thinking of you.”
He didn’t respond. His feet were rooted on the rocks, but his expression showed that his thoughts were cast far away. “You’re so natural on the water. You enjoy it. I envy you.”
The cold ground leached the warmth from her feet. “What do you mean?”
“All my nightmares take place on the river. Or should I say, took place. Whatever my mind conjures in sleep is only a retelling of what has already happened. The first incident was my accident when I tried to escape my bondage to your father and ended up with a broken leg and dislocated shoulder.”
Catherine felt the blood mount in her cheeks. “That was my fault for sending you alone.”
He held up his hand. “No more apologies. No more excuses or regrets. Right now I just need you to listen.”
Crickets chirped, but slower now that autumn’s chill touched the air. It felt almost indulgent to speak like this. For hours upon the river, she had always talked to him with someone else present. Still holding her blanket about her shoulders, she nodded for Samuel to continue.
“That nightmare of being broken and alone before I was discovered—that’s nothing compared to the nightly hauntings of Joel’s death on the river near his home. When I married Lydia and moved into their house, I had to see that river every day, hear it rushing every spring. I couldn’t get Joel’s near-frozen, colorless face out of my mind for years. In the dream, his eyes are open and he’s reaching up to me from under the ice. I grasp his fingertips and then lose him every time. Every night, I watched him die again.” He spoke with little inflection, but his hand curled tightly at his side.
She wanted to reach out and lace her fingers through his. Instead, she said, “How horrible. And this dream has haunted you again on this trip?”
“Yes, at the start.” He slid her a troubled gaze. “But it’s changed. It’s not Joel I watch drown now. It’s you.”
Catherine inhaled sharply. “I do not believe that dreams are predictors of what will come. Your past is mixing with your fear. That’s all.”
But Samuel looked unconvinced. “I don’t think it’s a vision or a prophecy, either. But I’d be a fool not to realize that these last few miles to Quebec may not go as planned. It’s a gamble, and the stakes are our lives.”
“Shh!” She cast a look about her, senses growing sharp and tight. “We knew this going into it, before we ever left Montreal,” she whispered.
He cut his voice lower, stepped near. “I’ve been running through the possible scenarios in my mind. Gaspard could betray us by accident or by intention.”
“We’re not leaving him behind.” A cloud obscured the moon, then drifted away like gauze.
“I know. But be aware of the risk he adds. And rowing in the dark past French lookouts and British ships . . . Someone could fire on us. You could fall overboard, and if you die on this journey, heaven help me, for I don’t know what I would—”
“Samuel Crane,” she hissed. “Stop this. It’s too late to do anything but follow through.” It was not her life she thought of now, but Joseph’s. She could not bear the notion of his suffering being in vain. “Think again about those stakes, for they are higher than just our lives. This story is about more than just the two of us. The war needs to end, and if you can speed it, you must.”
But his chin hovered above his chest, and she could see that her words had failed to bolster him.
“This is what you were made to do,” she tried. “See a wrong and set it right. If bringing fight and famine to a close isn’t the right thing to do, then
I don’t know what is.”
Wariness etched his face. “I was not made to be a spy or warrior.”
Dismay shot through Catherine. Were these doubts common to any soldier just before a dangerous mission? Did voicing them set them free, or would they siphon his courage away when he needed it most? “Samuel.” She gripped his hands, and the blanket slipped from her shoulders. “You were made to love and protect. Tell me about your children.”
His gaze snapped up. His hands warmed hers before he squeezed and then released them, crossing his arms over his chest instead.
“You’re doing this for them, right?” she pressed. “When the war is over, and you are home again with your family, I’ll think of them. I’ll be glad to imagine their happiness at your return. Tell me about them.”
Tenderness softened his features. “Joel is four now and the very image of my brother, from his green eyes to the small dents in his cheeks when he smiles. He says he wants to be like me, so sometimes I give him a board to hammer without any nails, and he pounds away at it, practicing for when he gets bigger. But the way he loves his mama—” He glanced at Catherine, question in his eyes.
“Go on,” she told him. “Tell me.”
Samuel shifted his weight, nudging a piece of driftwood with his boot. “His favorite thing is to bring her flowers in his dimpled fists. Never mind if his flowers are really onions he’s pulled from the garden, or weeds fit for a roadside ditch. Lydia treasures them all. You should see the bouquets on our kitchen table. They’re absurd, of course, and the smell—onions!” His shoulders bounced in quiet laughter. “Lydia tells him they’re sweeter than roses, though, and he is fit to burst his buttons with pride.”
The smile on Samuel’s face was so full and free, it unlocked Catherine’s last defenses. She wanted this joy for him, had wanted it for him ever since she’d first thought of him as her friend. He’d suffered enough. She wanted this love to light him up, even though it had nothing to do with her.
“He sounds absolutely charming,” she said.
The gleam in Samuel’s eye was unmistakable. “That he is, almost as charming as his sister. Our daughter, Molly, reached her second birthday this week. If you saw her, you’d know she’s mine. Hair like the sun, curls springing from her head. And her laughter . . . there’s nothing more infectious.”
“You have a daughter,” Catherine whispered tightly, overcome. “And a son and a wife.”
“I do.” His smile was gentle.
So was hers. “There’s your reason for what we’re about to do.”
A gust of wind swept between them, smelling of last night’s cookfires. Stooping, Samuel picked up the blanket Catherine had dropped and draped it once more on her shoulders. “Thank you.” Voice hoarse, his hands lingered on her arms for a moment. “Does this mean—that is, do you forgive me?”
Wrapping herself in the stroud, she pulled it tight. “I do.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was time.
Silently, Catherine joined Samuel at the shore, hoping last night’s conversation had given him the courage he needed now. Hunching low, Gaspard hastened to her side.
A long line of bateaux stretched along the beach. “Which one?” she whispered, searching for their own.
Several of these vessels had already been loaded with cargo for tomorrow night’s departure. Theirs was one of them. A group of soldiers would be able to slide it to the water bearing so much weight, but Catherine, Samuel, and Gaspard could not. Neither could they risk the noise of the boat scraping over rocks on its way.
“This.” Samuel pointed to an empty bateau, third from the end of the line.
Taking her position by its side, Catherine secured the pins holding her braid in a coil at her neck, then pointed to where Gaspard should be. Samuel stood on the other side, closer to the bow, and grasped the edge. At her signal, they lifted and carried the vessel until they could set it halfway into the river.
Then they hurried back to the other bateaux and retrieved a barrel of flour, rolling it so slowly that it made no noise worth noting. If they were challenged by lookouts, they would say they were an early detachment taking flour to Quebec. After heaving the barrel into the bateau, Samuel and Gaspard went back and each returned with a bag of grain on their shoulders. She helped them ease the sacks into the bateau. It could hold far more, but not without compromising their speed. This would have to be enough.
Clutching the sheathed knife at her chest, Catherine climbed into the vessel, and Samuel and Gaspard gave the final heave into the water.
The bateau rocked as the men climbed into it. At the stern, Catherine dipped an oar into the inky water until it gained purchase on the riverbed. She pushed, sending the vessel forward before clapping the handle into the oarlock to serve as the rudder.
Samuel took an oar near the bow of the vessel, while Gaspard rowed in the middle. In moments, they were gliding away. The angle of the men’s oars as they entered and left the water had never been more precise, nor their strokes so smooth and strong. Their movement was as near to silent as they could manage.
They didn’t speak, didn’t need to. The moon was a silver arc, a celestial bow ready to launch. Stars pinpricked both sky and river, so that they floated in and on and through the shimmering black. This was far easier to navigate than fog.
Resting at Cap-Rouge had restored Catherine’s strength, so they put the first mile behind them with remarkable ease. Nerves that had been coiled all day at last began to relax.
Gaspard leaned forward. “Lookouts, north shore,” he whispered.
Her gaze swung left, and her heart rate ratcheted up once more. There were not many men standing guard, so thinly spread were the patrolling troops. She saw only two along this stretch, but it took only one to sound an alarm or take a shot. Praying for calm, she steered for shadows overhanging the south bank from the trees that crowded there.
An owl hooted from a low-hanging branch, and she ducked just in time to pass beneath it.
“Look out!” Samuel whispered, but too late.
The bateau clunked into something, jarring Catherine nearly off her seat, though their speed had been slow. A length of rotten tree trunk crossed their path.
“Qui vive?”
The challenge clapped Catherine’s ears like blocks of wood.
“France!” Gaspard called back. A new wave of energy rushed to her shoulders and arms, and she steered the bateau away from the shore and into the safer middle.
“What regiment?”
“Shh!” Gaspard’s bold reply. “Don’t make noise! We have flour from Cap-Rouge!”
“We were told that was for tomo—”
“Shh!” Gaspard interrupted. “We won’t all go at once, to protect some provisions if some are caught. Do not give us away!”
It worked. The soldier, well within pistol shot range, let them go and wished them Godspeed.
Within another mile, they were challenged once more, and Gaspard gave the same response he had before. This time, he was bold enough to ask the lookout to pass word along to let the bateau proceed with its flour unchallenged. The young man lowered his pistol and complied. Relief flooded Catherine.
Then she felt the tide pulling the current beneath the vessel. Its speed easily outpaced what they had experienced thus far, and a sense of elation vied with the continued need for caution. They were not safe yet and would not be until they were on board a British ship or onshore at a British camp, opposite the river from Quebec.
Faintly, she discerned in the distance the cliffs of the Quebec promontory rising ahead of them on the north shore. “Do you see any lookouts?” she asked.
“A few,” Gaspard whispered after twisting to look. “They assume the cliff is all the defense they need.”
They were almost halfway to Quebec. She’d been so confident they’d see English ships by now. Were they all amassed at Saint-Nicolas, except for a few staged opposite the city? She leaned forward. “What will those lookouts do if we have t
o turn away from Quebec to get to the British camp on the opposite shore?”
Samuel turned his head. “Nothing, if they don’t see us. And they won’t. Look there.” A dark shape against the cliffs began to take form, flagged by the white sails at the top. “That sloop is British. All we need to do is row abreast of it, and no one on shore will see us climb aboard.”
“But how can you tell it’s not French?” She could barely distinguish the masts, let alone read the hull or decode its flags.
“He’s right,” Gaspard said. “France has precious few ships to spare, as most of them are waging war off France or India. Those that are here would not be wasted guarding impenetrable cliffs.”
The bateau creaked. Catherine frowned. The only sound should be from the oars in the oarlocks. The rudder still, she watched Gaspard and Samuel row and listened for the vessel’s response.
Another creak. No, a crack. Catherine listed slightly to the right. Then farther still. Her feet suddenly grew cold. Wet.
“We’re sinking,” she gasped. Samuel’s dream flew so quickly to her mind that she was sure it entered his.
The whites of his eyes shone wide.
Gaspard groaned, complaining of losing the flour. “I intended to take that to my parents. But at least now the lookouts won’t see the bateau.”
Catherine put her hand to the crack in the hull. The river rushed between her fingers. This vessel was clearly one of those that had been run aground and damaged at Pointe-aux-Trembles. It had been caulked at Cap-Rouge, but the repair was not enough. Perhaps this bateau had not been loaded because it had already been deemed unseaworthy.
“I can swim. Can you?” She looked to both men, nearly forgetting to keep her voice down. “With your injuries as they are, can you swim?”
Gaspard reckoned he could. Rotating his right arm, Samuel winced. “I’ll manage it. Let’s row straight as hard and long as we can.”
They tilted farther to the right as they rowed. Water crept over her moccasins, up her ankles and leggings. It weighted and pulled at the hem of her dress.
Between Two Shores Page 28