Into the Wilderness

by Sara Donati

  Nathaniel began to explain his drawings to her, hoping to put her at ease.

  “Two main rooms,” he said. “In between, a storage room and a hall, for wraps and such.”

  “Two rooms?”

  Nathaniel nodded. “Eventually there will be enough children for two. And in the meantime, if you want a place of your own, away from your father, you’ll have one.”

  She reached out and touched the plans. “Heat?”

  “A double hearth on the center wall, facing either way. There’s no shortage of wood; you can have the schoolboys chop and stack for you.”

  Elizabeth wrinkled her nose.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “In England, woodsmoke is rare, but you can’t get away from it here.”

  “Is it unpleasant to you?”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s much better than coal.”

  “Just one more thing to get used to.”

  There was a way she had of raising one eyebrow when she was surprised. “Yes.”

  They talked for a good time about the schoolhouse; she asked about practical things: coat hooks, washstands, bookshelves, desks, blackboards. She told him about schools she had visited in England, what was wrong with them, and what right. How important she thought fresh air and light were, and how many window sashes she thought she needed. Nathaniel listened to her voice grow more confident, encouraging her now and then but mostly happy to let her talk.

  “So you’re not headed back for England. Just yet,” Nathaniel said, leaning back.

  Elizabeth bent her head over the plans, the lamplight shining white on the part in her hair. “Well, no,” she said. “Not just yet, at any rate.”

  Her hands were narrow and very white, the oval nails glowing pale pink. She held them flat on the table. Nathaniel resisted the urge to touch the delicate pulsing of a vein where it negotiated the curve of her wrist.

  “Well, then,” Nathaniel said. “Tell me what you meant about your father being cash poor.”

  Elizabeth looked up, surprised. “Oh, well, I thought that would be clear enough. He’s overextended himself in his investments and he’s thinking of taking a mortgage on the land itself. If I marry Richard and bring my share of the property with me, Richard will settle his debts.”

  Nathaniel looked thoughtful.

  “Richard would never sell you Hidden Wolf.”

  “No,” Nathaniel agreed. “Richard has an uncommon appetite for land. And what about your brother?”

  Her smile was sour. “Julian is part of the reason there’s a shortage of cash. He had to be bought out of his debts, you see. He used up all his inheritance from our mother—and it wasn’t an insignificant bequest, either. Then he started writing notes, and soon the damage was done. But hopefully he will have little opportunity to misbehave here. Although it’s not his idea of Paradise.”

  Elizabeth hesitated. “This is a very comfortable house,” she said, “but small, isn’t it, for so many—” She stopped.

  “You’ve never seen a longhouse,” he said. “Whole families together, a couple of generations, sisters and all their young. The Hode’noshaunee don’t think anything of it. The Iroquois, as the French call them,” he added, when he saw her blank look. “Or sometimes you’ll hear them called the Six Nations.”

  “But you didn’t grow up in a longhouse,” Elizabeth pointed out.

  “No, I grew up right here. My father built this cabin when he married my mother. But I have spent some time in a long-house. And you’re right, it’s feeling kind of small these days.”

  Elizabeth was tracing the outline of the schoolhouse with one finger, and refused to look up at him.

  “Next summer, if things go as planned, we’ll build another cabin. Many-Doves is full of plans for it.” Nathaniel paused. “But her husband will build it.”

  She was not going to ask or comment, he could see that. Nathaniel began to regret teasing her.

  “She’s getting married in the spring.”

  “Oh?” Elizabeth blinked slowly. “How nice for her. In the spring?”

  “Or maybe the summer,” he confirmed, grinning.

  “And when do you think the schoolhouse will be finished?”

  “Well, I hope the snow lets up some soon, otherwise it will be longer than I thought. But I would guess, late April. You wanted to get started, I know. But there’s this snow, and the need to be hunting.”

  She glanced at the pelts on the walls.

  “Aye, well.” He wondered how much of the truth she could stand. “We were well provisioned, in the fall, even for three or four more people. But that changed.”

  Elizabeth ran her hands over the school plans. He could see that she was intensely curious, but also that she had more self-control than most.

  “Late November, we were down in the village and somebody broke in.”

  The eyebrow rose again.

  “Shut the dogs in the smokehouse, took every bit of dried and smoked meat, and the few furs we had at that point. Mostly we spend the fall hunting for winter stores, and the winter trapping for pelts, so it weren’t so much the fur they were after. I guess we’re lucky they didn’t take the corn or the beans, or it’d be much harder going.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Who would do such a thing?”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “I’ve got my suspicions, but there’s no way to prove it. Why is the more important question.”

  She turned her hand over on the table and wiggled her fingers. It was as close as she could come to hurrying him along.

  “There’s laws now against hunting out of season.”

  Elizabeth’s back straightened. “If you can’t hunt—” She paused. “And your provisions are gone—”

  “There’s nothing to do but go.”

  “Why the furs?” Then she held up a hand, not needing his answer. “So you couldn’t buy what you needed. Somebody is trying to force you out.”

  He nodded, watching new emotions move on her face. Disbelief, and then, reluctantly, belief. And on its heels, outrage.

  “That’s why you want to buy the mountain. Can you hunt if you own it?”

  “Not out of season, at least, not legal. But we can keep trespassers off, and maybe we can manage then.”

  She stood up suddenly, her lips pressed hard together. “My father?”

  “No,” Nathaniel said. “I’m sure of that much.”

  Elizabeth began to pace in the room, up and down, her skirts swirling, her boots clicking. Nathaniel could see the next question coming, but he waited for her to ask.

  “Richard Todd doesn’t believe you have enough cash to buy the mountain.” She ran her knuckles over her brow. “Was it him, Richard?”

  Nathaniel inclined his head. “Maybe.”

  “But you told me that Richard deals straight with people.”

  He got up to join her before the hearth. “I told you he deals straight with white men.”

  “But you are white.”

  “To you maybe.”

  Elizabeth looked up at him, her face tight with worry and guilt.

  “You can’t be responsible for what every man of your acquaintance does,” he said easily.

  “But what can I do to help?”

  There were dark flecks in her gray eyes; her brows arched out, like wings. He inhaled. She smelled sweet, of dried summer flowers and talcum. Above the filmy fabric that was tucked into the neckline of her bodice, her skin was very white; there was a pulse in the hollow of her throat. He knew his nearness was making her uneasy, but he just didn’t want to move away.

  Elizabeth said: “I have some money. Is there anything at all I can give you that would help?”

  Give me your mouth, he wanted to say to her. Maybe she saw this in his face, because she drew in her breath in a soft sound of surprise and froze, like a doe surrounded by torches in the night, her eyes burning furiously.

  “This is dangerous business,” Nathaniel said. He did not know himself exactly what business he meant.
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  “It’s too late for that,” she said with a calm that surprised him. “I’m already in it.”

  “So you are,” Nathaniel murmured.

  It was not the first glimpse he had had of the iron core in her, but it was the clearest. Of its own accord, one finger raised itself to touch her cheek. He wanted her to come to him of her own free will, but it was very hard to be here with her and not touch her.

  Startled, Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it.

  Hannah came streaking into the room suddenly, and they separated, moving to opposite sides of the hearth, as if they had been doing what they had both been thinking of doing. Nathaniel turned to catch his daughter, who threw herself at him and began to climb up one arm, dragging herself up by his hair until he cried out, half laughing, and managed to get a hold of her long enough to disentangle himself. “Finished with the chores,” she panted. “That poor old moose is hanging in the beech, and I want to sit by Elizabeth before Otter comes and takes the best spot.”

  There was nothing more for it, and so Elizabeth allowed Hannah to pile books on her lap and took the seat she was offered by the corner of the hearth, where Hawkeye had set a pine knot burning on a slab of stone. Its light was clear and bright enough to read by.

  “This is my favorite,” she said. “And Grandfather is fond of this one, and this is Father’s—”

  “Enough,” said Falling-Day, exasperated. Her hands were full of mending, but she paused to give Hannah a meaningful look. The child sighed, and sat at her grandmother’s feet, accepting the bit of sewing that was passed into her hands.

  They all had work to do: Many-Doves was piecing leather into a moccasin, Hawkeye picked up where he had left off with the traps, Otter set himself to making bullets. Nathaniel sat on a stool across from Elizabeth, and began to braid rawhide. Only Chingachgook had the leisure to both watch and listen to Elizabeth, but the look in his eyes was anything but critical or judging, and she did not mind him so much.

  “Start with some of the Poor Richard,” he suggested.

  Elizabeth opened the volume and began to read at random:

  “It would be thought a hard Government that should tax its people One-tenth part of their TIME, to be employed in its service. But Idleness taxes many of us much more; if we reckon all that is spent in absolute sloth, or doing of nothing; with that by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life …”

  Chingachgook murmured in amusement each time Poor Richard’s pronouncements were put forth. When Elizabeth stopped to turn the page, she looked up and saw Falling-Day’s look of disbelief and scorn.

  “A man who talks so much as that Poor Richard has little time to use his hands to work,” she said, to which Chingachgook only smiled, but both Otter and Nathaniel laughed out loud.

  Hannah was inching her way across the floor slowly as Elizabeth read, never raising her eyes from her needlework. Eventually she managed to come close enough to lean against Elizabeth’s knee. Touched by this sign of the child’s affection, Elizabeth was tempted to reach out and stroke her hair, but she felt Many-Doves’ gaze on her and pulled back her hand.

  After a while, Elizabeth put aside the Almanac and picked up Gulliver’s Travels, a volume more familiar to her. She settled into the story, and read for a good time, the only other sound being the fire in the hearth, and the wind caught now and then in the chimney. When she thought to glance up at her audience, she sometimes caught one or the other looking at her: quite often it was Many-Doves, who seemed to be focused in a thoughtful and reserved way on Elizabeth herself, and less interested in the story. Most often it was Nathaniel’s direct but guarded gaze. Twice Elizabeth became flustered, and lost her place, until she forced herself to keep her eyes on the page.

  At one point, Falling-Day rose to put more wood on the fire. Elizabeth took this opportunity to take up the last volume.

  “Oh,” she said, so that her audience looked up. “I’ll do my best, but I’m afraid my Scots is lacking.” And she opened the Burns.

  Here Stewarts once in glory reign’d,

  And laws for Scotland’s weal ordain’d;

  But now unroof’d their palace stands,

  Their sceptre fallen to other hands;

  Fallen indeed, and to the earth,

  Whence grovelling reptiles take their birth.

  The injured Stewart line is gone,

  A race outlandish fills their throne:

  An idiot race, to honour lost—

  Who know them best despise them most.

  “A man after my Cora’s own heart,” Hawkeye noted with a half smile, even as he winked at Elizabeth solemnly. She wondered at the strangeness of this: did he regard her as an exception to the “idiot race” his wife had so despised, or did he not see the insult in it? Elizabeth thought he must be testing her, and so she only raised a brow in reply.

  Then she realized that Many-Doves was staring at the book in Elizabeth’s hands, and it came to her with a shock that she had been given Many-Doves’ place, and taken over a duty she held dear. Elizabeth leafed through the slim volume while she thought this through, and wondered how she might fix the slight without offending anyone else.

  “This looks a likely poem,” she said finally. “But I’m afraid the dialect is a bit beyond me. Do you know it?” she asked, extending the book toward Many-Doves.

  Many-Doves accepted it with a glance at her mother. She cleared her throat and began not to read, but to sing in a clear voice:

  Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary,

  Theniel Menzies’ bonie Mary,

  Charlie Grigot tint his plaidie,

  Kissin Theniel’s bonie Mary.

  In comin by the brig o Dye,

  At Darlet we a blink did tarry:

  As day was dawin in the sky,

  We drank a health to bonie Mary.

  Her een sae bright, her brow sae white,

  her haffet locks as brown’s a berry,

  And ay they dinpl’t wi’ a smile

  The rosy cheeks o’ bonie Mary.

  We lap an danc’d the lee-lang day,

  Till piper-lads were wae and weary;

  But Charlie gat the spring to pay,

  For kissin Theniel’s bonie Mary.

  Many-Doves was already turning the pages in a familiar way. She paused and began to sing again softly, of “Peggy’s Charms,” and then in rapid succession, a series of songs, each with more energy than the one before. Finally, with a grin at her mother, she launched into a tune that set Hannah to laughing. She jumped up and joined Many-Doves, dancing as she sang along:

  I’m o’er young, I’m o’er young,

  I’m o’er young to marry yet!

  I’m o’er young, ’twad be a sin

  To tak me frae my mammie yet.

  Hallowmass is come and gane,

  The nights are lang in winter, Sir,

  And you and I in ae bed,

  In trowth, I dare na venture, Sir!

  Fu loud an shrill the frosty wind

  Blaws thro the leafless timmer, Sir:

  But if ye come this gate again,

  I’ll aulder be gin simmer, Sir.

  Elizabeth tried very hard not to be shocked, or show what an effort it was not to be, but Falling-Day put down her sewing to praise the girls, and Chingachgook spoke encouraging words. Nathaniel lifted up his daughter over his head as if she weighed nothing, and tossed her into the air while she screeched with laughter.

  “I must say I didn’t expect to find you fluent in Scots,” Elizabeth said to Many-Doves. “But it’s good fun that you are.”

  Hawkeye had been observing in silence, but he spoke up now and there was a bit of a hoarseness in his voice. “Cora never let the girls go to bed without some Scots to fall asleep by,” he said. “They come by it honest.”

  Otter spoke up from the table where he had been pouring lead into bullet molds. “Many-Doves is good, it’s true,” he said. “But you should have heard Sings-from-Books. You would have thought she just g
ot off the boat from Aberdeen.”

  “Sings-from-Books? Who is that?” Elizabeth asked, still laughing.

  “Sarah,” said Nathaniel. “Sarah was my wife.” He let Hannah slide to the floor, leaned over her, whispered in her ear. With a few words and a curtsy to Elizabeth, she scooted away into the shadows.

  Later that evening, Elizabeth climbed the ladder to the sleeping loft where the women slept. Many-Doves and Falling-Day followed her, and in quick motions they had undressed and slipped into the larger bed while Elizabeth still paused next to Hannah.

  The child was curled under her covers, her head just a dark blur against the bedding. She never stirred when Elizabeth sat on the edge of the pallet to remove her shoes. Hannah had a damp, sweet smell about her, a little-girl smell. Elizabeth wondered if she looked very much like her mother. Like Sarah.

  It was some time before she could put away the thought of Nathaniel’s face when he had said her name. Finally, she slept deeply, and for the first time in a week, without dreaming.

  X

  Anna Hauptmann usually didn’t hold much with men who wouldn’t work, but Julian Middleton had a charming way about him. He spent a good deal of his time in her trading post warming his hands before the hearth, so she supposed it was a good thing he made pleasant company.

  “So she didn’t come down again?” Jed McGarrity asked Julian.

  Moses Southern frowned. “You didn’t go after her? Left her up there with them Indians?”

  Julian sat before the hearth with his feet crossed on a barrel of molasses and the old tom in his lap. “Father thinks she’s safe enough. And how would we get to her, anyway, with three feet of new snow on top of the old? Does it ever stop snowing in these mountains?”

  The farmers exchanged glances.

  “And I must say,” Julian continued, when it was clear that they weren’t going to make excuses for—or promises about—the weather. “I don’t see what harm they could do her in such a short time.”