by Sara Donati
“It was a Friday evening. I recall it clearly.”
Her voice dropped low, and Elizabeth had to strain to hear, although some part of her didn’t want to hear this at all.
“The judge and the Reverend Witherspoon had gone into Johnstown to do some trading. I remember Mrs. Todd calling after the judge not to forget to fetch her a cone of sugar. Don’t know why, but that stick with me. I had spent the whole day setting soap, and when the men was gone, I went down in the root cellar to sort through some taters. It was cool down there and I was hot, and I fell asleep. This was the old house in the village, you understand. It was a good cellar, though, deep and solid, and I never heard a thing. When I come up in the evening light, the house was gone, the whole village, too. Everything still burning, and everybody—most everybody—dead or gone.”
Curiosity’s voice had fallen into a singsong that made Elizabeth’s skin rise. She shivered in her damp clothes and pulled her cape closer around her, but Curiosity seemed not to notice.
“The only men that survived that day were your daddy and Mr. Witherspoon because they was in Johnstown, and Axel Metzler and the old Hauptmann—they was hunting up on the other side of the Wolf And my Galileo, he was fishing up on the other end of the lake and he heard what was going on, but there weren’t nothing he could do but sit and pray. The only woman come through besides me was Mrs. Witherspoon, who climbed up a spruce when she heard the Mohawk coming and hid there. We thought at first she was took with the others. She sat in that tree for two days without making a sound. It was Axel Metzler who found her and talked her down, gentle like, though she was never quite the same after what she saw from that tree.
“The Mohawk killed the livestock and the men outright, pretty much, although they took their time with Mr. Todd. And then they took the women and children and headed out. There was six of them. Martha Todd with Samuel and Richard, and Mary Clancy with her Jack and Hester. That was the last we saw of Missus Todd and Clancy. They both died on the march north, is how the story goes. Don’t know what happened to Mary, but she was a delicate thing and I have to say it don’t surprise me much she didn’t hold out. Martha was tough, though. She would have made it if she hadn’t been big with child. She couldn’t keep up. When she fell down once too often they took a tomahawk to her.
“I know how harsh that sounds, and they ain’t much I can do to put a good face on it except to say that the way the Mohawk look at it, a woman who can’t keep up will die one way or the other in the bush, and a swift tomahawk were the best she could hope for.”
“Where was Hawkeye during all this?” Elizabeth asked.
“He took Cora and Nathaniel off to the Genesee Valley that fall. It was a shame he wasn’t here, that’s true enough, as he has always been on good terms with the Mohawk and might have been able to steer them away from Paradise. But the Lord had other plans,” Curiosity said. “And he didn’t see fit to lift the yoke.”
Elizabeth was trying hard not to imagine Martha Todd and the way she died, leaving her two sons in the hands of the men who had killed her husband.
“Them was hard times,” Curiosity said. “Hard, indeed.”
“Did they mistreat the children?” Elizabeth asked against her own better instincts.
“Lord, no.” Curiosity looked at her with some surprise. “The Mohawk know the value of a child. It was the children they wanted, you see, to start with. To take the place of their own kin, lost in the wars.
“So, now, where was we? They headed north with the children, moving fast once the women was dead. Two or three days out, it was, that Jack managed to slip away in the night, which is how we learned about what happened to the women. He had a grandfather over in German Flats, and he went to be raised up by him. I hear he a cordwainer now and a good one. But the other three—the Todd boys and Hester—they was adopted into the tribe, and there they stayed. We had no word of them for some many years.”
“You know,” Elizabeth said. “I have asked Richard about this part of his life many times and he is unwilling to tell me anything about it.”
“Well, I cain’t tell you much either about what went on those years he lived with the Mohawk. A’ course, it won’t be much different from the way any boy is raised. They train all the young’uns hard, but it feel like play to ’em, the way it’s done. So they say. And the Todd boys was both strong. Every Indian in the northwest knew who Samuel was, he made a name for hisself at lacrosse. They called him Throws-Far, I believe. And Richard—well, big as he is, he could outrun just about anybody. Still can.”
Curiosity stopped and turned to look at Elizabeth. Unexpectedly, she smiled.
“Your hair look pretty like that, Elizabeth, all curled around your face. It’s a shame and pity you cain’t let it go free.”
“Why, thank you,” Elizabeth said, surprised but pleased.
“Welcome. Now, let’s see. We heard some few years after the children was took that Amos Foster was trying to buy those boys back from the Mohawk.”
“Who?” asked Elizabeth.
“Martha’s brother, Amos Foster. He had settled in Albany and made hisself a fortune at trade, you see. But his wife died without givin’ him children and he wanted to find his sister’s boys to raise up as his own. So he spent a lot of time going from village to village up in Canada until he found ’em, but it didn’t do him no good.”
“They wouldn’t take money for the boys?” Elizabeth asked.
“Don’t rightly know if they would have or not. I expect not. Any more than I would sell one of mine. But it didn’t matter anyway, because Samuel didn’t want to be redeemed. Most didn’t, you realize. Not the ones that was took young and adopted in. Now, the way I heared it happen was that Samuel wouldn’t have nothing to do with the uncle when he finally found them. Wouldn’t speak English to him, even. Wouldn’t answer to his Christian name. Not that you could mistake him, or Richard, either, both of them big and red-haired as they come.”
“And Richard? Did he want to go with his uncle?”
“Richard was different. He would have left the Mohawk, I expect, if Samuel had come along. But he wouldn’t leave his brother.”
“How do you know all this?” Elizabeth asked suddenly.
“That uncle of Richard’s,” said Curiosity matter-of-factly. “He took a slave by the name of Archimedes along with him when he traveled the villages.”
“And you know this Archimedes?”
“I do. He’s my Galileo’s brother. When Richard’s uncle come back through Paradise to see the judge, Archimedes sat in my kitchen. That was the year Manny was born, and Archimedes dandled the boy on his knee the whole time.”
Curiosity’s smile was different now, turned inward. But she shook herself and sighed.
“So you see, some of what I’m telling you, don’t no other white folks know. Except Richard hisself.”
“I don’t understand,” Elizabeth said slowly. “Mr. Bennett told me that Richard was eventually redeemed by his uncle.”
“It’s true enough that Samuel stayed and Richard left,” Curiosity agreed. “But not because the uncle paid a ransom. Although I guess that’s the story people tell. No, Richard run off the fall he was eleven. Slipped away from a hunting party and made his way back to Paradise.”
“But that was in Canada—” Elizabeth stopped. “He made his way through the endless forest by himself?”
“He did. With no more than a knife and a bag of nocake on him, he walked the length of the bush down to Paradise. Took him the winter.”
“He was eleven years old,” Elizabeth repeated to herself.
“Yasm,” Curiosity agreed. “He surely was. But he kept himself fed, eating mostly rabbit, I guess, and squirrel, whatever he could snare. He ran to keep warm and found his way by the stars. So I guess you could say it was the eight years he spent with the Mohawk that kept him alive. Richard Todd is as white a man as you will ever see on the outside with his velvet and brocade, but the boy inside him was raised a Mohawk. And a
warrior.”
Elizabeth was thinking hard.
“What made him change his mind and leave his brother behind?”
“That I cain’t answer. Guess nobody could, but Richard. And Samuel, but he’s dead. Died fighting with the British in the revolution.”
“Do folks around here know about Richard’s escape and the winter he spent in the woods?”
“A’ course they do,” Curiosity said. “He come back here, after all. It was Chingachgook who found him, brought him into the trading post that February. Thin as a whipsaw, telling his story in half English and half Mohawk. Hawkeye and Cora wanted to take him in, but he wouldn’t go near Hidden Wolf at first. Later he couldn’t stay away,” she said, sighing. “But at first Reverend Witherspoon took him and kept him until the spring, when his uncle came to fetch him to Albany.”
“Richard lived with the Witherspoons?”
“He did. Let’s see, Kitty would have been about five. Mrs. Witherspoon had died that winter, and I guess the reverend thought it would do her good to have the boy in the house for a while. It was Kitty that taught him English again. I remember the way she tagged along behind him, hanging on to his coat-tails, chattering the whole day long.” Curiosity smiled a little. “She would do it to this day, if only she could.”
“So she would,” Elizabeth agreed.
They were silent for a while. There was an unreal quality to the clear spring air, filled with birdsong and the rustling of the woods coming to life again. It was early afternoon, but to Elizabeth it felt as if a week had passed since Curiosity had brought her morning tea. She could smell Nathaniel on her skin. The feel of his hands on her hips came to her, and she drew in a sharp breath. There was a sudden urge in her just to turn on her heel and go back to him, to hide there under the waterfall and never come out again. She felt vulnerable without him as she had never before felt in her life.
“Nathaniel’s training must have been much like Richard’s,” Elizabeth said after a long time.
“Uh-huh,” Curiosity agreed. “Ain’t many men as good as Nathaniel—in the bush or out of it. I would trust him with my life, no question. But there’s a difference between Richard and Nathaniel, and it’s one you don’t want to forget about.” She stopped, and she took Elizabeth’s hand, palm up, in her own. It was a strangely personal gesture, and it moved Elizabeth.
“Some men get an idea in their head and they cain’t let go. It festers, and turns into a kind of poison. Richard’s got the Wolf in him, you see, Elizabeth, and if you take it away from him, there’s no telling what might happen.”
She said, “I don’t have any choice.”
“Yes you do,” Curiosity said softly. “Right now you do.” “It’s not right, what Richard wants to do to them,” Elizabeth said.
Curiosity was looking at her with a kind of understanding that made it clear that there was nothing to hide, and Elizabeth met this look with thankfulness.
“It’s not Richard I love,” she said, willing her voice strong and sure, but hearing the tremor that betrayed her.
“I can see that, child,” Curiosity said, and dropped Elizabeth’s hand. “Just you two make sure you don’t forget about Richard. Because he surely won’t forget about you.”
When they had walked another ten minutes or so in silence, Elizabeth cleared her throat.
“There’s more to the story that you’re not telling me,” she said quietly.
“That so?” asked Curiosity.
“There’s Sarah,” Elizabeth said, the familiar name feeling strange in her mouth.
“Why, yes, now that you mention it.” Curiosity seemed to be considering. “Weren’t clear to me how much you was told about her. Or how much you was wanting to know.”
For the first time since Curiosity began telling her story, Elizabeth laughed, but it wasn’t a joyful sound. “That’s a question I can’t answer,” she said. “Except to say that I have a feeling I need to know more than I want to know.”
Curiosity nodded. “That’s the way of it, many times.”
It was clear that the older woman was not going to talk until Elizabeth gave her some direction. She was tempted to let the subject drop, but also loath to let the opportunity go.
“I know that Richard Todd courted Sarah.” Elizabeth paused, wondering if she should cross this line. Finally, she shook her head. “I suppose the details aren’t important,” she finished.
Curiosity was looking troubled, her brow drawn down into a deep furrow. “I think it’s best if Nathaniel tell you hisself about what passed back then. What I know ain’t gonna set your mind at ease, you see, ’cause I don’t know the whole story. Nobody does, except Nathaniel and Richard, now that Sarah’s gone. One thing you got wrong, though, and that is that Richard never courted Sarah. Not the way you mean.”
“I see,” said Elizabeth thoughtfully.
Curiosity grunted. “I doubt you do,” she said. “But I’ve said enough for one day.”
The sky which had been so blue and unencumbered just an hour ago was now disappearing in a rolling bank of clouds. Against the steel-gray horizon, the yellow-green of the budding trees stood out in stark relief. They were almost home; there was no time to draw Curiosity out, even if Elizabeth had known how to do that. And she was tired to the bone, chilled through and in want of her room where she could be alone to think.
When they emerged from the wood to start up the last small rise, Curiosity stopped suddenly and laid a hand on Elizabeth’s arm in a fierce grip. Elizabeth looked up, startled, to see that Curiosity’s attention was focused on the house.
Richard Todd stood at the door, filling the frame. At his side, looking the worse for travel but wearing a welcoming smile, was John Bennett, magistrate.
XXI
“Sneeze,” whispered Curiosity.
Puzzled, Elizabeth began to turn to her, but Curiosity’s hand clamped down on her wrist and squeezed, hard.
“Sneeze!” Curiosity hissed. “And put some work into it.” She let Elizabeth’s wrist go and set her face in a smile. “Well!” she called out. “Look who come to call! Mr. Bennett, it is good to see you, sir! It has been some seasons since you last come to visit us here in Paradise.”
Elizabeth hung back while Mr. Bennett and Curiosity exchanged pleasantries, trying to make sense of what was happening, but it seemed that her mind would not work. Richard was back from Johnstown, and he had brought John Bennett with him. These two facts danced through her head, bumping into each other, but she could not make them intersect in a meaningful way. Curiosity cast her a furious glance, and Elizabeth stumbled forward. Richard had brought Mr. Bennett to Paradise. Mr. Bennett, who belonged in Johnstown, was here.
Then her father appeared at the door, waving a letter. “Word from your aunt Merriweather!” he called cheerfully.
With a rush of understanding as cold and clear as the waterfall she had willingly stood in just an hour ago, the truth of the matter hit Elizabeth. Richard had brought Mr. Bennett to Paradise, and it would no longer be necessary to go to Johnstown to sign and notarize the deed. It could be done now, this afternoon.
Her father’s property would be signed over to Elizabeth this very day. Just as soon as she gave Richard her vow.
The men were near enough now for Elizabeth to see the self-satisfied smile on Richard’s face. And why not? What excuse could she have now, to put him off? She saw the pieces of his plan, and they were simple and beautiful, his strategy flawless.
For the first time in her life, Elizabeth felt close to a faint; the world wavered, and reluctantly cleared. Thoughts of Nathaniel and Hannah flashed through her mind, Lake in the Clouds in snowdrifts, Otter’s bloody leg, and then Nathaniel again, framed in the light from the waterfall. Hidden Wolf. Richard thought that he had won; she could see it in the set of his mouth.
Elizabeth was overcome with a white anger so pure and hot that she felt all the blood drain from her face and settle in her fingertips, just as her thoughts settled suddenly into complet
e clarity. You think you’ve got me in a corner, she whispered. But think again, my laddie.
All this had taken only a few seconds; Curiosity still stood, waiting for Elizabeth with one brow raised. The men waited, too; she had yet to say a word to any of them. The three of them were without a clue of what a woman could do when everything she held dear was threatened. She felt contempt for them, which she struggled to keep from her face.
Elizabeth looked Richard straight in the eye, and focusing all her attention on his perfectly tied cravat, she manufactured three tremendously loud, credible, and completely unladylike sneezes.
That evening, thoroughly rested, Elizabeth stretched out in the comfort of her own bed, marveling at the agility with which Curiosity had managed the whole affair. Muttering a steady litany of dire predictions which included fever, sore throat, and putrefaction, Curiosity had whisked Elizabeth away from the men and installed her in bed with hot bricks at her feet and a cup of tea at her elbow. For good measure she had gone down to the kitchen to mix up a sweet-smelling poultice of onions and mustard seed, which sat now beside Elizabeth’s bed, untouched and congealed in its bowl.
At first the men had come, one by one, to scratch at the door, but Curiosity had dealt summarily with all of them, sparing a smile only for Mr. Bennett’s good wishes. Richard’s offer of medical services she met with a look of shocked propriety; she talked down Julian’s protests of Elizabeth’s solid good health; she let the judge plead for a few minutes of Elizabeth’s time and pacified him with hopes of a quick recovery. Curiosity had kept them all at bay, allowing only Daisy and Polly into the room, sending them running silently back and forth with Elizabeth’s wet clothes for all to see, with demands for steaming kettles and chamomile tea, more vinegar to bathe her forehead, more broth for her to sip. The men had no chance of prevailing, and after a few halfhearted attempts, they retired to the parlor. Only the occasional sound of Julian’s raised voice betrayed what might be going on behind that door.
Elizabeth was safe, for the moment. But only for the moment.