by Sara Donati
Robbie glanced at her, for she was staring at him.
“Go on, then, see if ye can make it float.”
Reluctantly, Elizabeth turned to this task. Trying to gather her concentration, she did as she was directed. When the needle landed gently on the water, she slipped the hair away. From his pocket, Robbie took his own compass and compared it to the pine needle, which turned slowly and then stopped.
“So,” he said, quite visibly pleased. “Ye’ve made a compass.”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
He cleared his throat. “I see I’ve told ye sumthin’ ye didna know about the Kahnyen’kehàka, and it doesna meet wi’ your approval.”
“A child not being able to name her father with certainty does not seem to me a good way of ordering things, no,” Elizabeth agreed.
“Oh, but ye’ve misunderstood,” said Robbie. “If the woman has took a guidman then her bairns are his. He will claim them, and be glad o’ them, too, and provide for them a’.”
“But why would she want another—man,” Elizabeth said, and she heard the confusion and irritation in her own voice. “If she had the choice to start with, and if she loves him?”
Robbie inclined his head. “ ’Gin she loves him, why I suppose then she wadna want another,” he agreed. “Unless he couldna do for her wha’ she needed done.”
Elizabeth drew in a sharp breath. “Are you saying that Nathaniel wasn’t enough of a husband to Sarah?”
“No,” said Robbie clearly. “I didna say that. Tae be clear, lass, and nae mistake, it wasna Nathaniel alone wha’ was at fault. They call him Deseroken, but it was Sarah wha’ was caught betwixt the red and the white.”
Nathaniel was very clear to Elizabeth suddenly. She saw him, still bloodied from the lacrosse game, his face drawn and tired. I married her because I wanted to be red and she married me because she wanted to be white.
She did not realize she had spoken those words out loud but Robbie was nodding.
“That’s the short and the long o’ it,” he agreed. He sighed, and gestured with his chin. “The needle is showing you north and south from east and west.”
Elizabeth blinked hard.
“Come, lass,” said Robbie gently. “Ye’ve got a fine man an a’, and lan’ tae live on, and your school, and a bonnie dauchter tae raise, wi’ more bairns tae come.”
She glanced up at him, her eyes glittering with tears.
“You’re sure of that?” she asked.
He nodded, his color rising and falling like the tide, “I am,” he said. “And so must you be.”
Within three days, Elizabeth felt as if she had always lived on Robbie’s mountain, and that she might always live here. The old soldier was good company, with interesting stories to tell and things to teach her. Some of the lessons she perhaps did not enjoy as much as others: there was a long discourse on the best way to remove ticks, an exercise which Elizabeth found distinctly distasteful, but which she finally mastered to his satisfaction. Bears came and went, bringing the results of his hunting with him so that the lessons Elizabeth had long anticipated were no longer avoidable. She would never have to butcher such large game herself, but she put her hand to the rest of it, learning to deal with the details of drying and smoking meat and curing the hide. It was hard work, smelly and dirty, but still it was engrossing in its own way. The worst thought was that she would not have Robbie’s caves available to her when she had to put her hand to this kind of work at Lake in the Clouds.
“I will miss the hot springs,” she said to him on the morning of the first-week anniversary of her wedding.
“Are ye’ awa’, then?” he asked, looking up from his corncake.
She shrugged. “I’m not sure what Nathaniel has in mind. But he did say we should stay away from Paradise for a month or so.”
“Weel, as much as ye wish him here, I’ll be sad tae see you awa’, lass.”
“Why do you live up here so much by yourself?” asked Elizabeth, a question she had been wanting to ask for days.
He smiled. “Have ye no seen the truth of me yet?” Although he did not blush as strongly or as often as he had the first days of their acquaintance, Robbie’s color was still a thing to behold. Right now Elizabeth noticed how mottled his neck was with it, there where the soft folds of skin disappeared into the hunting shirt.
“I was a sodjer for so lang, and I had enough o’ men, and their doin’s,” said Robbie. “Sometimes I’m bored wi’ masel’ and lonely for conversation or a bonnie face, and so I take masel’ awa’ and find it. But mostly I’m content tae live here tigither wi’ the beasties. If only I could read, but ma eyes willna have it. If I gae amang people agin, it will be because o’ that, because I canna live wi’oot voices, if I canna have books.”
Elizabeth had been spending the evenings reading to Robbie, and she knew what pleasure he took in it. Often he would stop her to recite in a strong voice, with great emotion and certainty.
“Perhaps we could get you some spectacles.”
He turned slowly to her, nodding. “Aye,” he said. “I’ve had that thoucht, masel’. But tae tell ye true, lass, I dinna much like the idea o’ Albany. Havena been tae such a place for ten year, or more. However,” he said with a sigh, “wha’ canna be changed maun be tholed. So, there’s work tae be done. Nathaniel will be by sometime soon tae fetch ye hame, and he’ll be verra surprised tae see what’s been made o’ his guidwife.”
“What’s been made of me?” asked Elizabeth, curious.
“Why, a woodswoman, o’ course,” said Robbie with a smile. “Or the beginnin’s o’ one, at the verra least.”
XXVIII
On the next afternoon Elizabeth went down the mountain to the river by herself, taking a fishing line with her and Robbie’s instructions to bring back some catfish or trout for supper. The path through the woods was familiar to her now, and she moved along quickly and quietly. Too quickly, she thought later, thinking over what had happened.
With many blushes, Robbie had warned her about the dangers of surprising bears as they foraged, especially bears with young. While black bears were generally timid creatures who would rather run than confront a human being, he said, she must be careful not to disturb them, and that especially when she was in her courses. The smell of blood would make them curious at the very least, and aggressive, in the worst case.
In fact, she had just finished her courses—an event which had taken her by surprise, for she had lost all sense of time, except for the eight days since she had last seen Nathaniel. The clutching and first trickle of it had reminded her of time passing, and then presented her with a new challenge; it was one that had preoccupied her for a good day until she had found ways to cope with the materials at hand. Once this had been addressed, Elizabeth had been a little relieved: she was not ready for the idea of a child quite yet, not until she felt more of a wife. But she had been sad, too, thinking that it would have pleased Nathaniel, and proved Richard quite decisively wrong.
It seemed a long time ago, that tousled conversation in their wedding bed, but Elizabeth wondered if satisfaction, or the relative lack of it, had something to do with the fact that she hadn’t got with child. She thought of what had happened in that bed often, piece by piece, of the touch of him and his ferocious need, how different that had been from the first time under the falls. How complex the whole undertaking was, and how much there was to learn about it. She admitted to herself that she missed Nathaniel’s touch very much, and thought that he wouldn’t be disappointed to find in her a new curiosity about him. It was this thought that was in her head when she came to the river’s edge and looked up to see the bear not twenty feet in front of her. She stood tall in the sun with her coat glistening wet, her attention fixed on Elizabeth and her soft black nose twitching. Elizabeth knew it was a female, because a very small cub played at her feet.
Her mind went very still and blank, and then in a flurry she turned and lunged at the nearest tree, scrambling up it as she last ha
d as a twelve-year-old with a vengeful cousin in full pursuit. Even as she climbed, she knew the stupidity of this gesture, for bears climbed trees, and this one could come after her if it chose to. But she climbed anyway, the sound of her breath ragged in her own ears, drowning out what else there might be to hear. She climbed until she could climb no farther, and the young beech threatened to bend and deposit her back where she had begun.
It wasn’t until then that Elizabeth stopped and looked down the trunk. The bear stood there, looking up at her quizzically, her nose still twitching. They were about as far apart as they had been on level ground, but now Elizabeth had nowhere to go. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe deeply until her vision cleared and she could hear something besides the rush of her own blood. When she looked down again, the bear was still there, but she had turned her attention back to foraging.
It took a good ten minutes for Elizabeth’s heart to come back to a normal rhythm. In another ten, she noted that she had scraped her hands quite badly, and that they were sticky with sap as well as her own blood. More blood, she thought with dismay. The creature would never go away. And it seemed the case. She was playing with her cub now, batting at it and rolling it back and forth good-naturedly, while it squawked and mewled at her, and then finally rooted and found what it wanted.
Elizabeth sat in the fork of her branch with her knees tucked under her chin and watched them. The bark against her back was smooth, and there was a natural indentation here which provided a secure seat, if not an especially comfortable one. When it seemed sure that the mother had forgotten about her, she could watch them with interest. They were beautiful creatures, with deep, glossy coats and bright expressions. The cub was droll and absurd in its attempt to gain its mother’s attention, squeaking and howling in an astounding range of sound. The mother ignored it placidly to disappear through a stand of pine. Elizabeth saw her emerge on the other side and walk into the river. She stood there staring down into the shallows, and then, faster than the eye could follow, with a wing of water flying, she flipped a fish onto the bank with a great swipe of her paw.
Elizabeth had a good view from her perch: a winding stretch of the river, and the canopy of trees, filled in now completely but still tender with spring color. On the eastern horizon storm clouds were gathering.
The bears seemed to like the little clearing at the river and were in no hurry. Elizabeth wondered if this was intentional on the mother’s part, if she waited purposely for Elizabeth to come back down. Just when this idea was taking on unfortunate detail in her mind, the animal rolled to her feet and swayed off into the bush with her cub running behind her. Elizabeth let out a sigh of relief, and prepared herself for the climb down, which seemed much more imposing now than it had when she had feared for her life.
There was more rustling from the underbrush; she froze, and decided that she had better stay where she was until it was clear that the bear wouldn’t be coming back. Impatiently, she settled back into her hiding place and looked down at the river.
And there was Nathaniel, just pulled to shore in a small canoe loaded with provisions.
· · ·
She dropped out of the tree in front of him, but he didn’t start. Nathaniel didn’t seem surprised at all to have his wife appear so suddenly from overhead with her face scratched and her hands bleeding. Elizabeth stepped up to him, and put her arms around his waist, her face on his chest, and she felt herself tremble, and then, slowly, stop trembling.
“Good day to you, too, Boots,” he said softly, his mouth against her hair. The pack he was carrying slipped to the ground and his hands moved to her back.
Elizabeth pulled away then, looked at him hard.
“You’ve been a long time,” she said. “What happened?”
He shook his head, smoothing her hair. “Time enough for that later,” he said, bending down to her. But she dropped her head, as much as she wanted him to kiss her.
“But what happened?” she repeated. “Did Richard prevail?”
Nathaniel lifted her chin with one crooked finger and ran his thumb along her lower lip. The shock of this, the pressure of his thumb, reverberated through her and her breath caught in her throat.
“Not the way he hoped,” he said. “But it ain’t over yet, I’m sorry to say.” “But—”
“We could talk about this,” Nathaniel interrupted her, his thumb at the corner of her mouth, pressing lightly. “Now or later. There’s other things on my mind, at the moment. But if you’re set on talking—”
His breath was warm on her face. She blinked at him, paralyzed.
“Aye.” He smiled. “I thought so.” And he pulled her up to him and kissed her, a slow, thorough kiss, all Nathaniel, his heat and his mouth and the driving intensity of him. Elizabeth opened to him and kissed him back, her fists clenching on his back.
When he pulled away from her, he wasn’t smiling anymore. “I was worried.”
“What were you worried about?” he asked in a low voice, kissing the corner of her mouth. “You knew I’d come back to you, now, didn’t you?”
She swallowed hard, nodded.
“Good.” He grinned. They stood looking at each other, his hands holding her by the upper arms.
“We should go up and see Robbie,” she said. “He’ll be happy to see you, too.”
“Aye,” said Nathaniel. “But not so happy as I am to have you in front of me again.” He looked up the beech tree.
“You thinkin’ of telling me what you’re doing climbing trees, Boots?”
This made Elizabeth remember. “There was a bear,” she said. “With some curiosity about me.”
“That much I can believe,” he said, his eyelids lowering. He pulled her to him again and this time she didn’t protest. There was nothing in her but his nearness and wanting him. He supported her weight, for she could not, and he kissed her until she was gasping with it.
He was trembling himself when they broke the kiss.
“Let’s get these things up to Robbie,” he said hoarsely. “We can do it in one trip if you help.”
“I was supposed to bring fish.” She glanced over her shoulder to the river. It had begun to drizzle.
“Not this afternoon,” said Nathaniel. “There’s other business to attend to.”
Robbie was about to go out to check his trap lines, but he stayed a while to greet Nathaniel.
“It’s good tae see ye, man,” he said for perhaps the fourth time, clapping Nathaniel on the shoulder. “I was wonder in’ if we’d end oop goin’ doonriver after ye. But we managed, didn’t we, lassie, we managed and then some. She’s a fine wee lassie, Nathaniel, and a unco braw one, make nae mistake.”
“I haven’t,” Nathaniel agreed, and laughed out loud to see Elizabeth blush with this, her pleasure at having him back again and teasing her. The urge to put his hands on her was almost too strong to deny. As much as he liked Robbie and wanted to talk to the man, he wished him away to his trap lines.
“Before I gae,” Robbie said, as if he had read Nathaniel’s mind—a thought probably not too far from the truth, he realized, for not much escaped the old soldier—“There’s sumthin’ ye need tae ken. Jack Lingo’s been up in this part o’ the bush.”
Nathaniel turned quickly, raised an eyebrow. “There’s nothing new about that.”
“Sae you’ve nae fear o’ the man. Well, I dinna like the awd whoreson prowlin’ aboot, no’ when there’s a bonnie young guidwife here and in ma care.”
Nathaniel thought for a moment. He could walk out with Robbie, to talk. It wouldn’t take long. He looked at his wife where she knelt by the fire, tending to the contents of the cook pot. She blushed and looked away, and his blood leapt at that, at what she was thinking, for it was clear on her face. Even Robbie could see it, for he blushed brighter than she did.
“Did you speak to him?” Nathaniel asked.
“No. But there’s sign o’ him, and a lot o’ it. And Dutch Ton wi’ him.”
Elizabeth
looked up at the mention of this name.
“I know him,” she said. “Dutch Ton.”
The men looked surprised, and so she told them the story of the letter from his sister. Robbie laughed until the tears leaked down his face.
“Wha’ a daft storyteller Axel is,” he said finally. Then he shook his head and stood. “Dinna fash yersel’, Nathaniel. I doubt they’ve mair on their sma’ minds than usual. And ye’ll be safe come nicht, in the caves.”
“Is there more to tell?” Nathaniel asked, glancing over at Elizabeth.
“Naethin’ that canna bide a while.” He was pulling at his roundabout, checking his bullet pouch, touching the hatchet and the knife thrust into his belt in a thoughtful way. Then he picked up his traps.
“I willna be back afore mornin’. I mun walk my far traps, an’ there’s nae avoidin’ it. But it comes tae me,” he added, dropping his gaze and clearing his throat. “I doubt ye’ll miss me.”
“But I will,” Elizabeth said quite sincerely, coming forward. She smelled of wood smoke and her own musk, and Nathaniel reached out and put his hand on her, pulled her in to him. She came willingly, and stood there tucked into his side. They took leave of Robbie, and Nathaniel was pleased to see that she was genuinely fond of the man. It was the right thing to have done, sending her here. Given the goings-on in Albany. He grimaced a little at the thought of the conversation they must have. But not now, not this afternoon, not even tonight.
“Come,” she said, when Robbie was gone. “There’s food. You must be hungry.”
She turned back toward the fire, but he caught her wrist, drew her up and back to him.
“I’m not hungry,” he said. “At least, I don’t want to eat right now.”
There was a glitter in her eyes, not of tears, not this time. She had wept the last time he held her, but he was determined that she would not weep today.
“It’s raining,” she said softly. “Perhaps we should go inside.”