Into the Wilderness

by Sara Donati

  · · ·

  The public house was a dark, small place, an extension tacked onto Anna Hauptmann’s trading post without attention to detail or comfort. It had once been a pigsty, until her father claimed it for his own purposes in a fit of boredom. Axel rebuilt one wall to put in a hearth, and he began to divide his day between his daughter’s place of business and the distillery he set up in the barn. There he turned out a respectable ale and a clear schnapps that earned a reputation as far away as Albany. He kept the secrets of the distillery close to the vest, but Axel was soon forgiven this lack of generosity because he sold his products cheap, as he was more interested in company and discussion than he was in profits. Within a year the tavern was known up and down the territory as a place a man could go after sunset and be sure of a welcome and a strong drink. In the winter it was warm and in the summer the doors stood open, and it was a rare evening that Axel had less than three men to entertain him. As the floor was usually awash with tobacco juice, they were relatively safe from skirted visitors, a situation which was not the least of the tavern’s attractions.

  Julian Middleton had soon become his most reliable patron. The hunters and trappers who came out of the bush to call had adjusted to Julian without any trouble, once they had figured out that he could be ignored. He was the overdressed, underworked son of a man who couldn’t hold on to his money or govern his daughter, but he had a gift for light talk and looking the other way, and so they tolerated him. Night after night Julian sat in front of Axel’s fire and took up whatever subject was offered to him while he drank warm ale or warmer cider from a crusty old jug that had to be plucked out from among the cinders. Some of the farmers came in, too, but only for long enough to toss back what they weren’t allowed at home, rarely contributing to the conversation. Sometimes Julian chose not to talk; nobody much seemed to mind that, either.

  For his part, Julian saw the crude tavern as the only amusing spot in Paradise. The drink was cheap and the company was anything but demanding. When he had money to spend on schnapps, he applied himself to an appreciation of its rude integrity. Since Lizzie had solved all their financial problems—or the ones she knew about—there was a bit of swag in his pocket, and Julian had been making a careful study of Axel’s art.

  This evening there wasn’t much company. Moses Southern had been turned out of his home while his wife churned out a third or fourth child—Julian couldn’t remember how many he had; didn’t care enough to ask. Perched on a stool in the corner, Galileo sat whittling by the light of a pine knot. On occasion he answered a question when Axel thought of something to ask him, but mostly he kept to himself. Julian was glad to see Galileo there; he could drink what he wanted and still be sure of getting home to his bed. He thought of offering the man ale, but he looked at Moses and discarded the idea; he wasn’t in the mood to argue. He had had his fill of arguments for years to come—Richard Todd had seen to that. Richard, who had never been much fun as a sporting man, was turning out to be even less amusing these days, now that he fancied himself wronged. Here or there, Tory or Yank, high or low, men you owed money to were all the same, Julian noted.

  Bonner had paid off the family debts in good, hard cash, but Todd wasn’t satisfied, wouldn’t be satisfied until he had a pound or two of flesh. There was more of the savage in him than he cared to admit. Not that he didn’t have cause to be angry; Lizzie had publicly embarrassed him and he wasn’t the kind to take that lightly.

  There was no denying that his clever sister had saved the family from bankruptcy, but she had set the village on its ear to do it. Who would have thought it, virtuous, bookish Lizzie marrying a wild backwoodsman with a half-breed daughter and a reputation for violence. It hadn’t escaped Julian that she had had an eye on Nathaniel, but he had put that down to a surprising bit of fun; he hadn’t really thought she would go as far as she had, or he might have done something to stop it. The trouble was, he forgot that Lizzie was a woman, and that she was prone to womanly weakness. If she hadn’t handed the land over to a bunch of Indians, he might be thankful to her for finally relieving him of the family’s scrutiny: her eloping had put the minor matter of his gambling debts into perspective.

  Trust a woman to fall in love and get carried away with it. The fact was, virtuous Lizzie had turned out to be nothing more than a cheat and a thief. She had stolen lands from their father, and sooner or later she would have to pay the price. She had stolen the mountain, but worse, she had left them as if she had the right to just walk away. The thought of it was enough to make his gut clench. He would remind her where she belonged, as soon as the opportunity presented itself. She would come back, and bring with her what she had taken from him.

  His glass was empty. He was just contemplating how to cope with this fact when the door opened. Julian peered over his boots, half raised up on one elbow. He had been hoping for some decent company, anybody with more brain in his head than Moses Southern, but there was a slight figure outlined in the shadows at the door. A woman, breathing hard. Julian knew that sound, and he stilled, trying to make himself invisible.

  Kitty Witherspoon stepped into the light, and Moses jumped to his feet.

  “Curiosity sent me,” she started, and then pressed her fist against her cheek, pulling her face into half a mask. “We need help. The child is turned and she can’t shift it.”

  Moses just stared.

  “I’ll fetch Anna,” Axel said, turning for the inner door which led to the living quarters.

  “Wait,” Kitty said. Then she caught sight of Julian before the hearth, and her color flared. Julian met her cold look with a nod of his own, and the quick flash of a single dimple. It didn’t move her; he hadn’t thought it would, but what else was there to do but try?

  She turned her face away. “Curiosity said to send for Falling-Day.”

  “No!” said Moses, the word exploding from him in a mist of ale. He cleared his throat. “Anna will do fine.”

  Kitty’s head snapped around, and she looked him straight in the eye. “But Curiosity said—”

  “I won’t have that red bitch touching my wife!” Moses thundered.

  Kitty stepped back from him as if he had raised a hand to her, just as Axel stepped forward for the same reason. But it was Julian she was looking at.

  “You watch your language, now,” Axel said.

  Kitty cast a sidelong look Julian’s way, her mouth curved down. He knew that look, what she meant to say with it. He looked away.

  Kitty said, “Martha is in a bad way.”

  “Julian ain’t got nothing better to do,” said Axel. “He can go along and fetch Falling-Day.”

  The evening was a loss anyway, and it unnerved him to have Kitty standing there, her arms crossed over her middle. He nodded, and his boots hit the floor with a thump. He hadn’t had a conversation with her in—How long was it? A week? Not since Todd had told him to back off. Just as well, really. She was a sweet enough girl, but she had a way about her that reminded him of old Merriweather: she would eat him whole, if it suited her, and never blink. That was the problem with Englishwomen, and with most American ones, as well. If Todd was willing to step in and take credit for that swelling under her apron, so much the better.

  He thought of a jaunt up to Lake in the Clouds and found it didn’t displease him. That buck of Many-Doves’ was still out in the bush, after all. And since Nathaniel and Elizabeth had run off, all the Mohawk had been staying out of the village.

  But Moses had other ideas. “Ain’t no way in this world I’m letting that redskin into my cabin.”

  Axel combed his beard thoughtfully with the fingers of one hand while he looked Moses over, from head to foot. “Ja, what kind of fool are you, then? Curiosity knows what she’s doin’, after all. If she’s calling for Falling-Day, she must need her. It’s yer wife and child, man.”

  “I have to get back.” Kitty looked at Moses, frowning. “Maybe you should come along with me and see what distress your wife is in. Maybe that would convin
ce you.”

  Moses nodded. “I’ll do that,” he said, cramming his cap on his head. “But I ain’t coming alone.”

  In the end they all went. Anna, still flushed with sleep and with her plaits draped over her shoulders, carried a basket of odds and ends. Axel had a bottle of schnapps tucked under his arm. It had its medicinal uses, he pointed out. And failing that, it was a dandy rub for sore joints. Moses herded them out of the door, sullen and wild-eyed. Julian brought up the rear, reluctantly.

  “You’ll go off to them Mohawk otherwise,” Moses had reasoned. Julian had no intention of going anywhere, he explained. Voluntarily he would seek no exertion beyond the lifting of his glass. The man wouldn’t listen.

  “I ain’t so sure of that,” said Southern. “Your sister married in up there, didn’t she? And then there’s that young squaw.”

  “I hope you aren’t holding me responsible for my sister’s actions,” said Julian, ignoring the second comment studiously. “For she certainly would never take any responsibility for mine.”

  “You talk too much,” was Southern’s only reply.

  Well, then, Julian thought to himself. I needn’t point out the obvious to you. With all of Moses’ concern about Julian running off, he hadn’t even taken note of the fact that Galileo had slipped away into the night as soon as Kitty had made the purpose of her errand known. He had been gone for a good half hour, perhaps more.

  In the cool night air Julian found himself surprisingly close to sober; he almost was to the point of appreciating the ridiculous picture they made tramping along in a row, when from ahead there was a long, rippling scream that rose and faded away just as suddenly. It was then that they came into the dooryard of the Southern cabin.

  Anna had been muttering the whole time to Moses, a line of argument about women’s work and men’s folly and Falling-Day that had affected Moses as much as the pale moonlight that lit the way. At the sound of the scream she had turned to him with something like triumph on her face. And then she lifted her skirts above her unlaced boots to reveal her legs, unexpectedly slim and girllike, and ran. She ran like a woman half her age and disappeared into the open maw of the cabin.

  The men stood there, Moses included, and listened to the next scream spiral and rise and then break. When it finished, Anna appeared in the doorframe with the faint light of the cabin behind her, her face as angry and red as Moses’ was suddenly set and thoughtful. She opened her mouth and then it snapped shut, suddenly, to be replaced by a concentrated frown.

  “Thank the Lord!” She disappeared back into the shadows while the rest of them turned to see what she had seen.

  Axel cleared his throat, and waved the torch he was carrying. “Evening, Hawkeye,” he said, nodding. “Falling-Day.”

  If not for the white flow of his hair, Julian thought, the man could have been mistaken for his son in the near dark. They were that much alike, from the shape of the hairline to the set of the shoulders. The Bonner men were strong breeding stock. He thought of his sister and wondered if she had already found this out for herself.

  Moses, on the other hand, resembled nothing so much as a great horny toad. He was inflating his lungs, sticking his chest out in front of him. If it weren’t for the infernal screaming, Julian thought that it might be quite amusing, watching Moses make a fool of himself.

  “You want to have a word with me while the women look after your wife, I’m here to talk,” Hawkeye said easily to Moses. He sent Falling-Day a sideways look and she disappeared into the cabin without a word.

  “I don’t want your squaw here.”

  “First off, she ain’t a squaw,” said Hawkeye. “That’s a damn impolite word, and I’ll thank you not to use it. Second, she ain’t mine. Now, you want Falling-Day out of there, you go in, then, haul her on out,” he suggested. “See how your wife feels about that.”

  Moses spat, jerking his head at the last minute so that the spittle flew into the shadows. Hawkeye didn’t flinch, but in the torchlight Julian saw something in his eyes, a flickering. Moses saw it, too; he stepped back, wary.

  Axel laughed, and stepped between them to thrust his bottle of schnapps at Hawkeye. “Damn it, Dan’l. I’m too old to get caught up in a pissing contest in the middle of the night, and so’re you. Have a swallow, and let’s set.”

  Hawkeye kept his gaze on Moses for another three counts. It was damn impressive, the heat the man could throw with a stare. Julian wondered if he could learn to do that.

  Then Hawkeye’s attention traveled around to him.

  “We got the making of a party, that’s true enough,” he said to Axel, taking the bottle. “Though not a particular happy one, by the looks of young Julian here.” As if to agree, Martha’s voice rose again and then ebbed. There was a lot of hurried movement inside the cabin, where the door still stood wide open. Moses had turned his attention in that direction, and stood staring.

  “She’s in good hands,” Axel said to Moses in a kinder tone than he had used before. “Falling-Day has got a knack for the business.”

  “I don’t care to be beholden to her,” Moses snapped. “And if some harm comes to my wife or my child, she’ll pay in kind.”

  “Maria nah,” sighed Axel. “What a fool you are.”

  “Let me just make one thing clear,” Hawkeye said, in a congenial tone of voice which had no obvious connection to the cold expression in his eyes. “I’ll mind my manners for a few more minutes here, out of respect for Martha. She was done a dirty turn by her daddy when he married her off to you—hold it now,” he said quietly. “Hear me out. I won’t have you talking like that about a woman who’s in there trying to save your wife’s life. Do it again and I’ll feed you your teeth one by one.”

  “Are you threatening me?” Moses thundered.

  Hawkeye blinked at him slowly. “You do catch on, eventual.”

  “You heard him, didn’t you, Middleton? Heard the whoreson threaten me?” Moses had turned toward Julian, who leaned against the woodpile with one shoulder. Then he looked Julian up and down, his mouth curved in disgust. “What am I asking you for? Your sister is as bad as any of them, selling out to that pack of savages and thieves.” His laugh was a harsh barking sound. “A few years ago we would have had a way to deal with the likes of her,” he said, grinning. “A lesson or two for the teacher that she wouldn’t forget. How to stick with her own kind.”

  Moses seemed to have forgotten about Hawkeye, forgotten about everybody but Julian, who stood listening to the ranting with one brow cocked. The man didn’t even take note when Hawkeye came up behind him. He let out a surprised whoosh of air when the rifle butt tapped him on the back of the head, and collapsed in an awkward bundle at Julian’s feet.

  Hawkeye stood looking down at him.

  “The man is a damn nuisance,” he said. “I’d rather listen to Martha holler.”

  “He’ll be hollering loud enough tomorrow, wait and see,” noted Axel.

  “I’m afraid I’ve had enough of the festivities,” Julian said as he stepped over Moses. “Although it’s been highly amusing.”

  “Tell me, Middleton,” Hawkeye said, leaning on the barrel of his rifle. “What does it take to rouse you?”

  Julian laughed softly. “Rousing is quite outside my sphere of experience since I’ve been here. Something I don’t have in common with my sister, if you’ll allow me an observation without taking your rifle to my skull.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of stopping you,” said Hawkeye. “Go on and talk about your sister, I’d like to hear what you’ve got to say.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you would,” Julian agreed. “But you’re mistaken if you’re looking to me to defend her good name. It is a lost cause, I fear. And beyond that, I haven’t the energy or the inclination.”

  “Your sister don’t need your protection anymore.”

  “For her sake, I hope you are correct in that,” Julian agreed, the usual mocking lilt gone from his tone.

  Hawkeye said, “Someday, something is going to
take you by surprise and wake you up.”

  Julian shrugged. A picture came to him: Many-Doves bent over a book in his sister’s schoolhouse. The sweep of her brows, the color of the skin over her cheekbones.

  “I very much doubt that,” he said, turning away.

  From the open cabin door there was the faint mewling cry of a newborn baby.

  “Stay and drink the child’s health,” called Axel behind him. “His daddy can’t.”

  But Julian waved a hand over his head lazily without bothering to turn back. He was not surprised to see Galileo was waiting in the shadows. They walked on together in silence to the wagon. Julian climbed up without a comment, resting his head on the back of the seat to watch the stars revolving over him.

  Later, lying awake in his bed listening to his father’s restless turning in the next room, he was amazed at himself. What had come over him, he wondered, to have passed up such a rare opportunity as a free drink?

  XXXII

  For all of her life she had been coddled and spoiled, Elizabeth knew; finally, the time of reckoning was at hand. She drew in a ragged breath, cursed halfheartedly, and tried in vain not to yelp.

  “I’ll stop whining,” she muttered out loud. “I will, I will stop being such a coward.”

  Nathaniel was sitting cross-legged with her bare foot balanced on one of his knees. He paused in his work to look up at her. “There’s not a cowardly bone in you,” he said. “And you’re doing fine.”

  Elizabeth was determined to look only at his face and no lower; certainly she had no intention of looking at the needle held so purposefully between his long fingers, but as that was almost impossible she looked away completely.

  “Good thing you brought a sewing kit along,” he observed, dropping another shard of wood onto the small pile beside her.

  “A lady,” she said through clenched teeth, “is always prepared for mishaps.”

  He grinned up at her briefly. “Once Bears opened up his palm with a knife, he was that crazy to get a skelf out.”