Into the Wilderness

by Sara Donati

  “How much did you pay my father’s land agent for the land and the schoolhouse?”

  “Three hundred dollars,” he answered, without looking up at her.

  “That’s very dear,” she said, surprised. “For such a small plot of land.”

  He was silent.

  “I will buy it from you,” she said. “With my own money.”

  Nathaniel sat up and slung his arms around his knees. The firelight played on his face, bringing his cheekbones into high relief and drawing deep shadows on the hollows beneath. There was not the hint of a smile about him. “Make me an offer.”

  “I’ll give you the three hundred you paid for it.”

  He grunted. “What profit is there in that?”

  Elizabeth thought for a moment. “Three hundred twenty-five.”

  “Four hundred.”

  She bristled. “Three hundred fifty dollars.”

  “Four hundred,” said Nathaniel, sticking a long blade of grass between his teeth.

  “That is a thirty-three percent profit,” she sputtered. “For an investment of—”

  “About eleven weeks,” he supplied.

  Elizabeth folded her arms across her chest. “Three hundred seventy-five dollars.”

  “Cash?”

  “You know I have no cash!” she fairly exploded. She lowered her voice with considerable effort. “I will write you a note on the bank.”

  Nathaniel looked thoughtful. “There’s no paper or ink in camp.”

  Elizabeth turned to Robbie, who held up both palms in a gesture to ward off any part of the discussion.

  “I suppose we could write it out on buckskin,” she said through clenched teeth. “With my blood, if that’s all that will settle this.”

  “No need,” Nathaniel said at last, one brow cocked. “Your word is good, until we can draw it up legal, like. Three hundred seventy-five dollars plus ten percent interest per week until you pay the balance in cash.”

  “That is usury! It could be weeks until I can get to the bank.” She knew she was sputtering but could not stop herself. “You can’t ask over a hundred dollars a month in interest—”

  “I can,” said Nathaniel. “But it’s high, you’re right. So I’ll offer you a straight cost of four hundred dollars, no interest.”

  He raised a brow at her, mocking. Her wolf of a husband, flashing his teeth as if he would eat her whole.

  “Done,” she said, in strangled tones.

  Nathaniel was up on his feet instantly, holding out his hand. Elizabeth took it reluctantly, as if it were an ill-used handkerchief. But he held on to her, looking down into her scowling face.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said dryly. “Now come to bed, because I have things to say to you.” His fingers trailing over her palm.

  Behind them Robbie rustled, and spoke softly to Treenie.

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “Not tonight.” She looked off into the darkening woods, and would not meet his eye.

  “Then I’ll say it now, like this. I shouldn’t have said that, about what happened. I ain’t holding a grudge.”

  She nodded.

  “I apologize.”

  “Thank you.” She hesitated. “You are nothing like Richard Todd.”

  “Thank God,” he said, with a grin. He still held her hand. “Will you come to bed now?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  Nathaniel took her chin between his fingers and turned her face up to his. She met his gaze reluctantly. He was frowning, the straight brows drawn together. Then he let her go.

  “Please yourself, then.”

  Without a backward glance, she walked to the other corner of camp, and rolling herself in her blanket, she lay down.

  Above Elizabeth’s head, the clouds closed in over the stars. There was the soft sound of the water on the shore and the ticking of the fire. Inside her there was a ticking, too; she wanted her husband. She wanted to draw him down to her and make him sweat, bring him into a fever of trying to please, because he had hurt her. The look on his face when he held out the rifle to her—it was not something she could bear to think about for long. She wanted him to come to her and wipe it away, but there was Robbie, and more than Robbie, there was her pride. Elizabeth put the corner of the blanket in her mouth and bit down hard.

  She rolled onto her side and covered her ears, but she could not block out the melody or the words of Robbie’s fine, deep baritone:

  Oh the summertime is comin’

  and the trees are sweetly bloomin’

  and the wild mountain thyme

  grows around the bloomin’ heather.

  Will ye go, lassie, go?

  She was heavy-eyed with wanting the refuge of sleep, and yet she could not quite go where she wanted to be. Long after Robbie’s song had faded away, the words echoed in her head. Will ye go, lassie, go?

  On the other side of the camp, Nathaniel lay as awake as she was. She could see him, the way he sought her out, the whites of his eyes flashing toward her like a beacon calling her home. With a small grunt of effort, she turned on her side so as not to have to look at him. Between herself and the fire, Treenie lay like a great hissing log, wheezing in her sleep.

  The bullet graze on her haunch was healed now.

  I ain’t holding a grudge.

  Hot tears welled up in her eyes and she squeezed them shut hard to banish them. Pushing against a wall of hurt and indignation, she forced herself downward toward sleep.

  A shuffling. She opened her eyes to see Treenie sitting up, her ears pricked forward and her head cocked at an angle. Elizabeth watched silently, as the dog trotted toward the shadowy curtain of the forest and froze, a low hum issuing from her throat. She moved forward in liquid steps, the growl escalating slowly.

  Elizabeth felt the hair on her nape begin to rise. She glanced at the great mass of Robbie, snoring softly in his tattered bearskin blanket, and then, without moving her head, at Nathaniel. There was no indication that he heard anything; he lay with one arm bent under his head as he often slept, his face in shadows.

  Treenie still advanced, her whole form compacted now into one tightly wound muscle. Elizabeth felt herself go slightly dizzy with fear, staring into the darkened forest.

  She cleared her throat, a small sound that woke no one.

  It might be wolves, although they had not seen any signs of them while they were canoeing down the lakeshore. None of the large cats would attack them like this, in a group around a fire, and bears disliked wood smoke.

  Treenie could not manage a pack of wolves on her own.

  Elizabeth called to Nathaniel, softly, and then finally, on her hands and knees, she moved toward him as Treenie moved toward the wood.

  · · ·

  He was awake at the dog’s first shifting, but he lay as he was, listening. As he had been taught to do, as he had done for all of his life, he threw his senses forward into the dark, feeling the shapes there by their sounds. No need yet to reach for his rifle.

  When she started toward him, he almost raised a hand to stop her, but then hesitated. Behind Elizabeth’s back, the dog had come to a halt and waited, her head cocked. In the flickering light of the fire, Nathaniel could see her shape change as she relaxed.

  Elizabeth did not see the red dog turn back, nor did she see Robbie rise, and taking his gun, slip into the shadows. Her face was a study in concentration.

  “You’re awake,” she whispered. “Didn’t you hear—”

  She glanced over her shoulder, and started at the sight of the red dog at rest by the fire, head on her paws. Elizabeth sat up, supporting her weight on one arm.

  “Traitor,” she whispered.

  The dog’s tail thumped.

  Nathaniel held up the corner of his blanket. “Now that you’re here.”

  He saw her thinking it through.

  “Please.”

  The small scowl still firmly in place, she joined him. She lay on her side with her back to him, her body tensed.<
br />
  “What do you think it is?”

  Nathaniel shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said. “Robbie will deal with it.”

  “What if it’s your Windigo?”

  He paused. “Not in this part of the bush,” he said, brushing stray hair away from her neck. Her smells were strongest here, at the hairline and the crown of her head. He resisted the urge to bury his face in the soft skin between shoulder and ear.

  Robbie came back into camp and made no comment about the change in the sleeping arrangements. “Naucht bu’ wolves,” he said, seeking out Nathaniel’s gaze for a long moment. “They’ve found easier prey in yon beaver pond, and willna bother us this night.” But he spent some time building up the fire before he returned to his blankets.

  Elizabeth lay awake, the sound of her breathing slightly labored, as if she had run a long distance. He moved closer, and she tensed slightly without moving away. Nathaniel breathed softly on her ear; she let out a small sigh.

  “Thank God for wolves,” he whispered. Her skin rose in response to the movement of his lips, but she did not turn to him. He pulled her back against him, and felt her resistance growing. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t, please.”

  She struggled, then, openly, and in one violent motion, Elizabeth turned to him to take his face between her palms. In the dark her eyes seemed overlarge, glistening, the fringe of dark lashes damp.

  “I cannot ask you not to be angry at me for what I did to you,” she whispered. He tried to speak, but she hushed him with a sound.

  “Do not deny it, even to yourself. But I want you to promise me that you will never hold it up to me again like that.”

  In his arms she was all tension and terrible hurt; he could feel it writhing inside of her. Nathaniel flushed with remorse for what he had said so thoughtlessly in his anger.

  “We’ve got tempers, the both of us.”

  “Do you not understand, Nathaniel? It’s much more than that.” Her eyes moved over his face. “You and I, we have a power over each other, it is like no other force in this world. Between us, words can do worse injury than—”

  “Any rifle,” he finished for her. “Yes.” There was a churning in his chest that closed his throat and made each word painful.

  “I’ll try,” he said hoarsely.

  She let out a sigh. Her smells struck him forcibly, her anger and her arousal enveloping him, winding around him as he wound himself around her. Vaguely, he was aware of Robbie leaving his bed and disappearing once again into the night.

  She reached for him with strong hands, demanding her due. Her roughness was new to him, her greed as arousing as her heat. At some point Nathaniel remembered the child and tried to pull away, to temper himself. But she would not have it, could not have it, and clung to him still riding the wave of her fury. He gave in, caring for her the best way he knew how. In the end she rewarded him with a shudder and a smile and deep, healing sleep.

  XLIV

  There was a two-day portage waiting for them when they finally reached the end of the long water the Kahnyen’kehàka called Tail-of-the-Lake, known to the whites as Lake George. The walk westward to the Hudson drained Elizabeth of the last of her energy and her patience. She wanted to be home. She wanted a hot bath and Curiosity’s special soap to rid herself of the accumulated vermin of the journey. She wanted to sleep in a bed; the last time she had had the pleasure of one was on her wedding night, so many weeks ago. She wanted to see Hannah, and get on with the business of being a mother to her. Elizabeth was struggling very hard to be rational and patient and reasonable, and her inconsistent success at these basic requirements of herself did not suit in the least.

  Once they had come to the juncture of the Hudson and the Sacandaga, Nathaniel insisted on a full day’s rest. Elizabeth thought she would die of wanting to get on with it: they were only days out of Paradise, after all. But Nathaniel was firm, and met her objections with calm reasoning she could not counter. To his credit, he bore her ill humor with equanimity which was neither condescending nor overbearing, and in the end she had to admit that the rest did her much good. She slept for the most part, dreaming strange, brightly colored dreams of Hawkeye and Falling-Day, Runs-from-Bears and Many-Doves and Hannah, Curiosity and Anna Hauptmann.

  On the last day, drenched in sweat from paddling hard upstream, they stopped a few hours out of Paradise. By this time, Elizabeth’s joyful anticipation had given way to a light but persistent anxiety, buzzing quietly beneath the surface like a sore tooth as she framed the things she might say to her father, to Julian and Kitty, to Moses Southern and to her schoolchildren. Half-imagined conversations left her on edge, wanting both to rush ahead and run away. She saw herself standing before them, their minds and hearts closed to her reasoning, their indignation and disapproval weapons she could not best. It doesn’t matter, it won’t matter, she told herself again and again. She remembered Nathaniel’s face when she had found him finally, the strength of his arms and of his resolve. The world will be right again, he had said to her. Together we will make it right.

  Resting before the final push so that she could recover from her daily bout of nausea, Elizabeth had taken the opportunity to comb out her hair and plait it again. She had washed the grime from her face and neck and arms, steadfastly refusing to look at her reflection in the water, knowing that gallons of buttermilk could do nothing to repair her skin to its former state of ladylike pallor. For the first time in many weeks she found herself thinking of the loss of her own clothes, for as comfortable as she had become in Kahnyen’kehàka dress, she did not relish the idea of meeting her father and brother as she was.

  By the time the first homesteads came into view set back from the shores of the river, Elizabeth could not remember why she had been in such a hurry to get here, and if they should not have waited until full dark. As if he had read her thoughts, Nathaniel glanced at her over his shoulder, his teeth flashing white in his face. “You sorry you took me on, Boots?”

  Her anxiety left her in a great rush. Instantly ashamed of her petty worries, Elizabeth drew a deep breath and tossed her plait over her shoulder.

  “Never,” she said.

  Rain began to fall as they pulled to shore. Treenie bounded into the shallows and waited there while the men dragged the canoe into the bushes. Elizabeth pulled on her pack, looking over the familiar setting of the lake, the far shore lost in a twilight fog. Not a person in sight, no curious boys to gawk, ask questions, and carry news. Tomorrow would be soon enough for a reckoning.

  On the way up the mountain, a path as familiar to him as the landscape of his own face, Nathaniel had to remind himself to limit his stride. He was eager to be at home and anxious about what news waited for them, but he was worried about Elizabeth and the child, too. If he turned now and looked at her she would lift up her chin, and urge him on. She would push herself past reason, if he let her. She wore her determination like war paint.

  The rain stopped and the cloud cover broke so that the forest was plunged in and out of the last light of day, now near dark, now reflecting raindrops on every leaf. The sun dropped below the horizon with the suddenness of a finger snap, and in response the breeze rose and the great pines all around them rustled and sighed.

  They passed the old schoolhouse and he saw with some relief that it had not been vandalized.

  “I came tae ca’ on yer faither here, muny years syne,” Robbie was saying to Elizabeth. “Afore he wed yer mither, that was. The judge was e’er glad o’ company. A mannie wha kent the worth o’ a wee sup o’ whisky on a cauld winter’s eve.”

  “Rab MacLachlan,” she answered, her tone gently teasing. “For a man who professes to love nothing so well as his solitude it seems to me that you are happiest in the company of others.”

  “You’ve got him there, Boots,” Nathaniel laughed.

  “That she doesna,” Robbie protested with a grin. “I deny that wi’ baith hands and wi’ a’ my teeth.”

  The path grew steeper and the bant
ering slowed and then stopped. In single file they made their way through the darkened strawberry fields, the heavy smell of overripe fruit following them back into the forest. He heard Elizabeth draw in a small hiccup, the sound she made when she was struggling not to be sick. Strong smells roused her stomach, these days, and the sickly sweet stink of an acre of fermenting strawberries was enough to set his own stomach on edge. He increased his pace to put the place behind them, and when he paused to look back he could see that the crisis had passed.

  At the place where the path left the woods and came out near the cliff face, Nathaniel stopped to listen. Cupping a hand at his mouth, he sent out the poor-will’s rolling call: purple-rib! purple-rib! He waited, and then repeated it.

  The call came back, and he relaxed. Behind him, he heard Robbie let out his breath, too.

  Elizabeth was at his elbow.

  “Look.” She made a sweep with her arm as if to lay out the whole world for him. When he could make himself look away from her face he saw what she did: the moon was rising, rolling up the long spine of the mountain just opposite them, the one the Kahnyen’kehàka called Wolf Walking.

  “He carries the moon on his back,” Nathaniel told her. “Trying to take it home to his young.”

  “How many times have you come home to Lake in the Clouds?” she asked, her gaze still fixed dreamily on the mottled silver disk of the moon.

  “A thousand, and a thousand more,” Nathaniel answered, tracing the line of her cheek with one finger. “But never so willingly.”

  She rewarded him with a smile. “Do you think Hannah will be surprised to see us?”

  “You can ask her yourself,” Nathaniel said. “I hear her coming now.”

  Treenie was standing to attention, and she let out a soft woof. “Aye, loupin’ like a deer wi’ the hunter fast behind,” Robbie noted.

  There was a rustling and then the forest broke, and she was there. Nathaniel opened his arms and gathered up his daughter to him, her smile as bright and broad as the rising moon.

  Julian Middleton sat down on the bench just inside the door to Axel Metzler’s tavern as if his energy had extended just so far and not a step further.