Into the Wilderness

by Sara Donati

  The place was almost empty. Axel sat on a stool dipping each of his small collection of dented pewter tankards in a barrel of rainwater and handing them to Ephraim, who dried them on a ragged piece of toweling.

  “Come set you by the hearth,” Axel called.

  “Cooler here,” Julian protested.

  Axel shrugged his shoulders. “Ja, sure. But it’s a long walk to the cider jug.”

  “A man needs a little exercise now and then,” Julian replied, stifling a yawn. In the end Axel wiped his hands on his apron and poured a cup of ale, sending it over with the boy, who peered at Julian hopefully from behind a curtain of sleek brown hair.

  “Such industry deserves a reward.” He reached with two fingers into his vest pocket. Ephraim snatched the ha’penny out of the air with a grin and a nod.

  Julian had just settled in comfortably with his legs extended and his ankles crossed when Liam Kirby came flying through the door, tripped on the highly polished toe of Julian’s right boot, and went sprawling headfirst toward the hearth. He came to a stop with his chin on the brickwork, but he was up in a snap.

  “Good God,” Julian said, examining his footgear for scratches. “So much energy after so hot a day really is in very bad form, Kirby.”

  Normally an excellent foil, Liam seemed not even to hear Julian’s comment. Even his freckles stood out in alarm. “They’re back,” he said, gasping for air. “The teacher’s back. I saw ’em headed up Hidden Wolf.”

  Axel took his pipe from his mouth and thrust it in Julian’s direction. “Do you hear that, Middleton? Your sister and her husband are back.”

  “Yes, I heard.” Julian took the last swallow of his ale and held out the cup to Ephraim again, who came forward to take it quite eagerly.

  “And Robbie MacLachlan with them,” Liam yelped. “In a new canoe.”

  “Old Rab!” Axel slapped his leg in appreciation. “Now there’ll be some fun, you’ll see. Rab hasn’t been down this way in a long time.”

  “Any sign of Todd?” Julian asked the boy.

  Liam accepted a cup of ale from Axel and drank thirstily, the pale liquid dribbling down his chin to stain his shirt. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he shook his head. “Didn’t see any.”

  “Ja, well,” said Axel, stumping to the door to look out into the night. “He won’t be far behind, the doctor. Or let’s hope so, or Miz Kitty will make life miserable for all of us.”

  Julian buried his face in his cup, relieving himself of the necessary reply. He wouldn’t particularly care whether he ever saw Richard Todd again, if it weren’t for Kitty Witherspoon. If Todd didn’t marry her, and soon, it was clear to him where she would turn to resolve the problem that was growing underneath her skirt. And not without cause; Julian had not been an eager student, but he could count backward from nine on his fingers as well as any old crone. If pressed, he couldn’t deny that he was the responsible party; but then, no one was pressing. And there was no need to step in, not if Todd was willing to take over.

  “I’m going to find my brother and Moses Southern,” Liam announced. “They’ll want to know.”

  Julian raised one eyebrow. “No doubt,” he agreed. “But perhaps you’d be so good as to hold off on that until tomorrow.”

  The boy pulled up short. “But they’ll want to go up there right away, see if they can talk some sense into them.”

  Axel snorted a laugh. “Ja, now that is something I’d like to see, myself. Moses Southern talking sense to the schoolteacher.”

  “Somebody needs to do it,” Liam said, defensively.

  “Nonsense,” Axel muttered, returning to his chore. “Have you forgot Nathaniel and Hawkeye? Ja, you’re fools, all of you, if you think you can scare them off that mountain. I want no part of any of it.”

  Liam stood red-faced, twisting his cap in his hands, and threw a questioning look to Julian. “If there’s a mine, it’s yours, by rights.”

  Axel said, “And you’re going to march up there right now and tell Hawkeye that, are you? You so eager to have another talk with the man, after Albany?”

  The boy’s high color drained suddenly. “I ain’t lied about Miz Elizabeth. I never said a word about her, since then, and I won’t, either.”

  “Amazing, how convincing Hawkeye can be with a hickory stick in his hand.” Axel laughed.

  Julian clucked his tongue. “You scare the boy, Axel, but you know that he has a point. But you are right, too, of course, at least in part.” He paused to take a deep swallow. “It won’t do any good to go up the mountain and fling accusations. I know my sister. She’ll close ranks with the Bonners and you’ll get nothing from her but a lecture. Axel,” he finished, “I find ale is not enough to wet my gullet if I am compelled to make such long speeches. Break out the schnapps, will you?”

  Liam said, “But we can’t just give up the mountain. And there’s the wood, and the hunting—”

  “Indeed.” Julian got up finally in pursuit of his schnapps.

  “What do you think we should do, then? Will you come along and talk to my brother?”

  “Oh, do be serious. I have no intention of running off into the night to put heads together with Billy Kirby or Moses Southern. No, I will have a conversation with my father tomorrow and see what might be done in a more civilized manner. In the meantime, if any of those men want my advice, I’ll be here,” Julian said, lifting his glass. “In serious contemplation.”

  Elizabeth wondered, at first, if she were dreaming. In the light of the moon she saw before her not just the familiar shape of the cabin at Lake in the Clouds, but a second one, similar in shape, set back and to one side. She had come to a complete halt on the path, unable to credit what her senses told her.

  “I was keeping it for a surprise,” Nathaniel said beside her. “Didn’t know if they’d be able to finish before we got back, anyway.”

  Hannah was jumping up and down in excitement, yanking on Elizabeth’s arm. “Do you like it? Do you like it? There’s curtains and real glass, and bookshelves and a desk and a bedstead—”

  The tears stinging in her eyes were happy ones, but Elizabeth blinked hard anyway, determined to banish them. She nodded at the little girl and smiled.

  “She likes it fine,” Nathaniel said, his hand on the crown of Hannah’s head.

  “I like it very much,” Elizabeth confirmed. “Is it for the three of us, then?”

  “That it is, Boots,” Nathaniel said. “And room for more to come. It ain’t exactly Oakmere, but I’m hoping it’ll serve, just the same.”

  “It will serve all the better for not being Oakmere.”

  “What’s Oakmere?” Hannah asked.

  “The house where I was raised,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  The door to the closer cabin stood open now. Nathaniel squeezed Elizabeth’s shoulder and then headed off toward his father. Behind Hawkeye, the rest of them stood at the door, their faces lost in shadow: Falling-Day, Many-Doves, and Chingachgook, on Runs-from-Bears’ arm.

  “Come on,” Hannah said, tugging at her sleeve, and then skipping ahead.

  “You look as surprised as I am,” Elizabeth said to Robbie as they followed. “You didn’t know?”

  “Weel, lassie, surprise wouldna be a word I’d use, masel’. It’s awfu’ mild, if ye ken what I mean. It cowpit me on my doup.”

  Elizabeth stifled a laugh. “Pardon me?”

  “Pardon my exuberance, lass. I said, it threw me doon on my behind. Ye dinna mind, then, that he had ye a cabin built wi’oot askin’ ye first?”

  She squeezed his arm. “I do not mind one little bit,” she said. “In fact, I could not be more pleased.”

  Robbie shook his head, reaching down to pat Treenie distractedly. “I dinna understand why yon wee cabin should please ye when the schoolhoose broucht doon yer wrath, but then I’ve larned tae leave sleepin’ dogs be. Run along, lass. Canna ye see that they’re waitin’ for ye?”

  Elizabeth hesitated, looking up in
to Robbie’s kind eyes. “You come, too.”

  He shook his head. “I willna dawdle, lass. But it’s the new guidwife that they want. Gae on wi’ ye, then.”

  She went up on tiptoe to kiss the soft cheek. “You’ve been a good friend to me in these past months, Robin MacLachlan, and I will not forget it.”

  Before he had time to blush again, Elizabeth had set off.

  XLV

  After a morning of unpacking and messages and stories back and forth—in which only the minimum had been told, and the rest promised—Elizabeth stood in front of an open chest in the bedroom of the new cabin with only Hannah in attendance. There was not a lot of furniture: a bedstead, a tick mattress, pillows and a quilt, a straight chair, and this chest. Full of things that had belonged to Nathaniel’s mother and his first wife.

  “I remember this one,” said Hannah, gently touching a homespun skirt dyed a deep indigo.

  Elizabeth hesitated. She did not relish wearing Sarah’s clothes. She did not even know if they would fit her. But if she were to call on her father, she could not realistically go in Kahnyen’kehàka dress.

  Nathaniel came in, and Elizabeth saw how the child’s whole posture changed. He touched her lightly in greeting, his fingers barely brushing her shoulder and then her cheek.

  “Your grandmother is looking for you,” he said to her. “There’s corn that needs grinding.”

  She sighed audibly.

  “Come back when you are finished,” Elizabeth said. “I would like to swim later, if there’s time.”

  “Can you swim?” Hannah asked, looking at her father rather than at Elizabeth.

  “I taught her, the same as I taught you,” Nathaniel said. “Go on, now.”

  There were windows on two walls: one looked over the waterfall and gorge, and the other looked down the glen to the other cabin. They watched Hannah’s long legs flashing as she ran, and Elizabeth laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her walk at a normal pace.”

  But Nathaniel was looking down into the trunk and seemed not to have heard this. Something passed over his face: regret, perhaps.

  “You’re about the same size as Many-Doves,” he said. “She could lend you a dress until we fetch your things.” His arm stole around her waist, and Elizabeth leaned into him thankfully.

  “When should we go do that?”

  “There’s no reason to waste time about it, Boots,” he said dryly. “In the evening, then, if that will suit.” He paused, as if wondering how much he should say.

  “I believe that I can handle my father,” Elizabeth said, anticipating his worries. “We have done nothing illegal, after all. And we are certainly not the first ever to marry without a father’s permission.”

  He let out a small laugh. “But it’s more than that, and you know it, Elizabeth. The whole village is involved.”

  While she had been exploring the new cabin and talking to Falling-Day and Many-Doves, Nathaniel had been talking with the men. The sweet smell of Chingachgook’s pipe still clung to him.

  “Tell me.”

  She could feel his thoughts moving away from her as he stared out of the window. The mid-afternoon light played on the waterfall, throwing reflections over the walls.

  “Some of them don’t want us here.”

  “We knew that long ago, Nathaniel.”

  “Yes, but there’s more to it now. Billy Kirby and the others have been spreading rumors. Some folks are pretty riled.”

  She waited, and when he saw she would wait until he had told her all of it, he sighed.

  “They’ve been saying that Sky-Wound-Round will be moving all of Barktown up here. That when he does, there won’t be any game left for the whites and no woman will be safe in her bed. That there’s a mine hidden on the mountain that we didn’t tell the judge about.”

  “A mine?” Elizabeth asked, incredulous. “Surely, Nathaniel, once they see that this is all nonsense, they will leave us in peace.”

  He grunted. “But in the meantime,” he said. And didn’t finish his sentence.

  “Tell me the rest.”

  Nathaniel rubbed his eyes. “There was more trouble with trap lines, tampering and out-and-out thievery before the season ended. Somebody took a shot at Bears while he was hunting. Falling-Day set a quarter acre of corn and beans down next to the new schoolhouse and last week it was put to the torch. For a start.” The muscle in his cheek fluttered with frustration and anger.

  Elizabeth stared at him, feeling suddenly ill. Nathaniel took her by the shoulders. “Promise me you won’t wander off on your own without one of the men nearby. And don’t let Hannah go off, either.”

  She nodded.

  “Are you scared?”

  “Mostly I am angry,” she said. “But yes, a little. Nathaniel, we can’t hide. We have to live our lives.”

  “So we do. And we will.” His fingers plucked at the tendrils of hair on her neck. She put her forehead against him and breathed in his smell.

  “I don’t care about the village,” she said. “I don’t care about anything but being here with you. I can’t tell you what this means to me, Nathaniel. This place of our own.”

  “A bed of our own, too,” he said, and she could feel his smile. “And a door of our own, that closes,” he continued, reaching behind himself to do just that and then coming back to her, his hands moving up to seek out the bare skin of her neck. He bracketed her face with his fingers. “Once I promised you time to lie abed all day, do you remember?”

  She did. But between kisses, she asked where the other men were.

  “Busy,” Nathaniel muttered.

  “This is insane,” she said against his mouth.

  “What?”

  “This constant need to be with you. It is not rational.”

  “Maybe not,” said Nathaniel, his mouth at her ear making her skin rise. “But it’s the right kind of insanity.”

  “ ‘Love is the noblest frailty of the mind,’ ” Elizabeth whispered, and Nathaniel pulled back from her with a laugh.

  “You trying to quote me out of my intentions?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, pulling him back to her. “Nothing so rash as that.”

  She let herself be taken down to the bed, to their bed; she let him please himself, because it pleased her to do so. And Elizabeth discovered once again what it was like to be so caught up in this man that she thought she could easily die of love, and not regret her last breath.

  Nathaniel, half asleep, lifted his head. The constant rush of the waterfall dampened other noise, even with the window sash closed, but she knew by the look on his face that he was hearing something. He had been stroking her back, and his hands stilled.

  Elizabeth stilled, too, and then she heard it, very faint:

  “Hellooo the house!”

  “That’s Curiosity!”

  “Aye.” He yawned. “She’ll have a message from your father.”

  Elizabeth groaned, grabbing for her clothes. “How did he know?”

  “Somebody saw us on the way in, of course.” He stretched, reaching out to touch her, but she was already gone.

  After some frantic rearrangement of her clothing and hair, Elizabeth rushed out onto the porch and down the stairs, pulling on her moccasins as she went. There, Galileo greeted her with a sweep of his hat and a bow and then did the same for Nathaniel, who had appeared on the porch behind her.

  Curiosity came forward with her skirts snapping around her ankles, both hands outstretched and her face creased in a broad smile.

  “The judge sent us up here with your things,” she said, jerking with her chin toward the packhorses so that her head wrap was set to swaying. “And a word or two. But I want a look at you, first.”

  “I’m afraid I can anticipate the message,” Elizabeth said, standing still while she was examined from front and back, and hoping the evidence of her afternoon’s activity wouldn’t be so very obvious.

  “Yasm, he ain’t pleased with you. But there ain’t no need to hurry hard wor
ds, is there, Nathaniel?”

  He was untying a basket of books from a packsaddle. “They tend to improve with waiting,” he agreed.

  Elizabeth caught his sideways grin and responded with one of her own.

  “Where you want these trunks, Miz Bonner?” Galileo asked.

  “Just in the main room, please, until I have time to sort through things.”

  When the men had disappeared with the first load, Curiosity stepped back. “The bush was a sore trial, I see.”

  Elizabeth nodded, hoping that she would not have to tell all of it right now. “We survived.”

  “So you did.” Curiosity climbed the three steps to the porch. “These chairs for admirin’ or for settin’ down?”

  Once comfortably settled in the rockers while the men moved back and forth, the older woman leaned forward and put a hand over Elizabeth’s where they were folded on her lap.

  “You got news of your own?”

  Elizabeth met the mild amber eyes steadily. “It seems I could not keep it a secret even if I wished to do so.”

  Curiosity let out a little rush of air that might have been a laugh. “Don’t take much sense to figure that a newly married woman in her prime is liable to turn up in the family way. And you ain’t the only one. Maybe you didn’t notice that Many-Doves is already working on her first.”

  “Is she?” Elizabeth laughed, delighted.

  “And then there’s Kitty.”

  “Oh, yes.” This mention of Kitty’s condition brought Elizabeth round to thoughts of her brother. “I need to talk to you about that.”

  “We got time for trouble later,” said Curiosity. “I ain’t done looking at you yet. Your mama was one of those women who wear her condition on her face, and you take after her. How long since your courses?”

  “A good nine weeks,” Elizabeth said. “If I remember correctly.”

  “That’s good.” Curiosity squeezed her hand hard, and then sat back. “Ain’t no need to color up and look away. The judge may settle right down when he hear a grandchild on the way, no matter what your brother got to say.”