Into the Wilderness

by Sara Donati

  Elizabeth jerked back as if the heat rising up from his burns had flickered out to scald her. She pressed a hand to her mouth and forced herself to swallow those words that wanted to push out. Things that no one could say to a man on his deathbed. She cast a glance at Kitty and saw with tremendous relief that she alone had heard Julian’s last confession, not of guilt and remorse, but of the need to pass on his misery and hurt.

  He grimaced in pain, or satisfaction: she could not tell. A shudder ran through her. Elizabeth picked up her skirts to turn away, and Curiosity’s strong hand found her elbow.

  “Wait now,” she said. “Wait. It’s almost over.”

  And then it was. Julian heaved once, seeking upward, and finally settled against the pillow, his last breath hissing through clenched teeth.

  Mr. Witherspoon fumbled with the pages of his prayer book. The judge, stony faced, sat down heavily and rubbed his sooty cheeks with his hands. Elizabeth wanted to go to Nathaniel; she wanted it very badly. She wanted Nathaniel to take her away from here to a place where she could scream until her throat ruptured with it. She looked down at Julian’s ruined face; her vision blurred until all she could see was the little brother he had once been, a bright child, a new spirit in the world, full of promise that would never be fulfilled.

  Her father sobbed, a hoarse, terrible sound. She walked around the bed and put her hand on his shoulder, at first lightly, and then with increasing pressure as she felt the tremor in him grow and begin to twist into something larger and ungovernable.

  Finally Curiosity reached down to close Julian’s eyes, but Kitty caught her wrist to stop her.

  “Let me,” she said softly. “It’s my right.”

  From the single window in the main room, Elizabeth watched the column of smoke and flame in the night sky. For the first time, she thought briefly of her books, all gone, now. The schoolhouse, gone.

  In the other room, the women went on about the business of caring for the dead. She should have a part in it; he was her brother, after all. But she could not bear it, and so she stood and waited while Curiosity and Martha did for Julian what needed to be done. Galileo and Manny were there, too, getting ready to carry him home through the night.

  Falling-Day and Many-Doves had taken Hannah and Martha’s two oldest home to sleep, leading them away up the mountain on horseback, with Jed McGarrity following close behind because Nathaniel would not leave Elizabeth. She had wanted so much to go with them, but her father sat on a stool in front of the fire, talking to Axel and Mr. Witherspoon in sentences which made sense, but rang as hollow as the look in his eyes. Opposite him sat Kitty still in her cape, gazing thoughtfully into the hearth. There was a small line of concentration between her brows. A new sister, Elizabeth thought dully. Kitty is my sister, now.

  There was a scuffing sound, and the men came through the room carrying their burden on a plank of raw board. Julian had been wrapped in a quilt, as they would have wrapped an infant against the cold. Mr. Witherspoon and her father followed them out of the cabin. Elizabeth caught the gleam of the judge’s hair in the moonlight as the small procession started away.

  “We’ll go home,” Nathaniel said. Elizabeth pivoted to him, and he held her with one arm. The other was wrapped from wrist to elbow where Falling-Day had sewed up the gash. Putting her face to Nathaniel’s chest, Elizabeth was met not with his smells, his familiar and comforting smells, but with the stench of fire.

  “Perhaps I should go with my father.”

  Curiosity had been standing at the door lost in her own thoughts but now she cast Elizabeth a sharp look. Without a word, she crossed the room to peer into her face. With swift, knowing touches Curiosity outlined the swell of her belly, prodding here and there. Her grim look was replaced with a softer, satisfied one.

  “You need your rest,” she said. “We’ll see to the judge.”

  Kitty stood suddenly, her head cocked to one side and her expression puzzled. As if she had an important question, but lacked the language to phrase it. Curiosity turned, following the line of Elizabeth’s gaze.

  “It’s six weeks too early,” Kitty said. She pressed her hands into her belly as if to quiet the child inside. “It can’t be, yet.”

  Curiosity let out a high, quivering sigh. “I feared as much.”

  Axel stood up so quickly that his stool fell over. “Should I go after Falling-Day?”

  Without looking away from Kitty, Curiosity said: “She’s got enough to handle with the children. I’ll need my Daisy, if you’ll be so kind. Martha and me can manage in the meantime. Elizabeth, you let Nathaniel take you home. There’s more work here tonight, but not for you.”

  “No!” Kitty’s puzzled expression was replaced instantly by a fearful one. “Please, Elizabeth. Please stay.”

  Nathaniel at her elbow, his fingers pressing. She started to agree, and the pressure increased; she turned, and was met with the anger in his face.

  “Let me talk to you outside.”

  “But—”

  “Outside,” he insisted, pulling her along. Elizabeth caught Curiosity’s resigned expression, and Martha’s startled one. She let him direct her out the door, and then stood while he turned on her, his fury pushing him to a state she had never seen before.

  “I won’t let you do it!” he said. “Curiosity and Martha will look after her. I’m taking you home.”

  “Nathaniel—” She raised her hands, helplessly, and he came up close enough so that she could see the blood caked in his hair.

  “No.”

  “She needs me, Nathaniel. Look what she has just been through—”

  He laughed, a harsh sound with nothing lighthearted in it. “And what have you been through? What have you lost tonight?”

  “I have not lost my husband, or my daughter, or my unborn child.”

  “You lost your brother!”

  “My brother was lost to me long before this night,” she spat back, and then pressed a hand to her mouth. When she was sure of her voice again, she said: “I have my family, but she has lost the father of her child. And she may well lose the child, too.”

  His face contorted then, and he put his arms around her and pulled her to his chest, his hands cradling her head. His trembling told her what his words had not.

  “I am perfectly fine,” she said softly. “Nathaniel. I am in no danger at all. Here, feel.” She took his hand and pressed it to her belly. “This child announces its health very clearly. Do you feel?”

  The column of muscles in his throat rippled as he swallowed. He was calmer, but still there was a fine, humming tension in him. “You’ll come away if it’s too much?”

  “Instantly.”

  “You’ll let Axel or one of the men see you home if you’re ready before I come to fetch you?”

  “Of course. I will not go anywhere alone. Not until—” She thought of Billy Kirby, and saw by the new flash of anger in his eyes that Nathaniel’s thoughts had taken him in the same direction. “Not until you tell me it is safe to do so.”

  Another hesitation, and he looked off to the horizon where the dawn was showing in its first pale streaks. “I can’t stay, Boots.”

  “Go on ahead home, then,” she said. “Be there when Hannah wakes.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand,” she corrected him. “You’d rather face an army than a woman in childbirth.”

  He glanced up in surprise. “Did Falling-Day say something to you?”

  “No.” Elizabeth smoothed a hand over his cheek. “She said nothing at all. But I know that you’ve been through this before, and that the outcome has never been easy or completely joyful. So I am not surprised that you don’t want to be here.”

  “You’re too smart by half,” he said, wearily. “Maybe there’s some flaw in your logic, Boots, but I’m too tired to see it.”

  “I must stay, if she wants me. Will you go now, and let me do what I must do?”

  He pulled her face to his and kissed her, briefly.
“All right, then. But I don’t like it much.”

  Neither do I, Elizabeth whispered to herself as she went back into the cabin alone. Neither do I.

  LVII

  A cold rain began at dawn, beating down on Paradise without pause. While Kitty labored, the wind trembled and whispered in the eaves with a voice so human that gooseflesh rose on Elizabeth’s nape; at times only the greatest feat of self-discipline kept her hands from shaking as she wiped Kitty’s brow. She said very little through the long hours, content to let Curiosity’s easy good humor carry the burden. When her thoughts drifted toward her brother, she reined them in sharply. There would be time for such things later, she told herself firmly, trying very hard not to let his face take Kitty’s place on the pillow.

  Through the morning people came and went with covered dishes, special teas, offers of help. Bleary-eyed and unshaven, Mr. Witherspoon showed up at the door to be comforted by Curiosity and sent home to his bed. At midday when it seemed that it would be a good while before the child could be coaxed into the world, Curiosity sent Elizabeth to rest. She obeyed without protest. Curling into Jemima’s narrow bed next to the hearth in the other room, she fell into a sleep so bottomless that when she did wake she had no sense of where she might be, or why, or even what woke her.

  Gradually her mind presented her with simple facts which were, at first, impossible to fit into a rational whole. Her brother was dead; her school was gone. There was a heaviness to these truths that was almost tangible, the weight of sorrow still to be explored. Just as Elizabeth realized that what she was hearing was not a storm, but the cry of a newborn, Daisy came through the room, buttoning her cloak.

  “Going to fetch the judge and Mr. Witherspoon,” she said, pulling up her hood.

  Elizabeth held out both palms in a gesture which pleaded for good news.

  “Kitty held up fine.”

  “The child?”

  “Alive, right now, breathing better than Mama thought he would.”

  “Thank God,” Elizabeth murmured.

  “Amen,” said Daisy, and she closed the door softly behind her.

  Elizabeth went into the other room to be introduced to her nephew. Cradled in the crook of Kitty’s arm, he looked like an undersized and ill-proportioned doll.

  “Meet young Master Middleton,” Curiosity said, wiping her neck with a linen square. “Cocky as a banty rooster, but a sight smaller.”

  Kitty looked up wearily. With some obvious effort, she focused on Elizabeth.

  “I did it,” she said. “I didn’t think I could, but I did.”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth agreed, not trusting herself to say much more. From Martha she accepted a cup of tea, but she could not take her eyes away from the child. Her brother’s son.

  Kitty touched the baby’s cheek with one tentative finger. “Will he live?”

  Curiosity drew in a deep breath. “If he’s kept warm—there’s precious little fat on him—and fed regular, and if God is kind, why then, yes, I’d say he’s got a chance,” she said slowly. “But it’ll be a struggle, and not all of it is in your hands.”

  The child mewled, his tiny fists working into his cheeks.

  A knock at the door, and both Curiosity and Elizabeth turned to see Runs-from-Bears come in and close the door behind him against the storm. He was drenched with rain and mud-streaked; over his arm was Elizabeth’s cloak of boiled wool, and he carried her walking boots. With some surprise she looked down and realized that she was barefoot, and had been since she left Lake in the Clouds the night before.

  He greeted Curiosity with a nod, and then turned his attention to Elizabeth.

  “Nathaniel sends word.” He spoke Kahnyen’kehàka. “You must come, now.”

  The smile on her face faded. “More trouble?”

  “All of our people are whole,” he said. “But come, there is no time to waste.”

  Elizabeth knew that no amount of questioning would get information from Bears that he was not ready to give, and so she did not try to talk to him on the way up the mountain. He had come on horseback, which made it clear how urgent this errand was; Runs-from-Bears disliked horses and would walk almost anywhere. He helped her up behind him and took off, and Elizabeth was immediately glad of his solid form in front of her, for he took the brunt of the cold, wet wind. As they crossed the strawberry fields the cloud cover broke up to reveal a quarter moon, a smudge of light in a brooding dark sky.

  Nathaniel was waiting for them on the porch of his father’s cabin, and she walked into his arms. He held her for a moment, but he could not hide his distraction and tension.

  “Kitty? The child?”

  “Both alive, but the boy is very small,” she said. “Curiosity seems to think he may live. Have you got somebody in there?” Elizabeth asked, peering around him.

  He rubbed his eyes. “Aye,” he said. “Liam, in a sorry state.”

  Nathaniel caught her by the shoulders, shaking his head.

  “No, Boots. He ain’t dying.”

  “Did he—was he—” She could barely collect her thoughts.

  “He says he’ll only talk to you.” Nathaniel’s fingers pressed into her shoulders. “Elizabeth. Listen now, because we don’t have much time. Bears found the boy beat up and unconscious on the north face of the mountain. He had McGarrity and O’Brien with him at the time.”

  The north face of the mountain. Wild and steep and dangerous; Elizabeth had only seen it from above. The north face of Hidden Wolf, where the entrance to the silver mine was.

  “Half the village is up there now, looking for Billy.”

  She squared her shoulders. “I’ll talk to him,” she said. “And see what he knows. Is Hannah in there, too?”

  “She was, but Falling-Day sent her off to bed. Though I doubt she’s asleep.”

  “Just as well,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully. “I may have need of her help.”

  The first thing she noticed was Hannah, peering down from the sleeping loft. And then Liam, on the cot where Chingachgook had died. Many-Doves looked up at her and blinked a greeting.

  She had wondered, through the first long hours of Kitty’s labor, why she was not angrier. Her brother had died needlessly; her stepdaughter had barely escaped with her life. The schoolhouse and all the books and materials collected over such a long time, the children’s work, all of it gone. But she had not been able to find any anger in herself. When the thought of Billy Kirby had come to her, it was as though he were a stranger, someone she had seen once long ago. She could not even remember the sound of his voice, or his face.

  Looking at Liam, so like his brother, Elizabeth felt a small flame of anger flicker and begin to burn in the hollow place beneath her ribs.

  Falling-Day had splinted Liam’s left leg below the knee, and bound his wrist. Between crisscrossed bandages his chest was bruised into a dark rainbow. But his face was the worst: a lumpy mass of spongy flesh, his lower lip mangled. Elizabeth touched his shoulder, and he jerked.

  “Liam,” she said softly. “Who did this to you?”

  He tried to turn his face toward her, but caught himself with a strangled cry.

  “Don’t, please. I’m right here. Who did this to you?”

  To see him weep was almost more than she could bear, but Elizabeth steeled herself. Taking her handkerchief, she touched it gently to his tender face. Nathaniel was watching from the other side of the room, his arms crossed on his chest and his chin down low.

  Liam’s sobbing ebbed, slowly.

  “Did men from the village beat you?”

  He shook his head slightly.

  “Was it your brother?”

  A nod, barely perceptible. When she repeated her question, he nodded again, more firmly.

  “Liam, we have to find him.”

  The boy let out a small cry, and Elizabeth touched his shoulder.

  “I promise you to do everything in my power to make sure he has a fair trial. But Liam, we have to find him before the villagers do, or there’s no tel
ling what might happen.”

  She wondered for a moment if he had fallen asleep. Then his voice came, stronger than she had expected.

  “You won’t hang him?”

  Elizabeth glanced at Nathaniel. He nodded.

  “None of us here would hang him. We will do what we can to see that he comes to trial.”

  “He’s my only kin in the world,” Liam said. “I got no place to go.”

  “You can stay with us,” Hannah said from the shadows. She had come up in her bare feet, and Elizabeth had not heard her. “Can’t he? He can stay with us.”

  Liam’s right hand rose to wave uncertainly in the air. Elizabeth caught it.

  “I tried to stop him,” he whispered. His lower lip had begun to bleed again, and she touched her handkerchief to it, but he shook his head in irritation.

  “Miz Elizabeth, I didn’t know Hannah was in there.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” Elizabeth said firmly.

  “But Billy didn’t know, either. I’m sure he didn’t know. He didn’t know.” And the tears began again in earnest.

  Hannah was staring at her father, her chin thrust out belligerently. “Can’t he stay with us?”

  “Yes,” Nathaniel said. “We’ll make room for him. But right now we need Billy, and fast.”

  At the sound of Nathaniel’s voice, Liam had stopped weeping. He took some long, shaky breaths and then he let Elizabeth’s hand go.

  “He’s hiding in a cave on the north face,” he said. “Above the deadfall. You know where I mean?”

  “I do,” Nathaniel said, reaching for his rifle. He glanced at Runs-from-Bears, who was lacing up dry moccasins.

  “We’ll be back as soon as we can, Boots.”

  From the doorway to the workroom, Falling-Day said in Kahnyen’kehàka: “Bring him back here and I will gut him myself.” There was an edge in her voice that Elizabeth had never heard before. Her eyes were on Hannah.

  “We’ll take him someplace safe until tempers ease up a little,” Nathaniel said to Elizabeth.

  “There ain’t no place safe left in the world,” Liam said. In the candlelight his eyes were glazed, a watery blue. “Not for Billy, not anymore.”