The Endless Forest

by Sara Donati

  Martha laughed.

  “Now what in the name of perdition is so funny about that?” Callie demanded, all sputter and spark.

  “You. You are funny, always finding a way to deny yourself the things everybody is entitled to. A home, for one. And don’t try to tell me the cider house could be your home, because that argument would be beneath you.”

  Martha reached for the linen towel and stood up. The water was a deep gray-brown and she was nowhere near clean, but she couldn’t loll all morning in Becca’s hip bath and to ask for more water would cement her reputation as spoiled and wasteful.

  Callie found her voice again. “I don’t want to talk houses anymore; it’s all I hear about. Now I have got to get back to work. I’m sorry we didn’t have much of a visit, but you’re welcome anytime. I come in about sunset. Becca, stop making faces. I do come in about sunset.”

  “About a couple hours after,” Becca said. She seemed to be one of the rare people who was not in the least put off by Callie’s temper.

  While they were arguing the point Martha was dressing as quickly as she could manage. Becca had loaned her an old-fashioned skirt and bodice and a white linen blouse soft with many washings. No stockings, but she would have to send for her second pair of boots and another pair of stockings anyway.

  She stepped out from behind the screen feeling a little shy.

  “Aren’t you a sight?” Callie said. She pressed one hand to her mouth, but she couldn’t hide her smile. “With that linen wrapped around your head you look like an old widow woman.”

  Becca turned suddenly toward raised voices at the kitchen door. She said, “You two had best scat. That sounds like Charlie and he’ll pin you down talking all day if he finds you in the kitchen. Go on.”

  There were five tables in the tavern where travelers could take food and drink, and Martha was relieved to find them all empty. In the normal way of things there would be a full room of people wanting to hear just what happened, and how, and why, and by the way, what was she doing back in Paradise, had she learned something about the wider world, and her place in it?

  So she was thankful for the empty tables, but her good luck had its limitations: Daniel sat on a stool in front of the raised hearth, examining a book from the stack on the floor next to him. He looked up briefly and nodded. His expression was distracted and severe, and Martha had the idea that it might be a face his students saw quite often.

  “Set by the warm,” Callie said behind her. “You can’t go back up the hill until you are good and dry, or Curiosity will give me the sharp side of her tongue, and she’d be right too. And I expect it will be a while before Becca finds somebody to go fetch your dry boots. Daniel!” she called. “Scoot over, make some room. Maybe Martha can give you a hand with those books. And now I am gone, I have got to go look at Mayfair’s mule before somebody else buys her out from under my nose.”

  Daniel had a great many things spread out over the apron of the hearth: buckets of water, piles of rags, knives, a scissors, and a whole range of brushes. Some of them looked like Lily’s paintbrushes, but she must be mistaken about that. Lily treated her tools with great care and would hardly give them up without an argument. She and Daniel had been very good at arguing, as she recalled.

  As she watched, Daniel stood to hang a dripping book from a dowel rack over the hearth. Then he took each of the others hanging there one by one, gently shook the pages, and put it back to dry some more. He worked so quickly and efficiently that a stranger might not have noticed straight off that he worked without the use of his left hand.

  “I won’t bite,” he said without turning around. “And I could use some help.”

  His tone was matter-of-fact, and so Martha took an empty stool and accepted the primer that he offered her. It was damp and already smelled vaguely of mold, but the covers still opened and individual pages could be turned with a little coaxing. It might have been the very primer she used when she had gone to the Paradise school, when it was still halfway up Hidden Wolf in an old cabin.

  Becca swept into the room with a tray. “Before he puts you to work you’ll drink down this tea. It’s Hannah’s recipe for a cold in the lungs.”

  Martha accepted the cup thrust at her because there was no other option. “I don’t have a cold in the lungs.”

  “Not yet, anyhow. You drink that; I don’t want to hear any excuses. Daniel, you need anything?”

  “No, ma’am, but thank you anyway.” His attention had already turned back to the book in front of him.

  The thing about Daniel Bonner—about all the Bonner men—was that they responded to a woman’s directions as if there were no differences between the sexes. In Manhattan things didn’t work that way, but the Bonners and some of the other people in Paradise had never learned the rules that people in the city lived by, and more, they seemed to do fine without them. There was even talk that when the Quakers held their prayer meetings, a woman could stand up and preach like a man. Martha remembered talking to Teddy about that.

  “That little village you come from is the perfect place for Quakers,” Teddy said. “They like forward women and Negroes and most likely Indians too. I can’t think of another group of whites who would be willing to live in such an unnatural setting.”

  With time, Martha was remembering more about Teddy, things that she had somehow overlooked or failed to credit. Unpleasant things, most of them. Though he had been right about one thing: She couldn’t see herself preaching under any circumstances. Martha tried to decide what woman of her acquaintance would be comfortable in a pulpit and a few did come to mind: Curiosity, first and foremost; Elizabeth Bonner, if she were permitted to talk philosophy and rationalism. Jennet would tell stories that would keep the congregation laughing in spite of themselves. And the Mohawk women—if you gave any of them the chance, they would be fine speakers.

  “You don’t need to help if you don’t care to.”

  Martha started. She was still holding the primer in her hands. She picked up a dry rag from the pile and began to press the pages dry, one by one.

  Sometime later, when they were working in a companionable silence, Daniel said, “You were far away in your thoughts.”

  “Was I?” She kept her eyes on her work. “I was thinking about how the Quaker women are allowed to preach.”

  “Ah,” Daniel glanced at her. “Writing a sermon to deliver to friends and neighbors, are you?”

  “Me? Oh, no.” She laughed aloud at the idea. “But there are others in Paradise who could do it in a heartbeat. The Mohawk women, first of all.”

  “You thinking of our Hannah?”

  “Well, actually, it was Blue-Jay’s wife who came to mind. I once heard Terese get into an argument with Anna MacGarrity. Even with her English the way it is, she had people agreeing with her and nodding.”

  Daniel was looking at her with a puzzled expression.

  “What?”

  “Terese died some two years ago. She got tangled up in an old fishing net and drowned. You didn’t know?”

  “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry to hear it. I haven’t seen Blue-Jay since I’ve been back, so the subject was never raised.”

  “And you likely won’t see him,” Daniel said. “He remarried a year ago and he mostly stays out of the village. Hasn’t even been down to see Lily yet, and you can believe she’s hopping mad about that.”

  “Did he marry somebody from Good Pasture?” Martha asked.

  She felt Daniel’s gaze and wondered for a minute if he would just refuse to discuss the matter, and why the subject was so clearly difficult for him.

  “You ever meet the Mayfairs when you visited?”

  “Well, sure,” Martha said. “Susanna and Sally, and—John, is that the oldest one? You don’t mean to say that Blue-Jay married into the Mayfairs?”

  His mouth worked, but out of irritation or insult she couldn’t tell. “He married Susanna.”

  “Oh, I see. And her family disapproves.”

  “It’s
more complicated.” Daniel smiled. “But most things are, when you come down to it.”

  While he told her about Susanna and Blue-Jay, Martha was reminded that he came from a family of good storytellers. It went along with being a good teacher, in Martha’s experience.

  Blue-Jay and Susanna were living at Lake in the Clouds in the house nearest the falls, the one Daniel’s father built. Gabriel and Annie were in the cabin nearest the cornfields. Runs-from-Bears moved back and forth between the houses as he pleased.

  “There are others who come and go,” he finished. “But mostly the Lake in the Clouds folks stay among themselves and they’re happy that way.”

  “She must miss her family.”

  “She sees John and Sally now and then. But sure, I guess she does miss them.”

  “In Manhattan they talk about Indians a lot,” she told Daniel. “But none of them have ever really known an Indian. They asked me rude questions, at first. And then in time they just seemed to forget where I came from and that I might know more than any of them did about the Hodenosaunee. They are full of opinions. What should be done about them, mostly.”

  “They think they can decide that?” Daniel’s tone was half amused and half affronted.

  “They think they can decide most things. I’m ashamed now to think back at some of the things I heard said. Some of them talked about Indians as they would talk about a rat infestation, but I didn’t say a word. I just left the room.”

  He was looking at her; she could feel the weight of his regard. It made Martha wonder why she had said so much, and if he would think badly of her now.

  “I am a coward,” she said. “Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “No,” he said, turning back to his work. “That’s not even close to what I was thinking.”

  The door from the hall opened with a bang and Sam LeBlanc came in. He was a couple years older than Martha, but they had been in Elizabeth’s classroom at the same time. Now he grinned at her and presented a basket with a deep and cheeky bow.

  Sam had been a terrible tease, she remembered now. As if she didn’t have enough to cope with at the moment.

  “Thank you,” she told him. “Very good of you.”

  “I’m a helpful sort,” Sam agreed. He sat down beside her. “What else can I do for you, ducky? Your wish is my command. But first tell me this: Are you home for good? Say yes and you’ll make me a happy man. Why are you laughing?”

  “I’m not,” Martha said. “I’m just wondering why Becca didn’t mention you. She’s already tried to get me interested in Roy.”

  “Roy!” Sam looked sour at the very idea. “I see I’ll have to talk to Ma straight away.”

  While Sam flirted with Martha, Daniel reminded himself that the best thing to do was to keep his focus on the book in front of him. It made no sense to be put out with Sam LeBlanc, who was his usual cheerful self. Odd, though, that Daniel had never noticed before how grating Sam’s voice could be. He could find some humor in Sam’s clumsy and harmless flirting, and something to admire in Martha’s response—not unfriendly, not exactly cool, but standoffish. He wondered if that came to her naturally, or if there had been lessons in poise and bearing. How to speak to young men who were forward, how to discourage them or reprimand as the situation required.

  When Sam finally went into the kitchen to find his ma, Martha took up the basket he had brought her. She put the heel of one bare foot on the edge of the stool and began to pull on a stocking, rolling it along her foot and up. She rested her chin on her knee and a great swath of hair—as straight as Daniel’s was curly—fell down over the long arch of her back and over an arm to brush against the hem of her borrowed skirt.

  It was an everyday sight. Women put on stockings and took them off with regularity, and often before the hearth in the kitchen, when the weather was cold. Nothing unusual, but he found it difficult to look away.

  Martha’s foot was slender with a high arch, the skin as white as paper. Each of the long toes ended in a perfect nail without flaw or scar, and was cushioned with a round pad of pale pink. Martha Kirby had the most delicate and narrow ankles, with a sprinkling of freckles.

  She raised her head suddenly, and their eyes met.

  As a boy learning to hunt in the endless forests with his father and uncle, Daniel had come to understand the importance of holding himself contained, absolutely still and calm. It hadn’t been hard. He was swift and quiet, and he could trail a doe all morning and then drop her before she ever got a hint of danger.

  And why had that thought come to him?

  Two seconds passed, and then three and four, and neither of them looked away.

  Finally Martha raised a brow. “Do I offend you?”

  Daniel could make no sense of the question. “What?”

  “Do my bare feet offend your sensibilities?” Her tone was cool and impertinent, and the urge to laugh out loud came to him as unexpectedly as a hiccup.

  “I’ve seen bare feet before. I’ve seen your bare feet before, Martha Kirby. As girls you and Callie were always running in and out, uphill and downhill both.”

  He did have clear memories of those days when Callie and Martha had been inseparable. Sisters in spirit, at least, though no one would mistake them for blood kin. Martha was a head taller, with shoulders a little broader than might be expected. As a girl—he was surprised how quickly this memory came to him—she had been the fastest runner, long-legged and lithe. Callie was strongly built, in the way of a muscular small pony; she could work all day without ever sitting down or even thinking about it. She had her father’s dark complexion, an intelligent expression, and a generous spirit. If those things didn’t get her the husband she deserved, he had heard his mother say, then the farm and orchard would.

  Daniel tried to clear his head of memories. He said, “You were always barefoot back then.”

  “But not by choice,” she said. “The winter I was eight I outgrew my old pattens and Ma said I’d have to stay home. She said there was nothing being taught in the schoolroom that she couldn’t teach me herself. But the real reason was, she didn’t care to spend what little cash she had on shoes I’d outgrow in a few months. I do believe she would have bought them if she could have, because she didn’t like having me in the house and school kept me away for a good part of the day.”

  Her tone was matter-of-fact, telling this story into the fire.

  “But you did go to school that winter, if I remember right.”

  Martha nodded. “One morning there was a basket on the doorstep when I went to fetch wood. With boots and wool stockings and a hat and gloves. Jemima was angry, but we didn’t know who had left them. In the end she gave up and let me go to school. I always thought it was Callie who did it, but then I asked her and she said it wasn’t, and I should have known better. They didn’t have the money for that kind of thing either.”

  In that moment Daniel wished she would look at him. There was little he could do for her but listen, but he could do that without reservation or judgment. If she would look at him again, he would smile at her. Because she struck him as someone in need of a smile, someone who was coming up from a long sleep fraught with terrible dreams.

  All the money and land she had inherited from the father she had never met—that didn’t matter. Those things couldn’t make her childhood memories sweet. Nothing could undo the damage her mother had done. Jemima Southern had torn apart more than one family, but first she had cut her teeth on her own.

  He was surprised to hear himself asking a question that could only be called impolite. “So what happened with this Teddy you were set to marry?”

  “My mother,” she said. “Jemima happened. But when people ask I’ll only say that we both had a change of heart.”

  She had told him the truth without hesitation, and for some reason he couldn’t put a finger on, that pleased him. Daniel wanted to say so, but before he could put the words together the door opened. Martha turned her back and finished pulling on her sto
ckings and boots while Baldy O’Brien waddled into the room.

  “What’s this?” he bellowed in a voice that was meant to shake the glass in the windows. “What’s this? Young aristocrats wasting away the hours in front of a fire while the rest of us work to put roofs over our heads.”

  O’Brien meant to look menacing but he always put Daniel in mind of a dumpy little teapot. He was as bothersome as a wasp; his voice was loud and his tone harsh, and he could make a nuisance of himself faster than anyone else between Paradise and Philadelphia. Worst of all, if you had a conversation with him, Baldy insisted on pushing his face as close as he could, and his breath stank. In fact Hannah’s professional opinion was that he didn’t have a sound tooth in his head and that if they all came out his temperament would improve. No one mentioned this to O’Brien, as he would have scoffed at the idea of taking advice from a half-breed Indian, and a woman at that. The only person he seemed to dislike more than Hannah was Curiosity.

  “Baldy O’Brien.” Daniel kept his voice as neutral as possible. “Good morning to you.”

  Martha was so tense he could feel her humming with it.

  Baldy came closer. His whole face was in motion, squinting and twitching, his jaw working as he chewed his usual plug of tobacco, the evidence dripping down his chin. “Who is that with you hiding her face? She got a guilty conscience?”

  “Mind your own business,” Daniel said, still in the same neutral tone.

  “Oh, it’s little Martha Kuick. I was wondering if you’d have the gall to show yourself. Come running home from the city to sit on your money like a broody hen on her nest.”

  Daniel stood. “O’Brien, you’ve got money hid away in every nook and cranny, most of it skimmed off the tax coffers. Or did your treasure chest get swept away in the flood?”

  O’Brien ignored him. He had Martha in his sights and wouldn’t give up so easy.

  “You come home on the very day of the flood, ain’t that right? Trouble follows you around, girl. No wonder they chased you out of the city.”