Dawn on a Distant Shore

by Sara Donati

  “Nathaniel,” she said. She resisted the question pushing upward from her gut; afraid to put it into words, afraid of what he might have to say.

  “Hmmm?” He was already half asleep.

  “Do you remember telling me about the Father Dupuis who lived at Good Pasture?”

  If he found this question strange, he hid his surprise in a yawn. “Iron-Dog. What brings him to mind?”

  A Catholic priest in Protestant Scotland, and what that might mean about Carryck. About all of this.

  “What happened to him?”

  She felt him trying to come awake enough to answer. “He got killed trying to convert the Seneca, I think it was. I suppose that’s what he was looking for all along.”

  Elizabeth curled toward him on her side, as close as she could come without disturbing his wounds. She said, “Are you certain?”

  But he had already slipped back into his dreams, and she was left to her own.

  “Please come,” Jennet said, hopping from one foot to the other and managing somehow to eat a handful of berries at the same time. “Ye havena seen the village, and there’s a band o’ players come, jugglers and aa. We’ll be back afore dusk.”

  Hannah considered. She was curious about the village, and at the same time the thought was a little frightening, to be so far away from her people. What if her grandfather should come? What if her father should fall back into his fever?

  “Yer da is ever sae much better. He’s said it hissel’,” Jennet reminded her. “Are ye no’ curious tae see Gaw’n Hamilton ride the stang?”

  It was a tempting thought. A man whose wife had caused trouble in the village was to be punished for his laxity, by the minister’s decree. From Jennet’s colorful descriptions, it sounded to Hannah as if he would have to run a gauntlet of sorts, but one where the townspeople used words rather than clubs to make their mark.

  “I’ll get my shoes,” Hannah said, suddenly resolved.

  “Ach, dinna fash yersel’ aboot shoon,” said Jennet, sticking out one dusty foot to wiggle her toes. “We’ll gang doon the brae i’ the cart and come back the same road. Come on then, or Geordie will be awa’ wi’oot us.”

  “I should say good-bye—”

  “Ye’ve done that already,” Jennet said impatiently. “Come on!”

  Geordie did not want them crowding him on the driver’s box, so they had to share the cart with a pair of nanny goats that bleated so loud and long that there was little chance for conversation. But Hannah did not mind; she was glad of this little time to herself. She liked Jennet tremendously, but she had so many stories to tell and so much information to share that sometimes it was hard to keep track of it all. Now while the cart rocked and jolted down the mountainside Hannah stood with a goat nosing her skirts, and watched to see what news she could take back to her father.

  A carriage passed them where the mountain road broadened at the outskirts of the village. The liverymen were in brown and gold, and one of them stared at her as they went by. Jennet raised her voice. “Wha is that, Geordie?”

  Geordie was a thick young man with a blank look about him, but he provided information willingly enough. He twisted a shoulder toward her. “A gentleman come tae see the laird, says MacQuiddy.”

  “English?”

  He shook his great shaggy head. “French.”

  Hannah might have asked him more about the visitor, but they had come into the heart of the village. Saturday market had filled the lanes, and the cart slowed and then stopped in the thick of it. Jennet jumped down from the cart and Hannah followed.

  “Be back afore the kirk clock strikes four,” Geordie shouted after them. “Or ye’ll walk hame, ye wee gilpies!”

  Jennet spun on her heel to wrinkle her nose and stick her tongue out at him. “Dinna lose aa yer coin at the cockfight, Geordie, or MacQuiddy will box yer lugs.” And they slipped into the crowd before he could seek revenge.

  They wound their way along among the marketers while Hannah tried to take in all at once. It was not much different than market in Johnstown, the same haggling and laughter and clink of coin. Chickens and piglets, kale, carrots. A sullen young girl with a rash of pimples on her chin stood behind a table to brush the flies away from treacle tarts. A little boy was tied to the table’s leg with a hang of dirty rope, crying piteously and rubbing his eyes with a dirty fist.

  Jennet seemed to know every person by name, and everyone had something to say to her even while they studied Hannah—some shyly, some with open curiosity.

  “How d’ye fend, wee Jennet?”

  “Whit fettle, lass? And how fares the laird this day?”

  “Will ye no’ come an’ see oor Harry, Jennet? He’s hame frae the Isis wi’ muny a tale tae tell.”

  She answered them all with a few words and a smile, and it was clear to see that Jennet was a great favorite in Carryckton.

  Near an alehouse two men were juggling eggs, sending them in endless circles in the air with flicks of the wrist. One was as tall as Robbie MacLachlan; the other barely came to his knees, although he was full bearded and the short fingers that worked the eggs were covered with dark hair. Bells jangled at their elbows and knees and they bantered with the crowd, hardly watching their work.

  Just around the corner a rough stage had been put up, and the traveling players had drawn a good crowd.

  “Let’s bide a while,” whispered Jennet. Hannah had never seen a play, and so she was happy to watch as a young man with his face painted to look like an old man held out a vial of cloudy yellow liquid. He threw his voice out in a reedy wobble over the audience:

  Sir doctor, please be sae kind and examine this piss

  Wi’ ma bonnie young dauchter there’s somethin’ amiss

  She stays tae her bed aa the night, aa the day

  Turns awa fra’ her food, an’ does naethin’ but lie

  aboot in a hoose which is naucht but a mess

  Can this be the plague; can ye hazard a guess?

  Hannah had learned something from the Hakim about examining urine to diagnose an illness, and she was very curious as to what this doctor would say. With the rest of the crowd she leaned forward. He rocked back and forth on his heels and stroked his beard thoughtfully with one hand while he patted a round belly with the other. With each pat a small puff of feathers escaped from the juncture of breeches and coat, but the audience seemed not to mind.

  Your ailing wee dauchter is a servant, I see

  She takes her work verra seriously

  She swabs the floors and cooks the food

  But the hired man is the cause o’ her mood

  When she bent ower her work he pressed his point

  Tae a well laid table he added a joint

  Tae carve her meat he supplied the blade

  For a bluidy gash just as she bade

  Soon her belly will grow and swell

  Nivver fear! in the spring aa will be well.

  Your bonnie Kate is no’ alone,

  Young and limber, muny maidens moan.

  They curse and vomit and wring their hands

  ’Tis a problem that’s growing across the land!

  The crowd laughed, but Jennet pulled Hannah away, sniffing loudly in her displeasure. “Kate o’ Lauchine, agin! What a lither lot those players are, always tossin’ aboot words instead o’ swords. They’ll lift naethin’ heavier than a filled tankard.”

  Hannah was about to tell her that as far as she knew, you could not read pregnancy from the color of urine, but just then a boy with a cast in his eye shoved himself in front of them. “Bi crivens, Jennet Hope, look what ye dragged doon the lane the-day. A heathen. Does it ken oor tongue?”

  “Better than you, Hugh Brown,” she snapped, going up on tiptoe to put her face to his. “Ye’ll wish that ye had nae tongue a’tall once the minister kens how ye’re cursin’, ye scunnerin wee nyaff.” And she poked her elbow in his gut hard enough to make him turn white.

  They darted off into the crowd while he was still trying t
o get back his breath. The shadowy lanes were cool even on this sunny day, the cobblestones smooth underfoot and the smell of bread baking and brewing ale in the air. They came around a corner to a large open area of trampled earth with a pillar in its center.

  “Och, look,” Jennet breathed. “Dame Sanderson. There’s goin’ tae be a bear-baitin’.”

  “Bear?” Hannah looked harder and saw no more than a dusty hump of fur chained to the pillar. “Dame Sanderson?”

  “Aye.” Jennet gave her a curious look. “That bear, there. She’s called Dame Sanderson. Have ye nivver seen a bear?”

  It was such a strange question that Hannah didn’t know at first how to answer. When she needed more than her mother’s milk she had sucked bear fat from her fingers; she had learned to recognize bear tracks when she was hardly old enough to walk herself. Bears played on the boulders above the waterfalls at Lake in the Clouds, and napped in trees and fished in the marshes on Big Muddy. Once an eagle had dropped a she-cub—mangled and close to dead—into the cornfield while they had been planting squash. Hannah had rescued her from Hector and Blue and tended her wounds until she died, and then she had taken her pelt and cured it. That pelt was on her sleeping pallet at Lake in the Clouds right now.

  “I have an uncle called Runs-from-Bears,” Hannah said.

  Jennet’s eyebrows shot up high in delight and interest. “Is he afraid o’ them, then?”

  “No,” Hannah said, smiling at the idea of Runs-from-Bears afraid of anything. “Not at all.” She could see that she would have to tell this story, even though the web it would weave might tangle her thoughts for the rest of the day.

  “When my uncle was a baby he was called Sitting-Boy. Wherever Two-Moons—his mother—put him down he would stay, and while the others played he watched, and when they ran, he smiled. Two-Moons and her husband, Stands-Tall, worried that the boy was weak-witted, but for the bright look in his eyes.

  “In his third year, in the Strawberry Moon, Two-Moons went with all the women to pick fruit for the festival …” Hannah swallowed, feeling the flush of the sun on her face and a clench of homesickness so deep and hard that she swayed with it.

  “The women were busy gathering strawberries when a bear came out of the forest with her cub. The other women hurried the children away but Two-Moons could find no trace of Sitting-Boy. She looked and called and the bear came closer and closer until she was so close that Two-Moons could smell the river water on her fur.

  “Just then Sitting-Boy let out a great laugh and he came running out of the field. The bear cub was chasing him, and Sitting-Boy laughed and laughed as he ran. It was a laugh so strong and sweet that the siskins in the trees stopped to listen, and the beaver in the river came to see, and even mother bear turned her head to watch.

  “Two-Moons was very afraid for Sitting-Boy and she said ‘Mother bear, I am thankful to your little one for showing my son how to use his legs. See how well they play together.’

  “And mother bear called her cub to her, and they turned and left the strawberry fields to the women. That’s when they gave my uncle the name Runs-from-Bears.”

  Jennet said, “I would like to meet Two-Moons and Stands-Tall and Runs-from-Bears and your aunt Many-Doves and your grandmother and all the rest of your people.”

  “Stands-Tall was killed in battle,” Hannah said. “But if you come to visit us in the endless forests, you will meet the others.” She looked at the hump of fur in the middle of the pit. “I have known many bears, but I have never seen one such as this. Is she ill?”

  “Ach, ne. The hounds wi’ bring her tae her feet soon enough. Last summer I saw her break the back o’ a dog as big as a sow wi’ one swipe o’ her paw.”

  “Where did she come from?”

  “A tinker called Alf Whittle bought her aff a ship come frae America, when she was sma’. They say he’s taken her sae far as the Aberdeen fair.”

  A little boy came louping by and began pelting the bear with pebbles. The mass of flesh rippled and the great head reared up and around.

  Hannah felt herself go very cold, as if a new wind had come down off snowy mountains. The bear was rolling her head back and forth, her broad wet nose quivering. The eye sockets were empty.

  “She smells somethin’.” Jennet stepped back.

  “Me,” Hannah said. “She smells me.” She raised her voice and spoke in her own language. “When a pine needle falls in the forest, eagle sees it, deer hears it, and bear smells it. Do you smell me, sister?”

  The bear was struggling to her feet now, her head swinging back and forth as she mewled, the sound a child makes when she is looking for comfort. Hannah stepped into the pit, and Jennet grabbed her by the shoulder.

  “Ye canna,” she screeched. “She’ll lay ye open like a ripe plum.”

  The bear had come as close as the chain would allow. She stood up on her hind legs and her paws hung down before her, claws long and curved and blackened with age and blood. From toe to the top of her head she was covered with scars, and her fur was matted and filthy.

  “They put out her eyes,” Hannah said. “To keep her in line.”

  “Aye,” said Jennet uneasily. “But she’s a grand fighter any road. Shall we stay and watch?”

  “No,” Hannah said. “I won’t watch that.”

  Jennet had a few coins in her apron pocket and she bought ginger nuts from the sullen girl behind the table. “For Granny,” she explained, tucking them away with one reluctant look. She led Hannah through the lanes until they came to a little cottage—it could be no larger than the smallest cabin in Paradise—surrounded by a garden closely planted with cabbage, leeks, potatoes, and carrots. Beans spiraled up a fence overhung by an apple tree. Neat beds of herbs clustered around the path to the door: sage, costmary, gillyflowers and clary, sorrel, chamomile, mint and verbena, borage and feverfew. Very different from the gardens at Carryckcastle, and so much more like home that Hannah wanted to sit right down and stay there for the rest of the day. She paused to run her hand over a spreading savin bush, the flattish evergreen needles prickling lightly.

  When a pine needle falls in the forest, eagle sees it, deer hears it, and bear smells it.

  “Granny Laidlaw was hoosekeeper at Carryckcastle afore her sight began tae fade. She’s fu’ blind these five years, but naught else fails her,” Jennet said. “And here’s ma auntie Kate.”

  The woman who came through the door with a basket over her arm was a younger version of Mrs. Hope, with blond hair tucked up under a neat white cap.

  “Ye’ve come, then, she’ll be pleased. I’m awa’ tae fetch butter—dinna gae until ye’ve had some tea.”

  The cottage had rushes underfoot and a ceiling so low that Hannah could reach it if she stretched up on tiptoe. A speckled dog was sleeping near the hearth, where a kettle hung over the fire.

  In the corner two women were shelling beans, one of them so small and delicately built that Hannah first mistook her for a child. But the face that peered out from a ruffled cap was old, indeed, and the blue eyes had gone as cloudy as marbles. Her hearing was good, for she turned her head toward them at the first creak of the door.

  “Jennet, hen. I was hopin’ ye’d come the-day. I smell ginger nuts, and ye’ve broucht a visitor, too. Is it the wee Indian lass, Gelleys?”

  “Aye.” The other woman peered at Hannah with her whole face screwed into a knot. And then, with voice raised to a screech: “What are ye called, lass?”

  “Red skin doesna make her deef, Gelleys.” Granny Laidlaw shook with laughter. “Come hen, come closer. Tell me, how are ye called?”

  “Hannah Bonner, mum.”

  “But ye speak English!” Gelleys squinted even harder, as if something in Hannah’s face might explain the language that came out of her mouth.

  “She speaks Scots, too,” Jennet said, quite fiercely. “And her mother’s language, wait till ye hear.”

  “Dinna fash yersel’, lassie.” Gelleys put down her bowl of beans. “I meant nae harm. M
a grandson Charlie tolt me aboot ye when he came awa frae the Isis.”

  This was a surprise, but a welcome one. Hannah said, “How is Charlie? Is he well?”

  “He’s weel enouch,” said the old woman. “Mournin’ his brither, as are we aa. Ye were a comfort tae oor Mungo in his last days, and it willna be forgotten, lass.”

  “He was a good lad,” said Hannah. “Is Charlie here?”

  “I wish he were,” said Gelleys. “But they called him awa’ back tae his ship, and it will be muny a year afore we see him agin. But ye didna come tae talk o’ sic waerifu’ things, I’m sure.”

  “I broucht her tae see ye because she’s got ever sae muny questions,” volunteered Jennet.

  “Does she noo?” Granny Laidlaw looked distinctly pleased. “Weel then, we’ll settle doon tegither and tell a tale or twa.”

  Hannah could not look away from Gelleys’s hands. She had never seen the like on a woman—as large as a man’s, swollen and red but with fingers nimble enough to snap beans at an amazing rate. Under grizzled eyebrows she was watching Hannah, too.

  “It’s a guid thing ye found baith o’ us here,” said Granny Laidlaw. “What I dinna ken aboot Carryckcastle, Gelleys Smaill does.”

  “Ha!” Gelleys put back her head. “Listen tae her. Did ye no hear the minister preachin’ on false modesty no’ a week syne? There’s naebodie wha’ kens mair aboot Carryckcastle than Leezie Laidlaw, no’ MacQuiddy—bless his creaky auld banes—nor the laird hissel’. Certainly no’ Gelleys the washerwoman.”

  “Did you work at the castle, too?” Hannah asked.

  “Fifty year,” Gelleys said proudly, her great fingers stirring the shelled beans in their bowl. “Went intae service as a wee maid nae bigger than Jennet, and there I stayed until ma shanks wad carry me nae further.” She thumped on her knee as if to reprimand it for its poor service. “Thirty year was I heid washerwoman, wi’ three guid maids under me. Six days a week did we wash and press.”

  Jennet let out a resigned sigh, but Gelleys took no note.

  “On Monanday table linen, on Tysday bed linen, on Wadensday and Fuirsday claes, on Freday rags and the like, and on Seturday—” She leaned forward and raised a finger to the air. “On Seturday we set soap. Just as Fiona is settin’ soap this verra minute, her and the lasses. Is it no’ sae, Jennet?”