Lake in the Clouds

by Sara Donati

  “Dr. Todd,” said the little man, thrusting out his chest as far as it would go, but then glancing nervously first at Curiosity and then at Strikes-the-Sky. “I’m here on official business, but I sure didn’t mean to disturb you, sir.”

  “Then why the hell are you pounding on my door at sunrise!” Richard thundered.

  O’Brien’s cheeks paled while his nose turned a deeper shade of red. “Doctor, this young woman is evading the law.” He nodded in Hannah’s direction. “A complaint has been sworn out against her. She can’t just ignore it.”

  Richard came down the stairs slowly, his expression so deadly calm that Hannah felt the hair rise on the nape of her neck. O’Brien seemed to feel just the same way, because he took another step back and bumped into the door.

  “She’s been evading you?” Richard said softly. “Evading you?”

  O’Brien swallowed visibly and nodded. “She knows I was looking for her. Didn’t I issue a notice, right and proper? Took it to her door too, but would she show herself? And on top of that I almost got shot for my trouble. Nobody is above the law, Dr. Todd.”

  “You miserable worm,” Richard began in a conversational tone. Bump drew in a harsh breath and Curiosity put a hand to her mouth to cover a smile, but O’Brien’s gaze was fixed on Richard and he took in nothing else.

  “You smug, insignificant, nearsighted fool. Did you think she was out dancing? Did no one tell you that there’s an epidemic in this village?”

  O’Brien winced. “Well, yes.”

  “And you’re aware that Miss Bonner is a doctor?”

  The little man frowned. “I know she claims that title for herself.”

  Richard said, “Are you challeging my word and opinion on a matter of medicine, Mr. O’Brien?”

  “I guess not,” he said slowly.

  “You guess not.”

  “No, then. I won’t challenge you on that.”

  “At last, some hope. Now listen to me. Scarlet fever has killed five people in the last five days. Without proper medical attention it would have killed more. It still may. And you stand there and claim that in your learned opinion a summons”—his mouth worked as if he wanted very much to spit—“is more important than the lives of the people of Paradise. Do I understand you correctly?”

  The color flooded back into O’Brien’s face. “Last night—” And he stopped cold as Richard took another step toward him.

  “Last night while you were emptying tankards at the tavern Miss Bonner was upstairs, keeping watch—” For the first time Richard’s voice broke as cleanly and simply as an eggshell. “At my wife’s deathbed.”

  His shoulders slumped as he turned away. “Get out,” he said. “Get out now.”

  O’Brien blinked convulsively, but he didn’t move until the sound of a door closing came to them. Then he slumped, his eyes darting nervously from Strikes-the-Sky to Curiosity.

  Curiosity said, “Judge O’Brien, let me give you some advice. Don’t come around here talking about dragging our Hannah off to Johnstown. There’s other ways to get your business taken care of.” She glanced at Hannah. “Ain’t that so?”

  Will you stand and fight?

  They were looking at her, all of them. Judge O’Brien with a doubtful expression, and Curiosity with a hopeful one. Hannah felt Strikes-the-Sky’s hand on her shoulder, the simple strength in him.

  She said, “I will come to the village tonight at seven to answer the charges against me. You have my word.”

  “There,” said Curiosity with a grim smile. “Now that’s my girl.”

  Curiosity sent Bump to Lake in the Clouds with the news of Kitty’s death and Hannah’s appointment with Judge O’Brien, and then she put together a bundle of food and pressed it into Strikes-the-Sky’s hands.

  “You make sure she eats,” she said solemnly, holding on to him longer than was necessary. “That’s your job now, looking after her. She surely won’t look after herself.”

  Hannah said, “You needn’t grin at each other as if you’re keeping some great secret from me. I am standing right here, and I see very well what you’re up to.”

  “You hush,” Curiosity said, flapping a hand at her. “This is between your man and me. Now this is what I want you to do, Strikes-the-Sky You take Hannah and you go find a place where she can rest. Don’t take her home to Lake in the Clouds, you hear me? I don’t want my Manny or the rest of them bothering her none. Best she stay away from Elizabeth for a while too, or she’ll worry the hair right off her head, you know she won’t be able to help herself.”

  As much as Hannah wanted to protest she had to smile at that picture.

  “It’s going to be a fine day. Take her up the mountain someplace pretty and see to it she don’t go running off to tend to nobody else for one day at least. You know what I’m telling you?”

  “Yes,” Strikes-the-Sky said. “I know.”

  “Good. The girl got to rest so she’ll be ready to settle things with Jemima Southern once and for all. And then you two got a long journey in front of you.”

  Hannah went to Curiosity and put her head on the old woman’s thin shoulder. “Not today,” she said, her voice muffled. “Not yet.”

  “Not yet,” Curiosity agreed, patting her back.

  Hannah was taken by the sudden need to sit down here in the familiar kitchen and never go anywhere again.

  “What about Richard and Ethan?”

  “We got to let them sit with her a while,” Curiosity said. “You know that. It’ll be tomorrow before they can leave her go.”

  “The LeBlancs,” Hannah said, close to tears and furious with herself for it. “And the Ratz girls. I said I’d call.”

  “There ain’t nobody at death’s door right now.” Curiosity held her away so that she could look into her face. “Let me look after things, child. You got your own life to tend to.”

  On a high meadow that gave them the whole world, weariness and sorrow came over Hannah. She sat down heavily on an outcropping of stone and lay back with an arm over her eyes. Hot tears sprang up and ran over her face like rain.

  Strikes-the-Sky sat nearby. He had no words to offer but Hannah was glad of his presence and mortified too, that she should lose control of herself so completely.

  When there were no more tears left she drew in a shuddering breath and held it as long as she could, until her body quieted and she could hear the world around her. In the pines nearby siskins squabbled, and just below that the faraway sound of the falls. Strikes-the-Sky made no noise at all and Hannah was convinced, very suddenly, that he had left her here to weep.

  She sat up, ready to be furious or hurt or both, and found him sitting cross-legged in front of her.

  “Food,” he said, holding out some of Curiosity’s bread.

  Hannah hadn’t realized she was hungry, or how good fresh bread could taste on a hot summer’s day. She ate the things he passed her, cold meat and new radishes from the garden, sharp on her tongue.

  “What is this?” He was looking at a bundle of parsley with a doubtful expression.

  “Chew on it,” Hannah said. “It cleans your mouth and makes your breath sweet.” And she blushed, realizing as she spoke that sending parsley along was Curiosity’s way of teasing her. Strikes-the-Sky didn’t understand or chose not to, but he did as she suggested.

  “There’s a stream,” Hannah said, pointing. “And shade, to sleep.” And ran ahead, uneasy with him suddenly, this stranger, this man she had promised herself to. He followed her, quick and silent, winding through the pines until they found the stream where they both drank. It was a cool place where the light came through the firs and pines to play on the water. Moss-covered rocks and deep beds of old pine needles, and overhead the chittering call of squirrels.

  “A good place,” Strikes-the-Sky said. He slipped the rifle sling off around his head and put it down carefully. Next to that he piled his powder horn and bullet sack, the pouch he wore around his neck and his knife sheath, until he stood there unarmed.r />
  When he began to pull his hunting shirt over his head Hannah said, “What are you doing?” in a voice so sharp that he paused and looked at her.

  “I’m going to sleep, right here.” He pointed with his chin to the ground. “I kept watch all night. You should sleep too, unless you had something else in mind.”

  His grin infuriated her. She turned her back on him and lay down, brought her knees up to her chin, and wrapped her arms around herself.

  She would teach him, someday, that she was not to be trifled with. Hannah made that vow to herself, and then she fell asleep.

  He woke her when the sun was high above them and the forest shimmered with heat, even here by the water.

  “Your people will want to see you before it is time to go meet O’Brien.” He was crouched next to her, his hunting shirt in one hand and his bare chest damp with sweat. She made herself look away, but she couldn’t ignore the smell of him or the feelings that rose up from deep in her belly.

  She sat up. “Yes. All right.”

  And still they stayed just like that, close enough to touch and not touching until he reached out with two fingers and brushed her hair. “Pine needles,” he said, and she watched the muscles flex in his throat when he swallowed.

  With a low sound he came closer, using his whole hand now to brush her hair free of dirt and needles, and she let him. She might have taken his wrist and pushed him away but she didn’t want to, not really. What she wanted to do, wanted so much that the urge was almost impossible to resist, was to put her face to the curve where his shoulder met his neck so that she could draw in his smells.

  “Walks-Ahead,” he said, so close now that she felt his breath stir her hair.

  She turned her face to him and opened her mouth to ask him What? and he kissed her, as she knew he would, as she wanted him to. A gentle kiss, soft and softer still. Nothing like the rough kisses of last night but with a power of their own. She put her hands on his chest, smooth and hard, the muscles fluttering under her palms. He pulled her to him and closed his arms around her.

  For a long time they knelt together on the forest floor while he cradled her to him and kissed her mouth and she kissed him back, learning the shape of him and the taste and the touch of his tongue. She had not imagined that a kiss could be something so potent, to draw her out of herself this way. To make her want so furiously that no matter how hard she pressed herself to him it was not enough.

  She ran her fingers over his face, traced his ears, cupped his scalp in her hands. In between kisses she said, “Your hair is growing back. I want to see what you look like with hair. Will you let it grow?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling against her mouth. “If you want it so, wife.”

  She pulled away again. “Am I your wife now?” And felt the tightening in her chest to even say such a thing out loud.

  He tilted his head and one corner of his mouth tilted too. “That is a question only you can answer, Walks-Ahead. Hannah. Are you my wife?”

  To tremble in the heat of the day, as if a fever had taken hold of her so completely that she would never recover. He was watching her, waiting. A stranger still, and no stranger at all. She had never been more frightened or happier, more sure of what she wanted.

  “Yes,” she said. “I am your wife.”

  His smile was enough to calm the trembling in her, but then he started all over again, his hands and mouth and the simple strength in his arms, all for her. When he drew her down to the forest floor she went willingly, and when he touched her breast she arched up into his hand.

  “Is there time?” she asked him, her voice breathless and hoarse in her ears. “Is there enough time?”

  His mouth at her ear, warm and soft.

  “There is time. If you want me, there is time.” His tongue moved against the pulse below her ear, along the line of her jaw to her mouth. A new kind of kiss, a promise of what was to come. His hand under her skirt, fingers trailing along her thigh to touch the aching place between her legs. A light touch, a question without words.

  “Yes,” Hannah whispered. “Yes.”

  Chapter 42

  In the morning Elizabeth woke thinking of Kitty, but went to find Manny and Jode, determined to have a frank conversation with them about their recent activities and their plans for the immediate future. If Curiosity was too busy to come up the mountain to speak sensible words to her son, then Elizabeth would do it for her. And there was the mystery of Liam Kirby to be solved, and Elizabeth was virtually certain that Manny could solve it, too, once she had him cornered.

  But they were gone. They had eaten at Many-Doves’ hearth, thanked her politely, and melted away into the forest again.

  “They’ll wait until the others are ready to travel west,” Blue-Jay informed her. He had that look of little boys who wanted to be included in an adventure and knew that it could not be: forlorn and wishful.

  Many-Doves said, “They are afraid of your anger, and rightly so.”

  Elizabeth went back to her own cabin and found Bump sitting on the porch with Nathaniel. He brought them hard news and Curiosity’s good bread to swallow along with it.

  In the strong light of a perfect summer morning they sat and listened. Outwardly calm, Elizabeth wanted most of all to run away, to close her ears like a child in a temper, to shut out the words that she feared.

  But for all his misshapen back and odd dress Bump was the gentlest and kindest of creatures, and he told the story of Kitty’s last hours in such a forthright and simple manner that Elizabeth could take some comfort in it. Kitty had been an unhappy girl when Elizabeth first met her, love-struck and lonely, but she had died with her son in her arms and her husband beside her.

  “She went easy,” Bump finished. “Curiosity said to tell you she was smiling.”

  Nathaniel rubbed Elizabeth’s back and pulled her closer. In the very way he caught his breath she could hear how close he was to tears. Inside herself she could find none at all.

  “And the rest of it?” Nathaniel’s voice hoarse with sorrow, for the girl he had grown up with and the woman she had become.

  Bump twisted his shoulders right and left as if to relieve a cramping in his back. He told this story more quickly, his eyes scanning Nathaniel’s face as he spoke.

  “Between the doctor and Curiosity, O’Brien didn’t stand a chance,” Bump said with a satisfied expression. And then, more cautiously, “He’s a rough sort, the doctor, and tightfisted with praise. Many times have I seen him drive Miss Hannah to distraction with his demanding and overharsh ways. But this morning he stood up for her like she was one of his own, though he was shaking with grief like a sapling in a storm. I thought you should know that.”

  “Yes,” Nathaniel said. “I’m glad you told us.” He saw Elizabeth’s expression, the struggle there to give Richard Todd the credit that was his due. Whatever trouble he had been to them in the past, they would have to put that aside now. With his loyalty and service to their daughter Richard Todd had earned their respect, and Elizabeth must trust him to raise her nephew, because she had made that promise to Kitty.

  Bump said, “Now I know you’ve been keeping away from the village for fear of the canker rash—”

  “Nathaniel will be there at seven to hear O’Brien’s charges,” Elizabeth interrupted him, as near to rude as she ever came. Her color had risen, and her jaw set itself hard. It was the fear that did it, and still for that small moment, for one second that lasted far too long, Nathaniel hated his wife for letting her fear get the best of her.

  “What I was going to say,” Bump continued evenly, “was this. Young Ethan sends word. He hopes that you’ll come tomorrow to see his mam buried, and he asked me to say that while he hasn’t got the rash or any sign of it, he’ll stay away if you’ll only come, as Kitty would have wanted you there.”

  The color left Elizabeth’s face so suddenly that Nathaniel feared she would faint. Then a shudder moved through her and she pressed both hands to her face. As she rocked forward
a sob tore up from her throat.

  Bump caught Nathaniel’s eye. There was something knowing in his expression, an understanding beyond judgment. He said, “I have messages for young Lily and Daniel as well.”

  Nathaniel nodded, and drew Elizabeth up to him. “I’ll send them out to you.”

  When she had wept as much as a woman can weep, Elizabeth looked to Nathaniel as she had just after giving birth: emptied of everything, reduced to her very essence.

  She said, “Is he still here?”

  “Out on the porch with Lily.”

  For a moment he thought she might start again after all, but when a deep shuddering breath had left her she got to her feet.

  “I regret that I did not go to Kitty,” she said, her face turned away from him. “But most of all I am ashamed.”

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Let me finish. I am ashamed that it took a little boy’s sorrow to make me understand what I have done. To you, most of all. I am sorry, Nathaniel. I am truly sorry.”

  Tears pooled in her swollen eyes, but she pushed away his hand when he reached for her.

  “I have let fear make too many decisions for me. For us. I hope that I find a way to make amends—”

  “Elizabeth.” He lunged forward to grasp her by both wrists and drew her down to sit beside him on the bed. When she struggled he wrapped his arms around her and held her until she gave in to him.

  He said, “Listen, listen to me. This is me, Elizabeth. Me. You don’t owe me any apologies or explanations. There’s nothing you’re feeling that I don’t feel. Every time one of the children walks around a corner there’s a fist in my gut until they come back again. When one of them sneezes or coughs, when they sleep too soundly or wake up too slow, I think of Robbie and it seems I’ll choke on the fear.”

  Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt and then relaxed.

  “He was my son too. I miss him every day but I won’t let the missing of him get in the way of what I owe the living, and neither should you.”

  “I want to talk to Bump,” Elizabeth said against his shirt. “I want to send Ethan a message.”