Lake in the Clouds

by Sara Donati

  “Judge O’Brien,” she said. “Even if that should prove true, we are still left with the matter of Ambrose Dye’s abduction and murder.”

  Liam barked out a laugh that made Hannah jump.

  “I saw Ambrose Dye two days ago up Canada way. He was alive then and I’d guess he’s still alive now, spending money hand over fist. If you’ve got other charges against Miss Bonner you’d best read ’em out, Judge—”

  A wavering howl rose up, so much like a war cry that the hair rose all along Hannah’s arms. Jemima was on her feet again, pointing with one finger toward Liam Kirby.

  “He was there too,” she screamed. “He was under the window with the Mohawks who robbed us. I saw him plain as day. I saw you, Liam Kirby. Ambrose Dye is dead and you killed him, it’s you that took the strongbox.”

  Hannah turned to look up into her father’s face and saw two things there: what Jemima said was true—inexplicably, astoundingly true—and that it came as no surprise to him. His fingers tightened on her shoulder and he blinked at her.

  “Later,” he said to her in her mother’s language. “Save your questions for later.”

  A roaring of voices filled the church, people shouting at Jemima and Liam and no one in particular, fists waved in the air. O’Brien picked up a bible from the table in front of him and thumped it down three times with such force that the room went quiet.

  “Sir,” Mr. Gathercole said in an apologetic tone. “That is the Good Book.”

  “And I’ll put it to good use!” O’Brien bellowed.

  Jed hid his smile behind his hand and ducked his head.

  “Now you listen to me, you rabble,” O’Brien huffed. “You’ll show respect or you’ll all get out!”

  “Mrs. Kuick,” he said when he had caught his breath. “You saw Mr. Kirby under the window after you were assaulted in your home?”

  She nodded, clutching both hands to her throat. “I did, he was there with the black Mohawks.”

  “But then you must explain why,” said O’Brien in a weary tone. “Why would you put Kirby down in your complaint as somebody who could testify against Hannah Bonner for that very same crime?”

  “And why didn’t you say nothing about him being there when it happened?” yelled Axel Metzler. “Not a word did you say about Liam Kirby, missy, and you know it.”

  The crowd had begun to mutter and stir again, and O’Brien sent a fiery look over their heads. “I’ll have silence or I’ll take my stick to you!” He looked in Jed’s direction.

  “Constable McGarrity, did either Missus Kuick say anything to you about Mr. Liam Kirby being in the vicinity of the mill house at any time on the night of the robbery and abduction?”

  Jed felt Hawkeye’s gaze on him, nothing of anger there but simple interest, as if he knew just what Jed would say but not how he might say it.

  “Neither of them said a word about Kirby. Nor did any of the others present at the time. I see Becca Kaes sitting right over there, you can ask her.”

  O’Brien turned on his heel. “Miss Kaes?”

  Becca stood, and sent a trembling look in the direction of her employer. “Yes, sir.”

  “You were present at the mill house when the intruder arrived?”

  “I was, sir.”

  “You sat in the room with the intruder along with the Missus Kuicks and the others?”

  “I did, sir.”

  “And the intruder himself, you saw him clearly?”

  “Oh yes, sir.”

  “How would you describe him?”

  “Well, he sure as sugar wasn’t Liam Kirby, Your Honor, sir. He was as black as January molasses and Liam’s red as the devil, as anybody can see.”

  In the back pew a derisive snort was followed by a ripple of laughter. The Cameron boys, drunk but not too drunk, not yet.

  “And did you see Mr. Kirby that evening, at any time?”

  “No, sir. Nor did I hear any mention of him. Mrs. Kuick never said his name in my hearing.”

  O’Brien turned a sharp eye toward the pew where the Kuick widows sat, as still and white as stone.

  “Miss Bonner.”

  Hannah stood, her hands folded in front of herself. “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you conspire with Liam Kirby to abduct Mr. Ambrose Dye and steal the Kuicks’ strongbox?”

  “No,” she said calmly. “I did not.”

  “Ask her about those heathens standing back there!” Lucy Kuick’s voice rose in a wavering screech. “Ask her if she conspired with them!”

  “Mrs. Kuick,” said O’Brien sharply. “I’ll conduct the hearing in my own fashion.” He tugged at his neckcloth as if it were suddenly too tight.

  “Did you conspire with Liam Kirby or with anyone else to abduct Ambrose Dye and steal the strongbox?”

  “I did not,” Hannah said.

  “What is your relationship to Mr. Kirby?”

  Hannah glanced down at her hands. “We were childhood friends,” she said. “Nothing more or less.”

  “Did you conspire with anybody else who might resemble Liam Kirby?”

  She shook her head. “I did not.”

  “Do you know where Mr. Dye is now?”

  “I do not. Nor do I particularly care, sir, except to say that he was a cruel man and I hope he never returns.”

  Jed stirred uneasily, but O’Brien wasn’t concerned with Hannah’s boldly stated opinion. “As there are no witnesses, conflicting testimony from the persons filing the complaint, and no evidence at hand, I see no grounds for filing charges on these counts.”

  The widow Kuick let out a strangled noise, but it was Jemima who worried Jed. She looked to him like a woman who could do murder with her bare hands, and he was glad to see that she’d have to get through Hawkeye and Nathaniel both to get to Hannah.

  “To the second set of charges.” O’Brien lifted up the complaint, now much rumpled, and raised his voice.

  “‘The same Hannah Bonner, a female and half-breed, having the temerity to fashion herself a doctor, convinced a good number of the citizens of Paradise to submit to her so-called kine-pox vaccination. Only days later an epidemic came down upon us. The symptoms are fever, headache, and a rash upon the body. Further, when our son and husband, Isaiah Kuick, returned home from searching for the intruders who assaulted and robbed us in a frightful state of ill health, Hannah Bonner intruded herself into our home without cause or permission. While she was in his chamber alone with him, Isaiah Kuick’s condition worsened and he died only a few hours later. We charge Hannah Bonner with the murder of Isaiah Kuick, her motive being the removal of all persons who might have testified against her.’”

  O’Brien sent a nervous look over the crowd, which had begun to seethe again and looked ready to come to a violent boil. He said, “This complaint charges Hannah Bonner with practicing medicine without proper training or experience, malicious and knowing mistreatment of the ill to her own personal gain, and murder by methods as yet undetermined.” He stepped back, and clutched the complaint to his chest. In a smaller voice he said, “Dr. Todd, you have something to say?”

  Richard Todd seemed to tower over the crowd like Moses coming off the mountain when he found the Hebrews worshiping the Golden Calf. If Moses had looked half as angry as Richard Todd did as this moment, Jed wondered that any of them had stayed around long enough to take their punishment.

  He strode up the church aisle with his fists swinging at his sides and stopped in front of the Kuick widows, where he did nothing more than stare. Jemima, fool that she had always been, drew herself up as tall as she could and stared right back as if she were the one wronged.

  Todd’s great shaggy head swung up and looked over the crowd. In a voice so big he put O’Brien to shame he said, “I want you to stand up now if Hannah Bonner has ever come to your home when you or yours was sick or hurt.”

  With a quick shuffle every person in the church stood, the Bonner’s included, leaving the Kuicks as the only two people sitting in the whole church.

&
nbsp; Richard fixed Jemima with a stare. “I believe you should be on your feet, missus.”

  “I don’t care to stand,” Jemima hissed back at him.

  “Now,” he continued. “If anybody here has any complaint about the care they got from Hannah Bonner, at any time, I’ll ask them to sit down.”

  No feet shuffled, there were no snickers or snorts, no murmuring or whispers, and no one sat down.

  He said, “Ratz, you lost a girl to the scarlet fever. I believe Hannah Bonner sat by her bedside for a whole night, ain’t that right?”

  Horace Ratz cleared his throat. “It is.”

  “Then why are you still standing, man? Seems to me you got grounds to complain about Hannah Bonner’s care.”

  The man swallowed so hard that every person in the church heard it. “She nursed the other seven right through,” he said. “Four girls and my three boys all on the mend. It wouldn’t be right to hold the one she couldn’t save against her.”

  “Were any of those children of yours vaccinated against the smallpox by Hannah Bonner, or anybody else?”

  “No, sir,” Ratz said, hanging his head. “I’m sorry to say I doubted her word. That was my mistake. I’ll apologize to her right now if the judge will allow it.”

  “Anybody else here care to speak to Hannah Bonner’s skill as a doctor?”

  “I will,” called Nicholas Wilde, and the call repeated itself through the church until Richard had to hold up his hands to stop them.

  He turned toward O’Brien. “I think that settles the question of Hannah Bonner’s qualifications as a doctor, Judge O’Brien. Would you agree?”

  O’Brien threw up his hands in surrender.

  “Then there’s only the matter of how Isaiah Kuick met his end. The rest of you can sit down now, all except Becca Kaes.”

  When the rustling and whispering had stopped and Becca stood alone in the church Richard said, “Becca, you work as a servant at the mill house, isn’t that so?”

  She bobbed her head in agreement. “Ever since the widow come to Paradise, yes, sir.”

  “Were you in the house the night Mr. Kuick died?”

  Another bob of the head.

  “And who was with him?”

  She looked confused. “You mean, who was there with him before he died or when he died or after?”

  Richard drew in a harsh breath. “All three, Becca. Start with the first.”

  She dropped her gaze and then raised it again. “First was Hannah Bonner. She came around sunset it was, after I sent word that Mr. Kuick was asking for her.”

  “So she came by invitation.”

  “Yes, sir. He asked for her particular and said I wasn’t to tell his mother or his wife.”

  “And why was that?”

  Becca shrugged. “I expect because he knew they wouldn’t much like her being there. There’s no love lost between Hannah and Jemima, everybody knows that.”

  “But you did as he asked.”

  “I did, sir. You yourself had told me earlier in the afternoon that he was dying, and I thought a dying man should have what he wants.”

  “How long was she with him?”

  “Maybe an hour all told, sir. She made him a fever tea. I don’t know all that was said as I was busy with the widow for most of the time.”

  Jemima turned, her face blazing with satisfaction, to look at Richard. “Did he drink that tea, Becca?”

  “He did. I helped him to a few swallows myself.”

  Richard said: “And she left after an hour, and then who came to him?”

  “I went in and out as I was able but he was alone a great deal. The widow kept calling me, complaining of an ache in her head, she was sure she had the canker rash coming on, you see, though she never did get sick. I sent Cookie to find Missus Kuick and she came to sit for a short while but then left again when he said he didn’t want her.”

  “Then Mr. Kuick was alone? His mother didn’t come in to see him?”

  “No, sir, she was in such a state. I finally gave her the rest of the fever tea that Hannah left for Mr. Kuick, along with her laudanum, you see, and that settled her. She slept for the rest of the night.” Becca’s voice wavered. “I’ve been worried ever since that I should have roused her so she could sit with him at the end, but it went so fast.”

  “So let me understand, Becca. You gave the widow the last of the tea Hannah Bonner made—” He cast a significant look at the widow, who sat whey-faced in the first pew, and then a longer look at Jemima. “And then you sat with Mr. Kuick until he died.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now the widow sits right there, isn’t that so? Hale and hearty?”

  “She’s sitting there, sir.”

  “So the tea didn’t kill her.”

  “Not as I could see, sir.”

  Muffled laughter, silenced by a thump of the bible.

  “And there at the end, did Mr. Kuick have anything to say?”

  “How do you mean, Dr. Todd?”

  “Did he accuse anyone of his murder? His wife, say, or his mother?”

  “Dr. Todd!” O’Brien thundered, and the church came to its feet. When O’Brien’s thumping of the bible had quieted them he pointed a finger at the doctor. “How dare you, sir.”

  Richard frowned at him. “They had just as much opportunity to cause him harm as Hannah Bonner did, Judge. The innocent need fear no inquiry, isn’t that so?”

  Without waiting for an answer he turned back to Becca, who had begun to tremble. “Did he accuse anyone at all of murdering him?”

  “No sir. At least not to me, not in words to me.” She glanced nervously at her hands and back up again at Richard. “There was a letter, though.”

  Richard Todd looked unsure of himself for the first time since he had begun questioning Becca. Jemima Kuick looked as if somebody had punched her in the gut, and the widow perked up, her little head bobbing and turning.

  “Letter?” The widow rose to her feet slowly. “What letter? My son left a letter, Becca? Why have you not given it to me?”

  “Begging your pardon, Mrs. Kuick,” Becca said, ducking her head. “But it wasn’t a letter for you.”

  “And how do you know that?” The widow drew herself up, and something of her old tone came back to fill the church. “Did you steal that letter, girl?”

  “No ma’am, no, I didn’t.” Becca looked as angry as Jed had ever seen her. “I know because he sealed it with wax and signed his name just under the seal, and then he asked me to sign too, as a … what did he call it … a …”

  “A witness,” suggested the judge.

  “Yes, that it was really him that was signing it.” Becca held up her chin. “There wasn’t anybody’s name on that letter but his and mine. And that’s the last I ever saw of it. I don’t know what was in it and I don’t know where it’s gone or who’s got it. Ask Jemima, maybe she’s got it.”

  “I have no letter,” Jemima said stiffly. She started to say something and then stilled. “Can’t we just get on with this?”

  Richard Todd stood contemplating Jemima for a long minute, but she would not meet his eye.

  “Very well,” he said finally. “Since this mysterious letter is nowhere to be found, let us get on with it. A shame, though. My guess is that it would have cleared up many a mystery.” He grinned suddenly and turned back to Becca.

  “So you were telling us that Mr. Kuick said nothing to you of murder, made no accusations, mentioned no names.”

  “No, sir,” Becca said.

  “Not his mother or wife?”

  “No, sir. Nor Hannah, nor you. Nobody. He just breathed in and never let it out again.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I sent for you, Doctor, and you came.”

  “And what did I say to you?”

  “You said that Mr. Kuick died of a lung fever and complications from the canker rash. And that my sister Molly was dead of the childbed fever.”

  “We’re all sorry about Molly. Thank you, Becca, for
your help.”

  Richard turned, and seeking out Hannah Bonner’s gaze, he bowed briefly from the waist. Then he walked back down the church and out into the evening, never pausing or looking around him. It was then Jed realized that Liam Kirby was gone too.

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Axel Metzler stood, his white hair standing out in a cloud around his head and his eyes blazing. “I got something to say.”

  O’Brien waved a hand in acknowledgment, as if the effort of speaking would overtax him.

  Axel looked around the church. “First off, I want to say shame on you, Jemima Kuick, for what you tried to do to Hannah Bonner. Shame on you and your mother-in-law both. I’d ask the judge there to think up some punishment for the two of you but it looks to me like each of you having to put up with the other might be punishment enough.”

  The widow Kuick rose to her feet very slowly. Her head swiveled from one side of the church to the other, and then she sought out Hannah Bonner. For a long moment her mouth worked hard and then she fell, slow and grand as a tree in a storm wind, without flinging out an arm to catch herself or blinking.

  Half the church rushed forward while the rest rushed out in a stampede. Jed pushed his way to the crowd around the widow and shoved until he got to the center of it.

  She looked very old and small, like a baby swaddled all in black left on the church floor.

  “She’s alive,” somebody said. “Look at that, she’s alive.”

  One side of the widow’s mouth worked convulsively, but the other half of her face sagged like an empty sack.

  Hannah stood looking down at her, her hands flexing at her side. In a clear voice she said, “Jemima, your mother-in-law has had a stroke. If you’d like me to, I’ll tend to her. Otherwise you’d best send for Dr. Todd.”

  Jemima’s head reared up, and Hannah was taken aback. For that one moment Jemima looked her directly in the eye and all the old jealousies were gone, stripped away to reveal a woman Hannah had never imagined. Jemima Southern stood before her and so did the nameless Indian woman with a dead child tied to her chest, so did every woman she had ever seen laid open to the world, desperate and hopeless.