Fire Along the Sky Fire Along the Sky

by Sara Donati

  Gabriel raised his head and looked at his father. “Nicholas went west,” he said. “I saw his tracks all the way over past the Big Slough. Fresh too. Maybe a couple hours old.” And then, in an afterthought he turned to Many-Doves. “I was by myself,” he said. “All day.”

  If not for the seriousness of the situation, Elizabeth might have been charmed out of her worry by her son's courtly manners: he meant to absolve Annie, and spare her the trouble he was calling down on himself. Annie's tense expression was replaced by something new: satisfaction, thankfulness, affection.

  It was an old problem: Gabriel roamed far beyond the boundaries that had been set for him. He was not a rebellious child by nature, but there was something in him that just could not comply with restrictions on the way he moved through the world. Many-Doves looked up from her sewing, looked directly at Elizabeth, and inclined her head.

  If she were to speak now, Elizabeth knew what she would say: You can no more fence this child in than you could a young wolf. It is in his blood.

  It was true that more than any of the other children, Gabriel had his grandfather Hawkeye's wandering ways. It would take strong rope to keep him on the mountain, and knots as yet unknown to man. Nathaniel was thinking the same thing; she could see the resignation and a little pride, too, in his face.

  Lily just looked confused, and very tired. There were circles under her eyes, and a trembling in her hands when she reached for her teacup. Elizabeth saw those things and understood them, or thought she did. She reminded herself of her resolution to stay out of Lily's affairs of the heart.

  Nathaniel said, “Headed west, was he?”

  Gabriel pushed out a relieved sigh, and he nodded. Now that he had confessed to his wandering without causing an outcry, he perked up. He said, “I followed him a few miles, and he never turned south. He was headed into the bush. Why did he lie about where he was going?”

  This question he directed to his mother, but she had no answer for him, or none that she would speak out loud. Elizabeth leaned over and brushed a pine needle from Gabriel's hair.

  “I'm not sure,” she said. “But tomorrow your father will see what he can find out.”

  Lily jerked out of her daydream at that, hearing the things Elizabeth had not said, had scrupled to say out loud.

  “Da,” Lily said, but he only shook his head at her, gently.

  “We'll see what we see,” he said quietly. “It's time you were off to your bed, Lily, and sleep. And correct me if I got this wrong, but ain't tomorrow the last day of school?”

  It was almost comical, the way Gabriel and Annie tried to hide their pleasure as they assured him that he was right, school was about to go into recess as it always did at planting time. If not for fear of hurting their teacher's feelings, she knew they would be dancing around the room.

  What they didn't realize, what she wouldn't tell them, was that she was looking forward to the end of the school term as much as they were, maybe more.

  Many-Doves was studying Elizabeth thoughtfully, something that did not escape Lily's attention. She turned to her mother, her brow drawn down to put a crease between her eyes.

  “Don't worry about me, daughter,” Elizabeth said, answering the question before it was asked. “I'm just a little tired. It has been a difficult spring.”

  But some suspicion had been aroused in Lily; Elizabeth smelled it rising off her skin like sweat. She got up from her chair and leaned over to kiss her daughter, pressing her nose into the hair at the crown of her head. She smelled of herself, of the little girl she had once been and would always be; of the pigments she ground for her paints, of charcoal, of lavender water. Of Simon Ballentyne.

  “My sweet girl,” Elizabeth said. “You need your sleep. Go now.”

  Over the years Elizabeth had never had a student, no matter how disciplined or eager to please, who was able to concentrate on work on the last day of school. Long ago she had given up trying to instill some order into those few hours. Instead she let them bring treats—dried apple rings, fried bread dough dusted with maple sugar—and was satisfied if the day ended without blood loss or broken bones.

  They were full of the spring, like sap that must run and run. While the children made piles of books and slates and wiped tables and swept the floor, they talked and sang and told stories and argued. In Elizabeth's hearing they did not talk about the latest scandal in the village, or at least not about Nicholas and Jemima Wilde; they knew how far her goodwill went, and when it was dangerous to test it.

  They did tell her, she let them tell her, about Mr. Stiles and his nephew, a thirteen-year-old boy called Justus Rising. Justus had already won many admirers among the children, who were eager to share their enthusiasm with Elizabeth: Justus could touch the tip of his nose with his tongue, his hands were so flexible that he could bend them in half across the palm, he knew the whole Bible by heart, backward and forward, begats and all. He was strong enough to have wrestled all three of the Ratz boys to the ground at once, and he had lost his parents when they got on a ship that was overrun—by pirates—between Brunswick and Boston.

  Elizabeth, who had personal experience of pirates and privateers and the gradations between, kept her doubts and her smiles to herself.

  “An orphan. He's got something in common with Callie and Martha, then,” said Henry Ratz, and a hush came over the room. Not out of respect for the girls—Elizabeth was too familiar with the ways of children to tell herself that—but because they knew she would not approve of the topic of discussion.

  She straightened from the pile of primers she was counting and looked around at them.

  “An orphan is most usually understood to be a young person who has lost both parents. Callie is not an orphan, nor is Martha,” she said. “And I will remind you that you may someday need goodwill and generosity of spirit as much as they do now.”

  And yet she was relieved that the girls had stayed away from school today. She was relieved and the Ratz boys were disappointed, no doubt: she kept an especially sharp eye on them, and reminded herself of the cheerful thought that Jem would not be coming back to her classroom in the fall.

  None of them would, not to this classroom. When school started after the harvest, this little cabin would be empty again, and the children would be sitting on new benches in the schoolhouse in the village. Whether or not she would be standing at the front of the room was a question she couldn't answer, just yet, though they asked her more than once.

  When she had sent Gabriel and Annie ahead to Lake in the Clouds, Elizabeth went out and sat on the porch step, exhausted, relieved, and anxious all at once.

  She had taught in this cabin for almost twenty years, and now that time was over. It was a strange idea, but right, too, somehow. And yet she was close to tears, and her hands trembled so that she wound them together in her lap.

  Elizabeth was sitting just like that, her face turned up to the bit of sky the canopy of trees overhead revealed, when she heard someone coming up the path from the village. Nathaniel, she told herself, and even before the thought had passed she knew it was an idle wish. Nathaniel had left at first light to track Nicholas Wilde and might not be back for days. The man coming up the trail had a heavy tread, and he breathed as if he were not accustomed to the climb.

  Before he came within sight she knew who it would be, and then he was there: Mr. Stiles, his black preacher's hat pulled down tight over his brow, his face bright red with exertion. There was a Bible tucked under his arm.

  She should rise, of course, and greet him as he expected to be greeted, but Elizabeth felt a flush of anger: that he should interrupt these few moments of quiet and contemplation on her last day as the teacher of this school.

  He stopped before her, and she saw his throat work as he swallowed once and then again. Then he dragged his hat from his head, leaving spikes of fine white hair that stood up like feathers on a fledgling.

  “Goodwife Bonner,” he said, inclining his head. “I've come to speak to you ab
out your school. I've heard some disturbing rumors—rumors I might not have believed, had I not seen the evidence myself, on the way up here.”

  Elizabeth drew in a deep breath, but he pushed on without waiting for her.

  “Madam, I understand that you are a rationalist. That much was clear from our discussion yesterday. But I would never imagine that you would go so far as to endanger the souls of children with your foreign notions.” The Bible opened across a spread palm, and he began to riffle through pages.

  “In Paul's letter to—”

  “Mr. Stiles,” Elizabeth said curtly, and he frowned at her interruption.

  “You are here to tell me that girls need no schooling at all, and that it does the lesser races only harm to be taught above their stations. In any case, you are quite sure that white children should not be taught in the same classroom with black children or Indians. Now if I have anticipated your concerns, I'll bid you good day.”

  All the color had drained out of his face while she spoke. His skin was like window glass, a book for the study of blood flow. He could not keep his temper to himself, and in this odd fact Elizabeth found some kinship with him. She had never learned the trick of making her face go blank, of hiding what she was feeling.

  “You mock me.” His voice trembled slightly, and he blinked repeatedly.

  “No, sir. I just have no interest in listening to your thoughts on education, on the mixing of races, or on the place of women. I know everything you are going to say. Permit me to spare you and myself the time and effort. I will teach my school as I see fit, and I will take no direction from you, sir. When I hire a new teacher, as I plan to do this summer, I will make sure that that person is of a like mind with me, and willing to suffer your disapprobation. And one more thing, before I take my leave from you and go home to my dinner. You are a Calvinist, Mr. Stiles, and as such you will find yourself very much alone here on the frontier.”

  His mouth, which had been hanging open, snapped shut like a turtle's. Elizabeth watched that happen again while she got up from her spot on the porch and brushed her skirts into order.

  “I see I have my work cut out for me,” he said. “The devil has put down roots here.” He clutched his Bible to his chest and rocked it like an infant.

  Elizabeth didn't like the way he was looking at her, as if her complexion were as transparent as his own; as if he could see through skin and bone to the thoughts in her head. Uncharitable, most of them, bordering on the irrational.

  “I've been called far worse in my time, sir, and with less effect.”

  She had turned and started up the path when he found his voice.

  To her retreating back he called, “There's something else I know, Mrs. Bonner, something you may not realize just yet.”

  Against her better judgment, Elizabeth turned.

  Mr. Stiles studied her for another moment, and to Elizabeth it looked as if his nostrils, fine curved and overlarge, were twitching.

  He said, “Pardon me for such a personal observation, madam, but you are with child. Two months, or so. A daughter.”

  Elizabeth could count on one hand the number of times she had swooned in her life, but she knew herself to be dangerously close to that just now. There was a buzzing in her head, anger hot and bright, but stronger still, fear. She closed her eyes and opened them again, and saw that Mr. Stiles was watching her closely, with great interest. As a boy might study a bug caught under a piece of glass.

  He touched his nose with one finger. “It's a gift, or a curse, depending on your point of view.”

  Very softly Elizabeth said, “You're saying you can smell whether or not a woman is with child?”

  “I smell many things,” said Mr. Stiles. He turned his head south, toward the village, a full two miles straight downhill. “Someone is making lye soap,” he said. “A plough is breaking ground. A fawn dropped this morning, about a quarter mile that way.” He pointed with his chin, and then sniffed again, the nostrils trembling. “The smelt are running.”

  His gaze shifted back to her. “I can smell a quickening child. I smell disease in the bone, in the blood. There's a woman in the village, I don't know her name, she has a growth in her breast, no bigger than a beechnut, but growing.” He touched a spot on his own chest as if the disease were his own. “Most of all I smell sin. It stinks like lye, Mrs. Bonner. I was put on this earth to rout it out.”

  Elizabeth's heart was thundering hard, but she forced herself to breathe in and out evenly, once, twice, three times. The expression she presented to Mr. Stiles was distant, superior, disapproving; Aunt Merriweather, dealing with a dinner guest who could not hold his wine, a vaporous woman, her nephew's latest gambling debt.

  “How very inconvenient for you, sir. And if you pardon me, I wish you good day.”

  He made no move to stop her; he didn't call out after her with more predictions or Bible verses. Elizabeth walked steadily and without pausing until she came to the strawberry fields, and then she stopped, and sat down.

  When the idea of another child had presented itself a few weeks ago, she had rejected it out of hand. Her courses were not as regular as they had once been, after all: she was forty-nine years old this month. If things went on as she thought they would, she would most likely be a grandmother sometime in the next winter.

  And she was with child. With the warm sun on her back, Elizabeth bowed forward to press her forehead to her raised knees, bit her lip until she drew blood and had forced her mind to clear.

  A rabbit crouched in the grass a few feet away, twitching, its soft gray-brown pelt trembling. She had lined the cradle her children slept in as babies with rabbit skins.

  “I can't,” she whispered, and the rabbit blinked at her, another frightened creature, sympathetic and powerless. “I can't, but I must.”

  The evidence was all there, if only she looked at it calmly. Her weariness, the soreness in her breasts, the lack of appetite. Nausea in the evenings, like a knotted fist in the belly, a little more yesterday than the day before; more to come.

  In the almost twenty years of her marriage she had conceived six times. Twice she had miscarried in the first months, but she had borne five healthy children: the twins, Robbie, Gabriel, Emmanuel. Robbie had been stolen away by typhoid at three, and then Emmanuel, last born, had come too early and never caught on to the habit of living, slipping away from them before he had learned to hold his head upright. Nathaniel had carved their graves out of shallow soil and rock.

  Not again, she had promised herself then. Never again a small grave. She would put all of her energy into raising the three who were left to her, giving them the best of herself, making them strong. From Many-Doves she had got tea and advice, and from Curiosity, more of the same. What they had not given her, could not give her, were promises. Nature finds a way when she got a mind to, Curiosity had warned her.

  What Elizabeth wanted now was to have Nathaniel with her. She would say the things out loud that she could not keep to herself: I am too old for childbirth; I am too old to raise another child; I cannot bear another loss.

  He would look at her and hold her and stroke her hair but he would not make her promises either, even out of pity. We've managed worse, Boots, you and me.

  But Nathaniel was gone today, and so Elizabeth got up and brushed off her skirts, and straightened her shoulders, and turned back downmountain. If she could not have Nathaniel, she could go to Curiosity.

  A daughter. One part of her laughed at the whole idea that Mr. Stiles should be able to smell the child growing in her womb and know it for a daughter. Most likely, she told herself, he suspected that she wanted another daughter. And there was an appealing symmetry in the idea that her last child should be a daughter, as her first had been. Mr. Stiles might be a divining Calvinist, a marble prophet, or he might be nothing more than an observant man, and a devious one.

  But he had known a truth that she had not quite admitted to herself. No matter how little she liked the idea, he had been given a
formidable gift and tremendous burden.

  Elizabeth thought of Jemima Wilde, who had gone away and conjured Mr. Stiles to take her place. A Calvinist among lapsed papists and godless Yorkers, rationalists and Kahnyen'kehàka women doctors, freed black women who owned property and made their own decisions. A fine joke indeed.

  Crows called from the jack pines on the ridge. In their raw voices Elizabeth heard Jemima's satisfied laughter.

  Curiosity said, “A late child ain't the worst thing, Elizabeth. My Jason didn't come along until I was fifty, and he was the sweetest thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn't give up those few years we had him, not for anything.”

  Elizabeth studied the pattern of roses on her teacup and said nothing at all, because she did not trust her voice, or the things that might come out of her mouth.

  “A girl.” Curiosity laughed softly to herself. “Just when you about to get Lily settled. The Lord got a sense a humor, that cain't be denied.”

  “If Mr. Stiles is right,” Elizabeth snapped suddenly. “I don't see why he should be. More likely he is a charlatan with a sharp eye and a knack for saying the right thing.”

  She might forbid herself the luxury of tears, but her voice trembled, and Curiosity heard that.

  “I heard stranger things than a man born with a nose like a bloodhound,” Curiosity said, pulling out a stool to sit beside Elizabeth. “And I ain't heard you tell me he wrong about you being with child. I see it in your face, anyway, Elizabeth.”

  With one long, bony finger she traced the skin under Elizabeth's eyes. “You always do show the mask earlier than any other woman I ever knowed. You sick in the evenings like usual?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “The child settling in good and solid.” Her eyes narrowed a little, in concern and understanding. “It wear you down, I know it.”

  They were silent together for a long moment while Elizabeth thought of the months to come, of discomfort and weariness and of childbed, and the chances that she might not survive it. But if she could get through all that, if she could hold on, there would be another young voice in the house, a new light in the world, Nathaniel's child and her own. If she lived long enough to raise it up.