A Whisper of Peace (27 page)

Giving herself a little shake, she moved to the bureau Pa had used to store his clothing and picked up the comb Vivian had left for her. She combed her thick hair back from her face and twisted it into a rope that she then formed into a heavy coil. She jabbed pins into the coil until she could tug on it and it didn’t shift. Satisfied her hair was secure, she moved back to the windowsill and checked the corn bread. Steam no longer rose from the mealy bread—she could eat.

But the moment she sat, her hunger fled. She linked her hands in her lap and stared at the empty spaces around the table. Loneliness assailed her with such intensity, tears stung. She closed her eyes, striving to imagine Pa and Mama seated at the table with her. But instead of images of her parents appearing in her mind’s eye, Clay and Vivian Selby emerged. She slapped the tabletop, and the images scooted into the shadows.

“I need to eat,” she told herself, using her firmest voice. She had work to do and must be well nourished. She broke a chunk of bread free of the pan and plopped it on her plate. After slathering the bread with honey, she stabbed her fork into the crumbly chunk and lifted a bite. But she didn’t put it in her mouth. Dropping the fork, she snatched up the plate and headed for the slop bucket to dispose of the corn bread. Just as she tipped the plate, her dogs began to whimper, and then she heard someone call her name.

Jerking upright, Lizzie sought the source of the sound. Etu and Naibi burst into her yard and darted straight for the dog pen. Lizzie set the plate aside and jogged across the ground to meet them. Joy at seeing them battled with worry about them journeying through the woods, unprotected.

She caught their arms, drawing them away from the pen. “Did I not tell you to never come here again?” she scolded in Athabascan.

“You said not to come alone.” Etu pulled his arm free and pointed toward the woods. “Missus Vivian brought us.”

Vivian stepped out of the brush and hurried to join them. Her cheeks were flushed, and her breath came in little puffs. She shook her finger at the children. “Shame on you for running ahead that way,” she scolded the children in English. “You need to stay with me.” She removed a pack from her shoulders and dropped it on the ground beside her feet, then fanned herself with both hands. She sent a weary smile in Lizzie’s direction. “These two are as nimble-footed as a pair of squirrels. I couldn’t keep up with them.”

Lizzie gave the children’s arms a little shake and used English in deference to Vivian. “You listen to Missus Vivian and stay with her from now on.” Sighing, she addressed Vivian. “Their grandmother needs to keep a better watch over them—they’re good children, but she lets them run too wild.”

Naibi’s lower lip poked out. “Vitse . . . her spirit goes. We bury her body.”

Lizzie’s jaw fell. “W-what?”

“You did not come to potlatch.” Etu’s voice held a hint of accusation.

“When?” Lizzie pressed her palms to her aching chest.

Vivian answered quietly. “A week ago.”

“Oh, Etu and Naibi . . .” Memories of her first painful days after her mother’s death returned. Sympathy welled, bringing a rush of tears. Lizzie dropped to her knees and embraced both children. Naibi nestled against Lizzie’s shoulder, but Etu stood stiffly within her encircling arm. “I’m so sorry your vitse is gone.” She looked at Vivian over Naibi’s shoulder. “What happened to her?”

Vivian shrugged, her face sad. “Perhaps she just drifted away, as older people sometimes do. Perhaps the sickness claimed her. We aren’t sure.”

“Sickness?”

Etu pulled loose. He abandoned English for his more familiar Athabascan. “Some people in the village are sick. They cough and get very hot. Mister Clay is worried their spirits will leave, the way Vitse’s did.”

Lizzie’s heart clutched in fear. When she’d seen her grandmother, the woman had been coughing. Might her grandmother die, too? Two conflicting thoughts collided in the center of Lizzie’s mind: If Vitse were gone, the village might finally accept her into their fold. But if Vitse died, her opportunity for restored peace would die with her. For which should she hope?

Chapter Twenty-Three

L
izzie pushed to her feet and forced her lips into a smile her heart didn’t feel. “Children, there is a pan of corn bread and a jug of honey on my table. Would you like some?”

Without hesitation, the pair dashed toward the house.

Vivian watched after them, shaking her head. “They just finished breakfast—flapjacks and fried fish—before we walked over here. They shouldn’t be hungry.” Then her face pursed into a grimace of sympathy. “But I suppose their last weeks with their grandmother, when food was far from plentiful, affected their appetites. They would eat constantly if I let them.”

Lizzie brushed the bits of grass from her knees. A few green smears remained, marring the blue-checked cloth. “The children are staying with you?”

“For now.” Pain flashed briefly in Vivian’s eyes.

“This sickness . . .” Lizzie chose her words carefully. “Have any other villagers succumbed to it?”

“Not yet.” Vivian sighed. “But both Clay and I are concerned. If things don’t improve soon, Clay intends to canoe to Fort Yukon and request assistance from the doctor.”

Lizzie released a soft snort. “No doctor will come to the village.”

“But perhaps he’ll tell Clay how to treat the illness and provide him with some medicine,” Vivian replied.

Lizzie doubted a white doctor would even offer that much help to the villagers, but she didn’t say so.

Vivian drew a deep breath. “Lizzie, while the children are occupied, I need to talk to you about something important.”

A prickle of trepidation wound its way down Lizzie’s spine. She pointed to the garden. “Can you talk while I weed? My plants need attention.”

“You weed and I’ll stitch,” Vivian said. She picked up the bundle she’d dropped and followed Lizzie to the garden plot. Lizzie reached for her hoe, and Vivian seated herself on the grass with her feet tucked to the side. She withdrew several cut pieces of creamy-looking cloth, thread, and a slim silver needle.

Lizzie chop-chopped the ground, one eye on the plants, one eye on Vivian. “What are you making?”

Vivian shot a quick glance toward the cabin before replying. “Your . . . pantaloons. Drawers to wear beneath your dress.” She cleared her throat, zipping the needle in and out of the cloth. “I finished the chemise and petticoats last week. I brought them along for you.”

Lizzie moved forward a few feet and gently hacked at the ground around the squash. “So many items . . . and I must wear them all, every day?”

Vivian set her lips in a stern line and nodded.

“It will take some getting used to. . . .”

“You’ll manage.” Vivian flashed a smile. “When you’re finished here and we go into the cabin, I’ll show you what else I brought you.”

Lizzie raised her eyebrows in silent query, her hands slowing.

“Two beautiful gowns. Even though I’m . . .” For a moment, Vivian seemed to drift away, her eyes clouding. Then she gave herself a little shake. “They will be perfect for you when you go to San Francisco.”

Lizzie paused, two-fisting the hoe and resting her cheek against her knuckles. “You said you had something important to tell me.”

The pain Lizzie had glimpsed earlier returned and then quickly disappeared when Vivian raised her chin and squared her shoulders. She dropped the cloth to her lap and pinned Lizzie with a serious look. “I wanted you to know I will be leaving soon, so our lessons together will come to an end.”

Lizzie blinked in surprise. Her heart seemed to trip within her chest. “You and C-Clay are leaving?”

“Not Clay. Only me.”

Lizzie’s confusion grew. “But I thought you intended to remain in Alaska and help C-Clay.” Embarrassment heated her cheeks. Why couldn’t she speak the man’s name without stammering? She put the hoe to work to cover her blunder.

Vivian lifted the pieces of cloth and returned to stitching, her brow puckered. “My uncle has fallen ill, and my aunt needs my assistance in caring for him. So as soon as the Mission Board that sent Clay and me to Alaska gives approval, I shall depart for Massachusetts.”

Lizzie narrowed her eyes and peered hard at Vivian. “Massachusetts . . . to an aunt and uncle.” She tapped the hoe a couple of times and then said, “You must love them very much to go to them.”

Without pausing in her stitching, Vivian nodded. “I owe them a great deal. They took care of me when my mother sent me away.”

Lizzie froze. Vivian’s words reminded her of Co’Ozhii rejecting Lizzie’s mother and, subsequently, Lizzie. Curiosity overcame her usual reserve. Leaning on the hoe, she asked, “What sin did you commit for your mother to send you away?”

Vivian’s chin quivered. “I . . . I killed my father.”

The hoe fell from Lizzie’s hands.

Cheerful cries intruded, and Etu and Naibi ran from the cabin toward the women. “Missus Lizzie, can we play with the dogs?” Etu asked.

Lizzie picked up the hoe with shaking hands and leaned it on the wire mesh that surrounded her garden. “Not all of them. You wouldn’t be able to control them. But I’ll release Martha for you—she will enjoy a time of play.” The children scampered along beside her as she moved to the dog pen. She smiled in reply to their thanks and patted Martha’s head as if all was well, but underneath, her thoughts churned. Vivian—so sweet and well-mannered and
weak
—had killed her own father? Her feet stumbled on the way back to the garden plot, her limbs stiff in response to the startling revelation.

Vivian met Lizzie’s gaze. “You’re shocked.”

Shocked couldn’t begin to define how Lizzie felt. She picked up the hoe, but she didn’t put it to use. “I would not have taken you for a . . . a murderer.”

Vivian winced. “When Clay stated his intentions to come to Alaska and develop a mission where he would win souls for the Lord, I saw an opportunity to redeem my own soul. I hoped, by working hard, I might absolve myself of the great burden of guilt. Perhaps, had I been given enough time, I might have discovered freedom, but now . . .” Tears flooded the woman’s green eyes. “I can only hope that caring for my uncle will accomplish the same objective and God will accept my efforts as sufficient atonement.”

Lizzie crossed to the edge of the garden. “How did it happen?”

Vivian blinked rapidly and took up the needle again. Her fingers worked busily while she spun a tale of a little girl, a lunch basket, a working man’s errant swing of an axe, a serpent slithering at a child’s feet, and the child running in terror rather than delivering the basket. Vivian finished on a strangled moan. “Had I gone to him, as my mother directed, I could have saved him. The doctor said if help had reached him in time, he would not have bled to death. But help didn’t come because, in cowardice, I ran and hid.”

Lizzie carefully processed the story. Then she left the garden and knelt beside Vivian. She took the woman’s hand between her palms. “You didn’t swing the axe. You didn’t kill him.”

Vivian jerked her hand free, glaring at Lizzie. “I let him die!”

“But you didn’t know he was hurt.” Lizzie frowned, puzzled over Vivian’s stubborn refusal to see the truth. “How could you have known? It’s foolish to blame yourself.”

Vivian stared at Lizzie, her mouth set in a grim line and her eyes wide and angry. “Who else can I blame?”

The children’s laughter drifted across the yard, filling Lizzie’s ears. Despite their recent loss, Etu and Naibi still found reasons for joy. A romp in the sunshine with a tongue-lolling dog, and all was well. If only happiness could be restored so easily to her friend.

She turned her attention back to Vivian. “When I shot Clay, you did not blame me. Why?”

Vivian blinked several times, her brow furrowing. “You didn’t deliberately shoot him. It was an accident.”

“But if he’d died—if I had killed him, even by accident—would you have blamed me?”

For several seconds, Vivian sat in silence. When she spoke, her voice sounded raspy, as if her throat was very dry. “I would have mourned, and I might have struggled to find the ability to forgive you, but knowing it was an accident, I would have forgiven you.”

Lizzie took Vivian’s hand again, squeezing hard. “If you could forgive me, then why can you not forgive yourself?”