All the Truth That's in Me (20 page)

At last I can’t bear it and I go outside. I gather fallen limbs from the woods to replenish the woodpile. The heavy snow brought down plenty of branches. After half an hour of hauling, I’ve rebuilt the pile well, and I let my gathering take me in the direction of your house. Jip and your mule and sheep need tending.

I linger there as long as I dare, in hopes you may return tonight. But at length, the cold and the falling dark chase me home. Perhaps you intend to stay the night at your father’s cabin. I fear that’s unwise, though. Your absence could attract attention.

XLVII.

Back home I open the door and see Rupert Gillis seated at our table, nursing a cup of ale and trying to engage Darrel in conversation. Mother ignores him, of course, and goes about her supper chores. It’s too late for me to pretend I didn’t see him. I go in. Mother’s expression changes.

“Ah! Daughter,” Mother says. Darrel and I both look at her strangely. “Just in from your chores. What a hard worker you are.”

Still in my coat, I sink into a chair, utterly bewildered. “Come, Darrel,” Mother says. “It’s time you took a bit of exercise outdoors. Let me help you to the barn. There’s something there I would show you.”
Darrel protests but Mother drowns him out and propels him toward the door. He meets my gaze.
Don’t leave me!
He has no choice.
The door shuts behind them.
“A tender and beautiful thing, is a mother’s love for her daughter,” Gillis says.
I refuse to look at him.
“Her love makes her hope against all reason that I might become your suitor.”
Suitor indeed.
The silence stretches out like cold molasses.
The schoolmaster moves his chair so he sits directly in front of me. I look at my lap.
“But I imagine you have hopes of another suitor,” he says. “Hopes that are even more absurd than your mother’s hopes for you.”
He bends low so his jeering face is beneath my own. I close my eyes. “Lucas Whiting would never take you for his own.” He laughs. Then he grows serious. “I would make an honest woman out of you. I always did think silence was a womanly virtue.”
My teeth are clenched. I will not look at him.
“My home is comfortable. You should not let foolish hopes deny you your one chance of respectability.”
He waits for me to reconsider. I rise from my seat and stand by the fire with my back toward him.
His breathing is angry now. He rises from his seat and yanks my arm so that I must face him.
“If you think our war hero would ever settle for a used mute, you are a fool.”
His words sting, and my eyes grow wet. Please, dim light, hide me, let me yield nothing to this fiend.
“Not that it matters now. The war hero is soon to fall.” I open my eyes.
There is triumph in his.
“Do you know where he is now? Perhaps he told you he had to race off to find his father’s cabin, before the search party left in a few days.” He laughs more. “Sharing confidences. How quaint. Your fancy lad is a worse fool than you.”
I can’t help it; I look up at him. His spectacled eyes bulge with cruel mirth.
“It was a trap. They let him hear of the expedition to see if he’d go on his own. And when he left this morning, they followed him. By now he’ll have led them right to Colonel Whiting’s hideaway.”
Oh, Lucas! Phantom, lose yourself and Lucas in the woods but do not go to your old home!
Nothing I can do veils the panic in my eyes. Rupert Gillis delights in it. If he couldn’t woo me, he’s had his pleasure wounding me.
He takes a long, noisy gulp of his ale. Mother’s best, which she keeps for company. He smacks his lips.
“No telling what they’ll do to him when they catch him.”
I watch the bubbles in his ale pop.
“Or what they’ve already done to him.”
I hear voices outside, then a noise at the door. Darrel opens it and hobbles inside, Mother at his heels. She paints on a forced smile.
“Care to stay for dinner, Mr. Gillis?” she says.
“Thank you, no,” he says. He sets his mug down on the mantelpiece over the fire. “I’ve stayed too long as it is. Miss Finch.” He bows for my benefit.

XLVIII.

Once more I wait for Mother and Darrel to go to sleep. I dress silently and slip out the door, praying I won’t encounter the intruder who’s been lurking around our house.

I can’t cross the river in the dark, alone. It’s running high from melted snow. If you can take my horse, I will take your mule. I visit our barn on my way and fill my pockets with apples to persuade her to come with me.

I slip a harness over her, lead her into your barnyard, and tether her to a fence post so I can try to mount her. She brays so loud I fear Goody Pruett will wake, never mind Mother. But at length, after several apples and bruises, I’m seated on her back, and I lead her out onto the path toward the river.

The river rushes high, black and bottomless in the moonless night.
She balks at entering the water, as I knew she would.
If I knew she would, why didn’t I form a plan?
I coax. I nudge with my feet and slap her side. She won’t enter the river. I dismount and offer her apples, dangling them out over the water. She can lean farther than I can. In despair I try to push her from behind. She won’t go.
There’s nothing left. I strip off my shoes and all of my clothes and tie them in a bundle on her shoulders. It’s not cold enough to freeze the river, but cold enough to freeze me. The wind that felt so inviting when I left my house is deadly now. And I haven’t even touched the water.
I start with one foot.
Cold! Cold. So cold it’s hot. It burns. I can’t. I can’t.
I pull back and think.
Lucas, Lucas, why didn’t you see this was a trap? Why didn’t I? What was I thinking?
Out there in the wilderness, they might bypass your trial and administer their own justice. An eye for an eye won’t leave you with much.
I grab hold of the mule’s tether rope, feed her my last apple, and plunge into the water.

XLIX.

Suicide. Cold. Pain, pain, never such pain.

Only seconds to go before  .  .  . already I can’t feel my hands.
The mule comes along. Makes no sense. There’s no sense in this cold.
Cold, slimy rocks on the bottom tear my bare feet. The mule follows.
Slick gravel slides beneath me and my head goes under. Cold in my mouth and throat. Too cold for fear.
The mule swims beside me and drags me along, bashing my knees into rocks on the far side. My feet are past feeling but my legs try to stand. I stumble ashore, streaming water and blood.
I collapse on the riverbank, white and naked like the first Io. The mule lies down beside me, drenched with cold water but steaming out heat.

L.

My clothes are dry. A miracle. I scrape water off my frozen skin and pull the clothes on with frigid fingers. I squeeze the water from my hair. I can’t mount the mule now, but it’s just as well. I must move to warm myself. I lead her along through the woods in the dark, and she follows me, placid as a lamb.

I walked this trail the very first night, and he led me as I now lead the mule. I couldn’t bear to look at him for the sight of what was draped over his shoulders. White hands hung down, flapping with each step, and a head bobbed against his back, baring her white and bruised neck.

I’ve made this journey several times now.
Lottie went this way only once.

LI.

Time passes without my knowing. My feet follow the unseen trail, and your mule follows me. It’s dark, but I don’t get lost. My clothes feel wonderfully warm after my naked bath.

Here is the gap. I tether the mule loosely to a tree and slide down the incline that appears, to those who don’t know, to end in a rock face. I feel around until I find the opening, and then I’m through.

A hundred more yards of clawing my way through branches, and I’m at the edge of the clearing of what was to be my home.

I smell wood smoke. I hear movement. I circle around.

Light streams from the window. My window, where I watched the moon.
It takes me a moment to realize what I see where the light falls outside.
Tied to a tree is a man’s limp body.
Yours.

LII.

Years of silence prevent my screaming.

Shadows pass before the window. Men with lit candles, searching the house, low voices reaching through the wooden slats.

I circle around the clearing, taking care never to come into view. Could there be guards? I find none. I creep up behind you and touch your hands, lashed behind you. They’re cold, but not the cold of death. They twitch.

Thank heaven. I lean against the tree for a moment. You’re sagging against the ropes that bind you to the tree trunk. You wear no coat. Why didn’t I bring a knife? I tear at the knots.
“Who’s there?”
I kiss your hand.
“Judith?” You sound weak. “What are you doing here?”
I creep around the tree to look you in the eye. You look terrible. Your face is bruised, one eyebrow swollen, and your clothes are torn in several places, showing scraped limbs underneath. You shiver in the cold air.
“Watch out, they’ll see you. The window.”
One look tells me you’re freezing to death. With flat hands I rub your body in fast circles. You shudder at my touch. It hurts you.
“They’ll see you!” This time there’s no ignoring your urgency. I go back behind the tree to loosen your knots.
“Did they beatt you?”
You almost laugh. “I didn’t want to be captured, but Horace Bron had different ideas.”
Horace Bron is a mountain of a man. “You’re lucky you’re alive.”
“Judith, I should have suspected. They followed me. I came into the house, and they ambushed me.”
I can picture this too clearly. “I know.”
Your voice breaks. “You knew?”
I come back around the tree to face you. How could you doubt me so? “Gillis came over tonightt to gloatt.”
“Gillis!” You spit. “He was the one who told me ‘the secret.’”
“Shhh,” I warn, for your voice is rising. These knots are stubborn, and in the dark I have little success. You twist and struggle against your bonds, as if now that I’m here they’ll yield.
This never should have happened! “I
told
you there was nothing here to worry aboutt.”
The moon breaks through a gap in the clouds. I see it through the same trees that I watched for two years.
Enough of this. You’re already suffering enough without me proving I was right.
“Where’s Phanttom?”
“Loose. She ran off, and they haven’t found her.” One thing to be glad about.
“Judith,” you tell me, “don’t untie me. Find Phantom and go home.”
I didn’t come this far for Phantom.
“They’ll kill you,” I whisper. “I’m nott going.”
“They won’t kill me. They’re bringing me back to town tomorrow for a public hearing.”
“How can you be shhure?”
“I heard them talking. William Salt says he’s found something of Lottie’s that proves my father killed her.”
What?
What kind of thing?
I remember Lottie dying. I picture it once more. I feel like I’ve jumped back into the river.
I think carefully about what I’m about to say. “He didn’t kill Lottie, Lucass.”
Do you believe me? I peer around the tree trunk for a glimpse of your face. Your eyes are shut. You look like you’re praying. Tied to a tree, you look like Jesus on the cross in Bible pictures.
“Then who did kill her?” I can barely hear you.
Now I know you won’t believe me. “I don’t know.”
The awful silence stretches on.
I can no longer see shadows moving before the window. The candle’s light snuffs out. Are they going to sleep and leaving you here? I wonder why there are no guards out here watching you, but these impenetrable knots are reason enough.
“Judith,” you say softly, “if I could escape these ropes, and I asked you to come away with me, ride on Phantom and set out west, tonight, would you come?”
The darkness makes me bold. I abandon the knots and stand inches before you.
“And if we weren’tt running away?” I ask. “Would you have me for your wife in Roswell Station?”
You lean your face forward. Your nose touches mine. It’s cold.
“I would,” you say, “but let’s not.”
I press myself against you and hope warmth from me can find you.

LIII.

You caress my cheek against yours. “Be my wife, Judith,” you say. “Please say you will.”This place. That word.

I peel myself away. “Let’ss gett you untied. You’re no good to me thiss way.”
I attack the knots. I’m ready to bite them.
Your wife.
“Ssh!”
You hiss through your lips. There’s a sound at the door.
“Go!” you whisper.
I can’t leave you!
I can’t help you if I’m caught.
The door opens, and I hear heavy footsteps. Under the cover of their noise I scurry back into the darkness. The footsteps stop.
“Ho there!” It’s the voice of William Salt, the miller. I abandon stealth and run.
Crashing footsteps follow me. Stinging nettles and branches lash my face. My eyes water. The cold air makes my chest ache.
I twist my ankle on a tree root. Still I run. The moon retreats and the darkness is choking. I’ve lost all sense of where I am. The footsteps draw closer. Back in the distance I hear shouts. The other men, I suppose. My body can’t go any faster, my ankle throbs with each step.
I stop.
And so does my pursuer.
He can’t find me without my movements to follow. I can’t still my breath after such a mad race.
More rumblings in the distance of shouting voices near the house. Orange light begins to shine through the trees. Could they have built a bonfire so quickly?
The flames rise higher.
William Salt turns back and wades through the undergrowth toward the fire.
That’s no bonfire. They’re burning the colonel’s house.
At least you’ll be warm.
My body, damp with sweat, begins to chill in the night air. Now I can hear the crackling of the burning house.
Burning house.
Gunpowder.
What if it wasn’t all removed from the cellar?

LIV.

They must have removed it. They must. Or there would have been an explosion by now. One that would dwarf the exploding homelander ships. No, in their search they must have found and removed it. They wouldn’t go to this trouble to recover their arsenal only to burn it now.Phantom appears and nuzzles my ear. Good girl.

I’m desperate to think of a way to rescue you. But how, with everyone on alert?
I try to climb up on Phantom. She bends herself down, and with the help of a low-hung tree limb, I climb onto her back.
I can’t rescue you now. I surrender you to the men for tonight.
I pat Phantom’s neck. Take me home, girl, I think. She doesn’t need to hear me say it. She turns toward the burning house and sniffs the air, then sets off in the other direction, toward the shale slope. I twine my fingers through her mane and rest my head against her neck.