Into the Wilderness (115 page)

Nathaniel
cleared his throat. "Well, that's good to hear," he said, his hand
moving to the small of Elizabeth's back as if to keep her from running away. "Because
she'll gain a sight more before she's done. There's a child on the way, I guess
you didn't realize."

The
deep flush on her father's face might have been embarrassment, or dismay, or
joy; Julian's reaction was less ambivalent. With one piercing look at
Nathaniel, he turned and walked away.

* * *

An
hour before the recital was set to begin, Dolly, Hannah, and the Glove sisters
were arranging food while Elizabeth hung garlands of the last of the summer
asters. Excitement and silliness were running very high, and she was beginning
to worry about the boys, who had been sent to fetch more cups and should have
long been back from this errand.

Anna
arrived with doughnuts and the distressing news that the wedding party had
broken up and was drifting resolutely in the direction of the schoolhouse.

"Folks
been waiting months to see the inside of this place," she said, taking the
garland out of Elizabeth's hands and climbing up on a chair in a businesslike
fashion. "Couldn't wait anymore. Anyway, you want the men with another
hour's worth of rum in their bellies? Let me do this, you got other things to
attend to, I fear. I just saw that son of mine running away from the Necessary
with the McGarrity boys."

It
turned out to be good advice:
Elizabeth
found Jemima Southern in the outhouse with a board wedged up under the handle.
To her surprise, the child was perfectly calm when she finally emerged.

"I
knew you'd find me," she said. And then with a forward thrust of her chin:
"They don't like my singing, but I'm going to sing anyway."

"The
boys are just overexcited, Jemima. You have a beautiful voice, whether or not
they will admit it."
Elizabeth
could meet her eye calmly, and because this was the truth.

The
child's sharp gaze swept across Elizabeth's face. "You would let me sing,
even if I croaked like a toad."

A
small laugh escaped Elizabeth. "If it were important to you, perhaps I would.
But more likely I would try to convince you to recite some poetry."

"My
pa liked me to sing to him," Jemima said. ""Barbry Allen' was
his favorite of all." With an air of desperation, the child said:
"You didn't like my pa, and he didn't like you."

There
was a lot of noise from inside the schoolhouse, laughter and a little girl's
voice raised in protest, but Elizabeth tried to focus on the small pale face in
front of her. "Jemima. Whatever the lack of understanding between your
father and me, I am very glad to have you in my classroom. Don't scowl, it
doesn't suit you. I will admit that you and I sometimes do not see eye to eye,
but I am glad to have you here. And I am glad that you are going to sing. You
will do the school great credit. Now, shall we get ready for our guests?"

Ruth
Glove's small, sleek head appeared at a window, her eyes round with delight and
delicious anxiety, her mouth rimmed with crumbs. "Jemima!" she cried.
"Come see our doughnut tower!"

With
a grumble that did not quite hide how pleased she was to be a part of the high
spirits, Jemima ran up the steps and into the classroom.
Elizabeth
hung back for a moment, content to
let Anna cope while she took this last chance to gather her thoughts.

The
late afternoon was clear, the air as cool and crisp as apples. A flock of geese
passed over the lake, silent as the clouds above forests of flame and deep
green. She wondered if they regretted leaving the world below them behind as
they hurried south, to places less colorful but warmer.

Nathaniel
was on the path now; she caught sight of him once, twice, and then he came out
of the woods just above the schoolhouse. He was leading the bay gelding, loaded
with the things she had sent him for: more candles, in case the recital ran
past dark; the corn bread and apple crumble that Falling—Day had made for the
party; and the packages Elizabeth had so carefully wrapped late last night, her
gifts to her students for their work over the summer.

Elizabeth
was
struck forcefully by the sight of him, coming toward her. It still seemed
improbable, that she should have arrived at such a place in her life. She
wondered what the world would be like without him in it, and found she did not
want to know.

* * *

Nathaniel
had just begun to believe that maybe they would get through the whole recital
without trouble when the first rumbles made themselves heard.

The
crowd's attention was fixed on Ian McGarrity as he fought his way through
"John Barleycorn."
Elizabeth
stood off to one side with her arms folded, ready to prompt him, but the crowd
had done her out of the job, and with good spirits. There was not one man or
woman in the crowded room who hadn't learned the poem as a child, and didn't
mind the chance to prove the fact by helping out Ian.

Elizabeth
looked as happy as he had ever seen her; perhaps it was some of that, and her
quiet energy, that was wearing off on the crowd. Even those who had kept their
children away from the school in the summer after she had run off with him were
scooting farther forward with every new piece, as if they would like to be up
in front of the room and reciting.

But
there was noise outside, and it was more than raccoons after the corn. Nathaniel
didn't have to take roll call to figure out who was responsible. Most of
Paradise had managed to squeeze in, even the troublemakers: Liam Kirby right up
front, his face still shadowed with fading bruises. Dubonnet, with his son
sitting on his lap, directing the musical proceedings with a well—gnawed
popcorn ball. The Camerons, drunk enough to sing along on "Yankee
Doodle." The judge sat well to the back with Witherspoon, both of them
slightly blurry—eyed but attentive. It would be all they could do to keep
Witherspoon from reciting the bit of Greek poetry he called his own; the judge
was sure to offer a story or two of his own adventures.

Missing
were Julian and Billy Kirby, and some of the trappers who had been hanging
around the tavern lately, but they weren't far off.

Ian
finished with a grin and a flourish:

John Barleycorn was a hero bold

Of noble enterprise

and if you but once taste his blood

It will make your courage rise!

Elizabeth
was the last person in the world to look for courage in a bottle of whisky, or
to promote such an idea, but she had allowed Ian this poem. It was a surprising
but wise thing to do, and Nathaniel found himself admiring her tactical skills,
once again. Latin or French poetry would have shown off her students' skills,
but earned her no marks with the men of the village; John Barleycorn," on
the other hand, they could much appreciate. But it had also sent many of them
back to the ale barrel, which was certainly not what she had in mind.

From
his spot near a window, Nathaniel caught a flash of blue disappearing around
the corner. Reflexively, he touched his rifle. He should go out there, put a
stop to whatever trouble was brewing before it got out of hand. But it was
Hannah's turn, and the sight of her so grown—up and pretty was hard to turn
away from.

She
took her place in front of the room and curtsied, completely at ease. Nathaniel
didn't recognize the dress she was wearing, pale yellow with ribbons in her
hair to match. It made the copper of her skin shine, her plaits stand out
glossy black. She looked more like her mother with every passing year. On his
deathbed, Chingachgook had called Hannah "Little—Bird," the name
Sarah had gone by as a child. But there was a solidness in Hannah that Sarah
had never had, something she had more in common with her mother's sister, and
her grandmother.

Many-Doves
and Falling—Day were sitting in the second row, off to one side. Their whole
attention was fixed on Hannah.

A
hooting laughter from outside, closer this time. Jed McGarrity caught
Nathaniel's eye and raised a brow.

There
was no help for it. Nathaniel cast a regretful look at his daughter, and
slipped out the door with Jed and Axel right behind him.

* * *

The
schoolhouse windows stood wide open in spite of the cool evening air, so that
the building seemed to bulge and pulse with all the life inside it. As they
walked away Nathaniel was aware of Hannah's voice, clear and strong. There was
a hint of Falling—Day's rhythms in her tone now: a gift she had inherited from
his own mother, the ability to take on voices that were not her own. She had
insisted on a Kahnyen’keháka story, and
Elizabeth
had not tried to dissuade her. Nathaniel followed along with one part of his
mind as he made his way past the outhouse to a stand of evergreen just behind
it.

"Brother Fox saw a woman with a
cart filled with fish, and as he was always both hungry and lazy, he thought up
a good trick. Pretending to be dead, Fox lay down on the path so that the woman
would pass him. The woman saw the fox and thought that she should have his good
pelt, and so she picked him up and put him in her cart with her fish. Behind
the woman's back, Fox emptied the cart of the fish and crept away
himself."

"Later, Brother Fox met with Wolf
and told him of this very good trick."

There
was laughter from the shadows, and a wolflike howl.

"Get
a good hold on your temper, Nathaniel," Axel said softly. ""Cause
they'll do their best to get it away from you."

In
the schoolhouse, the barest hint of a pause and then Hannah's voice carried on:

"But the woman was not so dumb, and
having found out what foolery had been played on her, she understood the wolf's
game as soon as she saw him lying in her path. For his trouble, Brother wolf
received a good beating instead
of a fish dinner."

"Look,
Middleton, we got company." Billy Kirby straightened up out of the
shadows. He had been drunker before, but not by much. With him a trapper, the
nameless kind who came into the village to drink and bother women who would
never have any interest in him. The stench of liquor and sweat hung around him
like a cloud of black fly

Behind
Nathaniel, Jed drew a disgusted sigh and let it go with a rush.

"Middleton!"
brawled Billy, half turning. "He was there a minute ago," he said,
his face creased in confusion.

"You
could use a place to lie down, Billy." Axel scratched his beard
thoughtfully. "Why don't you head on home?"

"You
ordering him off this place?" asked the trapper, peering up from his spot
on the ground owlishly. "He's the sheriff, you can't order him around like
that."

"That's
true enough, Gordon," said Axel with a soft laugh. "I can't order a
man off land that don't belong to me. That would be up to Nathaniel here. Me,
now I could tell you to stay out of my tavern if I was riled enough."

The
trapper held up a hand in surrender, and then pulled himself to his feet to
shamble off into the woods in the direction of the village.

Billy
wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and considered them from under half—raised
lids.

"Came
to fetch my brother home," he said. "He don't belong in there with
that woman and her brats." Billy glanced uncertainly around himself, and
then jerked with his chin toward the schoolhouse and the sound of Hannah's
voice. "I don't want him hearing none of that Mohawk nonsense."

Axel
moved forward another step, and Jed came up on the outer flank.

"We'll
send him home for you," Axel said easily. "You go on ahead now, while
you're still healthy."

Billy's
face clouded with doubt, and then cleared suddenly. "Maybe I'll just come
on in and join the party. Tell a few Mohawk stories of my own."

"There's
children in there," Jed said. "They ain't doing you any harm, Kirby.
Let them get on with their party in peace, why don't you?"

Billy
flushed, the color moving up from his collar to mottle on his neck and jowls. "There
won't be any peace in Paradise until things is settled," he said. His gaze
flickered toward Nathaniel and away again. "Until we run you squatters out
and get the mountain back. You got the gold, don't you? Think you can buy your
way clear. Well, you can't. O'Brien will find it and take it away from you, and
then we'll get the mountain back."

There
was a scab high on Billy's cheekbone, a relic of the last beating Nathaniel had
given him. Nathaniel fixed on that, and tested the weight of the rifle in his
hands. Hannah's voice came into the silence:

"Next Brother Fox met Bear, who also
wanted fish. Fox told him: "Down at the river there is an air hole in the
ice. Put your tail down in to it as I did and you can pull up as many fish as
you can eat.