Into the Wilderness (121 page)

Nathaniel
stood for a long time, listening to the winds. He thought of Elizabeth, who
trusted him to do what was right. He looked into his own heart and knew he had
done just that, and no less. For his family, for himself. When the rush of his
blood had calmed enough, he went into the cave and collected the gold coins.
Then Nathaniel started down the mountainside to put them back where they
belonged, and to collect Billy Kirby's body.

In
the next few days, Elizabeth found herself unwilling to leave home, even in the
face of visits which could hardly be put off. Her father was not coping as well
as she had hoped; there were Kitty and her new baby to look in on, and her
schoolchildren seemed to seek her out at every opportunity as if they could not
quite believe that she would still be in evidence if the schoolhouse was not.
Determined to spend the day at home in spite of all of that,
Elizabeth
first took up some mending and
spent all her time retrieving her needle, or nursing a stuck finger. Finally
she resolved to make a list of those books and supplies which had survived the
fire. She assembled paper and quill and ink, and found that even the quill felt
awkward in her hand.

"You've
been to the window five times in a half hour Many-Doves said. She spoke
Kahnyen’keháka in front of Liam, a sign of her distraction and irritability.

Runs-from-Bears
had left for
Albany
four days ago;
Elizabeth
could not
imagine what was keeping him so long. If Bears did not come back today
Nathaniel would go off after him, an idea which did not bear long
consideration.

Elizabeth
watched Hannah for a moment. The little girl was coping better than the rest of
them were with the aftermath of the fire, perhaps because she had taken on Liam
as her personal responsibility. When she was not reading to him, or helping him
read, she pressed him into service of all kinds.

Immobilized
by a broken leg, Liam had spent the morning mending a harness for Nathaniel;
now he watched closely as Hannah demonstrated how to braid corn for drying. She
picked up the sharpened deer antler attached to a rawhide loop that slipped
over her middle finger, and slit the husk. Then she removed all but four good
strands, which she plaited into the string of cobs which trailed off Liam's
lap. They had already finished two longish braids, which Hannah had hung over
the rafters by climbing the ladder Nathaniel had raised in the middle of the
room. Liam would have climbed that ladder if she had asked him;
Elizabeth
had no doubt
that he would climb up on the roof, at Hannah's request. He would do whatever
he had to do to prove his worth to the household, and to earn his place.

There
was a hollowness to the boy's cheek, and a kind of damp—eyed distraction that
Elizabeth
understood very
well: she too was constantly finding herself caught between sorrow and anger at
a brother who was suddenly and absolutely beyond redemption.

She
forced her attention back to her list, a melancholy business. Most of the books
she had here were not suitable for the children, and all the other materials,
from quills to hornbooks, had been lost. On a fresh sheet of paper she began a
letter to Mr. Beekman, the merchant who had been so helpful in
Albany
. At least there were funds enough to
replace what had been lost. When she looked up again it was time to start to
cook, and Nathaniel was coming up the porch stair, and not alone.

Many-Doves
let her sewing drop to her lap, her whole body trembling. By the time
Runs-from-Bears came through the door, she had already taken it up again and
her expression was calm, although her eyes sparked when she looked up to greet
him.
Elizabeth
looked away, not wanting to intrude.

Nathaniel
dropped down on one knee next to her chair, and rubbed his cheek on her
shoulder.

"All's
well."

She
raised a brow, and he nodded. "No sign of Richard in Albany, and van der
Poole was as good as his word. The suit's been dropped."

Carefully,
Elizabeth
put
down her quill, and then she turned to him and placed her hands on his
shoulders."Are you sure?"

"Bears?"
Nathaniel asked, not taking his eyes away from her.

Runs-from-Bears
came across the room, pulling some papers from inside his shirt.

"The
judge sent this along, said you should put it in a safe place. And there's a
letter from Mrs. Schuyler there, too."

"It
is over, then?"
Elizabeth
asked, because she could not quite grasp it.

"Looks
that way," Nathaniel agreed.

"Well,
then," Elizabeth said, turning to Bears. "What took you so very long?
We were concerned."

"Your
aunt Merriweather," said Bears. "She ain't exactly a fast
traveler."

"Who?"
asked Liam, looking up from his work.

"Aunt
Merriweather!" answered Hannah for Elizabeth, unable to hide her
excitement. "From England, and cousin Amanda."

"And
the husband, too. Spencer." He had found a basket of corncake, and he
paused to swallow. "But Mrs. Schuyler talked them into leaving the
servants behind in
Albany
."

"At
least there's that,"
Elizabeth
said. Nathaniel's keen eyes were on her. There was a wondering there, questions
unasked.

"Bears
told them about Julian," he said. "And Kitty, and the rest of
it."

Elizabeth
pushed out a large sigh of relief. "Where are they?"

"At
the judge's."

"Well,
then, let's go!" Hannah said, in a businesslike way. "She'll want to
see you right away."

"Certainly
not," said Elizabeth firmly. "They've traveled all day, and she'll
want her tea and her bed. Tomorrow is soon enough. Now if you'll pardon
me." Without another look at Nathaniel, she picked up her shawl and left
them.

* * *

Bears
found her an hour later, where she sat on a beech stump that overlooked the
waterfall and the cabins. It had become a favorite place for her since she
moved to Lake in the Clouds; the rushing of the water was soothing, and
everything she held dear in the world was within view. Soon there would be snow
and this spot would be lost to her until spring. Falling—Day was predicting a
hard winter from the way the corn husks had grown in a tight swirl, and the
thickness of the muskrat shelters.
Elizabeth
pulled her shawl more closely around her shoulders against the chill.

She
knew that she should go down and cook, too, but she also knew that no one would
mind if she did not; Falling—Day would have enough red corn soup for all of
them. Nathaniel was in the barn, skinning a deer. She caught sight of him, now
and then, looking in her direction. They all knew where she was; they were all
content to leave her this time on her own. All except Runs-from-Bears.

She
watched him coming in her direction, and tried to set her face in a welcoming
smile. He hunkered down, his hands draped casually over his knees, and watched
with her.

"Things
are simpler in the bush," Elizabeth said after a while. When he had
nothing to add to this observation, she picked up a stick from the ground and
began to break pieces off it, until she could put off the question no longer.

"Sennonhtonnnon'?"
What are you thinking?

Runs-from-Bears
said: "You are one of the bravest women I have ever known. But you sit
here shivering in fear of
akok-stenha
."

Elizabeth
flung the stick at him and it caught in his hair. "I hope you did not call
her an old woman to her face. And you should understand," she said. "You
just spent three days in her company." Then her voice caught, hoarse with
tears, and she pressed her hands to her eyes. "How will I explain? How can
I ever explain?"

Bears
pulled the stick from his hair, and dropped it. "She does not hold you responsible
for what happened to Julian. He made his own way."

Her
head jerked up, and she saw his expression: firm, and without pity.

"She
has a younger brother, too, and he has been a disappointment to her. Maybe she
knows more of what is in your heart than you imagine."

Surprised
out of her anxiety, Elizabeth examined his expression closely. "My aunt
has been very frank with you. She must have wanted some information."

Bears
produced a grin. "Quid pro quo."

"I
cannot imagine what news she might have of interest to you, Bears."

He
said, "Your aunt has had an adventure or two of her own. They came to New—
York
by way of
Montreal
.
Where she made the acquaintance of Richard Todd."

Elizabeth
heard what he had said; she heard him repeat it. But she still could not quite
credit what he told her. Richard Todd was in Montreal; her aunt Merriweather
had had opportunity to meet and talk with him. There was a hollow feeling in
Elizabeth's stomach when she thought of the lies that Richard had probably
told, made only slightly less by the knowledge that aunt Merriweather had spent
the days after Montreal with the Schuylers; from them she would have heard
something more of the truth. It was almost funny: she had first dreaded having
to make her visitors acquainted with all that had happened here in
Paradise
in the past few weeks, and now her aunt seemed
to be in possession of that information, and more. More than Elizabeth herself
knew, or wanted anyone to know.

"She
asks more questions than you do, Looks—Hard."

Suddenly
resigned, Elizabeth wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and squared her
shoulders. "Perhaps it would be best to see her this evening, after
all."

Bears
rose, and offered her a hand up. "Tkayeri," he said.
It is proper so."

* * *

Elizabeth,
Nathaniel, and Hannah arrived at the judge's door just after dark, to find the
house in great turmoil. Instead of the normal lamplight, beeswax candles blazed
in all the downstairs rooms. The hall was crowded with luggage and boxes which
Manny was busily sorting away, but there was no sign of the visitors or of the
judge. Polly appeared with her arms full of bedding in the doorway of the
study. It seemed that they were in the process of moving Kitty and her son into
the house, and the study was to be converted into a nursery. Nathaniel saw by
the look on
Elizabeth
's
face that she was not at all surprised at this. In fact, she was barely able to
suppress a smile.

"It
looks like aunt Merriweather's planning on moving in herself," Nathaniel
noted, stepping over a tea chest inlaid with mother—of—pearl.

"Oh
no," Elizabeth said. "Perhaps there is luggage here for a week,
certainly not more than two. She did not bring a cat with her?" This last
question was directed to Polly, who confirmed that there was no cat in the
traveling party. Elizabeth nodded, satisfied. "Without Aphrodite she will
not stay for more than a week or ten days."

"Should
we go help?" asked Hannah, trying hard to curb her curiosity about a large
trunk marked "Library."

"Absolutely
not," Elizabeth said. "She'll have everyone jumping as it is. We'll
sit here, and wait."

Nathaniel
moved a stack of hatboxes and she made a place for herself near the hearth.
Hannah managed to find the bookshelf and settled down in a corner. Nathaniel
took
Elizabeth
's
hand, icy cold, and rubbed it between his own. There was a jumpiness in her
that was foreign to him, but he had observed that even a woman as unflappable
as Falling—Day could be brought out of her calm when she believed her mother or
an older aunt to be close by.

The
wagon pulled up, and in almost no time at all, Aunt Merriweather appeared at
the door. Nathaniel saw straight off that she was the kind of woman who made
the wind move with her. She was tall, with a back as straight as a sword and a
set to her shoulders that would have suited a general. In her arms was a bundle
which Nathaniel supposed held Kitty's child. She handed it over to Curiosity
without hesitation, and then crossed the room in a great crackle of skirts and
capes, all in black. "Elizabeth, my dear," she said, holding out her
hands. "Come and kiss me. I suppose this is your husband? I am so very
pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Bonner. Such good reports I have had of
you, I wonder if they could all possibly be true? And your Hannah. Come closer,
child, and let me look at you. Your uncle Runs-from-Bears told me all about
you—somewhere in my things I have something which might interest you.
Curiosity, would tea be too much? You must tell me if I am being too
demanding—I am only a visitor, and I have no wish to disrupt your household.
Sit here, Elizabeth, where I can examine you. Whatever are you wearing on your
feet? Could we find paper and ink, do you imagine? I need your assistance at
once, we must construct a list. I find your father—most excellent man, but a
man ill prepared to take on the task of raising his grandson. We must find the
good even in the saddest of fates, must we not,
Elizabeth
? Have you seen your nephew today? I
arrive to find that he has already been christened
Ethan
, imagine. The image of your poor brother, I would say. Kitty,
you should not be out of bed, but I suppose you might come and sit with us for
a few moments. This is your affair, after all."