Into the Wilderness (126 page)

He
narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm going," he said. "But if you
folks got nothing to hide, then there's no reason to be so closemouthed."

"My
husband has spoken to you at length."

"He'd
make a good poker player. Don't give anything away."

"There
is nothing to give away, as you put it."

"I
don't know," he said slowly, looking around himself. "It's curious.
You see this musket of mine? I had her thirty year—she went through the war
with me. A fine gun, but wouldn't I like to have one of them expensive new
rifles? You know I would. Like your man carries, and that big buck, too. The
thing is, I ain't never come across Indians better outfitted, even the ones
running furs out of
Canada
.
Curious, like I said. Glass in the windows, there. And somebody's been burning
wax candles."

Elizabeth
forced herself to produce a grim smile. "What you see is nothing more than
the fact that my husband married well. That is not a criminal offense, or even
one to raise the interest of the treasury, as far as I understand it.
Now," she said firmly. "I suggest that you leave before he finds you
here and throws you out."

"I'm
going." O'Brien threw up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Don't
want to give Bonner an excuse to toss another man off this mountain."

Liam's
color came up in a rush.
Elizabeth
put a hand on his shoulder and pressed.

"He's
going now," she said softly. "Steady on."

At
the door, O'Brien pulled on his cap. "I'm heading home to Albany, but I'll
be back in the spring if that gold hasn't showed up in the meantime."

"Pray
do what you must," Elizabeth said tightly. "And so shall we."

* * *

After
a simple meal of stewed beans and squash, when the chores had been seen to,
Elizabeth sat down to read aloud in the hope that it would calm them all after
an eventful and emotional day. Falling—Day and Many-Doves joined them, bringing
along the last of the corn for shucking and braiding.

Aunt
Merriweather had brought
Elizabeth
a great many books, but when she suggested them one by one there was no
particular excitement in the room.

"
Hamlet
," suggested Liam.

"Again?
But we just finished it."

Falling—Day
agreed with Liam. "It is not often we have tales of O'seronni
ghosts."

Many-Doves
and Hannah were quite willing to hear the same story again—Elizabeth thought
that perhaps they could listen to it many times without tiring——and so she
settled down near the hearth and began to read by the bright light of a pine
knot, always with one ear turned toward the porch. Nathaniel and
Runs-from-Bears had gone out to check trap lines and they had taken Will
Spencer with them.

Full
dark, and inside the cabin there was only the sound of the wood hissing softly
in the hearth and the gentle crackling of corn husks.
Elizabeth
read the conversation between
Hamlet and his father's ghost, and hands slowed at their work as they were
caught up in the familiar story.

There
was a step at the door.
Elizabeth
put down the book while her heart picked up an extra beat. It seemed to her, as
it always did, that the men brought the forests in with them: the quiet room
was transformed suddenly by the mere fact of their size, and the energy with
which they moved. Everyone was up: there were traps to be put aside for
cleaning and repair, a brace of fat snow geese and one of grouse to be hung,
bowls of stew and rounds of corn bread to be provided, dry moccasins to fetch,
damp heads to be toweled.

Will
Spencer looked truly relaxed for the first time since he had come to
Paradise
, and let himself be drawn into the normal flow
of things without protest. While they ate, Nathaniel and Runs-from-Bears told
of their day, and the things they had seen: a moose in rut; at dusk, a flock of
ravens at roost that numbered in the hundreds; a single gyrfalcon on the cliffs
above the falls. Falling—Day drew in air between her teeth at this last bit of
information.

"Winter
pushing hard from the north," was her explanation of such a rare sight.

"How
was tea with your aunt?" Nathaniel asked
Elizabeth
, looking up from his bowl.

"Eventful,"
Elizabeth
said.
And seeing Hannah ready to tell all, from Kitty's story to what had passed with
O'Brien, she said: "We have been reading this evening."

"Oh?"
said Will. "Do you read aloud, then?"

Hannah
brought him the worn volume, and he looked around the table with an expression
of mild surprise.

"What
do you think of the Danish prince?"

This
question had been directed at Many-Doves , who sat to the side with her lap
full of corncobs.

"Revenge
is a bitter meal," Many-Doves said, without looking up from her work. "It
is not one to linger over."

"He
takes too long to get down to business," agreed Liam.

Falling—Day
said: "He is like most of the O'seronni I have known."

"And
how is that?" Will asked, looking distinctly unsettled.

"He
thinks when he should act, and acts when he should think."

No
one laughed at this, because Falling—Day did not mean it to be funny.

* * *

Nathaniel
left a short time later with Will to show him the way down the mountainside to
the judge's, and the rest of them returned to their work. Runs-from-Bears
stretched expansively, working the muscles between his shoulders.

"How
was Will in the forest?"
Elizabeth
asked, too curious to wait for Nathaniel's opinion.

"He
moves like a cat," said Bears. "He knows how to listen."

"Ah,"
Elizabeth said, pleased with this, the highest of praise from Runs-from-Bears. "Nathaniel
thinks him strange."

"Oh,
he is strange," said Bears. "For an O'seronni."

Falling—Day
said: "There is more than one kind of man in the world."

"And
what kind of man is Will Spencer?" asked
Elizabeth
, intrigued.

"A
rich one," said Liam.

"That
is not what my grandmother means," Hannah chided him softly, and Liam
dropped his gaze to the corn in his great red—raw hands.

"He
is a dreamer," said Many-Doves for her mother. "He lives in other
worlds and comes into this one only when he has some purpose to serve."

Falling—Day
nodded. "Among the Kahnyen’keháka he would become shaman, if he survived
at all."

* * *

Nathaniel
walked Will Spencer as far as the village, and agreed to have a drink with him
in the tavern. Axel had been dozing near the hearth while his customers served
themselves, but he roused himself when he heard Nathaniel's voice.

"There's
a rumor," he said, pouring their ale.

"There
always is," Nathaniel agreed. "Do you mean the one about Todd heading
back this way?"

Axel's
teeth flashed in the lamplight. "I should have known it'd be no surprise
to you, Nathaniel. His servant brought word down to Anna today, said she needed
to get things in order for him. So it's true he's been up in
Montreal
all this time?"

"Actually,
it was I who carried the message to his household staff." Will
volunteered. "Dr. Todd was staying with a Mr. McTavish, in
Montreal
. A
merchant."

Charlie
LeBlanc turned from the drafts board. "The McTavish who started up the
North West Company? By God, I'd like to make his acquaintance. There's a
fortune to be made up in those parts."

"Which
is exactly why Todd is spending time with him," suggested John Glove,
chewing thoughtfully on his pipe. "He's got a keen eye for the right
connection."

"Maybe
Todd will move up that way, permanent. Leave us without a doctor." This
from Ben Cameron, the brother—in—law of Asa Pierce.

Axel
scratched his head thoughtfully. "Well, we done fine without him all
summer. Those that passed on he couldn't have helped much, anyway."

There
was a silence as they thought of the men they had buried in the past few
months, Billy Kirby the most recent.

"We've
had a bloody season, all right," said Axel. "Lost our heads, some of
us. In more ways than one."

Nathaniel
said: "Here's to a peaceful winter."

When
they had raised their glasses together, Axel went off to see about a new keg,
and the other men turned back to a game of draughts.

"At
first I wondered what could possibly keep
Elizabeth
so far from civilization," Will Spencer said to Nathaniel. It was the
longest sentence he had had from him all day, and the most curious. Will would
not meet Nathaniel's eye, his gaze roaming instead over the room.

"I
thought she might be disappointed in her plans to teach school. But this is a
good place for her," he went on. "She always wanted adventure in her
life."

"She's
got more than enough of that," Nathaniel said. "Too much,
maybe."

"You
are a fortunate man, said Will Spencer.

On
their way out, it occurred to Nathaniel that Spencer had made a confession of
sorts, and that he would probably never hear such a personal statement again
from him, should he see him every day for the rest of his life. The fact that
he was setting off tomorrow loosened Nathaniel's tongue.

"In
this part of the world, we think highly of men who know how to keep their
peace," Nathaniel said to him as they stood in the small circle of lantern
light at the door. "But you got most of them beat. I'll tell you, Spencer,
I've got no idea what goes on in that head of yours. At first I thought you had
a hole inside you, but now I'm wondering if it isn't just the eye of the storm."

That
much earned him a flicker of a smile, and flash from the mild eyes. "Elizabeth's
imagination has found its equal," he said. "You see before you a rich
man of little use to the world. Nothing more."

"Nothing
more," Nathaniel echoed, laughing softly. It was their last exchange of
the evening.

While
Nathaniel was gone to Albany to see aunt Merriweather settled in for another
visit with the Schuylers, the winter seemed to give up its purpose and fall
back. They were thrust into inordinately warm days: suddenly it was possible
again to sit on the porch without a shawl, and to go bare—legged to fetch
water. The sun shone on the harvested fields where crows hitched and hobbled
after the overlooked kernel of corn. A flock of snow geese on their way south
for the winter settled on Half Moon Lake as if the lack of cold stole from them
their ability to fly, sending the villagers running for their muskets.

Runs-from-Bears
took an immense bear already settled in for the winter, and there were days of
rendering fat and storing it in lengths of washed and knotted deer intestines.
The smells were so strong that
Elizabeth
found it hard to hide her reaction, and she was waved off, as she had been sent
away during the setting of soap.

"Sooner
or later I shall have to learn to do this, too," she said to Many-Doves ,
who only laughed at her.

"Why?"
she asked. "Why should you do work that you were not raised to do, when we
are here to do it?"

"Because
I must do my share,"
Elizabeth
protested.

"You
do your share," she was told, and banished to the porch to sit in the warm
sun and clean bushel after bushel of beans with Liam's help. A quiet work, a
contemplative work, when what she wanted was to be up and active in these last
days of freedom from the weather. She wished for Nathaniel, but was glad of
Hannah, whom she would take with her into the woods to gather the last of the
beechnuts, or just to explore the mountain. Although it meant leaving an
unhappy Liam behind, Hannah was always pleased to have Elizabeth to herself.

In
the fifth month of her pregnancy the curve of her belly was no longer possible
to overlook. The child had recently become very active, rolling and kicking
when she sat down to rest, as if to make her get up and go again. Elizabeth
sometimes laughed out loud at the outrageousness of it. Leaning back with her
weight on her hands, she let Hannah probe gently as she had seen her
grandmother do. She called the small roundness
nihra'a ri'kenha
, Little Brother, and chided him indulgently for
his exuberance.

"Four
more months," Elizabeth said. "By then I will be waddling like a
duck."

"You
do that already, when you're tired." And Hannah screeched and rolled away
from
Elizabeth
's
tickling fingers.