Into the Wilderness (127 page)

They
expected Nathaniel by the end of the week, calculating extra time for him to
spend at the Schuylers' and for buying winter provisions and supplies for the
schoolhouse. He was traveling by wagon, which would add an additional two days
onto the journey or more, if it rained. The afternoon before the earliest day
he might be expected to return, Elizabeth found herself agitated, unable to
read or concentrate on any sedentary work. Liam hobbled out to the porch behind
her with the help of a length of hickory that he had whittled into a rough
cane.

"I
always wanted to swim in that gorge," he told her, as they stared at the
rushing water of the falls.

"Bears
and Nathaniel swim in it every morning, summer and winter," Elizabeth told
him. "They say it makes them resistant to the worst weather. You could
join them, once your leg is healed."

"I
can't imagine it," Liam said, his pale skin rising in sympathetic
gooseflesh.

Hannah
came shooting around the corner, her arms full of pelts.

"Where
are you off to?" Liam asked, pulling her up short.

She
looked back the way she had come, and Falling—Day and Many-Doves appeared
leading the roan, his packsaddles piled high with provisions and small barrels
strapped to either side. There was an awkward silence. It was not
Elizabeth
's place to tell Liam about the cave under the
falls, but it would also be very hard to have him living at
Lake
in the Clouds and not share this knowledge. For the next few days they would be
busy transporting supplies there, and he would soon figure out what they did
not tell him.

Falling—Day
said: "This is your home now."

"I
got nowhere else to go," Liam said. "I don't want to go anywhere
else."

There
was a long pause while she examined him, and then she nodded.

"We
store our provisions there—" She gestured with her chin over her shoulder.

In
response to Liam's confused look, Many-Doves said: "Behind the
falls."

Hannah
hefted her load to a more comfortable position. "In case we get robbed
again."

Liam
dropped his head, but he could not hide the rush of color that moved up his
neck and face and made the freckles on his forehead leap into relief.
Elizabeth
shook her head
silently at the women, and they moved off into the forest to make their way
around the shoulder of the mountain. It was many minutes before Liam found his
voice again.

"They
don't trust me," he said sorrowfully. "And they're right not to trust
me. We did some terrible things, last year. It was a kind of fever in Billy,
wanting them gone. It seemed important to me, too, I guess."

Elizabeth
thought for a moment. She was both encouraged by the boy's willingness to take
responsibility for actions he had known about and even participated in, and
concerned that he took too much on his bony shoulders. For a moment she thought
of his brother, and her anger caused her to lose focus of what Liam most needed.

When
she could gather her thoughts again, she said: "I don't know many people
who are as good a judge of character as Falling—Day. Do you?"

Liam
shook his head, scuffing one bare foot back and forth on the smooth boards of
the porch.

"She
knows how to look inside a person's head, seems like."

"Yes,
it does seem like that. She is slow to grant her trust, and loyal once she has
done so."

He
nodded again, and stole a sidelong glance at her from under the ragged fringe
of russet hair. "You're saying?"

"I
am saying that she has just shown a great deal of faith in you, Liam Kirby. She
pointed out to you the cave where the winter provisions are stored, although it
gives you power over us."

"I
wouldn't do anything to hurt any of you—”

“I am
glad to hear that," Elizabeth said, and she stood. "But I am not
surprised. Come now, and I'll show you the cave."

Liam
glanced doubtfully at his injured leg and the dingy wrappings that held the
long splints in place.

"We
shan't go far,"
Elizabeth
said, already off the porch. "Just down there to where the gorge opens on
the other side, at the base of the cliff. From there you can almost see the
cave, if you know what you're looking for. Maybe Hannah will wave at us."

They
crossed to the other side where the flow of water disappeared underground, and
Elizabeth
stopped as she
often did to feel the earth vibrate through the padded soles of her moccasins.
The water was still high from all the rain, marbled with foam and pushing hard
on its way down the mountainside. As they walked along the lip of the gorge
Elizabeth
pointed out to
Liam the natural stone steps that they used to go down to the water, covered
with vibrant green moss.

"Looks
deep," Liam said.

"Deep
enough to dive in, here."

The
sound of the water was louder now, and they gave up talking. Elizabeth lifted
her skirts, wishing once again for the courage to give up European fashion once
and for all for the practicality and comfort of Kahnyen’keháka dress. She
climbed carefully over the first few boulders at the bottom of the cliff face,
turning to watch Liam make his way. When she was satisfied that he could
manage, she sat down at a spot she liked to think of as her own, on a fine flat
expanse of rock with a natural footrest that jutted out over the gorge. From
here she had a view of her cabin, and if she craned her neck backward, a
glimpse of the rock shelf where she had once stood while Nathaniel tipped her
back into the rushing water.
Elizabeth
wished suddenly for her shawl, for it was cooler here than it had been in the
sunshine on the porch, the damp rock a cold seat, indeed.

She
pivoted, pointing the ledge and cave out to Liam, who peered upward with one
hand cupped to his brow.

"I
don't see anything!" he shouted.

Elizabeth
caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eye that brought her up
short: Dutch Ton was standing on her porch. In one hand he held a haunch of
venison; in the other, a hunting knife.

She
blinked to dislodge the mist of the falls from her lashes, and she blinked
again. There was a pulse in her neck that was beating out of rhythm; she put
one finger to it to still it. Liam was at her ear, but she could not understand
him. She raised a hand and he fell silent, crouching down as if to hide. As if
he saw the danger, or perhaps smelled the fear that rolled off her like sweat.

It
was him. Dutch Ton stood there on her porch, squinting into the sun. He wore a
patch over one eye now, but~ he was wrapped in the same mangy buffalo robe she
had last seen him wear at the campfire where Jack Lingo had tried to burn her.

She
thought that perhaps she might be able to breathe again if she could only
stand, but all the muscles in her legs seemed to have gone to jelly. In some
part of her mind she was thankful for the fact that Hannah was safe in the cave
behind her. In another, she knew that if she could stay where she was, and be
still, he might not see her. The angle of the sun was in her favor.

She
saw the red slash of his mouth opening and closing, spraying bits of meat. He
was talking. There was another man behind him, just out of view inside the
cabin. The door began to swing inward.

He is dead. Jack Lingo is
dead
. She said the words out loud and
firmly: an incantation, a prayer. But the door continued to swing in a clean
arc. As clean as the trajectory of a bullet, or a rifle stock swung in anger.

Spit
filled her mouth in a bitter rush, and in her head a simple refrain:
away away away
.
Elizabeth
came to her feet with a jerk,
barely noting the slick surface of the rock beneath her. She felt her moccasins
lose purchase; too late. She threw her arms up and pitched forward into the
gorge just as the second man stepped out into the sun, his hair and beard
catching the light in a red—gold flare: Richard Todd.

Falling
seemed to take a very long time: long enough to hear Liam's high—pitched
scream, loud enough to be heard over the falling water. His scream echoed, or
perhaps that was another voice, from behind the falls. She twisted away to
protect her belly, taking the slap of the water at an awkward angle and
plunging down to the bottom. A flash of pain as she struck her head on a ledge
of rock and then she was shooting up, vaguely aware that the water was hazy red
with blood and that it must be her own. She broke the surface gasping, kicking
against the heavy tangle of her skirts without effect. The force of the water
tumbled her, once and then again.

Elizabeth
thought of Nathaniel and of the child, and she went down in a great tide of
sorrow and regret.

* * *

Liam
would dream of it for years: Many-Doves coming through the falls as soon as
Elizabeth hit the water, diving after her like a hawk after a trout. But
Richard Todd was closer: he had already gone in from the other side, dragged
Elizabeth
up by her hair
and flipped her over the edge of the gorge before Doves got there. Liam didn't
see what happened then because he was on his way, pushing until his leg burned
like hellfire. By the time he got to the other side, the two of them were
already on their knees next to her.

He
told himself that dead people didn't bleed like that. No matter how white and
still, somebody pumping blood the way she was had to be alive. Many-Doves had
her hand pressed to Elizabeth's head above the left ear. The blood welled up
between her fingers and wound over her arm and wrist like snakes.

With
a single jerk, Todd ripped the sleeve from his shirt and handed it to Doves.
She took
Elizabeth
's
head in her lap, the wet hair trailing over the rounded mound of her belly. The
tendons on her forearm popped with the effort of pressing the linen to the wound.

Todd
bent over to lift
Elizabeth
's
lids one after the other. He studied her eyes closely, and finally sat back on
his heels looking thoughtful. Then he made a fist and jammed two knuckles hard
into Elizabeth's breastbone. Liam flinched, but
Elizabeth
's eyes only fluttered open. Her
face contorted briefly and then her eyes closed again.

Hannah
and Falling—Day came out of the woods. Hannah threw herself down next to
Elizabeth
and burst into
noisy tears. Before Liam could get to her, Richard Todd leaned over and put a
hand on her shoulder.

Liam
had never heard him speak Mohawk before. Now he spoke to Hannah in that
language, and the sound of it brought her wet face up in blank amazement. She
turned to her grandmother with a question. Falling—Day was bent over Elizabeth,
and Liam could not see her face, but the answer she gave Hannah seemed to calm
her further. She got up, wobbling a little, and wiping her face with the back
of her hand, ran off toward the cabin.

* * *

Hannah
ran. She ran for blankets. She ran for water, for rags, for her grandmother's
baskets of herbs and roots. She ran down to the village to deliver
Falling—Day's message to Axel; she ran on to the judge.

There,
she collapsed in Curiosity's arms and sobbed for ten minutes before she could find
words, Mahican or Kahnyen’keháka or English, to describe what had happened at
Lake
in the Clouds.

For
all its boniness, Curiosity's lap was made for little girls, even one with legs
as long as Hannah's. Curiosity held on tight and listened while Hannah told her
and told her again, drawing the picture with words and her hands and sudden
short bursts of tears, pressing her hands to her face and her face to
Curiosity's apron front. She smelled of yeast and roasting goose and lye soap. Comforting
smells. She could have gone to sleep there on Curiosity's lap in the middle of
the judge's kitchen.

But
Curiosity was talking to her daughters, and it was their turn to run. Polly
started throwing things in to a basket at her mother's directions. Daisy opened
the back door and shouted for Galileo, gave up and went out after him.

After
a while Curiosity set Hannah down on a stool and smoothed her hair. Then she
went off to tell the judge what had happened, and where she was going. Before
the last of her skirts had disappeared through the door, Hannah was up again
and off to finish her errands.

On
the slope below Little Muddy, she heard a rifle shot. Hannah made herself stand
still until the wind brought the acrid smell of the gunpowder to her, and then
she set off again. She found Bears crouched next to his kill, reloading his
gun.

Hannah
loved Bears; she would have married him herself if she had been old enough.
Whatever language came out when she opened her mouth, he understood; he
understood even when she didn't talk. Curiosity knew how to hold little girls,
but Runs-from-Bears had a different kind of comfort to offer. He slung the
rifle around, lifted the doe over his shoulders, and they set off running
together.