Into the Wilderness (39 page)

They
made their way up toward the backbone of the mountain, through stands of beech
and maple interspersed with more birch and an occasional hemlock. Elizabeth had
spent some of the difficult eight weeks learning about the forest from her
students, and now she named the trees to herself. Occasionally she would ask a
question, and Hannah would answer, naming the wild cherry for her, the yew, the
trout lily which spread its strange yellow flower with mottled purple leaves in
such profusion. She pointed to a porcupine's den and, calmly, the tracks of a
bear in the mud. Hannah answered Elizabeth's questions without any of her usual
elaboration, and after a while Elizabeth stopped asking. It was very cool in
the wood, but she had begun to perspire.

At
the top of the ridge, Elizabeth turned to look down on the forest, and stopped
in wonder. It was as if they were alone in the world; there was no sign of Lake
in the Clouds, or the village, or of anything having to do with human beings.
Just the mountains and their spotty canopy of evergreens filling in with the
tender first green of oaks and maple and beech, thousands upon thousands of
them, as far as she could see.

Hannah
was moving on, and Elizabeth followed her through forests, all red and white
pine now, circumventing a marshy spot where a spring came to the surface. They
came out of the wood onto a rocky plateau. A hawk passed overhead with a bit of
moss trailing from her beak. The wind picked up, blowing Elizabeth's skirts
around her legs.

Silently,
Hannah gestured with her chin. Elizabeth saw now where they were: below them
was Lake in the Clouds, the gorge pointing in a crooked finger away from the
mountain. With its weathered square—cut logs, the cabin looked like something
grown out of stone. Under her boots, Elizabeth could feel the pulse of the
water in the rock as it rushed to that point in the cliff face where it would
explode in a waterfall. From here they could not see it fall, but they could
hear it, muted.

There
was a three—note trilled birdsong which Elizabeth would not have noticed, but
Hannah raised her head and trilled back.

"Runs-from-Bears,"
Hannah murmured in explanation.

There
was no sign of him. Elizabeth realized that this was meant to be so: he had
followed them at a distance. They would not have let Hannah walk through the
forest by herself otherwise. Not given the events of the past few days.

Another
call, from below. In response, Hannah pointed down the cliff. The incline was
fairly steep, rock and scrabble and boulders. There was no visible path.

Elizabeth
looked at the path and back at Hannah. "You want me to go down
there?"

The
little girl nodded as if this were nothing so terribly unusual.

"Aren't
you coming?"

Hannah
shook her head. "Take off your boots," she said practically.
"It'll be easier barefoot."

Her
nerves humming, Elizabeth complied. After a moment's thought she took off her
stockings, folding them neatly.

"Go
on," Hannah said, smiling now. "He's waiting for you."

* * *

It
was strange to feel the ground under her bare feet and she went slowly at
first, testing each foothold. Twice she grabbed at a shrub growing from the
rock face, so that her hands were sticky and pungent with evergreen sap.
Pausing to catch her breath, Elizabeth wiped her fingers on her handkerchief.
She wished for something to drink. She wished herself on level ground. She
wished herself back in England, at aunt Merriweather's whist table with a book
hidden on her lap. She wished for all these things, and none of them.

She
hadn't known that fear could be intoxicating.

He
was waiting for her. She tried to gather her thoughts, but they slipped away in
a flurry of images, all of them Nathaniel.

Elizabeth
worked her way down another thirty yards in stops and starts to a little
plateau like a pocket torn in the cliff face. She wondered where she should
possibly go from here, and then, from the corner of her eye, she caught a flash
of movement.

Nathaniel
was standing behind her. He had materialized out of rock, it seemed, and now
without a word gestured for her to follow him. He put his hand on her shoulder
to guide her up; she felt its heat through the layers of her cape and clothing.
Nathaniel pointed to the first foothold and then the next, and she moved as he
directed her. Then he scrambled past her to pull himself up into a crack in the
rock face. He turned back and reached down a hand.

He
stood poised there, his face composed, his eyes flashing something she could
not quite name, but which was familiar to her, and offered his hand. Elizabeth
looked at Nathaniel's hand, the broad expanse of it, the long, hard curve of
his fingers. She gave him her own hand and let him pull her into the side of
the mountain.

* * *

She
realized it was a cave even as she came through, but it confused her to see
sunlight refracting on the walls. Coming from the dark into the glare, she
blinked for a moment until she could make sense of the light and noise. The
outermost face was not rock, but moving water: they were behind the waterfall,
not a hundred yards from Lake in the Clouds. The rush of falls produced a
breeze which caught the loose hair at her nape and temples and set it dancing.
A fine mist swirled through the small cave. It felt good on her flushed cheeks.

Nathaniel
was standing before the wall of water, sun on his hair and shoulders. From the
back he was a stranger, a wild frontiersman with his loose hair and buckskin
shirt and beaded leggings. There was a knife at his waist, and his rifle leaned
against the wall within arm's reach. Then he turned and his strong profile came
into view. Distracted, the rush of her own blood as loud in her ears as the
falling water, Elizabeth saw the wolves' skulls which had been wedged into a
long crack in the wall. While Nathaniel walked toward her she counted them:
seven. There were seven.

He
stopped before her, his eyes moving over her face. She saw that his brow was
beaded with sweat although it was cool here.
He's as nervous as I am,
she thought thankfully. She was glad it
was too loud to talk; it gave her an excuse to look at him, to remind herself
of the things she knew but had begun to doubt: the way his jaw curved, the
straight line of his eyebrows, the way he looked at her. She hadn't been
imagining it: it was there, his wanting her. Nathaniel caught her hand and drew
it up between them and then turned to lead her back farther into the cave,
through a narrowing and then into another room.

Here
the light was less but so was the sound of the water. Elizabeth moved forward
tentatively, starting at the feel of something furry brushing against her bare
feet. She pushed up against Nathaniel and yelped softly.

"No,
no," he said calmly. "Look. It's just pelts."

This
cave, bigger than the one before it, was crowded. There were baskets and
barrels, a makeshift table with a betty lamp at its center. Provisions hung from
pegs driven into cracks in the walls, strings of dried squash and apples and
braided corn. On smaller pegs nearest Elizabeth was a selection of clothing,
bullet pouches, knives in their sheaths and powder horns. And everywhere, on
every surface, were pelts tied into neat bundles.

"The
winter's work," said Nathaniel, following the path of her gaze.

"Hidden
Wolf," she said, finally understanding.

"Hidden
Wolf," he confirmed.

Everything
of value, everything they needed to get them through the next year, was here.
Anybody who wanted to force them out would only have to find this place. And
they had brought her here without a word of discussion or warning or caution.
Nathaniel had claimed her, and she had become one of them. This made Elizabeth
immeasurably happy and unusually shy; she didn't know where to look. And he was
so silent; why didn't he speak? She glanced up at him, and saw that he was
waiting.

"I
came to tell you—" she began, and then faltered.

His
grip on her hand tightened. He waited.

"I
wanted to say—" she began again, and then stopped once more. When she
managed to meet his eye, she saw something frightened there. She watched him
try to control his expression. "Thank you so much, Nathaniel. For the
schoolhouse." This came out sounding very prim and dry and it was not at
all what she wanted to say. But he was being distant and reserved; thus far he
had done nothing more than take her hand. Irritated with her own clumsiness and
with Nathaniel's unwillingness to set her at ease, she pulled away and made a
study of her bare feet.

"You've
changed your mind," he said woodenly.

"No!"
Elizabeth's head jerked up, surprise cutting through the awkwardness between
them. "No. How could you think such a thing?"

"Maybe
I was expecting more of a greeting," Nathaniel said, and now there was at
least the hint of a smile. "From my bride."

All
the fear and frustration of the past eight weeks had been pulsing close to the
surface, and with one word Nathaniel had pricked it open. Very slowly Elizabeth
leaned forward until her forehead rested on his shoulder, shuddering with
pleasure and relief at the feel of him, at his smell.

His
arms came up around her. Nathaniel knew that she needed comforting. He took his
time, letting her get used to the feel of him again. He touched her hair
lightly, her back. Little by little she relaxed against him.

"We
leave on Wednesday," Elizabeth said after a while. "And I'm
worried."

"About
what?"

She
shivered a little. "I'm worried that I'll have to make a binding oath to
Richard in front of Mr. Bennett before my father will sign the deed."
Nathaniel could tell by the rush in her voice that this was the very worst she
could imagine. He felt more of the tension slip away from her, now that she had
shared the burden.

"Todd
is coming to Johnstown with you?"

She
nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"Well,"
said Nathaniel, smoothing her hair. "We'll have to think of a way to
change his mind about that."

She
pulled away then, frowning. Nathaniel tensed, feeling the jealousies of the
last weeks begin to simmer again. "Unless you're worried about hurting his
feelings."

"Because
I don't like him doesn't mean I want to see him hurt," Elizabeth said,
with a look Nathaniel thought her students must be familiar with. "It just
means I don't want to marry him. As you know very well."

"We
ain't got much time," he said slowly. "And I don't see that we should
spend it with Richard Todd between us."

"Then
promise me he won't come to any harm."

Nathaniel
said, very evenly, "He won't come to any harm unless he puts himself in
harm's way."

"Are
you always this sure of yourself?" she asked suddenly, her irritation
showing in the way she suddenly met his gaze, unflinching.

"I'm
sure of some things," he responded calmly. "One of them is that
Richard Todd ain't to be trusted."

"I
didn't say that I trusted him," Elizabeth said. "In fact, I don't
trust him. But I still don't like the idea of his being hurt."

Nathaniel
felt his temper rising to the surface. "You're mighty worried about the
man's welfare, seeing that you don't like him much."

"You
are not being rational," said Elizabeth stiffly.

"Maybe
not," Nathaniel said. "But maybe rational ain't what's called for
right now. It was damn hard, let me tell you, watching the man who has been
doing his best to run me and mine off this mountain, seeing him lay claim to
you as if you was a good horse. I told you he won't come to harm if he stays
out of harm's way, and that's the best I can promise. Is that good enough for
you?"

Her
color had risen, and her fingers twitched as if she wanted to hit him, or touch
him. She put her chin up with that same flick of the head she had shown him the
first time he spoke to her, when he had called her a spinster. One part of
Nathaniel wanted to remind her of this, wanted to see her ruffle and flush and
become uncertain. Because on the other side of the teasing there would be
peacemaking, and they could get on with what had been started in the stable
back in February. Nathaniel wanted that, but he was cautious. In the next few
days he knew he would need all his skill and wits to keep them together, and
alive.

And
there was the matter of Richard Todd, still unresolved. He could see her
weighing things, her eyes narrowed.

"Elizabeth.
Is that good enough for you?" he repeated.

"Yes,"
she said grudgingly. "It is."

"Well,
then." Nathaniel nodded. "Then this is what we've got to do. We've
got to keep Todd away from Johnstown—never mind how, I'll work that out
later." Reluctantly, he stepped back a bit from her. "Now maybe we
better talk about how we'll meet up, before I send you home."

"Oh,"
Elizabeth said, feeling suddenly deflated. She tried hard to hide her
disappointment, tried not to look at him, his face, his mouth. And failed
miserably. She bristled with the need to put her hands on him and still she
didn't dare.