Into the Wilderness (41 page)

He
grinned, grasping her firmly by her upper arms. "Because," he
bellowed. "Folks generally fall in once or twice until they get the hang
of it."

She
realized too late what he was about. Before she could protest or try to extract
herself he had tipped her back headfirst into the falling curtain of icy water,
and pulled her back out, sputtering, every nerve in her hotly jumping in
protest.

"Nathaniel!"
But he was tipping her back again, and this time he leaned forward to kiss her
as she went, claiming a mouth already open in exclamation. She clung to him,
her fingers twined around forearms as unyielding as oak as she kissed him back,
feeling the hard graze of his jaw like a blessing, his mouth like a hot brand
in the stream of water cascading over them.

"Now,"
he said, when they had stumbled back from the precipice, dripping and gasping.
"I expect you can go home without raising suspicions."

* * *

It
was well past midday when Nathaniel announced Elizabeth's ascent up the cliff
face with a three—note bird call. She came over the lip of the incline to find
Hannah waiting for her. The child was sitting cross—legged on a flat rock in
the sun, her braids gleaming blue—black. In her lap was a bouquet of wild iris
not yet in bloom, slender purple heads nodding inside their paper like sheaths.

"How
beautiful," Elizabeth said, but she was watching Hannah's face.

"Grandmother
promised to show me how to make a poultice of these for Otter," the child
said, matter—of—factly.

Elizabeth
saw Hannah take in her damp hair and the sorry state of her clothing. For once,
Elizabeth was supremely grateful for the Kahnyen’keháka sensibilities which
forbade personal commentary or questions of a kind which would have come
naturally to any of the other children. She considered the various things she
might tell Hannah, and quickly discarded them all; this was not just one of her
students, but a child she would raise, her responsibility. Her daughter.
Elizabeth wouldn't start out by lying to her, and so she would say nothing at
all.

When
Elizabeth had put on her stockings and boots, they started back.

It
wasn't until they had entered the birch and maple grove closest to Lake In the
Clouds that Hannah stopped suddenly. Elizabeth tensed, looking around herself,
but she could see no sign of trouble.

"What
will I call you?" Hannah asked in her straightforward manner, but without
her usual grin.

"What
do you want to call me?" asked Elizabeth, who had been thinking of the
same thing.

"I
remember my mother," Hannah said, and for the first time there was a
wariness there. Elizabeth wanted to touch the child, but thought better of it.

"That's
a very good thing," she said. "My mother died when I was just a
little older than you are now, and the memories I have of her are very precious
to me."

Hannah
nodded thoughtfully. Then, with her chin, she directed Elizabeth's attention to
a steep hang deep in shadow, where Curiosity was crouched in a riot of new
ferns. As Elizabeth watched, her long, thin frame unfurled and she waved in
their direction.

"Hello,
there," she called. It was amazing how quickly the older woman could move.
Before Elizabeth could think of what to say, she was with them, and handing
Elizabeth a basket full to the rim with every sort of plant and root the forest
had to offer.

"It's
time we got on home," she said. "Although I'd like to know where you
got them flag lily this early, Missy Hannah. Never mind," she said with a
halfhearted scowl in response to Hannah's grin. "I guess I ain't traipsing
up to that spring on the ridge to get 'em. No, you go on now, get on back to
Falling—Day so she can poultice that leg."

For
the first time, Curiosity seemed to look closely at Elizabeth. "We got to
get this one home. Looks like she fell in a stream. That what happened?"

"Why,
yes," Elizabeth said lamely. "Exactly."

"I
thought me so." But her sharp look said much more.

Hannah
had already started off. Elizabeth called, and the child stopped, looking over
her shoulder.

"Thank
you," she said, when everything else that went through her head turned out
to be insufficient, or too complex to say right there and then. "And tell
them at home, too, please. Thank you and—goodbye."

Hannah
nodded, and then sped on her way.

"Come
on along now," Curiosity said. "Got to get you back home and in dry
clothes before you take a chill."

"Curiosity,"
Elizabeth began, but the older woman stopped and laid one long, cool hand on
her forearm.

"No,"
she said, not unkindly. "I expect it's better if you let me tell the
stories for right now. I got one or two might interest you.

"You
know how many babies I delivered in my time?" Curiosity began. To
Elizabeth's relief, she answered her own question. "Don't know myself, but
I expect it's close to a hundred since I come to Paradise, more than thirty
year ago. Ain't been called on too often since the doctor decided he know more
about birthin' than I do. He will come an' fetch me, however, when he needs
smaller hands. What is so very particular about that, Elizabeth, is that the
very first child I put in his mama's arms was Richard Todd his self

"I
see I surprise you, but it's true. In '61 that was, the very year your
granddaddy Clarke bought me and Leo free and sent us up here to work for your
mama. I hadn't started to breed yet, myself, and neither had she, but with
Cora's help we managed when the time came."

"There
was no doctor in Paradise then?"

Curiosity
laughed. "No ma'am. No doctor, no trading post, nothing. In '61 there was
only four families up here besides your folks, remember. Hawkeye and Cora had
been up on Hidden Wolf for a bit by that time—Nathaniel was two that summer
that Richard was born. The others were all Carlisle's tenants, including your
daddy, to start with. Has the judge told you about Carlisle? The old Tory who
owned all this land until after the war when it was took away from him and sold
at auction. Let's see, there was Horst Hauptmann and his first wife, the one
that took the yellow fever and run off with it. James and Martha Todd and their
oldest boy, Samuel, and the Witherspoons too. No, there was no doctor here
then—it was up to us women, always has been and I don't expect that will ever
change much. Your mama had a way about her in a birthin' room. I have always
been sorry that she left before I could get to know her."

Elizabeth
had never spoken to Curiosity about her mother. She knew very little about
those few years her mother had spent in Paradise, and the circumstances
surrounding her removal to England, except that she had been carrying
Elizabeth, and the pregnancy had not been easy. There had always been a slight
worry in her that if she asked Curiosity for the stories of her mother, she
would hear something she might have to hold against her father.

The
older woman had stopped to forage in a pile of moldering oak leaves, her quick
fingers uncovering a crowd of peaked mushroom caps tinged scarlet.

"Mind
you never et nothing looks like that, now," she said, distracted. Then she
brushed her hands on her apron and carried on. Her step was slow and measured,
moving along at the same pace as her story.

"Now
Mrs. Todd wanted a doctor for her laying—in, being used to things as they was
done back then in Boston. She come from a family with money, you see. But her
time come upon her unexpected like, and your mama and me was called on to
attend, green as we was. It was Martha Todd's good luck that Cora was at hand,
too. A levelheaded woman, was Cora. I learned a lot from her. Just a year ago
it was that a fever took her and I miss her every day.

"Mistress
Todd was a particular woman but she brought that boy into the world without
much fuss. And given the size of him, I think to this day she had mis—reckoned
her time." Curiosity hiccuped a little laugh. "A big, fat child, with
a shock of red hair like a rooster's comb. And lungs. Lordy. So you see, I know
Richard as long as anybody here in Paradise."

"I
wonder why you're telling me this story," Elizabeth said, slowly.

"Do
you?" Curiosity stopped to look at her hard. "Well, now, Elizabeth.
I'm telling you what I know about Dr. Richard Todd because I think you're
underestimating him. And that's a dangerous thing to be doing."

When
it was clear that Elizabeth was not going to enter into a discussion just yet,
Curiosity started to talk again.

"It
was in '65 that the trouble came, in the fall. Your mama was long gone to
England to bring you into the world. Your daddy had just come back his self
went over that summer to try and fetch you back, but come home empty—handed.
Left your mama with Julian on the way, though, so I guess they got along
aright."

Curiosity
sent Elizabeth a sideways glance.

"Richard
was just three, but a likelier young' un you'll never see.
 
Big for his age, and sassy, and smart.
Worshiped his brother, Samuel, followed him everywhere, as little brothers will
do. A few more families had settled here by then, the ones that was braver than
most. This here a mighty lonely spot, you understand, and the Mohawk hung on
for a long time.

"It
was a Friday evening. I recall it clearly." Her voice dropped low, and
Elizabeth had to strain to hear, although some part of her didn't want to hear
this at all.

"The
judge and the Reverend Witherspoon had gone into Johnstown to do some trading.
I remember Mrs. Todd calling after the judge not to forget to fetch her a cone
of sugar. Don't know why, but that stick with me. I had spent the whole day
setting soap, and when the men was gone, I went down in the root cellar to sort
through some taters. It was cool down there and I was hot, and I fell asleep.
This was the old house in the village, you understand. It was a good cellar,
though, deep and solid, and I never heard a thing. When I come up in the
evening light, the house was gone, the whole village, too. Everything still
burning, and everybody—most everybody—dead or gone."

Curiosity's
voice had fallen into a singsong that made Elizabeth's skin rise. She shivered
in her damp clothes and pulled her cape closer around her, but Curiosity seemed
not to notice.

"The
only men that survived that day were your daddy and Mr. Witherspoon because
they was in Johnstown, and Axel Metzler and the old Hauptmann—they was hunting
up on the other side of the Wolf and my Galileo, he was fishing up on the other
end of the lake and he heard what was going on, but there weren't nothing he
could do but sit and pray. The only woman come through besides me was Mrs.
Witherspoon, who climbed up a spruce when she heard the Mohawk coming and hid
there. We thought at first she was took with the others. She sat in that tree
for two days without making a sound. It was Axel Metzler who found her and
talked her down, gentle like, though she was never quite the same after what
she saw from that tree.

"The
Mohawk killed the livestock and the men outright, pretty much, although they
took their time with Mr. Todd. And then they took the women and children and
headed out. There was six of them. Martha Todd with Samuel and Richard, and
Mary Clancy with her Jack and Hester. That was the last we saw of Missus Todd
and Clancy. They both died on the march north, is how the story goes. Don't
know what happened to Mary, but she was delicate thing and I have to say it
don't surprise me much she didn't hold out. Martha was tough, though. She would
have made it if she hadn't been big with child. She couldn't keep up. When she
fell down once too often they took a tomahawk to her.

"I
know how harsh that sounds, and they ain't much I can do to put a good face on
it except to say that the way the Mohawk look at it, a woman who can't keep up
will die one way or the other in the bush, and a swift tomahawk were the best
she could hope for."

"Where
was Hawkeye during all this?" Elizabeth asked.

"He
took Cora and Nathaniel off to the Genesee Valley that fall. It was a shame he
wasn't here, that's true enough, as he has always been on good terms with the
Mohawk and might have been able to steer them away from Paradise. But the Lord
had other plans," Curiosity said. "And he didn't see fit to lift the
yoke."

Elizabeth
was trying hard not to imagine Martha Todd and the way she died, leaving her
two sons in the hands of the men who had killed her husband.

"Them
was hard times," Curiosity said. "Hard, indeed."

"Did
they mistreat the children?" Elizabeth asked against her own better
instincts.

"Lord,
no." Curiosity looked at her with some surprise. "The Mohawk know the
value of a child. It was the children they wanted, you see, to start with. To
take the place of their own kin, lost in the wars.

"So,
now, where was we? They headed north with the children, moving fast once the
women was dead. Two or three days out, it was, that Jack managed to slip away
in the night, which is how we learned about what happened to the women. He had
a grandfather over in German Flats, and he went to be raised up by him. I hear
he a cordwainer now and a good one. But the other three—the Todd boys and
Hester—they was adopted into the tribe, and there they stayed. We had no word
of them for some many years."