Into the Wilderness (93 page)

Curiosity
came forward with her skirts snapping around her ankles, both hands
outstretched and her face creased in a broad smile.

"The
judge sent us up here with your things," she said, jerking with her chin toward
the packhorses so that her head wrap was set to swaying. "And a word or
two. But I want a look at you, first."

"I'm
afraid I can anticipate the message,"
Elizabeth
said, standing still while she was
examined from front and back, and hoping the evidence of her afternoon's
activity wouldn't be so very obvious.

"Yasm,
he ain't pleased with you. But there ain't no need to hurry hard words, is
there, Nathaniel?"

He
was untying a basket of books from a packsaddle. "They tend to improve
with waiting," he agreed.

Elizabeth
caught his sideways grin and responded with one of her own.

"Where
you want these trunks, Miz Bonner?" Galileo asked.

"Just
in the main room, please, until I have time to sort through things."

When
the men had disappeared with the first load, Curiosity stepped back. "The
bush was a sore trial, I see."

Elizabeth
nodded, hoping that she would not have to tell all of it right now. "We
survived."

"So
you did." Curiosity climbed the three steps to the porch. "These
chairs for admirin' or for settin' down?"

Once
comfortably settled in the rockers while the men moved back and forth, the
older woman leaned forward and put a hand over
Elizabeth
's where they were folded on her
lap.

"You
got news of your own?"

Elizabeth
met the mild amber eyes steadily. "It seems I could not keep it a secret
even if I wished to do so."

Curiosity
let out a little rush of air that might have been a laugh. "Don't take
much sense to figure that a newly married woman in her prime is liable to turn
up in the family way. And you ain't the only one. Maybe you didn't notice that
Many-Doves is already working on her first."

"Is
she?"
Elizabeth
laughed, delighted.

"And
then there's Kitty."

"Oh,
yes." This mention of Kitty's condition brought Elizabeth round to
thoughts of her brother. "I need to talk to you about that."

"We
got time for trouble later," said Curiosity. "I ain't done looking at
you yet. Your mama was one of those women who wear her condition on her face,
and you take after her. How long since your courses?"

"A
good nine weeks," Elizabeth said. "If I remember correctly."

"That's
good
." Curiosity squeezed her
hand hard, and then sat back. "Ain't no need to color up and look away.
The judge may settle right down when he hear a grandchild on the way, no matter
what your brother got to say."

Elizabeth
grimaced. "I expect Julian has quite a lot to say. But perhaps I should
hear my father's message."

Curiosity
smoothed out the material of her apron. "Pretty much what you think. You
ain't welcome at his door, until you see the error of your headstrong ways and
do what's called for."

"And
what is that?"

"I
expect he won't be satisfied unless you put your husband aside—not likely, is
that, seein' what you got to show for your time in the bush. Todd will have to
live without this mountain. Where is he anyway? Did y'all meet up with
him?"

"Oh,
yes," Elizabeth said. "We did. It's a long story."

"He
headed back this way?"

"I
assume so. Curiosity." Elizabeth leaned toward her. "My father's
debts have been paid, and his taxes as well. All his financial problems should
be resolved. Richard Todd might try to take
me
before a court of law for breach of promise but there is no claim he can make
against my father, so please explain to me what this is all about. I simply do
not understand."

"It's
about his pride, child. You embarrassed the judge in front of the whole
territory."

Elizabeth
flushed. "Only because he left me no choice."

Curiosity
had not lost the knack of a sharp look. "Am I criticizing you?"

"No."
Elizabeth sat back. "I'm sorry, of course not. But I am nervous about .. .
everything."

"Naturally,"
Curiosity raised a brow. "But you done good, child, and not just for
yourself."

"I'm
afraid that the villagers won't agree with you."

Curiosity
laughed out loud, and then shook her head. "You still got some friends
down there. But mostly you got folks worried. They want to know what plans your
menfolk have got for this mountain, and some of them are mighty uneasy."

"Uneasy
enough to burn crops?"
Elizabeth
asked.

Curiosity
shrugged. "You scare one stupid man, he'll most likely run off. But a
crowd of stupid men—there ain't nothing more dangerous, or meaner." One
corner of her generous mouth turned downward. "It's our bad luck, you see,
that Paradise got more than its fair share of men couldn't find their
hindquarters with both hands."

Elizabeth
stifled an uneasy laugh, but Curiosity was not smiling. She leaned toward
Elizabeth. "I ain't telling you nothing your people don't know already,
but you watch yourself, and that child, too. Stay clear of Kirby, and Dubonnet
and Southern, most of all." She straightened, and the frown line between
her brows was replaced with a genuine smile. "Now, there's
Falling—Day."

On
the porch of the other cabin Falling—Day's small, straight form had appeared
with her daughter and granddaughter behind her, and Curiosity raised a hand in
greeting.

"Let's
us women have a look—see round this new home of yours," she said, rising. "And
a little talk 'bout happier things."

* * *

There
were three rooms, a great luxury in a village where most cabins had only one.
The long main room had a hearth of flagstone at one end and a loft at the other
where Hannah slept. Like the older cabin, there was a work and storage room as
well as a bedroom. There were few pieces of furniture, some of it with the same
sharp tang of newly cut wood as the cabin itself, while other things—the table
and benches, the rifle rack above the door, the bookcase, the bedstead—showed
signs of careful mending.

Curiosity
examined everything in great detail, keeping up a running conversation with
Falling—Day while they discussed spinning wheels and scraping frames, cooking
kettles and lamps.
Elizabeth
and Many-Doves
spent this time unpacking the baskets of books, while Hannah flitted back and
forth, alternately picking up volumes to look through them and then trying on
Elizabeth
's hats and
making silly faces at herself in her hand mirror.

"Ooooh,"
she called out, opening a small trunk filled with
Elizabeth
's boots. She immediately began to
tug at her moccasins, engaging a sharp comment from Falling—Day.

"Oh,
let her." Elizabeth laughed. "I doubt I'll have much use for them
anymore." She reached over and picked up a boot of fine deep—blue morocco
leather, its neatly turned toe edged in brass. "They were never very comfortable,"
she admitted.

The
sight of all her worldly belongings spread out around her on the plank floor of
the cabin made the finality of her new situation clear as nothing else had, not
even waking this morning in her own home with her husband next to her. She
would never return to her father's home, or to her aunt's.

"The
judge will be waitin' on his supper," Curiosity announced as if she had
read Elizabeth's thoughts. "I had best be on my way. I expect we will see
you at church in the morning?" This was addressed to
Elizabeth
.

"Is
it Saturday? I hadn't thought about church," she admitted, wiping her
brow. "Do you think—"

"Yasm,
I think. It ain't the worst idea, showin' up at services. Get folks used to the
sight of you. It's why we brung up your trunks this afternoon."

"What
is your opinion?"
Elizabeth
asked Falling—Day, who was very quiet.

The
older woman thought for a moment, her broad face giving away nothing of her
feelings. "The judge is unlikely to be there, isn't that so, Curiosity? So
I think that it would be best for you to go, otherwise they will say that you
hide from them."

Curiosity
laughed out loud. "This one never did learn how to walk away from an
argument, but I guess they'll figure that out soon enough." She wiped her
hands on her apron, and headed for the door. "Where have those men got
to?"

Hannah
jumped up to join her, so that
Elizabeth
's
sun hat slipped forward over her face. Extricating herself, she offered to take
Curiosity to the sheds where Galileo and Nathaniel were talking, and the two
set out together.

"There's
some of my soap in one of those baskets," Curiosity called over her
shoulder on her way out the door. "And some other odds and ends. Now I
expect to see you and that husband of yours tomorrow, you hear?"

"Come
back soon,"
Elizabeth
said, her throat suddenly tight with tears.

"Good
friends are a great treasure," Falling—Day said just behind her.

"Yes,
she is a good friend to me. To us." Elizabeth turned back into the cabin. "I
wanted to thank you," she said. "For whatever part you had in all
this—”

“It
is good that you are here," Falling—Day said. "For all of us. And
since my daughter has taken a husband, we needed more room.

"I
am sorry to have missed your wedding ceremony," Elizabeth said to
Many-Doves . "And I am sorry all of you could not be at mine. Was this to
be your cabin?"

Many-Doves
shook her head. "I belong at my mother's hearth," she said. "But
you need one of your own. And I think that there will be much back and forth
between the two, anyway." A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. "Especially
at mealtimes."

"I'm
afraid that Nathaniel would starve before I learn how to cook properly."
Elizabeth gestured over the piles of books. "Philosophers and playwrights
are well and good, but I should have sent for a cookery book or two, as
well."

Falling—Day
smiled, setting
Elizabeth
more at ease. She was just wondering how to broach the complex topic of laundry
when from the open door she saw Galileo and Curiosity appear from the sheds
leading the packhorses, with Nathaniel close behind. He made a sign to indicate
that he was going to see them a part of their way, and the women waved until
the small party disappeared on the path.

Many-Doves
left them, picking up a hoe on her way to the small cornfield that lay in the
sunshine at the widest part of the glen, at the edge of the cliffs.

"There's
a meal to cook before the men get back," Falling—Day announced in Hannah's
direction. The little girl had been running around the cabin, dragging a frayed
rope for Treenie to chase. In response to her grandmother's voice, she dropped
her rope and the red dog collapsed in a tangled heap at her heels. She looked
up at
Elizabeth
and then at her grandmother with pleading on her face.

"If
you can spare her,"
Elizabeth
said, "I would be glad of her help getting the cabin in order."

Falling—Day
blinked, slowly, and then nodded. "If you want the child with you,
yes."

Hannah
let out a hoot of satisfaction and set out once more with the dog in pursuit.

Of
all the Kahnyen’keháka she had come to know,
Elizabeth
found Falling—Day to be the most
inscrutable. While she had shown nothing but kindness and generosity, there was
a reserve about her that made it very difficult to speak up in the older
woman's presence. Falling—Day's silences, while never edged with the same kind
of disdain that women sometimes used to make their displeasure known, were
absolute and impenetrable. Elizabeth wondered, as she had many times on the
long journey home, about this woman who had left her mother's long house
against custom and expectation to take her children to be raised in her
husband's village, and then to a cabin in the wilderness, in isolation from
other Kahnyen’keháka. She had seen her husband and sons killed, and carried on
to raise Sarah, who had spent her life trying to be something she was not, and
Otter and Many-Doves , who were unapologetically Kahnyen’keháka. This was the
woman who had, by some accounts, rejected Nathaniel as a son—in—law, but had
come to live with him to raise his child upon his mother's death.

"I
should like very much to have Hannah spend some time with me," Elizabeth
confirmed, struggling with the urge to look away from Falling—Day's steady
gaze. "She has her first home with you, but I hope that eventually she
will be equally comfortable in both cabins. Your mother was very worried about
her upbringing in the Kahnyen’keháka way. I wanted you to know that I will not
interfere."