Fontaine bent and gripped his knees as though about to retch into the hay at his feet. After a steadying moment, he uncoiled himself once more. “My parents have no reason to be proud of me. Look—I can’t even stand upright without a drink. I unburden myself to a Protestant, a half-breed, and a man who, if I had met him upon the field, I ought to kill on sight.”
The afternoon sun lit Samuel from the open door behind him so that shadows obscured his face. Even so, Catherine could see the working of his jaw as he listened. “I’m not your enemy now,” he said.
Fontaine kicked at the chain between Sam’s shackles. “You’re a prisoner, fettered with irons, and still you are stronger than me.” He held his head in his hands. “I ought to be able to best a man chained,” he whispered. “And why shouldn’t I? He is the enemy, and I’m no coward. Not anymore.” He dropped his hands to his sides, curled them into fists. “I’m no coward!” He made a graceless swing at Samuel and roared when he missed.
Again he attempted to land a blow, but even with his chains, Samuel dodged.
“Fontaine—” Catherine called, but he was in a desperate place she could not reach.
“Stop this.” Samuel held up his hands to block the young man’s flailing arms. “No one called you a coward.”
“But you think it!” Fontaine cried. “And I don’t blame you. No, I don’t.” He pulled an old sickle from the wall and lunged with it.
“Sam!” Catherine pointed to her scythe, still half buried in hay.
He pulled it free. “Out,” he told her.
Truly, Fontaine was more likely to injure himself than anyone else with the short-handled, curved-bladed sickle. She tugged Thankful toward the door.
“Stay,” Fontaine shouted. “See me best the Englishman!” In awkward, jerky movements, he thrust and parried.
Samuel moved to the far side of the barn, drawing Fontaine away from the women.
“I’m going for the captain.” Thankful slipped out the door, but Catherine tarried, unable to look away from the wreck of Gaspard Fontaine.
“You’re in no condition to fight,” Sam said, scythe raised, blade pointed toward Fontaine. His chains scraped the dirt floor as he moved. “We’ve no cause for it, besides. Not here. Not now.”
“Right here and right now!” Fontaine lunged.
Samuel deflected the blade with the wooden handle of the scythe. A wood chip split off and spiraled to the floor. Sam’s posture was purely defensive, Fontaine’s unwieldy and aggressive. Over and again he struck with the sickle, until Catherine feared the scythe handle would be whittled to a shard. Chaff and dust thickened in the air, lining the inside of her throat and nose.
A mouse darted from a cobwebbed corner, scrambling across Fontaine’s moccasin. Sweating profusely, he swayed, stumbled, and kicked over a bucket. His blade scraped across his left sleeve and split the fabric as he struggled to right himself. He muttered an oath and wiped one palm and then the other on his mitasses, then gripped the handle of the sickle and attacked again. Whether from fever or hunger or lack of drink, he looked almost ready to faint.
It had to stop, even if the only one at risk of injury was Fontaine.
Catherine moved toward him, palms facing out. “You’re unwell, Private. You must stop this. If it’s a fight you’re after, this isn’t it.”
“This is a fight, and I will have it.”
“This is cowardice. This is no way to make your parents proud.”
He rounded on her, furious, and in his moment of unbalance, Samuel knocked the sickle from his hand. It barely made a noise as it fell on scattered hay.
“Stay your weapon!” Captain Moreau’s voice filled the barn to its every corner with a suddenness that took Catherine aback. How long had Fontaine and Samuel been sparring?
“None too soon,” she said. “He attacked without cause and wouldn’t give it up. He couldn’t be reasoned with.”
“I can see that.” But Moreau’s narrowed gaze was not on Fontaine. “Samuel Crane, you have attacked a soldier of the Canadian militia.”
“No—” he interrupted.
“Your weapon is in your hands.”
Catherine grabbed the tool from Samuel’s grip. “You misunderstand, Captain. That’s my scythe. I brought it with me when I noticed Thankful and the private were both missing.”
“And Monsieur Crane took full advantage of the situation.” Moreau peered around the barn. “He’s been waiting for the right moment ever since he was brought into captivity. Apparently it was not enough to fetter his ankles.” In three quick strides, he was nose to nose with Samuel.
“All I’ve done is defend myself,” Samuel said. “If I really wanted to disable your soldier, don’t you think I could have done it? Look at him. Fontaine is ill, in body and spirit, if not in the mind.”
Not quite stifling a groan, Fontaine clutched his forearm. Blood seeped from the cut of his own making. “The prisoner provoked me, Captain. He would have killed me had I not blocked his blows.”
Alarm rang inside Catherine. “Captain Moreau, I saw it from start to finish. The facts are simply this: I found Thankful and Fontaine here, and Samuel came soon after. Fontaine snatched that rusty tool off the wall and brandished it like a sword at Sam, who used my scythe to defend himself.”
“He bleeds, mademoiselle,” the captain boomed. “The prisoner attacked an unarmed militiaman.”
“Unarmed!” Catherine burst out. “All militiamen are unarmed until you need them to do battle, as you well know, so this bears no proof of Fontaine’s innocence. He took up a farm tool against a shackled prisoner. The scratch on his arm? Made by his own blade when he stumbled over a bucket.”
Fontaine collapsed onto a hay bale, leaned his head between his knees, and vomited. The stench carried.
“See,” whispered Catherine to Captain Moreau. “See how weak he is. Samuel could have hurt him with little effort, if that was his intention. But he didn’t.” She rolled her lips between her teeth as soon as she heard her own words. It was no help to Samuel to remind the soldiers he could cause harm any time he wanted.
At length, Captain Moreau exhaled sharply through his nose. “We have lost enough time here. Go. There is still work to be done in the fields.” After a few quiet words to Fontaine, Moreau left him there, then sent Catherine back out into the light, where Thankful waited, hands clasped.
“What happened?” Thankful looked past her, into the barn.
“It came to naught, thank heaven.” Scythe in hand once more, Catherine began walking back toward the field.
A muffled blow sounded from the barn. As Catherine glanced over her shoulder, her breath stalled. Captain Moreau was leading Samuel away from the waiting harvest. Sam was bleeding from a gash on his temple, and his wrists were bound with a length of rope.
Chapter Seventeen
The following day, Catherine still didn’t know where Samuel was. After their shift harvesting on the island, she and Thankful shared the canoe with Moreau as they headed home. Catherine refused to help paddle until the captain had answered her questions, but Moreau remained unmoved. If Gaspard Fontaine had not spent the day ill in his bed, she would have interrogated him, as well.
Kneeling in the center of the canoe, Thankful bowed her head into her hands. She was coming undone with guilt. “If I hadn’t helped Fontaine into the barn, Samuel wouldn’t have come looking,” she had moaned last night. “If I hadn’t run for the captain, the matter would have resolved itself!”
Frustration swelled inside Catherine. She didn’t even know if Sam remained on the island of Montreal or if he’d been ferried back across the St. Lawrence to their side.
At least Timothy Laughing Creek had come to visit last evening, and she had tasked him with ferreting out Samuel’s whereabouts. If anyone could accomplish it, he could. Already, he had stolen the key to Sam’s shackles and given it to her. Now all that was missing was Samuel himself.
Back stiff from a long day of labor, Catherine leaned forward to reason
with Captain Moreau. “Samuel Crane is my father’s property. You’ve stolen him, which is thievery punishable by law.” She stared at the queued hair beneath his tricorne.
The captain didn’t turn around as he pulled the paddle through the river, cutting a wobbly path toward the dock. “If he is your father’s property, then he is your father’s concern, not yours.”
“What concerns my father concerns me,” she protested. He could have no idea how much. “Samuel did nothing wrong. We’ve all done as you’ve requested. I insist you return him to our care at once.”
A muffled chuckle bounced Captain Moreau’s shoulders. “Star-crossed lovers if I ever met a pair.”
She bit back a denial. Better that Moreau assumed her interest stemmed from the heart alone. She could not give any hint that her primary objective was a military one. “He’s done no wrong,” she said again. Sweat itched across her scalp beneath coils of hair and her hat.
Captain Moreau turned his head to the side. “Do not worry about things you cannot understand. War is the business of men.”
“War is everyone’s business. Have you not been using women and children to supply the army? The whole of Montreal will go hungry again this winter to feed them. Our first harvest in three summers, and we will have none of it.” She stopped herself before pointing out the labor shortage, overcrowded conditions, and above all, the loss of husbands, sons, and fathers.
“We must all sacrifice for the greater good, mademoiselle.” The captain’s tone grew dagger sharp. “Perhaps it is the savage in you that carries on so. A true lady would have better comportment. You must stop. Your father and I have discussed it, and we’ve reached agreeable terms.”
“Terms?” Catherine peered beyond Moreau’s frame to find they were nearly home. Grey clouds billowed across the darkening sky. They’d been kept in the fields later this evening, and would be each day until harvest was complete. She had to find Samuel. If they were going to leave, they must do it now, or the plan would unravel.
Moreau switched his paddle to the other side of the canoe. “He is kept safe, where he can cause no further harm. Monsieur Duval is aware of the location and perfectly at ease with the arrangement, which includes keeping that location in strictest confidence, even from you. Especially from you. The moment the last of the harvest is safely on board the schooners, I’ll release the captive back into your father’s care. It won’t be long now, I assure you.”
A hard bump jerked the canoe as Moreau collided with the dock’s pilings. Catherine reached out and grabbed one, then held her skirts out of the way and climbed out. “You paddled, so you can tie her up,” she said to Moreau.
She helped Thankful step out of the canoe, then hurried toward the bank. “Did you hear that?” she whispered. “My father knows where Samuel is.”
Doubt shadowed Thankful’s blue eyes. “But will he tell you?”
“I mean to find out.” Catherine looked over her shoulder and watched the captain make his way toward the cabin for the night. As she and Thankful neared the house, she spotted her father. “There he is, headed for the back door.” She paused, studying how Gabriel walked holding his hand out before him, palm up. “Something’s wrong.”
When Catherine and Thankful reached him, Gabriel was in the kitchen, pulling out drawers using only his forefinger and thumb. Even in the dim light, a crimson trickle was visible down the side of his hand.
“Papa!” Catherine cried. “What happened?” She lit a taper.
Straightening, he angled to see her. “Home at last, are you? It’s merely a scratch, but I suppose I could do with a bandage.” He turned up his palm to show her, and she plucked a small shard of brown glass from his skin.
While he sat at the table, Thankful filled a bowl with water from the urn in the corner, then brought it along with a sponge and length of linen. “Will it need stitching?” She leaned over to see.
Sitting beside him, Catherine set to work cleaning Gabriel’s hand and examining the wound. “I don’t think so, thank goodness. Papa, tell us how you did this.”
“Don’t concern yourself.” His casual reaction to the injury echoed Moreau’s sentiments.
Catherine huffed. “I am concerned. At least tell me where it happened so I can sweep up the remaining glass. What did you break? A bottle?”
“An empty one.” Gabriel winced as she dabbed his skin with the sponge.
Thankful locked her gaze on Catherine, mouth buttoned tight.
“Where?” Catherine asked again. She unrolled the linen and wrapped it around his hand.
He shrugged.
She knotted the linen strips together. “Where is Samuel?”
Gabriel flexed his hand and smiled. “Can’t say. But find one, and you’ll find the other.” Whistling, he pushed back from the table and sauntered away.
A queasiness gripped Catherine’s stomach. Whatever urgency she had felt before ratcheted up tenfold. She pushed the straw hat from her head so it hung at her back.
“What do we do?” Thankful cradled her elbows in her palms. “This is all—”
“It’s not your fault.” Catherine’s thoughts raced her pulse. “Gather a change of clothing for yourself and for me, and meet me in the trading post right away.”
Eyes wide, Thankful hastened out of the kitchen while Catherine snatched the bag of shelled hazelnuts, extinguished the lamp, then left the house and crossed the yard. Drying grasses tugged at the fraying hem of her skirt.
She fished the trading post key from her pocket and unlocked the door, nearly kicking over the water bucket as she entered. Moments later, Thankful joined her with a bundle under her arm. When she moved to light a taper, Catherine stopped her. “No light.”
Even in the shadows, Thankful’s surprise was clearly written in her expression. “What are we doing?”
Catherine moved between tables, barrels, and shelves. “Carrying basket, please.”
To her credit, Thankful brought the Mohawk-fashioned basket without repeating her curiosity. The container was tall, about as wide as her back, and with a tumpline to loop around one’s forehead. With few words, Catherine set Thankful’s bundled clothing inside along with the bag of nuts and explained what else she wanted to fill it. Into the basket went powder horns, shot pouches, bullets, a brass bullet mold. Flint and steel for starting fires, fishing nets, and hooks for repairing its lines. A quiver of arrows, a bow.
To this, Catherine added capes and blankets, men’s clothing fit for a journey, and canteens. Bandages would be prudent. She would make those from old petticoats tonight. Lightweight trade items would be useful, for whomever they might meet along the way. Glass beads, tobacco, mirrors, utensils.
She recorded none of this in the ledger.
“I need a musket,” Catherine murmured. “No, three.” After setting the weapons in the basket stocks first, she turned to Thankful. “That’s one for you, as well.”
Thankful’s lips parted, but she made no sound.
“We need to go. As soon as we find Samuel, we’re leaving.” Catherine untied the ribbons on her hat and added it to the basket.
Thankful did the same. “For New England?” Her tone was flat, but Catherine could not help but wonder if it harbored a hint of longing. For all Thankful’s loyalty, wouldn’t some part of her want to return to the land of her birth? The land of her mother’s people?
“We go north.” Catherine gestured toward the puncheon table, and they both sat. “You know Samuel is in danger,” she began. “He needs to get to Quebec. He thinks he can end this war and the suffering it brings. Bright Star has decided not to take him, but he cannot go alone. It’s up to me. To us, for I won’t leave you here with my father and Moreau and Fontaine.”
Thankful took time to digest this news. “I want to help him, if we can find him. Do you have some idea where he could be?”
“Timothy will find him. Whether tonight or tomorrow, we’ll be ready for the moment when it comes.”
Slowly, Thankful nodded. “I
do not wish to fire a musket.”
“Neither do I. But if trouble comes, we must prepare for that, too. If you could at least carry it, the show of force may serve our purpose just as well. Besides that, the musket may be useful for trade.”
“With whom?” Thankful laced her trembling fingers to still them.
“Whoever has something even more useful for us. But I pray for a quiet journey, with only birds and fish for company.” Outside, darkness descended, obscuring lines and shapes from view. “We travel between two empires at war. We must be ready to transact in a way that benefits both parties.”
Crickets filled the quiet that followed. Thankful had never been a porter, had never been farther than Montreal since she arrived there as a child. She was faithful, but she would also need courage.
“We only need six days to reach Quebec, and then we can come straight home again.”
“Six days,” Thankful repeated in a whisper. “But it must be done, and my place is with you.” Reaching to a shelf behind her, she pulled down patch leather, an awl, scissors, and sinew. “For repairing our moccasins along the way.” After inserting the items into a pouch, she dropped it into the basket. But a quake in her voice belied her misgiving.
Catherine reached across the table and grasped her hand. “With all that I am, I will see you back home safely.”
A high-pitched voice split the air outside. “To takyenawa’s! Anyon’ oksa!” Help! Hurry!
“Timothy.” Catherine stood, knocking over her chair. In the dark, she cut between tables of wares until she was at the door and outside, dread coiling in her middle. The swish of Thankful’s skirts said she was right behind.
Starlight gleamed on Timothy’s bare torso and pumping arms as he raced toward her. Kneeling, she brushed back his midnight-colored hair. “What’s wrong?”
“A barn is on fire at the farm east of here, this side of the river.” He panted and leaned his hands on his knees.
“The abandoned Langlois place,” Thankful said. “It must be. But that’s where Moreau has stored a portion of the wheat until the schooners come for it.”
Between Two Shores Page 18
