by Sara Donati
“You’re awful eager to have one of your students punished, Lizzie,” added Julian. “I’m not convinced he’s done anything.”
“Pardon me!” interjected the judge with considerable irritation. “But that is for me to decide!”
“I’m not eager to have him punished,” Elizabeth corrected Julian sharply, ignoring her father. “But the law must be served, must it not?”
“How do we know the charges are true?” asked Julian, casting a glance toward Nathaniel, who stood silently watching the exchange. “He comes here with fantastic stories—”
“Are you calling me a liar?” asked Nathaniel in a tone as reasonable and measured as if he were asking for a cup of tea.
“I’m asking for proof,” Julian said, just as calmly.
“There’s proof to be had,” Nathaniel said, tossing the beaver onto the rug at Julian’s feet. “If you’re interested in what’s been took from me and from mine. If you want to hear about traps fooled with and stores broken into and folks being shot—come up to Hidden Wolf with me now and ask Otter how he got a bullet in his leg. If you’re interested in the truth.”
Elizabeth was so shocked at the news of Otter that she spoke before she could stop herself. “Are you accusing Liam of this?” she asked and then realized, too late, that she sounded as if she were doubting Nathaniel’s word.
Nathaniel blinked slowly. “Not all of it,” he answered without turning toward her. “Not of the shooting.”
“Exactly who are you accusing, then?” asked Julian.
“Right at this moment I am accusing this boy of stealing a beaver from a line I set up on the stream we call Little Muddy. I come upon him not an hour ago. Look, you’ll see his hands are still bloody.”
“What exactly do you want me to do with him?” asked the judge when he had examined Liam’s hands. “Sentence him to gaol?”
“That would be a start,” said Nathaniel, leaning now on his rifle with an air that was half amusement and half irritation.
“No!” The boy’s head snapped up. “Won’t you speak for me, Miz Elizabeth! Tell them I been coming to school every day and working hard. Ain’t that so?”
“Surely not gaol—” Elizabeth began.
“Enough,” said the judge over the boy’s renewed protests. “I find Liam Kirby guilty of poaching trap lines and fine him five dollars sterling and a week in custody—”
“Fi’ dollars sterling!” howled Liam. “That pelt ain’t worth five dollars!”
“—but due to his age and the first-time nature of the crime, I suspend the sentence and stipulate that the fine can be worked off, or paid in trade directly to Nathaniel Bonner. I hope that will satisfy all parties.”
The judge was immediately drawn into a loud discussion of the law with Liam and Julian, but Elizabeth’s attention was still focused on Nathaniel. Otter, Elizabeth thought. He’s worried about Otter. He never would have let himself go that way otherwise. She knew she must look away, or let everyone in this room see those things on her face that they must not yet know about her. She dropped her gaze.
“There’s just one more thing,” Nathaniel said, directing himself to the judge.
Liam was suddenly quiet, as if he thought Nathaniel might demand something even more horrendous than a five-dollar fine.
“I was coming down to tell Miss Middleton that her schoolhouse is finished,” said Nathaniel, turning to look at her directly for the first time.
“Oh,” said Elizabeth, and then as an afterthought: “What good news.”
“I’m going into the bush, hunting,” he interrupted her. “But you can move in now without my help. I expect the doctor can lend a hand.”
“Yes, I expect so,” replied Elizabeth faintly. “Thank you kindly, Nathaniel.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, touching his cap. Retrieving the beaver, he slung it over his shoulder with a flick of his wrist and left the room without another word. They heard the door slam behind him.
“Insolent savage,” muttered Julian. “Come on now, Liam old man. Stop sniveling and tell us what really happened.”
Nathaniel was angry. He was angry with himself for saying more than he’d meant to, back there in the judge’s parlor. Walking up Hidden Wolf at a pace which would have left many younger men gasping, he made himself stop, to clear his head and to listen. His frustration and rage turned him inward, set him apart from the world around him, just when he needed to have his senses sharp. It wouldn’t do to get shot now, not now, when things were starting to happen. He couldn’t afford his anger right now; he couldn’t afford to be thinking of the judge, or of Julian Middleton with his knowing half smile, or of Liam Kirby, bloody handed.
With his head cocked to one side, Nathaniel listened to the sounds of the spring thaw. He heard other things, too: three or four different birds, a squirrel, rodents in the soggy mass of winter debris on the forest floor. Far off, the thud of axe on wood. He touched his weapons: the knife at his side, the hatchet tucked into his belt along his spine. He checked the powder pan on his rifle and set out once again, cutting up the worst inclines, through thickets that seemed impenetrable, walking in the middle of swollen, ice-cold streams. Whoever it was following him, they were very good. But he was better. He knew this as a fact.
Once he had circled the strawberry fields, Nathaniel let himself think again. Now, this close to Lake in the Clouds, it was safer. He called forth Elizabeth, her face, the way her hair curled at the nape of her neck, the sound of her voice. He thought of Elizabeth with Richard, and he pushed himself faster toward home.
XIX
Curiosity had been spending an increasing amount of time with Elizabeth. At first it had seemed a natural thing that she would find work to do in the sitting room while Daisy, Polly, and Almanzo had their lessons; they were her children, after all, regardless of their ages. And Manny’s mind was seldom on the work at hand unless his mother was carding wool in the corner.
Over time, Elizabeth imagined that Curiosity’s interest would wane, but instead it seemed to become more focused. While Polly read aloud in her low and pleasing voice, Curiosity’s hands would fall to her lap and she would incline her head in concentration. Perhaps, Elizabeth thought, it was that Curiosity wanted to be part of the lessons herself. One day she asked her outright, and found to her surprise that she had amused Curiosity with this invitation: in response, the older woman picked up the first tract to hand—it happened to be a treatise on taxation written by Alexander Hamilton—and read a paragraph out loud without stopping to breathe. Her manner was most unusual: she leaned forward at the waist and read in a loud voice directly into the page, as if she were arguing with it. Elizabeth was enchanted. It turned out that Curiosity had read every book in the judge’s library, and had something to say about each of them.
Gradually Elizabeth learned to carry on with the lessons while Curiosity flitted in and out, or sat close by, openly listening.
When Elizabeth set up a corner in the kitchen and began tutoring Benjamin and George, slaves of the Glove family, Curiosity never left at all and Galileo would just as often come to join them. James Glove let the boys come for lessons in arithmetic and writing once or twice a week when they weren’t needed elsewhere. This had caused some concern in the village, but thus far the Gloves hadn’t given in to pressure: they owned the only mill, and they wanted the boys to be more than one kind of help to them. Elizabeth had soon found out that Benjamin had a good head for figures, but less talent for the written language, while George was just the opposite. In a roundabout way, Curiosity let Elizabeth know it would not be to anyone’s advantage if she shared this information with Mr. Glove.
Curiosity greeted the young men like royalty when they came into her kitchen and praised them to their faces when they got up to head for home, pressing gingerbread or pie into their hands and smiling a smile that Elizabeth seldom saw otherwise. Soon Elizabeth realized that Curiosity always kept Polly weaving or spinning by the hearth during these lessons. Benjam
in and Polly were of a similar age, and Benjamin was a likely young man. Elizabeth wondered how Curiosity would manage to see the courtship through, given the fact that Benjamin was a slave, but she was sure that there was some well-thought-through plan. That much she had learned about Curiosity and Galileo: they did nothing by chance.
Clearly, Elizabeth had won Curiosity’s approval and she felt the benefits of this state every day. It went beyond attention to her personal and material needs: Curiosity began to favor Elizabeth with information. She would bring tea to her room unexpectedly, and sit with her while she drank it, speaking of nothing in particular and still managing to pass on gossip which Elizabeth found often to be useful. Beyond that, Curiosity was plain amusing, and Elizabeth had come to depend on her in the weeks when worry about Nathaniel and their plans was sometimes more than she thought she could bear alone.
Thus, on the morning after Liam Kirby had been tried and sentenced in the parlor, Elizabeth was not at first surprised to wake to Curiosity’s knock at her door. Plagued by uneasy dreams, she had not slept well and she was glad to let herself be coddled a bit.
“Dr. Todd ain’t come back yet,” Curiosity said directly, handing Elizabeth a cup.
“He must have had more business to deal with than he expected,” Elizabeth murmured. Of all people, she was least comfortable discussing Richard with Curiosity.
“Business, huh.” Curiosity shook her head, the tower of her headcloth wobbling a bit with the strength of the motion. “Business waiting for him here, too.”
Elizabeth raised a brow, waited.
“Didn’t you hear Nathaniel yesterday?”
Bent over her teacup, Elizabeth searched quickly for an answer which would satisfy, but Curiosity seemed not to need one.
“Otter got himself shot and the doctor gone. I was thinking I might just go up there myself, see if they need any help with looking after that wound.”
“Oh, yes,” Elizabeth agreed, suddenly quite awake. “That’s an excellent idea. You could take up some of that poultice you made for Nathaniel’s shoulder—” She stopped suddenly. Curiosity was looking at her in a way which said more than words could.
“I was thinking I might stop and look at that schoolhouse of yours first. And that maybe you might come along, keep me company.” She paused. “It’s a long way for an old woman like me up Hidden Wolf.”
Many logical replies to this unusual request for Elizabeth’s company on an outing went through her head. All of them were familiar to Curiosity. There was something going on, and Elizabeth wasn’t sure what it was.
“Father wouldn’t like it.”
Her lips pursed, Curiosity considered Elizabeth.
“You real worried about keeping your daddy happy these days.”
Elizabeth thought hard and came to the conclusion that silence was the only viable strategy. But Curiosity had decided to open this subject, and she wasn’t so easily dissuaded.
“You think I ain’t seen you, bitin’ your lip when the judge talk. Trying to look like you agree when you don’t. Settin’ your face in a smile when Richard Todd come by making sweet. You got them fooled, all right. But let me tell you, that smile about as believable as teats on a bull. Now you telling me you don’t want to go up to Lake in the Clouds when I can see you ready to jump out the window to get there.”
Curiosity tapped her foot, once, twice, while Elizabeth squirmed.
“What if I told you a little bird come by this morning and asked me to come up to the lake, and that little bird asked me to bring you along.”
Elizabeth felt herself flush. “What did he say exactly?”
“What he?” Curiosity said. “I never said nothing about no he.” Unexpectedly, she grinned. “There something you wantin’ to tell me?”
It was a temptation. Elizabeth thought that she could trust Curiosity; she was sure of it. But to admit that she was carefully, knowingly, willfully deceiving her father was more than she could do.
“Not yet,” Elizabeth said apologetically. “Not quite yet.”
Curiosity shook her head slowly, a finger against her mouth. “You know what you’re doin’, child?”
Suddenly Elizabeth wasn’t sure at all. She felt herself very close to tears. “Yes,” she said finally.
“Well,” said Curiosity, without a smile now. “I believe that you do.”
There was a tap at her door, and the judge’s voice through it, solicitous: “Are you coming to services this morning, daughter? The Witherspoons have invited us to dine with them afterward.”
Elizabeth met Curiosity’s eye and her raised brow. “You gonna disappoint that bird?”
There was another tap. “Daughter?”
“Please make my excuses, Father,” Elizabeth called to the judge. “I was thinking of a walk.”
· · ·
They found the schoolhouse just as she had imagined it. It was full of sunlight and smelled of freshly cut timber and strong soap. In the main room there were six six-paned window sashes, two on each wall. From the far side there was a stretch of clear spring sky and the glint of yellow-green on the willows that bordered the lake; from the door there were the deep shadows of the forest. Against the drab green of the hemlock, the delicate branches of a stand of red osier glowed bright in the sun.
“Falling-Day has been here with her girls,” observed Curiosity approvingly. “Not a muddy footprint to be seen.” Her footsteps sounded through the room. “My, look at this. A study? And a view of the lake from the window. This is prettier than many a cabin in Paradise, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth was silent, because she was afraid that if she spoke she would be overcome by emotion. She walked through the classroom again, the floorboards solid underfoot, to stand in the study. The small window above the desk gave her a view of the little marsh that stood between the clearing and the lake, where the heads of trumpet weed and cinnamon fern were beginning to unfurl themselves.
She turned around to smile at Curiosity. “We’ll need curtains.”
“My, yes,” she agreed. “And a hook rug or two, I’d say.”
“I want to go to Lake in the Clouds now,” Elizabeth said and she found herself thankful once again, this time for Curiosity’s silent acceptance.
He was gone off into the bush to hunt. Of course. He had told her that in her father’s parlor crowded with people, but somehow she hadn’t heard it, or hadn’t believed him. Elizabeth tried to pay attention to what it was Hawkeye was telling her, but somehow all she could hear was a three-beat refrain that echoed in her head without pause: how could he, how could he, how could he.
“I expect him back in a day or two,” Hawkeye repeated and then Elizabeth produced the nod he had been waiting for. She was glad that the women were otherwise occupied, gathered around the cot where Otter lay, examining his wound. Hannah was there, too, mesmerized by the contents of Curiosity’s basket and asking questions about her poultice. Many-Doves reached in to adjust the dressing and Otter batted at her, scowling. Falling-Day and Curiosity were deep in conversation.
“How did it happen?” Elizabeth asked Hawkeye, hoping for a long story, one which would allow her her own thoughts while he related it. But Hawkeye was watching her closely, and she saw understanding and compassion on his face. That was very hard to bear, and she bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from asking that question which was running through her head.
“How do you think?” Hawkeye asked. “Somebody drew a bead on him when he warn’t paying enough attention.”
Elizabeth glanced at him from the side. “Has it been bad?”
He shrugged. “It’s getting worse.” And then, after a pause: “Nathaniel ain’t took off for good, you know.”
“I realize that.” Elizabeth was unable to meet his eye. “I just wanted to thank him. For the schoolhouse.”
“Is that so?” He took her by the arm and led her outside the cabin to the porch. The rush of the waterfall was louder than she remembered. Elizabeth let herself be shown to a r
ocking chair. She spread her skirts and folded her hands on her lap, and waited for this visit to be over so she could go home and worry in the peace and privacy of her own room.
“Nathaniel thought it would be best if he wasn’t around for the next few days,” Hawkeye said, surprising her.
“I see.” Her tone was sharper than she intended; she was surprised to see Hawkeye smile in response.
“He made a point of taking leave from your folks yesterday, because then if something should happen around here—if somebody should go missing, for example—then maybe they won’t think of Nathaniel first.”
Startled, Elizabeth looked up. “He told you?”
Hawkeye nodded.
She was relieved and embarrassed and glad and frightened all at once. “And do you—” She stopped, unable to say the word.
“It ain’t for me to approve or disapprove,” Hawkeye said softly. “I will say that I’m worried. I told him plain, I don’t believe you realize how dangerous it is, what you’re up to.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said clearly.
He grunted. “You should be.”
“I trust Nathaniel to look after me.”
His look was keen. “That ain’t the point,” he said. “And you know it.”
They were silent together for a while. Elizabeth looked at Hawkeye, at the set of his jaw and the way his eyes narrowed when he looked away, over the glen. There was a calmness about him, but she thought she saw something else, just below the surface. A waiting. There had been an old colonel at home who came to call on aunt Merriweather, a veteran of the French and Indian wars, who had some of the same wariness. Elizabeth wondered if all old soldiers had this feeling of cautiousness about them.
“Nathaniel is very much like you.” She was surprised to hear herself say this, but found that it was the right thing. His reservation slipped a bit, and he grinned.
“Aye,” he said. “That he is.”
“There’s the story of how you stole into a fort under siege to rescue your wife and her sister.”
