by Sara Donati
“And what is that?”
He reached out to her, took her hand in his own. She looked at it, strong and brown and capable of so much, of gentleness and affection and of harder things, when it was called for.
“Richard Todd is determined to take everything I ever had or ever wanted away from me,” Nathaniel said.
Sarah, thought Elizabeth. She was standing between them; Elizabeth could almost see her. Nathaniel was thinking of Sarah, who waited to play her part in this story.
“Tell me the rest,” she said. “Tell me about Sarah.”
To her surprise, Nathaniel dropped her hand and stood up to look out over the lake. “You’re avoiding your swimming lesson.”
“I want to know about Sarah,” Elizabeth said, a little surprised at him. He was looking down at her with an impatience she hadn’t anticipated. He didn’t answer her; she could see a muscle fluttering in his cheek.
“Nathaniel?”
“What?” he asked sharply. “What do you want to know about Sarah? She was my wife, and she left my bed for Richard Todd’s. Isn’t that enough to know?”
Shocked, Elizabeth rose to face him. She felt herself flood with anger and embarrassment and then with more anger. She cleared her throat. “But—”
“I’m damn tired of questions,” Nathaniel snapped. “Maybe we could get to the end of them one of these days.”
Elizabeth’s hands were trembling, and she pressed them against her sides under her arms. “You have been telling me all along that I need to know this story.”
“Well, you don’t,” he interrupted, his face suddenly blank and unreadable. “You’re a clever woman,” he said. “But there’s a blindness in you for some things, Elizabeth. There’s no easy answers here. Nothing I can tell you about Sarah to make it all clear to you. She’s dead, let’s leave her lie in peace.”
“But what about you, what about your peace?”
He grimaced. “Well, I suppose I’ve got some coming to me now, maybe. Or at least I will once Todd has been dealt with and the Wolf can’t be taken away from me anymore.”
“I see,” Elizabeth said tightly. She was turning away, pulling on her clothing, jamming her legs into her leggings and yanking at the ties. “As long as you’ve got Hidden Wolf.”
“Where are you going?”
“For a walk.”
“You can’t run off.”
“I’m not running off,” she said hoarsely. “I am going for a walk. You seem to need some time to yourself, and so do I.”
Suddenly his anger left him visibly, flowed away from him like a breaking fever. They stood there almost nose to nose, each breathing heavily. Sweat ran down Nathaniel’s face, although they stood in shadow.
He said, “I had one wife who ran away, and I wasn’t counting on another one.”
Elizabeth blinked in surprise at this. He was afraid, Nathaniel was afraid of telling her what she wanted to know. It made her curious and angry and sad, all at once.
“Nathaniel Bonner,” she said quietly. “It is you who don’t want to talk to me.”
He was mute, his jaw working in a tight circle as he stared at her. Nathaniel leaned in toward her then, his face a mask. “Maybe you’re sorry you took me, then,” he said. “Maybe you’re wondering if you should have listened harder to Todd.”
Elizabeth drew herself up. “I didn’t want Richard Todd, I never did. And I’m not taking his side here, or Sarah’s. Do you understand that clearly? For as long as you have known Richard he has been trying to gain advantage over you. Unfairly, and in ways which are insupportable.” She took a deep breath. “I do not need to know the details of what went on between him and Sarah. But I am very distressed by the fact that you don’t trust me enough to tell me the whole story and let me decide for myself—”
“Decide for yourself? Decide what? If I was at fault, if I drove her off?”
She shook her head slowly, and then began to turn away, but Nathaniel took her by the arm, held her there where she did not want to be.
“Goddamn it, I listened to you and now you listen to me. I can tell you another truth, Elizabeth, and it’s the one that should concern you most. I wanted you from the first and I want you now, and that has nothing to do with Sarah or with Todd or with anybody in this world but with you, and me.”
“I want some time on my own,” she said, not meeting his eye.
“It ain’t safe.”
“I managed well enough while you were gone,” she said sharply, pulling away. “I can manage now.”
He hesitated. She could feel him thinking, and then suddenly he stepped back.
“I’ll wait for you here,” he said at last, his voice sounding as strange and hoarse as her own. “Don’t go out of shouting distance.”
She nodded without looking at him, and set off into the woods.
XXX
Once she was lost, there was nothing to do but admit it to herself. Elizabeth had been walking uphill for what must have been an hour when she stepped out of the woods and found herself on the edge of a meadow; it wasn’t until then that she realized that she had bypassed the turning which would have led her back to Robbie.
There would be a price to pay for her preoccupation, but she could not contemplate that at the moment, not when she saw what she had in front of her. The world lay revealed, in a way it hadn’t been since she had gone into the bush with Runs-from-Bears. There was an expanse of mountain meadow in tender greens and patches of unfurling bracken, spotted with blossoming goatsbeard in gaudy yellow. The edge of the meadow was framed by a low wall of sedge grass, and beyond that the rolling hills gave way to the mountains.
And on it all, light and shadow moved in a complex dance, the clouds throwing down great ragged fists of deep indigo to be swept suddenly away by slanting shafts of sunlight. Every touch of moisture on every evergreen needle seemed to spark. The world was layers of glowing color and light and a soft, warm breeze like a caress against her face. Elizabeth sat down, simply, and with her knees tucked under her chin and her arms wound round her legs, she let herself take it in.
It belonged to no one, and never could; the mountains and the scattering of lakes in greens and azures and the endless, ageless forests. The thought came to her that it was a great vanity and self-delusion to believe that such a world could be claimed, could be owned, by simply putting a name on it. She felt humbled, and childish. And still, her anger was there and she did not know how to resolve it. With her chin on her knees she looked down the mountain to where Nathaniel sat by the lake.
He was her husband, and he loved her. And it struck Elizabeth, very clearly, that all along she had both depended on and resented him for his extreme common sense. His clearheaded-ness had sometimes been irritating. But today there had been another Nathaniel there, vulnerable and uneasy and defensive. Things she had never seen in him before, things she didn’t know how to cope with. She wanted something from him that he didn’t want to give, and she had pushed him until he wouldn’t be pushed anymore. Elizabeth realized how insensitive she had been, and her cheeks colored with embarrassment. The urge to get up and go back to Nathaniel was almost more than she could withstand. But she pressed her forehead against her knees and counted to ten, and then to a hundred, forcing herself to count slowly.
She did want to know about Sarah. The young woman who had saved Nathaniel’s life, and the lives of her family. Who had turned to the man who had been responsible for the deaths of her father and brothers, the massacre of her village, the desecration of her home. Sarah, who had been dead for five years but who had left a daughter behind, a bright, beautiful daughter. Elizabeth knew that she must have the story in its entirety; she needed it for herself, and she owed it to Hannah.
He doesn’t trust you with her, not yet. That acknowledgment had hurt her pride, and she struggled now to come to a quiet place with the truth of the matter. Nathaniel did not trust her completely, and she would have to wait until he did.
From the edge of the wood c
ame the strident killy killy killy of a kestrel irritated by intruders too close to its nest. She turned to see the vibrantly colored bird swooping and fluttering. But there was no fox or squirrel. Instead there was a stranger standing there with a coonskin cap in his hands. A man with a beautiful smile and gold-brown eyes.
She rose slowly to her feet and stood her ground, realizing even as she did that she had purposely and foolishly disregarded Nathaniel’s directions to stay within shouting distance. She was without weapons and out of earshot. It did not occur to her to ask him his name as he approached her. For months she had been hearing stories of him; she would know Jack Lingo anywhere.
He walked with the rolling limp that was his hallmark, one leg shorter than the other. The fringe on his hunting shirt shimmied with it. The grin never left his face, clean shaven and quite handsome. Fans of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes gave him a kindly air. He was not very tall, but was elegantly built. Even to her untrained eye he looked strong, the shoulders filling out his shirt and straining at the upper arms.
A few feet short of her, he came to a stop and bowed so that she saw that his hair, luxuriant curls, was shot with white.
“Madame Bonner,” he murmured in a deep, gravelly voice. There were green flecks in his golden eyes. He bowed from the waist, all politeness and condescension. “Finally I make your acquaintance.”
Nathaniel slept in the sun, as he had wanted to do. Forced himself to lie there, to still his breathing. To put thoughts of Sarah and of Elizabeth out of his head, and to sleep. He woke instantaneously and reached for her, but his hand found the more familiar shape of his rifle. He judged the time by the slant of the light, and by the grumbling in his stomach. She would be back at Robbie’s, waiting for him with things to say. He did not relish the conversation, but he could not go longer without seeing her.
Downwind from Robbie’s camp, Nathaniel heard the thunk of an axe and the occasional pause. This part of the bush was as familiar to him as the country around Paradise, and so were Robbie’s habits. Nathaniel had hunted here with his father every season while he was growing up, staying behind for long weeks to learn trapping from Robbie. Hawkeye had been willing to leave Nathaniel because Robbie knew the value of the business; Cora had let him go for other reasons. She had been worried about Nathaniel’s restlessness, and hoped that the time with Robbie would be enough to satisfy his need for adventure. A hope that had not been realized.
Robbie was known up and down the bush for his understanding of the beaver and their ways, for his generosity and gentleness, and for his fair dealings with the Hode’noshaunee. For thirty years he had traded with them, his furs for their squash and beans and corn, for moccasins and hunting shirts big enough to fit him, and for thirty years he had been knowingly and willingly underpaid. His furs were the best to be had, and worth a fortune season by season. But Robbie had not a greedy bone in him and he was content with the arrangement, because it released him of the need to go among men. Twice or three times a year he had come to Paradise, to spend a few evenings at Cora’s hearth. Since she had died he had not even gone that far.
The thought of Lake in the Clouds brought Nathaniel back to Elizabeth and Sarah. He had lost his composure today about Sarah, something he hadn’t done in many years. Elizabeth had taken offense. He shook his head, knowing that he had given her cause.
She was so strong and so sensible that he forgot at times what it must be like for her, how strange it all was. Looking back at those first days she had spent in Paradise, he remembered admiring her for coping so well. That was when it had started. With the tilt of her chin and the flash of her eyes and the curve of her mouth, with the starch in her and her feistiness. The question was, could she stand to see him for what he was? She demanded the whole truth, but he worried that she would turn away from him, once she had heard it all.
He asked himself something she had not asked, and that was whether it was her or the land he had wanted more, wanted first. It was something he wondered about from time to time, but he couldn’t remember anymore what had come first. Whatever had been in his head back then, the truth now was that he wanted her more than he needed her. The having of her would keep him alive.
Nathaniel came around a bend and heard a shout of laughter. Robbie, in the best of moods. And Runs-from-Bears, laughing, too. They were sitting there at the fire, cleaning a small deer, and deep in conversation. There was no sign of Elizabeth.
“Where is she?” he asked, without stopping to greet them.
“She’s a wee thing, that lass of yours, but surely ye havna lost her betwixt the lake and here, have ye, man?” Robbie was grinning, but he saw the look on Nathaniel’s face and his face went blank.
“Kát-ke?” Bears asked—When?—even as he stood and reached for his rifle.
“Two hours,” answered Nathaniel. “She headed up-mountain.”
They split up to look for signs. Of Elizabeth, or of Jack Lingo, or of the two of them together. There was no time or need to discuss the matter. All three men knew Jack Lingo and what he was capable of; Robbie had cleaned up after him on more than one occasion. Nathaniel and Bears had heard stories from Hawkeye, told in a low voice out of the women’s hearing.
The fist in his gut, low and tense, reminded Nathaniel of the morning of his first battle, at Bemis Heights. When the fog still lay over the land and all was still, thousands of men quiet, waiting for the killing to start. He pushed away the thought of his own foolishness. He could not afford that now, not until this was resolved. He would not think of the worst, because it would unman him.
He ran upmountain, his rifle cocked and loaded and primed, ready in his hands. He could reload at a dead run, but he knew that if he needed to use it and failed, she would be dead already, and his life over. Jack Lingo was a formidable enemy.
Nathaniel ran hard, light-footed and focused, stopping now and then to listen and then run again. He wanted to be the one to pick up the trail. Unbidden, the feel of her came to him, her skin pressed to his, and her smell; he frowned and sought a prayer instead, any prayer. But Christian or Kahnyen’kehàka, nothing came to him except the memory of her, how she felt to him.
Ahead he saw the forest give way to the upper meadow and he stopped. Looked harder around himself, and found her. Her heel print. Seeing it, its orientation, he knew the way she had come here, how she had traveled bearing east when she should have kept on north. Not that it mattered anymore; the outline of her foot was flanked by another print. A man’s foot, with a drag to it.
Nathaniel stopped to listen, and hearing nothing, walked to the edge of the meadow where he saw the small huddled form of his wife.
It was uncomfortable sitting with her back to the beech tree. Not so much because of the bindings; she could not free herself, but they were not excessively tight, either. But she itched, and she could not scratch. Soon, she thought, she would have to shout. She had waited for as long as she could bear for Nathaniel to come and find her, but it seemed a very long time indeed. Perhaps Robbie would hear her, if Nathaniel didn’t. Perhaps she could convince him to keep this to himself. She was mortified at her own foolishness.
She looked up and saw Nathaniel at the edge of the wood. A great flood of relief and gratitude filled her, but before she could call out to him he had faded back into the shadows and disappeared.
For a while, she was patient. He must believe that she was in danger, that she was being watched. He couldn’t know how innocent the whole thing had been, how politely Jack Lingo had spoken to her. Nathaniel was worried for her well-being, when all he need do was come and cut her loose so she could pass along Lingo’s message and they could get on with things. Her stomach rumbled and her face itched abominably and the kestrel which had warned her—or tried to warn her—of Jack Lingo’s approach had rewarded her stupidity by perching above her to void in a bright orange streak down the front of her overdress. She had borne many indignities for her thoughtless behavior, and she was ready to own up to her mistakes and
to carry on. But still Nathaniel didn’t come. Her irritation increased with the itching of her nose.
He startled her in the end, speaking to her from behind even as he cut her bonds.
“Swimming would have been a far sight more pleasant,” he said.
“No doubt,” she agreed, rubbing her wrists. When she could turn she saw his frown, and she answered him with one of her own, although she would have preferred touching him.
“I began to think you wouldn’t come back at all.”
“The thought crossed my mind.”
“Oh, very amusing.” She pursed her mouth. “He did me no real harm, if you’re worried about that.”
He cocked one eyebrow. “I don’t expect you’d be so feisty if he had.”
“He was very gentlemanly,” she said.
“Then you’re the first to think so,” Nathaniel said, frowning. “Most women who have made his acquaintance ain’t seen that side of him.” He turned away. “Let’s go back,” he said, and started off without looking at her. He was definitely in a bad humor.
“I was the one accosted,” Elizabeth said lightly. “You needn’t be so short with me.”
Too late, she saw the error of this. He swung around on her, his face all thunder. “By God,” he whispered. “You can be a stupid woman, Elizabeth. Do you have no idea what he might have done to you?”
“He did nothing except bind me to that tree,” she countered. “And tell me a number of quite fantastical stories. I don’t like to be called stupid. I may have been foolish to have walked so far—”
“Foolish, aye. And stubborn and thickheaded and plain ignorant, for good measure.” The muscles in his throat were working hard. “And if you ever decide that you must defy common sense again then you won’t have to worry about being called stupid, because you’ll be dead or hurt so bad you won’t give a damn.” And he reached out his left arm and pulled her in to him, buried his face in her hair.
