by Sara Donati
She rediscovered what she had first learned from the Schuylers at Saratoga: Nathaniel’s reputation spread far over the territory and was larger than she could comprehend. Before they reached the main market square they had had four invitations to come and stay and countless invitations to dinner. Elizabeth collected shy looks from bachelor farmers, appreciative appraisals from merchants and calculating glances from their wives and daughters, some of them directed openly to her waist. What she carried there was not visible to the world at large, not when she was fully dressed—but they saw what they wanted to, and nodded to each other knowingly.
Total strangers seemed to know things about her.
“Don’t look so surprised, Boots,” Nathaniel had said after an old trapper by the name of Johanson had inquired after her time in the bush. “This always was a town with an appetite for gossip, and we gave them enough to talk about in the spring.”
“Richard gave them enough to talk about,” Elizabeth amended. “I shudder to think what they must have heard of me.”
“Well, now.” He frowned. “I expect that your running off to marry me is only part of your reputation. They’ll be thinking of Lingo, too.”
She pulled up short. “What does anyone here know about that?”
Nathaniel put a hand out to take her elbow and came in closer.
“Elizabeth,” he said calmly. “News like that has legs. It’ll get up and walk itself across the territory in no time at all. I know, I know you don’t like the idea, but if it’s any comfort to you, nobody thinks badly of you. You found a real good way to make these men take you seriously—haven’t you noticed?”
“I was hoping for respect,” she said. “Not fear.”
“They go together, around here.”
“What the women must be saying—”
He pulled up, and turned her to him. “Did you look at Jane Morgan when I introduced her just now? Did you see her kerchief under a hat, in this heat?”
“I don’t understand your point.”
“This looks like a city to you, Boots, but this place has been in the middle of one war after another since the first Dutchman put up a hut and called it home. You see that fort over there on the island? That’s there for a reason. Jane survived a scalping. I don’t doubt she killed a man or two herself. I know my mother did. Women living in these parts learned how to handle weapons and they used them, or they didn’t last long.”
In the middle of the crowded street he put an arm around her and his cheek to her hair. “This ain’t London, although it may stink as bad at times. Now will you stop fretting?”
“I’ll try,” she said against his shoulder.
“That’ll do, Boots. I couldn’t ask for any more than that.”
· · ·
Judge van der Poole had a goiter that rested on his bony neck like a perky second head, a fact which might have been easier to overlook if he did not have the habit of stroking it thoughtfully as he read the papers before him. His small red mouth pursed in thought, he petted and prodded the growth until Elizabeth had to look away to retain her composure.
He had received them in his home, most probably at Mr. Bennett’s urging, Elizabeth thought. It was certainly more pleasant than the courthouse would have been. The thick walls and batten-shuttered windows made the house cool and dim; it smelled of smoked ham and beeswax and freshly pressed linen. The hearth was surrounded by ceramic tiles in a white and blue pattern that matched exactly the colors of the rugs on the brightly polished wood plank floors. It was a comfortable house without pretensions, in spite of the elevated position of the householder. Elizabeth found herself relaxing while Judge van der Poole read through the pile of papers before him at leisure.
When he finally spoke, it came as a surprise. “Mr. Bennett, I’m going to talk to Mrs. Bonner directly, if she will allow me.”
“I think you’ll find her very capable of dealing with your questions directly,” Mr. Bennett murmured before Elizabeth could voice this sentiment herself.
Judge van der Poole paused to pat his goiter thoughtfully. “If we understand correctly, Mrs. Bonner,” he began, peering at her from over the rims of his spectacles. “You are asking the court to dismiss the breach-of-promise suit brought against you by Dr. Richard Todd.”
She allowed that this was true, and in response he went back to the paperwork, tilting his head to one side with his mouth tightly pursed.
“Most unusual, you realize. A very delicate business, this. First the defendant was not to be found, and now the plaintiff has gone missing. You have the support of some very prominent citizens, I note, but still, Dr. Todd has his rights. I think I must ask Mrs. Bonner to tell us her story from the beginning,” he said. “Without her husband in the room. If he doesn’t object.” It was not a question.
Elizabeth felt Nathaniel’s hand on her shoulder, the strong fingers pressing briefly. He spoke a few low words with Mr. Bennett, and then he left their fate to her.
There was a little boy in the next garden, building a fort out of bits of cast-off wood mortared together with mud and straw. Nathaniel sat down in the shade of an oak where he could watch him work. The shuttered windows of the van der Poole parlor were at his back; when the wind was right he could hear only the rise and fall of voices. She was doing most of the talking, in an easy tone.
It could go wrong; they knew that. The judge could order them to sell the mountain to Richard, or he could void both the deed of gift and the land transfer. No one would be able to lift a finger, not even Philip Schuyler. Richard would come back to Paradise to find that they had done his work for him: Hidden Wolf back in Middleton’s hands; Richard determined to have it. Nathaniel would be back where he started, except he wouldn’t. He would still have Elizabeth for his wife and nothing could change that.
Sometimes he tired of it, the whole long battle for one small corner of the forest when so much had been lost already by the Kahnyen’kehàka.
The little boy’s curls twirled around his head in the breeze. He glanced up at Nathaniel with eyes as green as the flickering leaves, tugged on a curl that fell over his forehead, and then frowned at his handiwork. With a sigh he got up and disappeared around a corner to come back with his fists full of kindling.
Nathaniel loosened the neck of his shirt another notch and made himself more comfortable against the broad back of the oak, glad of the breeze and the shade. A rider passed and hooves struck the cobblestones in a hollow rhythm. In the next garden the little boy began to hum over his work, tunelessly. Elizabeth’s voice rose and fell in counterpoint, as familiar to him now as the sound of his own heartbeat. At odd moments there was the sound of the Hudson, not a quarter of a mile off, rushing south to the sea.
He dreamed of Chingachgook on the river, paddling by torchlight. Suspended over the world as he coasted on the wind, Nathaniel watched the old man sing his hunting song, calling the deer to him. A buck appeared on the shore as if he had been waiting for this summons all of his life and swam toward the canoe, his eyes reflecting red and gold in the torchlight. Chingachgook raised his gun and his voice broke, a different rhythm now: his own death song. The river twisted and turned, and Chingachgook disappeared. In his place, Elizabeth floated on the waters of the Great River, her arms beating like wings and her hair spread around her in a halo. Her white body was swollen great with child. The river turned her like a log, darkening her skin to the color of tarnished copper as she rolled, changing her shape, uncoiling her hair. Sarah, now. Sarah’s face, and in her lifeless arms, a baby, a too-still baby neither white nor red but mottled gold and chestnut and a deep earth color, a neck ringed in bruised greens and blues. Dark hair ruffled like down in the breeze.
Nathaniel woke with a start, his heart beating in his throat. She was there, kneeling next to him.
“You were dreaming.” Her face was furrowed with concern. “I’ve never seen you sleep in the day like this.”
He put his hands on her, wordlessly.
“What is it?” S
he caught his hands, held them still. “What is the matter?”
“Nothing,” he muttered. “Just a dream.” Just a dream. He rubbed a hand over his face. “What happened with van der Poole?”
Elizabeth cast a glance over her shoulder toward Bennett. He studied his shoe buckles, his hands crossed at the small of his back.
“There is good news,” she began. “He seems to believe that Richard is alive and that we are not responsible for his absence. But neither will he dismiss the lawsuit.”
“Damn.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “All is not lost. He has set a court date in September. If Richard does not appear for that, then his claim will be automatically dismissed.”
“It is a formality, I think,” said Bennett. “He is well disposed toward you or he would not have asked us to join him for dinner. It is a good sign.”
“Elizabeth doesn’t seem to think so, not by the look on her face.” Nathaniel rose, and helped her to her feet.
“I am not sure one way or the other,” she said. “I suppose it will depend on the dinner conversation.”
“Your condition is enough cause for us to stay away, if you don’t care to go,” Nathaniel said.
Mr. Bennett looked between them. “What is this? Good tidings?” He cleared his throat. “Well, then, Mrs. Bonner. You should certainly stay away if it will distress you, given your hopeful expectations.”
She managed a thin smile. “Do you think that we can really risk the judge’s goodwill?”
When Mr. Bennett did not immediately respond, she nodded. “Your silence speaks quite loudly. Well, I will cope. But first I need to go to the shops.”
“You require a dress for this evening,” Mr. Bennett guessed.
“I require spectacles,” said Elizabeth. “And a supply of new quills.”
Because they did not have any other molds, Run-from-Bears had melted down about twenty pounds of the Tory Gold in a makeshift forge and cast a fortune in bullets. These Nathaniel had been carrying in double-sewn leather pouches next to his skin since they left Paradise, ten pounds on each side. In Johnstown this unusual currency would have caused a stir, but Albany was a town built on some two hundred years of high intrigue and trading shenanigans. Comfortable Dutch and British merchants had made large fortunes running illegal furs from Canada, reselling silver spoons stolen in Indian raids on New England families much like their own, and bartering second-grade wampum and watered rum for all the ginseng root the native women could dig up, which they then traded to the Orient at an outrageous profit. A sack of golden bullets would raise nothing more in an Albany merchant than his blood pressure.
Gold went for seventeen dollars an ounce on the open market; Nathaniel stipulated sixteen and the doors to the city’s warehouses opened to him on well-oiled hinges. If the merchants of Albany had ever heard rumors of Tory Gold, or been told of the state’s keen interest in recovering that treasure, they were struck with a sudden and thorough epidemic of forgetfulness which would last until they estimated that Nathaniel had exhausted his resources.
Elizabeth had followed the trading quietly, but she had not missed a step of what went on; Nathaniel was sure of it. She watched with narrowed eyes as he negotiated the exchange of one bag of gold for a note signed by Leendert Beekman, not the biggest or most successful merchant in Albany, but one of the few Nathaniel trusted. While his clerks took care of Nathaniel’s requests, from gunpowder, flints, and pig iron to hair ribbons and a bag of peppermint drops for Hannah, Beekman took Elizabeth’s list and waited on her personally, measuring flour and sprigged lawn, sewing needles and China tea. He produced a display case of spectacles, spread out spools of thread and brass buttons for her examination, and debated with her the relative qualities of various kinds of ink. When she had chosen three dozen new quills, he produced a sheet of paper and showed Elizabeth his latest acquisition: an artificial quill. A mahogany stem was inset with carved ivory, and tapered down to a nib of copper and silver. A magical contrivance that would hold more ink than a quill, and never need to be sharpened.
She held it as another woman might hold a jewel she believed to be too extravagant to even contemplate owning. With a small smile, Elizabeth returned the pen to Beekman and thanked him for his trouble.
With their purchases wrapped for delivery and Beekman’s note firmly in hand, they went to the bank, where a bored clerk with a mulish mouth and tobacco-stained fingers counted out the money in a combination of Spanish, British, Dutch, and New-York currencies, muttering exchange rates under his breath and scribbling out an accounting as he went along. Nathaniel arranged for a good amount of this money to be paid into the account of a Mr. James Scott. To his surprise, Elizabeth excused herself during the process and went to speak to the bank manager without him. Walking back to the Schuyler estate with five hundred dollars in notes and silver and his hand resting lightly on his rifle, he managed to curb his curiosity.
“Why James Scott?” Elizabeth asked. “Could not Runs-from-Bears use his own name?”
He cast a surprised glance in her direction. “Bears never goes into the bank. They wouldn’t let an Indian do business there, Boots.”
She drew up, flushed with surprise and indignation. “But why not, if he has money to deposit? The funds from the silver—” She glanced around herself and dropped her voice. “They are kept in that bank? I assume you were repaying the funds you borrowed from the silver mine in the spring?”
“Yes.”
“Then who is James Scott?”
“I am. I do the banking for Runs-from-Bears. It’s just a name, Boots.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I fear I will never understand this business.”
“You could understand it well enough, Boots. You might never like it much. You realize the treasury could show up at our door tomorrow,” he warned her once again. “Sooner or later somebody’s going to start talking about this gold we’re spending so freely, and they’ll come looking for the five-guinea pieces.”
“I am not worried,” Elizabeth said, straightening her shoulders. “I will just tell them you married me for my money.”
“That’ll do the trick, all right,” Nathaniel said sourly.
In their room, Elizabeth put a small purse in Nathaniel’s hands, along with a sheet of paper covered closely with her strong, upright handwriting.
“Four hundred dollars, as agreed. In notes. I hope that is satisfactory. And a bill of sale for the schoolhouse, for your signature.”
He knew better than to show surprise. Nathaniel read the offered document carefully; he read it again in order to gather his thoughts.
“Mr. Schuyler arranged for the withdrawal. And Mr. Bennett reviewed the bill of sale and made a suggestion or two. They were both most helpful.”
“So I see. Did you withdraw all of your aunt Merriweather’s funds?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Never mind, Boots. Idle curiosity killed the cat, I’m told. Give me something to write with, and we’ll see this done.”
“Wait,” she said suddenly, and she turned on her heel and left the room. Nathaniel was just thinking of following her when she reappeared ushering before her a mystified Mrs. Vanderhyden and Mr. MacIntyre, who ran the estate for the Schuylers while they spent their summer at Saratoga.
“We need witnesses.”
When all parties had signed the document and they were alone again, she sat down on the edge of the broad bed and let out a sigh of relief, and then lay back with an arm across her face.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Now I’ll have to figure out what to spend this money on. Don’t think I’ve ever had so much cash and nothing to do with it.”
She peeked at him over the edge of her arm. “If you’d like to make an investment, I have something to suggest.”
He grinned at her. “I was thinking of a new rifle, but I expect you’ll have a better idea. What is it?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I’m not ready to t
ell you yet. Hopefully tomorrow, before we leave for home.”
Nathaniel lay down next to her and pulled her face up to his, traced her eyebrow with his finger. “I’ll let you lead me astray tomorrow.” His hand slid down her arm and up her side, probing softly with his thumb for the curve of her breast. “If you’ll let me do the same for you today.”
“I wasn’t made for fancy clothes,” he said, picking at his shirt-front. The coat, borrowed from John Bradstreet’s wardrobe, was cut in severe lines, tight-sleeved and swallow-tailed, and slightly too narrow across the shoulders. Nathaniel flexed his arms in protest.
“I beg to disagree,” Elizabeth said, her head tilted to one side. Under the softly gathered, high-waisted skirt—borrowed again from the selection Mrs. Vanderhyden had provided—one toe tapped softly. She brushed a hand across his shoulder.
The color suited him: deep black against the fine Holland linen, with a modestly folded jabot at the neck. The fawn-colored breeches fit him better than the coat, and they were far less discreet than his usual buckskin leggings: every muscle was visible when he moved. His hair was brushed back smooth away from his brow and gathered into a neat tail. The combination of his deeply tanned face above the startling white linen and the twirling silver earring leant him a dangerous air, which he supplemented with a scowl.
“I can’t deny that you look pretty, Boots. But I like you better in doeskin with your legs bare and your hair plaited. I hardly know how to put my hands on you.”
“As you’ve had your hands on me quite a lot today, I find it hard to sympathize.” She tugged on the lace shawl tucked into the deeply cut bodice in a vain attempt to cover more of her bosom. “Rest assured, I do not enjoy this any more than you do. If I had my way I would spend the evening in bed. Reading,” she added in response to his grin. “But it seems we have entered into the world of high finance and intrigue, and I suppose we must play out the game.”
