The Way Lies North

by Jean Rae Baxter

  “Why not?” Mama asked. “By common law, we can get title by possession. Who else has a claim?”

  “The King,” Papa replied. “Since the land at Cataraqui was part of LaSalle’s Seigneury Number One in the French system, it belongs to the Crown. After the war, the government intends to have it resurveyed for disbanded soldiers.”

  Mama frowned. “So if we farmed at Cataraqui, we’d be ploughing another man’s field. What would be the point?”

  “No point at all. As soon as the titleholder claimed his land, we’d have to leave. For a second time, we’d be driven from our home.” Papa paused. “However, the British government plans to grant one hundred acres to every Loyalist — not just to heads of families, but to every man, woman and child. Among the three of us, we’ll receive three hundred acres, as well as tools and supplies.”

  “When is this going to happen?” Mama asked.

  “After peace is declared.”

  “Henry, it might take years!”

  “It will.” Papa took Mama’s hand and looked directly into her eyes. “Martha, my dear, forgive me for breaking my vow. I truly meant it when I swore that you would not spend another winter in this tent.”

  Charlotte heard in his voice the despair that he did not put into words. He knew — as she did too — that seven toes were not enough, and that he would be too old to start again.

  Three months had passed since Charlotte wrote her letter to Nick. There was a good chance that he had it by now. Sooner or later — perhaps when least expected — his canoe would pull up to the shore. Since it might be sooner rather than later, she got up each morning, thinking: maybe today. And each night when she went to sleep, she thought: maybe tomorrow.

  There was a tree trunk on the shore that had washed up from somewhere. It had been bleached silvery white by the sun and polished by the waves. This was a good place to sit and look out over the water, watching for Nick’s canoe to appear on the horizon. If he came upriver from Montreal, his canoe would approach from the east. If he followed Lake Ontario’s shore from Fort Niagara, his approach would be from the west. But the days passed, and he did not come from either direction.

  In May a bateau arrived from Montreal. It lurched up the eastern channel with its square sail spread to catch the breeze. Near the bow were four redcoats and one woman. The woman wore a grey travelling cloak and matching deep-brimmed bonnet. She stood slightly apart from the others, leaning forward, her eyes searching the crowd gathered on the shore. Suddenly, she raised her arm and waved.

  A soldier returned her wave, his right arm sweeping the air. Seeing him from the back, Charlotte did not know who he was. He rushed forward as the bateau bumped against the limestone shore. The woman raised her arms to him, and he lifted her over the side. When she raised her head, Charlotte saw a delicate, heart-shaped face under the bonnet’s deep brim.

  With one arm still holding her, the soldier turned half way around and pointed toward the fort. Now Charlotte saw his face — Sergeant Major Clark’s long face, not melancholy but beaming with joy.

  The boat that brought Fidelia Clark to her husband also brought news from the outside world. But it was nothing to cheer about. Molly Brant and her children had been driven from the Mohawk Valley. Rebel mobs were persecuting Quakers for their refusal to bear arms. The British had been forced to evacuate Philadelphia. There was a rumour that France would send a fleet to invade New York, where thousands of displaced Loyalists lived in overcrowded misery. And what was England doing? Almost nothing. Throughout the Thirteen Colonies, Loyalists felt betrayed by Britain’s lack of effort. Didn’t their Mother Country care what happened to them?

  A week after Fidelia Clark’s arrival, a canoe appeared in the distance. Charlotte, sitting on the sun-bleached log by the shore, felt the usual surge of excitement followed by the usual letdown, for once again the paddler was not Nick.

  Yet something kept her eyes on him as he brought his canoe to shore and climbed out. He had the look of a courier — smooth shaven, not bearded like a fur trader. An uneasy feeling crept over her that this man brought bad news. Almost reluctantly, she joined the crowd of Loyalists that surrounded the newcomer.

  He brushed past them all, refusing to answer questions.

  “I can’t talk to you now,” he said.

  There was urgency in the speed with which he hurried through the stockade gate.

  Charlotte and the others followed him to the blockhouse. For an hour they stood around, waiting for him to emerge from the Commander’s quarters. Surely, after making his report, he would answer their questions!

  At last he came out.

  “How are things in the Mohawk Valley?” someone asked.

  “The Mohawk Valley? You wouldn’t want to see it now. Some of those Loyalists who joined Butler’s Rangers went back to burn their own homes rather than let Rebels live in them. There won’t be a house or barn left standing by the time this war ends.

  “But the Indians are getting the worst of it. George Washington is concentrating on driving them out. He put Major General John Sullivan in charge. Sullivan’s troops are tracing every creek, looking for Iroquois settlements. So far they’ve burned forty towns — long houses, fields, storehouses. Complete destruction. Oneida towns as well as the others.”

  “That makes no sense,” someone else said. “The Oneidas were helping the Rebels.”

  “Sullivan makes no distinction. An Indian is an Indian, as far as he’s concerned.”

  “Do you have any good news for us?” another person asked.

  The courier shrugged. “We’ve had some success disrupting enemy supply lines. But that’s becoming more difficult because we no longer have enough couriers to carry messages. Last month we lost another, one of our best.”

  A courier lost. This was the news she dreaded. Charlotte held her breath.

  “He was eating supper at a safe house when Rebel soldiers broke in. They saw him slip something into his mouth, so they gave him a dose of emetic tartar to fetch it back up. Sure enough, he’d swallowed a silver bullet with a message inside.” He paused. “They hanged him. End of story.”

  For a moment there was silence. Charlotte waited for someone to ask the dead courier’s name. Didn’t anyone else want to know? Apparently not. The man had picked up his pack and the crowd was starting to drift away when Charlotte called out, “What was his name?”

  She was trembling, and he must have heard the quaver in her voice. He turned his gaze toward her.

  “Daniel Taylor.”

  “Oh. Thank God!” The words had passed her lips before she knew what she was saying.

  Everyone stared at her. In their eyes she saw shock, disbelief and anger. No one understood. No one could possibly understand that her thanks were for Nick’s life, not Daniel Taylor’s death. With all her heart she grieved for Daniel Taylor. But how could she ever explain? She wished that a hole in the ground would open up before her so that she could jump in and never be seen again.

  No hole opened up. All she could do was turn and run away. No one stopped her. Charlotte was out of the blockhouse before others could see the tears in her eyes.

  Only half aware of where she was going, she headed toward the shore. As she passed through the stockade gate, she remembered her last sight of Daniel Taylor on that snowy day when he set out for Fort Niagara with her letter to Nick in his pack.

  Her stomach clenched into a hard knot. Taylor had warned her that Rebels might capture him before he saw Nick again. Is that what had happened? And if so, what had become of her letter? She pictured Rebel soldiers passing it around, snickering over tender words meant for Nick’s eyes alone.

  When she reached the shore, she sat down on the sun-bleached log and sobbed. So this was how matters stood: Nick might have received her letter, or he might not. He might know where she was, or he might not. Once again she feared that she would never see him again.

  Chapter fourteen

  It was burning hot, as hot as a July day could be
— not a breath of air stirring. Charlotte felt dizzy and her head ached from the scorching sun. She had been picking raspberries all morning. Red and black raspberries filled the camp kettle.

  The lake beckoned. Down at the shore there was cool, clear water to drink, to splash over her face and to bathe her feet. Through the tangle of wild raspberry canes she pushed her way to the shore. She sat down on a rock ledge to pull off her moccasins, the ones that Okwaho had given her; now that it was summer, she wore moccasins instead of boots.

  The limestone ledges at the shoreline descended like broad, shallow steps into the water. Holding up her gown, she stepped down to the first submerged shelf. The water reached just above her ankles. One more step and it was up to her knees. Her skin tingled deliciously at the shock of cold.

  Something tickled her toes. Glancing down, she saw a brown and yellow perch carefully inspecting them. It nudged her toes with its mouth, found them to be of no interest, and swam away.

  If she had an island all to herself, Charlotte thought, she would strip off her clothes and swim sleek as a fish through that green underwater world. How far did it stretch? All the way from Carleton Island to Fort Niagara. At least two hundred miles. Squinting into the dazzling light over the lake, she saw blue water, green islands, gulls wheeling overhead, and in the furthest distance a black speck.

  Charlotte studied the speck. A floating log. Or maybe a canoe. She raised a hand to shade her eyes. Definitely a canoe, and it was coming toward Carleton Island.

  The canoe carried only one person, and it rode high in the water. So it wasn’t a trader’s canoe, laden with goods and furs. A courier, then? That was nothing to get excited about, since she had no reason to think it was Nick.

  Whoever he was, the man paddled well, with a strong, steady rhythm. When she thought about it, there definitely was something about him — perhaps it was merely the set of his shoulders — that reminded her of Nick. But he could be anyone.

  Charlotte waded back to shore and sat down at the edge with her feet still in the water. Everything was so quiet. The heat of the day had silenced the birds in the thickets behind her. The lake was still. The canoe seemed to be the only thing moving, and every minute it came nearer.

  The paddler wore a wide-brimmed hat pulled down to shadow his face. If he would only take it off, she could see his face.

  Now the canoe was passing the spot where she sat. It was about one hundred feet offshore, heading for the fort’s landing place. In a minute it would be past her and the paddler would not hear her if she called. But of course she wasn’t going to anyway. She would not make a fool of herself by shouting to a stranger.

  And then he saw her. By chance, the man glanced shoreward. The paddle stopped in mid-stroke. He stared right at her, holding his paddle motionless in the air. The canoe glided on its momentum for a few yards until it stopped.

  “Charlotte?” He did not sound as if he believed his eyes.

  With one hand he tilted back his hat, and when she saw his face, she could not move. Her tongue felt stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she could not make a sound.

  He called her name again, and this time her limbs unfroze. She jumped up and splashed toward him. Arms out from her shoulders for balance, she pushed through the deepening water. It was up to her chest when the canoe came alongside.

  Nick dropped his paddle. Reaching for her, he leaned too far. Or did she pull him over? Whichever it was, the canoe capsized; and when Nick toppled out, he knocked Charlotte off her feet. She gulped air just in time.

  With eyes wide open, they fell together through clear green water and a swirl of bubbles. Nick’s hair floated upwards like undersea grass. Spluttering, they rose to the surface. His eyelashes were stuck together in points with water, and when he shook his head, shining drops flew off in all directions.

  The canoe, upside down, bumped against Charlotte’s back. Nick’s paddles, rucksack and blanket roll drifted aimlessly about.

  “We’d better rescue your gear,” she said, laughing helplessly.

  Nick took apart his rifle and laid the parts on a warm rock to dry. Charlotte helped him to spread out his blankets and the contents of his rucksack. She did this in a daze, vaguely grateful to have something to do that would steady her while she was bringing her life into focus again.

  Not until they were sitting side by side on a patch of brown grass only slightly softer than the limestone shore, did Charlotte entirely believe that Nick was actually there, looking just the same. Well, not quite the same. His jaw was firmer, his cheekbones more pronounced. He had a man’s face now, not a boy’s.

  Nick’s kisses were the same as the kisses she remembered — but deeper in a way that stirred her mysteriously, invoking waves of feeling that curled and spread deliciously through every part of her body. After twenty or thirty of these kisses, Charlotte’s mouth felt bruised and warm. She ran her tongue over her lips. Yes, they were swollen and probably red. She hoped that Mama would not notice.

  “This is what I dreamed about when I was hiding in the mountains,” he said.

  “In the mountains?”

  “Yes. The Adirondacks.”

  “I know nothing about your life for the past year.”

  “I’ll tell you how it was.” He lay down beside her with his arms folded under his head, and he seemed to be speaking to the sky, to the gulls wheeling overhead. “In April I had to carry a message from New York to Cherry Valley. There was supposed to be a safe house at a place called Harrietstown. When I reached it, the house was gone, burned to the ground. Woodcutters spotted me and spread an alarm. I went up Whiteface Mountain looking for somewhere to hide. I found a bear cave.”

  “A bear cave.” She turned the picture over in her mind.

  “It smelled like pig manure mixed with wet dog. For three days I was in that cave, and I read your letter so many times the paper was starting to—–”

  “My letter! When did you receive it?”

  “In January.”

  “But January was when I wrote it.”

  “I received it five days later. By chance I was at Fort Niagara when Dan Taylor arrived.”

  “Oh.” A chill ran through her. “When I heard how he was captured, I thought he likely never had a chance to give it to you.”

  “They captured him in February.”

  “I was told that he carried a message hidden in a silver bullet.” She hesitated. “Is that what you use?”

  “No. I have a box that fits into a cavity between my boot soles. It’s safer, unless somebody gets suspicious.” He laughed. “In which case, a boot is harder to swallow than a bullet.”

  She glanced at his boots, which lay drying in the sun. Their soles were thick, but not visibly thicker than most.

  “I’ll show you,” he said. “It’s where I keep your letter.” Nick stood up. He fetched one of his boots and sat down beside her again. With the tip of his knife he pried out the boot’s inner sole. From inside, he pulled out a slim metal box.

  “That surely isn’t big enough to hold my letter.”

  “You’ll be surprised at what it holds.” He opened the box, took out the paper that was crammed inside, and began to unfold it. Within the last fold lay a red-gold ring set with garnets and pearls.

  “This is for you, if you want it. Of course, you have to take me too.”

  His hands were jittery as he picked up the ring. “I wanted to ask you properly. I spent three days making up a speech. Now that I’m here, it’s gone clear out of my head.”

  “Every single word?”

  “I remember how it ended.”

  “Tell me that, anyway.”

  He looked directly into her eyes. “I shall never be happy in my life unless I am with you.”

  Charlotte gulped hard. “That’s how I feel too.” She lifted her left hand and Nick put the ring on her finger. For a long time they sat with their arms around each other. Just over Nick’s left shoulder she saw two yellow butterflies flutter and tumble above a bush, t
hen rise together into the sky.

  Nick let her go. “Read me the letter,” he said. “When I was in the bear cave, I tried to imagine your voice saying the words.”

  She picked up the letter carefully lest it tear along the folds. At the top was the dried splatter of ink drops that her clumsy pen had made. Resting her head on the comfortable spot under his shoulder, she began.

  “My dear one, I have heard such news about you, and I rejoice that the obstacles that separated us have disappeared.” She read it straight through to the end. Tears were in her eyes by the time she reached, “Someday we shall find another sycamore tree and another green valley. God grant that it be so.”

  “It will come true,” he said in a voice so confident that it left no room for doubt. He kissed her again, and then took the letter from her. Charlotte watched him fold it, replace it in the box, and return the box to his boot.

  “I must go back,” she said. “My parents worry when I’m away too long. Especially Mama, she imagines horrible accidents.”

  “Will she think that I’m one?”

  “A horrible accident? No, she won’t think that. To tell the truth, I don’t know what my parents will think.” Charlotte stood up. “They will be surprised.”

  Charlotte helped Nick to gather up his blankets and gear. Everything was dry, or nearly so. Together they packed the canoe.

  On the way to Fort Haldimand she knelt in the bow, carefully holding the kettle of raspberries. She felt nervous. Who wouldn’t, in this situation? When a girl goes raspberry picking, she doesn’t normally return with a long-missing sweetheart and an engagement ring.

  Papa was sitting on the log outside the tent, whittling a long spoon from a piece of boxwood, when he saw Charlotte and Nick walking toward him through the Loyalist camp. Setting down his knife and the unfinished spoon, he brushed off his hands and stood up.

  “Well, well. So you finally found us,” he said, not looking especially surprised. He held out his hand to Nick. “I knew we’d see you sooner or later.”