by Sara Donati
“There was someone at the window behind you just now, I heard steps.”
The captain grunted. “That’ll be the milch cow wanting to get into the barn—”
“No cow,” interrupted Splitting-Moon. “A man.”
All three men stood quietly and reached for their weapons.
“Move away,” Nathaniel said softly. “Into the corner with Selah—” And he stopped at the sound of a crow’s caw. One corner of his mouth turned down in surprise and then up again, in relief.
“Three-Crows,” said Captain Mudge, sitting back down again.
“Three-Crows?” Elizabeth echoed, as Nathaniel left the room. “The Mahican?”
Three-Crows was an old friend of Hawkeye’s, someone they saw at Lake in the Clouds now and then. “Captain Mudge, how do you know him?”
“Everyone on the Great Lake knows that old rogue,” said Captain Mudge. “There never was such a man for talk. Sary thinks she’s going to convert him with venison stew and small beer, so he stops by here whenever he’s in the area. Happy enough to listen to her preaching while he looks for the bottom of my tankard, is Three-Crows. No doubt he’ll be off south tomorrow.” He sounded quite pleased with the arrangement, most probably because it gave his sister another focus for her ministry besides himself.
“Maybe he would be willing to take a message to Lake in the Clouds,” Elizabeth said. “To reassure the children.”
Splitting-Moon’s face turned into the candlelight with a stricken expression.
“Your good fortune is still with you, Bone-in-Her-Back,” she said, in French this time, the language they had used together before Elizabeth had known much Kahnyen’kehàka. A language that drew them together and separated them from the others. “You have been given a way to comfort your children.”
Bonne chance.
Three-Crows was a tough old Mahican of an age with Elizabeth’s father-in-law, a small man with straggling gray plaits, his neck and arms like so many lengths of woven leather. He was dressed in a combination of clothes, some of which Elizabeth recognized as Mrs. Emory’s handiwork, and some he had been wearing for years, including a pair of buckskin leggings so old and thinned with age that they hung like flaps of his own skin from his hips. On his chest was a tangle of wampum beads and medicine bags and teeth strung on rawhide; for weapons he carried nothing more than a knife and a war club with a head carved to the likeness of a snarling bear. His hands shook a little, most probably with old age and drink both. A slave to the bottle, Mrs. Emory had whispered to Elizabeth when she came in to greet the newest visitor, her mouth set in a purposeful line.
Mrs. Emory stood off to one side with her hands crossed over her bible while Three-Crows worked his way through her stew, willing to let the men have him for a time to discuss their business. Elizabeth was content to listen, too, while Nathaniel laid out their plans. He trusted Three-Crow’s judgment —when he was sober—and valued his knowledge of the great lake.
Three-Crows used a crust of bread to wipe the last of the stew from the plate.
“Blackbirders about,” he said. “More than usual. You sure they ain’t on to your scent?” He spoke English with an accent like Hawkeye’s, all softened consonants and oddly off beat, and his voice had a deep rasp to it, as if it were about to fail him.
“Could be,” Nathaniel said. “Where’d you see them?”
“All over. The last one on the tail of the lake, two days ago.”
Selah cleared her throat. “You know any of them by name, sir?”
Three-Crows reached for his tankard. “I know them all. The one on Lake George, he used to be up north a lot, the Kahnyen’kehàka called him Knife-in-His-Fist. You must know of him.” He directed this last to Splitting-Moon in her language. His gaze lingered on her face, studying the blank and sightless eyes without embarrassment or apology.
“Knife-in-His-Fist had an Abenaki grandmother,” said Splitting-Moon. “He turned his face away from her people.”
Elizabeth said, “He is a man about my height, with a deep scar here”—she drew a line that extended from the corner of her mouth almost to her right ear—“and missing an eye-tooth?” Three-Crows nodded.
“Dye,” said Nathaniel. “We’ve been expecting him to show up, sooner or later.”
“Perhaps you have, but I had hoped we might avoid this complication,” said Elizabeth, and started when Mudge thumped the table with his fist.
“This man Dye, he got a ship?”
Three-Crows shook his head. “A couple dogs, is all. And a temper.”
Mudge thumped the table again so that the pewter plate jumped. “Dam—Close up your ears now, Sary, because I’m going to use them words that get you so wound up.” He cleared his throat, his jaw sawing hard. “Then the hell with Dye, say I. Damnation, say I. Unless the man can fly he’s no threat to us. I carried Mrs. Bonner all the way to Sorel in the spring mud, ain’t that so? Mrs. Bonner and them babies, with the redcoats on our tails. The Washington will get you and yours to Lacolle safe and sound, be there a hundred damned blackbirders on the lake.”
Elizabeth smiled at him, that smile that she used when somebody needed calming; Nathaniel had seen it work on harder cases than Grievous Mudge, and it worked now.
She said, “Of course you will, Captain. That is why we came to you.”
Late in the night Nathaniel found Elizabeth back in the parlor, sitting at the table with its clutter of maps and papers. By the light of a single candle she was cutting a new quill from a turkey feather, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration. She was very pale, from sleeplessness and worry, and it hurt him to see it.
“Come in, Nathaniel,” she said without looking up. The penknife whispered as she scraped to sharpen the point. “You make me nervous watching there in the dark.”
He came to stand beside her, reaching out a hand to grasp her shoulder and feeling the tightness there. “You’ve got a cramp in your neck.”
“Hmmm. I was about to come to bed but I needed—”
“To go over those papers again.”
The manumission and traveling papers were neatly laid out on the table, each written out on a different kind of paper, each with a different ink. She had labored over them every night for hours, but the truth was she would never be satisfied. If he asked her she would point out all the imperfections: a poorly chosen word, or an inconsistency in the handwriting she had tried to effect. Elizabeth would never be satisfied with these documents she had fabricated; once she had made up her mind to break the law she would not rest until she had met the challenge.
“I had to rewrite the ones that mention Quincy. And of course that means that I had to sign my father’s signature again. I think this time it is more true. Can you imagine how angry he would be to know the part he’s playing in this? The dead have no idea how useful they can be on occasion.” She looked down at her handiwork and one corner of her mouth went up, in reluctant amusement. “You’ll have to sign it again too, Nathaniel.” She pointed to the bottom of the sheet.
Nathaniel picked it up and read to himself.
To All people to whom these presents may come, Know ye that I, Nathaniel Bonner of Hamilton County in the State of New-York, through and by the power & authority vested in me by the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in New-York, do remove to Canada twelve manumitted and freed Negroes or persons of colour, to wit: Elijah Middleton, about thirty-five years old and of dark complexion, Moses Middleton, about thirty years old and with a yellow complexion, slightly built & his wife, Conny Middleton, a woman of medium color with light eyes, about twenty-five years & Jode Middleton, about eighteen years and mulatto of complexion, her son. All four of these Negroes belonged to Judge Middleton & by him were transferred to the said Society of Friends and thereafter manumitted and freed. Further I remove …
“Boots, if you had a year you couldn’t do a better job.” When he had signed the spot she indicated, he put the quill down and set his hands on her shoulders to
work the tight muscles. Elizabeth let out a little whimper and arched up to meet him. After a long minute she said, “I wrote a letter to the children as well.” Her voice had gone suddenly soft and he didn’t need to look at her face to know that she was near losing control over the tears she had been holding back for days.
Nathaniel leaned down to fold his arms around her. In her ear he said, “They’ll like that, having a letter. I expect they’ll argue over who gets to sleep with it under the bed tick.”
“Of course,” said Elizabeth, smiling a little and rubbing her cheek against his arm. “I am counting on it. A good argument will keep them from worrying too much about us.”
The clock on the mantel struck two, and Elizabeth looked up in real surprise. “So late. Did Jode come?”
“He was here for a good hour.”
“Ah.” Elizabeth let out a great sigh. “And is he coming with us to Canada?”
“Splitting-Moon thinks he will,” Nathaniel said. “But we won’t know for sure until we board the Washington—and that in about three hours, let me remind you.”
“You’re worried about him.”
“Oh aye,” Nathaniel said easily. “About him losing his temper at the wrong time, about Dye, about the garrison at Lacolle. There’s plenty to worry about, Boots. We don’t need to go looking for anything new.”
She reached out to take his hand, pressing hard. “We’ll manage it together, you and I. We’ve managed worse.”
“Aye, so we have.” He ducked his head and blew out the candle, leaving the clutter of maps and plans and papers behind in the dark. They were left with the sounds of the sleeping house and the wind in the trees, the sharp smells of tallow candle, wood smoke, mutton stew. Fear.
Elizabeth let herself be pulled out of the chair and into her husband’s arms. It was good to stand with him like this, ready to be led off like a child to her bed, wanting nothing but sleep and forgetfulness for the few hours that were left before they must leave this place and head north. She was far more frightened than she cared to admit, for herself, for him, for the people who slept in the rooms above them, for their children. She let herself relax against Nathaniel to feel the simple fact of him, his calm determination, more comforting than words would ever be.
“I could carry you,” he said, his mouth pressed against her hair.
Elizabeth smiled in the dark, because it was true; because he would carry her and did carry her, even when she walked beside him.
Chapter 17
They went down to the ship without lantern or torch to show the way, strung together along the footpath like buttons on a string. Captain Mudge led with Elijah close behind. Splitting-Moon followed her husband by means of a rawhide thong looped around his waist on one end and her wrist on the other, just as Kahnyen’kehàka warriors had once led kidnapped women and children away from their homes.
Why this image came to Elizabeth she did not know, but it made her shudder. She was second to the last in the line, with Nathaniel bringing up the rear. Her husband at her back had always been enough to steady her resolve, but now she saw before her a dozen people, every one of them here only because she had thought to suggest it. They might have made their way north through the endless forests with Nathaniel to lead them, but she would not have him gone so long: it was her impatience that had brought them here. Elizabeth shivered in spite of the broadcloth cloak and heavy skirts, her pulse drumming wildly in her throat.
A movement off to the left and she drew up short.
“No cause for alarm,” said Nathaniel softly. “Just Katie’s sons standing guard. Any blackbirders hanging around here will have to get through them first.”
“I wish Jode would come.” Elizabeth spoke to him over her shoulder and got no answer, because of course there was nothing to say; the boy would come or he would stay behind.
The smell of the lake grew strong and stronger and then the wild roses and juniper that lined the path gave way to hard-packed dirt embedded with thousands of mussel shells. Shacks of sail menders and rope makers kept watch in the shadows like sagging old soldiers; someone had nailed a piece of paper to a door and it flapped weakly in the breeze. Barrels and buckets and hogsheads, the ruins of a canoe and a cold fire pit, all the smells that added up to docks: rusting metal and rotting fish and tar and a hundred other things Elizabeth could not name.
A lantern flickered into life at the foot of the gangplank to show Captain Mudge standing there in its light. Elijah started straight up, but Splitting-Moon hesitated and turned toward the warmth of the lantern, her face a strange copper moon hovering for that moment between land and water. Elizabeth stepped onto the wharf, slick with dew and fish oil, and almost lost her footing.
In the shadows beneath the captain’s tricorne Elizabeth could not make out his face but she felt the fine tension that rolled off him, a hum like bees in the distance. He boarded after Nathaniel, quick for all his girth, and called out to the sailors—good and silent and well-paid men, he had promised—and just that easily the sails were raised to catch the wind.
There would be no more turning back. Elizabeth hesitated at the rail, caught by the sight of the brightening sky in the east. The sun would come soon and when it set again they would be more than halfway to Canada. If the winds were kind; if the revenue agents and blackbirders and border guards happened to be looking the other way.
Nathaniel pressed her elbow. Elizabeth followed the others to the aft cabin house, and there was Jode, standing tall and defiant until he caught sight of Splitting-Moon. He looked away, and straightened his shoulders, shrugging off the boy in him that wanted to go to her and put his head on her breast.
She had forgotten the noise a ship could make, wood and rope and sails and wind all groaning in tandem, a clutter of sound that itched until it bored its way beneath the skin and became as unremarkable as the rush of one’s own breathing. They were crowded, all of them, into the aft cabin house that served as captain’s quarters and chart room, barely large enough for four. Selah and Splitting-Moon took the berth and Stephan, the weakest of the men, the only chair; some sat on the chart table and the rest of them sat on the floor, shoulder to shoulder. They sat in silence and listened to the wind that moved the Washington like a skitter bug across the surface of a pond.
Elizabeth thought she might never be able to sleep again and so it took her by surprise, one moment to be sitting across from Uffa, studying the solemn thin face, and the next to wake to a cabin filled with bars of sunlight from the shuttered windows that opened onto the deck.
“I dreamt of Julian,” she said aloud, to hear her own voice and to mark the dream.
“You always dream about your brother when you’re on the water.” Nathaniel eased his arm out from under her head and flexed it to loosen cramped muscles.
Pico handed her a dipper from the water barrel that sat near the door. She drank most of it and rubbed the rest into her eyes to open them to the day.
“Where is Jode? Did I dream him too?”
One corner of Nathaniel’s mouth turned down. “He’s up on deck with Isaiah.”
“Is that a good idea?”
He shrugged. “As long as we don’t all crowd up there at once.”
“Two by two, like Noah.” Uffa had a hoarse, almost toneless voice, but its strangeness was tempered by her smile. She held out her open ditty bag toward Elizabeth. “Hungry?”
In each canvas bag Mrs. Emory had packed a great bounty and variety of food: venison jerky, cornbread filled with nuts, flatbread spread with pork lard, blood sausage, onions in crackly skins, dried apples and pears, a pungent cheese that crumbled on the tongue. Elizabeth took some dried apple and a piece of cornbread and, when the older woman’s brow creased in concern, a bit of the sausage as well.
The men ate in silence but the women whispered among themselves in English and Kahnyen’kehàka and Dutch. Splitting-Moon, Selah, Conny, Flora, Uffa, Dorcas—Elizabeth studied each of their faces and remembered them as she had first seen t
hem, weeping soundlessly over a new grave scratched out of the forest floor. There was a watchfulness about these women, but neither their sorrow nor the long walk to the lake had been enough to break them. Dressed in the clothes Mrs. Emory had provided, hastily dyed in shades of muddy gray, the women put Elizabeth in mind of winter sparrows crowded together for warmth, and willing to take comfort and hope where they found it.
The men worried her more. Stephan because of his fragile health, Charlie because of his prolonged silence—Elizabeth doubted that she had heard more than five words from him together—Pico and Markus for the depth of their mourning, and Jode and Elijah for the pure power of their anger. Quaker gray could not dull that, or even hide it.
“Would you care for some of African Katie’s bread?”
Elizabeth was startled out of her thoughts. Dorcas had eyes the color of brandy, a soft sweet voice, and a mass of scar tissue on her cheek where there had once been a brand mark. An R, Dorcas had explained, making the shape in the air with a sweep of one finger. Runaway. And she had opened the deerskin pouch she wore around her neck to show Elizabeth the part of herself she had refused to keep but could not discard, a dry and wizened dark curl of flesh.
“So I never forget,” she had explained.
“There’s no need to whisper,” Elizabeth told her now. “You could sing at the top of your voices and no one would hear you out here on the water.”
But the women smiled at her suggestion in surprise and unease, as if she had told them that they could fly.
The door opened and Jode appeared there, looking awkward and out of place in leather jerkin, homespun shirt, and breeches. Behind him was Elijah, who carried what looked like a great chunk of polished bone in two cupped hands.
“Now what have you got there?” asked Dorcas, standing up to get a better look.
Elijah stepped over people to reach Splitting-Moon. “A tooth. At least that’s what the old sailor claims. Said Splitting-Moon could tell us about it.”
