by Sara Donati
A brain fever that could put twelve people in their graves inside of a week was worse than any sickness Lily had ever heard her sister Hannah talk about. Worse than croup, worse than yellow jack.
Curiosity cleared her throat; her voice came rough and thick. “Lord have mercy on their souls.”
“They died free,” Daisy said. “There’s that much to be thankful for.”
“If anybody can get the rest of them to Canada, Nathaniel can.” Galileo said this in his own firm voice, the one he used with the horses and oxen and creatures he meant to send in a particular direction.
Lily said, “I don’t like it.” Because she didn’t, not at all. All day she had wanted news, and now she wished she had never heard it.
“Together your daddy and ma can manage just about anything,” said Curiosity, reading her. “Don’t you doubt it.”
Hawkeye leaned forward and lifted Lily as easily as he might lift a sack of cornmeal, settled her on his lap so that she was surrounded by the hickory hardness of his arms beneath the soft leather of the hunting shirt. Another time she might have been insulted to be treated like a babe in arms but now it seemed just right, and she was glad of him and of Curiosity and Galileo and Daisy too, all of them sitting together in a circle.
“I’m going to take her home tonight,” he said over Lily’s head. “Daniel is feeling mighty alone right now.”
Curiosity gave him a vague smile. “All right, then,” she said. “But don’t you let her put weight on that ankle more than an hour a day until I say otherwise.”
Hawkeye generally walked everywhere but this time he had come down to the village on Toby, the ancient piebald gelding as quiet and gentle as an old toothless dog, the horse that pretty much belonged to the children as the men walked faster than Toby did. The Kahnyen’kehàka took pride in walking, but Lily was glad to see the old horse.
Galileo handed Lily up so that she sat astraddle in front of her grandfather with her sore ankle tied to a bolster and the rest of her wrapped in a blanket. Curiosity had put all her things in the side basket, and then she stood back with her arms folded tight.
“It surely was nice to have you, child. I’ll be up to see you tomorrow afternoon.”
Bump was standing by the garden fence and he raised a hand to her, white as linen in the gathering dark. Lily waved back and called out to him but he stayed silent and later she wondered if she had imagined him there.
Galileo touched her hand and then they were off. Lily was glad that Hawkeye didn’t try to talk to her because she was so confused, to be heartsick at leaving when all she had wanted was this, to be going home again to sleep in her own bed.
They headed home around the west end of Half-Moon Lake, Toby’s long legs whooshing through the high grass, mud sucking at his hoofs where they skirted the marsh. She leaned back against her grandfather and listened to his heartbeat and the frogs singing in the marsh louder than any children at play and the steady rhythm of Toby’s breathing.
It was almost full dark but the lake drew all the starlight to itself, flickering like a copper penny tossed up spinning into the sky at midday. When light left the world they would be blind (like Splitting-Moon, she whispered to herself) until the sun came again. Lily closed her eyes and opened them again trying to imagine that loss, living in a world stripped of color and shape and shadow.
If she looked hard enough she could make out the shape of the mountain ahead, as familiar to Lily as her mother’s face, the line of her father’s back.
“I’m glad,” she said. “I’m glad you came to get me.”
Hawkeye made a humming sound deep in his throat, but that was all she needed.
PART III
Crosswinds
Chapter 32
——
June 14, 1802
Married only a few weeks and finally in possession of all the feather beds, china dishes, silver knives, beeswax candles, and copper tubs she had ever imagined, Jemima Southern Kuick came to the conclusion that life would be better still if she only had an orphan for a husband. She was sitting in the parlor across from her mother-in-law when this thought came to her on a rainy June morning. They were alone, as they usually were for a good part of the day.
The hidden costs of becoming a wife had begun to make themselves known, and the most surprising was this: marriage had freed Isaiah Kuick from this parlor and his mother’s company, and sentenced Jemima to take his place.
“Privilege has its duties, missy,” said the widow, her bristled chin bobbing. “And you’ll do what’s proper, stand next to my son—”
“My husband,” interrupted Jemima in a monotone.
The widow’s mouth twitched. “Next to my son when they put that boy in the ground at noon. It’s the right thing to do when one of the slaves dies. Mark that, now. The right thing. It falls to you.” She jabbed her needle in Jemima’s direction. “It falls to us to provide an example to the village.”
Jemima turned the pages of the newspaper in her lap. It was a month old but far more interesting than the widow in a lecturing mood.
“And if I don’t care to get my feet wet?”
“If you don’t go see Reuben buried his mother will pout,” said the widow. “And you won’t like Cookie in a pout. She’ll burn the porridge and lose your left shoe and misplace my basket of wools and that will go on for months. The slaves are sly creatures when it comes to getting their own back, missy. Don’t you forget it. You must say a few words of praise about the boy, as my representative.”
“Anything to save you the trouble of moving out of that chair.”
“I’ll have a respectful tone from you!” The widow’s thin cheeks flushed a color so deep it was almost blue. Pushed just a little farther, her temper would roar to life and she would reach for something to throw. First the empty teacup and saucer that stood on the side table at her elbow and then a book, as there was nary a china figurine left in the house. When nothing else was available she was not above launching knitting needles like spears. Jemima knew without any doubt at all that if her mother-in-law were strong enough to pick up furniture to hurl it through the room, she would do so.
She turned the page of the newspaper while she watched the widow from the corner of her eye. For a short while she had been amused by the sight of a refined lady hopping from one foot to the other like a two-year-old who wanted a sugar-tit she couldn’t have; now she was ready to bolt if the need should arise.
“It’s like living with a sharpshooter with an itchy trigger finger,” she complained to her husband on one of the rare occasions they spent a few moments alone.
Isaiah had been on his way out to meet Dye in some dark corner and he listened to her with a combination of impatience and amused disregard. He would not take her part against his mother. He wouldn’t even be bothered to remember her first name. Isaiah called her “Missus Kuick,” as if they were a couple married fifty years and bound by the old customs.
The truth was, Jemima must admit to herself, she had been far too liberal in her negotiations. The bargain she had struck with Isaiah Kuick gave him more freedom than was good for him; he spent more time out of the house than she had imagined, and thus far she hadn’t been able to think of any way to take back the upper hand without causing as much damage to her own cause as to his.
And still it afforded her great satisfaction to imagine telling the widow the truth about her son and his absences from her parlor.
Now her mother-in-law was adjusting her shawl around her shoulders with tight little jerks. She pursed her mouth and squinted in Jemima’s direction.
“You’ll go see the boy buried, and I’ll tell you why. This is one opportunity you won’t miss to show off that wedding ring you snared for yourself.”
Jemima swallowed down her irritation and produced her sweetest smile.
“But why would I do such a thing, Mother Kuick? I have nothing to prove to anyone.”
“Oh, don’t you now? Not even to Missus Elizabeth Bonner and
her heathen of a stepdaughter?”
Lucy Kuick had an awful huffing laugh that showed all the gaps in her back teeth.
“The look on your face, missy, now that is worth a great deal. Caught you off your guard, did I? That’s what you get for sitting on your great backside all the day long. Things sneak up on you when you’re napping. The whole crowd of them are back, came in late yesterday evening dragging half of the city with them.”
“Georgia must have brought you the news.” Jemima could have bit her tongue for showing even that much interest.
“She did indeed. That and more. She’s worth her wages, I’ll say that much. Does her work and more, and not a surly bone in her. Knows her place and doesn’t look for more than her due. Should have sent to Johnstown for servants to start with. There are some lessons you could learn from Georgia, missy.”
Jemima wondered what the widow would do if she should pick up a book and throw it through one of the glass windows she was so proud of. She would do it too, if not for the fact that there was already too much gossip in the village about what went on in this parlor. But there were other ways to deal with the widow, and so Jemima picked up her own untouched cup and poured out her tea on the widow’s good Turkey rug, the one Mr. Kuick had given her as a wedding present.
She could move fast when the need was upon her, and still the first book thumped against the door with surprising force before she had pulled it all the way shut.
“May you rot in hell!” screeched the widow.
Jemima was halfway down the hall before the hailstorm of books stopped.
It wasn’t until she had closed her bedroom door behind her and turned the key in the lock that she could breathe again. She stood in the middle of the dim room with one fist pressed to her heart and the other to her mouth, swallowing down panic like hot water.
Nathaniel Bonner had come home from the bush two or three days ago, and now Elizabeth and Hannah were back from the city, far sooner than Jemima had hoped. All of the Bonner’s together at Lake in the Clouds, young and old sitting around the table. Talking.
Jemima could almost hear the questions. Tell us again how you came to sprain your ankle, daughter. Tell us again about Liam Kirby, when did he leave here, and what finally drove him away? Tell us again why you were at Eagle Rock that day, Daniel.
She ran a hand over her belly, still flat and firm in spite of the fact that her courses were late, and her breasts ached. Liam Kirby had run off, but not before he started the child in her, the child who was the cornerstone of everything she was trying to build for herself. The child was her only real protection from the widow. There was an old saying that went through her head a lot these days: the Lord helps those who help themselves.
“I helped myself.” Jemima whispered the words out loud. She had planned well. Except, of course, for the fact of the Bonner twins sitting up on the mountain with their folks, talking.
It had got to the point that they trailed her around, waking or sleeping, as she had last seen them at Eagle Rock: Daniel’s painted face creased in outrage, turning him from a child to a younger version of his father. His sister howling like a demon as she tumbled down the slope. It made Jemima break into a sweat to think what would have happened had the girl broken her head instead of only spraining her ankle.
But there was hope. It seemed so far that the twins had taken her threats to heart and kept quiet. So far. But maybe not; maybe they had already told the whole tale. That insistent voice at her ear, the voice that would not let her sleep soundly. The bitterest pill was this: Jemima had bested Hannah Bonner and got Liam Kirby for herself, but she must keep that victory to herself or put herself in danger of being discovered.
Something that might happen anyway, if Daniel or Lily should decide to confess what had happened at Eagle Rock.
Children could be forgetful. Children needed a firm hand, and someone to remind them now and then what was expected of them. Her own father had used a switch or a piece of harness for that task, but Jemima was not so worried or desperate that she had forgotten who the children belonged to. If she should put a mark on either of them the Bonner men would come looking for her; there was no doubt of that at all. But there were other ways to put the fear of God into a wayward child, and Jemima had spent a great deal of time contemplating all of them. The problem was that she saw the children so seldom.
They would be at the burial, in that much the widow was right. Jemima would have to change her clothes and go out into the rain after all.
There was a scratching at the door.
“Missus Kuick?”
“What is it, Becca?”
“Mr. Kuick sends word that he’s ready to leave for the burial. The slaves are all waiting down at their graveyard.” Becca’s tone was as neutral as she could make it but the smirk was there, hidden behind the door. Jemima meant to turn her out as soon as another servant could be fetched from Johnstown, but now and then the urge to do it immediately was almost overwhelming. If it hadn’t meant disrupting the household and putting the widow in a temper she would do it, just for the satisfaction of getting rid of Becca and her impudent ways.
“Tell him I’ll be there directly.”
“Yes, Missus Kuick.”
On her back Jemima wore a gown that had been her mother’s second best, an ugly deep green with red facings, worn thin at the hems and wrists, tight across the shoulders, patched more than once at elbow and hip. The rest of her clothes hung on pegs on the wall: two linsey-woolsey dresses she had not worn since her marriage and would never wear again, and the dark brown bombazine she had inherited from her mother and worn as her Sunday best for the last year.
Jemima had lost no time in ordering new clothes made for herself. The first of them hung on the wall like a butterfly among moths, heavy silk in a pink-and-green paisley pattern. The only silk available at the trading post, but good enough for Matilda Kaes to get started sewing while more was ordered from Johnstown. Jemima fingered the lace insets in the bodice and tassels that hung from the sleeves to swing as she walked.
Any of her old gowns was more appropriate to a burial than this new silk. To wear it would infuriate her mother-in-law and shock the village. Anna McGarrity and the old wives would never come to see a slave boy buried but they would hear about it within the hour, and then they would talk about nothing else for a week.
Jemima took the silk down from its peg and began to plan the rest of her day.
Elizabeth had been home for six days and still she hadn’t gone down to the village, mostly because she dreaded the questions that would come her way, and the fact that she would have to lie, something she had never done very well or very successfully. Nathaniel could show himself and did without hesitation; no one would think to question him about how long he had been gone or what business had kept him away. The only question that came his way had to do with his daughter being away, and that he could answer honestly: he would be a happy man when the whole family was together again.
Day after day Elizabeth found excuses to keep to the mountain. She passed her time with the children, listening to Daniel and Blue-Jay tell stories of their adventures, sometimes finishing each other’s sentences with perfect timing. She spent hours sitting with her Lily, looking through the little book she had made for her daughter in the hope that it would encourage her to write.
Elizabeth had expected to find Lily’s impatient handwriting on the pages and found instead one drawing after another. Some were no more than geometric exercises in shape and shading and perspective, some portraits amazingly like the people they were meant to be. The drawings that touched Elizabeth most were of small, odd objects: a shoe—Curiosity’s shoe, easily recognized—lying on one side next to a clump of grass, a broken bottle, a carved pearl button hanging loose on a shirtfront. Each drawing was more accomplished than the last, and each of them had a story to go along with it that Lily was eager to tell.
“My mother could draw,” Nathaniel told his youngest daughter. “She s
pent hours drawing pictures for me, all of the family she left behind in Scotland, the village where she grew up. It’s a gift you have from her.”
Lily had always been an unsettled child, jumping from one occupation to the next and easily bored. Elizabeth had never seen her so absorbed. She listened with increasing surprise to all the stories about Gabriel Oak, of the things he had taught and the things he had said. Lily had gone so far as to write many of them down on the last page of her little book.
“I wrote them down after we buried him,” she explained with great seriousness. “So I don’t forget him.”
“He was a good friend to you,” Nathaniel said. “You could not forget him.”
Elizabeth said, “I am sorry to have missed the chance to thank him for all his attentions to you while we were gone.”
“You can talk to Bump,” said Lily. “He’s mighty sad since Friend Gabriel died.”
Bump was one person Elizabeth could imagine talking to without worry, but still she did not go down the mountain. When she was not with the children, Elizabeth spent her time with Many-Doves and Pines-Rustling, weeding the cornfield or the herb garden, or at the hearth, her hands full of work that tired her out physically even if it could not wipe her mind clean of Selah Voyager and Liam Kirby.
Curiosity came every afternoon on horseback after she had stopped by the mill to change young Reuben’s dressings. She came to assure herself that her grandson was healthy and thriving, and simply to sit, idle for once with the baby in her lap while she listened to the women talk.
This was a Curiosity Elizabeth did not know and had never imagined. The Freemans were no strangers to death: Polly’s first husband crushed by a falling tree, Daisy’s second son lost to colic, older losses of parents and brothers and sisters that still burned bright. But Selah’s death seemed to have caught Curiosity unprepared. She had turned inward, distracted and silent, her head always cocked toward the door as if she were waiting for someone long overdue. Some good stranger who would stand with his hat held politely before him to say that it was all a mistake, that Selah was healthy and well and how ridiculous they had all been to think that a strong woman who had been through so much could just will herself to drown.
