Lake in the Clouds

by Sara Donati

  “Yes, well …”Her voice trailed off, and she felt herself smiling awkwardly. It wasn’t that she was at a loss for words, but that she had the strongest urge to tell Bump about Strikes-the-Sky. There was something about the old man that made her want to talk, as if he were a chest with a sturdy lock, a safe place to put all the dangerous ideas that wanted to tumble out of her mouth.

  He must see her discomfort, but he seemed determined to put her at her ease. Bump hopped down to the floor and pulled out the cap he had tucked under his wide belt.

  “I’m off to stoke the furnace in the laboratory. If you want to come along the doctor will follow in a few minutes. Unless you were wanting to give Mrs. Freeman the news from Lake in the Clouds first?”

  The house was full of early morning sounds: Curiosity in the dining room talking to the doctor; Dolly singing softly as she swept the hall. Outside the thunk of an axe, and the slow heavy song of a dove. Somewhere upstairs the baby cried and was quieted. While Hannah listened to all of this Bump watched her, his eyes kind and still sharp under the tangle of eyebrows.

  “You know about our visitors, then,” she said.

  “Oh, ayuh. I expect everybody’s heard by now. The story grows like a beanstalk in the July sun. Down to the tavern they’ll be saying your uncle brought a dozen warriors with him all hung about with scalps and looking for more. Men who are fond of their ale like to dig up a little trouble now and then.”

  “I fear you are right,” Hannah said, suddenly more comfortable in this conversation than she could have ever imagined.

  “Look at it this way, Friend Hannah.” Bump hitched his way across the room to the door. “It gives them something to worry over besides your smallpox vaccinations.”

  He went out into the kitchen garden and Hannah followed him. The smell of lavender in bloom hung sweet in air so still and clear that she could count the trees on the highest ridge. Behind her she heard Curiosity come into the kitchen, the clatter of dishes, a few words exchanged with Dolly, short and sharp and not like Curiosity at all.

  Hannah thought of Reuben’s burial for the first time since she had first set eyes on Strikes-the-Sky. She was embarrassed to have let him put everything else out of her mind.

  She let Bump go ahead, and went back into the kitchen and to Curiosity.

  “Did you get any sleep at all?” Hannah stood across the table from Curiosity. There were deep circles under her eyes and a weariness there that went beyond grief.

  “Not too much,” she admitted. “I told that Dutchified nursemaid not to eat pickled cabbage, but did she listen?”

  “But Curiosity, she doesn’t speak English,” Hannah said, something she had pointed out many times, so far without any success at getting her message across.

  Curiosity waved a hand in dismissal. “Hmmpf. Seem to me like she understand more than she let on. In any case she went and ate the last of that cabbage and her milk went sour and gave that child a bellyache. Ain’t none of us got much sleep. Except the doctor, of course. That man could sleep through the last trumpet.” She said this with no malice at all, as if she admired Richard’s talent for shutting out the world, and expected nothing else of him.

  “How’s our Leo this morning?” Curiosity finished, brightening a little with the change in subject. “Or maybe you don’t know. Look like you rushed on down the mountain in a hurry if you got here before Richard finished his breakfast.”

  Hannah reached for a biscuit from the platter and broke it in half. “I didn’t have a chance to look in, but he was well last night.”

  “Never mind,” said Curiosity with a yawn. “Now that I don’t have to go nurse Reuben I can ride up straightaway this morning. Got to get the baby ready to go anyway. Galileo will be ready to travel by dinnertime.”

  Hannah swallowed the last of the biscuit and took another. “Go? Go where?”

  Curiosity had turned to put more wood on the fire, and she looked over her shoulder with an expression that was more impatience than anything else.

  “We got to get young Leo away right quick. Would have done it last week if it weren’t for Reuben. We’re going to take him to Polly in Albany; she still nursing her youngest and nobody will take no note of another black baby in a city that big.”

  “This is about Ambrose Dye, then.”

  Curiosity pulled a kerchief from her sleeve to wipe her face. “It is indeed. I’ll kill the man myself before I let him put hands on that child. Lake in the Clouds just ain’t safe enough, not now.”

  “Curiosity—” Hannah started and then stopped herself. Any promises she might offer would sound hollow and trite and she could not even believe them herself.

  She said, “I hadn’t thought it through.”

  The older woman grunted softly. “Look like that visitor already drove everything else out of your head.”

  That prickled, but Hannah tried to keep a calm expression. “That is not fair.”

  The older woman blinked hard. Then she pushed out a great breath and pulled in another one. “Maybe so. You’ll just have to forgive me, Hannah. I ain’t quite myself.”

  She sat down heavily on a stool, and Hannah rounded the table to touch Curiosity’s brow with the back of her hand. Her skin was cool and damp; the calico wrapped around her head was wet through with perspiration.

  “You’ve been pushing yourself very hard,” Hannah said. “You’ll get sick next and then we’ll be forced to tie you to your bed.”

  Curiosity gave her a half-smile. “Sometime it do seem like the whole world come down on a body all at once. But I’ll rest easier when the boy is safe away from the widow’s overseer.”

  An image of Ambrose Dye came to Hannah, looking down at Reuben’s coffin with an expression empty of all emotion. He had known the boy since birth, watched him grow, seen him with his mother and brothers, heard him laughing, and still his death had seemed to touch him less than the loss of a hunting dog.

  We regret the senseless accident that sent Reuben too early to his reward. That hard voice, so harsh and wooden, as if he were reading words from a page put down in a language he didn’t understand. Words meant to dampen the fire, but instead he had breathed new life into it. It smoldered all around them.

  Hannah said, “Of course you have to take him away. How long will you be gone?”

  “A week at the most. It’s been a good while since we seen Polly and her children. Richard and Kitty will just have to make do while we gone. Kitty needs some watching, but she doing better than I expected and Richard’s got an eye on her …” Her voice trailed off. It was unlike Curiosity, this hesitant tone.

  “You only have to ask,” Hannah said.

  Curiosity blinked, as if she had forgot Hannah standing right in front of her. “It’s Cookie I’m worried about, but I don’t know that anybody can do anything about it if she get it in her head to go after Dye. My Galileo was the best chance, but she won’t even look at him when he talk to her.” She shook her head. “I suppose the only thing you can do is keep your eyes open wide and watch. If something should start to happen, why then the best thing would be to send your daddy or your grand-daddy down as a witness; that way Dye can’t overreach himself so easy. And stay clear of the overseer yourself, child. You understand why I’m telling you that?”

  Hannah nodded. “I do.”

  “Well, then, I done all that I can.” Curiosity pushed herself up and spread her hands over her apron to smooth it.

  “Now tell me about the homecoming last night. It sure was good to see young Otter, though I will admit it was a surprise to see him all growed up. He got himself a family?”

  Hannah told Strong-Words’ story as best she could, from his early travels west to the Seneca woman who had chosen him as her husband and given him four children, the last just before her uncle started off on his trip east.

  “I can see how they’d give him a man-name like Strong-Words,” Curiosity said. “But I still cain’t imagine that boy I used to know as a man with a family to look af
ter. He ain’t changed that much from what I hear. This Stirs-the-Wind has got to be a strong woman if she can take on Otter—I mean Strong-Words—and four youngsters too. And three of them boys.” She snorted a little laugh. “That’s a woman I’d like to meet someday. Now tell me about that friend Strong-Words brung along with him, his brother-in-law I think he said. What’s his name?”

  “Strikes-the-Sky.” Hannah’s voice faltered, because she could think of not one thing to say that wouldn’t open up the subject she feared above all others.

  “And just why did he come along?”

  Hannah shrugged. “He hasn’t said, and neither has Strong-Words.”

  “Some things plain enough without talking,” said Curiosity. “Look like Strong-Words has took up matchmaking. Brought you home a husband.”

  Hannah bit back the words that wanted to spill out of her. Instead she said, “If that’s what he had in mind he’ll be disappointed. And why would you think such a thing anyway?”

  She disliked the slightly frantic tone of her own voice, and even more than that she disliked the way Curiosity was looking at her, as if Hannah were a child hiding a piece of gingerbread behind her back and lying about it with crumbs on her face.

  “Hold on there,” Curiosity said softly. “No cause to get angry. I’m just saying that I saw some things. I saw the way that man was looking at you. And I saw the way you was looking back at him too.”

  The biscuit crumpled in Hannah’s fist, and she busied herself brushing the crumbs away to the floor, where the cat wound around her ankles waiting for just such a windfall. When she could talk again she said, “You’re imagining things, Curiosity. There’s nothing to see.”

  Curiosity cocked her head to one side and pursed her mouth; it was an expression that Hannah knew well, one that meant she was holding something back. Finally she came over to Hannah and hugged her very hard.

  Hannah was surprised, as she always was, at the strength in Curiosity’s thin arms and the comfort they provided. She relaxed a little against the older woman. She had long outgrown Curiosity’s lap but it was almost as good to stand here in the kitchen with her and take her ease.

  Hannah said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

  “Shhhh,” Curiosity said, pulling back a little to look her in the eye.

  “There really is nothing to tell you about Strikes-the-Sky,” Hannah added, more gently.

  Curiosity smiled. She said, “A hole ain’t nothing either, but you can still break your neck in it.”

  Hannah let out a thin laugh.

  The older woman said, “You give that man a chance, now, you hear me? Don’t go turning away before you hear what he got to say.”

  “Yes, all right. I’ll try.”

  Curiosity shook her head so hard that her turban wobbled a little. “You surely are a piece of work. Don’t try, child. Do it. No reason to look so embarrassed either. You don’t want to spend your whole life looking after our bumps and scratches, do you? The time come to think about raising up a family of your own. A man can be a comfort sometimes, when he ain’t feeling ornery.” She grinned a little, her old sharp grin.

  “Elizabeth didn’t come to that conclusion until she was ten years older than I am now.” Hannah winced to hear her own petulant tone, but Curiosity only laughed.

  “Age don’t got nothing to do with it, and you know it. If Elizabeth and your daddy had come across each other when she was fifteen they’d have ended up together back then. Now maybe you’re trying to tell me that young man ain’t the right one, and if that’s so why then you don’t need to make no excuses. Send him on his way. That what you want?”

  Hannah leaned against the door, crossed her arms across her chest, and dropped her chin to fight tears that threatened to spring up so suddenly and uninvited.

  “He’s a stranger. I’ve spent a total of six hours in his company in a crowd of people, and last night my little brother pulled me aside to say that he would give me his permission to go west with Strikes-the-Sky if I promise to come home to visit every year. My little brother has me married off already and I haven’t even spent an hour alone with the man. I don’t understand how something like this can happen from one day to the next.”

  “Something like what?” Curiosity asked softly.

  Hannah shook her head because she dared not speak, and slipped out the door.

  When Jemima Kuick answered the knock at the widow’s parlor door just after dinner to find Hawkeye standing there, she was struck pure dumb. Two ideas came to her, neither of them good. The first was that the twins had finally told their story, and Hawkeye was here for her; the second, far less frightening, was that he had figured out how Reuben had got burned, and he had come to accuse Dye of murder. She wouldn’t mind the idea of Dye hanging, if it weren’t for the fact that when the whole truth came out Isaiah might end up right next to him.

  Hawkeye said, “Well, Mima, ain’t you going to invite me in?” He didn’t smile but he didn’t look angry either, which meant he wasn’t here about the twins and what had happened the afternoon at Eagle Rock when Lily fell.

  At the sound of his voice the widow’s head snapped up sharply. “Mr. Bonner,” she said in her haughtiest tone. “What do you mean, coming here without invitation or summons?”

  Jemima didn’t have much use for any of the Bonners, but she knew better than to talk to Hawkeye like he was a beggar with an open hand. The widow underestimated him or gave herself too much credit, or both; either way Jemima would stand by and just watch her reap her just reward. If she were to run down to the tavern and take wagers on which one of these two would win in a battle of wills, not even Charlie LeBlanc would be stupid enough to put his money on the widow.

  “Mrs. Kuick.” Hawkeye ducked his head to keep from hitting it on the door frame as he came in. He was too big for the room, too big for the house itself.

  “What do you want, Mr. Bonner?”

  “Well, I didn’t come to drink tea with you, if that’s what you were thinking. We got some business to discuss, you and me.”

  And then without asking or waiting or even looking at the widow for permission, he sat down on Mr. Kuick’s chair. A deep armchair upholstered in brown velvet with embroidered linen on the arms and back; the chair that nobody was allowed to sit on or even touch, not even Isaiah. The chair that the widow dusted herself every day. Hawkeye sat down across from the widow just like that and took no note of her thunderous expression.

  “Of all the temerity—” she began in a sputter, but he cut her off with a wave of the hand.

  “Save your breath,” he said easily. “Don’t like being here any more than you like having me, so I’ll just say what I got to say right out so we can get this settled and I can be on my way.”

  The widow let out a strangled sound. “Hurry up about it then, if you must.”

  “Oh, I must all right. What I want to know is, are you sending your man Dye to trespass on Hidden Wolf or is he doing that all on his own? The reason I ask is simple. I need to know how many names to put on the warrant. Just his, or yours too. I’ll have Jed McGarrity write it up all proper so it’s ready when the judge comes through on his circuit. Of course if I should catch Dye at it between now and then I’ll just shoot me a trespasser and that’ll leave you to explain to the judge on your own.”

  Jemima had never seen the widow blanch, but she did it now. All the color left her face and then rushed back just as suddenly in such a deep flush that she looked as if she had painted herself as gaudy as any stage actress.

  “How dare you,” the widow whispered. “How dare you threaten me with the law.”

  Other folks might start to shake when the widow got to whispering, but Hawkeye just leaned forward with his hands on his knees, his brow pulled down low. “Oh, I dare all right. You best not underestimate me. A body makes accusations against me and mine and then carries a weapon onto my property, why then the law’s the very least I got in mind.”

  “Leave here
at once,” the widow said, pointing with a trembling finger at the door. “Before I call my son and have him put you out.”

  “I’ll leave here when I’ve had an answer from you,” Hawkeye said, leaning back again. “Then I’m headed down to see McGarrity to sign the warrant. Unless we can get this settled here and now.”

  The widow said, “Your accusations are ridiculous. I have never directed Mr. Dye to break the law, nor do I believe that he would do such a thing. I will have you up on charges, sir. For your assault on my character and morals.”

  Hawkeye pushed out a deep breath. “Before you go off to complain about my manners, why don’t you make sure you know what you’re talking about. Call the man in here and ask him. If you think you can trust him to tell the truth.”

  It was a bold move on Hawkeye’s part, and Jemima had to admire him for it. If the widow refused to call Dye in, it would look as though she didn’t trust him, or worse, that she did have some part in his trespassing and could not risk his testimony. That would put her in Hawkeye’s power in a way that was not to be borne.

  But if she did call Dye in, then she had no choice but to support him in whatever lies he told, or look as if she had no control over her employees. If Dye told the truth, that he had been trespassing on the mountain—-Jemima knew for a fact that he had; twice she had seen him coming out of the forests well past the Kuicks’ property line—then he would have to be dismissed immediately.

  The problem there was a simple one: the widow liked Dye; she liked the money he made for her and the way he handled the mill and the slaves. He left her alone, which was what she wanted. All was well with her world if she could sit here like a queen and leave the work to men like Dye, bound to her by what she believed to be loyalty. If only she knew the whole of it. Jemima sucked in her lower lip to keep herself from smiling.

  The expression on the widow’s face said she understood the trap that Hawkeye had set and would concede him this first small battle. She yanked the bell pull so hard that Jemima would not have been surprised if it had pulled right out of the wall. Instead she heard the faraway tinkling of the bell in the kitchen.