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Authors: Sara Donati

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RUNAWAY from the merchant Hubert Vaark of Pearl Street, a house slave named RUTH, a dark-complexioned wench of loose morals, far gone with child. Artful in her ways, quiet spoken and cunning. Took with her when she left a silver salt box and a carving knife with an ivory handle. It is supposed she may be endeavoring to get to Canada where she and her child might pass for Free. Whoever takes up said Negress, and delivers her to her owner shall receive a bountiful prize, besides all reasonable charges; and if any persons harbour her from just rewards for such wicked behavior as she has shewn, they may expect to be prosecuted to the
full extent of the laws of God and man. “Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s house, his field, or his bondman, or his bondwoman, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” Deut. 5:21.

HEREBY BE IT KNOWN that Meg Mather, lawful wife of the subscriber, has eloped from her husband in the company of a Frenchman known as Andre Seville. She took with her the subscriber’s infant son, a French Negro slave girl called Marie, and a mantel clock. A reward will be paid for return of the boy, the slave, and the clock, but a husband so maligned by such shameless and sinful behavior is glad to be free, and will give no reward, nor will he allow the wanton back into his home. He therefore warns all persons from trusting her on his account. He will pay no debts of her contracting. Jonah Mather, Butcher. Boston Post Road.

NEGROES TAKEN UP. Committed as runaway to the gaol of this county, two African negro men. They have told so many different stories in what part of the state or continent their owner lives, and speak such broken language, it is impossible to say where they belong. One of them says his name is JAMES, about 40 years old, 5 feet in height, well made, holes in his ears, and has lost one of his fore teeth. The other is called PETER, about 30, 5 feet 4 inches. Both have remarkable small feet. The above negroes were taken up about the first of March, and are now hired out according to law. James Lewis, Sheriff.

A WARNING to all Free and Manumitted Negroes. Captain Matthew Tinker has again brought his ship MARIA to the North River. Captain Tinker has three times been charged with the kidnapping of Free Blacks from the city streets. His custom is to remove them from this State to the South, where they are sold into Slavery never to be seen again.
Captain Tinker operates in malicious and knowing violation of the Gradual Manumission Act of 1799. BEWARE. Libertas.

RAN-AWAY from Nathan Pierson, on Long-Island a negro man named TITE, about 5 feet high, thick set, about 20 years old, very likely; had on when he went away a light-coloured homespun coat, spotted calico trowsers, large smooth plated Buckles. He plays on the fife. Whoever will take up said negro and confine in the gaol in New-London, shall have TEN DOLLARS reward, and all necessary charges, paid by NEZER SLOO, Gaoler.

FOR SALE. The TIME of two indented girls, one MULATTO, one IRISH, strong, upwards of three years left to serve, who can do any kind of house or dairy work, brought up in this family. Inquire of Isaac Whetstone, Park Street.

Hereby let it be known that the New-York City Almshouse currently houses more orphaned infants than can be adequately cared for. Honest and God fearing couples with room enough to take on a foster child may apply to MR THOMAS EDDY. Compensation as determined by the City Council is fifty cents per month per infant less than two years of age.

City of New-York
in the State of, New-York
MARGUERITE MATHUSINE SOLANGE
HURON DU ROCHER

You are hereby notified, pursuant to a 2d Pluribus Subpoena directed to you, and now in the hands of the Sheriff, that you be and appear before the honorable Justices of the Supreme Court in this city to be held at the Tweed Street Court House on the first Monday in July next, to answer the libel of your husband, Tiberius Maximus Huron du Rocher,
praying for a divorce from the bonds of matrimony. James Lewis, Sheriff.

RAN AWAY from the Subscriber, Annie Fletcher, an indented servant. She is about five foot tall, dark hair, uncommon light eyes, missing the second finger on her left hand. All persons, especially masters of vessels, are forbid harboring said Annie upon penalty of law. Whoever will return the slovenly and ungrateful wretch to the Subscriber will have one cent reward. Elisha Hunt, Sailmaker

Two Dollars Reward. Lost, a young half-grown female DOG of the Newfoundland breed. Yellow and white, with curly hair. Whoever returns said DOG to the Subscriber shall have the above named reward. Francis Loud, Orange Street.

TEN DOLLARS REWARD. Deserted on the night of 3d inst. from the Rendezvous at Fort Gandervoort, Charles Hook, a soldier in the Infantry of the United States. He is 27 years of age, five foot six inches tall, blue eyes, black hair, dark complexion. Wearing a plain green coat and blue nankeen trowsers edged with red and a round hat in which he wears a pidgeon feather dyed blue. Whoever may apprehend and return said Deserter to this Rendezvous or any military post in these United States shall receive the above reward and reasonable costs paid. A. L. Hayes, Lieutenant

THE NEW-YORK DISPENSARY hereby makes it known that public donations have made it possible to offer KINE POX Vaccinations against the dreaded Small-Pox to the City’s Poor, at no cost. A SAFE and PAINLESS procedure recommended especially for children. Inquiries to Dr. Valentine SIMON at the Dispensary or Almshouse

PART I
Spring 1802
Chapter 1

In the spring of Elizabeth Middleton Bonner’s thirty-eighth year, when she believed herself to be settled, secure, and well beyond adventure, Selah Voyager came to Paradise.

It was the screaming of the osprey that brought the women face to face, just past dawn on a Sunday morning. Elizabeth and her stepdaughter Hannah were skirting the marsh at the far end of Half-Moon Lake when the birds started up, making so much noise chasing each other in great diving swoops that the two of them stopped right there to watch. Weary as she was, Elizabeth was glad of the excuse to rest.

On the edge of New-York’s endless forests the winter gave way reluctantly to warm weather, but when the osprey came back to the lake it was a certainty that the last of the ice would soon be gone. And there were other signs as well, all around them: a red-winged blackbird perched on a cattail; wood frogs hidden among the rushes, their queer duck-clack call echoing over the water; reeds flushed with new green. Elizabeth was looking over the lake and taking comfort in what the day had to offer when Hannah caught sight of a clutch of small white flowers in first blossom. Bloodroot gave up a deep scarlet dye, and it was highly prized.

Elizabeth said, “Can’t it wait?” And knew it could not; Hannah simply could not walk away from such a useful growing thing. That she had gone a night without rest was immaterial:
she could have run up the mountain and trotted back down again without stopping, or needing to.

With an apologetic look, Hannah pulled a small spade from her basket and knelt down to lift the plant. And froze, as still and attentive as a deer who comes upon a hunter in an unexpected place.

Almost directly before her was a pair of shoes, sitting atop a low oak stump in the early morning sun, as if put there to dry after a walk through the bush. Roughly cobbled and worn down to almost nothing, with scratched blue buckles. Elizabeth had never seen such shoes on anybody in Paradise.

A stranger on the mountain then, and not far off.

The thing to do would be to walk on. It was foolish to even consider confronting a stranger (a trespasser, Elizabeth reminded herself) on the mountain, no matter how curious the footwear such a person might wear. Not with the solemn charge entrusted to her this morning; not as weary as she was. The men would see to it. With the osprey still screeching and wheeling over the lake, Elizabeth was staring at the shoes and arguing silently with herself when Hannah took things into her own hands and pushed the hobblebushes aside.

In a little hollow under an outcropping of stone, a woman lay curled into a ball. Her skin was darker and richer in color than the earth she had slept on; under a homespun jacket her belly was round and taut: yet another child getting ready to fight its way into the world. The vague curiosity that had come to Elizabeth at the sight of the blue buckles was replaced immediately with dread as the woman pulled away from them, her face blank with fear.

It was more than eight years since Elizabeth had last encountered an escaped slave, but she knew with complete certainty that this young woman had run away from someone who considered her to be property.

She said, “You needn’t fear us. Have you lost your way?”

For a moment she didn’t move at all, and then she scrambled up into a sitting position, looking from Hannah to Elizabeth and back again. Under a high forehead her eyes were luminous with fever, and a trippling pulse beat at the hollow of her throat, as frantic as a bird’s.

“I am Elizabeth Bonner. This is my stepdaughter Hannah.”

Some of the fear left the woman’s face. Her mouth worked without sound, as if language were a burden she had left somewhere on the trail behind her; when her voice finally came to her it was unusually deep and hoarse.

“The schoolteacher. Nathaniel Bonner’s wife.” She stifled a cough against the back of her hand.

“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “Do you know my husband?”

“I heard stories, yes, ma’am.”

Hannah said, “You’re ill.”

She nodded and the turban wrapped around her head slipped; the girl’s hair had been shaved to the scalp not so long ago. With trembling fingers she set it to rights. “Been sleeping on the wet ground.”

“Were you trying to find someone in the village?” It was as close as Elizabeth could come to asking what she really wanted to know, but it was Hannah who answered.

“She was looking for Curiosity,” she said, evoking the name of Elizabeth’s closest friend, a woman she loved and trusted as well as any of her own family. To hear Curiosity Freeman’s name in connection with a runaway slave in Paradise made complete sense—and was utterly alarming. And what was Hannah’s role in this? Elizabeth might have asked, but her stepdaughter had already turned her attention to the stranger and spoke to her directly.

“Curiosity wasn’t where she was supposed to be, was she? She had a birth to attend to, but you couldn’t know that. So you left again.”

The rest of the fear drained from the young woman’s face, and Elizabeth saw that she was burning with more than one kind of fever. There was fierce purpose and an acute intelligence in those dark eyes.

She reached into the pocket tied by a string around her waist and held out her hand to them. In the center of her work-hardened palm lay a thin round disk of wood, its edges carved in a geometric pattern, and a white stone lodged at its center. The sight of it made Elizabeth’s heart leap in her chest.

“Where did you get that?”

She coughed again, and her fingers swept to a close over the bijou, a gesture as elegant as the folding of a wing. “Almanzo Freeman set me on the path. He gave it to me.”

“Almanzo? But he lives—”

“In New-York City, yes ma’am. More than two weeks now I been on my way. Last stopped just outside of Johnstown.”

The last time Elizabeth had made the journey from New-York City to Johnstown, it had taken a full seven days by boat, stage, and wagon. To walk this far from Johnstown would require another two days at the very least; perhaps more, with the April muck at its worst. She could hardly imagine what this young woman had managed on her own, in strange countryside.

“Daughter.” Elizabeth spoke in the Mohawk language of Hannah’s mother’s people. “What do you know about this?”

“I know enough,” answered Hannah calmly, in the same language. “But there’s no time to explain right now. She’s sick, and we can’t take her through the village by day.”

It was a question, and it wasn’t. In her usual competent fashion Hannah had already decided what must be done, and she simply waited for Elizabeth to come to the same conclusion.

And how was she to put a coherent thought together with the osprey screaming and two women staring at her? One of them young enough never to give her own safety a thought; the other with good reason to fear for her life. A young woman in need of help, sent here by Curiosity’s son Almanzo, a free man of color living in the city. There were people in Paradise who would take pleasure in returning this woman to whatever punishment waited. Perhaps they would take her child from her.

Elizabeth was aware of the fragile bundle in her arms, suddenly as heavy as iron. She said, “We will take you home with us, Miss—What is your name?”

The young woman straightened her shoulders and took a hitching breath. “Selah Voyager.” And then: “I’m thankful for your kindness, ma’am, but I’ll just wait here till dark.”

“Nonsense,” said Elizabeth, more sternly than she intended. “You are hungry and fevered, and this is not such an isolated spot as you might think, so close to the lake. You are much safer at Lake in the Clouds. As are we.”

Before they were even in sight of the cabins, the sound of children’s shrieking laughter came to them. Selah Voyager jerked to a sudden stop and turned toward Elizabeth.

Hannah said, “There’s nothing to fear. The children dive
into the water in the mornings and the cold makes them howl.”

But it wasn’t the children’s laughter that had brought Selah up short: her gaze was fixed at a point behind them. Elizabeth knew without turning that someone stood there, and that this young woman had ears keen enough to have heard him, although Elizabeth had not.

Nathaniel said, “I went down to ask after you two, and here you are almost home without me. I see you’ve brought us some company.”

The truth was, her husband’s voice had such power over her that Elizabeth’s anxiety simply gave way, replaced by relief and pleasure. His hand was on her shoulder and she covered it with her own as she turned to him.

“This is Miss Voyager,” Elizabeth said. “She is a friend of Curiosity’s.”

The young woman curtsied, stifling a cough in her fist.

BOOK: Lake in the Clouds
4.41Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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