Lake in the Clouds (72 page)

The two men had met at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, a fact that made Hawkeye sit up and take note. What he wanted to know was, first and foremost, how they had escaped with their hides intact and, second, how two Hodenosaunee warriors had ended up fighting so far west.

Otter and Strikes-the-Sky looked at each other and then Strikes-the-Sky said, “Back then Little Turtle was holding fast to Ohio for the Shawnee. I went because I thought it was our last chance to keep the whites at bay.”

“And since Little Turtle gave up the fight, what do you
think now?” This question came from Runs-from-Bears, who was ignoring the hard looks his wife sent him.

“Now I will go and stand with Tecumseh, who is younger and hasn’t forgotten how to fight,” Strikes-the-Sky said calmly.

“And will you go fight with Tecumseh as well?” Many-Doves asked her younger brother.

He said, “Of course. I promised my wife that I would make sure her brother-in-law doesn’t lose his scalplock.”

His playful tone did nothing to soften his sister’s grim expression. She said, “Better you should stay home with your wife. How she puts up with you I can’t imagine. And you—” She sent a sharp look at Strikes-the-Sky. “You are no better.”

“I never claimed to be,” Strikes-the-Sky said amicably. “And before you ask I will tell you that your brother’s wife only puts up with me because her sister took me as husband and she feels obliged.”

They had already heard about his wife, dead now three years. Tall-Woman she had been called, for her height and the habit she had of standing up in the face of trouble. When this was told late on the first night of the visit Hannah had asked a question, her first.

“How did Tall-Woman die?”

Strikes-the-Sky looked at her directly when he spoke. “She was new with child and there was a pain in her belly.” He touched the hard plane of his stomach near the navel. “Fever and great pain. Our healers could do nothing for her.”

Neither could I have,
Hannah might have said but she did not. She might have said:
I have seen inside the body of a woman who died like that. The child quickened outside the womb and caused a rupture.
But she didn’t say that either. She would not add to his grief, but she must respect him for it.

Hannah went over the conversation around the fire again and again in spite of her strongest resolution to concentrate on other things. She was losing patience with her wayward thoughts when Charlie LeBlanc sought her out in the laboratory. What he had to say was this: his Molly was in travail and ready to bring her fifth child into the world, and could she please come as Curiosity was away? He didn’t have much to pay her but he would be glad of her help.

The first flush of relief—Charlie had brought her a reason to
stay away from home and the visitors—was soon replaced by irritation with herself for such cowardice.

Molly was good-natured and cheerful in all things in spite of the fact that she had married dirt poor and had more boy-children and work than any one woman deserved. This labor was no different; she talked and scolded the boys and directed chores and prodded Hannah for gossip in between pains.

While Molly never said so, it was clear to Hannah that it was the hope of a girl that sustained her through travails that went on far longer than any of them expected.

The LeBlancs’ first daughter didn’t show herself until the sun was up. Her four brothers, ages one to eight, greeted her with no less astonishment than Charlie; they had all come to the conclusion that Molly just wasn’t capable of producing anything but males, and didn’t know where to start with the tiny red-faced girl who looked at them with wide eyes. Charlie, who was often seen carrying all four boys at once, shied from picking up his daughter until Molly shamed him into it, and then a smile cracked his face in half.

“That’s what a man looks like when he falls in love,” said Molly with some satisfaction.

Hannah hummed a reply that said nothing at all.

If there had been room in the small cabin she would have taken her rest—long overdue—right there near the new mother; even the boisterous LeBlanc boys would not have been able to keep her awake. But she made herself walk the ten minutes to the Todds’ house and went to sleep on the cot in the little room off the kitchen that Curiosity used to treat the sick and isolate surly children.

Hannah paused only long enough to take off her moccasins and send Ethan up to Lake in the Clouds with word that she would be home as soon as she could, but perhaps not until the next day.

She woke disoriented and unsure of where she was or what time it might be, and realized that Dolly stood at the foot of the cot with a tray of food.

“I hear there’s good news up at the LeBlancs’ today,” she said by way of greeting. “Molly sure is happy to have her a girl. They are going to call her Maddy, after Charlie’s mama. A big child, I hear?”

“Good-sized, yes.” Hannah accepted the bowl of broth that
Dolly offered and drank it all in three long gulps. “What time is it?”

“Close to noon,” Dolly said, and then at Hannah’s surprised expression: “The world won’t fall apart ‘cause you slept for a few hours, Hannah Bonner.”

Hannah produced a smile, but it was hard work. She intended to call on the four people she had vaccinated last night to check the incisions, and Dr. Todd had given her a list of patients to see: Mary Gathercole had a sore throat and her mother a worsening rash; Jed McGarrity was complaining about another sore tooth; Ben Cameron had chopped off a toe with a careless swing of the axe and the dressing needed changing; and Matilda Kaes was suffering greatly with the rheumatism in her back. Curiosity was gone for a few days at least but Richard Todd had no intention of leaving his laboratory as long as Hannah was home to look after less interesting complaints.

“The only reason I come in here to bother you is your sister has been waiting out in the kitchen for an hour now,” Dolly explained. “She’s ate through near all the gingerbread and if you don’t go see what she’s got on her mind she’ll bust soon. It’s got something to do with that visitor up on the mountain, but she won’t tell me no more than that.”

“Strikes-the-Sky,” Hannah said. “His name is Strikes-the-Sky.”

“I heard all about it from Mama, after you finished with the vaccinations.”

Hannah said, “The village must be talking.”

Dolly took the blanket that had fallen to the floor and hung it out the open window to air. When she looked back at Hannah over her shoulder, her expression was thoughtful.

“Nobody holds nothing against you, Hannah. You know that.”

In her surprise Hannah could not think at first what to say, and Dolly took her silence as encouragement. She said, “Once the first batch of vaccinations is done they’ll calm down some, you’ll see.”

Hannah had thought they were talking about Strikes-the-Sky, and now she was glad that she hadn’t said as much. She reached for her moccasins to hide her face, and stayed that way until Dolly had left.

“I did not ask Molly LeBlanc to have her baby last night, you know,” Hannah said to Lily. They were sitting on the garden bench in the sun, and the day was already so hot that Hannah was tempted to open the first few buttons on her bodice. Lily had taken advantage of her age and tucked up her skirt to free her legs to the breeze. Hannah looked at her ankles and was pleased to see that there was no swelling or distortion to distinguish them.

“I wonder about that,” Lily said primly. “I surely do.”

“You are acting as if I arranged a birth specifically so I could avoid the visitors.”

Lily cast her a sidelong glance. “Strikes-the-Sky was disappointed that you weren’t there last night when we were sitting around the fire.”

Hannah pressed a hand to her stomach to still the fluttering there.

“I suppose he told you that. Announced it to the world, did he?”

Lily gave her a disgusted look. “I can see things without being told. What I can’t see and what I want to know from you is why you’re going out of your way to avoid him. I think he’s wonderful.”

“Lily Bonner,” Hannah said, torn between amusement and irritation. “You hardly know the man.”

“I do know him,” her sister insisted. “I can tell about him from the way he tells stories. And besides that he’s handsome. Here.”

She pulled a small roll of paper tied with a string from the pocket tied around her waist, slipped off the tie, and smoothed out the drawing on the bench between them.

“It took me three starts but I think I got his likeness pretty well in the end.”

“My God,” Hannah breathed in surprise.

“You like it?” Lily was pleased, all her petulance gone and a shy smile on her face.

It was a simple drawing, but there was something about it. Lily had captured his confidence and put it on the paper, as real as the line of the jaw or the curve of the ear. And he was handsome; there was no denying that.

“This is beautifully done,” Hannah said simply. “What did Elizabeth say about it?”

Lily shook her head. “She hasn’t seen it. I did it for you. To show you.”

Hannah ran a finger over the paper. “You did not need to prove to me that you can draw, little sister. I see the evidence of that every day.”

“Not to show you I can
draw,”
Lily sputtered in annoyance. “To
show you.
Him. Strikes-the-Sky.”

It was true that Hannah could hardly take her eyes away from the drawing, but she didn’t know what else she was supposed to see beyond the face she knew already. “What do you want to show me about him?”

“He’s strong and good and he tells excellent stories. And he’s not afraid of you like most of the other men. He’s perfect for you.”

At this Hannah did laugh, to hide her distress. “No one is perfect, as you well know.”

Lily shook her head in disappointment, as if Hannah were being purposely dense. “He’s perfect for
you.
I’d marry him if I were old enough but that wouldn’t be right. He’s yours, and Blue-Jay is mine.”

“Lily,” Hannah began slowly. “I don’t know where you got such an idea, but you shouldn’t talk about a human being as if he were a book or a handkerchief. When you are grown you will find out whether or not Blue-Jay is the right one for you. In the meantime, Strikes-the-Sky doesn’t belong to anyone.”

Lily’s expression was a strange combination of obstinacy and worry. “You don’t see what’s plain to everybody else because you are afraid. You’re not used to wanting, and it scares you.”

The truth of that shook Hannah hard, and for a moment she was silent as she gathered her thoughts.

“Why are you in such a hurry to marry me off?”

“Because you’re getting to be an old maid,” Lily said with her usual forthrightness. “And you told me yourself no white man would suit you. I can see that there’s no one in the village you respect enough to love. So here Strong-Words brings you the perfect husband—”

“I doubt that’s what he had in mind,” Hannah interrupted.

“—and you won’t even talk to him. Worse than that, you run away whenever you can, as if he were a monster.”

“Just exactly what would you like me to do?” Hannah asked, her irritation getting the best of her. “Sit in his lap at supper?”

Lily’s mouth pursed thoughtfully. “Now you are making fun.”

“Oh please.” Hannah threw up both hands in surrender and disgust. She stood, and made an effort to smile at her sister. “Enough of this silliness. I have work to do.”

“Will you promise to be there tonight at the fire?” Lily asked.

Hannah was halfway to the house when Lily yelled, “If you’ll promise that, I won’t bother you about him anymore!”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, little sister.”

“I see you took the picture!” Lily called after her, and her laughter followed Hannah into the house.

By the late afternoon it was so hot that the world seemed to buzz with it, and every breath felt as though it had to be drawn through damp toweling.

The blackfly and the heat were enough to banish any idea Hannah might have had about taking the long way home, and on top of that there was a storm coming. When the path wound its way to the edge of the mountain she saw it in the far distance, flexing soundlessly under thick layers of cloud.

She rehearsed her excuses for closing herself in her room. Her daybook, medicines to be prepared, letters to be written. And none of it sounded in the least bit credible. Her father would give her a questioning look and Elizabeth a concerned one, but they would not order her to join the visitors, nor would they try to make her feel guilty. Lily would do that all on her own.

The thunderstorm broke over Hidden Wolf with a vengeance just as they were finishing supper. Because they could not sit with their visitors by the fire the boys had readied, everyone was obliged to crowd together around one hearth, and so Hannah found herself sitting across from Strikes-the-Sky; close enough to reach out and touch him, if the need should arise. Hannah shook herself when that thought came to her, and fixed her gaze more firmly on the shirt seam she was mending.

They talked for a while about baggataway matches played long ago between the Mohawk and the Seneca, a conversation that had the boys almost hopping with excitement. Daniel
wanted to get his stick down from its peg on the wall to show Strong-Words and Strikes-the-Sky the dried batwing he had tied to the handle, but Hawkeye stopped him with one raised brow. Daniel in an excited mood with a baggataway stick in a crowded room was not the best idea.