Lake in the Clouds (76 page)

Without looking Eulalia in the eye, Hannah said, “The doctor told me he was planning on checking your arm tonight at the trading post, but I’ll ask him to come by here this afternoon.
You need to stay in bed, fevered as you are. I’m going to leave you willow bark tea; I want you to drink a cup every hour.”

“There’s so much work,” Eulalia began, but her brother squeezed her shoulder to cut her off.

“She’ll go to bed,” he said firmly. “And wait for the doctor.”

“Will you come with him?” Eulalia asked. “I’d feel better if you were here too.”

“I’ll be here,” Hannah said. “I promise. Now let me do what I can for you.”

When they were just out of hearing of the Wildes’ cabin Lily said, “It’s bad, isn’t it. The smell means that the wound has gone bad.”

“Yes,” Hannah said. “It’s very bad.”

“Will Uncle Todd have to cut off her arm?”

Hannah let out a deep breath. “Maybe,” she said slowly. “If it’s a matter of saving her life. But he may want to cauterize it first.”
But I doubt it,
she might have added. If it were her decision alone, Hannah would have told Eulalia that the arm would have to come off if they were to have any chance of saving her. If the infection hadn’t settled in the blood already.

Just that suddenly she was very glad that she didn’t practice medicine here on her own. As difficult as Richard Todd could be, he was an excellent surgeon and a confident one; thus far Hannah had never had to carry out an amputation by herself.

“I would rather die than lose my drawing hand,” Lily said, with a sudden fierceness.

Sharp words rose in Hannah’s throat. Then she saw the fear on her sister’s face, and she swallowed them down again.

“I can’t come with you when you go back to see her with the doctor, can I?” Lily said.

“No,” said Hannah. “Not this visit.”

Late in the afternoon Hannah dove into the lake under the falls and stayed submerged in the bone-cold, churning water until she began to feel clean again. By that time her lungs were screaming for mercy, and as she broke the surface a sound rose up deep from her belly, a rush of frustration and anger that sounded surpringly like a scream.

Elizabeth was sitting on the rocks, barefoot, her arms
around her knees. She said, “I was starting to wonder. Come and sit with me, Squirrel.”

Until she saw her stepmother sitting there Hannah didn’t realize how much she had been wishing for her calm and trusted voice, the clear gray eyes that saw so much, the shy smile. She hiked herself up onto the rocks, warm with the sun, and lay down so that the doeskin of her overdress would have a chance to dry.

“You changed out of your village clothes,” Elizabeth said.

With an arm over her eyes Hannah said, “This afternoon we … this afternoon I took Eulalia Wilde’s left arm off above the elbow. Richard supervised.”

The silence drew out for a long time, and while Hannah was glad to be with Elizabeth she was also very relieved that she had no questions to ask.

Finally she said, “It was easier than I expected, when I was in the middle of it. Then it was over and it was harder than I imagined.”

“Because you know Eulalia?”

“Yes. And because it won’t be enough,” said Hannah, sitting up suddenly and wiping the lake water from her face. “Curiosity says you can tell about a wound sometimes if it’s willing to give up or if it’s nasty-minded. Richard doesn’t like talk like that but Curiosity’s right. And this wound is nasty.”

Elizabeth struggled hard not to show the surprise and unease she was feeling. If she understood correctly, Hannah believed that Eulalia Wilde would not survive a simple scratch. Before she could think how to ask if she was correct, Hannah shook her head so that the water flew around her in a halo.

She said, “And then on the way home, Cookie stopped me.”

“Cookie?” Elizabeth echoed. “From the mill house?”

“Yes. She took a great risk, I think. She was waiting for me in the trees just beyond the turnoff to Big Muddy. She thanked me for helping with Reuben’s laying-out,” Hannah said. “And then she asked me if I’d vaccinate her and the rest of the slaves. Behind the widow’s back, of course.”

Elizabeth realized she was holding her breath, and she let it go noisily. “And you said?”

Hannah shot her a sharp look, confusion and irritation. “I said of course I would vaccinate them if they wished. Should I turn them away? What other choice do I have?”

“None,” Elizabeth said softly. “There is no other choice. Of course you must vaccinate them if they ask for it.”

Hannah pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. When she lowered them again she had managed to find a small and dismayed smile somewhere within herself.

She said, “You must forget that I told you about this, Elizabeth. I mustn’t draw you into this new trouble. I don’t know where it will end.”

“Hannah Bonner,” Elizabeth said, quite sharply. “Would you shut out your family when you need them most?” Then she put her arm around her stepdaughter’s shoulder and drew her close. She was wet and shivering, and Elizabeth cared not at all.

Against Hannah’s temple she said, “Just try to get rid of us. As single-minded as you are—and the Lord knows you came by that honestly—you wouldn’t be able to shake us off. Whatever you do, wherever you go, Hannah, we are still your family. You must be very upset indeed if you need to be reminded of that.”

They rocked together in the warm sun of the late afternoon for a few minutes. Then Hannah said, “I don’t know what to do about Strikes-the-Sky.”

Elizabeth made a soft sound and hoped it would be taken as encouragement. For many days now she had watched Hannah’s face and seen so many new things there: exhilaration, confusion, longing, self-doubt. She had watched and waited for her to come and talk.

That Hannah had fallen—was still in the process of falling—in love, Elizabeth could see very well. What she did not know was how she could provide comfort when it was needed without intruding on something so perfectly personal. As Curiosity had done for her, in those first days of learning that she was capable of loving Nathaniel.

“If it were up to Strong-Words and Many-Doves I would go west with him,” Hannah continued. “They both think he is a good match for me. Even Lily is convinced of it.”

“Forgive me, daughter, but here the question is not what others think, but what you feel.”

Hannah pulled away from her, shuddering a little in spite of the heat. “I don’t want to go west.”

It wasn’t an answer to the question Elizabeth had asked, but she didn’t point that out.

“My father likes him too,” Hannah added.

“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed. “He likes Strikes-the-Sky. Everyone here seems to.”

“What do you think of him?”

Elizabeth hesitated. This was not the time for platitudes or empty comfort; Hannah needed the truth. “I think he has a courageous and kind heart,” she said. “I think he needs help sometimes regulating his temper, but he will never direct that temper toward you. On his face I see that he loves you already, even after such a short time.” She paused, but Hannah did not stop her.

“It will not be an easy life in the west but I think, if you decide you want to go with him, he will be a good husband.”

In a tone that bordered on anger Hannah said, “That’s what I think too.”

This hung for a long minute in the air, as bright and untouchable as the dragonflies that played over the lake. Then a voice called down from the forest, a long
hiiii-eeeee!
of greeting.

“Otter,” said Elizabeth. “And Strikes-the-Sky with him. I should go in now and see to supper if we have to be at the trading post by seven.”

Strikes-the-Sky had a cut over his left eye that he had pressed closed with a handful of yarrow leaves. Sitting on a stool, he let Hannah examine the damage, his gaze fixed firmly on nothing at all, his hands resting on his knees. His breathing was deep and steady.

“To let yourself get caught in the face by a branch,” she said grimly, pulling out the yarrow’s delicate leaves. “You must have been daydreaming.”

Strikes-the-Sky grunted and said nothing at all.

“You could have lost an eye.”

“And yet I did not. I can see very well, Walks-Ahead, and what I see is that you’re in a poor temper today. Trouble in the village?”

As she worked she told him about Eulalia Wilde, leaving nothing out. When she was finished he was quiet for a long time and then he said, “This evening I will burn some tobacco for her. To guide her to the shadowlands.”

What a relief it was not to hear false hopes and the promise of healing through prayer. Hannah wanted to thank him, but she did not trust her own voice. Instead she said, “You will need three stitches, maybe four. It will hurt.”

“You sound as if you like the idea,” said Strikes-the-Sky, grinning without moving his head to look at her.

“Of course I don’t like the idea. That would be—”

“Mean-spirited? Inappropriate? Wrong?”

She hushed him with an impatient look and got only a grin for her trouble.

Inappropriate.
The word struck a nerve, because it made her nervous to stand so close to him bare-legged, in a damp doeskin overdress. For the most part he had seen her only in O’seronni dress. What arguments they had had about calico and brocade and silk; how he had enjoyed goading her, and how little she had been able to resist that goading.

Now she stood next to him, for the first time in Kahnyen’kehàka dress and he said nothing at all. Which of course was what she wanted.

She was close enough to feel the warm hush of his breathing on her damp skin as she worked. Hannah understood very well what the fist in her gut meant; she knew that her body was responding even if her heart and mind were not yet ready. She looked around for Strong-Words, or for her father, but there was no sign of anyone who might have rescued her from her own feelings.

They were alone on the porch, although the door to the cabin stood open and they could hear Elizabeth moving from table to hearth and back again, the sounds of a knife on a cutting board and water being poured. From the cornfield where the rest of the women and children were at work voices and song drifted to them. Hannah thought briefly of calling for Lily to assist by passing the instruments she would need.

Coward,
she whispered to herself.

Hannah focused on the contents of her medicine box and chose the bottle she needed. She took a curved suture needle and fine strong thread from the instrument case.

“Tilt back your head all the way, and don’t move it until I tell you. I’m going to wash the wound out.”

One corner of his mouth drew down sharply when the infusion of blackberry and winterbloom ran into the wound, but
otherwise Strikes-the-Sky did exactly as she told him without complaint or question.

“There,” she said as she tied the last stitch, and as if she had said
now,
he raised his hands and rested them on her hips. It was the first time he had touched her since the night by the side of the lake; it was the first time any man had touched her this way, and it made her catch her breath.

“Walks-Ahead,” he said softly. “I have something important to tell you.”

She was shaking; she knew he could feel it. Strikes-the-Sky drew her down to sit on the stool next to his own. His hands were back on his knees, and Hannah found that she could not look away from them.

He said, “Today we met a friend of yours deep in the forest. He cannot show himself, but he sends you a message.”

Hannah blinked in surprise. “A friend of mine?”

“Almanzo Freeman.”

“Manny?” Hannah repeated, her voice going hoarse and unfamiliar. “Manny is hiding in the forest? But why?”

Strikes-the-Sky said, “Here is the message. Tonight all of the blacks in the village, free or slave, will be in the trading post to be vaccinated. You must make sure that all of your people are there too. All of them. You must vaccinate the blacks first, and then keep them all there until you hear two gunshots, one after the other. Do whatever you have to do to make sure that none of the blacks and none of your people leave before they hear the shots. Anyone who is not in the trading post at the time the shots are fired might be accused of what is going to happen.”

He recited this message in an easy tone, but his eyes never left hers.

“Do you understand, Walks-Ahead?”

“Yes. I understand. Is there any way to stop what is coming?”

“No,” said Strikes-the-Sky. “And if there were I wouldn’t tell you.”

Hannah was quiet while she cleaned her suture needle and put her medicine box back in order. One part of her wanted to be angry with Strikes-the-Sky, but another part, the bigger part, was thankful for his watchful silence and for his help.

If Manny was nearby he knew about Selah and about Reuben both, and he would want the one thing that he would
never be granted. Manny wanted justice, but he would have to settle for revenge. It was the kind of reasoning that would have shocked Elizabeth not so very long ago.

But not now; not after Selah.

Hannah looked up from her instrument case and found Strikes-the-Sky watching her. She said, “I will do what I can.” And then: “You will be at the trading post this evening, I take it.”

He tilted his head at her. “Yes. I’ll be there to walk you home when you’re done.”

“I can walk myself home, thank you.” She sounded prim and prissy to her own ears, but he did not laugh at her outright, as she expected him to.

“Not anymore,” he said. “Tonight you must not walk alone, not anywhere.”

“I need to talk to Manny,” said Hannah. “You tell him that, tell him that I have to speak to him.”

Strikes-the-Sky nodded and turned away, but not before Hannah saw the flicker of doubt that moved across his face.

Neither Otter nor Strikes-the-Sky came to supper and so it fell to Hannah to tell the tale, something that she didn’t much enjoy, as far as Nathaniel could see.

When she was done there was a small silence and then Lily spoke up, putting words to what everybody was thinking but didn’t want to say.

“But how in the bejeezus—”