Lake in the Clouds (87 page)

In her discomfort Hannah shifted on the chair. She met Curiosity’s eye where she stood on the far side of the bed.

“Will you take her a message?” Kitty asked, her eyelids flickering as if she were about to lose the struggle to keep them open.

“Of course.”

“I know she will not come into the village now, with the sickness about—” She paused, her throat working. “But this is so important, Hannah, please promise me you will make her understand.”

“I promise,” Hannah said. “Go on, Kitty.”

“Tell her that I wish Ethan to stay here, to be raised by
Richard. With Curiosity’s help and Galileo’s. Elizabeth is not to take him away from Richard. He couldn’t stand to lose us both at once.”

“I will tell her,” Hannah said, and wondered to herself how she could make Elizabeth understand something that she herself did not. Kitty wanted Ethan to stay in this house with a stepfather who would have little time or interest in raising him, for Richard’s sake.

Kitty’s hand moved across the covers toward Hannah.

“You think him hard-hearted and unfeeling,” she said. “But you are wrong, Hannah, and so is Elizabeth. He needs to have Ethan with him, and Ethan needs Richard.”

“Yes.” Hannah met Kitty’s eye. She said, “I understand.”

“Curiosity, you are my witness,” Kitty said, so softly now that Hannah had to lean forward to hear her.

Hannah said, “I’ll go to Lake in the Clouds now, Kitty, and deliver your message.”

Kitty’s eyes opened again. “Will you come back? Do you promise to come back? I would rest easier if I knew you were nearby.”

“I’ll come back this evening,” Hannah said. “I promise. Is there anything else you want right now?”

Kitty smiled dreamily. “All I want now is Richard,” she said. “I want Richard to come to me.”

“If that girl wasn’t already dying I fear I’d have to wring her sorry neck,” Curiosity said, dashing tears from her face with an impatient hand. Hannah had never seen her so furious or sad, and she had to work to swallow down her own tears.

“Worried about Richard Todd being lonely while that boy sitting right there with his soul on his face, just waiting for a few words from her. I swear—” Her voice went hoarse and broke, and Hannah watched the older woman struggle to control her tears. She straightened her shoulders with a visible effort.

“Hannah, you made a promise and I know I can’t talk you out of it, so you best get on your way. Take that worthless message to Elizabeth.”

“If I can bring Elizabeth back with me, I will,” Hannah
said. “She of all people might be able to speak some sense to Kitty.”

Curiosity drew in a long shuddering breath. “Not much chance of that. I expect Elizabeth sitting up on that mountain just about worrying herself to death. You go home now and sit with your folks for an hour, get your breath. Eat something that ain’t been mouse nibbled.” She cast a disgusted glance at the kitchen table. “When you ready come back here and set with her. I need one sane woman with me at a time like this.” She laughed then, a harsh sound, and shook her head. When she looked at Hannah again she seemed more herself.

“I saw that Strikes-the-Sky fellow when we come up,” she said. “Seem to me we got a lot to talk about, you and me, but it’ll wait till you get back.”

Strikes-the-Sky and Strong-Words were both waiting for her, and by their expressions Hannah saw immediately that the day’s trouble had not yet ended.

“I have to go home,” she said.

The two of them exchanged a glance. “A man is come from Johnstown,” said Strikes-the-Sky. “His name is O’Brien. He’s on his way now to Lake in the Clouds with a summons. For you.”

Hannah thought at first she must have misunderstood. She looked them each in the eye, and knew that she had not. The day’s anger and frustration and sorrow came together into something hot and sharp that started in her belly and flowed up to make her hands tingle and her voice shake.

“You two warriors stay here if you are afraid of an old white man with a piece of paper in his hand.”

She gave them a furious look and set off at a trot. By the time she had passed the stable they had gathered their wits and had caught up to her. Strong-Words pulled ahead and Strikes-the-Sky brought up the rear so that Hannah found herself both following and leading, and unsure how she felt about either.

She pushed herself hard and harder until the breath burned in her lungs and she thought they would burst, and still Hannah could not shake the words out of her head. Judge O’Brien with a summons, for her. She wiped the sweat from
her eyes, pulled her skirt more tightly through her belt to free her legs, and dug into the mountain. Who had sworn a summons against her but Jemima Kuick? She didn’t need to be told what was so obvious to see.

Fury is the hottest fuel,
her grandmother Falling-Day would have told her, and she was learning that lesson now.

A flickering in the branches of a maple tree and a squirrel scolded in a high voice. Hannah pulled up as if someone had called her name, knowing what she would see before it came: the shape of a man.

Manny Freeman stepped out in front of them, behind him a young black man Hannah had never seen before. Both of them wore buckskin and moccasins and carried muskets, and both of them had wary smiles on their faces. Instead of surprise she felt only another flush of anger, that they should choose now to draw her into their plot.

“Manny Freeman,” she said breathlessly. “I was wondering when you’d show yourself. I’ve got just three things to say to you. I’m sorry about Selah—”

He nodded and looked away.

“—I’m glad you’re safe, and your timing stinks. I can’t stay around here and exchange news with you.”

Manny laughed out in surprise, bowed from the shoulders, and touched his forehead with two fingers. “Good to see you too, Walks-Ahead.”

“Do Curiosity and Galileo know you’re here?”

He nodded. “They know.”

Behind her Strong-Words said, “We would have told you if you had given us a chance, Walks-Ahead.”

Hannah ignored him and looked at the boy. “You’re Jode. My father and stepmother told me about you. Why aren’t you in Canada?”

“There is work to do here,” the boy said in perfect Kahnyen’kehàka.

“There’s trouble here,” she corrected him. “And it’s your doing.” She wiped the sweat from her forehead and drew in a deep breath. “If you’ve got business with me you’d best state it quick. I need to get home.”

Manny said, “You can’t go home. You can’t go anywhere in Paradise right now. It’s too dangerous with O’Brien looking for you.”

She laughed, an odd harsh sound. “It’s dangerous for everyone in Paradise. If you’ve been watching you know we’ve got scarlet fever in a third of the cabins.”

Her uncle said, “O’Brien is here to arrest you.”

“He’s got no cause,” Hannah said.

“Do you think he needs cause?” Manny said. “You know better than that, Hannah. You saw what happened in the city.”

She stepped closer to him in her anger, but he held his ground. “Maybe if you returned the strongbox you stole, the widow would drop those charges, whatever they are,” she said sharply. “That would be a better solution to all this than me running off and leaving sick children untended to.”

They exchanged glances. “We can’t return the strongbox,” Manny said. “We got better use for the money than they do.”

“Is that so?” Hannah could barely govern her temper. “What use would that be?”

Manny reached into a sack hanging around his neck and, pulling out a coin, he thrust it in her direction. “A good half of it never belonged to them in the first place. We’re on our way to return it to the rightful owners.”

Hannah looked at the coin in his hand and froze, just as he meant her to. In his hand Manny held a five-guinea gold piece with old King George in profile. “The Tory gold,” she said, her voice catching. “The widow had the Tory gold?”

“A good lot of it anyway,” said Manny. “About eight hundred coins.”

“But—” Hannah shook her head to clear it. “How … Dye?”

Manny nodded. “You know Dye was here when you got back from Scotland in ninety-four, that summer Liam ran off. I expect it was the rumors about the gold that brought Dye here in the first place. So he went looking around Hidden Wolf while he had the chance and he found what he was looking for. Then he cut himself a deal with the widow. A silent partner, was the way he put it. Seems like she spent her last penny on the mill and didn’t have any capital of her own.”

“And how is it you know all this? My God,” Hannah breathed. “Have you told my grandfather?”

“We had a chance to talk a few days back. I expect he was waiting until the time was right to tell you.”

“You took the strongbox to make it look like Dye was a thief.”

Jode smiled then, the first smile she had seen from him. All of them were smiling, pleased with how well their plan had worked.

Manny said, “It seemed like the only way to settle the score with him without somebody hanging for it.”

“And the rest of the money in the strongbox?”

Manny said, “You’ll have to take my word for it that we don’t plan to spend it on fancy women and liquor, and we sure as hell ain’t about to hand it to the Kuicks. Which brings us back around again to O’Brien.”

“You think he’s going to charge me with robbery when I was in the trading post while it happened? Maybe he’s going to charge me with witchcraft too, being in more than one place at a time.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” said Manny. “He’s done worse. Which is why we think you should leave with us right now, before he gets the chance to put you in leg irons.”

Strong-Words said, “You’ll go with us now to save your life.”

Hannah ignored him. To Strikes-the-Sky, she said, “You think I should run scared from a man like O’Brien?”

He inclined his head. “I think you have to know your own mind, Walks-Ahead.”

“You would make a good diplomat,” she said dryly. For a moment she stared into the trees, trying to order her thoughts. Scarlet fever in the village, Kitty on her deathbed, O’Brien’s warrant. The anger that had moved her up the mountain was still there when she thought of it, that she should let a man like O’Brien drive her away from sick children. That the widow Kuick, a thief herself, should drive her from her home.

“I’m going home to Lake in the Clouds,” Hannah said. “And then I’m going back to the village. You run west if you want to. Unless you intend to take me by force, like you took Dye.”

A flicker of uneasiness passed over Manny’s face. For a moment the men looked at each other, and then Manny and Strong-Words both took steps backward.

When Hannah set off again, all four men followed her.

They waited in the cover of the forest until they saw O’Brien leave in a hurry, yelling threats back over his shoulder toward the men standing on the porch.

“She’ll answer the summons or I’ll put a price on her head!”

The rifle shot rang clear and then echoed along the cliffs, drowning out O’Brien’s curses.

“You see,” Hannah said to the men around her. “My grandfather knows how to handle O’Brien. You could take a lesson from him.”

While Hannah sat with Elizabeth and the children and spoke of Kitty she listened with one ear to the argument going on in the common room, where the men were gathered.

Elizabeth was quiet for a very long time when Hannah had finished.

“Will you send a message back for Aunt Kitty?” Daniel asked softly, and Elizabeth looked at him as if she had forgotten he was sitting there.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course.”

Lily, on the verge of tears, put her head in her mother’s lap and shuddered. Elizabeth stroked her head. “We will say a prayer for your aunt this evening.”

“But can’t we go down to her?” Lily wailed suddenly, pulling herself into an upright position. “Shouldn’t we be there with them?”

Elizabeth closed her eyes and shook her head. “Hannah, tell Kitty that of course I will do as she asks.”

Lily launched herself into her sister’s lap and wept as if her heart had shattered. Hannah rocked her silently, and reached out a hand to put on Elizabeth’s shoulder. In her own way she was as fragile right now as Kitty.

“I will tell her,” she said.

“What about O’Brien?” asked Daniel. “What about the summons? O’Brien will be waiting for you in the village. Uncle wants you to leave here tonight.”

“I’m not ready to go just yet,” Hannah said. “And most of all I’m not worried about Baldy O’Brien. Most likely he’s already knee-deep in Axel Metzler’s ale.” She flicked her fingers in a careless gesture. “I will run circles around him and his summons.”

Daniel managed a grin at that, and even Lily’s sobbing lessened. Elizabeth was looking out the window, and seemed not to have heard any of it at all.

“We will leave now, tonight,” said Strong-Words. “We will leave this minute rather than let O’Brien arrest her.”

Hannah walked into the circle of men and stopped. “Why do you talk about me as if I were a child?” she said in her strongest voice. “I can make decisions for myself, and I will not run in fear from O’Brien, or anyone else.”

Hawkeye inclined his head so that his hair fell forward over his shoulder, and Hannah noticed with some unease how white it was now, with no trace of black. He said, “We know you are not afraid, granddaughter. No one here is questioning your courage.”