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Authors: Sara Donati

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BOOK: Lake in the Clouds
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Her mouth twitched in annoyance, but she said nothing at all.

“You know it ain’t Liam I’ve got on my mind right now. It was Splitting-Moon who told you about the runaways in the bush, wasn’t it?”

A little sound escaped her, the kind of sigh that you might hear from a woman when she puts down something she shouldn’t have been carrying in the first place.

“When did you figure it out?”

“Don’t take much figuring. Twenty-some house slaves and farmhands, surviving eight winters in the bush and keeping hid. That’s not something they could do on their own, at least not to start with. They had to have help, and no white man I know in the bush would go to the trouble, much less keep quiet about it. That’s when Splitting-Moon came to mind. It’s in her nature to help any hurt creature she comes across. Did she come out and tell you about Red Rock?”

Squirrel hesitated while she put down the basket and rubbed her hands. Her gaze fixed on the window over the desk, as if she could see through it and farther. “When she came in the fall to trade she had a little boy with her. He had a Kahnyen’kehàka face—” She touched her own cheekbone lightly. “But his hair was kinked, and he was as dark as Galileo. He called himself Joshua, but she called him Renhahserotha’.”

He makes a new light.

“It was the boy who mentioned Red Rock to you?”

“To Many-Doves,” said Squirrel. “But long before we ever saw him, we knew there must be others with her. When Splitting-Moon brought us her medicines to trade, she asked for things in return … things you wouldn’t think she’d have any need for.”

Nathaniel let this news settle for a moment, and Squirrel thought that he was looking for more information.

“That’s all I know. Many-Doves wouldn’t ever let me ask her any questions in the fear she wouldn’t come back again. You know her better than I do, Da.”

“Not anymore, I don’t. I haven’t seen the woman since the summer before the twins were born.”

Splitting-Moon had left Good Pasture to go live the life of a hermit deep in the bush a year later. She was rarely seen, but stories of the Mohawk medicine woman who roamed the endless forests were told as far away as Montreal.

Now there were only two things Nathaniel could say of her for certain: she had a talent for hiding herself away, and she spent some of the winter in the caves near the lake some called Little Lost, in a corner of the bush few white men knew about. Over the years when she had come to mind, Nathaniel had wondered about her, and why she had chosen such a lonely life for herself. Now it seemed she hadn’t been alone, after all.

He had been quiet a long time, and Squirrel looked uncomfortable. She said, “Maybe I should have told you.”

“No,” he said. “You did the right thing. Go look after our visitor now, and then get some sleep.” He turned on his heel to look into the shadows of the sleeping loft.

“The three of you had better go to sleep too, do you hear? Chores in the morning and then school, and I don’t care to hear any complaints about sleepiness.”

There was a hushed scampering, and then silence.

Elizabeth was sitting on the edge of the bed with the hairbrush in her lap when Nathaniel closed the chamber door behind himself. Even by candlelight her exhaustion was plain to see in the rounded curve of her back and the way she lifted her arm. But she smiled at him and shook her head so that her hair fell in a dark veil over her shoulders, most of the way to the floor.

“Are they settled?”

“Now they are. But I expect they heard every word.”

“Of course they did. Tomorrow we will have to have a conversation with them about all of this. Most especially with Ethan.”

“You don’t need to worry about Ethan. That boy lives and breathes to please Galileo, and he’d put his hand in fire before he’d do anything to cause him harm.”

“I do need to worry about Ethan,” Elizabeth said. “But not because he might say something inopportune. Did you talk to Hannah?”

“I did.” Nathaniel crouched down before the hearth to bank the fire, pausing there for a moment to feel the pulse of heat on his face and chest. He did not especially want to open up the subject of Splitting-Moon; Elizabeth might just decide that she needed to go to find Many-Doves and hear the whole story for herself right now.

He said, “I’ll walk her down to the schoolhouse at first light.”

Elizabeth exhaled, impatient and trying not to show it. “Do you think that it’s truly necessary? Hannah is not afraid of Liam.”

Nathaniel thought about this while he stripped to his breechclout. It was hard to think of Liam Kirby as a man at all, much less one who could be a danger, but it was also true that he wouldn’t rest easy until he saw the boy with his own eyes.

He sat down next to Elizabeth to begin brushing her hair. It was something he did every night, and every night he was struck by the white skin at the nape of her neck. How strange it was that a woman of such strong will should seem outwardly fragile. Nathaniel’s Mahican grandfather had given her the name Bone-in-Her-Back, and it suited her well.

But his eldest daughter was another matter. Clever and quick, yes; she had a mind as sharp as any Nathaniel had ever come across, one that never seemed to rest. Walks-Ahead was the woman-name her grandmother had given her, and while Nathaniel found it hard to use that name, it did suit her: a young woman always looking forward. She exchanged letters with doctors in England and India, letters she gladly read aloud to them but that nobody else really understood, not even Elizabeth. Her reputation as a healer had already spread well
beyond the frontier. But she had always been so gentle, inclined more to trust than doubt. Maybe now she stood before an experience that would temper her into something harder; maybe he wouldn’t be able to help her.

To the back of Elizabeth’s neck, Nathaniel said, “I’m not sure she shouldn’t be afraid of him, but you’re right. She needs to go on her own.”

Elizabeth’s shoulders tightened. “It’s not in your nature to judge so quickly.”

“But it is in my nature to protect my children. And I’ve been reminded today more than once about how old she is, you don’t have to tell me again.” He put down the brush and began to plait her hair, finally tying it with the ribbon she offered him.

“What do you say you and me go spend the night under the falls tomorrow? It’s about that time.”

She cast a frown over her shoulder. “You are changing the subject, Nathaniel Bonner.”

“Nothing slips by you, Boots. Is that a no you’re giving me?”

Elizabeth pulled up the covers and wiggled underneath, so that the mattress crackled and whispered in response. “You know perfectly well that I’ve been looking forward to … sleeping under the falls for weeks. If Hannah isn’t so preoccupied with Miss Voyager that she can’t keep an eye on the children, then yes, of course.”

“For weeks, is it?” He leaned over her to smooth the curls that had already escaped the plait. “It pleases me no end to hear that you’re so eager.”

She swatted his hand away, but there was nothing she could do to hide her blush. “You are incorrigible.”

“And you like me that way.”

Elizabeth pursed her mouth at him. He kissed it soundly, but her leery expression softened only a little.

“You are so transparent at times, Nathaniel. Simply ask, and I will stop talking about this Red Rock—for the time being, at least. You needn’t work so hard to distract me.”

He climbed into bed next to her. “Providing you with a little distraction ain’t exactly unpleasant, you realize, even if I have to put some effort into it once in a while. I like a challenge, you know that.”

She grinned, but pinched him nonetheless. “My point is that seduction is really not the only way to end a conversation.”

“Can you think of a better one?”

There was a long pause. “If you put it that way,” she said slowly.

He laughed and leaned over to kiss her again.

“Go to sleep, Boots. You’re too tired, and I don’t especially want to talk about Red Rock and the rest of it any more tonight.”

She gave him a long and very thoughtful look. “Yes, all right. Perhaps you’re right, the conversation should wait until tomorrow. That’s best.” She sat up, blew out the candle, and then curled toward him and put her face next to his. There was enough moonlight to show him her eyes, and the expression in them.

“You’re a terrible liar, Boots. Go on and say it or you’ll lie awake for hours.”

With the tip of her finger she traced the line of his jaw. “I’ve been thinking about Splitting-Moon.”

Chapter 5

Just before dawn Hannah woke to the sound of her grandfather moving through the common room. She rose from the pallet she had made for herself near Selah Voyager, checked her patient’s breathing and temperature, and slipped away without waking her.

It fell to the twins to stoke the fire and carry water, but this morning Hawkeye had done both, whether to please Lily and Daniel or himself Hannah could not really say. He was gone again now, and she knew that if she went to look she would find him swimming under the falls.

She sat down in Elizabeth’s rocker to put on her moccasins. With her cheek pressed against her knee she could not overlook how worn the leather of her leggings had become. For a moment she considered changing: her good linen gown hung on the wall of the sleeping loft, right next to the doeskin overblouse and leggings with bead- and quillwork that she had worn to the mid-winter ceremony at Good Pasture. She imagined herself in one and then the other, and decided finally that she would meet Liam Kirby in her workday clothes.

A stirring and murmuring of voices from her parents’ room brought Hannah up out of her thoughts. She stood and the bear tooth she wore on a chain around her neck slid cold and hard between her breasts; she touched it with one finger, checked the contents of the pouch that hung from her belt, and went out onto the porch where her grandfather stood
looking out over the morning, lake water running down over his shoulders and his skin flushed with cold.

He spoke without turning to her. “How is she?”

“Sleeping. Her fever is less, but not by much. I’ll be back before she wakes.”

“You sure of that?”

“Very sure,” Hannah said firmly.

In Mahican her grandfather said, “I’m proud of you, granddaughter. Stand tall.”

Hawkeye rarely used the language of his childhood; it was a gift he gave her, something that bound them together because there were so few left who spoke it. She was thinking about this, about the power of a rare language, when she crossed into the woods and heard Lily, running light and sure.

Her sister fell into step beside her.

“I won’t go back,” she said. “I want to see Liam Kirby for myself.”

She was barefoot and her hair was unplaited, but Lily had taken the time to load her pocket with small rocks and her slingshot was tucked into the waistband of her overskirt. She was as good a shot as Blue-Jay, but he had far better control of his temper. Hannah said, “There will be no warfare today, little sister. Except maybe when you get back home again and have to make amends with Elizabeth for running off without permission.”

“She won’t be mad at me, not if I’m with you,” Lily said. “And I won’t throw the first stone.”

And Hannah must be content with that promise, and with the fact of Lily, who could never pause in her examination of the world around her. In short order she had found the tracks of the old bear they called Two-Claws, out of her winter sleep and walking the mountain, a squirrel’s skull, and evidence of a ground-bee hive that had been dug up by skunks. For every step Hannah took Lily took four.

Overhead the maple and beech branches were heavy with buds on the point of opening; underfoot crocuses spread out in patches of pale yellow and purple. Hannah thought of all the reasons she needed to be in the forest: to harvest the first buds of the white pine, flag lily root, and a hundred other useful things that the spring brought forth. Suddenly she had the urge to take her sister and go off into the forests to explore for
the rest of the day. As if she had spoken this idea out loud, Lily came to a stop at the point where the woods gave way to the strawberry fields.

In a hollow beneath a fallen birch, the ground was covered with hoofprints in a scattering of tiny heart shapes. A doe had dropped a fawn here not an hour ago, and was almost certainly hiding very close by.

“We don’t have time,” said Hannah, but her sister was already gone. She did not appear again until Hannah was halfway through the field.

“Twins,” she said, with great satisfaction.

“How did you get away without your twin?” Hannah asked. “Did he lose the straw pull, or did you have to trade him something?”

Lily pursed her mouth. Instead of answering she said, “Ain’t you worried about Liam Kirby?”

“You are changing the subject.”

“And you’re not answering my question.”

“I am a little anxious.” She knew how unconvincing her tone must be. The truth was that she felt too many things at once and couldn’t put a name to any of it, but Lily would not be satisfied with silence.

“Daniel says he came back to marry you and you’ll go away from us to live in the city.”

Hannah laughed out loud. “Daniel’s imagination has run away with him. Liam is not here to marry me.”

Lily gave her a very indignant look. “Of course he wants to marry you. All the men do, or at least all the ones who don’t have wives. Even some of the ones who do. They watch you.”

“You are being silly.” Hannah increased her pace, and Lily began to trot beside her.

“They do watch you.” Lily’s tone sharpened as she settled in to prove her point.

“That doesn’t mean anybody wants to marry anybody. The owl watches the mouse.”

“No,” Lily said shortly. “Not like the owl and the mouse, not that kind of watching.” She thought for a minute. “Don’t you want to get married? Do you want to stay with us forever?”

“If I get married someday it won’t be to anybody in the village.”

“But why not?”

Because it was clear that Lily would not give up until she had all her questions answered, Hannah stopped where she was. “Who would you have me marry then, Lily? Do you have a husband picked out?”

BOOK: Lake in the Clouds
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