Fire Along the Sky
Page 100

“Set down again, child,” she said mildly. “I got some things to say.”
When Curiosity had finished telling them the whole of it in her calm way, her hands folded in her lap, Callie was silent for a long moment and then she looked up, her face drained of color.
“They aren't taking Jemima to Johnstown?” she asked for the second time. “She won't be hanged?”
“No,” Curiosity said. “Not after what Martha had to say. Baldy O'Brien was surely disappointed, but without more evidence he cain't bind Jemima over for trial. What she done might be a sin in the eyes of God, but there ain't no law that say she got to raise a hand to help a woman in need.”
Callie held herself very still. She reminded Hannah of a child who knows that even the slightest movement might bring on a beating.
“Callie,” Hannah said calmly. “You knew, didn't you? Martha told you what happened that day that your mother disappeared on the mountain.”
The girl raised her head to look at them, shadowed and far older than her years, and nodded. “Yes. Martha told me.”
“You were afraid to speak up,” Curiosity prompted gently.
Callie nodded again, and for a while Hannah thought that she would have nothing more to say. Then a tremor moved through her and a single tear ran down her face. She said, “We talked it through, me and Martha. We talked it through and it seemed to us that if we told, they'd take Jemima away and hang her. We thought it would be better if at least one of us had a ma, even if—” She broke off to swallow and wipe her face with a trembling hand. “Then my pa started up with her and we didn't know what to do. I wanted to tell him, but I couldn't think how.”
“That's a heavy burden for a young girl to be dragging around for so long.” Curiosity reached out as if to touch Callie, but the girl pulled back, almost alarmed.
She said, “We didn't mean harm. And we didn't lie either. We made a promise that if anybody asked the question straight-out that we'd tell the truth. But nobody did ask, not until today. Oh, poor Martha. I should have been there.”
It was a terrible thing to see her weep tears so long held at bay, tears far older than her years.
“Sometimes a hurt is so bad and so deep that tears is the only thing to wash it away,” Curiosity said. “You go on and let it out, child. We know what it is to weep.”
Jed McGarrity and Jennet brought Martha back not an hour later. The girl was pale and shaking as if she had taken a fever. Hannah put a hand on her brow, cool and damp, fed her a bowl of soup, and then sent her to bed with Callie to sit beside her.
“Let them work it out between them,” Curiosity said. “They come this far together, they'll come a little farther.”
Curiosity made tea and they sat around the table, Jed with his big hands wrapped around the cup and resting on his long silky brown beard. He said, “I seen and heard some things in my day, but what happened in that meetinghouse—that beats all.”
“It was aye shocking,” Jennet agreed. “To have let the poor woman wander off into a storm like that.”
“What do you think will happen now?” Hannah asked, and Jed shot her a surprised look.
“Why, cain't you guess? As soon as O'Brien set Jemima free Nicholas set out lickety-split for Johnstown. Looking for a lawyer to plead him a divorce. Not that it'll do him much good, I fear.” He cast a sidelong glance at Jennet and cleared his throat.
“Jemima claims to be with child,” Jennet explained, looking over her shoulder to be sure the girls were not within hearing. “She called it out to Nicholas when he left the meetinghouse. Everybody heard it.”
They were silent for a moment, thinking of that. Jemima had bound Nicholas Wilde to her with a child. She was not the first woman to take such a step, nor would she be the last. More ammunition in this new war she must fight to claim her place as Nicholas Wilde's wife.
“Come on then, and tell us the rest,” Curiosity said, thumping her cup a little. “Spit it out.”
“There's naught to tell,” said Jennet. “Jemima marched off like a soldier, straight of back. Gave nobody any quarter. Were it not for the wicked things she's done I should almost have to admire her for it.”
At that Curiosity laughed out loud. “I suppose it might look that way to you. You ain't knowed her long enough, is all.”
“Do you think she'll come here to fetch Martha?” Hannah asked.
“No chance of that,” Jed said. “I warned her away.”
“But will she pay you any mind?” Jennet asked. “That's the question.”
Jed grunted. “Oh, she'll mind. It's not Martha she's worried about, anyway. It's keeping her place at the orchard house.”
“If Claes throws her out she'll just go back to the mill,” Curiosity said. “Unless there's something else you got to tell. I can see it on your face as plain as pimples.”
“She sold the house,” Jennet and Jed said together.
Curiosity looked as if someone had stuck her with a pin. “What?”
“Charlie LeBlanc offered her fifty dollars for the millhouse, and she took it,” Jed explained.
Even Hannah laughed at that. “And where would Charlie LeBlanc get fifty dollars?”
It was a reasonable question, for even with his wife's good sense and calm guidance, Charlie barely managed to make a profit from the millworks. Without the free labor that came with six sons, he would have been bankrupt long ago. Charlie was more likely to grow horns than he was to save fifty dollars all together.