Fire Along the Sky
Page 74
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I'm sure you can imagine the crowd's disappointment and—the only word that comes to mind—delight when they found the millhouse deserted and Mrs. Kuick gone. And now the talk began in earnest, a wild conjecturing that lasted for an hour or more in the cold millhouse kitchen, until Constable McGarrity shouted loud enough to be heard and said they could talk all night without getting anywhere, or they could wait until morning when the wee lasses might be able to tell what they knew.
In the moment of quiet that followed, one of the Fiddler brothers—I believe it was Zeke but it may have been Levi, I could not see very well from where I stood—said while they all stood around wondering who Jemima Southern was bedding and where, his mother lay murdered and he'd have justice or revenge or both, and he wouldn't be fussy about which came first.
He spoke in a voice that made the gooseflesh rise on my neck, low and calm and as serious as the grave, and some of the men looked at each other and shifted on their feet the way men will when they disapprove but must bide their time to say so. And then Jed said in his gentle way, justice will be done, I vow it, and then all the energy was gone from the room and people began to drift away to their beds though it was only a few hours to sunrise.
And in all this I had forgot my errand, to find your father and sister, but it was too late and truth be told I was too weary, and so I went back to the Todds' place and found a bed and went to sleep and did not wake until well into the morning.
I found your mother in the kitchen with Constable McGarrity, and she looked very relieved to see me. The constable had come to talk to Martha and Callie and wanted another witness present, for Curiosity had gone to Lake in the Clouds to see about Hannah and Ethan was sitting with his stepfather's remains and receiving visitors who called to leave their condolences. And this you must imagine: Ethan in the parlor with such a solemn purpose and in the kitchen the constable and Elizabeth and I, and two young lasses as still and white as ghosts.
They answered the questions Constable McGarrity put to them, but always first looking one at the other. Aye, Callie's father and Martha's mother were away, aye they had left together, no, they had no said why but they would be back today or tomorrow. They had left enough firewood and food for the girls, who were to do their chores and milk the cow and goats—at this they looked at each other in great alarm, until the constable assured them that the livestock had been cared for—and not speak to anyone in the village about family business.
At that both girls began to weep again, quietly, holding hands in such a touching way that I should have liked to weep myself.
Then the constable asked about Mrs. Fiddler and Martha broke out in great racking sobs that shook her shoulders and would not cease even though Elizabeth rocked her and spoke calm words. And this was strange, of course, because it is Callie who suffered the greater loss, but she sat still-faced and like an old woman who has seen so much in a hard life that she has no more tears left to shed.
No matter how the question was put to them, by Elizabeth or the constable, neither of them had even a word to say that shed any light on the circumstances of Mrs. Fiddler's death, and indeed it seemed to me that with every passing minute they were more and more distant. This troubled Mr. McGarrity and indeed I, too, had the idea that they knew more or suspected more than they cared to say. Later I had a moment alone with your mother and I asked her what he might be thinking, but she only shook her head and begged not to be asked, as she could not say such terrible things aloud without evidence. Which proves once again what an unusual and thoughtful woman your mother is, for no one else in the village (except, of course, Mr. McGarrity himself) scrupled to say exactly what they thought, and that in a loud voice.
All day long men were gathered in the trading post, suggesting more and more outlandish scenarios and murder plots, which stopped only because the Ratz boys came in to say that Mr. Wilde's sleigh was just coming into the village and seemed to be headed for the millhouse.
And as it turns out, the younger widow Kuick was with him, but she had come back to Paradise as Mrs. Wilde, for they had been married the day before in Johnstown in front of the magistrate, and had the marriage lines as proof. I suppose this would have been a gey great scandal even without the discovery of Mrs. Fiddler's murder—the women in the village hold a verra low opinion of Jemima's manner of getting husbands, I'm told—but taken together you might have thought Benedict Arnold had come to Paradise, such outrage was there among the villagers.
Someone had set the meetinghouse bell to ringing and everyone came running, the men gathering around the sleigh. And that is how I saw them first, the bright red sleigh in the middle of a crowd. There was a great shouting of questions and threats and promises of damnation.
Mrs. Kuick—Mrs. Wilde, now—looked curiously untouched by it all, and even pleased, like a cat let out after being closed up in the buttery all night. She sat in the sleigh with her hands crossed in her lap and looked over the faces turned up to her as she might have looked at a field full of crows. As if the questions they were asking—the accusations they threw in her face—were irritations only, and not to be taken seriously. To my mind this makes her either smug in her innocence, or arrogant and the worst kind of heartless wretch, who could do murder and shrug it off so easily.
Her new husband was far less composed. The news of Mrs. Fiddler's death shook him so that I thought at first he might faint. But then the constable claimed both of them and took them into the trading post. As there is room in the jail for only one, Nicholas is being held there while Jemima is locked up in the cabin where your old teacher Mr. Oak once lived, with a guard at the door and the shutters nailed closed. She would have been allowed visitors, but none went to her, not even her own daughter.
In the moment of quiet that followed, one of the Fiddler brothers—I believe it was Zeke but it may have been Levi, I could not see very well from where I stood—said while they all stood around wondering who Jemima Southern was bedding and where, his mother lay murdered and he'd have justice or revenge or both, and he wouldn't be fussy about which came first.
He spoke in a voice that made the gooseflesh rise on my neck, low and calm and as serious as the grave, and some of the men looked at each other and shifted on their feet the way men will when they disapprove but must bide their time to say so. And then Jed said in his gentle way, justice will be done, I vow it, and then all the energy was gone from the room and people began to drift away to their beds though it was only a few hours to sunrise.
And in all this I had forgot my errand, to find your father and sister, but it was too late and truth be told I was too weary, and so I went back to the Todds' place and found a bed and went to sleep and did not wake until well into the morning.
I found your mother in the kitchen with Constable McGarrity, and she looked very relieved to see me. The constable had come to talk to Martha and Callie and wanted another witness present, for Curiosity had gone to Lake in the Clouds to see about Hannah and Ethan was sitting with his stepfather's remains and receiving visitors who called to leave their condolences. And this you must imagine: Ethan in the parlor with such a solemn purpose and in the kitchen the constable and Elizabeth and I, and two young lasses as still and white as ghosts.
They answered the questions Constable McGarrity put to them, but always first looking one at the other. Aye, Callie's father and Martha's mother were away, aye they had left together, no, they had no said why but they would be back today or tomorrow. They had left enough firewood and food for the girls, who were to do their chores and milk the cow and goats—at this they looked at each other in great alarm, until the constable assured them that the livestock had been cared for—and not speak to anyone in the village about family business.
At that both girls began to weep again, quietly, holding hands in such a touching way that I should have liked to weep myself.
Then the constable asked about Mrs. Fiddler and Martha broke out in great racking sobs that shook her shoulders and would not cease even though Elizabeth rocked her and spoke calm words. And this was strange, of course, because it is Callie who suffered the greater loss, but she sat still-faced and like an old woman who has seen so much in a hard life that she has no more tears left to shed.
No matter how the question was put to them, by Elizabeth or the constable, neither of them had even a word to say that shed any light on the circumstances of Mrs. Fiddler's death, and indeed it seemed to me that with every passing minute they were more and more distant. This troubled Mr. McGarrity and indeed I, too, had the idea that they knew more or suspected more than they cared to say. Later I had a moment alone with your mother and I asked her what he might be thinking, but she only shook her head and begged not to be asked, as she could not say such terrible things aloud without evidence. Which proves once again what an unusual and thoughtful woman your mother is, for no one else in the village (except, of course, Mr. McGarrity himself) scrupled to say exactly what they thought, and that in a loud voice.
All day long men were gathered in the trading post, suggesting more and more outlandish scenarios and murder plots, which stopped only because the Ratz boys came in to say that Mr. Wilde's sleigh was just coming into the village and seemed to be headed for the millhouse.
And as it turns out, the younger widow Kuick was with him, but she had come back to Paradise as Mrs. Wilde, for they had been married the day before in Johnstown in front of the magistrate, and had the marriage lines as proof. I suppose this would have been a gey great scandal even without the discovery of Mrs. Fiddler's murder—the women in the village hold a verra low opinion of Jemima's manner of getting husbands, I'm told—but taken together you might have thought Benedict Arnold had come to Paradise, such outrage was there among the villagers.
Someone had set the meetinghouse bell to ringing and everyone came running, the men gathering around the sleigh. And that is how I saw them first, the bright red sleigh in the middle of a crowd. There was a great shouting of questions and threats and promises of damnation.
Mrs. Kuick—Mrs. Wilde, now—looked curiously untouched by it all, and even pleased, like a cat let out after being closed up in the buttery all night. She sat in the sleigh with her hands crossed in her lap and looked over the faces turned up to her as she might have looked at a field full of crows. As if the questions they were asking—the accusations they threw in her face—were irritations only, and not to be taken seriously. To my mind this makes her either smug in her innocence, or arrogant and the worst kind of heartless wretch, who could do murder and shrug it off so easily.
Her new husband was far less composed. The news of Mrs. Fiddler's death shook him so that I thought at first he might faint. But then the constable claimed both of them and took them into the trading post. As there is room in the jail for only one, Nicholas is being held there while Jemima is locked up in the cabin where your old teacher Mr. Oak once lived, with a guard at the door and the shutters nailed closed. She would have been allowed visitors, but none went to her, not even her own daughter.
