Fire Along the Sky
Page 79

In thanks and need she pressed against him until they began to move together with subtle, quick, knowing touches, the old questions so often asked and answered. Finally she was naked in his arms, her pale skin soaking up the little bit of moonlight until it glowed, her breath rising damp and harsh in the cold room.
He felt her thinking mind pushing its way up, trying to intrude itself between them. She made a sound, a wait sound, but he held her close and closer, held her down and kissed her until she gave up, gave in, dropped all the worries long enough to admit again what Nathaniel could never let her forget: that she belonged here with him and nowhere else, that no matter what trouble came to them they would face it together.
In the morning Elizabeth woke to the sound of a long “halloo” echoing off the cliff walls; Nathaniel's side of the bed was empty, and Gabriel stood at the door, his cheeks red with the cold, snow in his hair: her beautiful boy. She held out her arms and he ran to her, bounced on the bed like the child he was, pushed his face into her neck and hugged her. A boy as rough as a bear cub and just as irresistible and dangerous too. She said a silent thanks that he was too young for this newest war.
“Who's come to call this early?” she asked him, running her fingers through his hair and thinking vaguely of her brushes on the dresser; he would be gone before she could reach for them.
“Bump.” The boy bounced away from her and off the bed, landing on his feet like a cat. “And he's brought the post, Mama. The rider came in late last night.”
“Is there a letter from your brother? From Daniel?”
“Maybe.” Gabriel grinned as if the idea had not occurred to him; as if he did not know how worried she had been. “Come and see.” And he ran away, shutting the door behind himself.
She could go out just as she was, in her nightclothes, but she forced herself to dress, slowly, methodically, carefully, listening as she did to the men's voices from the other room. Runs-from-Bears said something and Bump laughed, a high, hopping laugh that would make his oversized head wobble on a spindly neck. Nathaniel had gone silent and when Elizabeth opened the door she understood why: he sat by the hearth, bent over an open letter, reading.
Then he looked up at her and smiled. “All's well, Boots. Both the boys safe and sound and in good spirits.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Mr. Bump,” she said, “how kind of you to bring the post. I will make tea, shall I?”
In the end she sent Gabriel down to the village to tell all her students that school was canceled for the day. Not so much because of the letter, though Elizabeth would gladly have read it again and again, but because of the other news that Bump brought. He was on his way to Canada to fulfill the last request Richard Todd had made of him.
Nathaniel and Runs-from-Bears exchanged glances at this revelation.
“It's been a while since I heard any word of Throws-Far,” said Runs-from-Bears. “But then he was making winter camp on the lakes.” He volunteered this information before Bump could ask, and Nathaniel carried on in the same way.
“You should talk to our Hannah, she would know more.”
“I did just that, and she gave me a name,” Bump said. “Somebody to talk to, an old Mohawk woman near Montreal. Since I'm headed that way, I thought I might as well call on Lily. Curiosity is already busy putting together a parcel. Is there anything you'd like me to take your daughter, Mrs. Bonner?”
“Now you've done it,” Nathaniel said, grinning. “These women will load you down like a draft horse.”
Later, Annie came to find Elizabeth while she packed things into baskets: more socks, a woolen underskirt, a beautiful pair of winter moccasins that Many-Doves had worked on for a month, a package of dates and another of dried apricots, a jug of the last of the maple syrup, a bundle of newspapers and magazines, a small pile of books.
The little girl watched and helped where she could, and it was some while before Elizabeth noted the expression on her face.
“What is it?” she asked. “Come, talk to me while I work.”
Annie cast a sidelong glance in her aunt's direction. “It's about Jemima Kuick,” Annie said.
“She is Mrs. Wilde, now,” Elizabeth reminded her.
“Mrs. Wilde,” the girl echoed, and there was a long wait while she gathered her thoughts.
“What about her?”
“People say that when Baldy O'Brien comes—” Annie paused.
“Judge O'Brien,” Elizabeth said quietly. “Or Mr. O'Brien.”
“Mr. O'Brien,” Annie echoed again, and then said nothing more. Instead her teeth worked the soft flesh of her lower lip.
Elizabeth closed the lid of the basket and made firm knots in the rawhide strings meant to hold it shut. She studied Annie while she did this, and saw that the girl's worry went deep.
“Start at the beginning,” she said. “What people, and what do they say?”
Nathaniel had come to the door and stood listening, his arms folded. Annie glanced at her favorite uncle and lost her train of thought; a scattered child, at times, but a bright one.
She said, “Jem Ratz says we will all have to watch when they hang Nicholas and Jemima. It's the law that everybody watches. Is it true? Will we all go down to see them hang?”
Elizabeth sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and drew the little girl closer to her. She said, “Jem Ratz may be a dab hand with a slingshot, but I despair of ever putting the empty space between his ears to good use. No, it is not true.”