Into the Wilderness
Page 249

Elizabeth rubbed her cheek on his shoulder, drawing in his smell.
"Are you going to tell me about our visitor?"
"O'Brien? He's after the Tory Gold."
"That much I surmised," Elizabeth said. "I gather you satisfied his curiosity. I heard him ride off."
Nathaniel produced a small snort of laughter. "I doubt that man has ever been satisfied with anything. But I've quieted him down for the moment."
"Do you think my father sent him this way?"
"No. The judge and your brother won't be in Albany until sometime tomorrow, Boots. Unless they ran into O'Brien on the road, which ain't likely." He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. "No, it was the gold we spread around in Albany. The state wants it, but thus far they don't have any clear claim to it."
"So then we don't have to worry about him anymore."
"I don't know about that," Nathaniel said grimly. He took her hand and they started back toward the house. "I think O'Brien will stick around for a while, at any rate. He took a room at the Pierces', and he's likely to try to question you, so be prepared."
"I am not afraid of him," Elizabeth said.
Nathaniel pulled up short, and leaning down, kissed her briefly. "I know you're not, Boots, and that's what scares me. A little healthy fear is a good thing sometimes, in a man or a woman." His hand swept down over the curve of her belly, and up her back to pull her in closer. "There's been enough leave—takings for a while."
Pressed against him, Elizabeth felt a tremble in his arms. "I am not going anywhere, Nathaniel," she said firmly, determined to keep surprise out of her voice.
"That's good," he said. "Because I wouldn't know how to go on anymore, without you."
The sound of the front door closing separated them. In the shadows, she made out Joshua's solid form. He had his hat in his hands, and his expression was guarded.
"Don't care to interrupt," he said. "I'll come find you another time."
"Oh, no," Elizabeth said, stepping toward the porch. "Please don't go. We wanted to talk to you about Joe."
In the faint light, Joshua's expression was unreadable. "Can you tell me how he died?"
"You know he's dead?"
Joshua reached into the pocket of his coat with two fingers and drew out the bijou Elizabeth had worn on a chain around her neck for so many weeks. The pale stone in the center flashed like an eye in the moonlight. "If he sent me this, he's dead. It was all he had to leave behind." There was a long pause, in which Joshua looked thoughtfully at the small ornament in his palm.
"Do you know, did he take a family name?"
Nathaniel glanced at Elizabeth. "He introduced himself to me as Joe, no last name. Did he tell you, Boots?"
When Elizabeth confirmed that he had not, Joshua shrugged. "I was hoping he might have left me that, too, now that I need one. He was my father, but I guess you figured that out."
Elizabeth walked up the porch steps and stood in front of Joshua. "It seems to me a very great responsibility, to find a name for yourself. Perhaps your father meant you to take on that task when the day came.
"I'll have to think on it some," Joshua said.
Nathaniel said, "Maybe we could go set in the kitchen and have a talk. You'll want to hear what we have to tell you in privacy."
"If you don't mind bein' kept away from the party—"
There was a loud burst of laughter from the parlor, punctuated by Curiosity's voice in a rambling scold.
"I think they're managing without us well enough," Elizabeth said dryly.
"Would you mind if I asked Mr. Hench to join us? I would like him to hear this story. too."
"That's your decision," Nathaniel said.
Joshua looked down to the cap he held in his hands. "Maybe you don't understand this," he said, searching carefully for words. "Don't know why you might, after all. But it's a strange thing, having decisions to make all of a sudden. God knows I'm thankful, but it'll take some getting used to."
Settled around the hearth in the kitchen, Elizabeth and Nathaniel told the story they had to tell of Joe, how they had come across him and how he had met his death. Elizabeth cradled a cup of warm cider in her hands, and watched the firelight flicker in the deep amber fluid as she listened to Nathaniel tell the last of it.
"I didn't know him very well, you understand," Joshua said quietly, when Nathaniel had finished. "Me and Mama was sold away when I was little. But I saw him now and then in the town, and twice a year on Sunday he had a free afternoon. He walked a long way to come talk to me then, wasn't ever more than an hour, 'cause he had to be back before sunset. Strange, how much you can miss a body you never did see very much to start with. But I do miss him. The idea of him."
Cousin Samuel had been quiet through much of the story, but now he leaned forward, his hands spread out in front of himself. While they were well acquainted to honest work, they had little resemblance to Joshua's hands, heavily muscled, blunt, and the dark skin seamed with scars.
"There is an old saying that might serve well," he said. ""Grief will not recall thy father to thee, but by thy conduct thou canst revive him to the world.""
Elizabeth felt Nathaniel's sorrow, usually held so tightly in hand, blossom suddenly up. He flushed, perhaps with embarrassment, perhaps with new purpose. For a moment Elizabeth was overcome, too, but with feelings of guilt: she had not understood, not really, what it had cost him to have said goodbye to his grandfather and father on the same day. To know one of them gone forever; and not to know if the other would ever return. Under her folded hands, a sudden faint kicking, as if to scold. She wondered if this child would read her thoughts as easily as its father did.