Into the Wilderness
Page 71

Elizabeth opened her eyes once again. Dutch Ton looked much as he had when she last saw him: a barrel of a man wrapped in rags and tattered pelts, every sort of weapon and implement dangling from the confusion of leather belts crisscrossing his torso and waist. He was squinting as he looked around the room. When his gaze finally reached Elizabeth, his mouth fell open to reveal a few blackish stumps of teeth.
"What do you mean, staring at Miz Elizabeth that way? You're putting the fear of God in her, can't you see that, you ijit! Speak up, man. I heard you was in Fish House. What brings you all the way here?"
The man blinked slowly, his gaze still fixed on Elizabeth.
"I got a letter," he said finally in a strangely high and cracked voice. "I'm lookin' for the schoolmarm to read it to me. It's from my sister."
* * *
There was a pause, in which Anna turned and sought out Jed McGarrity. "Jed," she said. "Take this old fool out of here."
"But I got a letter," Dutch Ton protested, holding up something that might have been paper. "From my sister. And I cain't read."
To Elizabeth it looked like a hunk of old newspaper which had been left out in the rain, but the look on the man's face moved her.
"I could have a look at it," she said to Anna.
The trapper was quick for such a big man; he was halfway across the room to Elizabeth before Anna and Jed's protests began.
"Now, Miz Elizabeth," Jed said. "Let me tell you about that letter."
"I may as well look at it," Elizabeth murmured.
"Well, you won't be the first," Anna said, disgruntled. "He shoves that nasty thing in everybody's face, has been for the last twenty year. Nobody can read it. It ain't in English."
"Lizzie's good at languages," said Julian, who had situated himself in the corner, uncharacteristically out of the conversation. He looked a little flustered when Dutch Ton glanced his way, and then relieved when the man looked away without seeming to recognize him.
"Is it German?" asked Elizabeth, who had taken the letter from the trapper and retreated behind the counter, both for a surface where she could lay the letter out, and because her eyes were watering with the smell of him at close quarters. "Could your father read it?"
"He can't read," said Anna. "Never learned. I tried to read it to him, figured it was German. But no luck." She looked across the room to where her father slept on, oblivious.
Elizabeth was trying to extract the sheet of writing paper from its envelope without tearing either of them, but it was hard work. The outer sheet had clearly been submerged at one point and left to dry, for the only ink left on it was a dark blur. She worked the papers apart with Dutch Ton leaning over the counter toward her.
"It's from my sister," Dutch Ton said to nobody in particular.
"Well," said Elizabeth after a minute or two. "It's badly damaged, I'm afraid, and quite faint. But I don't think it's German. Did you come over from Germany?"
The look of surprise and confusion reminded Elizabeth of her younger pupils when they listened to the recitations of the older students, and heard questions asked and answered which seemed to them unfathomable.
"Came on a ship," he said, as if that should clear everything up. And then, nodding toward the letter. "Can you read it?"
There was a sudden shifting and coughing from beside the hearth, and Anna looked up.
"Däta," Anna said. "Waking up from his nap.
The old man stretched a little and then sat up, blinking. He looked at the small crowd gathered around him and he grinned, exposing three long and very canine teeth.
"What have we got here?" he asked, his voice scratchy. "What's up, then, Annie girl?"
"Dutch Ton," said Anna. "Came with his infernal letter."
"Who's this?" asked the old man, his gaze settling on Elizabeth and ignoring the trapper completely.
"The schoolmarm," said Jed McGarrity. "Ain't you met Miz Elizabeth yet?"
"She don't come in much, Jed. That ain't my fault. The judge's girl. Aha. You look like your brother."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Elizabeth murmured. "Mr.—"
"Call me Axel. That's my name. Axel Metzler." He peered at her. "You're a pretty one," he said, exploring in his beard until he found a spot that needed scratching.
"Elizabeth, would you read the letter or give it back to the man and let him get on his way?" interrupted Anna. "Lord knows I'll never get the stench out of my goods."
"It's from my sister," the trapper intoned yet again.
Axel sent a long look toward Dutch Ton, and then he turned to Elizabeth. "Can't read it?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "It might be one of the Scandinavian languages."
The old man stretched out his hand, and Elizabeth put the letter in it. He puzzled at it for a few minutes. Elizabeth wondered if she should point out that he was reading it upside down, but the way he grinned at her told her better.
"Twenty year he's been bringing this letter around," said Axel. "Enough is enough. Now I'll read it to him."
Anna was watching her father closely, as if she expected some magic from him. Jed McGarrity looked from Elizabeth to Julian quizzically, but got only a puzzled shrug by way of explanation.
"So," said Axel, clearing his voice. "Your sister writes she is in good health, that the crops are good, that her children are growing, that her husband is a hardworking man."