The Endless Forest
Page 10

Simon stood at the foot of the porch stairs, spattered with mud from head to toe. He was a tall, sturdy sort with a shock of thick dark hair as coarse as a bear’s pelt, and a heavy beard shadow.
Lily stood, her sketchbook forgotten.
“No joy?”
“Not yet,” Simon said. “The others are searching on the far side of the commons.” He leaned on the rail with one hand while he worked a mud-caked boot off with the other. When he had it free he turned it over and a stone fell out.
“Stop fussing with your boot,” Lily said, “and tell us.”
He grinned at her. Martha didn’t find Simon particularly attractive, but out in the open with his hair tousled by the wind there was something about him, something vital and alive. And his dimples flashed when he smiled, so that it was almost impossible not to smile back.
“There’s naught to tell. Between the crowd and the mud and all there’s small chance of finding two lads who don’t care to be found. It may be best to wait until the business is done.” He jerked his head in the direction of the fields behind the house. “They’ll come back on their own when the crowd begins to shift.”
Lily looked up toward the heavens and groaned. “I knew it; I knew there would be another delay.”
“This is very bad,” Elizabeth said. “Young boys should not be exposed to such things. But if it is as crowded as you say, perhaps they won’t see anything at all.”
Mariah looked up from her dolls, surprised.
“What is it, Mariah? Did you want to say something?”
The little girls exchanged a glance, and then Isabel spoke up. “Grandma, they won’t be standing anywhere. They’ll climb a tree and watch from there.”
Elizabeth’s mouth fell open and then snapped shut. “Of course. We should have thought of that. Why didn’t you say anything, girls?”
Mariah and Isabel shrugged in harmony. “You didn’t ask.”
Simon started to put the muddy boot back on, but Elizabeth held up a hand to stop him.
“I’ll go,” she said. “There’s no time to spare.”
She thanked foresight for her own sturdy boots as she followed the crowds, people on an outing as though they were going to a fair, and expected to be well amused.
Where she could, Elizabeth ducked around larger groups—mothers and fathers and children, some still in arms. Then the field opened before them and she could see the gallows. The executioner stood, waiting patiently. So the prisoner hadn’t yet arrived; she had time to find her grandsons and get them away.
There was little hope of meeting the rest of her party in such a throng, and so Elizabeth headed directly for the closest stand of trees. It was less crowded here, as this spot would give no view of the proceedings at all—unless you were sitting up high on a branch strong enough to hold two boys.
Elizabeth put her head back to look into the tangle of evergreen branches, squinting to sharpen her gaze—her eyesight was getting worse; she really should have made the time in Manhattan to see about spectacles—when many hundreds of people began to shout and cheer with such enthusiasm that she couldn’t help but turn around.
The crowd made way for a cart drawn by a mule. On the flat bed was a rough coffin of raw wood, and on the coffin stood a man, his hands tied before him. He wore only breeches and a linen shirt open at the throat, a carefully laundered shirt that set off tanned skin and dark hair that fell down around his shoulders and lifted in the breeze. If he was cold there was no sign of it.
She could make out shouts from the crowd: Murray! Murray! Murray! We’ll miss you, Jim Boy. Jimmy Murray!
The prisoner bowed gracefully from the shoulders, right and then left. He raised his bound hands in an awkward salute and the crowd responded with good cheer.
Elizabeth shook herself out of her preoccupation and turned back to the trees. She put her hands around her mouth and shouted up into the branches.
“Nathan Bonner! Adam Bonner!”
But it was no use, she couldn’t be heard above the crowd. She couldn’t even be sure that the boys were anywhere near. She hurried on, calling as she went.
On the gallows the mayor of Johnstown was reading from a piece of paper, his head thrown back and his arms extended to accommodate his shortsightedness.
“James Murray of Schenectady. You were charged with the roadside robbery and murder of Mr. Horace Johnson, tax collector—”
The crowd had a lot to say about Horace Johnson, and for a while their voices were louder than the mayor’s. It seemed that many were thankful to Jimmy Murray for relieving them of Mr. Johnson’s company.
Elizabeth worked her way from tree to tree, shouting the boys’ names up into the dark and fragrant tangle of evergreen branches.
“And so!” bellowed the mayor. “You have been indicted, tried, and found guilty. The court has sentenced you to death by hanging. Do you have anything to say?”
Murray did indeed have something to say. Elizabeth hoped he would entertain the crowd for a good long while, as she hurried from tree to tree.
“He was a right bastard,” Murray shouted, and the crowd agreed with him at length.
Elizabeth slipped between trees too young to support the weight of two boys and almost ran into someone she never expected to see here.
“Annie,” she said. “What—”
But she could see what, and why, and understood that they had all been sent on a fool’s errand. Nathan and Adam wouldn’t be found anywhere nearby; most likely they were still someplace in Mrs. Kummer’s barn. It had all been Gabriel’s doing, and Annie’s.