The Endless Forest
Page 82

He cast one more glance at the cabin and saw his sister and Susanna closing the door behind themselves, without Martha. But she would come. He felt the truth of that deep in his gut. In those few seconds when he held her and her whole body softened, he understood that she wanted to be here, with him. She was frightened, but more than that she was curious and open, and that was enough, for now at least.
As he walked back to the fire he watched Gabriel strip down to loincloth and leggings and then join the circle of men moving into the dance. Runs-from-Bears and Standing-Elk sat with Sky-Wound-Round on benches, the big water drum between them. Standing-Elk had horn rattles in both hands, and all three of them were already caught up in the singing. At Good Pasture there were sometimes a dozen men gathered around two or three water drums and another three or four with horn rattles, but here at Lake in the Clouds they had their own ways, and they were good.
Daniel came into the heat and light and moved into the shuffle-kick-step of the dance behind Blue-Jay, just as the women came up to form another circle inside their own. Martha would join them, and the dancing would go on and on until they were all breathless with laughter. As this thought came to him, Daniel saw that Martha had come out on the porch and John Mayfair was walking toward her with purpose.
As soon as Martha stepped off the porch John Mayfair appeared—seemingly out of the shadows—and startled her so that she jumped. She would have fallen—for the second time in one evening—if he had not caught her by the elbow and steadied her.
She had never seen a man so determined to apologize. He should not have let her go fill the water jug on her own, and he hoped she would forgive him for his thoughtlessness. Martha had forgot about the jug and about John Mayfair too, but she hoped her expression didn’t give that much away.
It was hard to talk over the crackle of the flames, the drums and the singing and the dancing, but she wanted to put his mind at ease.
“You are not to blame, and there was no real harm done. Won’t you join the—” She stopped herself, but not quite in time. “Pardon me, I forgot. Of course you’re not dancing.”
He shook off her apology. “While I have the opportunity, may I ask thee a question?”
Martha pulled up short. She gathered the borrowed shawl more closely around herself and gave a brief nod.
John looked away into the trees and when he looked back he was smiling. A small and apologetic smile. “Will Callie be joining the party, does thou know?”
For a moment Martha was so surprised that she couldn’t organize her thoughts. He rushed ahead before she could respond.
“Callie and I are—I like to think of myself as her friend. I—” He paused. “I am interested in her work. We sometimes talk about apples. About grafting. Thou must know….”
He looked a little panicked, so that Martha’s initial surprise gave way to the impulse to reassure him.
“Oh,” she said. “Yes, I know. We spent so much time following her father around the orchard. I believe I can name all the different trees. Snow and Seek-No-Further and the Spitzenburg. There was a very good one called Duchess.”
He nodded avidly. “It’s one of Callie’s favorites. She had a graft of the Duchess on the Red Moon that produced its first fruit last year. I do believe the new apple was as close as it is possible to get to perfection. It was medium-sized, with a skin of red and yellow both and a crisp bite with the most flavorful juice. The new apple—she called it Bleeding Heart—would have made her fortune. If not for the flood.”
Understanding and regret brought sudden tears to Martha’s eyes. She was ashamed of the small worries that had kept her from seeing the depths of Callie’s loss.
“Few people know about this,” John Mayfair said. “So I suppose it is wrong of me to tell thee. But I am worried about her, and thou art her friend. Is that not so?”
“I am,” Martha said firmly. “And now it is my turn to ask, what are you to Callie?”
He seemed to be anticipating the question. “I am her friend. I can be nothing else.” His gaze moved across the scene before them and dwelled on his sister. The speed of the dance had picked up and Susanna was flushed with excitement. The two circles were moving in opposite directions and as they watched, Susanna and Blue-Jay passed each other. Susanna’s face, tilted up toward Blue-Jay’s, was as bright as the firelight.
Even among such well-favored men, Blue-Jay stood out. When Martha was a girl it had been everyone’s pastime, watching Blue-Jay and admiring him, though few would admit such a thing. In the old days the Bonners and their Mohawk relations had been respected and feared by all, but most kept their distance; certainly no white girl would admit that she liked an Indian boy. It would have been like standing up in church and announcing that you preferred the devil to the angels.
It surprised nobody when Gabriel Bonner married Annie, but Susanna Mayfair binding herself to a full-blooded Mohawk, that was too much for her people to bear. Thus Birdie had explained the situation to Martha, and it seemed that her perceptions were very much in line with the truth.
Susanna had been brave and strong enough to come to Blue-Jay. It took great courage to step beyond the line drawn by faith and duty and habit.
“She’s happy,” Martha said. “Whatever it cost her to leave you all, she is happy.”
“Yes,” said Susanna’s brother. “She is. And as much as she is missed, I am happy for her.”
Someone called out yo’-ha’ and both the inner and the outer circles jumped in place to change direction. Most of the men had shed their shirts, and sweat shone on skin of every shade, from Ben Savard’s rich deep red-brown to Ethan’s pale winter white. Every one of them was built in the way of men who worked hard, with heavy muscles that flexed across shoulders and down thighs, the flow and flex almost too beautiful to watch.