Dawn on a Distant Shore (6 page)

He had no clear
pictures of the babies to call on. It had been too short a time.

Nathaniel shook
himself slightly. If he could concentrate, if he could get the job done here,
he could be on his way home to them in no time at all, traveling with his father
and Otter and Rab. The ice roads were frozen solid; they could make good time.
At night they would sleep in snow caves and cook whatever they could shoot over
a fire of their own making while Otter told his story: how he had landed here
in Montréal when he was supposedly headed west, and how he had got mixed up
with the Somervilles. The last word they had had of Otter was in December, when
Rab MacLachlan came to Lake in the Clouds and brought the news that the boy was
wound up with Giselle. Worse still was Rab's report that Hawkeye was on his way
to Montréal to untangle Otter from the mess.

Moncrieff's letter and
the news that they were both in gaol hadn't really come as too much of a shock:
Canada wasn't a good place for the Bonner men; never had been. Especially not
when Giselle Somerville was involved. In the deep cold of the night shadows two
things were clear to Nathaniel: they had to get his father and Otter out of the
gaol as quickly as it could be managed, and they had to avoid the Somervilles. Once
they were safe at home again there would be time enough to deal with Otter. He
might be Hannah's favorite uncle, but he was also a seventeen-year-old who had
dragged four grown men into a dangerous situation.

A muffled
whoof!
and the red dog appeared in the lane. At the side of Iona's cottage there was a
glimmer of white hair and a raised hand, and a door opened and closed.
Nathaniel waited five more minutes. When there was no movement, he followed
Robbie MacLachlan inside.

It was a small room,
lit only by the fire in the hearth and a betty lamp. The house smelled of
woodsmoke, roast mutton, tallow, the wet dog who lay like a twitching log in
front of the hearth and the unwashed boy who crouched next to her, shoveling
stew into his mouth with his fingers. Claude shrugged a hello in Nathaniel's
direction, but Robbie had him by the shoulders before he could get out one word
in greeting to either of them.

"Nathaniel,"
said the big man, bent over so as not to knock his head on the low-beamed
ceiling, his broad, high-colored face creased in both pleasure and concern.
"What are ye doin' here? Shouldna ye be at hame wi' Elizabeth? Is she
well? Is the bairn come?"

"She's well,
she's very well," Nathaniel reassured him. "And she's given me
healthy twins, a boy and a girl."

Robbie's open
expression clouded. "But then, why are ye here? What's taken ye fra' yer guidwife's
side?"

"I came because I
was sent for," Nathaniel said. "Moncrieff wrote to say my father
wanted me here. Isn't he with Otter in the garrison gaol?"

Robbie ran a hand over
the white bristle on his jowls. "Aye, that's true. But Hawkeye nivver
asked that we send for ye. In fact, lad, he was glad tae ken ye safe at hame. I
canna think why Moncrieff wad write and tell ye sic a thing."

"But I can,"
said a calm voice at the low threshold to the other room. A woman appeared there:
of small size and uncertain age, the kind who didn't draw attention to herself,
unless you took note of the animated expression of her eyes.

"Miss Iona,"
said Nathaniel. "It's been a long time."

"Yes, it
has," she said. When she smiled, it was easier to see the young woman she
had once been, and to give the stories credence. Almost twenty years ago
Nathaniel had first made her acquaintance: Wee Iona, men in the bush called
her, or Sister Iona, for she had once worn the veil and that was a fact few
could overlook, or forget. How she had left the convent, and why, was the stuff
of legend and rumor.

Now she moved around
her small home, offering him her hospitality. "Time has treated you well,
Nathaniel Bonner. Take those wet things off now, come along. There's stew, if
young Claude here hasn't yet eaten his way to the bottom of the pot." The
Gaelic hovered there just beneath the surface, all her s sounds soft and slurred.
But her mind was as sharp as her voice was soft, and he felt her taking his
measure.

Nathaniel accepted a
piece of sacking from her to towel his head. "Do you have reason not to
trust Moncrieff?"

She crouched down
before the cooking hearth as nimbly as a girl of twenty. "He's a Scot, is
he not?"

Claude shot a
broken-toothed grin toward Robbie, who blushed and sputtered with indignation.

Nathaniel pulled a few
coins from his pocket, and held them out to the boy. He sprang up, wiping his
mouth with the back of one grimy hand. At Iona's suggestion of a warm sleeping place
in the barn, he shot out the door, pausing only to glance back at Nathaniel.

"If you should
have need of me again, you can find me near the
auberge
at sunset."

"I'll remember
that," Nathaniel said.

When Claude was well
away, Robbie returned immediately to the topic at hand. "Iona, I'm
surprised at ye. A Hieland lass born and raised and still ye stan' there and curse
every Scot on the continent tae the de'il. It isna fair, lass."

"Perhaps
not," she conceded with a raised shoulder. "But you Lowlanders are a
troublesome lot, and Moncrieff is worse than most. He wants what he
wants."

"And that
is?" asked Nathaniel, flexing his fingers in the warmth.

"Is it not clear?
He wants you and your father on a ship for Scotland. Which is why you sit here in
front of my fire, Nathaniel, instead ofwith your wife and children at home. Of
course, you must first get Hawkeye out of the garrison to bring about that end;
Moncrieff is counting on that." There was no anger in her voice, nothing
of resentment in her tone: she laid out what she knew for his appreciation, or
rejection. Nathaniel's first impulse was to believe her.

"How do you know
him so well?"

Robbie cleared his
throat. "Moncrieff and I spend a fair amount o' time here, talkin'."

"Did you happen
to tell him the story of how Elizabeth broke my father out of Anna's pantry?"

"Aye," said
Robbie sheepishly. "That I did. It's too guid a tale tae keep tae masel',
laddie. And in aa the time I've spent wi' Moncrieff and aa the tales tolt, I've
no' heard him say a solitary word o' ships tae Scotland."

Iona pursed her lips.
"Then you were not listening carefully, Robbie MacLachlan. But I suppose
that is not a surprise. I recall Isaac Putnam telling you more than once to
clean out your ears."

The beginnings of an
old argument flashed across Robbie's normally agreeable expression. It might be
a score of years since he had last been in Montréal, but there was still a
spark between him and Iona.

Nathaniel said,
"Maybe my father was hoping to get out of gaol without getting me
involved, but here I am and I can't leave him sitting there. If Moncrieff's got
more than setting him free in mind, we'll find out soon enough." He paused
to peel off a wet winter moccasin. "Once my father is free we'll be headed
home, and the whole of Scotland couldn't stop us."

Iona pushed a stray
hair away from her cheek, and Nathaniel saw that her white hair had gone very
thin. "Don't underestimate him."

Robbie put down his
bowl with a thump. "Ye're a distrustfu' lass, Iona, but it's served ye
well these muny years. Perhaps I've been a wee owerfrly wi' Moncrieff."

"Do you know
where he is now?" Nathaniel asked.

"Och, aye,"
Robbie said, throwing him a sidelong glance. "He's d*' wi' the bonnie Giselle.
As he does muny an evenin'."

"I take it her
father is out of town," Nathaniel said.

"Somerville is in
Québec," confirmed Robbie. "I dinna ken for how lang."

They looked at Iona,
who inclined her head to one side thoughtfully. "Governor Carleton will keep
him there for another week, I should imagine."

Iona was, for all her
simplicity of self and home, the best source of information in Montréal. As a
young woman she had moved among the armies of three nations while they battled
each other for possession of the land; she had known the men who decided the
fate of Canada, and she knew them still. These days they came to sit before her
fire and talk, and she welcomed any friend of a friend who did not wear a Roman
collar: the Scots who ran the fur trade; the English who commanded the colony;
the French who lived in the shadow of the English and controlled the city's
goods and food supply. McTavish, McGill, Guy, Latour, Despr`es, Cruikshank, Gibb,
Carleton, Monk: they came singly or together to talk, and she gave them strong
ale and good food, and she listened.

"Has Moncrieff
met Somerville?"

Robbie let out a soft
laugh. "Aye, he has. But our Angus Moncrieff is no' on verra guid terms
wi' Pink George."

Nathaniel had to grin
at Somerville's old nickname, but he did not want to be distracted by a
discussion of the man, his oddities or his faults, and so he turned the topic
to more practical matters. In a few minutes he had extracted from Robbie the
whole story of what had happened here, and it was as brief as he had expected:
Hawkeye had come to take Otter home, and they had both been arrested. The authorities
said they wanted Hawkeye for questioning about the Tory gold, but it was clear
to Robbie and Iona both that something else was at the bottom of it all.

"What is it that
Somerville wants from them, then?" Nathaniel asked. "Do you have any
sense of it? Did he find out about Otter and Giselle, is that it?"

Iona was sitting on a
small stool near the hearth with knitting in her lap, and she did not look up.
"He may suspect, but he only knows of his daughter what he chooses to see.
Which is very little."

"Then why are my
father and Otter still in gaol?"

Robbie spread out his
hands. "It's verra simple. Somerville canna risk Otter leavin' Montréal.
The governor wants the boy here, ye ken. Otter's the only road they've got to
Stone-Splitter."

Nathaniel sat back and
rubbed his burning eyes with one hand, trying to make sense of it.

Stone-Splitter was a
Kahnyen'kehâka sachem who had never given in to O'seronni ways, and for that
reason alone the English feared him above all others: he had a keen
understanding of their weaknesses, no need of their gifts, and no taste for
their whisky, and thus they had no way to control him. He was a warrior in the
ancient tradition, the kind they still told stories about, the kind whose furiosity
on the battlefield kept old soldiers jerking and muttering in their uneasy sleep.
And the young men of his village were trained in the same manner.

Of all the
Kahnyen'kehâka sachem, Stone-Splitter was the only one who had refused to take
sides in the war for independence and as a result his people had survived where
others struggled. If the governor wanted Stone-Splitter's attention, it had to
be because he was arming himself for another war and hoped to have the sachem's
support and his warriors. Stone-Splitter was blood kin to Otter.

Nathaniel turned to
Iona, and he saw that she had been watching him, and probably knew exactly what
was in his thoughts.

"The smell of war
is in the air," she said. "But perhaps not for a few years yet."

Another war. Men had
talked of it uneasily ever since the last one, for nobody quite believed they
had heard the last of the English king. And now here it was, within reach. The
urge to be away was stronger than ever.

He said, "Once we
get Otter out of gaol, will it be hard to get him out of Montréal?"
Nathaniel was slow to meet Robbie's gaze, but he found no reproach there.

"If ye're askin'
aboot Giselle, ye'd ken the answer better than I, laddie. Ye walked awa' frae
her once, wi' your faither pushin' frae behind."

Nathaniel wasn't
easily embarrassed, but he didn't especially like being reminded of the hours he
had spent with Giselle Somerville. He had been young, and healthy and ready to
learn; she had been just as young, anything but innocent, and she had enjoyed
teaching him. It was almost twenty years ago, but Nathaniel recalled certain
moments with perfect clarity, when he let himself. Hawkeye had shown up and
asked him straight-out if he wanted the girl to wife, and if she would come home
with them to Lake in the Clouds.

And that had been the
end of it. Enough to wake him up to the truth: he could not live in Montréal,
and she would have laughed at the idea of a life on the edge of the wilderness.
And so he left Montréal with his father, and ended up spending the hunting
season with Stone-Splitter's people. That was when he had taken note of the
oldest granddaughter of the clan mother of the Wolf, Sings-from-Books, who had
become his first wife.
Out of the pan and into the fire
.

He shook his head to
clear it of the past. "Giselle will try to hold on to Otter, if she's
given the chance," Nathaniel said. "She collects men like other women
collect jewels."

Iona's head was
lowered over her knitting, but Nathaniel saw a tightening of her mouth, and
then she spoke up: "That's not very charitable of you, considering what
you once were to each other."