Fire Along the Sky (5 page)

From the pasture where the game was under way a young male voice rose up in a wild yipping cry.

“Gabriel,” said Elizabeth.

“You remind me of my mother when you talk about your sons,” Jennet said. “Pride and fear always at war with each other. My mother always claims that boys are far easier to raise than girls, but she must be wrong about that.”

“How do you come to that conclusion?”

Jennet shifted the basket she was carrying to her other arm. “Mothers and daughters must struggle, but it's out of understanding, in the end. A mother remembers what it's like to be a young woman, but a boy and the man he grows into—why, he must always be a mystery. And what we cannot understand we must fear.”

Elizabeth smiled at her. “You may not have any children yet, Jennet, but you have observed a great deal.”

“Och aye, my eyesight is keen,” she agreed. “But no doubt I'll make the same mistakes my mother did and her mother before her. Seeing the truth of a thing is a far cry from making it your own.”

Elizabeth was so taken aback that it took her a moment to gather her thoughts. Before she could even begin to reply, the sound of another rider coming into the village stopped her.

“More company,” said Jennet. “And coming fast.”

“The post rider,” said Nathaniel, coming up behind them.

“You look as though you might be expecting bad news,” Jennet said, looking between them.

“Any news of the war is bad news,” Elizabeth said, picking up her pace.

Lily said, “And news of war is all he brings, these days.”

She had been so silent for most of the walk that Jennet had almost forgotten that Lily was keeping pace behind them, and listening.

“Shall we go look at the lake then, instead?” She put her arm through Lily's and pulled her close, but her cousin only looked at her as if she made as much sense as a blue jay chattering.

“Of course we must go listen. Better to know than not to know.”

“Are you sure of that?” Jennet asked, but Lily was already gone, the hem of her skirts kicking up in her rush toward more bad news.

The bagattaway game was abandoned; women left the cooking and wiped hands on aprons, and even the children put aside their games to gather around the post rider, their sun-browned faces furrowed with concentration. Missy Parker, a widow woman whose only daughter was married to the post rider and lived in Johnstown, pushed ahead importantly.

A hundred questions presented themselves to Jennet, but they must all be put aside; she could no more interrupt the post rider than a preacher speaking from the pulpit.

He was a middle-aged man with the great rosy-red nose of a dedicated drinker, beard stubble that reached nearly to his eyes, and a greasy old tricorne pulled down over the bushels of dark hair sprouting from his ears. But his reddened eyes were alight with excitement and the newspaper he held in his fist shook.

It was an expression Jennet had seen before, and not so long ago: when she passed through the port at Halifax it had been crowded with the British sailors celebrating their many victories over the American navy. She had almost forgot about the war in the last week, mostly, she realized, because she had seen no evidence of it: Luke had led the way from Montreal to Paradise on back trails. She had seen more than one moose—a creature so outrageously odd that she would not bother to write home about it, for no one would believe her—mountain lions, hundreds of deer, and every other kind of animal the endless forests had to offer, but nothing of soldiers.

But here was the war, again, and in full cry. The post rider seemed to have memorized the newspaper report because he never looked at it while his voice boomed out over the crowd with the news: the
Constitution,
the gem of the struggling U.S. Navy, had captured the
Guerrière
and brought it into Boston Harbor. It was a full and resounding defeat of the British, a tremendous victory after months of nothing but one embarrassing defeat after another.

Questions were called out rapid fire: cannons and rounds fired; men injured or lost or taken prisoner; the prize money claimed.

“Jonas Littlejohn!” called out one of the younger men. “Tell us, man, is the
Constitution
still in Boston Harbor, or must we go to New-York to enlist?”

The post rider seemed to be waiting for just this question. He took a long draft from the tankard of ale that his mother-in-law passed up to him and withdrew a sheet of parchment from his coat with a flourish. Then he stood up in his stirrups and swiveled his great head to meet the gaze of each man present.

“Now's the time, boys,” he began slowly. He shook the paper like a tambourine. “Now's the time for honor and glory, if you're men enough. If you're brave enough. It's time to try your fortune in service to God and country—high time, indeed, for everything that swims the seas must be a prize.”

He was coming into his full voice, high and tremulous and still so compelling that Jennet could not look away.

“The British wolves are at the door again, boys, ready to bleed us dry if we don't put a stop to their thieving ways. Surely every man with an ounce of spirit must be ashamed to look away from such a challenge. Your country needs you. The navy needs you. And you—” He pointed suddenly. “You need the navy! Will you spend your life scraping hides for pennies? Why should you, when honor and fortune call? The navy will pay you, feed you, arm you, train you, and give you the opportunity to serve your country and relieve the English bastards of their goods and coin, all at once. I tell you, boys, it's the navy you're wanting. A company of men like yourselves, strangers to fear, American men. The lobsterbacks dare shake their fists at us again, the bloody sons of whores. We beat them once, we'll do it again, and this time by God they'll know they're beat for good.”

He had worked himself up to such a foaming rant that Jennet, who had absorbed hatred of the English along with her mother's milk, must admire him at least a little for his fervor.

She caught Luke's eye, and in that moment all the trouble between them was simply gone. His thoughts were as plain to her as the color of his eyes: Luke would speak up now, because for all his silent ways, he could not keep the truth to himself when so much was at stake. She blinked her encouragement at him, and one corner of his mouth jerked up, as much acknowledgment as he could bring himself to give her.

“Littlejohn!”

The rider wiped his mouth with his sleeve and turned his great head toward Luke.

“Tell me this, how many of those navy ships in New-York Harbor are seaworthy?”

The crowd's happy murmuring died away as they took in this question; some of the young men—Daniel among them—looked irritated, but most turned back to Littlejohn with real concern.

“I don't recognize you, sir. Are you passing through?”

“I'm here visiting my family. Luke Bonner.”

“You remember,” called out Missy Parker. “The one that lives in Montreal.”

“Aye, I remember, mother!” Littlejohn grunted in surprise and sought out Nathaniel with his eyes. “Your eldest boy? The Canadian?”

“Living in Canada don't make my brother a Canadian!” Daniel pushed forward.

Elizabeth was standing just in front of Jennet with her hands on Gabriel's shoulders; her fingers tensed so that Gabriel squirmed and sent her an injured look.

“My father doesn't speak for me.” Luke barely raised his voice and he had the crowd's attention. “Nor does my brother, although he means well. Living in Canada doesn't make me a Canadian, but being born there does, I reckon.”

Daniel's gaze—confusion and exasperation in equal measure—fixed on his brother, but he didn't interrupt.

“But it doesn't make me a British sympathizer either,” Luke finished. “I'll take no sides in this war.”

“I know what that means,” shouted Littlejohn, shifting in the saddle. “You'll make your fortune off the backs of honest men who do the fighting for you.”

“Jonas Littlejohn!” Nathaniel Bonner barely raised his voice but it stopped Daniel, who had begun to move toward the post rider.

Nathaniel stood beside his wife and youngest son with a fist curled casually around the upright barrel of his rifle. He looked like a man with no concerns in the world, Jennet thought, except for the fact that the muscle in his jaw had tensed into knots as big as a man's knuckles. He was a son of Carryck, after all, and his anger showed itself in a bristling silence that must make any man break into a sweat, just as the post rider had done.

Jonas Littlejohn opened his mouth and shut it again, wiped his face with a filthy sleeve, and never took his eyes off Nathaniel Bonner, as a rabbit never looks away from the wolf.

In an easy tone Nathaniel said, “If you're man enough to get down from that horse and repeat yourself, come on ahead. Otherwise I guess you'll want to be headed on out of here before I lose my temper and beat the stupid out of you.”

After a long moment Littlejohn cleared his throat roughly.

“The post,” he said, tossing a bundle tied with twine to a tall man at the back of the crowd. “See you in a fortnight.”

“Littlejohn!” Nathaniel called, and the man stiffened.

“If any rumors about Canadians in Paradise start making the rounds, I'll know who to come looking for.”

Jonas Littlejohn touched the brim of his tricorne and trotted off without a word.

When the cook fires had died down and the last of the food had been carried away, the fiddlers—one black man and a boy who might have been his son—climbed up on crates, and the music began. The men made a circle of light to dance by under the rising moon: a ring of torches on long pickets hammered into the ground, sending sparks up into the sky like errant stars.

The women moved through the dark calling to children who must be seen home to their beds, and for a moment Jennet thought how good it would be to be one of the little ones, bellies full of good food, tucked in next to wiggling brothers and sisters to fall asleep by the sound of fiddle music and laughter.

But it was her first night in Paradise and Jennet would not waste it on sleep. She watched as people who toiled so hard by day put aside their weariness. Elizabeth had met Jennet's surprise with a laugh.

“You mustn't confuse Yorkers with the pious Yankees of Massachusetts,” she explained. “The people of Paradise will jump at any excuse for a party.”

Now Jennet sat, weary but contented, on a long trestle in a row of other young women, with Lily on one side and Hannah on the other, all of them twitching with the fiddle music. The rhythm was lively and the girls were eager, but Jennet could see that most of them must be content to listen or dance with each other, because there would be little dancing tonight, and the reason was the post rider's news.

On the other side of the dancing circle most of the men and boys had gathered with the Bonner men at their center. Some of them cradled muskets like a sleeping child in folded arms, while others leaned on rifles that pointed sleek barrels up to the sky. Thus far Jennet had never seen a man without a weapon in his hands or on his person, a fact that said more about this place than any stories she had been told.

Jennet could not hear them but she did not need to; they had already read the newspaper into tatters, and the debate on whether or not to join the fighting was hot.

Not that Luke was saying very much. Even here with his family around him he did more listening than talking, his head canted at an angle that meant he was giving his brother Daniel all his attention.

“At least Simon Ballentyne isn't too busy talking to dance,” Lily said, startling Jennet out of her thoughts.

Simon Ballentyne was indeed dancing, his plain, good-natured face flush with ale and music and the young woman he held by the hands—one of the Hench girls, according to Hannah. Jennet would have known Simon for a Ballentyne no matter where she came across him in the world: he had his father's dark eyes, black hair that grew as thick as a pelt on his head and chest, and the stolid Ballentyne temperament. He was only one of the men who had followed Luke to Canada to make his fortune, and he had done well for himself.

As Simon circled past them in the course of the dance his gaze met Jennet's and then Lily's. The expression that passed over his face like a flash of lightning was not lost on either of them.

Lily asked, “Is Simon Ballentyne angry at you, cousin?”

“Ooch, ne.” Jennet wrapped her arms around herself. “The Ballentyne men may be fierce of temper and stubborn as mules when it comes to business, but every last one of them is as meek as a lamb with the lasses. It wasn't me he was googling at, cousin, but you.”

At that Lily laughed out loud. “You must be mistaken.”

Jennet studied the younger woman's face to see if she really had no understanding of the looks that Simon Ballentyne was sending her way.

“Simon's had an eye on you since he came to Paradise last year with your brother,” Jennet said. “And why should he not? A prettier lass would be hard to find, Lily, or a livelier one.”

Lily flushed, in anger and something else, something that bordered on pleasure. “You must be imagining it.”

“I am not. Luke told me. Have you taken no note, then?”

Lily spread her hands out over her skirt and then made fists of them. “No, I hadn't noticed. And he hasn't said anything, which is just as well.”

“Then you've no interest in poor Simon.” Jennet did her best to strike a light and teasing tone, but Lily did not hear that, or could not.

She said, “My only interest is going to Manhattan. But my parents keep reminding me that the city was held by the British for most of the last war. As if that mattered to me.”

Jennet had little to say to this; after all, she herself had traveled much farther in time of war and it would be the worst kind of hypocrisy to preach caution to her cousin.

“You want to study painting, your sister tells me.”

Lily cast her a relieved glance, as if she had expected Jennet to lecture her on the impossibility of her situation. “My uncle Spencer has already arranged for me to study with a Mr. Clarke—a landscape painter—and also with Monsieur Petit who is a master of color. When I have learned enough I will go to Europe with my aunt and uncle, to study the great artists.” She stopped herself and composed her face. “Now it is your turn to tell me to stop dreaming.”