Into the Wilderness (108 page)

"Sweet
Mary, Nathaniel ain't even broke a sweat yet," muttered Henry Smythe. In
the flicker of the torches the crowd waved like flags, the ginger fuzz that
covered Kirby's back and chest streamed with sweat.

"Better
Billy than you or me, eh?" Smythe edged closer to Julian. He smelled of
boiled cabbage and wet wool.

"You're
in my way, old man."

Axel
stood a few yards away with all the weapons around him, a condition he had
placed on this fight; he was a man who knew his clientele, after all. Julian
moved in his direction, keeping his eyes on Bonner and Kirby.

They
were circling, Kirby working his bloody fists in front of him as if he had no
idea what they were for, although there was no lack of advice from the
audience. Bonner didn't have too many friends in this crowd, but he didn't seem
much to mind, one way or another. Shouts of support and jeers slid off him as
slickly as Billy's haphazard jabs.

A
shout of reluctant approval followed a left hook that took Billy in the chest,
but left him rocking. Like a stunted oak in a high wind, he groaned but he
would not quite topple.

"Nathaniel
Bonner!" cried Anna Hauptmann. "Are you fighting with the man, or
dancing? Will you knock some sense into his bloody head once and for all?"
She was the only woman in the crowd, standing there in a dressing gown and
bouncing up and down on her bare feet like a girl of twelve. Not a pleasing
sight.

"Aw,
Anna. I got a dollar on Billy there, give him a chance."

She
grunted, and flung her long plaits back over her shoulders. "You want to
throw your good money away, Ambrose, you go right ahead. But I guess when your
Marianne gets done with you, you won't look much better than Billy there."

Nathaniel
reached out with a left cross and Billy's lip split open with a pop. The crowd
bellowed in response. From his one open eye, Billy threw them a baleful glare.
His nose had been slightly reoriented on his broad, lopsided face, and he stood
there heaving and foaming like an overworked horse in the sun.

"Christ
on a pony, Kirby, fall down and stop embarrassing your sainted mother!"
shouted Anna, disgusted. "Would you see to business, Nathaniel?"

Bonner
just circled, as if he had nothing better to do than watch Billy Kirby bleed
into the dust. If he was getting any pleasure out of it, it couldn't be seen on
his face.

A
blow to Billy's shoulder sent him staggering backward.

"Come
on, Kirby," called one of the Camerons in a long whine. "You can do
better than that."

"Me
Grannie Meg could do better than that, and her dead these ten years!"
Archie Cunningham shouted.

Axel
let out a great bray of laughter, and the rest of the crowd joined him,
tentatively at first and then with abandon. In response, Kirby roused himself,
leading with his right in a long, sloppy roundhouse that gave Bonner more than
enough time to step out of the way. Stumbling like a baby, Billy barely caught
himself before plowing into the horse trough.

Bonner
wasn't even breathing hard. He had taken only one real punch, and a graze on
his cheekbone glistened raw in the torchlight.

"Ja,
you look ready to call it quits, Kirby. Had enough?" Axel called.

Billy
shook his head, slinging ropes of blood and spit. He started toward Bonner
growling, only to be dealt a vicious uppercut to the gut. Kirby crossed his
arms over himself and collapsed forward onto his knees, his head hanging down
to the ground. Blood and vomit dripped into the dirt.

"That's
it, then!" Axel held up one arm.

Liam
Kirby, his face a study in misery and shame, crouched down next to his brother,
who now sat on the ground. With a push and a roar, Billy sent the boy sprawling
into the dirt. Then he hauled himself to his feet and stood glaring at Bonner,
swaying crookedly. Bonner stared back, one brow cocked like the leg of the
bigger dog.

Claude
Dubonnet came and whispered something into Kirby's ear. Billy finally nodded,
and followed him off in the direction of his cabin.

Men
were heading back into the tavern, more sober now than they wanted to be, and
not looking forward to paying off hasty bets. The pockets of Anna's morning
coat were sagging with her profit.

"I
see you slinking away, Isaac Cameron," she called out. "Never mind.
If I don't get my coin from you I'll just drop by your place in the morning,
see if it's any easier to part with it when your head's fit to burst."

Isaac
came trudging back into the torchlight, fishing deep in his money pouch and
muttering loudly. "You trained that daughter of yours poorly, Axel. What's
she doing out here in the middle of the night, sticking her nose in men's
business?"

"Collectin'
your money, looks like." Axel laughed. "Don't go blaming her for the
liquor in your belly." He grinned at Julian as he handed over his musket.

"Ain't
that so, Middleton?"

Wiping
the barrel with his handkerchief, Julian merely smiled.

Bonner
still stood where the fight had stopped, his face set and impassive as ever. He
was flexing his right hand, opening and closing the fist like the mouth of a
trap, slowly rolling his shoulders and testing his elbows. No damage to speak
of beyond a split knuckle or two. Anna was talking to him, gesturing broadly.
One or two of the men stopped to congratulate him.

Watching
a fight was thirsty work. Julian wondered if his brother—in—law might be
persuaded to buy him a drink, in celebration of the triumph of good over evil.
Then he remembered that Hawkeye was sitting over in the trading post behind a
locked door, and he thought of a better plan. Just earlier in the day he had
seen a stray bottle of schnapps on the counter over there.

Axel
had come up to talk to Nathaniel; Julian took that opportunity to slip away.

* * *

Drenched
with sweat, her heart beating hard in her throat, Elizabeth closed the rear
door of the trading post behind her and took a moment to lean against the wall
in order to catch her breath. She shut her eyes, willing the shaking in her
hands and legs to cease. It was a mean trick she had played on poor Jed; he
would be hard—pressed to explain himself tomorrow morning. He had offered to
play her a tune, even as he fell onto the cot and instantly to sleep, never
noticing the sound of the door locking behind him. Elizabeth hoped he would
forgive her, in time. If it bought Hawkeye the chance to be with his father
before it was too late, she would take on Jed McGarrity's anger, and gladly.

The
noise of the fight had stopped, and the tavern was filling up again. Nathaniel
would be looking for her down by the schoolhouse; she needed to be on her way.

She
opened her eyes, and her brother was standing in front of her.

"Mrs.
Bonner," he said, sweeping his arm in front of himself in an expansive
gesture that had nothing to do with the leering grin on his face. "Whatever
in the world are you doing here? Or is that a question you cannot answer?"

"I
am waiting for my husband,"
Elizabeth
said. Behind her back, she still held the key to Anna's pantry. She gripped it
harder. "And what is your business here?"

He
shook his head. "Not nearly as interesting as yours, I'll wager. Been in
to pay your father—in—law a goodnight visit, have you? Find him well?"

Elizabeth
fixed him with her sternest gaze. "I hope you are not so very short of
cash that you're resorting to petty thievery again."

"I
see that marriage hasn't mellowed you!" He laughed softly. "If you
are so concerned for my financial well—being, my wealthy sister, why then
perhaps you would be so good—”

“Nothing
changes, Julian, does it? You are still trying to get others to pay your way
for you."

"And
you will still try to change me. These games of yours are very tiresome,
Lizzie. Why don't you just come back home, and put an end to this
silliness?"

Her
anxiety abruptly replaced by anger,
Elizabeth
felt the knot in her stomach tighten and break. She stepped toward her brother,
and he stepped back in surprise.

"This
is not a game, Julian. This is my life. I have a husband, I have a home. I am
never coming back."

His
temper was buried deep, but she still knew how to put a hook in it and drag it
to the surface. She watched him battle to maintain his smirk, and fail. "You
will," he whispered, with a new edge to his tone. "I will see to it. You
cannot run off with a third of the property and think you'll get away with
it."

Shaking
now with exhaustion and irritation, Elizabeth pulled herself up to her full
height. "I have only what was rightfully mine. And listen to me now,
carefully: I will keep what is mine."

On
Julian's face a flickering of anger. His mouth, narrowed down to a spiteful
line. "You don't believe that Nathaniel Bonner really wants you, do
you?" His eyes traveled slowly over her face, and his lip curled in
disgust. "Now that he's got your father's land, what makes you think you
can keep him, you with your books and your lectures. You can't breed him any
children—did Richard ever tell you that, that your husband's sterile? Didn't
bother to mention that, did he? But then I doubt the thought has even occurred
to him—why would it, after all, when there's a woman like Many-Doves in the
next bed."

The
bile that rose in her throat would choke her, if she let it. It tasted of the
things she saw in him now: the consuming selfishness, the bitter loneliness
that had turned this man into a creature that she did not recognize, and wanted
no part of.

She
said: "It is very strange that you should mention Many-Doves , Julian. Just
earlier today she was talking to me about you."

If
she had slapped him, he could not have looked more stunned. It gave her pause
enough only to catch her breath.

"Many-Doves
said, "A man with no center will try to fill the void that rules
him." She calls you He—Seeks—in—the—Dark."

He
let out a rush of air that was half gasp, half awkward laugh. "Mohawk
nonsense," he said hoarsely, his eyes flickering away from her."What
is that supposed to mean?"

"It
means that you have no soul. You know that to be true, which is your second
curse. And the harder one to live with."

Nathaniel
appeared suddenly out of the darkness; she felt his presence like the shadow of
the mountain itself. He put a hand on her arm, and she touched him with a
finger, asking for his silence for one more moment.

Julian
blinked at her, as if he could not quite focus his eyes. Then he turned his
back to both of them, and disappeared into the night.

* * *

They
walked home in silence, but they were not alone on the path to Lake in the
Clouds. Three young River Indians overtook them in the strawberry field, alive
with waves of fireflies under the horned moon. Another, larger group of
Kahnyen’keháka came out of the forest a mile farther on. Many-Doves had started
the word moving in Barktown, and from all over the territory men would come to
be near when Chingachgook walked the path. Nathaniel's pace quickened, and
Elizabeth pushed herself to keep up.

The
cabin was crowded with strangers. Onandaga from upriver. More Kahnyen’keháka,
standing quietly. A couple of white trappers were cleaning their guns by the
hearth. Her father sat talking to John Glove and Galileo. She felt his gaze on
her as they passed.

Hawkeye
was crouched next to the cot where his father slipped further into his death
dream. The only things alive about him were his eyes, fixed on Chingachgook's
face, and his voice, hoarse and vaguely crackling. He was singing under his
breath in Mahican; Elizabeth did not understand the words, and she did not need
an interpreter.

She
picked up Chingachgook's hand off the blanket, fever hot. Cradled in her own
two hands, it was like a piece of driftwood, deceptively light for all its
strong, polished form. She had the sense of his bones, leached hollow and pale,
as if they had lain for all of his many years in the direct light of the sun. The
same sun that had given his people their own particular rainbow: copper and
bronze, amber and sienna.

There
was a subtle shifting in the deeply fissured face. His eyes opened, aflicker of
awareness, and then closed again. The snake that coiled over his cheekbones
shimmered in the lamplight and disappeared into the sparse white hair at his
temple.

The
door opened and there was the distinctive rattle of bone and silver. Elizabeth
had last seen Bitter—Words this morning at Barktown, and now here he was,
standing over the cot to look at Chingachgook with his eyes as black and
expressive as the night. Hawkeye rose to talk to the faith keeper, and
Elizabeth took the opportunity to slip away and look for Hannah.

Outside,
a huge fire was burning, and around it, more people, mostly men. Maybe a
hundred of them, talking among themselves while they made camp. They were
roasting deer; she counted three, and a small bear, the bones of which had been
tossed to the dogs. These men would hunt to feed themselves, as they must.
Billy Kirby could hardly drag all of them off to gaol.