Into the Wilderness (116 page)

"Bear, always hungrier than he was
bright, did as he
was
told. And instead of a fine fish dinner he froze his tail off in the icy
water."

Billy
had a keen look about him, eager now. "Don't want to break up your woman's
little party, do you? Worried about making her mad?"

"You
are surely the stupidest creature God ever put on this earth," said Jed,
his voice low and hoarse. "Are you forgetting the beating you took from
this man the last time you was drunk?"

"He
won't fight, not now," Billy said. "Look at him, he's scared. Not of
me, no. But she's got him tied up in a knot."

Nathaniel
turned back toward the sound of his daughter's voice; because it was the right
thing to do. For her, and for himself, and for
Elizabeth
. Behind him, Billy Kirby laughed.

"I
guess I'd toe the line, too, for a woman who'd brain a man with his own rifle.
What I'm wondering is, what old Jack got up to before she laid him low. Maybe
Lingo ain't gone, really. Maybe he left a little something of himself behind,
growing—"

As he
swung around Nathaniel caught a glance at Axel's expression, drawn down hard
and resigned.

At
the last moment, some part of his reasoning self stopped him and Nathaniel
lowered his aim from that point high on the bridge of the nose where the bone
could be shoved into the brain, and the rifle butt took Kirby square in the
mouth. His head jerked back with the sharp crack of breaking teeth, and he
collapsed backward, coughing and spitting blood, his hands pressed to his
ruined mouth. Nathaniel put his foot on Billy's throat and leaned in.

"Nathaniel,"
Jed said at the count of three, when Billy's bucking and kicking had started to
ease up.

Axel
knocked him away. "You don't want to hang for Billy Kirby," he said. "He
ain't worth it."

His
face set hard, Nathaniel reached down and pulled Billy up by the shirt, and
held him at a distance while he bled and retched and tried to catch his breath.
When it was clear he wouldn't die straight off, Nathaniel dragged him down to
the lake, tinged red with the sunset. Kirby hit the water with a splash and
Nathaniel waded in after him to pull him out, shook him as easily as he would
shake a wet dog.

"Can
you hear me, Billy?"

The
ruined mouth stretched, broken teeth and bloody pulp. Nathaniel shook him
again, and he nodded.

"I
want you to hear me clear. My wife is carrying my child, and I'll kill the next
man to suggest otherwise. You got that?"

Nathaniel
looked up on the shore. Axel and Jed were still there, Axel leaning on his
rifle, pulling on his beard. Behind them was Julian.

"Middleton?
You hear me?"

"Oh,
yes, quite definitely," Julian said softly.

From
the schoolhouse, the sound of singing. A young girl's voice, sweet and clear.

"Now,
one more thing. You leave off beating that brother of yours, or I'll come after
you and make you regret it."

Nathaniel
let Billy Kirby go with a jerk and a splash. He leaned over to wipe his hands
on his shirt and then he walked up the shore. Julian stood there, watching
impassively as Billy vomited.

"You
got something to say, Middleton, then say it."

His
eyes narrowed, Julian looked away. "I believe Billy touched on all the
salient points."

"When
are you going to stop hiding behind other men and settle your own
business?"

None
of his usual grin, now. "When the return is higher than the required
investment."

"You
will never get the land," Nathaniel said. "Or your sister."

Julian
said: "And I shall never stop trying."

* * *

"I
lost my temper," Nathaniel said shortly. "It's that simple."

Elizabeth
was sitting on their bed with a handkerchief in her hands which she folded
small, spread open on her lap, and folded small again. In the corner was an
embroidered lily of shaky proportions, bracketed by her own initials. The Glove
girls had given her this gift; Elizabeth blinked at it and the flower swam
briefly in what threatened to be tears.

"I
was trying to save your recital, damn it."

"Yes.
I know." She looked up at him finally, and taking a very deep breath, she
managed a smile.

Nathaniel
drew back, frowning. "Tears? It went well, Boots, didn't it?"

"It
did go very well," she agreed. "Better than I had hoped."

"What
is it, then? You're not crying for Billy Kirby?"

Lifting
her head, she met his gaze. "You do know, don't you, that Jack Lingo did
not—"

He
interrupted her by pulling her into his arms. His own expression was tense with
regret. "I know," he said. "I know, Boots, I
know
that. Oh, Christ, I shouldn't have
told you what he said."

She
put her face to his shoulder. "You do believe me?"

"Yes,"
he said, and he kissed her. "Yes, I believe you. It was just Billy Kirby's
half mind at work."

"No,"
Elizabeth corrected him. "It was my brother." And the tears came
then.

He
held her while she wept, rocking her gently with his face against her hair. He
could not correct her, and so he said nothing at all.

"It's
late," he said finally. "You need your rest."

She
shook her head and held on harder to him, rubbed her cheek against his. She ran
her hands under his shirt and around his waist. He moaned, softly, against her
hair.

There
was a timid knock at the door, and they moved apart. Hannah appeared, looking
woeful but determined.

"What
are you doing up?" Nathaniel asked, surprised. "I thought you were
asleep."

"Grandmother
has my book," Hannah said. "I had other things to carry, and she said
she'd bring it up."

Elizabeth
had given each of the students a book, suited to their interests. Hannah had
been so overwhelmed by her copy of Cowper's
Anatomy
that she had been struck speechless.

"You
can get it from Falling—Day in the morning," Elizabeth said, glancing out
the window into the darkness. "It's too late to read, now.

"Oh,
please," Hannah said. "Please let me go get it. Grandmother won't
mind."

Nathaniel
glanced at
Elizabeth
,
and raised a brow. She nodded, reluctantly, and Hannah turned and was gone.
They listened to the sound of her bare feet on the floorboards and then the
front door closed behind her.

"Where
were we?" Nathaniel asked, pulling her back to him across the bed.

"You
were about to kiss me."

He
laughed. Against her lips he said, "Nothing gets by you, does it?"
She kissed him back, warm and playful: she tasted of molasses and cider. Moving
down the long column of her neck, he nipped and teased her until she captured
his face between her hands and brought his mouth back to her own to draw him
down into a long kiss that left her gasping slightly, and straining upward into
his hands.

Nathaniel
reached for the candle, but she caught his wrist. "I want to see
you," she said. "Let me see you."

Her
eyes were soft and slightly glazed with the look she had sometimes when they
were alone, and sure of the time they had together. He undressed her, and her
skin rose to his touch and the cool night air. When he had stripped down
Nathaniel drew the covers over them: a different kind of cave, rich with their
smells and echoing with the small sounds she made.

Elizabeth
put
her hands on him to pull him closer, wound a leg around his hip, and ran her
mouth up his neck to find his ear. But he resisted her, holding back when a
simple forward movement would have joined them.

"Boots,"
he said. "Slow down. There's no hurry."

She
shook her head: whether in contradiction or dismissal, he could not tell.
Twisting in his arms, she pulled away and then pushed him down. In a single
movement she had straddled his belly and bent over to kiss him, all soft and
warm, her breasts against his chest. There was a furious tide running in her, and
he could not resist its pull, did not want to.

"Holy
God," he muttered, his hands on her thighs, his thumbs seeking. "You're
as slippery as the road to hell." And he lifted her. Helped her move, put
her where they both wanted her to be, and arched up to meet her. Her hair fell
around them in waves, pooling on his legs and belly. His fingers tangled in it
where his hands gripped her hips.

He
let her have her way, finding her own rhythm. In the flickering candlelight, he
watched her face contort, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth. And
then her eyes flew open and her face dropped forward and she came with a
shudder and a small, wordless cry.

She
was content to let him lead, then. To be turned onto her back, her arms spread
wide with his fingers intertwined in hers while he held her down and found his
way into her again. Between them, the swelling of her belly where their child
rested; Nathaniel was overcome with the need to cover them like a shield, to
hide them from the world, to keep them safe at any cost, to keep them to
himself alone, forever.

As
was her habit,
Elizabeth
fell asleep straightaway, but Nathaniel lay awake in a cocoon of melancholy and
worry. It happened sometimes, when they had been together; he bore it alone,
knowing that it would be gone in the morning. The wind was high in the trees.
There would be a strong frost.

He
was thirty—five years old, but he had never spent a winter alone on this
mountain without his father's guidance and support. At this moment, he could
not deny that the thought frightened him.

Nathaniel
curled himself around
Elizabeth
,
listening to the sound of her heart, and let himself be lulled to sleep by its
rhythm.

* * *

Suddenly
and completely awake, Nathaniel sat up in the dark. Something was wrong. He
shook his head to clear it. On his bare skin the air was frost—cold.

He
blinked in the darkness, listening.

Two
heartbeats, where there should have been three; he could not explain how it was
he knew this, but he did. He reached for his breech clout in the dark.

"What
is it?"
Elizabeth
said sleepily.

"Hannah."

He
was pulling his shirt over his head.

Elizabeth
sat up. "She'll have gone to sleep in the other cabin."

Outside,
a faint sound: the rolling beat of hooves.
Elizabeth
was awake now, reaching for her own
clothes, tripping after him into the other room.

The
sleeping loft was empty. He dropped back down the ladder, his bare feet
slapping hard on the floorboards.

"Nathaniel,"
Elizabeth
said,
trying for calm. She was struggling with the flint box and the candle. In the
small new light, he grabbed his rifle from its rack over the door with one
hand, his powder horn and bullet pouch with the other.

"Nathaniel,
she'll be asleep with Falling—Day."

The
sound of a single rider, closer now.

"Nathaniel
Bonner!" A boy's voice, cracking with panic.

"That's
Liam Kirby,"
Elizabeth
said, dread flooding through her, cold and harsh.

They
went out on the porch. Liam sawed at the reins, cursing. He whipped his head
toward them as the horse danced away.

"The
schoolhouse! Fire!"

And
he wheeled, and was gone again into the woods. Nathaniel broke into a dead run
for the barn as Runs-from-Bears appeared out of the darkness, racing in the
same direction.

"Oh,
God, my God,"
Elizabeth
said. She bolted for the other cabin, toward the flame of a single candle,
mumbling a prayer:
Let her be there, let
her be there safe."
Her skirt caught on a root and ripped; she ran on,
screaming Hannah's name. The women came flying off the porch to meet her as the
horses thundered past, the men riding bareback.

"Hannah?"
she asked, grasping at Falling—Day's arms.

Falling—Day,
her face like a mask: "But I sent her back home to you, hours ago."

Elizabeth
gasped. "Her book?"

In
the pale light of the moon, Many-Doves ' face alive with fear.

"It
was left behind in the schoolhouse."

There is nothing to fear in the dark
,
Hannah's great—grandfather had always told her.
Only O'seronni fear what is not there
. She had spent all her life
on this mountain; her Kahnyen’keháka half was not afraid. Her other half, the
white half, could be silenced for the moment. This errand would not take long,
and she would be back in her own bed with the book under her pillow.