Into the Wilderness (117 page)

Hannah
felt again for the key in her pocket. She had taken it from its nail near the
door, and without asking. Tomorrow she would have to answer for that.
Grandmother would be very angry with her; she didn't dare think about what her
father would have to say.

Elizabeth
might be angry, too, but she would understand, in the end. It was the first
book Hannah had ever owned, her very own. And they had not seen what she had
seen: Jemima Southern's eyes round with envy, and wanting. Jemima didn't care
about bones of the hand or the flow of blood, but she wanted anything Hannah
had, and the Southern farmstead was closest to the school. Hannah wanted to get
her anatomy before it could disappear.

In
the moonlight, the schoolhouse echoed with remembered voices, dark and quiet as
a fallow field. Her hands trembled as she lit a candle.

She
found it in the study, on the desk. Someone—Jemima?—had opened it to an
illustration of a chest in which the bone had been cut away and the muscles and
ribs peeled back neatly to show the heart. Hannah had seen more than her share
of blood: both of her grandmothers were healers, and neither of them had ever
had the habit of sending curious little girls away. But these pictures had
nothing in common with broken bones and gashes and trap wounds. Hannah had
planned to grab the book up, lock the door, and speed away home to her bed, but
she paused to run her finger over the drawing.

It
was lovely and quiet here. The little room with its neat rows of books was
hers, for the moment. Hers, and nobody else's.

Hannah
pulled the door firmly closed. A shawl was draped over the chair; it was thick
and warm, and it had
Elizabeth
's
scent. She pulled it around her shoulders against the chill. The desk was too
high for her to sit over the book comfortably, so Hannah sat cross—legged on
the rag rug with her feet tucked under. Bent over the book in her lap, she lost
herself in the secrets of the human heart.

In
time she turned the page, and then, after a while, the next. The candle burned
steadily while she read, but she had no sense of time passing. When the print
began to swim, she rubbed her eyes and forced them to focus.

Hannah
fell asleep with her cheek against a drawing of the arteries of the neck. She
did not wake when the candle sputtered and went out; she never heard the sound
of the door opening in the other room.

* * *

Liam
cantered through the village, filling the air with his cawing: "
Fire! Fire!
Fire at the schoolhouse!"
Men began pouring out of Axel's
tavern before he had even started away up Hidden Wolf.

Billy Kirby
, thought Julian
as the village erupted into action. With his shattered mouth and pride to
match, there was no doubt about who had taken the torch to the schoolhouse. The
idiot would go to gaol for this, but worse, the village would stand behind the
Bonners, now.

Julian
had no intention of sharing credit with Billy Kirby for a crime he hadn't even
contemplated—arson was not his style, so inelegant—so he took the bucket that
was shoved into his arms and ran with the others for the schoolhouse. There was
nothing like a fire to sober men up.

* * *

If a
man had time to stop and admire it from a safe distance, a building burning in
the night was a beautiful thing. The flames were well established on the west
end of the schoolhouse: they shot upward from an open window, a strange
reversed lightning intent on laying the heavens open. At the front of the
building, window glass glittered like hungry yellow eyes. Julian was reminded
of a leopard he had seen once in a cage in a London whorehouse, pacing, pacing.

People
were pouring in from every direction. Women, barefooted and in night dresses with
babies in their arms. Children shivering in the cold. Men, many of them still
in the clothes they had worn to the school recital in the evening. There was no
movement toward a bucket line: it was out of control, and one splash of lake
water at a time would be no use at all.

The
judge came galloping up, his white hair unbound and fluttering. He flung
himself from the saddle and stood before Julian, heaving for breath. With one
hand he held the reins of the terrified horse and with the other he grabbed his
son's shoulder and dug in his fingers, hard.

"I
hope to the Almighty God that you had nothing to do with this, Julian."

A
sudden bellowing saved him a long and tedious explanation. O'Brien, coming out
of the woods, was shouting and pointing toward the fire.

"The
Mohawk girl!" he roared, waving his hat. "Saw her go in a couple of
hours ago, don't know if she came out.

"Lord
Almighty," the judge groaned. "Are you sure?"

"There
was candlelight on the east end, an hour ago."

"Which
Mohawk girl?" Julian asked. And getting no answer, he grabbed O'Brien by
the collar and swung him around forcibly. "Which Mohawk girl?"

The
old man squinted up at him. There was ash in his white hair.

"Does
it matter?" he asked, jerking away. "Wake up, man. She's cooked,
whoever she is."

Wake up
. Julian stared
at his father, and his father stared back.

Julian
shook his head, trying, for once, to do what was being asked of him, although
what he wanted was to sleep. To go to sleep and push the image out of his head:
Many-Doves beating on the door, her hair dancing in the flames. Because, Julian
realized with cold horror, because the door had a lock, and the key was in it.
He could see it. Billy Kirby, damn his soul to a hell like the one he had
created, Billy Kirby had set the fire and locked the door.

In
the frantic light of the fire, Martha Southern was holding her girl while she
screamed, endlessly. A horse screamed in counterpoint, and went crashing off
toward the lake. On the far end of the schoolhouse, a window shattered and a
swirl of cinders went into the night sky like a flock of tropical birds in
unlikely colors.

Wake up
.

Just unlock the door. just turn the key.

He
walked away. His father, deep in furious debate with o'Brien, took no notice.
There was a shawl on the ground and he picked it up. Ten feet from the door,
the hair on his head rose to the heat. The door was hot to the touch; he used
the shawl to turn the key, and felt the lock give with a sigh.

From
the corner of his eye, Julian caught movement: two riders, bent for hell down
the mountainside.

He
kicked the door open, and ran into the schoolhouse.

* * *

He
had always taken a secret pleasure in color, and so in spite of his terror—the
kind of deep fear that opens up the bowels and makes the blood run thin—Julian
saw how exquisite it was: the flames moved through the room with a seductive
and terrifying symmetry. Crouched on the floor in the middle of its roaring,
watching the fire weave and prance, Julian recognized nothing about this place,
as if he had never been here before.

Because
he hadn't. He had never been anywhere like this; of that much he was sure. Of
that, and the fact that his skin was stretching and rising, and that the floor
was burning his feet through his boots. Coughing explosively into the shawl, he
could not remember why he had come into this place. He was alone in the
screaming fire, and it would kill him if he didn't move. Whatever it was he had
been looking for was not here.

Off
to his right was a door: intact. On the other side of that door there would be
air to breathe, and cool darkness.

Julian
yanked the door open and in response the fire at his back rose and roared like
an animal. He slammed the door shut, and almost laughed at the absurdity of it.
Then he turned, and scanned the room.

Sitting
on the floor in the corner was Nathaniel Bonner's daughter, her arms wrapped
around a book. She was rocking, her eyes blank and blind with terror. The only
light was the leaping red and gold reflected in the little window above the
desk; that meant, he realized with some quieter, rational part of his mind,
that above them the roof was on fire. He could open the door and take her
through it, or they would die here together.

His
mind had hitched down to a slow, uneasy trot. He thought of
Elizabeth
; and for the first time in days, he
thought of Kitty. He had come in here to save another man's wife, and found
Bonner's daughter instead. There was an irony there, and one he knew he would
appreciate if only his mind would start working.

She
looked up at him, her eyes like cold coals.

Julian
picked her up. "Time to go," he wanted to say, but his throat burned
and all he produced was an explosion of coughing. She buried her face against
him, folding her body small and tight. Her book was wedged into his chest, its
corners digging into his ribs. He realized suddenly that he had never held a
child before in his life.

There
was an explosion of glass, and Julian jerked as a shard lodged itself in his
cheek. He turned, a long, slow process, and found Nathaniel Bonner trying to
jam himself through a window that would accommodate only half of him. Blood
dripped from his hands and ran down his forehead.

"Give
her to me!" He held out his arms.

Julian
looked down at the child.

"For
the love of God, man!"

He
put Hannah into her father's arms.

And
they were gone, leaving behind only the window sash rimmed with shards like
bloody teeth. Julian stood for a moment, looking out. There in the night,
figures danced and contorted in the light of the fire. His father, screaming
for him to come.

For
once in his life, Julian simply obeyed. He opened the door and found that the
fire had come closer: a wall of it between him and the exit, beckoning and
calling for him as his father was screaming outside in the night.

Julian
ran through the wall of smoke and flame and out the building that heaved and
groaned behind him, trying to hold his breath and failing, taking in long,
fiery breaths as he would swallow a bitter medicine put off too long. He ran
into the open, and onward. From one side, he had the sense of a man's form
launching at him, and then it hit him full force and he was on the ground.
Rough hands slapped at his back and head.

Someone
flipped him over: the pockmarked Indian, staring down at him. Over his
shoulder, the last thing Julian saw was his father, and then, his sister's
face, Madonna—white and stained with ash and terror.

* * *

They
carried Julian to the Southerns' cabin, where Nathaniel and Hannah had already
been passed into the care of the women. When Falling—Day had convinced Elizabeth
that the little girl's injuries were minor, and Elizabeth had spent some time
rocking Hannah while she wept, she went to the corner where Many-Doves was
tending Nathaniel's cuts.

She
was digging shards of window glass out of a gash on his lower arm. Other cuts
on his head and arms and shoulders had been cleaned and stanched, but this was
the worst.

"Let
me,"
Elizabeth
said, putting her hands on Many-Doves ' shoulder.

There
was a sheen of sweat on his brow, but Nathaniel shook his head, "This
ain't much, Boots. Falling—Day will sew it up. Go on to your brother."

Many-Doves
got up. "Fresh water," she said, taking her bowl with her. Elizabeth
caught her hand in passing and squeezed it thankfully. Then she glanced into
the small room where they had put Julian on the bed. In between the racking
coughs, there were voices: Martha and Curiosity, her father.

"
Elizabeth
,"
Nathaniel said, holding out his free arm. She went down on her knees next to
him and he pulled her in close. "He can't live long. You know that?"

She
pushed her face against his neck, and nodded.

"Then
go on to him," he said. He was looking at Hannah, who had fallen to sleep
in Falling—Day's arms. "If he can still hear you, tell him I said thank
you."

* * *

Axel
passed her at the door, and stopped when she asked him where he was going.

He
sent her a sideways glance, and then frowned at the hat in his hands. "He's
asking for Kitty, and her father. I'll go fetch them."

"But
it could not be good for Kitty, in her condition—the sight of him like this—"

The
old man grimaced. "That's what Curiosity said, too, but what choice is
there?"

Elizabeth
drew
in a deep breath, and nodded.

"If
you were wondering." Axel's head came up, and he met her eye. "Runs-from-Bears
and some of the men went after the Kirbys. I expect they'll bring 'em back in
short order."

"But
not Liam!" Elizabeth said, grasping Axel by the sleeve. "It was Liam
who came to warn us."

Axel's
eyes had a strange, cold glitter to them. "If the boy's innocent, he won't
suffer for his brother's sins. But you'll note, Miz Elizabeth, that nobody's
seen hide nor hair of him since."