Into the Wilderness (118 page)

Because
she could not deny this,
Elizabeth
tried to think of some reasonable explanation, but a new volley of coughing was
rolling through the room like the sound of cloth tearing. She went in to her
brother.

* * *

The
char and blisters that ran from the side of his head down over Julian's left
shoulder and arm were hard to look at, but it was his color which struck most
forcibly. His face was ash—white against the pillow slip, but his mouth was an
incongruous cherry—red, as if he had made himself up for a masquerade. Curiosity
was wiping away the vomit and blood, but the color remained. His garish lips
stretched in a grimace over his teeth; his nostrils flared, and then he erupted
into that cough, a sound that no human being should be capable of making. She
did not know where to touch him, and so
Elizabeth
stood across the bed from her father and did Julian the favor of not looking
away.

He
inhaled in a long, racking wheeze and opened his eyes. "Hurts," he
whispered.

"Yes,
child." Curiosity leaned in next to Elizabeth and gently laid a cloth,
damp and pungent—smelling, on the worst of the burns on his neck. His face
contorted and then relaxed. She held up a tin cup and he made a clumsy effort
to bat it away.

Finally
his eyes focused on his father. "Kitty? Is she coming?"

The
judge nodded.

Elizabeth
leaned in closer. "Julian?"

She
waited until the coughing passed, trying not to see the smears of blood and
cinders that Curiosity wiped from his chin.

"Julian,
we—Nathaniel and I, and Falling—Day, and Bears and Many-Doves , all of us. We
wanted to thank you—"

Elizabeth
wanted to say other things, but she did not know where to start. She wanted to
scream and weep, but she was afraid that if she did, she would not know how to
stop.

"What
can I do for you?" she asked.

"New
lungs," he wheezed. And miraculously, a sour grin, the one she had had
from him every day of his life, he gave to her now in his last hour.

"I
wish that it were in my power.

"The
mountain," he said. "Give back the mountain."

She
started. Glancing up at her father, she saw the shock draining what was left of
his color.

"Julian—"
the judge began, but the coughing started again.

On
her father's face
Elizabeth
saw something small and old. She wondered what he saw in her own face, which
felt to her as if it must be made of glass, ready to shatter at the slightest
touch.

There
was a sudden silence in the other room, and the Witherspoons appeared at the
door. Kitty stood there wrapped in a cape that could not hide her shape,
holding the straining edges together over her belly with fingers so tense and
white that it would not have surprised
Elizabeth
to see them snap off. Behind her Mr. Witherspoon was speaking to Nathaniel.

Kitty
came forward to look into Julian's face. They stared at each other for a long
moment, and then the coughing took over again. Impassive, she watched him
convulse with it.
Elizabeth
could not bear to see it, and so she looked away.

When
he could talk again, Julian's voice was less than it had been even a few
minutes earlier.

"Will
your father—" he began, and then again the long pause, much longer now,
while he brought up more of his lungs. When he finished, his voice was so faint
that
Elizabeth
was sure, at first, that she had misheard. Then he repeated himself.

"Will
he marry us right now?"

Elizabeth
met
the judge's shocked gaze, and then she turned to Kitty, whose whole attention
was on Julian. There were two spots of hectic red, high on her cheekbones.

She
nodded. "Yes."

"Julian—"
began the judge, with an uncomfortable look toward Kitty. "Are you
sure?"

"My
child," Julian said. "It is my child. Is that not so, Kitty?"

"It
is," she hissed softly, and smiled.
Elizabeth
felt suddenly faint, and she reached for the headboard to steady herself.

Mr.
Witherspoon cleared his throat. "But what of Richard?"

Kitty's
stare, as furious and burning as the blaze that had brought them to this place,
silenced him. She said: "We may never see Richard Todd again."

With
shaking hands, Mr. Witherspoon opened his prayer book and began his second
marriage service of the day. Curiosity took the signet ring from Julian's
uninjured hand, and when it was over, Kitty wore it, clenching her fist to keep
the ring from falling off.

Elizabeth
kissed Kitty's cold white cheek, and then she leaned down to kiss her brother.
He smelled of vomit and singed hair and blistered flesh, and her stomach rolled
and heaved. She wanted to say comforting things, to tell him that he was ending
his life well, and honorably, and that she was proud of him. But her own throat
constricted and she fought with tears as he fought for breath.

His
whisper caught her up, kept her captive with her ear near his mouth.

"Done
now. Legal."

"Yes."

His
eyes rolled in pain as he struggled to talk.

"Right
thing to do."

"Yes,"
she said again, nodding fiercely.

Her
brother whispered: "The rest of the land." His eyes fixed on hers. "Safe
now, from you."

Elizabeth
jerked back as if the heat rising up from his burns had flickered out to scald
her. She pressed a hand to her mouth and forced herself to swallow those words
that wanted to push out. Things that no one could say to a man on his deathbed.
She cast a glance at Kitty and saw with tremendous relief that she alone had
heard Julian's last confession, not of guilt and remorse, but of the need to
pass on his misery and hurt.

He
grimaced in pain, or satisfaction: she could not tell. A shudder ran through
her.
Elizabeth
picked up her skirts to turn away, and Curiosity's strong hand found her elbow.

"Wait
now," she said. "Wait. It's almost over."

And
then it was. Julian heaved once, seeking upward, and finally settled against
the pillow, his last breath hissing through clenched teeth.

Mr.
Witherspoon fumbled with the pages of his prayer book. The judge, stony faced,
sat down heavily and rubbed his sooty cheeks with his hands. Elizabeth wanted
to go to Nathaniel; she wanted it very badly. She wanted Nathaniel to take her
away from here to a place where she could scream until her throat ruptured with
it. She looked down at Julian's ruined face; her vision blurred until all she
could see was the little brother he had once been, a bright child, a new spirit
in the world, full of promise that would never be fulfilled.

Her
father sobbed, a hoarse, terrible sound. She walked around the bed and put her
hand on his shoulder, at first lightly, and then with increasing pressure as
she felt the tremor in him grow and begin to twist into something larger and
ungovernable.

Finally
Curiosity reached down to close Julian's eyes, but Kitty caught her wrist to
stop her.

"Let
me," she said softly. "It's my right."

* * *

From
the single window in the main room, Elizabeth watched the columns of smoke and
flame in the night sky. For the first time, she thought briefly of her books,
all gone now. The schoolhouse, gone.

In
the other room, the women went on about the business of caring for the dead.
She should have a part in it; he was her brother, after all. But she could not
bear it, and so she stood and waited while Curiosity and Martha did for Julian
what needed to be done. Galileo and Manny were there, too, and getting ready to
carry him home through the night.

Falling—Day
and Many-Doves had taken Hannah and Martha's two oldest home to sleep, leading
them away up the mountain on horseback, with Jed McGarrity following close
behind because Nathaniel would not leave
Elizabeth
.
She had wanted so much to go with them, but her father sat on a stool rushes in
front of the fire, talking to Axel and Mr. Witherspoon in sentences which made
sense, but rang as hollow as the look in his eyes. Opposite him sat Kitty still
in her cape— gazing thoughtfully into the hearth. There was a small line of
concentration between her brows.
A new
sister
 
Elizabeth thought dully.
Kitty is my sister now'
.

There
was a scuffing sound, and the men came through the room carrying their burden
on a plank of raw board. Julian had been wrapped in a quilt, as they would have
wrapped an infant against the cold. Mr. Witherspoon and her father followed
them out of the cabin.
Elizabeth
caught the gleam of the judge's hair in the moonlight as the small procession
started away.

"We'll
go home," Nathaniel said.
Elizabeth
pivoted to him, and he held her with one arm. The other was wrapped from wrist
to elbow where Falling—Day had sewed up the —I. Putting her face to Nathaniel's
chest,
Elizabeth
was met not with his smells, his familiar and comforting smells, but with the
stench of fire.

Perhaps
I should go with my father."

Curiosity
had been standing at the door lost in her own thoughts but now she cast
Elizabeth
a sharp look.
Without a word, she crossed the room to peer into her face. With swift, knowing
touches Curiosity outlined the swell of her belly, prodding here and there. Her
grim look was replaced with a softer, satisfied one.

"You
need your rest," she said. "We'll see to the judge."

Kitty
stood suddenly, her head cocked to one side and her expression puzzled, as if
she had an important question, but lacked the language to phrase it. Curiosity
turned, following the line of
Elizabeth
's
gaze.

"It's
six weeks too early," Kitty said. She pressed her hands into her belly as
if to quiet the child inside. "It can't be, yet."

Curiosity
let out a high, quivering sigh. "I feared as much."

Axel
stood up so quickly that his stool fell over. "Should I go after
Falling—Day?"

Without
looking away from Kitty, Curiosity said: "She's got enough to handle with
the children. I'll need my Daisy, if you'll be so kind. Martha and me can
manage in the meantime.
Elizabeth
,
you let Nathaniel take you home. There's more work here tonight, but not for
you."

"No!"
Kitty's puzzled expression was replaced instantly by a fearful one. "Please,
Elizabeth. Please stay."

Nathaniel
at her elbow, his fingers pressing. She started to agree, and the pressure
increased; she turned, and was met with the anger in his face.

"Let
me talk to you outside."

"But—”

“Outside,"
he insisted, pulling her along.
Elizabeth
caught Curiosity's resigned expression, and Martha's startled one. She let him
direct her out the door, and then stood while he turned on her, his fury
pushing him to a state she had never seen before.

"I
won't let you do it!" he said. "Curiosity and Martha will look after
her. I'm taking you home."

"Nathaniel—"
She raised her hands, helplessly, and he came up close enough so that she could
see the blood caked in his hair.

"No."

"She
needs me, Nathaniel. Look what she has just been through—"

He
laughed, a harsh sound with nothing lighthearted in it. "And what have you
been through? What have you lost tonight?"

"I
have not lost my husband, or my daughter, or my unborn child."

"You
lost your brother!"

"My
brother was lost to me long before this night," she spat back, and then
pressed a hand to her mouth. When she was sure of her voice again, she said:
"I have my family, but she has lost the father of her child. And she may
well lose the child, too."

His
face contorted then, and he put his arms around her and pulled her to his
chest, his hands cradling her head. His trembling told her what his words had
not.

"I
am perfectly fine," she said softly. "Nathaniel. I am in no danger at
all. Here, feel." She took his hand and pressed it to her belly. "This
child announces its health very clearly. Do you feel?"

The
column of muscles in his throat rippled as he swallowed. He was calmer, but
still there was a fine, humming tension in him. "You'll come away if it's
too much?"

"Instantly."

"You'll
let Axel or one of the men see you home if you're ready before I come to fetch
you?"