Into the Wilderness (60 page)

“He
knows nothing of me," Nathaniel said, and for the first time there was an
edge of anger in his voice. "Except what he imagines and wants to be true.

"And
what Sarah told him," Elizabeth added and she regretted it, for he
stiffened beside her.

"And
what Sarah told him," he acknowledged. "But what she told him and
what he heard ain't necessarily the same things. You know that from personal
experience with the man."

Elizabeth
glanced at him. This had not occurred to her, but the truth of it was obvious.

"Did
he make up the whole thing?" she said, remembering even as she did
Curiosity's troubled face when she spoke of Sarah and Richard.

"No,"
said Nathaniel, the muscle in his cheek working. "I can't claim that,
either. He tried to take Sarah from me, and he came close to getting her."

"Why?
Why would she turn to Richard?" This question hung in the air for a very
long time, until Elizabeth turned to Nathaniel and saw the stony look on his
face, the unresolved anger and the hurt.

"I
don't know," he said. "She didn't explain herself to me." It was
the first thing he had ever said to her which was untruthful, and they both
were aware of this.

She
couldn't keep the disappointment from her face.

"Give
me some time," Nathaniel said.

You've had time
, she
wanted to say. But she watched him striding out into the depths and then
swimming strongly, his legs and arms cutting the water like blades.

She
forced herself to look, not at him, but at the lake. At this setting, more
beautiful and peaceful than anything she had ever experienced. She watched the
slow glide of a turtle shell through a stand of bulrushes, hearing the gentle
gurgle and hiss of the moving waters. Across the lake the heron was still
stalking, joined now by an osprey which circled and then dove, and dove again.
The woods were filled with birds, and the sounds of their calls. She squinted
into the shadows and saw a pair of eyes reflecting back at her; a doe heavy
with fawn, wondering whether it was safe to come to the lake to drink.

Nathaniel
swam for what seemed like a long time and then he came back to her, streaming
water. The sun reflected off him in a million colors.

"I'm
sorry," she said stiffly when he came to kneel in front of her. "It's
none of my business."

"It
is," he said." It is your business."

"I
wouldn't let you tell me."

"I
should have made you listen."

She
lifted her chin; looked him straight in the eye. Elizabeth fought hard with the
impulse to smooth things over, to make him feel better. "Yes," she
said finally, with a nod. "You should have. Although it would not have
made any difference to me, in the end."

Rivulets
of water ran down his body and over the rock, fading in the sun almost as they
watched. Elizabeth saw the pulse in Nathaniel's throat. His eyes were narrowed
in the glare of the sun, his face impassive.

"I
haven't talked to anybody about this since my mother. She said I should put it
behind me for Hannah's sake."

She
started to ask another question, but he held up a palm to stop her.
"Listen," he said. "Listen and I'll tell you. Although I doubt
you'll be glad of it."

He
settled in front of her, straight—backed and cross—legged with his breech clout
covering him, the long muscles in his thighs tensed. His hair hung damp over
his heavily muscled shoulders. He was completely at ease in his near nakedness,
and hers; Elizabeth blinked hard and looked away, concentrated on the mountains
layered in shades of green and blue as far as she could see. When she had
gathered her thoughts, she looked back at him. This was Nathaniel in front of her,
her husband. With a story to tell her that she needed to hear, in spite of what
it did to him, the pain it caused him. She fixed her eyes on his and held his
gaze.

"Tell
me," she said.

Nathaniel
wondered what she thought she was going to hear. He was afraid to tell her the
whole story; he also knew very well that she would not be satisfied with less
than all of it. But she had expectations of him and he feared—he knew—that he
was bound to disappoint her in some of them.

"First
you should know about me and Richard, before Sarah. How things got started. You
know the story of how he came back to Paradise?"

"From
Curiosity," Elizabeth confirmed.

"One
person who you can count on to tell it to you true," he noted, satisfied
with her source. "Well, you know then that Richard's uncle came to claim
him, took him off to Albany. But he was never gone for long, he was always
coming back to Paradise for a week or a month at a time. He said it was to
visit the Witherspoons, but there was more to it than that. It was my mother
that interested him."

"Richard
came to see your mother?" Elizabeth repeated. She was trying not to ask
questions; she wanted to leave the storytelling to him. But it was hard for
her, he could see that.

"He
couldn't stay away from her," Nathaniel said. "He loved her in the
same way that he came to hate me, with everything that was in him. He used to
come up to Lake in the Clouds to talk to her whenever he could manage, but
mostly when I was out walking the trap lines or hunting with my father. He would
sit and talk to her, or help her with whatever work she had her hand to.
Candles or hoeing or wash, whatever. At this time he was less than fourteen, so
you have to think of that, how strange that was. She would tell us when we came
home that Richard had been to call, sometimes with Kitty. She said he was a
poor soul."

Nathaniel
paused, struck suddenly with loneliness for his mother. Talking about her had
brought her face to him suddenly, and very clearly. Elizabeth touched his hand
and he took it gratefully.

"But
to me he was barely civil. Less than. You could call it simple jealousy—I had
my folks and he had nobody. I had Lake in the Clouds and he had no chance of
ever getting close to it." He glanced at her, saw the deep furrow of
concentration between her eyes. "You haven't seen the graves yet. It's
mostly our folks, but Todd's mother is buried there, too. My father found her
and brought her back to Lake in the Clouds to bury, what was left of her. I
remember seeing Todd out there once in the middle of the night one summer by
full moon."

"Did
your mother fear him?"

Nathaniel
had to laugh at that idea. "My mother didn't fear anybody or anything,
except illness. Richard Todd had her sympathy and her pity, but he didn't scare
her. Though sometimes it seems to me that he should have.

"So
things between me and Richard weren't exactly friendly but there wasn't any
trouble, at least not then. When I was nineteen I left home to go to Barktown,
and I was gone more than two years. I lost track of Richard until just before I
came back, in the middle of the war. Did you ever ask Richard about his
training?"

"His
medical training? No," Elizabeth said. "He mentioned something about
the physicians he studied with."

"Adams
and Littlefield. Littlefield was Clinton's personal physician on
campaign."

"Sir
Henry Clinton? The general?" Elizabeth looked confused.

Nathaniel
shook his head. "It's a common enough name, I guess. There was a General
James Clinton, too, but on the Continental side. Littlefield was his physician,
and Richard was training under Littlefield, this was in '79."

"Richard
saw battle?"

"Richard
saw slaughter," Nathaniel corrected her. "Sullivan came up from the
south and Clinton moved west along the Mohawk and then down the Susquehanna to
meet him. They weren't after Tories, though. They were hoping to set an end to
the whole Iroquois nation."

Elizabeth
put out a hand to stop him. She cleared her throat gently. "I don't
understand. You fought under your father—in—law for the Continentals, did you
not? And those Kahnyen’keháka you fought with, are they not Iroquois?"

"I
forget sometimes what you can't know about," he conceded. "You
realize the Hode'noshaunee is a league of six nations? Well, within the league
there wasn't always agreement on who to back in the war, not even within the
tribes. Some fought with the Tories and some fought against them. By '79 all
Washington wanted was every Iroquois out of the northwest, and fast. So
Sullivan and Clinton marched that summer. Burned more than forty towns before
they finished, and burned the crops in the fields and the orchards and anything
that would take to a torch. Those who didn't die fled north to Canada, or if
they didn't they starved in the winter after."

Nathaniel
was talking fast, as if he could spit this information out like a mouthful of
bitter medicine. He saw her hands trembling, and the way she clutched them
together in her lap. It was not comfort he needed right now, but her attention;
she seemed to realize that, and he was grateful.

"Clinton
burned Barktown," she concluded.

"It
was burned, but not by Clinton his self There was a big militia party from
Johnstown, and they decided to get a jump on things. Thought they'd show up to
report for duty with some good marks to their credit."

"Where
were you?" she asked, her voice hoarse and low.

"Sky—Wound—Round
sent me to Albany, to talk to Schuyler about what could be done to make peace
between the Iroquois and the army." Although his face was blank, his eyes
flashed with a bright anger. "Sky—Wound—Round was still hopeful in those
days that the Kahnyen’keháka could have a home here."

"But
he does have a home here, I met him at Barktown."

"He
lives in exile in his own homelands," Nathaniel corrected her. He watched
her think this through, and then accept it, reluctantly.

"You
didn't know what was happening with the campaign while you were talking to
Schuyler?"

"No,
and he didn't tell me." Nathaniel stopped. He thought hard about what he
could say to her. If he should leave her with the impressions of Schuyler that
she had taken away from Saratoga on her wedding day, or if he should tell her
the whole truth. Not for the first time that day, Nathaniel thought of Hannah,
of what it would be like for her as a young woman, half Kahnyen’keháka. Hannah
would need Elizabeth's help, which Elizabeth would not be able to give unless
she understood the realities of what it meant to be living in a white man's
country when your skin was more than white.

"Schuyler
let me talk to him as if there were some room for peace. And the whole time we
talked about which of the chiefs could be brought over and which tribes might
be able to survive on this side of the border, Clinton was getting his men on
the road with the taste for red flesh in their mouths. Now, Schuyler claims he
told Clinton to leave Barktown alone, given the fact that Sky—Wound—Round had
fought for him at Saratoga."

"You
didn't believe General Schuyler?" Elizabeth asked evenly. If she was
shocked by this idea of considerate and elegant Philip Schuyler as comp licit
in a plot to wipe out the Iroquois, she did not show it.

"There's
no question that the campaign plans came from Schuyler," Nathaniel said
quietly. "None at all. For him, most Indians are savages and worthy of
extermination, and he would own that to my face if I asked him. You're thinking
of Runs-from-Bears. I'm not saying that Schuyler can't see the human being in
some individuals. He can be loyal where it's called for. He did what he could
to spare Barktown, but you have to remember, Elizabeth, that for him a bad Indian
is one who doesn't see an advantage in being white." He gave her a minute
to digest this, watching her face. He could see questions forming there, doubt
and hesitancy and reluctant agreement.

"So
how is it that Barktown was burned?" she asked.

"The
Johnstown militia decided to do that on their own authority."

"I
see," Elizabeth said, matching his tone.

"No
you don't, but you will soon." He cleared his throat.

"So
I went home and I found the village still smoking. The men—Sarah's father and
her two brothers, both less than twenty, her uncle, other men and boys who were
my friends—all of them dead. Took by surprise in the night. The women had fled
or were doing what women always do, trying to keep alive and pull things back
together. Sky—Wound—Round himself they took hostage, thinking they'd show up at
Clinton's doorstep with more than just Indian hides to show for their
trouble."

"Falling—Day?"
Elizabeth asked numbly. "Sarah?"

"They
took them along with Sky—Wound—Round, and Otter and Many-Doves , too. Otter was
five at the time, Many-Doves was just seven."

Nathaniel
had been staring at his own hands, lying flat on his knees; now he looked up at
her, and he let her see his face the way he knew it must look. She was
frightened; perhaps of him, perhaps of what he was telling her. It was hard to
say. Nathaniel was suddenly tired, and he wanted to lie here in the sun and
sleep with her next to him, listening to her breathe. Just sleep, with the
sounds of the lake murmuring at them. But there was more to tell, and he could
not turn away from this story, not once it was begun. With as little detail as
possible, he told her about how he had tracked the militia, catching up to them
on the next morning and then keeping well out of sight. To them he would have
been just another Mohawk, and he knew better than to show himself.