Into the Wilderness (79 page)

Otter
steadied her, his fingers and the coin pressing into her shoulder.

"The
panther," he said softly. Then he held up the tooth to his own necklace of
teeth and jaws, as if to demonstrate.

"Yes,
please, you have it." Elizabeth felt nauseated and suddenly a little
dizzy.

"No,"
said Otter forcefully. "You must wear it, it is your right." He
touched his own necklace, and then hers: the bijou and the silver flower that
had belonged to Nathaniel's mother.

She
said: "I didn't kill the panther." Her voice had gone suddenly
hoarse, and she began to shake.

"But
he did, and you killed him." He paused. "It's Lingo, ain't it? I've
heard tell, but I never saw the man before."

Otter
was more than ten years her junior, but Elizabeth felt like a child under his
gaze: vulnerable and uncertain and very afraid. It seemed that everything came
back very simply to this truth, which could not be avoided. The evidence was
around this turn in the path. She had killed a man. And why? Otter had not
asked, but he was watching her patiently, and waiting.

For Nathaniel's sake
.
Jack Lingo had kept her from her errand, and by that act he may have caused
Nathaniel's death. But she knew in her heart that this was not the truth.
Perhaps not even a part of the truth.

Lingo
had put his hands on her, and it was that, that sin which had fueled her
journey, instantaneous, from the woman she had been to the woman she was now.
She had raised the rifle and swung it for herself alone, for Nathaniel had not
existed at all: in that instant she had been alone in the world with Jack
Lingo.

She
nodded. "Yes," she said. "It is—it was, Jack Lingo." She
sought Otter's gaze. Those final words would not come, and so she let them
float between them.

Something
flickered in Otter's eyes; he was looking at her, looking hard. Seeing the cuts
and the bruises on all of her exposed skin, even to the backs of her hands in a
spread of color from yellow—green to indigo. "Tkayeri," he said
softly.
It's proper so
.

Elizabeth
took the coin and the panther's tooth from him, held them together in one hand.
The tooth was very sharp, and mottled with dried blood. "I should wear
these?"

"Why
not? It is your right," Otter repeated.

"Why
not," Elizabeth echoed. "Yes, why not."

* * *

They
camped on the crest of the hill. Otter built a quick lean—to of balsam
branches, beginning with a sapling which he rough—stripped and propped against
the trunk of an older tree. Elizabeth ate while he worked, forcing herself to
swallow corn bread spread liberally with bear fat. It was slick and the taste
was overpowering, but with each mouthful she felt her body stir and waken, as
if she were a growing thing supplied with water after a long drought.

She
felt suddenly very anxious, and wondered if they should have continued walking.
When she asked Otter about this, he shrugged diplomatically. Elizabeth sighed
and sought a more comfortable position against the beech. There was a bird
calling, a plaintive three—note song, and Otter singing softly under his breath
while he worked.

Elizabeth
fell asleep with the Tory Gold resting between her breasts, warmed by her skin.

* * *

They
walked hard the next day. Elizabeth scanned the swamp halfheartedly for
Treenie, but saw no trace of her. The swamp itself no longer frightened her;
she saw it only as another obstacle between herself and Nathaniel. When they
stopped to rest and eat, she could barely sit still, and found herself being
addressed like a wayward child by Otter. She snapped at him, and he blinked his
disapproval. A trick he had learned from Nathaniel. She sat, finally, and ate.

"If
we push hard we could be there just after sunset," she proposed. Knowing
even as she said this that she was incapable of such a thing. Walking as hard
as she was able, without injuries, she had needed a full day for the stretch
before them, and it was midday now. Elizabeth took another mouthful of dried
beef, as salty as tears.

Otter
did her the courtesy of not replying.

"You
will make a good husband someday," she observed grudgingly.

"My
mother does not think so." He grinned.

They
made camp late, past dark and only three good hours from Nathaniel. Elizabeth
could not sleep at first, as tired as she was. Every muscle trembled, and the
tips of her fingers were numb. She lay with her leggings rolled to a pillow
underneath her head and stared at the sky, the great sweep of stars too bright
to ignore.

"You
haven't asked about Hannah," Otter pointed out to her, and just that
suddenly all of Elizabeth's tension collapsed in on itself. There were other
people who missed Nathaniel and worried for him; one of them was his daughter.
Her daughter.

"She
sent along a message for you. Said, tell her I been keeping the new schoolhouse
in order, swept up and dusted."

Her
throat suddenly swollen with tears, Elizabeth tried to find Otter's face in the
dark. "Tell me about home," she said.

* * *

In
the morning Otter had to wake her, her sleep was so deep and absolute. She sat
up, disoriented, and accepted the water skin from him. They ate and drank in
near darkness. Elizabeth could hardly strap on her pack, her hands shook so.

Otter
was as silent and preoccupied as she was. Yesterday he had talked easily and at
length about any number of topics that came to him, but now as the sun rose on
a day that promised to be hot and clear, his look was dark and uninviting. He
insisted on taking the time to clean his gun again, boiling water in a tin cup
to purge the barrel, measuring powder carefully, and loading it with what
seemed to Elizabeth enough lead to bring down a bear.

It
wasn't until they were under way that she was able to breathe again. Her mind
kept composing pictures for her: Nathaniel weak but clear—eyed, Nathaniel
consumed in fever, Nathaniel lost to her, too deep inside himself to hear her
calling. When she thought of Richard, it was reluctantly, unwilling to expend
any of her goodwill on him at all. Perhaps he is dead, she thought with no
regret, and then colored with shame and defiance, simultaneously. It would be
easier, and to deny that would be the worst kind of hypocrisy. Her thoughts
went back to Nathaniel, what he would need. Food, and water, and his wounds
tended. He would still be coughing, but hopefully not bleeding anymore. Perhaps
Otter would know more about herbs than she did, what she should look for, what
teas might help. He could hunt and provide for them, and she would look after
Nathaniel, until he was well enough to walk.

He
would be sleeping when they came in; she imagined this. His face thin with pain
and disguised by many days' growth of beard, but when she woke him he would
grin at her, and call her Boots, and hold out his hands. She hesitated to think
how he might react to her bruises, but she was determined to tell him nothing
of Jack Lingo, not at first. Not until necessary. A bad fall would have given
her the same injuries, and he had seen her fall before. She thought that this
was a reasonable story, and one she would be able to make him believe. If only
Otter would cooperate. If only she could keep her voice from giving her away.

When
he was fed and his wounds tended to, then he would sleep. And she would sleep
beside him, and he would heal. Then they would go home to Paradise and start
their life.

* * *

The
unnamed lake with the island at its center where they had last been together
was suddenly there before them, and the platform of rock, where they had
watched the eagles mate. Elizabeth broke into a run, with Otter right behind
her. It was only two minutes, but how could that be? It must be ten times that,
or more. Otter was talking to her, but she could make no sense of what he was
saying; could not even tell if it was English or Mohawk.

At
the edge of the clearing she pulled up, hard, and saw the smoke curling at a
cook fire. One of them was well enough to get outside to tend it. A great rush
of hope burst through her, and she knew how afraid she had been. She paused to
catch her breath, and in that moment what she had taken as a great pile of red
pelts on Joe's grave rolled suddenly to one side and gave a low woof. Elizabeth
watched in disbelief as Treenie came loping toward her, grinning idiotically,
her whole body moving with the rhythm of her tail. There was a wound on her
back, crusted with blood. Elizabeth steadied herself by threading her fingers
into the dog's coat, speaking softly to her. Then she cleared her throat and started
forward, calling out.

Robbie
MacLachlan's familiar form materialized in the doorframe. Elizabeth's voice
died in her throat, and then she increased her pace, running the last few paces
into Robbie's comforting embrace.

"Weel,
then, lassie," he said while he patted at her back. "It's nae sae
bad, nae sae bad a'all. Dinna greet so, ye'll break ma heart."

His
great bulk blocked out the rest of the world. Wiping her face with her hands,
Elizabeth looked up into his eyes, and saw no end to her troubles.

"Is
he alive?" she asked hoarsely. "Tell me he's alive, Robbie,
please."

"Who,
then? Joe? Do ye ken Joe? If it's him ye mean, I canna hold oot much hope, for
there's a new grave—"

Elizabeth
pulled away from him, shook her head. "That is Joe's grave. He died five
days ago." Without waiting for Robbie's reaction, she walked stiffly past
him and into the shelter. On either side of the cold fire there was nothing but
a scattering of straw on the earth floor. The food, the weapons, and the tools;
everything was gone. She heard herself moan, pressed the back of her hand to
her mouth until her lip, barely healed, began to bleed again.

"I
dinna understand," Robbie was saying behind her. "Where's Nathaniel,
lass? And how come ye here lookin' sac blue an' battered?"

"He
was here," she said numbly. "I left him here, to fetch you. They were
both injured, and couldn't walk."

"Barth
injured? Who barth?" The frustration in Robbie's voice was making it break
and crackle. "I dinna understand."

"Cat—Eater,"
said Otter.

There
was a soft woosh of surprise from Robbie, and then he came forward to take her
by the arm. "I came this way this morning tae look in on Joe, for he was a
friend o' mine. Now ye tell me that Joe is dead, and Nathaniel and Todd were
here? They fought?"

She
nodded, hesitating only slightly.

"Someone
came," she said, more to herself than Robbie. "Someone came and took
them away."

Robbie's
hand moved to Elizabeth's shoulder, and it gripped her firmly. "I've been
in this part o' the bush for a guid week, lass, and there's ample sign o'
Indian aboot. No' three days sync I came across an abandoned camp. They were
headed this way.

Elizabeth
looked up at Robbie, saw the hope in his face and felt the stirrings of it in
her own heart. "Do you think they were Kahnyen’keháka?"

"Aye,
fra' the sign I wad say they were. And they are in the habit o' passin' through
this way." He cast a glance at Otter which Elizabeth could not quite
interpret, but the younger man had a question which was more relevant.

"How
many were they?" he asked.

"At
least a dozen. Enough tae get both men oot, if need be. And they'll have had
canoes, for bye

"But
where?" she whispered, and then turning to Otter, she raised her voice.
"Where
is
he?"

Otter's
eyes had been scanning the shelter while she spoke to Robbie, and now he went
down on one knee there where Nathaniel had been propped when she last saw him.
A knife had been used to scrape the bark away, leaving a small patch of white
raw wood. There a single word had been written in ash by a fingertip. It was
smeared now and barely legible. On her knees next to Otter, Elizabeth read it
aloud.

"Kahen'tiyo.

I
don't understand," she whispered.

Robbie
translated: "Good Pasture."

"Where
my mother's people live," supplied Otter, and there was some excitement
there, some satisfaction in his voice. She turned back to Robbie, and spread
out one hand, palm up.

Robbie
glanced at Otter, and then he cleared his throat. "Canada," he said.
"Aboot four days' hard walk fra here."

Elizabeth
had felt completely drained just five minutes ago, but a new flush of energy
flowed through her. "Let's go, then," she said, standing up and
dusting her hands on her leggings. "It's a good day to walk." And
then she stilled, seeing their faces.

She
could not stand it, the way they looked at her. Her whole life she had seen
this look in the eyes of men: when she had asked for a Latin tutor, and then
for one who could teach her philosophy. When she had wanted to climb Ben Nevis
with her cousin Merriweather and his friends. When she had offered to write
extracts of her uncle's library books. The day she had expressed her wish to
leave England, and first spoke of teaching school. Now all of those things
seemed so trivial compared to the task she had before her, and these men, who
were stronger and braver and more honest than any she had ever known, they were
looking at her with that same doubt she had borne for all of her life.
Elizabeth looked Robbie in the eye, and she lifted her chin.