The Meeting Place (11 page)
Catherine sat in a circle of women to which she had been welcomed for the first time and tried hard to concentrate on her piece of the quilt.
If the Edward community agreed on anything that November, it was the strength of the winter. Nobody could recall one which had arrived with such early severity. Since those September flakes had floated down out of the skies, the snows had stopped only long enough for the sky to clear and permit an overnight freeze to pounce like a hawk on its prey. When the clouds re-formed, it was without the thaws that traditionally loosened winter's grip, at least momentarily. The winds had come, hard and bitter and straight from the north. Unyielding and fierce, they were called lazy winds, for they would blow straight through a person rather than go around. January winds in November. And staying. Like the snow.
Though the sky was finally clearing from yet another snow, still the wind blew so fiercely the ice pellets struck the shutters like tiny hammers. They beat upon the glass, timed to the wind's hostile growl. Catherine stared out the window nearest her chair. She shivered and drew her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.
“Andrew will be fine, my dear,” Mrs. Patrick, the vicar's wife, murmured from the seat beside Catherine's. “How long has he been making these patrols?”
“Five years.” Though she had been married only four and a half months, already the other women of the village were treating her as a woman, as an equal. “This will be his sixth winter.”
“So. And not once has he lost a man, not even a horse.” Mrs. Patrick nodded over her needle. “Andrew Harrow is a careful man and a good officer.”
“And handsome.” The Widow Riley cackled over her corner of the quilt. “You've got quite a prize there, missy. If I'd been fifty years younger, I'd have given you a right run for your money, I would.”
The cackle was repeated, and Catherine smiled with the others working on the quilt. Such activity was a chance for the village women to meet and talk and draw strength from one another during those months when winter chills mostly kept them indoors. She was not totally sure if she was pleased to be welcomed into the housewives' circle, rather than relegated to the corner of the hall reserved for unmarried girls. But in her heart she felt a bit of pride. Her life was now inextricably entwined with Andrew's. The thought made her back straighten just a bit as she plied her needle through the woven fabric. But she did wish there was
someone
in the group her own age. All the younger wives were also new mothers and had infants at home to take their time and attention.
But my turn will come soon
, Catherine thought with cheeks turning pink.
The Edward community great room was a long affair, running almost the entire length of the northern wall of the town hall. A great fireplace flanked the western expanse, large enough for those who were chilled or elderly to step into its warmth. Light flickered and danced from the flames on the faces of the village's younger children playing games on the floor in front of it.
“When is the gallant officer due back, dear?” asked a neighbor who had known Catherine all her life.
“Tonight, at the latest tomorrow.” Catherine did not raise her head. She was still learning the complicated stitching, and it required all her attention. Which was not altogether a bad thing, she decided. “He couldn't be certain with the snows so heavy so soon.”
“Seems sure to stop, at least for a bit.” Widow Riley made a pretense of sniffing the wind, though all that could be detected in the close hall was smoke and melting tallow from the candles. “But not for long, you mark my words. This will be a winter for tales to our children's children's children.”
As though in confirmation, the wind rattled the shutters with another fistful of icy needles. Widow Riley nodded sagely, her fingers finding their own familiar way even as her eyes gazed at the fire. “I remember such a November as this.” The voice, coarsened with age, grew soft. “Seven years of age I was, perhaps eight. Ice formed almost the whole way across the bay, it did, and wolves came down from the hills almost every night, snarling and howling about the lanes like it was their village and not ours.”
The children looked up from their play. Another old woman, a grandmother who was watching the children, joined them in listening, nodding to Widow Riley's words. “You were seven. Three years younger than me. I remember it too.”
Fingers gradually grew still about the edges of the quilt. Widow Riley did not notice, for her own failing eyes had returned to the needle. “Saw my first Indian that winter. Three days after Christmas, it was, I remember it as though it was yesterday and not nigh on seventy years ago.” The crackling of the fire was all that filled the pause.
“The week before Christmas it had snowed every day, a snow so thick a body could get lost within reaching distance of his own front door,” the story resumed in the quavery voice. “The fort had just been built that very summer. My pappy, he was one of the first English settlers to till this land, he didn't hold to having soldiers so close at hand. Not until that winter. The young lads were kept busy shoveling and clearing the trails from house to house, farm to fort, hitching chains and drag-poles to horses and walking them back and forth, day in and day out. Carving valleys through drifts so high they looked like mountains to my young eyes. Walking from my door to church for the Christmas service was like hiking through white canyons taller than my pappy.”
When she stopped to rethread her needle with trembling fingers, a young voice finally piped up, “What about the Injun, Miz Riley?”
She turned and squinted at the watchful faces. “What's that, young'un?”
“The Injuns.” This time a half dozen voices joined the first. “You saw 'im,” and “What happened?”
“See 'im I did. See and touch both.”
Catherine waited with the others as the widow counted her stitches, her fingers moving at a snail's pace. And she had the sudden impression that Widow Riley had known all along what effect her story would have.
“Three days after Christmas, I woke to the first clear dawn in what seemed like years. I was the first out of bed those days. Moved a sight more sprightly than I do now, and I took pride in being the one to light the fire and warm the cabin. I had to use the tinderbox that morning, for the ashes were stone coldâsee the things I remember? I chipped and chipped and finally drew a light, and I blew on the tinder until I was near red in the face. By the time I got that fire drawing strong, I was all in a lather. So I took the bucket from the kitchen and went out to gather snow, since the well and the creek had both been froze for nigh on three months. Well, I'm here to tell you, I threw back the door and walked straight into the biggest, foulest-smelling man I'd ever seen in all my born days.”
When she stopped yet again, a tiny voice piped, “Did he eat you?”
“No, child, I still got all my fingers and toesâthe Injun didn't eat me. Though he could have, for I fell back straight onto the ice and just sat there, too astonished and scared to even draw a good breath. And he didn't move neither. A stiller person I've never seen, not one who ain't been laid out for the final wake. Tall and dark and strong. And hungry. I remember that clear as the day itself, how his cheeks were sunk in so far they looked like caves a squirrel could've used for his winter sleep.
“But I couldn't lie there forever. I finally got my wits about me enough to realize I was looking a real-life Indian square in the face. I leapt to my feet and hollered like a stuck pig, then raced back inside. Straight back to the bed I shared with my sisters, and I leapt in there and burrowed deep as I could go, screaming all the while.”
A child cried, “What did he want, Miz Riley?”
“Food, child. He was starving. Whole Micmac village was down to almost nothing. Which was passing strange, for there ain't much better a body for seeing the winter through comfortable than a Micmac Indian. But the summer before they had not had much in the way of game. We didn't have much food either, since the summer's crop had been bad, but we gave 'em what we could.” The widow sewed on for a time, then said, “For three years after that we didn't have a single attack on our market wagons. Not a single solitary one. Only good thing that came out of that winter, far as I can recall.”
“Hmph,” the grandmother by the fire snorted. “I wouldn't have given them nary a thing. Thieving Injuns, the lot of them.”
There were a few nods from about the quilt but most frowned at the words. Mrs. Patrick gave her head a single shake, nothing more. Widow Riley kept on with her sewing, commenting only, “Maybe things were different back in those days. The times, they surely do change.”
Catherine completed stitching in her square. She rose to her feet and brushed the threads from her skirt. “I must be getting back. I have some supper preparations to make in case Andrew does return tonight, so I bid you all a good afternoon.”
Smiles and murmurs followed her to the door, and Mrs. Patrick rewarded her with the words, “You are making into a good wife, Catherine Harrow. Andrew should count himself among the fortunate.”
The compliment kept her warm throughout the walk along meandering snowbound lanes. The sky had cleared and the wind died, but now the temperature was dropping sharply. Though the sun was an hour and more from slipping behind the western hills, already the air bit sharp and hard on her face.
These few afternoons each week spent with the village women meant much to Catherine, especially when Andrew was away. As she hurried down the lane toward home, the new-laden snow rose like delicate white dust behind her. Catherine found herself recalling something she had not thought of in years. Back when she had been a very little child, a woman of the village had been banished from the church for a winter. She had never been told the reason for it. But now, when she was struggling with the new experience of running a home and living with a man, she truly understood the need for the company of other women. Though the unfortunate woman's name had long passed from memory, still Catherine felt a pang of sympathy and sorrow for what must have been an excruciatingly lonely winter.
In the months since her marriage, she felt as though her whole life had undergone transformation. Not just her home, but her body and mind and heart were all being changed to fit around the presence of this man. She recalled from Scripture the passage about two becoming one, and felt the wonder of this anew. Catherine glanced at the surrounding white hills and sent a swift little prayer lofting upward.
Bring my husband home safely
.
She was doing more and more of that these days, little words of entreaty or thanks. In the past, her prayers had remained locked into the same traditions as the rest of her worship, dictated by the church and formed around the attitudes of her staid and rigid father. But for three months now she had been studying the Bible every evening, joined by Andrew whenever he was not away on sorties and duty. Though much of what she read she did not understand, still there was a sense of slipping free of thought patterns and negative perspectives she had scarcely recognized before. God was still very much a mystery, but His presence seemed closer. Close enough to speak with whenever worries or joys, fears or love, emotions of all kind filled her heart to overflowing and she needed someone in whom she could confide.
She quickly went into the house and lit the candle she kept burning in the window whenever Andrew went away. Part of her said it was an expensive folly, what with the cost of tallow. But day or night, whenever he came home, she wanted him to see the glimmer of the light that was burning for him and him alone.
She completed her chores as quickly as possible, then glanced out the window. The day's final light turned the shutters into sheets of solid gold. She peered through windows already frosted with the cold of coming night but saw nothing except the sunset's gleam. Catherine walked to the chair by the fire and tried not to look at the empty seat across from her. She picked up the Bible from its place on the small table. Though her mind could scarcely take in the words, she found her mind and heart returning to peace as she read. She watched the flames dance in the fireplace for a time, knowing she should rise and eat her own lonely supper, but not yet willing to accept that Andrew would spend yet another night in the hills away from her.
She placed the Bible back on the table and reached beneath its covering to the lower shelf, drawing out another book. She felt a quickening of her breath as she opened the pages. Even as she worried over her husband sleeping out in such cold, she could not help but feel a little thrill.
Yet there was another sensation as she began to whisper the longforgotten words and phrases aloud, a slight chill which flickered across her heart. Catherine stopped her repetitions and nodded once to the flames. She did not want to have any secrets from her husband. Somehow, someway, she was going to have to tell Andrew.
Her gaze came back to the window and saw that the daylight was nearly gone. Once more her heart spoke the silent prayer.
Bring my husband home
.
