The Vanishing Point (34 page)

Outside, Ruby barked, and was answered by a chorus of baying dogs. Gabriel was back. Snatching the damp handkerchief, she stuffed it through the opening in her skirt and into the pocket bag that hung from her waist. She turned stiffly as the door banged open and he stumbled in, water streaming off his deerskin hat and coat. Mud dripped off his sodden boots. His breeches, too, were soaked.

"Crossing the creek, I stumbled," he muttered. "The traps do weigh me down." He could hardly speak for his shivering. When he shrugged off the traps, they hit the floor with a clatter that made Daniel wail.

"Hush, don't cry." Hannah scooped him off the floor. "That is your father."

Gabriel pulled off his hat, spraying water across Hannah's face. With his damp hair plastered to his skull, he looked like a stranger come out of the woods.

"Get those wet things off." She kept her voice brisk and practical. "Hang them near the fire."

Soon he was stripped naked, shaking and chilled. Setting Daniel down, she took a cloth and rubbed Gabriel dry, working as dispassionately as she used to with her father's patients. She took one of the deerskins from the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders, then sat him down and gave him a pan of warm water in which to soak his feet.

"You are good to me, Hannah." He lifted his hand to touch her face.

"When the beans are soft, we can eat the soup." She made her voice sound gentle. She loved him, she believed him. She had told Banham she was wedded to Gabriel in her heart. The ring was back on her finger. "I will fry you some griddle cakes."

Daniel was still crying.

"Give him to me," Gabriel said.

"You are too chilled to hold him." Hannah picked up the baby, bounced him on her hip, and set him down again. Then she went into the pantry. They had nearly reached the bottom of the salt pork barrel, and she reckoned only a week's supply of corn-meal remained. How could this be? The previous year, the corn-meal had lasted until the first runner beans were ripe and the river was leaping with fish. But this winter had been long, the spring late, and nursing the baby gave her such an appetite. She was eating more than she ever had, and yet she kept getting thinner.

She heard Gabriel's footsteps across the floorboards, the clank of metal hitting metal. The baby cried again. Rushing out of the pantry, she saw Gabriel, still naked, picking the traps off the floor. "I cannot leave these here," he said. "The child might get at them." His face was white with cold and his teeth were chattering.

"Gabriel, you do not look well." She took his arm and led him to bed. "Rest here a while." She tucked him under the blankets and skins. "I will hang up the traps."

"On the pegs." He pointed.

The traps were heavy, massive, the metal slippery in her hands. Their jaws were shut now and couldn't snap her fingers. The rusted teeth had grown dull over the winter, but Gabriel would hone them again. He would oil and polish them, sharpen each metal point. A dull trap was far crueler than a primed one, though slow death from a broken bleeding limb was agonizing in any case. She couldn't help thinking of May's smooth white leg, her grave by the river.

***

That night, having recovered from his chill, Gabriel embraced her in bed. He kissed her the way he used to when they first fell in love. "We can still be tender, Hannah."

She kissed him back so he wouldn't think anything was amiss. When he pushed her thighs apart and stroked her, she wanted to tell him to stop. It was no use. Since having Daniel, her body below the waist had become a lifeless thing, her old hunger gone.

"Hannah, what is it? Don't you want me anymore?"

Numbly she kissed him. If she pretended to feel something, it would comfort him. While he kept stroking her insistently, she closed her eyes and imagined Richard Banham. His face and his fair hair. The way he had looked at her when he said,
I did hear you singing.
The hurt in his eyes when he said,
Do you think it a game?
She sat behind him on the mare, wrapped her arms around his chest as the mare moved beneath her, taking them through the forest. If such thoughts were traitorous, at least no harm could come of them. Richard Banham was so far beyond her reach, she might as well be dreaming about the King.

The old hunger awakened, her body unfolding, opening up. Waves moved through her, mounting until they crashed. Eyes still closed, she blindly kissed Gabriel, reached out to stroke him, and whispered his name.

***

The next morning as the rain drummed down, Gabriel sat by the fire and sharpened his traps with the same whetstone he used for his hunting knife. He worked with patience, humming under his
breath. He did not seem the least bit concerned about dwindling cornmeal.

Meanwhile Hannah washed the dirty clothes in rainwater. "What will happen when the rent collectors come?"

Gabriel nodded toward the rain-blurred window and laughed. "Let them try coming upriver in this weather."

Hannah thought of the path young Richard had taken through the forest. Soon the way would become treacherous. His mare would sink up to her knees in the mud.

"We cannot stay here forever," she said, scrubbing mud out of Gabriel's breeches. "One day they will come and drive us off the land."

Gabriel did not miss a single stroke of stone against metal. "The land stretches on forever. They might drive us from this house, but I could build another one. We will just wander out of their reach. Remember, Hannah, we are not like other people. We are not beholden to anyone."

***

The cornmeal ran out, but Gabriel told her they would never be hungry. He went into the forest and returned with a plump rabbit. When he slit its belly, there were six little rabbits inside.

Rain kept falling. Each evening at twilight, Hannah crushed snails in the garden before they could destroy the seedlings. While waiting for the garden to grow, they supped on eggs, goat's milk, and new dandelion leaves. Gabriel slaughtered a kid goat. Hannah thought of the jar of honey hidden inside her trunk.

She hoed eggshells and chicken manure into the garden, hacked up the bloody kid bones with Gabriel's ax and mixed them into the soil, too. The earth demanded blood. When the apple and cherry trees blossomed and the first strawberries ripened, she told herself they were over the worst. But the rain also brought a terrible crop of mosquitoes, far worse than anything she remembered from the previous year. Even in the house, with the door and windows closed, there was no escape. They came down the chimney and through the chinks in the walls. Their bites covered
poor Daniel's skin and left him howling. She had to coat him in bear grease. At night Daniel screamed with teething pains. She fed him goat's milk, chicken broth, and mashed strawberries. It was time he was weaned; the erratic diet had dried up her milk. As long as he ate and kept growing, she could hope. She prayed over him as he learned to crawl. By the time the cherries were ripe, he seemed more like a little boy than a baby. Summer dragged on, bringing more mosquitoes. They whined in Hannah's ears each night, even plagued Gabriel, who had seemed impervious to them before.

When she looked back to the previous summer, Hannah began to believe that it was only the buoyancy of their new love that had raised them above the hardship. As the garden grew, she picked caterpillars off the young cabbages. She and Gabriel fought the insects over every ear of maize, praying they would have enough to see them through the winter.

***

One sweltering afternoon, when she was pulling tassels off the maize, the dogs began barking wildly. She swung around to see Richard Banham and his horse at the garden gate. The sun shone on his golden hair and dazzling white shirt as he stroked Ruby. In his withy enclosure, Daniel squealed at their visitor.

"Good day to you, Mistress Powers. I see your son has flourished since I saw him last." He extended his hand to Daniel, who seized his thumb and grinned.

Tingling with gratitude, Hannah came to the gate. His voice was sincere; if he said her boy looked healthy, then it must be so.

He rested his hand on the gate, a few inches from hers. "I did come again, as promised."

"Sir, you are kind." Basking in her visitor's company, she smiled, then lowered her eyes. "Truly."

"How does your garden grow?"

She waved her hand toward the maize. "Every day I pluck off the caterpillars and weevils. A daily battle, it is. I do not know how people get on when they have acres of tobacco besides."

Banham was about to say something when the dogs started up again. Hannah took a step back from the gate when she saw Gabriel coming. He had been chopping wood and carried the ax in one hand.

"What brings you here?" Gabriel slapped the blunt end of the ax against his palm. "Did your father send you?"

Banham bowed. "Good day to you, Master Washbrook. I come with a gift for your household."

"We need no gifts from you."

"Gabriel." Hannah's throat was dry and tight.

Eyes locked on Banham, he ignored her.

Richard Banham's eyes moved warily over the ax. "This gift, I fear, might be indispensable in the next weeks." He cast a quick glance at Hannah before looking back at Gabriel. "I bring no trifles this time, but a pound of cinchona bark in case your supply runs low."

"What do you mean
this time?
" Gabriel's eyes were on Hannah now. "Do you mean to say you have come on previous errands bearing trifles?"

"Only the honey, Mr. Washbrook. I had assumed Mistress Powers told you."

"
Honey.
" His voice was incredulous. "What do you say to this, Hannah? Did he come with a gift of honey for you?"

"Mr. Washbrook, I rode out in early April, only to ask after her welfare." Banham spoke with quiet diplomacy, like his father. "It was meant in the spirit of being neighborly."

Even with her eyes closed, Hannah could feel Gabriel's stare. "You concealed both the gift and the visit from me?" he asked her.

Somewhere in the farthest reaches of her mind, she saw her sister spinning. May did not see her, did not look at her anymore. May had washed her hands of her.

"Mr. Washbrook, I hardly think this is cause for you to berate the woman."

Hannah cringed and stumbled away. So that was how Richard Banham thought of her—simply as Gabriel Washbrook's woman.

"
Mister
Banham." Gabriel mocked his civil tone. "I think it is time for you to leave."

Something inside her snapped. "Listen to yourself!" The anger surging through her gave her the courage to look Gabriel in the eye. "Why must you make everyone your enemy?"

The muscles in his face twitched.

"Will you make me your enemy as well?" she demanded. Marching out the garden gate, she climbed over the wall of Daniel's enclosure, picked him up, and went to Banham. "Sir, on my son's behalf, I accept your gift."

Richard Banham looked from her to Gabriel. His eyelashes, she noted, were sandy and thick. He went to his saddle bag and pulled out a cloth sack, which he handed to her.

"I thank you," she said. "God willing, we may one day be in a position to repay your kindness."

"
Hannah!
"

She had never imagined he could raise his voice to her like that, but she stood unflinching, her eyes not moving from Banham's face.

"Madam, do not speak of repayment. A gift is just that, a gift, freely given in the spirit of being a good neighbor."

"God willing, we will be better neighbors to you." She kept her voice strong. "Please give my regards to your family."

He bowed. "I will, Mistress Powers." Then he bobbed his head stiffly in Gabriel's direction. "Good day to you, Mr. Washbrook."

Her feet were rooted to the ground while she watched him mount his mare, one slender leg rising over her back. She watched him ride off. The mare's long tail fluttered gracefully.

"I scarcely think I know you anymore." Gabriel's breath touched the back of her neck.

She shivered but did not turn. "Nor I you." Holding Daniel on her hip with one arm, the cinchona bark in the other, she headed toward the house.

Gabriel came behind her and grabbed her arm. He took Daniel and set him down on the grass. She held on to the sack of cinchona bark with her free arm, clutching it like a shield.

"Why did you not tell me of his visit?"

"Because you hate him and all his family, but he was only being kind."

"Kind!" His mouth twisted. "He visits you in secret." Gabriel's fingers sank into her arm. "I saw the way you looked at him."

Hannah gritted her teeth. "Let go of me."

"I am losing you," he said in disbelief, "to that whoremonger's son."

She avoided his eyes.

"I never thought you could turn on me like that." Pain shot through his voice. "You are besotted with him. Deny it."

"My mind is my own. Don't you dare upbraid me like that. I am not your wife. I never vowed to obey you."

"You do begin to take after your sister."

She hugged the sack of cinchona bark to her chest. "What are you saying, Gabriel?"

"You heard me."

"You mean to say that if ... if I cross you, I will meet the same end?"

He reeled backward.

"In a grave by the river?" She raised her voice to a shriek that made Daniel whimper. If she was being cruel, it was to punish him for the way he had chastised her in front of Banham, her one and only well-wisher.

"There it is!" His voice broke. "You would never believe, even when I swore an oath on the Bible. No words of mine will ever be good enough to convince you. Why do you not just call me a murderer to my face instead of meeting that yellow-haired fop behind my back?"

The dogs gathered around them and howled. Ruby nuzzled Daniel and licked his face.

"If you believe I killed her, you can go.
Now.
" He pointed to
the woods into which Banham had vanished. "Take the child and run after him. Mayhap he will hear your cries and come back for you."

Wrenching her arm free, Hannah let the sack of cinchona fall and picked up the crying child. She buried her face in the crook of his neck. "Hush-a-bye."