Fire Along the Sky (13 page)

“Good,” said Jennet. “I haven't been to see the beaver today.”

She had taken a huge interest in the dam that crossed the narrowest point of the marsh on the west end of the lake. It was the biggest beaver dam that Hannah knew of, and more than that, it was a rare collaboration between man and beast. The dam was wide enough for two people to walk abreast without disturbing the animals who lived inside and worked so hard to maintain it. Jennet called it a miracle of natural engineering and one that would have delighted her father.

She spent many evenings long past dusk sitting near the dam with Gabriel and Annie, who could identify each of the beavers and answered all of Jennet's questions.

Jennet had early sought out Runs-from-Bears, who told her the story of the Kahnyen'kehàka who lived on the lake before the whites came, and how they had made a pact: Brother Beaver would maintain the bridge across the marsh and his Mohawk brothers would do what they could to protect him from the wolf.

The men in the village had a different take on things, which they also shared with Jennet. The beaver dam was a bridge that cost them neither time nor money to maintain, and more than that: it gave them some level of protection against spring floods.

“To make hats out of such wondrous creatures.” Jennet always ended her visits with this muttered condemnation.

This Sunday evening as they crossed the beaver bridge the dusk was already on them and a light rain had begun to fall. The high keen smells—mud and rot and fish—made Hannah think of Elizabeth, who could not keep her nose from wrinkling even after so many years.

But Jennet did not mind the stink; she had grown up in circumstances far richer and grander than even Elizabeth's, but she had spent all of her girlhood running wild in the Lowland hills, and she was more likely to investigate the cause of a stink than to turn away from it.

Underfoot the dam was solid and thick with many new layers of dried mud patted into place. It made crossing the marsh quick and clean and still Hannah was bothered.

A hard winter was coming by all the signs, and the thought of it made her break out in gooseflesh where the cold rain had not.

To Jennet she said, “You will need furs to wear too, in the winter. We must talk to Many-Doves about your clothes.”

“But not beaver.” Jennet cast a last glance at a large form moving placidly through the deeper water on the lake side of the dam. And then, more thoughtfully: “Runs-from-Bears says the winter will be cold, with more snow than usual. As bad as the winter the twins were born. I remember you telling me about that when first you came to Carryck.”

“It was a very bad winter, yes. The river froze solid, which it seldom does.”

Jennet said, “I have so little experience of snow, real snow, I am almost looking forward to it.”

Hannah made a sound she hoped would be sufficient to end the conversation. But Jennet was not so easily discouraged.

“Gabriel says he'll teach me about snowshoes.”

In the tall grasses that framed the footpath rabbits were playing in the last of the light, and they scattered as the women passed by.

“You'll have little choice,” Hannah said. “Unless you spend the entire winter by the hearth.”

Jennet looked genuinely shocked at the idea. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because it's warm and safe,” Hannah said.

Her cousin let out a soft laugh. “Aye, and boring, forbye. Do you skate on the lake in winter?”

The question took Hannah by surprise. She felt herself flushing with it, all the way up her spine to the ends of her fingers.

“No,” she said, and heard her own voice cracking. “The ice is too rough and uncertain.”

“But if the winter is as bad as you say,” Jennet insisted. And then, more thoughtfully: “Maybe I could ask Mr. Hench to make me a pair of blades.”

They were silent for the rest of the walk to the Todds'. Hannah wondered at herself, that she could be wounded so easily and without any warning at all by something so simple as a discussion of the coming winter.

Tell her,
Strikes-the-Sky said behind her. For a single moment Hannah knew with absolute certainty that if she turned around she would find him there, looking down at her, his expression impatient.

Tell her and free yourself,
he said again.

Jennet was sniffing the air once more as they came closer to the Todds' place. “They've been making soap. Do you remember the Sunday we spent with my granny and old Gelleys the washerwoman?”

“It's been a long time since I've thought about that,” said Hannah. She cleared her throat and when she spoke her voice had transformed itself, taken on the comfortable creak of breathy old age. “‘Thirty year was I heid washerwoman, wi' three guid maids under me. Six days a week did we wash and press.'”

“I miss my granny.” Jennet's tone had softened and Hannah knew that she, too, was hearing a voice long gone.

“I remember many things from that afternoon,” Hannah said. “I remember the vicar coming to call. What ever became of him?”

Jennet's face lit up. “Och, did I never write to you about Willie Fisher? And such a lovely story it is too. He inherited some money from an uncle and he went to sea and became a pirate.”

Hannah stopped where she was and sent Jennet her severest expression, to which her cousin held up both hands.

“I swear on my good name, it's aye true. He bought a ship and named her
Salvation
and went off to the Spice Islands.”

“Jennet,” Hannah said with a smile. “How does that add up to piracy? It sounds to me as though he's gone off to be a missionary.”

The corner of Jennet's mouth twitched. “Aye, and are they not one and the same thing? Stealing souls from someone else's God to give to your own. Sometimes it seems to me that a war must soon break out in heaven itself, with such shameless poaching as goes on among the deities.”

Without realizing that she had intended to, Hannah hugged her cousin.

“And what did I do to deserve that?” Jennet asked, pleased.

“You made me laugh,” Hannah said. “It's a rare talent you've got, cousin.”

Jennet looked embarrassed, but pleased. “I hope I can be of more help to you than that,” she said. “Let's go see what work the doctor has for us.”

Richard said, “You'll need an assistant, but Ethan is gone to Johnstown and Curiosity to a birthing.” He sent Jennet a severe look from under a lowered brow, but the Earl of Carryck's youngest daughter had been fed a steady diet of such looks from men even more imposing than Richard Todd. She gave him a grin in return.

“Are you up to the job, Lady Jennet?”

Richard was the only person in Paradise who still called Jennet by her rightful title, and not out of respect but only to goad her. He was bedridden with nausea and in a great deal of pain today, but Hannah had the idea that he was enjoying himself.

Jennet said, “Och aye, dinna worry yer heid.”

To Richard Todd, Jennet always spoke Scots. The only reason for this, as far as Hannah could see, was to pay him back in aggravation. For his part Richard seemed determined to deny her that pleasure by steadfastly refusing to make any comment, no matter what language she used with him. And if she suddenly addressed him in Greek, Hannah thought, he would not raise a brow.

Now he just grunted, but his mouth jerked at the corner. Hannah bit back her own smile.

She said, “I could stop by the trading post and ask Anna to assist. Then Jennet could stay here and keep you company.”

For her troubles she got sharp looks from both of them: from Jennet because Richard Todd was one of the very few people in the village she would not spend time with unless compelled, and from Richard because he would resent being challenged until he was laid in his grave.

He grunted. “If I wanted company I would get a dog.”

“'Gin ye could find one wha'd hae ye,” said Jennet clearly, looking him directly in the eye.

He pointed with his chin to the door before he lost the battle completely and gave in to smiling. “You're dismissed, the two of you. God protect me from the Bonner women.”

“What exactly will I have to do?” Jennet asked as they made their way to the Grebers' cabin. She was carrying the lantern in one hand and her basket over the other.

“Hand me things when I ask for them,” Hannah said. “Stay calm. Distract the patient. Don't faint.”

At that Jennet looked truly insulted. “I've never fainted in my life, and weel you know it, Hannah Bonner.”

“I beg your pardon,” Hannah said. “I don't know what I was thinking.”

But Jennet was not so easily appeased. “What's a bit of blood, after all? Have I not seen many a bloody man dragged into the courtyard at Carryck?”

“Good,” Hannah said, being careful not to show her concern. “Because it's likely to be unpleasant.”

For the rest of the walk Hannah explained to Jennet exactly what she would have to do. A horse had stepped on Horace Greber's foot while he was in Johnstown. The infection had spread fast, and the surgeon there—a disreputable sort who barbered and let blood and did the odd surgery that came his way, all with the same scalpel—had taken the leg off above the knee to stop it. Then he had sent Horace home to Paradise in the back of a wagon driven by his frightened nine-year-old son while he raved with fever.

“His boy, the one with the strange name—”

“Hardwork,” Hannah had supplied.

“He came by to fetch me,” Richard had reported. “From his description it sounds like it's infection but no gangrene, not yet, at any rate. No doubt it'll need abrading, maybe cauterizing. Take a bottle of brandy with you. For a few swallows of good brandy Horace Greber will let you take off his other leg as well.”

In its construction the cabin was no different from any of the others in the village, but it was in such bad repair that it seemed at first that it must be deserted. Shutters hung lopsided or were altogether missing, and the porch was hidden behind a high wall of weeds and nettles. The hunting dogs tied to the rail gave them a sullen look, and then one of them lunged suddenly at a chicken that ventured too close, his jaws snapping. The chicken flew off with a startled squawk.

“Mr. Greber lives alone?” Jennet asked.

“With his son,” Hannah said. “His wife left him and went home to her family in Schenectady. She took the girls with her, most of them grown enough to go into service already.”

“Och,” said Jennet. “A scandal. It's just at times like these that I miss Lily the most. She would have told me all about it long ago. I must remember to ask Curiosity.”

“There's nothing much to tell,” said Hannah. “Mariah couldn't face another winter in the wilderness. He didn't want to go and she did and so she left. It happens all the time. It could happen to anyone, and usually does.”

Jennet was about to argue that point when the door opened and Hardwork Greber came out on the porch. The boy was tall for his age, and Jennet could count every one of his ribs in the light of the lump of tallow he carried on a piece of broken crockery. The dogs were better fed than the boy, but then the dogs were good trackers and could be sold for hard cash, whereas the boy was too young yet to bring in a real wage.

“Pa's been waiting,” the boy said, trying not to stare at Jennet, whose face floated like a heavenly apparition in the pure light of the lantern. “I'm afraid he's mighty drunk. We might have to tie him down and his language—” A short glance at Jennet and his color rose in a flash.

“You might want to wait out here, miss.”

Jennet flicked her fingers at him. “And what Scotswoman worth her salt is put off by a man in his cups? Just bring along the rope, lad, and let us get to work.”

Horace was lying on a bare mattress stiff with sweat and blood and other things that did not bear naming. He snored softly, his head tilted back to expose a neck thick with graying beard stubble, his mouth open wide. A slug of white-coated tongue flickered against fever-blistered lips with every snore. Jennet found it hard to look away from a sight so resolutely disgusting.

As was the whole cabin, heaped with refuse and filthy clothes and tools and traps and hides. In the dim light of a single tallow candle and the lantern Jennet could only make out some of it, and she was glad of the shadows. The stink could not be avoided, nor could she identify the worst of it. Human waste and sweat and spoiled food, mold and hides half-tanned, wood smoke and sour clothes, those things were all to be expected; but there was something more, something that set itself high in the nose and clung to the soft passages of the throat.

“You brought the leg home with you?” Hannah said quietly, looking around herself until her gaze settled on a package lying in the corner. It was wrapped in bloody paper and muslin and tied with string, and the whole was crawling with flies. Jennet swallowed very hard and looked away until she could compose her face.

“Pa wouldn't leave it behind,” Hardwork said in an apologetic tone. “If we put it outside to get rid of the stink the dogs will be after it.”

Horace had come awake at the sound of their voices.

“If things go bad, the boy knows to bury it with me,” he said. His voice was hoarse with fever. “Don't want to be stomping around heaven on a peg leg.”

“Hmmmm.” Hannah made a sound deep in her throat. “Let's see to the leg you've got left first.”

Jennet forced herself to watch as Hannah unwrapped the stump, which was, she would admit to no one but herself, far worse than she had imagined. Hannah used a scissors from her basket to cut away the filthy bandages, stiff with blood and pus.

“A surgeon did that?” Jennet asked the question though she meant not to.

Hannah snorted softly. “He calls himself a surgeon, yes. I would guess he learned his trade in a butcher shop.”

“He charged good money,” said the boy behind them. “Money we meant to spend on supplies.”

Horace's face contorted as Hannah tugged at the bandages, and to Jennet he looked like one of the faces in her father's illustrated
Paradise Lost,
peering up from the bowels of hell.