Fire Along the Sky (24 page)

Chapter 16

In the first of the new year the talk in the village revolved around two separate but equally interesting events. The first was the reading of Dr. Todd's last will and testament. The second, even more exciting to the imagination, was the coming of the circuit judge who would—as common wisdom decreed—listen to the evidence and then order Jemima to be strung up for the murder of Cookie Fiddler and Dolly Wilde.

Then Mr. Bennett, who had done them such good service over the years, did yet another by announcing straight off that only concerned parties would be invited to the reading of the doctor's will. Nathaniel was glad of it, first and foremost for Hannah's sake; she was unsteady still, sleepy and inward turned. She reminded him of a woman who has given birth for the first time: astounded that life should go on just as it always had, when everything of real importance had shifted so absolutely.

Nathaniel had lost children of his own, but there had been others nearby to share that burden. His mother, the first and second times, and then Elizabeth. Hannah had been alone in every way. He hated to think of it, not so much for the loss of the boy—a grandson he had never seen and could hardly imagine—but because he had gone about his business unthinking, unknowing, day by day, while his daughter had suffered.

But there she was, well fed and healthy in body if still wounded in heart and soul. There was work for her to do, work she thought she didn't want, but Nathaniel knew her better; it was the practice of medicine that would help her put the shadow lands behind her. Richard Todd had seen that, too, and acted on it, and Nathaniel knew that no matter what harm Todd had done in his life, he must forgive him everything for this last act of understanding and generosity and healing.

Unless, of course, there was something else in the will they weren't expecting. A tingling at the base of his neck gave Nathaniel the feeling that Richard Todd wasn't done with them yet. Leave it to the man to figure out how to make people dance to his tune from the grave itself.

On the way down the mountain Nathaniel said as much to his wife, who bit back a surprised smile and then clucked at him, as she did at a child who made much of a small scratch. Any other time she would have taken the chance to argue with him about this, but these days Elizabeth was short-spoken and distant, and the reason was no mystery: they hadn't had word from Daniel or Blue-Jay in a month.

That was no time at all, of course. A man living rough in the bush might not have a chance to put pen to paper for weeks or months, even if there was a way to send a letter once it got written. He had told Elizabeth as much at the very beginning; she had nodded and smiled and refused to consider the possibility that her son would be so far away, unreachable, unknowable. That he might die without her permission or knowledge or tears.

Right now there was nothing they could do for Daniel or Blue-Jay, but Hannah was here. The urge to stay clear of the reading of Richard Todd's will wasn't near as strong as the need to be close by if his daughter needed him.

The afternoon was already sliding toward dusk when they were finally settled in the doctor's parlor with the door closed. Bump was sitting near the windows and Nathaniel perched on a stool next to him, where he could keep track of Elizabeth and Hannah and still watch for anybody who might approach the house from the front.

“You expecting an ambush?” Bump said, pulling Nathaniel out of his thoughts. “Richard's good and gone, never fear.”

And he was right: some part of Nathaniel was having trouble believing that Richard was dead. It would be easy enough to convince himself. He could go out to the woodshed and look at the body in its fine carved coffin, brought all the way from Johnstown some months ago, another dying-man's fancy. The body would be frozen solid as deer hung in a tree, sunken in on itself with no more personality than any cut of meat. But Nathaniel would recognize Richard Todd by the bones in his face and by his hands, broad across the knuckles, splayed thumbs, the deeply scarred palm that Nathaniel was responsible for. That summer day in the endless forests when they had shed each other's blood. For Elizabeth, for land, for everything important in the world.

Nathaniel looked at his own hands where they rested on his knees and saw the years in them: a certain looseness in the skin, the knuckle joints a little swollen with the cold and work and time flowing by.

“It won't be long,” Bump said. As if it were the hour spent here that worried him rather than the weight of days he felt on his shoulders.

Mr. Bennett cleared his throat and began to speak in his quiet, steady voice as he explained the ways of the law and what the government had to say about death and land and money, once again sticking its nose in where it was neither needed nor wanted.

Ethan, it turned out to nobody's surprise, was Richard's executor, which meant that he had the say of how things were to be done after the lawyer packed his bags and went back to Johnstown. A sensible decision on Richard's part, as Ethan was as sober minded a young man as could be found anywhere, and unimpressed by money.

Because, Nathaniel reminded himself as he looked around the comfortable parlor with its brocade and silk and velvet, polished silver and brass, glass and crystal and oil paintings on the wall—some of them Richard's own work from long ago, in the years he had tried to make himself into somebody he could never be—Ethan Middleton had never been without money and would never know what it was like to be hungry.

And still Elizabeth had worried about the boy every day of his life. Last night, before she fell asleep she said, “It is not good for him to be so much alone with his books.” She shifted a little, embarrassed and rightly so, for as a young woman her family had said just the same thing of her.

Nathaniel was so wound up in his thoughts that he missed much of the first part of the will, but one phrase caught his attention, for in it he heard Richard's voice as clearly as if he had taken over the elderly lawyer's portly body to speak his mind one last time.

. . . my soul into the hands of the Almighty that he might do with it as He deems fit, and may He have mercy on an Unrepentant and Enthusiastic Sinner. Second, my ruin of a body sore abused I leave to Dr. Hannah Bonner, Physician, that it might prove some use to the science of anatomy and autopsy.

Curiosity shifted uneasily at this bit of godlessness but Hannah herself seemed unmoved, and maybe, Nathaniel thought, studying his daughter closely, a little amused. The next paragraph took the half-smile from her face.

. . . unto said physician, my student, Hannah Bonner, my medical tools, books, supplies, and research materials of all kinds, and with them I pass into her able hands my medical practice in the village of Paradise. Further to Hannah Bonner I bequeath my laboratory and the parcel of land on which it stands.

They knew about this already, from Richard's own mouth, and still Nathaniel's pulse ratcheted up a notch to hear it put out there for the world to know. It was good and right and generous and still some part of Nathaniel wished it undone. In death Todd had found a way to tie the girl to him, something that he had wanted since the day she was born.

The next part of the will was like listening to Elizabeth read from one of Swift's stories, odd ideas and pictures all woven together to present a new view of the world.

To Curiosity—a freed black woman—Todd had left the house and farm and enough money to maintain them and herself in thin years. It was a bequest that might not hold up in a court of law if challenged, but it would not be, not by anyone in this room. To Curiosity's surviving daughter and granddaughters he left all of Kitty's clothes and shoes and trinkets, and to Joshua Hench and his son, whatever chemicals and materials they wanted from the laboratory, along with an annual stipend of twenty dollars to purchase what they needed to make firecrackers. If the boy showed an interest, there was money for him to go study at the African Free School in New-York City. At this Curiosity sat up very straight and still; he had managed to surprise even her.

Mr. Bennett paused to clear his throat and shuffle, a little nervously, through the papers before him. The whole room sat forward a little, curious and unsettled, but most of all intrigued.

“‘To Elizabeth Middleton Bonner,'” he read, his voice hoarse now. “‘I hereby bequeath any books from my library that she might like to have, my mule Horace (for they are well suited to each other in temperament), and the sum of five hundred dollars with which to have a schoolhouse built, and further with it a parcel of land of her choosing so long as it is in the village proper. Also to Mrs. Bonner I bequeath an annual sum of one hundred dollars for the maintenance and running of the school and for monies to hire a teacher, for the day she decides she has had enough of teaching. These bequests I make in thanks for the kindnesses she showed my dear departed wife, and in everlasting gratitude for the fact that Mrs. Bonner once broke her promise to marry me.'”

There was a sniffling in the room and a muffled laugh, from Curiosity and then Elizabeth herself. Even Hannah was smiling, truly smiling, which Nathaniel supposed must be a good thing.

Richard Todd had left Elizabeth the one thing she really needed and wanted—freedom and means to do as she wished without depriving the village of a school—but in such terms that it would pain her to accept them.

Mr. Bennett was studying them over the edge of his papers, his clear brown eyes troubled.

“If you will bear with me,” he said. “Please let me read this next section before you make any comments—” He cleared his throat. “You will understand soon enough.”

“‘To my mother's brother, my beloved uncle Cornelius Bump,'” Mr. Bennett read, and then stopped to look around the room, as if he expected everyone to rise up in one voice after this strange announcement.

For it was strange, the strangest thing to be said so far today. Cornelius Bump was Richard Todd's uncle. Richard might have claimed to be the president or the king of England with less reaction, for Nathaniel had known Todd all of his life and Bump for almost as long, and the connection had never even occurred to him.

The shock rocked through the room even as the lawyer read on, steady as a plough in well-turned earth. The thoughts going through Nathaniel's mind were too varied and quick to be pinned down, but one part of him noted two things: Bump seemed completely unworried by this revelation, while Curiosity looked embarrassed. As well she should, Nathaniel thought. For keeping this to herself for so many years. He remembered just then that Falling-Day, who had been his mother-in-law, had given Curiosity a Kahnyen'kehàka name many years ago: She-Who-Keeps-Silent.

Mr. Bennett pushed on, reading out the rest of it. To Cornelius Bump, Richard had left a thousand acres of virgin timberland, for him to do with as he wished, another five thousand dollars for his own use, and finally a request: that he take the same amount of money with him and find Richard's brother, who had lived all his life among the Mohawk. If he was not able to find that brother or any of his family, he was free to do with the bequest as he saw fit.

The rest was done in short order, for it was simple enough: what remained of Richard's money and land—a fortune larger than anyone in the village had ever imagined—was now Ethan's.

Except, of course, that there was a condition.

Now, thought Nathaniel, settling forward and planting his elbows on his knees. Now we come to it.

The lawyer explained it straight-out: Richard had made his stepson a rich man, but only so long as he left Paradise to take up residence in any city of his choosing and did not return for two full years. He could have a month to ready himself for the journey, but not a day more.

The room was very quiet when Bennett finally put down the papers. He looked like a man who had put an unavoidable and disagreeable task behind him and now must wait for the repercussions. His blue eyes seemed very large behind the small round lenses of his spectacles, moving from face to face and assessing the things he found: surprise, disquiet, anger. The last from Elizabeth, who would chafe against this bit of mischief until she was rubbed raw with it.

Curiosity was the first to speak. “Now look at this,” she said, pushing out a low laugh. “The good doctor still tying everybody in knots just for the plain pleasure of it. Bless his surly old soul, I'ma miss him, but not as much as I'll miss you, child.”

All eyes turned to Ethan, whose expression was very calm, almost blank.

“You don't have to go, if you don't want to,” Elizabeth said, her voice clear and sharp. “Your mother left you enough that you can do as you please, Ethan. Mr. Bennett,” she said, turning to the lawyer. “What becomes of the bequest if Ethan doesn't comply with the terms?”

“By law?” The lawyer ran a hand over his bright pink pate and patted it gently. “It would go to the doctor's next of kin. His brother, if he is alive and can be found. His uncle, otherwise.”

It was then that Nathaniel realized that Bump was no longer next to him. He had slipped out of the room without a sound, and was not to be found anywhere in the house.

The news of what was in Richard's will would explode in the village like a volley of forty-pounders, but Nathaniel wanted no part of the talk and neither did Elizabeth, it seemed, for she left with him willingly enough and kept her thoughts to herself on the way home. Which meant that a different kind of battle was to come, one he couldn't avoid.

Not once did she add her own thoughts while Nathaniel told Many-Doves and Runs-from-Bears about Todd's will, another bad sign.

When supper was over she sent Gabriel over to the other cabin to spend the night and even then she said nothing. While she wiped dishes and put them up, measured out beans and put them to soak, rubbed bear grease into moccasins and trimmed candlewicks, looked through schoolbooks and marked pages for the next day's lessons, through all of that she was so uncharacteristically quiet that Nathaniel could hardly sit still.

Elizabeth in a fury was something he knew how to deal with; he could ride that storm until it wore itself out and she was ready to pull reason back around her shoulders like a warm blanket. Until then he would keep his opinions to himself.