Darkthaw (7 page)

Isi says, “I'll go.”

“Not by yourself,” Kane says.

“We'll go with him,” Matisa says, looking at Nishwa.

“What if they aren't First Peoples?” I ask.

We shift, looking around at one another. I can see what's weighing on everyone's minds: If these are newcomers, are they the rogue types Henderson was speaking on? The thought makes my skin prickle, but there's something else starting in my belly: excitement.

“Better in a group,” Kane says.

“Oui,”
Andre says. “We go together,
mais les femmes restent ici avec les enfants
. And one man stay with the women.”

Matisa shakes her head. She doesn't look angry, just like she has no inclination to stay back. “I go with my family.”

“I'm going, too,” I say, feeling bold.

“Em can ride my horse,” Matisa says, “in case we need to get back here fast.”

I look at my foot. It doesn't hurt me so long as I'm on
that tincture, but I'm still not as quick as the others. I look at Andre, expectant.

He sighs.
“Bien.”

“I'll stay with my boys,” Sister Violet says. “Kane?”

He looks torn. Andre pulls one of his rifles from its strap on his back and hands it to Kane.
“Reste-ici.”
He removes the other gun and fastens it to a strap on his
ceinture
, close to his right hand. “We signal to Kane when it is good.”

We start down the slope toward the camp. There's a fluttering in my chest. Seeing someone living outside the settlement like this feels like the day I found a young sparrow with a broken wing on the riverbank. I could cradle it in my hand, look at it up close—this wild thing I only ever saw from afar, winging along the river.

We get to the bottom of the slope. The dwellings are shabbier this close. They're hasty-put-together shacks, logs and spruce bows and bits of bison skin all stuck together like a mended cloak. There's an untended fire smoldering in the center. The camp itself is well protected, I suppose, in this gully, but they aren't exactly hidden here.

Course, they might not need to keep hidden. My heart speeds as we approach. We're a stone's throw away now, and Isi holds up a hand for us to stop. He turns to us to speak.

A child appears from behind one of the shacks.

He stops dead, his gaunt face a mask of fear. One eye is crusted over with a thick, yellow film, his hair is matted, and the bison-skin long shirt he wears is filthy, hanging off his thin form like old bark on a birch.

We all stare for a heartbeat, shocked by him appearing like that, shocked by the way he looks. He bolts. Each of us
has the good sense to keep our traps shut as he disappears beneath a flap door in the nearest shack.

A chill starts up my spine.

Blond. Pale. That child isn't First Peoples. He's familiar. He's—

The flap is pushed aside, and a figure stoops low out the door. He puts a hand on one knee as he straightens, like he doesn't quite have the strength. His clothes are tattered and stained, his collarbone and shoulders sharp points through his shirt, eyes too big in his sunken face.

He puts a hand to his brow to shield the morning sun, and his face breaks into a grin, showing dirty teeth. His eyes are hard, though, and the chill wraps around my heart.

“Morning, brothers and sisters,” he says.

That voice. I know that voice. I can hear it in my head, reminding me about my Stain, calling me out in front of my age-mates.

It's Charlie Jameson. We've found the outcast Jameson family.

CHARLIE STEPS FORWARD, OFFERING HIS HAND
to Andre. Andre doesn't move; his eyes skim the camp. Isi is behind us on horseback, a rifle on his back, but I know he can have it to his shoulder in a heartbeat.

Charlie stops. His eyes are bright blue, like his pa's. Piercing.

“Ětes vous ici seul?”
Frère Andre asks. “Only you? Here?”

“Nah,” Charlie says, “but my sister's too sickly to move around much. That winter—weren't she something?”

I stare at him. He barely looks like himself, excepting his eyes. His face has lost its boyish look, and there's a scraggly beard started around his chin.

He jerks his head toward me. “Hiya, Emmeline.”

The little boy appears again, crawling out through the tarp. He stands, wraps one arm around Charlie's leg, and hides his face behind Charlie. A pang cuts through me. He's so thin.

“My little brother, Josiah,” Charlie says, nodding at him.

“And your ma?” I ask, trying to remember how many were in Jameson's family when they were sent out from the settlement.

Charlie's face goes stony. He shakes his head.
“La Prise.”

The words hang in the air between us.

“How many of you are there?” Matisa asks.

Charlie turns toward her, and his eyes get a gleam, like he's just noticed her and Isi and Nishwa. He pulls his head to the side. “Well, if it ain't the Lost People,” he says. “The gift of God.”

All at once I'm nervous. I wish I were standing on the ground, not perched here on horseback, though what I could do for Matisa—for any of them—I don't rightly know.

Matisa stands her ground. She's not smiling, but her face is calm. Waiting. Isi's horse sidesteps, jittery, and Isi puts his hand on his neck to soothe him.

The way Charlie's looking at Matisa—like he's figuring something. Deciding something . . .

“How many?” I repeat Matisa's question.

“Three,” Charlie says. “We lost three: Ma, my ma's brother, Joseph, and my sister's life mate, Frederick Woods.”

When they were cast out from the settlement, his sister, Rebecca, was spared since she was already bound and living in the Woods's quarters. But Rebecca refused to leave her mother and insisted on going, too. Her life mate followed. Bad decision.

“No adults?” Frère Andre asks.

“I'm in charge,” Charlie answers, looking past us to Kane and the rest—small shapes on the crest of the hill. “Where you headed?”

“Just passing by,” I say.

Charlie's eyes narrow. “Passing by to where?”

He doesn't know about Matisa's people. Doesn't know about the colonies in the east.

“Why you ask this?” Frère Andre says it friendly-like, but there's a warning in his words. He shifts, his hands drifting to his
ceinture
near the sling that carries his gun.

Charlie shrugs. “No reason. Don't much matter, and we don't want no trouble.” He eyes the horses' saddle-packs. “You got any food to spare?” He smiles, but it looks like a grimace. “Found out I'm not so good with the bow.”

Silence. Frère Andre shifts his stance. I can see by the set of his jaw he's about to tell Charlie no, and I can see on Charlie's face he knows it, too. The air goes still, the desperation in this makeshift camp closing fast around us.

Movement at the tent breaks the spell. A bedraggled, bone-thin girl pushes her way through the flap and rights herself with effort. She stares at us and her right hand goes to her belly, protective-like. I can see by the unnatural bulge: she's pregnant.

Rebecca.

Her sunken eyes fill with tears. She takes a stumbling step forward, looking like she'll sink to her knees. “Thank the Almighty,” she says. “You've come.”

We sit around the Jamesons' fire, now stoked high with wood and crackling orange.

“I don't like this,” Isi mutters to Matisa as we portion out bits of dried mutton stew. Twelve servings: three more than we're truly prepared for.

Rebecca sits, chattering to Charlie, who pokes at the fire with a stick. The rest of us are sitting away from the Jamesons—as far as we can get without seeming obvious. Josiah edges close to Nico. Matisa says nothing as she hands Isi a bowl of stew and gestures for him to take it to the boy. He goes with a frown.

Rebecca appearing like that changed Frère Andre's mind about refusing Charlie. I saw it on his face the minute she stepped out of the tent. It was midday anyhow, time for us all to eat something. We decided we could invite them to share with us and then move on.

I watched Charlie's face careful as Kane and his ma and the boys came down the hill. Kane killed his pa, and it was no pretty death, neither. Brother Jameson drowned in his own blood, choking, lying on his back at the pulpit while the rest of the settlement fled.

Charlie's eyes dulled when he recognized Kane. Then he pulled his chin up and offered him a thin smile. He hasn't looked at him since, but Kane has barely taken his eyes off Charlie.

I look at Rebecca's haunted face and at Charlie's, wondering what they're thinking. They carry the burden of their pa's mistake; I know too well how that can wash out. Drove Brother Stockham mad. They can't be trusted; they were cast out to their deaths. Wasn't
our
decision—not truly—but who knows what ideas they're harboring.

Though, seeing how happy Rebecca is, and watching Josiah take the food from Isi . . .

Something twists in my heart.

“You all right?” Kane says. I turn my head to look at him,
feeling a mite dizzy. He frowns, puts a hand on my arm, and pulls me off toward the tattered shack, out of earshot of the others.

“Em?” He puts a hand under my chin and tilts my face up toward him. “You feeling sick?”

“No.”

“You don't look good.” He brushes a thumb across my cheek.

I look back at the group: one side of the circle hollow eyes and rags, the other staring at them like they're staring at death itself. Rebecca accepts her portion from Isi with a wide smile. Charlie catches my eye and gives a weak smile, like he's embarrassed. I noticed a limp in his gait when we gathered ourselves to share food. Don't know what caused it, and I don't want to know. Watching him limp feels like I'm sharing something with him I don't want to.

I think about the way he used to look at me—like I wasn't fit to clean sheep pens, like my Stain was somehow catching. No way they'll survive much longer out here, and Rebecca's unborn child is as good as dead. I watch Josiah wolf down the stew.

“Em?” Kane says again.

“Need to go for a think.” I back a step away from him, toward the trees.

His eyes are dark with concern, but he nods. He knows me well enough to know not to insist on coming along. “Stay close?” he asks.

“Got no choice,” I mutter.

Around the trunk of the first tree, I run straight into Andre, coming back from a tour of the woods.

“Where you go?” He frowns.

“Just . . . need to get away,” I say.

His frown deepens. “Not alone,” he states. He slings his shotgun, hooks his thumbs on his
ceinture
, and leans back. Waiting for me to turn around, return to the group.

All at once I want to scream with frustration. Too many people out here, having a say in everything. Too many eyes watching me. It's like the bleedin' settlement all over again. I wrap my arms around myself and take a breath. It hitches, and tears well behind my eyes.

His grizzled face softens.
“C'est difficil,”
he says. He shakes his head.
“L'enfant.”

Josiah . . . his starving little face. I brush away the tears that come.

He puts a hand on my shoulder.

I lean into his touch, breathe deep, and try to clear my head, but Brother Jameson's cold blue eyes swim in my vision. My pa would be out here if not for him. Anger surfaces in my chest, hot and deep.

“Jameson deserved his death,” I say, like I'm accusing Frère Andre of something.

He nods.
“C'
é
tait le désir de Dieu.”

Almighty willed it. Yes.

I want to cling to that notion when I think on Charlie. But all those years being Stained by my own grandma'am's Waywardness muddies it up in my head. Her supposed sin was
my
burden, for a long time. Until I washed it clean, until I proved it false.

Nobody's giving them the chance to wash their pa's stain clean. But . . . say we did?

“Frère Andre, Charlie and his family have survived out here so far . . .”

“Oui,”
he says. “They survive.” He raises his eyebrows. Waits.

I hug my arms around my body close. “But surviving and living are two different things.”

He studies me. “You have—
comment on dit?
—
culpabilité
.”

Guilt. I look away, off into the trees. “It's not that.” But I can feel that ice in my chest again. It's
not
that . . . is it? When they were cast out, how did I feel? Can't remember. Back then everything was so upside down. Back then my mind wasn't on Brother Jameson's family; it was on my Discovery. What it had brought upon us, what it had brought upon my pa. It was on Matisa showing up and the greater world that lay outside our gates. It was on surviving
La Prise
so we could see that world.