Dawn on a Distant Shore (17 page)

"I've heard a few
stories," Elizabeth admitted.

He grunted, clamping
down anew on the stem of his pipe so that it bobbed up and down. "Sailin' this
part of the world I heard a few tales of the Mohawk," he said
thoughtfully. "Torturin' women, eatin' white babies, all that. But I expect
you know different, livin' together with them the way you do. Got that girl of
Nathaniel's, don' you. Likely maid, that one. Keen eyed, sharp."

Elizabeth observed him
closely but she could see nothing untoward in his expression. "I suppose
you mean to tell me I shouldn't believe the tales I've heard of American privateers?"

He shrugged, shifting
the coil of rope on his shoulder. "Wouldn't go that far, missus. There's some
vicious sorts runnin' the seas and not all of 'em fly the Jolly Roger open
like. I knowed a few who would as soon toss these young'uns overboard as look
at 'em--"

Elizabeth's arms
tightened around the twins, who squirmed in protest.

"--b I ain't one
o' them," he finished. "And I ne'er sailed with any such. Most is
just merchants, missus. Interested in the profit, is all. What ain't profitable
goes over the side, you see."

"I'll remember
that," Elizabeth said, her voice cracking a bit as she tried to smile.

"Button Bay, we
calls her," said Tim Card, his eyes moving over the shore. He touched his
cap as he turned away.

If good fortune had
been with them, they might have left the
Washington
at Fort Chambly and
reached Montréal by sleigh in less than a day's time on the ice road. But all
Elizabeth's prayers for a late freeze went unheard: they managed to portage
around the Richelieu rapids to find a world made of mud and water. On the marshes
the ice was porous and would no longer support the weight of a sleigh of any
size. This left the summer route, difficult even in the driest weather but
impossible in the spring thaw. Captain Mudge summarized the problem with his usual
directness.

"Enough mud for a
world of pigs," he said. There was a long and involved story that
Elizabeth only half heard, of an ox mired to the shoulders and left to bellow
itself to death after a day of fruitless efforts to shift it. The story seemed
to distract Hannah, which was a useful thing.

There was no help for
it: they must take the longer route, which meant more portages, a transfer to
whaleboats that would take them over whitewater to Sorel, and finally the
seeking out of another schooner to take them on the last leg from Sorel upriver
to Montréal. It had sounded to Elizabeth like a dirge as the captain intoned each
step of the journey. To hide her frustration took all of her self-control; for
the first time she found herself consciously wishing that she could have left all
three of the children safely in Paradise. Without them she would have taken on
the more direct route to Montréal, mud and all.

It was Curiosity and
Runs-from-Bears who put their heads together and came up with a plan that seemed
ideal on its surface, and then occasioned the first disagreement Elizabeth had
had with Will Spencer since they were children. To the suggestion that Will travel
ahead on the shorter route, he responded first with a thoughtful silence and
then with the acknowledgment that he did not like to leave Elizabeth alone for
the rest of the journey.

"But I am not
alone," she said to him, quite confused at his hesitation. They were on
the quarterdeck, wrapped in cloaks and shawls against an unpleasantly cold but
not quite freezing drizzle. They had left the fine weather behind them on the
great lake; ahead of them Fort Chambly's great hulk shone in the dense fog like
a castle in a fairy tale.

"Mrs. Freeman is
an excellent traveling companion," Will agreed. "Her good common
sense has served us well already. But to travel without sufficient male
protection is something I cannot countenance, cousin."

Elizabeth bit back a
laugh. "Runs-from-Bears is more than sufficient protection," she
pointed out. "He guided you and my aunt from Albany to Paradise last fall,
and me through the endless forests in much more difficult circumstances. And
for that matter, I have traveled the wilderness here alone for days at a time.
Under the circumstances, cousin, your concern is a luxury that I cannot afford.
My first thought is for Nathaniel and his father. I hope you will make them your
first concern, as well."

His pale, good-natured
face shone with the rain, or perhaps with perspiration; she could see how
uneasy it made him to think of leaving her to travel ahead. But for all his
quiet ways, Will was no coward. He met her eye directly.

"If you are
certain, Elizabeth. I will trust your judgment."

Now she did smile.
"I am certain. You serve me best by leaving me now." She glanced around
them, and certain that they were unobserved, Elizabeth pressed a small but very
heavy sack into his hand. "You may well have need of this."

He tested the weight
with a surprised expression, but before he could ask any of the logical and
reasonable questions that must immediately come to him, she grasped his sleeve.
And in a whispered rush: "Please don't ask, not right now. Sometime I will
tell you the whole story, but for the moment I must ask you to think of this
gold as your own, and having nothing to do with me or with Nathaniel. You can
use it, Will, but I cannot, not without occasioning questions that will bring
us into greater difficulties. Spend it all, if it will help in Nathaniel's
cause."

One pale brow rose in
a surprised arch. "It seems you have been up to some high adventure, Lizzy.
I will want that story in every detail once we are reunited in Montréal."

"You shall have
it," Elizabeth said, full of gratitude and relief.

And still Elizabeth
found it very hard to watch her cousin set off from the fort in the company of
a guide Runs-from-Bears had found for him. She must content herself with the
idea that he might be in Montréal in two days' time. Perhaps Nathaniel and the
others would be free when she finally arrived with the children. If Will Spencer
could manage that feat, Elizabeth would tell him anything he wanted to know,
although she feared he would not take the story well. He might be her trusted
friend, but he was also an Englishman of a certain class.

Hannah's warm hand on
her arm brought her out of her thoughts.

"Your cousin is
not much like other Englishmen," she said, offering her highest
compliment. She spoke Kahnyen'kehâka, as they usually did when they were alone.

Elizabeth laughed.
"I was just thinking the very opposite. What strikes you as less than English
about Will?"

Hannah's expression
was earnest. "There is no greed in him," she said finally. "He
makes no fist."

Struck silent by the truth of this, Elizabeth turned
again to catch some sight of her cousin, but he had disappeared into fog.

The butcher was snoring again in deep, wet
roars that hauled Nathaniel out of an uneasy doze. There was a scuffle and a
dull thud as the young pig farmer's clog connected with flesh. Denier's snoring
hitched and trailed away with a mutter.

Nathaniel's stomach
gave a loud rumble, and he rolled onto one hip on the wooden cot that he shared
with his father, the sparse layer of straw crackling. Hunger focused the mind,
he reminded himself. And on a Tuesday morning near dawn, with Thompson alone on
guard duty, there was good reason to be focused. They were all awake, and
waiting. All except Denier, whose snoring was rising again like a tide.

One by one the men got
up to use the overflowing bucket in the corner: Moncrieff shuffling and yawning,
Robbie with a groan, Hawkeye tense and silent. Pépin's hobnailed clogs struck blue
sparks on the cobblestones. Nathaniel took his turn last, closing his mind to
the stench.

The door swung open
with a scrape, bringing a wave of fresher air and the tang of burning tallow.
Thompson filled the narrow frame, candlelight outlining a huge jaw. Slack-jawed,
yellow of complexion, he sought out Hawkeye's gaze.

"Fifteen
minutes," he mouthed. He stuck the candle on the shelf next to the door
and turned away as if the women waiting behind him were invisible, which
Nathaniel supposed was true. A coin of large enough denomination could make a
man like Thompson blind to almost anything. Luckily Nathaniel had left most of
his silver with Iona, who knew how to put it to good use.

The women slipped in
quietly, their arms straining at the weight of the split-oak baskets. Pépin's
mother, her face hidden by a deep hood, and the serving woman from the inn.
Nathaniel saw Adele's eyes flitting through the dark cell to fix on Moncrieff
and flit away again.

Pépin embraced his
mother, and she pulled his head down into the curve of her cloak where she
could talk to him, a hushed whisper in a country French that only Denier would
have understood, had he been awake. Adele busied herself with unpacking the
food onto the old board that served as a table. There were meat pies, bacon, sausage,
cheese wrapped in brine-soaked cloth, two massive loaves of dark bread and a smaller
corn cake still warm from the oven, a crock of beans, and a small keg of ale.
To men living on gruel and dry bread, it looked a feast, but it would be a week
at least before there would be any more. If other plans did not come to
fruition first.

Adele had come to the
bottom of the baskets: a bit of soap, some tobacco, and a half-dozen fat tallow
candles. She straightened and caught Nathaniel's eye.

"The king of
spades," she whispered, and pushed a small packet toward him. Without a
backward glance she disappeared toward the shadowy corner where Moncrieff
waited for her.

Nathaniel unwound the
packet from its paper casing quickly, Robbie and Hawkeye leaning in close to
watch. A deck of cards. The round, bland face of the king of spades was circled
with neat, careful handwriting. The dark ink seemed to shiver and jump in the
guttering candlelight.

Robbie squinted hard.
"Iona's hand," he whispered. There was enough sunlight from the
small, high window now to see him clearly. He was filthy, tangle-haired, his
lower face lost in a snarl of beard.

Nathaniel's heart gave
a leap. If Iona would risk sending such a note things must be coming to a head.

Hawkeye made a sound
in his throat and Nathaniel tucked the card into his shirt just as Thompson
appeared at the door again, chewing on bread so that the crumbs fell in a wet
shower over his jacket. He jerked his head over his shoulder. With last
murmured words, the women pulled down their hoods and slipped out as quietly as
they had come. The guard thumped out after them, his key rasping as it turned
in the lock.

Denier woke and came
sniffing around the pile of food. The knife cut on his cheek had finally closed,
but it still wept an angry yellow-red. His appetite was intact; he retired to
his cot with a meat pie and his share of the sausage.

They ate silently,
concentrating at first on the meat and on slick white cheese they washed down
with Adele's ale in a tin cup that circled once and then again. Nathaniel
wished, as he did every day, for water. For all of his life he had begun every
day spent at home by diving into the cold pool under the falls at Lake in the Clouds;
now he daydreamed of drinking until he had his fill, and more.

"Well?"
Moncrieff's voice was thick. He had been sick with a fever for almost a week, and
he was still prone to coughing fits.

They waited another
five minutes until they could hear Thompson talking out in the courtyard above
the normal noise of the garrison. Nathaniel read Iona's note in the light from the
little window, and then he pressed his forehead against the cold, damp stone
for a moment. When he came back to them, he could see the cautious hope on his
father's face.

"Tonight,"
he said, his voice cracking with the effort and with relief. "When the
seminary clock strikes ten. There'll be a diversion in the barracks and we should
be ready to run." The little he knew of the plan worked out between
Pépin's brothers and Iona didn't take long to relate.

There was a tense
silence when Nathaniel finished, each of them alone with their own thoughts. Denier
had stopped eating, and was tugging at one huge ear in a thoughtful way. He
muttered a question in Pépin's direction and got a brief word in reply. The
escape plans seemed to have brought about an uneasy truce between them, but
Nathaniel intended to keep a sharp eye on the butcher.

"Any sign of
Runs-from-Bears?" asked Robbie, putting voice to the question that kept Nathaniel
awake night after night. They could not even know for sure if Otter had made it
out of Montréal.

"Not yet,"
said Nathaniel, passing the card to his father.

Hawkeye took the king
of spades and held it to the guttering candle flame until it was nothing but ash.
Then he reached for the corn bread. "Eat up, boys," he said, new
energy in his voice. "No sense letting good food go to waste."

Moncrieff was looking
between Nathaniel and Pépin. "But what of weapons?"

Although the young
farmer's English was spotty, he had followed most of the conversation. Still
gnawing on a bit of sausage, he picked up a candle from the pile and handed it
to Moncrieff. "From
ma m`ere
," he said.