Dawn on a Distant Shore (3 page)

"Let him
sleep," she had said, strapping on her snowshoes. "Ain't nothing a
man can do to ease a daughter in labor anyways, and my Polly will see to his
breakfast. Did you send Anna word? I'd be glad of her help, with the rest of
your womenfolk away."

"Liam's gone to
fetch her."

"Let's get
moving, then. First children ain't usually in a hurry, but you never
know."

But the whiteout had
come down on them just outside the village, turning the world he knew tree by
tree into a flickering mirror of silver and white, impossible to navigate. That
they had found the trading post was a miracle in itself; that he had been able
to wait there hour after hour without losing his mind was another. Nathaniel
could not put the picture out of his head: Elizabeth in labor with only Hannah
beside her. He had lost his first wife--Hannah's mother--in childbirth on a warm
summer night that felt nothing and everything like this one.

He wiped the freezing
sweat from his brow, and increased his pace.

The mountain was
called Hidden Wolf, and the high vale where his father had built a homestead
forty years ago, Lake in the Clouds. This was a translation of the
Kahnyen'kehâka name, but the whites had never found anything better to call the
place where the mountain folded inward on itself. Triangular in shape, the
valley was big enough for two L-shaped cabins, a barn, kitchen gardens, and a
sizable cornfield on its outer edge, where the shoulder gave way to the precipice.
At the opposite end, a waterfall dropped into a shallow gorge in a series of
glittering, frozen arches. Below it a small lake was ringed with concentric
collars of ice.

When he was within
earshot of the falls, Nathaniel broke away and left the others to struggle on
without him. Past the first cabin where he had been raised, dark now with his
father gone to Montréal and the rest of the family at Good Pasture. On through
the small grove of beech, pine, and blue spruce to the far cabin, built less
than a year ago for his new bride, Elizabeth Middleton. She had come from
England to join her father. Well educated, able to speak her mind and willing
to listen, with money and land of her own, and plans to teach. She had called
herself a spinster without flinching, showing him sharp edges and soft ones,
bone-deep curiosity and a well of raw strength and courage. From Chingachgook,
his Mahican grandfather, Elizabeth had earned the name Bone-in-Her-Back.

On the porch Nathaniel
kicked off his snowshoes and threw open the door to fading firelight and
warmth. The cabin smelled as it always did: of woodsmoke, pine sap, lye soap
and tallow, curing meat, corn bread baking, dried apples and herbs, of the dogs
and of pelts newly stretched and scraped, and of her smells, for which he had
no names but a hundred images. And there was the smell of blood recently shed:
copper and hot salt.

Nathaniel put down his
weapons and dropped his overcoat and mitts as he strode across the room,
scattering ice and clots of snow. He paused before the open door of the small
bedroom to breathe in. To force himself to breathe. His own blood hammered in
his ears so that he could hear nothing else.

They were there,
asleep. The banked fire showed him his Hannah, curled at the foot of the bed, one
arm across the long line of Elizabeth's legs. Her face was hidden in the
shadows.

He crossed the room
without a sound and went down on his knees. Elizabeth was breathing, her mouth
slightly open, her lips cracked and beaded with blood. There was no fever
flush--she was pale, her skin cool to the touch. The fist in his gut began to
loosen, finger by finger, to be replaced by a warm wash of relief.

Nathaniel pulled his
gaze away from Elizabeth's face to the bundle at her side. And blinked.

Two infants, swaddled
in the Kahnyen'kehâka way. Dark hair, rounded cheeks, white and pink faces
smaller than the palm of his hand. One pair of eyes flickered open, unfocused.
A tiny red mouth contorted, the cheeks working, and then relaxed.

Twins. Nathaniel put
his forehead on the bed, drew in a long breath, and felt his heart take up an
extra beat.

The winter morning
came with a pure, cold light, setting the ice and snow aflame with color and
casting a rainbow across Hannah's face to wake her. She lay for a moment,
listening to the morning sounds: Liam was feeding the fire, humming to himself.
The dogs whined at the door, and then a woman's voice: familiar and welcome,
but unusual here, so early in the day.

The events of the
previous night came to her in a rush and she stumbled out of her loft bed and
down the ladder, pulling her quilt with her.

Liam held out a bowl.
"Porridge," he said, without the least bit of enthusiasm. Since he had
come to live with them Hannah had learned that Liam's first allegiance was
always to his stomach, but she could not keep her gaze from moving toward the bedroom
door. It stood slightly ajar.

Curiosity appeared as
if Hannah had called for her.

"Miz
Hannah," she said formally. "Let me shake your hand, child. Are we
proud of you? I should say so."

Hannah found her
voice. "She's all right?"

"She is. And
those babies, too." Curiosity laughed out loud. "If the Lord had made
anything prettier he would have kept it for hisself."

There was a feeble cry
from the next room. Hannah stepped in that direction, only to be caught up by
Curiosity, who took her by the elbow and steered her back toward the table.

"Just set and
eat, first. Pass some of that porridge over here, Liam, and stop pulling faces.
It's honest food, after all."

"They are awful
small," Hannah said, accepting the bowl and spoon automatically. "I was
worried."

"Twins tend to be
small," said Curiosity. "You were, when you come along. Nathaniel
could just about hold you in one hand, and he did, too. Carried you around
tucked into his shirt for the longest time."

"He carried you
up to bed last night, too. Guess you didn't even notice," said Liam.

"Well, he's
feeling perky, is Nathaniel." Curiosity put a cup of cider on the table in
front of Hannah.

"A boy,"
said Liam. "Chingachgook was right. Nathaniel's got a son."

"So he does. And
two fine daughters," added Curiosity. "Never can have enough
daughters, is how I look at it."

Hannah's smile faded.
"My grandfather should be here. He should know. I wish we had some word of
him."

Curiosity sat down
with a bowl of her own, and leaned toward the girl to pat her hand. "It
looks like the good Lord is smiling on you today, missy. Jan Kaes brought a
letter in from Johnstown just before the storm broke. Came all the way from Montréal."

"From my
grandfather?" Hannah sat up straighter.

Curiosity pursed her
mouth thoughtfully. "Don't think so. It was writ with a fancy hand, so I'd
guess it was from that Scot--Moncrieff was his name, wasn't it? The one that
come through here at Christmas. I'll wager he had some word of Hawkeye,
though."

Outside, the dogs
began barking and Liam got up to see to them.

"That'll be the
judge," said Curiosity. "And half the village with him, by the sound
of it. Ain't good news louder than Joshua's horn?"

"It is,"
said Nathaniel from the doorway. He looked tired, but there was an easiness to
the line of his back that Hannah hadn't seen in a long time. She launched
herself at her father; he caught her neatly, and bent over to whisper in her ear.

"Squirrel,"
he said in Kahnyen'kehâka, hugging her so hard that her ribs creaked. "I
am mighty proud of you. Thank you."

"Is there word of
Grandfather?" she whispered back.

A sudden wave of cold
air and an eruption of voices at the door pulled Nathaniel's attention away. He
patted her back as she let him go, but not before she saw the flash of worry move
across his face, only to be carefully masked as he turned to greet his
father-in-law.

Elizabeth Bonner
believed herself to be a rational being, capable of logical thought and reasonable
behavior, even in extreme circumstances. In the past year she had had opportunity
enough to prove this to herself and to the world. But next to her, soundly
asleep in the cradle beside the bed, were two tiny human beings: her children.
She could not quite grasp it, in spite of all the evidence to hand.

Look, Curiosity had
called, holding up first one and then the other to examine by the light of the rising
sun.
Look what you made!

The day had been
filled with visitors and good wishes, the demands of her own body, the simple needs
of the infants. She was tired to the bone, but still Elizabeth looked. She lay
on her side, watching the babies sleep. Her children, and Nathaniel's.

"Boots,"
Nathaniel said from the chair before the fire. "You think too hard."

"I can't help
it," she said, stretching carefully. "Look at them."

He put down the knife
he had been sharpening and came to her. She had seldom seen him look more
weary, or more content. Crouched by the side of the cradle with his hands
dangling over his knees, he studied the small forms.

"You did good,
Boots, but you need your sleep. They'll be looking for you again before you
know it."

She nodded, sliding
down into the covers. "Yes, all right. But you're tired, too. Come to
bed."

Now Elizabeth's
attention shifted to Nathaniel. She watched as he shed his buckskins, thinking
what she must always think, and always keep to herself: that he was as
beautiful to her as these perfect children. The line of his back, the way his hair
swung low over the wide span of his shoulders, the long tensed muscles in his thighs,
even his scars, because they told his stories. When he lay down beside her she
moved closer to his warmth instinctively. But instead of drifting to sleep, she
was caught up in his wakefulness.

In the year they had
been together she had at first been amazed and then slightly resentful of Nathaniel's
ability to fall instantly to sleep--it was a hunter's trick, a warrior's skill
as important as the ability to handle a gun. But not tonight.

"Now you are
thinking too hard," she said to him finally. "I can almost hear
you."

He sought out her
hand. "You knew about the twins. Why didn't you tell me?"

She hesitated.
"Falling-Day thought you would worry overmuch. So did I. After what
happened to Sarah--" Elizabeth looked into the cradle. Hannah's twin
brother had died in Nathaniel's hands. Sarah had borne him one more son, and he
had buried that child, too, in his mother's arms. It was inevitable that he
would think of those losses, even on this joyful day.

He said, "I
should have been here."

"Nathaniel--"

"You must have
been scared, when the storm came down."

He was determined to
hear it, and so she told him.

"Yes," she
said. "But soon after the pain started in earnest and I had little energy
for anything else. And no choice, as you had no choice. But we managed, did we
not?"

He made a sound in his
throat that was less than total agreement. Elizabeth brought his hand up to rub
against her cheek.

"Shall we name
them for your father, and my grandmother? Daniel and Mathilde. Would that
please you?"

"Aye, it would.
And it will please Hawkeye." He turned to her, but his thoughts were far
away. Gently, he fit his face to the curve of her neck and shoulder. He smelled
of himself: honest sweat, leather and gunpowder, woodsmoke and the dried mint
he liked to chew.

"You've been
thinking of Hawkeye a lot today."

She felt the tension
rise in him, coming to the surface of his skin like sweat.

"What is it? Tell
me."

"There was a
letter down at the tavern for me," he said, his voice muffled. "From Moncrieff.
He's in Montréal."

She waited, slightly
tensed now. "Moncrieff found your father?"

"Aye. In the
garrison, under arrest."

Suddenly very much
awake, Elizabeth sat up and winced as her sore muscles protested.

"Somerville's men
took him for questioning," Nathaniel continued. "There's rumors about
the Tory gold."

"Oh, Lord."
With a glance toward the cradle, Elizabeth folded her hands before her.
"Tell me all of it."

Nathaniel recited the
letter; he had had nothing to do in the long hours of the whiteout but to read
it again and again, and the words came to him easily.

When he had finished,
she lay back down. "You'll have to go."

"You believe
Moncrieff, then?"

She raised a brow.
"I doubt he would make up such a thing. To what end, after all. It is true
that we do not know him well, Nathaniel, but in this much I think he can be
trusted." She paused. "We both know that you cannot leave Hawkeye
locked up."

Nathaniel let out a
hoarse laugh, but his look was troubled. "I can't leave him in gaol, and I
can't leave you here alone. And you can't travel."