Far From Home (48 page)

Jewel had cried for her father many times and sometimes couldn’t be pacified. Georgiana kept having to remind herself that Jewel was still little more than a baby. Edward had said that he thought she was four years old, though he didn’t know her exact birthday.

‘We will buy you a present whilst we are in New York, Jewel, and one for Caitlin,’ she said as they booked in at the hotel. ‘Caitlin isn’t a big girl like you, but she will soon be able to play with you.’

Jewel jumped up and down in excitement at the prospect of having a new friend, for she had also cried for the little boy Lorenzo.

‘So glad to see you again, Miss Gregory,’ the desk clerk greeted her. ‘Mr Dreumel will be along soon, I reckon. He’s been expecting you.’

She had been given accommodation with a sitting room next to the bedroom. They had lunch, then Georgiana put Jewel to bed for a sleep. She was repacking their travelling clothes when there came a soft knock on the door.

‘Who is it?’ she called.

‘Wilhelm,’ the familiar voice replied.

She rushed to open the door. ‘Wilhelm! Oh how lovely to see you after so long—’ Her voice trailed away, her enthusiasm diminished. He was thinner and although his face was weather-browned and he smiled, he had an aura of tension and a deep worried furrow on his forehead.

‘Come in. Come in. Wilhelm!’ She put out both her hands to his, and he bowed low, then kissed them.

‘It is good to see you, my dear Georgiana,’ he murmured. ‘So very good. It has been such a long time.’

She ushered him towards a chair, but he declined, shaking his head. ‘No. No. I will stand. Thank you.’

‘What is it, Wilhelm? Something is wrong?’ She searched his face for the reason for his reticent manner. ‘Are you ill? Please say you are not!’

‘No.’ Quickly he reassured her. ‘I am not. I – I would have met you at the wharf, but—’

‘Did you not receive my letter?’

‘Yes. I have been here for some time, checking the arrivals, waiting for the ship.’

‘So why did you not come to the wharf? Not that it matters,’ she added quickly. ‘We managed perfectly well.’

‘I did come,’ he said. ‘But I saw the little girl – I had forgotten that she would be with you and – I – so I went away again and waited for you here.’ He took a deep breath, then put out his hands to hers. ‘I have something to tell you, Georgiana, and I didn’t want to tell you in front of the child.’

‘What?’ she whispered. ‘What’s wrong? Is it Kitty? Caitlin?’

‘No. They are both well.’ He drew her towards him. ‘There is not an easy way to tell you this. It’s Lake! I’m so very sorry, my dear. Lake is dead.’

He held her close as she trembled with shock, though she didn’t immediately cry. Then he gently placed her onto a sofa and left her, returning a few minutes later with a glass of brandy and hot water.

Her hand shook as she lifted the glass to her lips, and he steadied it as she sipped. ‘How?’ she whispered. ‘How did he die?’

‘He was killed,’ he said softly. ‘He died in the mountains.’

‘Killed?’ She stared at him, her face blank. ‘A wolf? A bear?’

‘No. By another trapper. They were old enemies.’

Georgiana thought of the trapper who had appeared when she and Kitty were travelling in the mountains, and wondered if it had been him.

‘How do you know this?’ she asked, her voice thick as tears began to well in her eyes and clog in her throat.

‘Horse and Deken found him and came to tell me. Lake had been expected back at No-Name, but when he didn’t arrive they set out to look for him. When they found his body they sent out a search party for his killer. Lake’s gun and knife were missing. When they found the trapper he had them both. He was also injured with knife wounds to his arms and chest.’

‘What will happen to him?’ she whispered. ‘This killer?’

Wilhelm was silent for a moment, then, with a catch in his voice, said, ‘Justice has been done. Lake was half Iroquois, and although the tribe is normally peaceable, vengeance for the death of a brother was exacted.’

Georgiana shuddered. ‘What did they do?’

‘They killed him with Lake’s own knife.’

There is more to it than that, Georgiana thought. But it is all I need to know, and it was then that she started to cry.

He sat with his arm around her as she sobbed, and silently handed her his handkerchief. She leaned against his shoulder and wet his jacket with her tears and never once did he implore her not to upset herself or cease her crying.

‘It is a bad time, I know, Georgiana,’ he whispered into her hair, which had strayed from her chignon. ‘And nothing can ease the terrible pain. I remember that so very well. You think your world has come to an end, your dreams and hopes shattered when a loved one dies.’

She nodded and blew her nose. Wilhelm above all people would understand that, having lost his young wife. ‘We had no plans,’ she sobbed. ‘How could we have? But we had our love and that was enough.’

But was it? She searched her soul, even as she wept. Was it enough or did I want more? She knew that there had been no real future together for her and Lake, not in the conventional sense. He couldn’t leave his forests and mountains and she couldn’t live there. Was this what he meant when he said she couldn’t be with him? That they only had today and no tomorrow? He knew that death lurked behind every tree and every rock. And what would have become of her if she had been with him?

‘Dekan and Horse want you to go to No-Name,’ Wilhelm said. ‘For a special ceremony. I said I would take you if you agreed.’

‘Yes.’ She wiped her eyes and tried to compose herself. ‘I would like to see them and hear of what they think happened, and why – perhaps they would show me where he died?’

Wilhelm entertained Jewel during the journey, telling her stories, playing tricks with a coin, telling her of the Indian people she was going to meet, whilst Georgiana fell into a silent reverie, wondering what life had in store for her now.

‘The mine, Wilhelm? Is it still producing gold? And the settlement? Are there any new people?’

He seemed relieved that she was showing an interest in other things and smiled, first shaking his head and then nodding.

‘Your head will fall off, Mr Dreumel.’ Jewel laughed and shook her own vigorously.

‘No, it is tied on very firmly. Look!’ He bent his head to show her the back of his neck. ‘I have a very long string.’

To Georgiana he said, ‘The mine has dried up. We dug three more shafts but there was a mere trickle of gold, barely enough to pay the men. Then word got out that we had found gold in the creek, and we were inundated with hundreds of miners swarming all over Yeller Creek. The upper valley was like a shanty town with shacks, tents, waterwheels and all the usual equipment.’ He smiled at her. ‘But most of them have now gone off to search elsewhere, some up north, some to Montana and Idaho.’

‘And the rest? Those who have stayed?’ she asked.

‘Farmers mostly, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, a haberdasher. They liked it there, and they’d heard about the railroad coming, so they decided it would be a good place to settle.’

They were now approaching No-Name. For this last part of the journey they were riding on horseback, with Jewel up behind Wilhelm. Georgiana was painfully reminded of when she and Kitty had ridden out of the settlement with Lake. I can’t believe that I will never see him again. Never see his crooked smile or his dark eyes gazing on me.

‘Georgiana!’ Wilhelm interrupted her thoughts. ‘It may be difficult for you at the settlement. The tribe wish you to be their guest of honour at the ceremony.’ He looked across at her and said softly, ‘Where love has been, it never completely disappears. There will always be a place in your heart where Lake will live. Think of him with joy, not with sadness.’

‘Is that what you do with Liesel?’ she asked.

He nodded and gave her a wistful smile. ‘Now Ido.’

In the longhouse where the ceremony was to take place, the Indian women were wearing shawls over their heads, partly covering their faces. The men were dressed in cotton fringed trousers and tunics, though some were bare-chested. Silver bracelets adorned their arms and bright beads were strung around their necks. The older men draped coloured shawls over their shoulders and wore braids and feather headdresses in their sleek hair and carried long canes.

Dekan and Horse greeted them and Little Bear took Georgiana and Jewel to her cabin for refreshment before the ceremony began. ‘We miss Lake very much,’ she said huskily. ‘But we must be happy for him that he has returned to his spiritual home.’

Jewel was taken to play with the children and Georgiana was led back into the longhouse, where she was seated on a bench draped with a red blanket. Wilhelm sat next to her and she felt the comfort of his hand in hers.

Dekan rose to his feet and the others in the tribe followed suit. Slowly, in single file they shuffled around the room in a death march, chanting in low sepulchral voices. Then they stopped and Dekan addressed them.

‘We have come today to honour our brother who has gone to join the spirit of his fathers. Though he had white man’s blood he had the true soul of an Iroquois. He was felled as a tall tree full of leaf is cut down, by his enemy who dared to call us savages.

‘Our brother was descended from our prophet Handsome Lake, who taught us that we must love one another and make peace not enemies, and that beyond the grave we will find happiness or punishment for the life we have lived on this earth.’

He paused, and glancing at the senior tribesmen, went on. ‘In ancient times, in our old way of life, we believed that our spirit families would protect us from harm.’ Some of the elderly men nodded their heads sagely and grunted or thumped the floor with their sticks. ‘Our brother’s death has been avenged and he is now resting with his ancestors. But times are changing,’ Dekan went on firmly. ‘And we must ready ourselves against those forces who wish to remove us from our rightful land, or else face death and destruction of our race. Our brother warned us of this and told us that we must be prepared.’

They all rose to their feet once more and marched, chanting, around the room and then filed outside to where a feast was awaiting them.

Dekan came to speak to Georgiana. He had a piece of paper in his hand which he handed to her. ‘The man who killed our brother had this in his possession when we found him. It is yours, I think.’

Georgiana looked at it. It was the receipt for the mining claim which Charlesworth had given to Lake in exchange for the pelts. She gave a deep sigh. ‘Not mine,’ she said softly. ‘Lake intended it for Wilhelm.’

Georgiana had felt quietly comforted by the ceremony and when discussing this with Wilhelm later, he said that he had also. ‘I felt a great loss when I heard of his death,’ he said. ‘For I admired Lake and the way he conducted himself. Though he was brought up by the Iroquois, he was caught between two worlds, that of the Indians and the whites. He was a brave man.’

‘What did Dekan mean about the warning that Lake had given them?’

‘The Indians are resisting the loss of land which is being taken from them for the settlers and the railroads. The treaties are being broken. The trappers had heard of unrest in various tribes. Lake was warning the Iroquois that war will come.’

She became thoughtful and sad that the peaceable people she knew, Dekan, Horse and Little Bear, should be involved in conflict. ‘You saved Lake’s life once, didn’t you?’ she asked. ‘What did you do?’

His eyes clouded. ‘The trapper who killed Lake was his half-brother, Odie. Son of the Frenchman and a saloon woman. They met when they were boys and were sworn enemies from the start. Odie always referred to Lake as a half-breed. I came across them quite by chance as I was travelling towards Philadelphia. Odie had followed Lake and jumped him, intent on stealing his horse and his pelts. He had his knife to Lake’s throat when I happened to come along. I drew my gun and told him I would shoot him if he didn’t drop it.

‘Lake repaid me by showing me the valley and the creek.’ He gave a worried sigh. ‘I hope I have not betrayed his trust in me.’

‘In what way could you have done that?’ she asked.

‘The land belonged long ago to the Indians. When they moved out the valley was silent and peaceful, given back to nature. We have changed it by opening it up and by turning the earth inside out looking for gold.’ He seemed downcast, she thought.

‘But you have had control over it,’ she encouraged him. ‘You are making it into a good settlement where people want to be, just as the Indians once did. But it is time for change and I think that Lake knew that.’ Georgiana touched his arm and gently reassured him. ‘That is why he showed it to you. That is why he left you Charlesworth’s claim. He knew it would be in safe hands.’

Kitty was delighted to see her, though sorry she had had a sad homecoming. She was pregnant again and had taken on help in her bakery shop. Ted was engaged in salvaging the equipment that had been left behind by the miners, and had now given up searching for gold. ‘We’ve enough,’ he said. ‘More than I ever dreamed of. We’re going into business, Kitty and me. We’re going to build an hotel up on Yeller Creek. When the railroad comes, folks will want somewhere to stay.’

Georgiana told him about Edward Newmarch and his trek, from the swamps of Mississippi to California. Ted was astonished. ‘I didn’t think he had it in him,’ he said. ‘I thought he was just a priggish English sop.’

‘He might once have been,’ she agreed. ‘But how we all have changed.’ She gave a little smile. ‘Before I left, he said to tell you that you could keep his suit of clothes!’

He nodded at the joke, but didn’t smile. ‘I’m sorry I misjudged him,’ he said. ‘Really sorry.’

‘You didn’t,’ she replied. ‘He became a different man from the one you knew.’

Winter was almost upon them, but Georgiana wanted to make her own lone journey into the mountains to say a final goodbye to Lake. She left Jewel with Kitty and took Hetty out of the stable, mounted her and rode out of the settlement, which had, as Wilhelm had told her, grown considerably since she had left. It had an air of cheerful activity as people went about their business, and there was a buzz of children’s voices coming from the schoolroom.