The Ghost (29 page)

The count has been negotiating for us with the tribes in the west for the past two months.

Red Jacket, the chief of the Iroquois, regards him almost as a son, the colonel explained, with obvious respect, but he did not tell her that Fran+oois had once been the chief's son-in-law, until Crying Sparrow and their son were killed by the Huron. He was traveling north tonight, on his way to visit the Mohawk chief in Montreal and he said he would look out for you on the trail. We were very worried when you didn't come back by nightfall.

I'm very sorry, sir, she said contritely, but the peace had not yet been made between her and the French count masquerading as an Indian brave. She could not imagine the sheer audacity of his not telling her who and what he was either the night before, or when she had met him on the trail. He had terrified her, and he knew it.

You should go back to Boston, the Frenchman said, looking at her. He did not look happy either, although something in his eyes said he had been impressed with her, and he had said as much to the colonel when he was told she was missing.

I will go exactly where I want to, sir, she said sharply to him, and I thank you for escorting me back this evening. She dropped an elegant curtsy to him, as though they had been in an English ballroom. She shook the colonel's hand then and apologized again for the confusion she'd caused, bowed to him, and walked back to the cabin where she was lodged, without saying another word, or looking back at either of them. Her legs held her unsteadily as she made her way across the garrison, and she quietly opened the door, and stepped into the darkened room, closed the door, and slid slowly to the floor sobbing in relief and anguish.

Frangois de Pellerin had looked after her as she went and said not a word, but the colonel was watching his face, curious about what he saw there. He was a hard man to read. There was more than something a little wild in his soul, and at times the colonel wondered if he wasn't part Indian by now. He certainly knew how they thought, and at times he behaved like them. He had disappeared with them for several years, and only resurfaced when his Indian bride had died, and the colonel understood he never talked about her. But everyone else in the area knew the story.

She's quite remarkable, the colonel said with a sigh, still puzzled by a letter he had received from his wife only that morning. Says she's a widow ' but Amelia heard a remarkable story from a woman she met in Boston, just arrived from England. It seems she's a runaway, the husband is alive somewhere ' not a very pleasant sort apparently. The Earl of Balfour ' that makes her a Countess, doesn't it? Bit of a coincidence, you a count, and she a Countess, sometimes I think half the nobility of Europe winds up here. All the misfits and the runaways, and the mad, wild boys. But that still didn't explain Sarah's story. But Fran+oois was smiling at him wistfully, thinking of his cousin years before ' the men he had fought beside and known ' and now this girl ' willing to trade her life for that of a stranger ' she had been so brave and so bold in the forest that night. He had never seen anything quite like it.

No, Fran+oois said, they don't all come here, Colonel ' only the best ones.

He said good night to the colonel then, and went back to his men. They were sleeping as the Indians always did, outside, under the shelter of the garrison, and without a sound, or a word to them, Fran+oois joined them.

Sarah was in bed by then, thinking of the man she had been so sure would kill her. All she could think of were his fierce dark eyes, as he looked at her in the forest, the dancing of his horse, the powerful movement of his arms as he controlled it ' his guns flashing in the moonlight' . She wondered if their paths would ever cross again, and as she closed her eyes and tried to force him from her mind, she hoped not.

Chapter 15

CHARLIE HAD READ Sarah's journal for an entire day from morning till almost midnight that night, and when he put it down, he smiled reading of her meeting with Francois. How little she knew of what was to come. But just as Francis had been, Charlie was overwhelmed by her bravery during their meeting in the forest in Deerfield.

Charlie couldn't even imagine knowing a woman like that, and it made him lonelier than ever when he thought about her. He realized then that he hadn't called Carole in a while, not since the Christmas Day fiasco, when he had called her while she was entertaining friends with Simon. It made him feel lonely again thinking of her, and he decided to step outside and get a breath of air. It was a cold, clear night, with a sky full of stars. But everything he did seemed to make him feel more lonely. There was no one to share things with anymore, no one to talk to now about Sarah. He didn't even wish he could see her ghost again, if there was such a thing, he wanted something so much more real than that, and as he went back inside, he could almost feel the air squeezed out of him, thinking about what he had lost in England. There were times when he thought he would mourn his lost life forever. He couldn't imagine loving anyone again, sharing his life with someone else. And it was impossible not to wish she'd tire of Simon. He knew he'd have taken her back in a second.

But all of that was irrelevant as he walked slowly upstairs, thinking first of Carole, and then of Sarah and Francois. How lucky they had been, how blessed when their paths had crossed. Or maybe they had been special people, and each of them had deserved the blessing. He was still thinking of them that night, as he lay in bed, wishing he could hear some sound, or believe that they were still near him. But there was no sound, no breeze, no sense of spirits in the room. Maybe it was enough to have her words ' just to have found the journals.

He, drifted off to sleep, dreaming of them again, they were all laughing and chasing each other through a forest ' he kept hearing odd sounds through the night, and thought it was a waterfall ' he had found it ' the place she'd been the day she got lost ' and then when he woke in the morning, he realized it was raining. He thought about getting up, and the things he could have done that day, but he realized he didn't want to. He made himself a cup of coffee instead, and went back to bed with her journals.

He was faintly worried about himself. Reading Sarah's journals was becoming an obsession. But he couldn't stop now. He had to know everything that had happened. He opened her journal to the place he'd marked the night before, and lost himself in it again, without pausing for an instant.

The trip back to Boston, for Sarah, had been uneventful. And as though to punish her for worrying them, Colonel Stockbridge had sent the still-infatuated Lieutenant Parker with her. But he was impeccably behaved, and she was far more tolerant of him than she had been. Before she left the garrison, she had had a long talk with the colonel, and although he disapproved of it, she had gotten from him exactly what she wanted. She returned to Ingersoll's in high spirits, and it took her several days to learn that someone who had recently arrived had been spreading rumors about her. They ranged from the vague to the absurd, and one rumor had her directly related to King George III of England. But it was clear that someone had come through town who knew that she'd been married to the Earl of Balfour. Some said he was dead, others that he was alive. Some spoke of a terrible tragedy where he'd been murdered by highwaymen, others said he was insane and had tried to kill her so she fled. Most of the stories were quite romantic, and the town seemed to be buzzing with them, but if anything they made her even more desirable than she had been, and she admitted nothing to anyone, she simply went on presenting herself as Mrs. Ferguson, and left the rest to their imaginations. But one thing she knew, if the news of who she'd been married to had come out, it was only a matter of time. before Edward learned she was in Boston. And knowing that made her even more intent on her plan. The colonel had introduced her to some good men, and they had promised to start their work by spring. She had ridden out with several men before she left Deerfield and found the clearing very quickly. And this time, the ride back had been much shorter and far less exciting. She still had not forgiven Francois de Pellerin for his deception.

The men she'd contracted with in Shelburne said she'd have her house by late spring, particularly since what she wanted was so simple. She wanted a long, plain log house, with a main room, a small dining area, a single bedroom, and a kitchen. She needed sheds and outbuildings, but they could come later, and a cabin for the two or three men she'd need to help her. Nothing more. And the men she'd hired said they'd have it put together for her in no time. Possibly June, maybe even before that. Everything was going to be made locally. They'd use whatever hardware they had on hand, only the windows had to be made in Boston and sent to Shelburne by oxcart. There were actually some handsome houses near her too, but they were even more elaborate than what she wanted. Sarah wanted only the simplest of dwellings. She had no need and no desire for anything fancy.

And all she could think about that spring was the house she was building in Shelburne. She had spent the winter peacefully in Boston, reading, keeping her journal, being entertained by friends. She heard that Rebecca gave birth to a little girl and knitted a little cap and sweater for her. And then finally in May she could stand it no longer. She took the long trip back to Deer-field again, and rode to Shelburne as often as she could to watch them build her house, log by log, piece by piece, bit by bit, as they fitted it magically together. And they had been as good as their word. By the first of June, she was ready to move in. And she hated going back to Boston again, to pack up her belongings, but there were still some things she needed. It took her two weeks to find them, and in mid-June she set out again, in a carriage, with a cart piled high with her things, and two guides and a driver. And there were no incidents. She arrived safely first in Deerfield, and then at last in Shelburne. And as she unpacked her things, she was overwhelmed by how beautiful the area was in summer. The clearing she lived in was lush and green, the trees reaching far above her and shading the house that had been built for her, exactly to her specifications. She had half a dozen horses, some sheep, a goat, two cows. And she had hired two boys to help her.

For the moment, they hadn't planted much of anything. She wanted time to study the land, to learn about it, although they had planted corn. That was easy. And one of the boys she'd hired had spoken to some neighboring Iroquois about what to plant, they were so wise about everything that grew in the region.

By July, the colonel had come out to see her once, and she had prepared a wholesome dinner for him, cooked by her own hands. She cooked for her two hired hands every night, and treated them as her children. The colonel was not only touched by the simple beauty of her home, and the few but lovely things she'd chosen to bring with her, but he found he could not understand why she had given up what must have been a privileged, noble life in England, and it would have been almost impossible to explain it to him. The horror of her life with Edward still gave her nightmares. And she was grateful every moment, every hour, every day for her freedom.

She walked almost daily to Shelburne Falls when she had the time, and as summer wore on, she came to love it more and more. She sat on the rocks for hours sometimes, sketching, writing, diinking, with her feet in the icy water. She loved jumping from one rock to the other, and trying to imagine how the enormous holes in the rocks had come there. She knew the Indians had wonderful legends about it, and she could imagine celestial beings using them as toys, hurtling them across the heavens. Perhaps once long ago, they had been comets. But in her time at the falls, she found a peace she never had before, and she could feel old wounds begin to heal at last. It had taken that long. She looked healthier than she ever had before, and freer. She had finally left all the demons and the sorrows far behind her. Her life in England seemed like a dream now.

She was walking home from the falls one afternoon, singing to herself in the late July sunshine, when she heard a sound nearby, and then she saw him. Had she not known his history by then, he would have frightened her again, so fierce did he look, as he sat watching her, bare-chested and in buckskin pants, riding bareback. It was the Frenchman.

She looked up at him, and neither of them spoke, and she imagined he was on his way to the garrison. In fact, he had already been, and he and the colonel talked about her.

The colonel still considered her remarkable, and his wife was still mourning the fact that she had been unable to convince her to stay in Boston.

But she seems to want to live out here, in the wilderness, don't ask me why, a girl like that. By all rights, she should be back in England. She doesn't belong here. And Francois quite agreed with him, though for different reasons. He thought the life she'd chosen for herself was dangerous for her, yet her indomitable courage when they'd met six months before had indelibly impressed him. He had thought of her more than once since that time, and as he rode north alone from Deerfield, on his way to visit the Iroquois, he had decided to stop by and see her, somewhat on the spur of the moment. One of the boys who worked for her had told Francois where she was, although the boy had been frightened of him at first, and thought he might be a Mohawk. But Fran+oois had been extremely polite to the boy, and tried to be careful not to scare him. He said that he and Mrs. Ferguson were old friends, although that was not quite the case, and she would have been surprised to hear it. And when she saw him watching her, she looked less than pleased to see him.

Good afternoon, he said finally, dismounting, aware of his state of undress in the native style, and wondering if she would be bothered by it. But she seemed not to even notice. What she objected to was his spying on her. She had seen him sitting there, watching her, as she walked home on the trail. She couldn't help wondering why he'd come there. The colonel sends you his greetings, he said, falling into step beside her, as she glanced at him, still surprised to see him.