Peter Loon (38 page)

The new mound dismayed Peter, however, and he fell off Beam as much as he dismounted. Someone had taken the time to fashion a presentable headboard, with his father's name, his age, and the date of his death. Peter recognized the work of a neighborhusband by the handsome willow tree carved into the wood above the name of Silas Loon. What would his father have made of Peter being away? What would Silas Loon have made of the clothes his son wore beneath his own coat and hat?

Peter hunkered in the misty rainfall and shook a little. His eyes were closed tight. How his father would have liked Parson Leach, he thought, and he wept for that missed meeting as much as anything else.

Some time later, he rode down the eastern slope, picking his way among the stumps and tromping over the harvested furrows. There was a small barn, where he put Beam, and he wondered that no one had seen him and come out to greet him.

On the short porch of the house, he scraped mud off his boots, opened the door and stepped inside. He knew immediately that something was strange within. It was as if he had come to the wrong house–as if he had only dreamed of his family here, and of his mother sending him away.

The first face to greet him was that of a young man his own age, who sat at the kitchen table. Then he saw his sister Sally Ann, standing by the hearth. He could not tell if she were more astonished to see him or the clothes he wore. The day was dark and little light penetrated the tiny windows; they seemed to cast more shadow than light and Peter squinted into the main room of the house after his other siblings and his mother.

Sally Ann moved across the room and put her arms around Peter with something like a sob. Looking over his sister's shoulder, Peter recognized the young man at the kitchen table as Job Winslow from the bottom land north of the Loon's farm.

“Where's Mama?” asked Peter. “Where's Amos and Deborah and–”

“Peter,” said Job Winslow, looking uncomfortable. He nodded formally.

“They're gone,” said Sally Ann. “Peter, what happened to you?”

“Gone? Where could they be gone?” He hardly hugged his sister back, he was so dazed.

“They've gone off with Job's Uncle Obed,” said Sally Ann. She stood back from Peter and searched his face for a reaction to this news, then looked more closely at Captain Clayden's clothes.

“Job's
Uncle Obed?” he said.

Sally Ann and Job exchanged glances before she looked back at her brother and said, simply, “Yes.”

“Obed
Winslow?”

“Yes.”

“But Mama said he was
our
uncle. I asked her if he had anything to do with the Winslows down on the bottomland, but. . .” He thought back on the business between himself and his mother that night, and tried to remember what had been said. “But she didn't really answer me,” he decided aloud.

“Job went to him when Papa died,” said Sally Ann.

“Why would you do that?” wondered Peter in Job's direction; then to his sister he added, “Why would Mama send me off looking for him if he was one of Job's people?”

“She didn't know . . .” began Sally Ann. “Oh, she knew he was Job's uncle, of course. But she didn't know that Obed had been taking news of Mama and our family for years. Job's father used to send word or go down to Bowdoinham himself sometimes. But he sent Job in late years and when Papa was killed, Job took his father's horse and raced down to tell his uncle.”

“But what's this Obed Winslow to us?” wondered Peter. He sat down at the kitchen table and leaned toward Job. “What did he want with news of us?”

“He knew your people, I guess,” said Job. “He'd known your mother and been friends with your father, when they were boys.” The young man looked up at Sally Ann for help.

“He was in love with Mama, years ago, when she and Papa married, and she might have married Job's uncle but for some decision he and Papa made. And Obed left Sheepscott Great Pond for Wiscasset, then Bath, and then Bowdoinham where he owns some land and a shingle mill. But Mama never knew, and when he came the other day, while you were gone, she packed up the children and left with him.”

“To Bowdoinham,” said Peter quietly.

“Bowdoinham,” she said, and their voices had descended almost to whispers.

Peter looked about, as if he might yet catch sight of Amos, or Deborah, or Hannah running to jump into his lap.

“I would have gone with them,” said Sally Ann in a sudden rush, “but Job was here when we were getting our things and he asked if I'd be his wife and Mama said you were to have the farm if you wanted it, and we were to take the stake you began up north, betimes, but you'd let us live here perhaps while Job set up a little cabin for us. And Job and I are together now and we'll have the first preacher that comes through do it proper . . .”

“Did she think I wouldn't let her go?” wondered Peter aloud.

“She'd have gone anyway,” said Sally Ann. “And you never saw her so strong on anything, Peter, I swear it. But she was going to take us all.”

“Did she think I wouldn't have let Amos go, or Hannah?”

“It wasn't why she sent you,” said Sally Ann.

“She never knew where he was,” said Job, and Peter believed him. “Uncle Obed never let us tell a soul. She couldn't know he was coming for her.”

“She wondered if you'd even come back,” said Sally Ann in a guilty hush. Clearly their mother had passed this doubt along.

“She's so lost herself,” said Peter a little bitterly, “I can't imagine what she thinks she knows about
any
of us.”

“She said you were to have the farm if you want it.”

Peter truly saw his sister for the first time since he came into the house, and he turned to look at her new husband, who was sitting at what Job might have more obviously hoped would become his own kitchen table. Job looked unconcerned, however, and Peter liked him for it. His sister, he thought, was beautiful and clever and a good catch for a backcountry boy, but if Obed Winslow owned land and a shingle mill, he would have been able to put a stepdaughter in finer clothes than she was wearing now. Put Sally Ann in a new dress and she would have held her own against the Clayden women. She would have had a mob of suitors, no doubt. She could cook, as well, and she had inherited their father's good nature. She smiled, as a rule, but now she only looked distressed and uncertain.

“I feel a little lonely,” said Peter in a matter-of-fact way.

“The house does feel still without the little ones,” she said. “It's a wonder you didn't pass them on your way.”

“I'm sorry I wasn't here to bury Papa,” said Peter.

“We could hardly figure where you were,” admitted Sally Ann. “When Mama finally thought to explain it all, I thought I would hit her, sending you out in the middle of the night.” She sat at the table beside Job and her husband took her hand, which made Peter like him more. “I think she was a little sorry for it,” said Sally Ann.

“People understood, though, when they were told,” Job assured Peter.

“What did you do, Peter?” asked Sally Ann. “Have you made your way so fast?” she wondered, amazed all over again at the fine things he wore. She was filled with questions. “What did you see? Mama says that there's a powerful lot of people out there in the world.”

Peter did not respond to this immediately, but when he did it was with surprise, as the meaning of Sally's words struck him. “Did she?” he said. “It wasn't what she told me. But God knows, there are. There are a lot of people out there.”

PETER HAD NEVER KNOWN ANY HORSE VERY WELL BEFORE, BUT HE
had grown to like Beam, so that he hated to give her up and wondered if after more than a month, Captain Clayden had done so himself.

Snow had fallen early in November, but the woods were not full of it yet and he felt it was time to make the journey before it was made impossible, and the roads impassible, by a real storm. Thin ice gripped the marshes and lined the streams so that he took great care at crossings; he walked Beam cautiously over rocky ground. All the leaves had fallen, except from the slender beeches, but otherwise the slopes of hardwood gave a traveler license to peek through their bare branches at further hills and trees. The forest seemed wider, and less dense, and the world larger to Peter. It took him three deliberate days to reach Newcastle.

On the first day he traveled the woods in which he had once met the deer herd, and then he rode alongside the river which he had crossed when he last passed. On the second day, the sky drew up gray clouds and snow fell in the afternoon. The third day came off bright, and near to evening he reached the short bank above the Clayden farm and, just looking at the smoking chimneys, he nearly felt warm enough to unwrap himself from the quilt he wore over his shoulders. He might have been an Indian trader.

When he first came over the rise, he could see the figures of Ebulon and James, of Sussanah and Emily, and Martha, and even, he was sure, of Nora Tillage, dashing about the yard with snowballs flying in every direction. Laughter carried in the crisp bright air.

He was still a quarter of a mile away when they saw him, and he was surprised that he had been recognized. Two of them hurried inside the house, and he could imagine that Captain Clayden had been roused from his den and that Mrs. Magnamous would be stoking the kitchen fire and warming stew in a pot.

They came out to meet him and they seemed happy and excited; there was James and Ebulon before any of them, then Sussanah and Martha and Nora, and finally Emily looking more solemn than the others. The boys were filled with questions, for it seemed that the Captain had told them something of Peter's involvement with the adventure at Wiscasset. Sussanah insisted that her brother show some manners to their guest, and allow him to get inside and warm before peppering him with demands and queries. Martha's eyes sparkled in the light when she smiled and greeted Peter.

But Nora Tillage was a revelation to Peter, for he swore she was rounder in the face and fuller in her frame; everything about her, in fact, seemed fuller and more certain than when he and Parson Leach left her weeping hysterically in the parlor. The red in her hair had disappeared some with the retreat of the sun. Could such a brief sojourn with these people cause this change? She walked through the snow to Peter and Beam and stroked the horse's muzzle. When she regarded Peter, it was with a brave face and he did not even think to dismount, which would have been polite.

“I fear, Mr. Loon,” she said, “that I have not thanked you properly for all you have done for me.” Now Peter could see the practice that had gone into her new demeanor, and he was both heartened and saddened by it. She had prepared her own place of bravery within her when she first decided to flee her father and Nathan Barrow, but it was yet a thin construct, behind which he could easily detect the stirrings of her old apprehensions.