Must the Maiden Die (11 page)

Now she could see a pale light coming from
somewhere, and she wondered if it could be dawn. She rolled her
head to one side. The light filtered across her in thin gray
stripes, and she saw that it came from a small, square opening
overhead and from between chinks of the logs that were stacked one
on top of another to make a wall. She rolled her head from the wall
to see a dark heap a short distance away. It looked like a mound of
earth. When she tried to lift her head to see more, the wool
wrapped around her made only a whisper of sound, but the dark mound
heard and rose up and came toward her. She lay still, her eyes shut
fast, fear running through her as a chill stream runs. Then she
felt something rough and warm and wet on her cheek, and she knew it
was the tongue of a dog.

She opened her eyes to look into the gleam
of the dog's brown gaze before it settled down against her side
with the warmth of a sunbaked rock. The heat of its body eased the
cold, and the sound of its steady breathing made her think of waves
lapping against a shore, or the wings of a moth fanning in
flight.

She must have slept again, because suddenly
she felt the air around her stir, and when she heard a faint
hissing like that of steam from a fire, it made her afraid. The dog
was gone, and strong morning light came through a door opening in
the opposite log wall, where a flap of canvas had been pulled
aside. She heard footsteps and a man, a man she thought she had
never seen before, walked through the opening with something
carried in his hands.

When she sat up and tried to inch back
against the log wall, she saw that she was no longer bound tightly
in the wool, but her left arm felt strangely heavy. She didn't know
why, and she couldn't try to see it and watch the man at the same
time. He had stopped just inside the door opening. She could see
his eyes, so this was the same man who had come upon her in the
swamp, with his fierce dark look and his sheepherding dog. His hair
was as black as his eyes, but now it did not hang in lank strings
over his face. It was brushed back and fell to his shoulders,
shining like the mane of a horse. And the hair on his face was
gone, leaving only a shadow in the hollow of his cheeks, so he must
have just shaved the beard off. What he carried looked like an iron
fry pan, and whatever was in it hissed and spattered as if the pan
had just been taken from hot coals. She thought she smelled
fish.

When the man started toward her, she shrank
back against the wall. He stopped again, and stood staring at her,
while the dog came forward and stood in front of her with its tail
sweeping the dirt floor like a feather duster. Then it sank to its
haunches and looked up at her with its keen gaze.

A few feet away from her was something that
looked like a big tree stump, and the man took a few steps, bent
forward, and put the pan on it. Then he turned and started back
toward the door opening. The dog rose quickly, and its nose was
nearly into the fry pan before the man, without looking around,
said, "No, Keeper. No."

Even though he said this in a low voice, the
dog dropped to the dirt floor like a stone. Then the man snapped
his fingers, and the dog jumped up and went to him, tail swirling,
and they left the girl alone with the fresh-smelling fish that made
the juice in her mouth run.

With her eyes on the door opening, she
started for the stump with the pan. It was then she saw why her
left arm was heavy; it was wound with a thick, clean cotton cloth.
It didn't hurt much anymore. But she saw, too, with a quick thrust
of fear, that the wet cloak and the muslin dress and the shift she
had worn were gone. She had on a large, yoked shirt, coarsely
woven, and jean-cloth trousers that bunched around her waist, held
up with a piece of rope like a drawstring instead of a belt. Even
though the trouser legs had been rolled up, they dragged in the
dirt. They looked, the shirt and the trousers, like what the man
wore, but the shirt was not too big for him and the trouser legs
only went to the ankle of his boots. She didn't want to think of
the man taking off her clothes, so she looked at the pieces of fish
in the pan, lying crisp and brown beside what looked like fresh
dandelion greens. She started to pick up the fish with her fingers,
but then heard footsteps outside and quickly backed away as the
man came though the opening.

He laid a small, carved wooden scoop in the pan and
put down a tin cup of steaming liquid that smelled like sassafras.
As he turned to go outside again, he said over his shoulder, "You
should eat."

It was only a minute or two before the dog came back
alone. It sat in front of her and watched her eat, its eyes going
back and forth between her mouth and the pan, with its ears
pricking forward at every bite. When she had almost finished, she
looked at the opening of the cabin, and gave the dog the last piece
of fish. The dog gulped it down and licked her fingers, its tail
brushing back and forth, while she ran her hand over its fine-boned
head. Then hot tears rolled down her face and she pushed the dog
away.

When the dog jumped to its feet, she saw
that the man had come back inside, and was leaning against the wall
of the cabin, watching her. She wondered how long he had been
there, and how angry he would be if he had seen her give the fish
to the dog after he had said, "No, Keeper." But his eyes did not
look fierce, so perhaps he didn't think it was bad, what she and
the dog had done.

The man took a step toward her. She started
to back away from him, but he stopped and dropped to a squat where
he was.

"Does your arm hurt?" he asked in a low
voice, the same voice he had used with the dog.

She looked at the dirt floor, wiping her
hands on the bunched, jean-cloth trousers.

"It was a bad cut," he went on, as if she
had answered him, and then asked a question of her own. "I had to
hurt you to get the dirt out, so I poured some whiskey over it, and
some into you. It should feel better now. If it's not, I can give
you some more willow bark."

That must have been the bitter liquid he had
made her drink. She shuddered, remembering, and maybe he knew why
she shuddered, because suddenly he smiled. Then she saw that he was
not as old as she had thought; not very young, but not very old,
either.

"All right," he said. He was still smiling,
and now his voice, rich and clear, made her think of the call of a
wood thrush. "No more willow bark. Unless it hurts again. But you
have to tell me if it does."

He was watching her, and she was afraid he
would be angry when she didn't answer. She ducked her head, so he
wouldn't see how afraid she was.

But he must have seen, because he said, "I
know you're scared—you look scared—but you don't have to be. What's
your name?"

She moved back a little, waiting for the
anger.

"I won't hurt you," he said, and a line
formed between his brows. "From the looks of it, you've been hurt
enough."

He got to his feet, saying, "You cried out
so I know you're not mute." She saw the question in his face. She
looked away.

"Do you understand what I'm telling you?" he
said. "You must be able to nod, or shake your head, because you're
not deaf, are you?"

She couldn't look at him. Tears were
smarting behind her eyes, and that frightened her almost as much as
he did, because she couldn't think why she should be crying. Maybe
because he kept talking in that clear thrush voice, and asking her
questions she couldn't answer.

"Why were you in the swamp?" His face looked
as intent as the dog's had while she was eating the fish. "The
closest town is Seneca Falls. Are you from there?"

She wanted to tell him No. No, she was not
from Seneca Falls. But even if she could tell him that, he might
know it wasn't true.

He went to the doorway, and stood there for
a time with his arms crossed over his chest, just looking at her.
"If you won't, or can't talk," he said, finally, "I'll have to go
into town to find out who you are. You can't stay here. If I wanted
company, I wouldn't be living in a swamp."

When he said that, that he would find out
who she was, she felt her breath leave her. She struggled to her
feet, and she could feel tears running down her face, the fear so
thick in her throat that she thought she wouldn't be able to bring
in air. She was shaking her head with her hair slapping against her
face. And she knew he was watching her.

He took several steps toward her, stopping
when she cringed back against the wall. The dog let out a short
whimper and came to her side to lick her hand.

"I won't touch you," he said, "if that's
what you're frightened of." It was not a question, but his face
looked as if it had been. "Or is it because of what I said? About
finding out who you are?"

This time it was a question, but all she
could do was look at him.

"How can I know what you want unless you
tell me?" he said. "I'm not a mind reader."

She put her hand to her throat, and she
could hear herself gasping for air.

He came toward her again, and this time he
didn't stop when she shrank against the wall, but stood right in
front of her. He didn't touch her, he just stood there with his
thumbs hooked under the waist of his trousers.

"All right," he said, "I'm going into town.
I don't go any more than necessary—I have no love for that
place—but I need to find out who you are, and where you belong. If
I go by way of Black Brook, I should be back by dark. I'll leave
Keeper here with you."

She tried to see him through the blur, and
she tried to stop the tears, too, and she couldn't. He raised his
hand slowly and reached toward her face, but when she shied away,
his hand dropped to his side.

"My name is Gerard," he said to her. Then he
turned, and went outside. She heard him say to the dog, "Stay here,
Keeper. Stay!"

She waited until the sound of his footsteps
faded before she went to the doorway. He was striding down to where
the water met the land, and to where a bark canoe lay nearly hidden
in clumps of marsh marigolds the color of butter.

She stood there with the dog beside her and
watched him push the canoe out into the marsh. Once, before he
climbed into it, the dog whined and took a few steps forward as if
to follow him.

The man Gerard said, "No. Stay, Keeper!" and
the dog sank to the ground, muzzle on its front paws, its eyes
fixed on the man in the canoe.

When the man dipped the flat-bladed paddle,
it sliced through the air with flashes of silvery light as he
struck out over the desolate stretch of water. She watched him
until, shrouded by mist and the tall marsh weeds at the mouth of
Black Brook, he was lost from sight.

We are fond of talking of the mysterious
things in nature—of earthquakes, volcanoes, whirlwinds,
pestilences, and other marvels of the material world; yet these do
not begin to compare in strangeness and importance with the
developments of the human heart.... The great questions of our
future history do not turn upon marvelous phenomena in the heavens
or under earth, but upon the play of human passions.

—the June 1861 issue of
Harper's New
Monthly Magazine

It was the clatter of wagons outside one of
her bedroom windows, together with the neighing of horses, the
barking of dogs, and the boisterous shouting of men, that finally
roused Glynis. Otherwise, she thought, glancing at the clock on her
bedside table, she would likely have slept until noon. But what
could be going on out there? It sounded as if half of Seneca Falls
had suddenly converged in her landlady's front yard.

She threw on her green silk undress and
rushed to the window, where it became clear that the commotion was
not in Harriet Peartree's yard, but in the one next door,
belonging to Vanessa Usher. Cayuga Street had been transformed
into a crazed jumble of heavy dray and rack wagons. More were
arriving every minute, while a dozen burly men hailed one another
with gibes and laughter as they milled around the jammed road.
Glynis smiled at their exuberance, thinking it possible, given the
past months of foul weather, that some of these men had not met
since the previous autumn.

She opened the window on the warmth of a
sunlit morning and leaned her arms on the sill. Although most of
the men below were still fraternizing, some had begun to haul from
the wagons scores of flowering trees. Heavy burlap wrapped the
clumps of soil around roots of redbud and crab apple and wild
cherry and plum, all of which were nearing full bloom. It made for
a magical scene, and only that particular year, with its miserable,
cold, wet spring, could have brought these trees into flower at the
same time, bursting into color practically overnight. Glynis
decided that this horticultural wizardry, usually left to the whims
of the weather gods, must have been summoned by a wave of Vanessa's
wand and was now, even as Glynis watched, materializing directly
at her door. And the reason for this feverish activity, it had
slowly dawned on her, was Emma's approaching wedding. It was slated
for the first day of June, a mere four days hence.

Plans for the ceremony and reception to take place
on the spacious Usher grounds had been in the making for months.
Ever since the second, Glynis guessed, that Vanessa had learned of
Emma's engagement. And given the artistry she had displayed on
prior occasions, Vanessa would undoubtedly create the most
beautiful wedding scene ever beheld in western New York. Even if
she had to move heaven and earth to do it.

Earlier in the year, a pragmatic Emma had
asked her, "If the wedding is held outside, what will we do if it
rains?" To which Vanessa had replied, "It wouldn't dare rain.'"
Thus disposing of the heavens. And apparently, from the look of
things on Cayuga Street, this was the day the earth moved.