Never Call It Love (42 page)

Colin
must have realized that she would be anxious. At dusk, with the cold rain still
falling, he knocked at her door. Standing there in the inadequate shelter of
the little roof above the step, he smiled at her and asked, "How is your
food holding out?"

"I
have plenty cornmeal and potatoes and dry onions. But there is only a third of
a barrel of dried fish left, and a little venison."

"Don't
worry. I'll spend one more day clearing. Then I'll go after partridge for you.
Perhaps I'll even get a deer."

Again
he smiled at her. He looked so much like Patrick
at that moment—a gentler, kinder
Patrick—that it was almost all she could do to keep from saying: Come in,
Colin. Don't leave me.

"Well,
good night, Elizabeth." He started to turn away.

"Colin!"

He
turned back to her. She wanted to say: Do you think Patrick has sailed for
Ireland? In spite of that price on his head, in spite of his promise to me? But
she could not, even to Colin, voice the growing fear to which she awoke each
morning.

And
so instead she asked, "Why do you think it is that Patrick has not come
home?"

His
smile died. Anger leaped into his dark eyes. After a disconcerted moment she
realized that the anger was not for her, but for his brother. Then he said,
once more smiling, "Perhaps the meeting lasted overlong. Anyway, I would
not worry about something bad happening to him. My brother is like a cat. He
always lands on his feet. Good night," he added, and again turned away.

The
rain stopped a few hours later, but the temperature plunged so steeply that,
for the sake of warmth, Elizabeth
took Caroline into the big bed that
night. In the morning, the skies were leaden gray, and in low spots the
clearing was covered with crusts of ice, milky white against the dark frozen
ground.

Late
that afternoon, while she was peeling potatoes for a fish stew, she heard
voices in the clearing, men's voices, and the high, excited voices of children.
Heart swelling with hope, she went to the door and looked out.

But
Patrick had not arrived. Instead, young Jessup and the red-haired Duncan
MacPherson, followed by Thompson and Wentworth and by the children who had been
playing in the subfreezing temperature, carried a litter of lashed pine boughs
toward the Thompson house. Colin lay on the litter, and his blood was dripping
from it onto the dark earth and the patches of gray ice.

Cold
with alarm, she lifted Caroline into her homemade high chair, lest in her
absence the child venture too close to the fire. Then she snatched her red
knitted shawl from its hook beside the door, flung it over her head, and as
rapidly as she could over that treacherous ground, crossed to the Thompson
house.

Mrs.
Thompson opened the door for her. "He's hurt his foot badly. They've put
him in the lean-to."

"How...?"

"He
was chopping down a tree. He slipped on the ice, and the ax blade came down on
his left foot."

His
left foot, the sound one. Colin was crippled indeed now.

"Just
how bad is it?"

"I'm
not sure. My husband is getting his shoe off now. You'd better sit down. You're
white as a ghost."

Elizabeth
sat there, aware that Mrs. Thompson had gone into the lean-to, and that her
husband had come into the big room to take a sheet from the linen press against
one wall. At last Mrs. Thompson stood before her. "I've bandaged his foot.
You can see him now."

"Is
it... ?"

"It's
quite bad. It may be many weeks before he walks again."

Elizabeth
rose, moved into the lean-to. Colin, covered with blankets, eyes closed in a
face grayed with pallor, lay on the bed where she and Patrick had slept during
their first weeks in New Canterbury.

His
eyes opened. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth."

She
dropped to her knees beside him. "Sorry! What are you talking about?"

"You
and the little one need me. And now I—"

"Colin,
don't think about it. Just get well as fast as you can."

She
went back into the main room. "Mrs. Thompson, when can he be moved to my
house? It isn't fair that you should have the care of him."

"No,
child." Her voice held a trace of sternness. "It would not be
fitting, you a young woman, and your man not there. Besides, I have more
experience in these matters. You had best get back to Caroline now."

Elizabeth
went out in the gathering dark. A more selfish fear than her concern for Colin
clutched at her now. As soon as she reached her house, she lifted the trapdoor
and went down into the cellar. With the lamp held high in her hand, she
inspected her dwindling supplies of meat, fish, and winter vegetables.

Well,
despite Colin's accident, everything would be all right if Patrick returned
within a few days. Even if he did not, her neighbors could supply her with
food—that is, if they could spare it from their own families' needs. But all of
them, made optimistic by last winter's good hunting, had sold food to those
Mississippi-bound trappers, although not as recklessly as Patrick had. And if
heavy snow fell, or if the deer and rabbits and game birds had become too few
after last year's heavy hunting...

Don't
think about it, she commanded herself, and climbed the ladder.

When
she awoke in the morning, the air was ice-cold. Caroline lay huddled against
her back. By a certain glimmer of the light that filtered through the
semitransparent window coverings, Elizabeth knew that snow had fallen. Careful
not to disturb the sleeping child, she got out of bed and dressed, shivering
with cold, not taking off her nightshift until she had drawn on her stockings
and petticoat beneath it. When she had put on her gown, she opened the door a
crack and looked out. Yes, at least two inches of snow lay in the clearing, and
an iron-gray sky promised that more would fall.

She
had a fire going when someone knocked. It was her nearest neighbor, Duncan
MacPherson, a coonskin cap covering his red hair. "I've been over to the
Thompsons'. Colin seems to be doing all right. He's pretty weak from loss of
blood, but there's no fever, and that means no blood poisoning."

Elizabeth
thanked him. He said, "We're all taking to the woods today. We ought to be
able to bring back some game, if the snow holds off."

Well
before noon, Elizabeth opened the door a crack and saw the first big white
flakes spiraling down. When she again looked out, about an hour later, snow was
falling so thickly that she could scarcely make out the MacPherson house. By
that time she was hearing, now and then, gunfire in the woods. She imagined the
men on snowshoes out there, trying to aim at dim animal shapes through the
thick smother, and then, with half-frozen fingers, ramming powder and shot into
their flintlock barrels for another attempt.

She
walked back to the fire, a thriftily small one. The stack of firewood in the
lean-to that sheltered the horses and wagon was still high, but she had decided
it was best not to burn it recklessly. Caroline sat on a pallet close to
the hearth,
shaking the rattle, a gourd filled with dry peas, which occasionally interested
her, even though she was a year old now. Standing beside the child, Elizabeth
stared into the fire and thought of a grim story she had heard at the first of
the settlements at which she and the Stanford men had stopped on their way
here. A dozen years earlier, a woman told her, other families had occupied
those log houses. But they had suffered a bad harvest, followed by a winter of
snows so high that the houses were cut off from one another. In the spring,
French trappers had found them all dead of starvation and cold, each family in
its separate house.

She
shivered, wrapped her arms around her, and looked down at her child. The small
face, rosier than ever in the firelight, wore an absurd look of concentration
as she wielded the rattle. If, because of Patrick's prolonged absence,
something happened to Caroline...

Stop
that, she commanded herself.

Again
she went to the door. The snow had slackened, at least enough that she could
see the MacPhersons' house and the dark, wind-flattened streamer of smoke from
its chimney. Best to start clearing the short path between the house and the
privy before it became impassable. She went out to the combination stable and
woodshed and grasped the long-handled wooden shovel.

Shortly
before dark, someone knocked. It was Duncan MacPherson again, his fur cap white
with the still-falling snow. From thongs he held dangled two rabbits and two
squirrels.

"We've
divided up what we shot today." Despite his smile, she could see the
anxiety in his face. "We didn't have very good luck. Not much game about,
and with the snow failing... Anyway, here is your share."

She
looked at the small creatures. She thought of the MacPhersons, with two
children to feed, and the Wentworths, with four. She thought of the young
Jessups,
already with one child, and Sally Jessup pregnant again. She thought of the
Thompsons and of Colin. A man weakened by loss of blood would need good
nourishment to get through the winter.

"Just
give me the rabbits. I don't need much food, and Caroline even less. Besides,
our supplies are holding up."

"You
are sure?" She could see the relief in his face.

"I'm
sure." She took the thong upon which the rabbits were strung, thanked him,
and closed the door quickly, lest more heat escape.

Almost
three more inches of snow fell during the night, although by the time she awoke
it had slackened to an occasional flurry. Dressed in the greatcoat Patrick had
not taken with him, head wrapped in her shawl, she took the shovel and again
cleared a path to the privy. Despite the icy temperature, by the time she came
back into the house, she was sweating.

Out
in the clearing, other shovels scraped. She opened the door a crack. Except for
Colin, all the men were out there, shoveling paths between the houses.

About
an hour later she became aware that the shoveling sounds had ceased. When she
went to the door, she saw why. Snow was again falling, faster than anyone could
hope to shovel away. To the distance of about a foot, she could see the
individual flakes falling straight downward. Beyond that, the snow was a
gray-white wall.

If
snow kept piling up, Patrick would not be able to return, even if he wanted to.

With
a sense of helpless terror, she closed the door.

A
mourning dove had landed on the windowsill. Huddled in Patrick's greatcoat
beside the unlighted fireplace, Elizabeth could see the bird's shadow, cast by
the bright, subzero sunlight on the deerskin window covering. She looked at it
listlessly.

As
she sat there, she had been trying to figure out what the date was. Around the
end of February, she had decided. That meant that four months had passed since
Patrick had left her, and about two months since Duncan MacPherson had handed
her the two rabbits. A few times after that she had seen the men trying to
clear paths between the houses, only to retreat indoors as more snow fell. Now
about four feet of it blocked her door and those of all the other houses. For a
while Mr. and Mrs. MacPherson had called out a window once every day, asking
her how she was, and relaying the news that Colin was "getting
better." But for more than two weeks she had not had even that small
contact with her neighbors. She knew, though, that they were still alive.
Opening the door a crack each morning, she had seen smoke rising from the
chimneys of the other houses. Perhaps her neighbors, like her, had been reduced
to using firewood only for cooking. If so, they would not want to open their
windows to the icy air just for conversation's sake.

She
found herself thinking of the Jessups. Sally must have given birth by now. Had
she remained sufficiently
well nourished so that there was enough milk for her baby?

The
thought reminded her of her own child. She turned and looked at Caroline,
asleep beneath the heavy layer of blankets on the bed. So that she would be
warmer, Elizabeth kept the child in bed as much as possible. At first Caroline
had protested. But for the past week she had been docile, frighteningly docile,
as if she had no energy to expend in rebellion, or even in staying awake for
more than a few hours at a time.

And
no wonder, Elizabeth thought. For nearly three weeks now they had subsisted on
cornmeal plus a meatless soup made of onions and the potatoes she dug from
where they were stored under a pile of earth in one corner of the cellar. How
could a young, fast-growing child stay well on such a diet? With fear crowding
her throat, she looked at the pale little face with its faint shadows under the
closed eyes.

A
cooing noise made her turn her head. The dove was still on the windowsill. Her
heart leaped with sudden hope. Hunger and cold must have rendered her stupid,
she realized now, because right there outside the window, if she were quick and
clever enough, was a means of bringing a little color back into Caroline's
face.