Storyteller (9 page)

What would Old Gerard have said to me, raising one leathery finger after the other?

Do nothing without a plan
.

Go silently
.

Face your enemies
.

None of that did I do. I crashed through the trees, stones sharp under my feet, roots waiting to trip me. I was out of breath, gasping—

And ran headlong into two men
.

Behind them a group of five or six more came silently, slipping around the trees at my side
.

Please. Let them be on my side. Let them be Patriots
.

How strange that both Patriots and Loyalists looked the same, dressed the same, loved the land the way I did. How did I know, then, that this was the enemy?

I knew
.

Old Gerard’s voice was in my mind:
Show strength, never weakness.
But that I could not do. I stared at them, surrounding me now. I was terrified, my useless hands out in front of me
.

“Who are you?” one of them asked. He wasn’t young. His
face was as leathery as Old Gerard’s, but his eyes were gray, pale and angry
.

“I am Zee.” My voice sounded strange. I hadn’t used it since I’d left home
.

“Spying.” His eyes were hard now, like chips of stone
.

I began to shake my head. But then I saw who stood toward the back of them. Isaac, with his sunburned face, the freckles scattered across his nose! And he saw me
.

I drew in my breath
.

How old had we been, Isaac and I? Ten? Splashing at the edge of Big Fish Water. “Don’t move,” he’d said. He was strong even then; he had both hands around my waist, swinging me out and above the water to escape a snake moving under us, a slow-moving wave
.

I stared at him now. You could never forget me, Isaac. I am Zee. We are—

“She’s a friend,” Isaac said, coming to stand next to me. “A neighbor.”

“Someday—” he had said
.

He looked at me now with the smile I’d seen since the day Father had guided the boat ashore and built our house, the boy I had kissed that day in the river as he’d set me safely down away from the water moccasin. I had seen that smile only for me
.

I saw the shock in his face. Was it because we were there in this forsaken woods? Or was it because of the state I was in?

He lifted his hand, and I could see he was wondering about my own. “She’s going to safety in the north,” he said. “Going to Canada, where it is easier to be loyal to the king.”

“Alone?” What disbelief there was in the man’s gruff voice!

“They are behind me, my family; they are coming,” I said
.

The man gave his head a quick shake, staring first at me, and then at Isaac. But finally he turned to the others. “We’ll go back to the cabin to eat.”

I heard the intake of my breath. What would they do to Isaac when they saw what I had done?

“I took cheese,” I said. “I took fruit.”

To my amazement, the man began to laugh. “Such honesty makes me think you must be one of us,” he said, his eyes dancing
.

Then they were gone without disturbing a leaf or a twig, gone silently. All except for Isaac
.

“I will walk a way with you,” he said
.

He reached out to take my hand. But I couldn’t let him do that. It was not only because of the pain it might cause, but because I knew how those hands would feel to him: coarse, the skin
stretched and webbed. My nails were cracked; I was going to lose them
.

I stepped away from him, but he put his hands on my arms, his face close to mine. “What happened, Zee?”

I could hardly speak, and when I did, my voice was bitter. “They killed Mother and burned the house.”

“Who?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t see them clearly. Not English, though. Whoever it was knew the land. One of them followed me.”

Isaac would come with me now. I wouldn’t be alone
.

He straightened my cap gently. “Did you not think to go to my parents?”

“They are gone to Canada. Ammy told me.”

“Canada!” I heard the pain in his voice. “Canada!” He took a breath. “And so you are seeking your brother.”

I nodded
.

“I promise you this,” he said, and there might have been tears in his eyes. “This fight will be over, perhaps even in a year, Zee. The king’s men will win, of course. You know that. We will go back and rebuild your house, and someday—”

Someday—

Anger roared through me. “I have lost almost everything.” I
held out my hands. “Do you think I will ever live under a king? I will fight with my father and my brother. Make no mistake, Isaac. We will win because we are desperate to win.”

I didn’t wait for him to answer. I brushed past him, then turned. “There is still the land. You will never take that from us.”

It was a long way north. The days ran into each other as I walked through the forest. And then weeks. There was no church meeting to prepare for on Sunday, no cheese pan to turn, no wash to hang on Monday
.

But I knew the hours. I watched the trail of the sun as it beamed through the thick trees; its first sighting in the east would have been the moment to let the hens out, to throw the corn in golden arcs as they pecked at my feet
.

With the sun straight over my head, warming my cap, it would have been time for cheese and a crust in front of the hearth, and sometimes on Sundays, a meal of one of the hens. Later I’d escape from the house to lean on the split rail fence and talk to Isaac
.

I didn’t want to think about Isaac
.

I followed the wider river that Father had marked on the map, finding berries to fill my mouth. They never quite filled my stomach
.

I slept after that. And sometimes when I awoke, in spite of myself, I thought of Isaac. I told myself I would never see him again, and that was the truth of it. After the war, if our side won, Isaac would follow the big mountains to the east, around the lakes to Canada. He’d spend his days near Mistress Patchin, with her quick tongue, with kind Mr. Patchin, and Ammy
.

Oh, Ammy
.

And oh, Isaac. He’d have another girl to swing up out of a river. He’d sit with another girl on a split rail fence
.

So let there be another girl, a foolish girl who was willing to live under a king
.

I was sorry to lose the sun as it set in the west, but I wasted no time in finding the best place to sleep. It had to be a spot where I could see everything, but not be seen; somewhere safe
.

On that warm night with the sound of insects around me, buzzing and singing, so I felt less alone, I curled myself around a sugar maple tree, pulling my top petticoat up and under my head
.
I lay there listening to the click of the crickets, the call of the tree frogs, the hoot of an owl
.

I must be close to Fort Dayton now. The ground rolled just the slightest bit, but was much flatter than the land I had walked before this. How was I going to find it?

I pulled out my map, even though it was too dark to really see the lines. It was a comfort just to hold it in my ruined hands
.

I fell asleep, reminding myself that I would reach the larger river soon, the Mohawk River. Until that happened, I wouldn’t worry about finding Fort Dayton
.

Morning came, a beam of sunlight in my eyes, and hours later I reached the river. I had expected a narrow band of water, one similar to the Big Fish Water at home. This was much wider
.

A line of bateaux were passing close enough that I could see men on the decks. I counted four boats churning the water into foamy wakes; there might have been a fifth ahead of them
.

I stayed behind the trees, watching, until the last one was opposite me. The deck was covered with cloth bags and a cannon, shiny black and ugly
.

But whose boats were these? Were the men ours or were they Loyalists? I stayed in the shelter of the trees, not sure. If only I could call out to them. If only I could find out where Fort Dayton was
.

As the last boat slid away, my chance to ask was fast disappearing
.

I took a breath, picked up my petticoat, and slid down the bank. I paid no attention to my feet as they trod upon sharp stones at the river’s edge. “Please,” I called
.

The men were facing away from me, staring down at the water’s wake
.

I waved my arms over my head. I shouted again
.

One of them turned. He was close enough for me to see his fair hair under his hat. He leaned across the railing, staring at me curiously
.

“Which way to Fort Dayton?” I called
.

He raised his arm, pointing. “Find a boat and cross the river. Go north. You’ll find Dayton.” He cupped his hands around his mouth as the bateau slipped away. “We’re on the way with supplies for Fort Stanwix. Going to shore it up against Colonel St. Leger.”

I watched him until the bateau was only a small smudge on the river. St. Leger, I thought, remembering that name. He was an Irishman, a colonel in the British army, coming to help cut the colonies in two
.

I felt a hint of fear. I was close to Father and John now, but also closer to the war itself
.

I went to find a boat
.

Elizabeth sees the house from the dirt road; it’s red, with peeling paint, but a narrow band of river sparkles in front. “It’s an old house,” Libby says as she shuts off the car motor, “built in the early nineteen hundreds.”

Elizabeth sees someone come out onto the porch. It must be Harry. He stares at them as they walk around the side of the house, threading their way through an uneven row of apple trees.

He’s almost bald and thin as a toothpick; he can’t quite hide his surprise at seeing them.

Libby shades her eyes with one cupped hand. “It’s me, Harry, Libby.” Her voice is so soft Elizabeth wonders if he can hear her. Her neck is one big red blotch.

Elizabeth realizes something. Libby really doesn’t want to be here. Libby’s doing this only for her.

She takes a step forward, but she sees that Harry isn’t
asking them to come up onto the porch. He says a few words, but she doesn’t catch any of them.

Head up, Libby doesn’t wait for an invitation. She climbs the three steps and sits herself down in one of the wooden rockers lined up in front of the railing.

She fans herself with one hand. “Warm for a spring day, isn’t it?”

Elizabeth takes a breath, then slides around Harry and sits, too. She listens to Libby talking in fits and starts, backing up, starting over.

Libby’s trying to get to the point.

Just say what’s on your mind, Pop would have said. Elizabeth almost smiles: How will she ever leave Libby?

The rocking chair squeaks as Elizabeth looks at the field in front of them. It leans down toward the river, and it’s almost as if the sun is scattering diamonds across the surface of the water.

Zee walked here?

Planted in these fields?

Picked fruit from trees that have long since fallen to the earth?

And what about that fire?

Over her head a barn swallow swoops in under the eaves. It’s building a mud nest up there. How does the swallow get it all together? Elizabeth wonders. Why doesn’t the mud dry up between the trips the bird makes back and forth?

“Do you like birds?” Harry asks around his pipe, interrupting Libby midsentence.

Elizabeth nods.

“Nothing better to do, the two of you, than come all the way up here?” he asks.

Elizabeth almost gets up off the rocker and goes back to the car. But in the distance …

In the distance are those mountains, wreathed in mist. She sees the three peaks from where she sits. Zee’s mountains. It’s amazing to know what something means, something that maybe no one else in the world does.

Zee must have seen those mountains from here. Did she look up at them the way Elizabeth does now? In spite of herself, Elizabeth makes a sound, raises her hand.

Harry turns again to stare. “What did you say?”

She stares back. “Just clearing my throat.”

Libby begins again. “Elizabeth is interested in history. She thought—I thought—you might tell us about our family who lived here.”

“I taught history for thirty-five years,” he says. “If you think I want to teach it anymore, you’ve lost your mind.”

Libby rocks gently. “I have a drawing of Zee.”

Harry sits entirely still, the bowl of his pipe in his hand.

In that stillness, Elizabeth looks from one to the other. They know each other better than she thought. And something else. Libby is sure he’s as interested in Zee as they are. He doesn’t say, Who’s Zee? He doesn’t say, I couldn’t care less about her. It’s clear that he’s trying to hide the excitement in his voice. “You never told me there was a drawing.”