The Endless Forest
Page 3
We have had a letter from Ethan with the news that there is a new house in the village near his own, one that he would like us to have for as long as we require. This means we will not have to turn Mr. and Mrs. Lefroy out from our place, something we are loath to do. And so all the pieces have come together. We plan to sail as soon as we can sell this house and settle other business matters. If all goes well we will be home before the spring thaw. Then we can sit together by the kitchen fire and tell our stories to each other. Now that the decision is made I wish I could grow wings and fly to you.
When we have booked passage I will write again with the particulars. With all our love and affection we remain your good-son & devoted daughter
Simon and Lily Ballentyne
Chapter II
Daniel Bonner wakes in the deepest hour of the night with the sure knowledge that something is not right.
First he takes stock of his oldest and best-known adversary. In his mind he follows the pain as it moves from its cave deep in his shoulder to slide inch by inch down his left arm. At times Daniel thinks he can hear the nerves snapping and hissing, but just now it only flexes and turns, a big cat sleeping in the shade. If he stays very quiet and relaxed, the pain might settle and sleep come back for him. Three or four hours, if he is lucky. He thinks about sleep as another man thinks about a lover, with a pure yearning.
But there is something wrong, and so he sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed to listen. The bed ropes squeak and the banked fire hisses to itself. From the main room, the faint tick of the clock on the mantel. There is a sound he doesn’t hear, one that worries him. His nights echo with the sound of Bounder’s wheezing hitch, the sound of an old dog struggling toward another day. Bounder is utterly quiet, and somehow Daniel knows without going to look that the dog is dead.
Now he realizes what it is that woke him: a dripping sound, from outside. From the eaves.
It is the first week in April. Three feet of snow would be no surprise, but the sound of running water is unexpected. Daniel goes to the window and opens the shutter. The thaw has a smell all its own, and it is thick in the air.
There is a figure standing outside, a dark shape against the coming dawn. A large man, strongly built. He has a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. What light there is picks up a glint of his scalp, shaved clean but for a topknot that still gleams yellow, though Throws-Far is a full sixty-six years old. Born to Yankees in the village of Paradise, Throws-Far is nevertheless Mohawk in blood and marrow. Since he came back to Paradise he often roams the mountain at night; Daniel has the idea he is trying to find his boy-self, the person he was before he took his rightful place among the Turtle clan.
“Throws-Far,” Daniel calls out to him in Kahnyen’kehàka. “Why do you stand in the not-yet-light?”
The dark shape shifts and bends, arms extended to the sky. The voice that answers is deep and sure. “The Snow Eater is come. He brings the hundred-year water with him.”
A rain had begun to fall, as soft and sweet as new milk.
“The Snow Eater is come,” Throws-Far says again. “And I go.”
The old man has been talking about leaving Paradise for a long time. About his wish to see his own children, who live far to the northwest on the other side of the great lakes. That he would pick up so suddenly, that things might change with a simple shift in the wind, this is not at all surprising. He doesn’t think like a white man.
In Kahnyen’kehàka Daniel calls to him. “Be well.”
Throws-Far raises a hand, and then he walks away into the rain.
In the light of the fire Daniel dresses, not to teach school, though this should be a normal day, but in lined leggings, a heavy flannel hunting shirt, and winter moccasins. Sudden thaw and rain together promise trouble.
The ground is still frozen and it will take more time than he has to see Bounder properly buried. He picks the dog up, the slack body already unfamiliar, and lays him in the root cellar. Birdie will want to help bury Bounder.
His knives are laid out on a linen cloth where he left them, along with whetstones and files, oils and soaps. They gleam dully in the firelight, like a mouth full of crooked teeth. He puts small knives into loops inside the cuffs of each moccasin, another, larger and double-sided, in a sheath on his left hip. Two short-handled hatchets, one he inherited from his grandfather and the other made to his specifications, he tucks under the wide belt to lie along his spine.
Today or tomorrow or the day after, his sister will come home. His twin, who has been gone very long, who he has missed every day. She is coming with her husband, but not quite soon enough. The hundred-year rain has beat them home.
Chapter III
When the clock in the hall struck seven, Birdie roused herself out of bed, dressed in the dark very quietly so as not to wake her nieces, and went downstairs to Curiosity Freeman’s kitchen. She might have slept another half hour but for excitement: by Birdie’s calculations, her parents and sister Lily and good-brother Simon should have been back from the city three days ago. They would surely be home today.
She paused in the doorway and waited for her eyes to adjust to the brightness of firelight reflecting off polished copper and pewter. “Little girl. Come on over here.” Curiosity was sitting at the long table, a tray of breakfast biscuits just out of the oven in front of her. When she smiled there was nothing halfway about it. At almost ninety she was proud to still have every one of her teeth, strong and white. Between the bleached linen of her head wrap and her smile, Curiosity’s skin was as wrinkled and dark as an apple left to dry out to a sweet smelling husk.
When we have booked passage I will write again with the particulars. With all our love and affection we remain your good-son & devoted daughter
Simon and Lily Ballentyne
Chapter II
Daniel Bonner wakes in the deepest hour of the night with the sure knowledge that something is not right.
First he takes stock of his oldest and best-known adversary. In his mind he follows the pain as it moves from its cave deep in his shoulder to slide inch by inch down his left arm. At times Daniel thinks he can hear the nerves snapping and hissing, but just now it only flexes and turns, a big cat sleeping in the shade. If he stays very quiet and relaxed, the pain might settle and sleep come back for him. Three or four hours, if he is lucky. He thinks about sleep as another man thinks about a lover, with a pure yearning.
But there is something wrong, and so he sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed to listen. The bed ropes squeak and the banked fire hisses to itself. From the main room, the faint tick of the clock on the mantel. There is a sound he doesn’t hear, one that worries him. His nights echo with the sound of Bounder’s wheezing hitch, the sound of an old dog struggling toward another day. Bounder is utterly quiet, and somehow Daniel knows without going to look that the dog is dead.
Now he realizes what it is that woke him: a dripping sound, from outside. From the eaves.
It is the first week in April. Three feet of snow would be no surprise, but the sound of running water is unexpected. Daniel goes to the window and opens the shutter. The thaw has a smell all its own, and it is thick in the air.
There is a figure standing outside, a dark shape against the coming dawn. A large man, strongly built. He has a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. What light there is picks up a glint of his scalp, shaved clean but for a topknot that still gleams yellow, though Throws-Far is a full sixty-six years old. Born to Yankees in the village of Paradise, Throws-Far is nevertheless Mohawk in blood and marrow. Since he came back to Paradise he often roams the mountain at night; Daniel has the idea he is trying to find his boy-self, the person he was before he took his rightful place among the Turtle clan.
“Throws-Far,” Daniel calls out to him in Kahnyen’kehàka. “Why do you stand in the not-yet-light?”
The dark shape shifts and bends, arms extended to the sky. The voice that answers is deep and sure. “The Snow Eater is come. He brings the hundred-year water with him.”
A rain had begun to fall, as soft and sweet as new milk.
“The Snow Eater is come,” Throws-Far says again. “And I go.”
The old man has been talking about leaving Paradise for a long time. About his wish to see his own children, who live far to the northwest on the other side of the great lakes. That he would pick up so suddenly, that things might change with a simple shift in the wind, this is not at all surprising. He doesn’t think like a white man.
In Kahnyen’kehàka Daniel calls to him. “Be well.”
Throws-Far raises a hand, and then he walks away into the rain.
In the light of the fire Daniel dresses, not to teach school, though this should be a normal day, but in lined leggings, a heavy flannel hunting shirt, and winter moccasins. Sudden thaw and rain together promise trouble.
The ground is still frozen and it will take more time than he has to see Bounder properly buried. He picks the dog up, the slack body already unfamiliar, and lays him in the root cellar. Birdie will want to help bury Bounder.
His knives are laid out on a linen cloth where he left them, along with whetstones and files, oils and soaps. They gleam dully in the firelight, like a mouth full of crooked teeth. He puts small knives into loops inside the cuffs of each moccasin, another, larger and double-sided, in a sheath on his left hip. Two short-handled hatchets, one he inherited from his grandfather and the other made to his specifications, he tucks under the wide belt to lie along his spine.
Today or tomorrow or the day after, his sister will come home. His twin, who has been gone very long, who he has missed every day. She is coming with her husband, but not quite soon enough. The hundred-year rain has beat them home.
Chapter III
When the clock in the hall struck seven, Birdie roused herself out of bed, dressed in the dark very quietly so as not to wake her nieces, and went downstairs to Curiosity Freeman’s kitchen. She might have slept another half hour but for excitement: by Birdie’s calculations, her parents and sister Lily and good-brother Simon should have been back from the city three days ago. They would surely be home today.
She paused in the doorway and waited for her eyes to adjust to the brightness of firelight reflecting off polished copper and pewter. “Little girl. Come on over here.” Curiosity was sitting at the long table, a tray of breakfast biscuits just out of the oven in front of her. When she smiled there was nothing halfway about it. At almost ninety she was proud to still have every one of her teeth, strong and white. Between the bleached linen of her head wrap and her smile, Curiosity’s skin was as wrinkled and dark as an apple left to dry out to a sweet smelling husk.
