Storyteller (10 page)

He wants to see that drawing, Elizabeth tells herself. He’s dying to see it.

“Don’t you know a little family history?” Libby asks.

“Can’t remember much,” he says.

And then, amazingly, Elizabeth realizes they’re both trying to keep themselves from grinning.

Elizabeth rocks once, twice. “There’s a map on the back of the drawing.”

Both of them swivel around to look at her.

“A map to where?” he asks. Then he’s talking to himself. “Could it possibly have been to Fort Dayton, or maybe Fort Stanwix? Someone in the family said once—” He looks off into the distance. “Zee was caught in the battle up there. If only I’d listened.”

Elizabeth doesn’t say a word. She’s rocking with her eyes half closed, but she’s memorizing: Fort Dayton, Fort Stanwix, names she’s never heard.

“All right,” Harry says. “Let’s walk around.” He stamps down the steps, not waiting to see if they follow.

Libby gives Elizabeth a little push. “I’ve done my part,” she whispers. “And I know what he’s going to show you.”

When Elizabeth catches up, Harry points to the river. “They would have come up here to settle by boat,” he says. “It was the only way to move a household. The trails would have been too tough, the forests almost impenetrable.” He turns toward her. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Melissa,” she says, testing him.

“Don’t act like an idiot,” he says. “It’s—”

“Francesca.”

He snorts. “They’d have chopped down the trees to clear the land, built a cabin with some of the wood, one room maybe, with a ladder to the loft.”

They walk around the back of his house. “I’ve read books
about this area’s history,” he says. “One had details about the Loyalists setting fire to some of the houses. Zee’s was one of them, burned to the ground. Her mother was killed.”

He bends over. “Now look at this.” He claws into the earth with his fingers and comes up with a crumbling bit of cement, or mortar, or dried mud.

“I dug for this all over the property,” he says. “The chimney was covered with dirt and grass as if it had never been there.”

Elizabeth sinks down and spreads her hands over the earth, patting the bits and pieces. “The chimney,” she whispers. “All these years, and we’re touching a piece of Zee’s chimney?”

“Maybe.”

“It kept her warm in the winter,” she says, almost as if she’s dreaming it. “If she walked down to the river, she’d look back and see the smoke. She’d smell the bread baking, or meat cooking.”

They look at each other, both delighted. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you.”

He grins, a different Harry. A Harry she’s going to get to know.

He leans back on his heels. “There’s a story about people hiding things in caves. Patriots fleeing from the Loyalists. Zee may have done that.” He shrugs. “People searched for years, back and forth over this trail, over that one. It’s ridiculous to even look anymore.”

He turns to Elizabeth. Deep lines radiate from his faded eyes. “I looked myself when I was young.”

“Who knows?” she says. “Maybe we’ll find something.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. But we might find what happened to Zee. That’s really what we want to know, isn’t it?”

We
.

“Yes,” she says.

She and Harry will follow the map. They’ll see exactly where Zee went. She draws three triangles in the air with one finger. She points to the mountains. “The map begins there.”

“Ah,” he says, staring at them. “And summer’s coming.”

It’s almost an invitation.

No, not almost.

It is an invitation.

And then she realizes. She won’t be here. She’ll be gone.

She walks down to the river and scoops up a small stone, thinking Zee might have done something like this.

She holds it in her hand, feeling its smoothness, picturing the stone breaking off from some ancient mountain and rolling over and over, and now it will stay with her.

Finding a boat was easy. It wasn’t a good boat, to be sure. The sides were filled with small holes, and stagnant water sloshed on the bottom. It would take on water quickly, and I was sure that whoever owned it had abandoned it long before
.

With my clumsy fingers, it took long minutes to untie the knots in the rope that held it to a willow tree. And how could I use the oars with hands that were stiff and straight?

But somehow it had to be done, and the trip would not be long. I could see the opposite shore from where I stood. It was a clear day, without wind, and the river was flat. Even if the water in the boat rose to my waist, I could do it. I’d come this far
.

I made the crossing early in the morning. I went in circles
,
one oar pulling harder than the other; then, as the hand on that oar quickly tired, the other oar pulled the boat in the opposite direction. But at last the boat bumped against the shore, and I was there, north of the river. I gave the boat a gentle shove and watched it rock its way downriver
.

From behind me came the rattling of wagon wheels; I heard horses’ hooves and the crack of a whip. I turned, ready to run, to hide
.

A woman urged on the horse, her cap askew, and in back of her were three children. She pulled the wagon up next to me. “What are you doing here alone? Why aren’t you at the fort?” Her eyes were wild, terrified. “Get into the wagon, child. I’ll take you. But hurry. We must get to shelter before the British come.”

I lifted my petticoat and climbed up over the wheel and onto the seat next to her. Before I could say a word, she used the whip, and we lurched down the rutted road
.

“Fort Dayton?” I called over the noise
.

She nodded, her mouth trembling. “We’re expecting General Burgoyne with the British soon, coming down from Canada to the east. Joseph Brant, the Iroquois leader, is somewhere to the west. And Colonel St. Leger is on his way to surround Fort Stanwix. He wants to starve out the Patriots.”

I listened to the rough wheels drumming against the earth
.

I wasn’t as frightened as this woman. Her hands were unsteady on the reins, her face flushed. I’d lost Mother, and our home. Everything was gone. All I wanted was to see Father, to see John. I shut out the thoughts of Isaac
.

But what I had to tell them was the worst possible news. I thought of Mother, always busy, always working, always calm. I looked down at my hands and had a sudden picture of her hands. They hovered over an orphan kitten, holding a wet towel that dripped milk into its open mouth. “She’ll live,” Mother had said. “She’s stouthearted.” And Father’s face, usually stern, had softened. I’d known it wasn’t the kitten’s small face that had caused his smile; it was his love for Mother
.

Now the wagon veered away from the river, following a creek, and the road was worse. Branches overhead snapped against us. The woman lashed the horse, her body bent forward as if willing us to reach shelter. In back of me, a child was wailing, but she paid him no heed
.

I turned, my hand out to comfort him, but the sight of my fingers frightened him more
.

At last the woman gestured with her whip. In the distance was the fort. She took a breath, calmer now. The horse slowed down, foam along its poor mouth
.

My heart began to race as I thought of those dear faces
,
Father’s and John’s. I glanced at my hands again. I could use them better now, but if only they didn’t have to see them. Looking down at my feet, I wished, too, that I had washed myself in the river
.

The woman called out, and the gates swung open. She laid the whip over the horse’s back, but gently this time, and the horse took tired steps past the guard
.

Inside, all was confusion. Women sat on the ground, babies in their arms. Others were coming out of a church. And men, their footsteps hurried, went back and forth from one area to another
.

I remembered to thank the woman as I let myself down from the wagon. But she barely glanced at me. “I don’t know if we’re safe even here,” she mumbled
.

I searched, looking into every male face, hurrying myself into and out of the church, staring into doorways, stopping myself from calling out. Who could hear me in this din of babies crying, men calling, someone singing in a language I’d never heard before?

I followed along the side of a rough wooden wall. I was safer than I’d been for days, for weeks. I felt the sun, hot even this late in the afternoon, and for the first time I cried
.

I cried for Mother; I cried for Isaac and Ammy. I even cried for Mistress Patchin and her kind husband. I raised my hands to
my face, feeling the webbing of the skin. So I cried for my hands, for the hens, for the henhouse, and for the house. I cried for Stout Lucy
.

From behind, arms came around me. “Ah, Zee,” the voice whispered
.

“How did this happen?” Libby grips the steering wheel. “What will we ever do with him?”

Elizabeth turns to look over her shoulder. A filthy blue pickup truck follows them. That’s Harry at the wheel.

“The house is a mess,” Libby says. “Things piled on the bed in the downstairs guest room—” She breaks off, and Elizabeth realizes that she’s the one who has made the mess. No, that’s not it entirely. Libby’s gotten sloppier since that first week, too.

“There isn’t a thing in the refrigerator worth eating,” Libby goes on.

Elizabeth reaches out and touches Libby’s smooth hand on the wheel. “He won’t care.”

Libby raises one hand to her throat. “He knows I’m a terrible cook. He told me that once.”

Elizabeth glances at her. “Harry looks as if he hasn’t had a decent meal in his whole life.”

In Libby’s driveway, Harry lopes toward them from his pickup truck. He thrusts a faded book into Elizabeth’s hands. “You may want to look at this,” he says, then follows them into the hall to see the drawing. He stands there, hands clasped behind his back, leaning forward. “Oh, Zee,” he says, and takes the picture off the wall.

“What are you doing?” Libby asks.

Harry looks over his glasses. “I won’t hurt it, Libby. You know I won’t.”

Libby just shakes her head a little, so Elizabeth goes into the kitchen to find something to pry the frame away so she can show him the map.

Harry walks into the dining room with the picture and begins to work on the tiny nails in the back of the frame. “Forty years I’ve been searching for Zee. And all this time she’s been hiding in Libby’s hall.” He glances at Elizabeth. “What a family resemblance. Amazing.”

Elizabeth feels it to her bones. There’s a line that stretches back for two hundred years; it connects her to Zee. To Libby. To this grouchy Harry. To her mother.

She belongs here. How will she ever leave? How can she? She tries not to think of Pop’s face. “Excuse me,” she says, and runs up the stairs and into her bedroom. She closes the door and leans against it, taking deep breaths. A moment later, Libby’s at the door, whispering, “Elizabeth.”

“I’ll be right down.” Elizabeth tries to sound normal, as if she’s not drowning in tears.

“Let me in,” Libby says.

Elizabeth moves away from the door. Libby takes a step inside and puts her long skinny arms around her. “I know,” Libby says. “I feel the same way.”

They stand there for a few minutes longer, and then Libby says, “We forgot Harry.” She smiles a little. “And I have to do something about dinner.”

Downstairs, Elizabeth watches as Harry takes the picture from the frame and turns it over. “Look at this, Elizabeth.” His fingers hover over the mountains, over the circling lines. He looks up at her. “Would you go out to the truck? Somewhere there’s a map we can write on.”

In the truck, she goes through a mess of books, a half roll of Life Savers that might have been there for years, and a few pennies. Finally she finds a creased map in the glove compartment.

They spread Harry’s map out on the table, and he traces Zee’s route with a pen. “Do you see it, Elizabeth? Do you see it?”

The three mountains, Zee’s mountains.

He shows her the Delaware River, the Catskills. “There’s the Susquehanna,” he says, “running to the Mohawk River.” He stops; the pen circles. “And on the other side of the Mohawk is Fort Dayton.”

“I don’t see—”

“The fort’s not there anymore, but that’s where her map says she was going. Clear as day.” He looks up. “Oh, yes, Dayton.” His finger travels from there along the Mohawk River. “Here’s Oriskany. I think she was there.”

Elizabeth shakes her head, and he sighs. “You haven’t heard of it? Everyone should know it, one of the bloodiest
battles of the Revolution. They went from Fort Dayton, hoping to save Fort Stanwix.”

Elizabeth smells the roast that’s cooking in the kitchen. Libby cooks beef until it’s leather. It’ll take forever to get dinner ready.

And then Libby calls, “Elizabeth, would you mind setting the table?”

“Elizabeth can’t set the table,” Harry calls. “She’s busy.”

Libby laughs from the kitchen. “Sorry,” she calls.

Harry says, “St. Leger came from Canada with his British soldiers. He picked up Loyalists along the way, and the Iroquois, all of them determined to take Fort Stanwix.”

Where is Zee? That’s what Elizabeth wants to know.

But Harry goes on. “Our side was a patchwork. The American army was mostly a bunch of farmers. The Oneidas were on our side, but the other tribes were with the British. It was a miracle that we won in the end.”

He’s back to the map again. “Our General Herkimer takes eight hundred men from Dayton. They walk along the Mohawk River toward Stanwix. But they don’t know they’re heading for tragedy. They don’t know that Brant and his Iroquois are waiting to ambush them at the ravine in Oriskany.” He closes his eyes. “The ravine is a deep hollow gorged out by water with only a narrow road through it. It’s there that they’re surrounded.”

Elizabeth shivers.

“I’ll take you to see it. More than half of them were slaughtered before they even realized they were surrounded. Tomahawked. Scalped. Bayoneted. Horrible. Imagine the pain, the blood.… The first time I saw the ravine, I cried.
A grown man, a tough grown man.” He spreads his hands. “What determination they had to build this country.”