Chapter 62

Christmas, 1793

He was lost.

Not more than five miles north of Hidden Wolf on lands he had roamed and trapped and hunted all his life, Nathaniel couldn't deny that he had lost his way, and on Christmas Eve. At his feet there was a spattering of blood in the snow, and the glassy stare of the buck that had brought him so far afield. He had won the battle of wits and persistence, and he had lost: to pack the deer out he would need to butcher it first, and there was no time.

In the trees above and behind him he was vaguely aware of a restlessness. Drawn by the smell of blood, the wolves that often followed at a distance when he hunted without the dogs—as he did today—edged closer, eager enough that they might soon risk the rifle. Nathaniel neither feared the pack nor begrudged them the meat that he would have to leave behind; game was plentiful this season. His irritation was only with himself, for letting the chase get the better of him when he had come out with nothing more than Christmas turkey in mind.

Out of habit and training, he reloaded his rifle and then he straddled the buck. With quick and economical movements of his knife he took the saddle to roast for tomorrow's dinner, his nostrils flaring at the coppery rush. The mist of his breath mixed with the steam from the open cavity.

The cloud cover that had swallowed the sun was moving down the mountain slope, quietly devouring the snow—choked pine and white cedar so that even the constant chirp and fuss of the red polls was dampened. Nathaniel swung his pack and rifle into place and began to climb upward anyway, the icy snow crackling underfoot. To walk hard was the only way to keep warm without building a fire, and to walk uphill toward the ridge was the only hope he had of getting his bearings. If the cloud cover broke. If the storm held off.

Elizabeth had taught school this afternoon, but she would be at home by now. Waiting for him. From up ahead Nathaniel heard a white owl call. Twilight on Christmas Eve, and time to be home.

* * *

Given the losses that both the Middleton and Bonner families had suffered in the past few months, it was only seemly that they keep a quiet Christmas. This was how her father had announced to Elizabeth that he and Kitty were accepting an invitation to spend the holidays with Mr. Bennett and his wife in Johnstown. Curiosity and Galileo were to go with them, because Kitty wished it so. Mr. Witherspoon would go too and would not be missed, he assured Elizabeth: it seemed that Christmas was the very worst time to try to preach Christ in Paradise.

Her curiosity aroused, Elizabeth asked her students about these vague reports of Christmas excesses. They were eager to tell her about the Kaes family's habit of a Christmas mummery, and Axel's love of fireworks, all of which she had missed the previous year because the judge had given a party of his own. She wondered if she should join in, given the recent loss of her brother, and found that even Martha, so recently widowed, was planning to take part. Christmas was a time of games and playfulness, she told Elizabeth. It would sustain them in the long winter ahead. Elizabeth thought they could use a party; Falling—Day, Many-Doves , and Runs-from-Bears had left at the beginning of the month for a visit at Good Pasture, where Many-Doves ' first child would come into the world early in the new year. Elizabeth missed their company very much.

But by dark Nathaniel had not yet come home, and Hannah seesawed rapidly between resignation and disappointment. Liam, more stoic, sat quietly by the hearth cleaning traps. At eight, Elizabeth gave in and sent them down to the village.

"I want to wait for Nathaniel," she said. "And the walk is a bit much for me, in this snow."

With a significant look at the great mound of her middle, Hannah gave in with a grin.

Elizabeth followed the swing of the lantern until it disappeared into the wood, and then she closed the door firmly against the cold and turned back into the cabin. Only the dogs were left to her, and they slept in an untidy heap by the fire, uninterested in the fact that it was Christmas Eve. She made a tour of all three rooms, but as they had spent the late afternoon cleaning and making ready for the holiday, there was nothing left for her to do but to take up her book by the hearth.

At nine when the ache in the small of her back was no longer governable and a sharp kick to her liver set her teeth on edge, Elizabeth put down her book to pace the floor, noting as she did so that she had lost sight of her own feet. In the village more than one woman had taken silent measure of her girth and then raised a brow at the suggestion that the child was not due for another six weeks. But only Curiosity and Falling—Day had actually examined her, and as Elizabeth herself had not yet announced the fact that she carried twins, they too were silent.

She stopped before the hearth to examine the miniatures of Nathaniel's mother and her own. Recently Elizabeth had been thinking more and more often of her mother, understanding for the first time how difficult it must have been for her to leave her homeland and raise her children alone in another country. She had been only twenty—five when she left Paradise. Five years younger than Elizabeth was now, she had chosen to leave her husband and travel pregnant and alone to England. In the spring, Elizabeth thought she might have a conversation with aunt Merriweather in which difficult questions would be asked.

With a careful finger, Elizabeth touched her mother's likeness, tracing the brow and widow's peak which she had inherited. She was fortunate in the women she had around her, but she wondered about this woman who was both so familiar to her and a stranger. If she would have approved of the life Elizabeth had made for herself, how she would have greeted her grandchildren, held them and rocked them. If they would have the blue eyes she had passed on to Julian's son, or perhaps Nathaniel's hazel eyes.