August 1759
Shadows retracted as the morning sun crept higher. A half hour had passed, maybe more, since Bright Star and Joseph had disappeared into the wood, leaving Catherine with their refusal to escort Samuel to Quebec. She understood their reasons.
And yet the matter remained unresolved in her spirit.
Wind sashayed through the branches above her, sending fallen leaves into a swirl that reflected her tumbling thoughts. Suppose Samuel did not take his information to General Wolfe. Suppose there was no battle before the British were frozen out of the St. Lawrence River, and that the wheat harvest was delivered to the French and Canadian troops on time. If what Moreau had said was true, Quebec might survive this winter, but what of the people of Montreal, with all of its grain gone north? And what of next winter? Would the country remain on the brink of starvation, cutting rations by quarters and halves?
The air smelled of warm earth and pine needles, but Catherine could already feel the season beginning to turn. Another thought gripped her, bringing a chill to her skin. King George’s War had lasted four years here in North America, and at the end of it, all conquered territories were returned to their original empires. Four years of fighting, suffering, capturing, dying, for naught. The only difference at the end of that war were the families ripped apart by raiding abductors or death. Across the Atlantic Ocean, France and England had vied for more land. The colonies had fought, along with their Indian allies. People died, homes were destroyed, and relationships ruined. And nothing was achieved.
Would this war be any different? Or, if British victory was inevitable, what would be gained by delaying it?
Unease screwed tight in her middle, its sharp edge wrapped in the usual hunger. The cramping in her stomach had grown harder to ignore. Perhaps she shouldn’t, for it represented the hunger so many people now endured. The empires were using the colonists as a puppeteer pulls the strings of marionettes, but another year of war was one more year New France could not afford.
A rhythmic pounding drew her attention to Samuel perched on the roof of the house, hammering new shingles in place of leaky ones. From the shade, she could watch him unobserved. But she would not allow herself to do so.
Hands still stinging from scrubbing laundry, Catherine retied her hat into place. Flapping her apron against a cloud of gnats, she stepped between pinecones and emerged into the sun just as her father came out of the kitchen, a yoke over his shoulders. Empty buckets swung from ropes on each side. Hat askew upon his bowed head, his left hand and right elbow held the ropes to keep the buckets from swaying too wildly.
Hoisting her skirts in her left hand, she hastened to meet him. “Out of water, are we? I can help, if you like.”
“Let an old man be of some use yet, won’t you?” His tone was gruff, but the plea behind it sincere.
“Then I shall walk with you.”
A grin softened his weathered face. “And I shall be glad of the company. You’ve been gone so much lately.”
So he’d been lonesome. For her. It was a notion both sad and soothing. Glancing at her father as they walked, Catherine noted with a pang how thin his shoulders and arms had become, how narrow his neck. Even his hair had thinned, either from age or the famine, or both. His hat slipped forward, and she pushed it back into place with a smile.
Beneath a sky of peerless blue, they went to the creek behind the trading post and found the spot where water ruffled over rocks made smooth and round by its flow. On the opposite bank, butterflies opened and closed their black-veined wings on purple wildflowers. Gabriel knelt on one knee, and Catherine scooped clean water into each bucket.
“Ach.” Pushing himself back to his feet, Gabriel widened his stance to support the weight of the full pails. “Look at your hands now. Come, let me see the extent of it.”
Reluctantly, she turned them up and back again, revealing blistered palms from scythe and sickle, and cracked knuckles reddened from soap. “They’ll heal, Papa.” She slipped her hands into her apron pockets.
He exhaled the sweet tang of his pipe smoke. “I never meant you for fieldwork, you know. I’m not pleased it’s come to this, no matter the bluster I may put on for the captain. The sooner his business here is done, the sooner you and I can get on with ours, eh?” He slanted his head toward the trading post. “We’re losing trades with you away at the fields every day.” The sleeve on his abbreviated right arm worked loose of its pin and fluttered in the heat-laden breeze.
As she repinned the sleeve for him, Catherine felt how reduced the stump had become beneath the linen. “Business is slow right now, anyway, and likely will be until our porters return from New York. But I appreciate you heeding my wishes and keeping the post closed while I’m not here to manage it.”
His laugh was not darkened by drink or bitterness. “You and I both know I make a muddle of things almost as soon as I enter the place. I don’t know where I’d be without you.”
The rare praise took Catherine by surprise, but she knew better than to make too much of it. “Thank you for saying so,” was all she allowed herself, grateful that this time his words were a balm and not a club.
He winked at her. “I don’t say what I should often enough, I own. And what I shouldn’t say likely comes out too frequently. That’s the drink, you know, don’t you?”
Sunshine beat down upon Catherine’s hat and shoulders. With only a moment’s hesitation, she decided to take advantage of his good spirits. “I do. You’re a better man without it, Papa.”
Gabriel gripped the rope from which one bucket hung. His opposite elbow steadied the other. “It’s a man’s right to ease his burdens and wet his whistle. Besides, your mother tried keeping me from my drink for a time, and my body couldn’t cope with the deprivation.” He licked his lips. “The only thing for it was more rum. It’s good medicine, that, and I take it faithfully.” The discussion ended, he pivoted to carry the water away.
But when he cast a glance toward Samuel, who was climbing down the ladder from the roof, he turned back toward Catherine, sloshing water into the grass.
She went to him. “What is it?”
His voice lowered. “Moreau told me the Montreal prison is still overcrowded, but as soon as the space allows, he means for Samuel to go. I fought him on it, of course, since Crane belongs to me and has committed no crime. Moreau styles himself a stallion in that fancy uniform, but he’s skittish as a colt. If he takes Crane, he’ll be stealing my property. I daresay the law is on my side. But if you see Crane saying or doing anything to incite the soldiers, put a stop to it straightaway, or we’ll lose more than we already have.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Crane is an infuriating fool, but a useful one. Talk sense to him, Catherine, in the way only you can. I’ll leave you to it.” Bearing his yoke, he trudged away.
Samuel headed toward her, the sun gilding his hair and shining on bronzed arms where his shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbows. She met his gaze across the distance of years and broken dreams, for she stood beside the very creek in which he had proposed marriage.
But it was a question of war that brought him now, and she could no longer put off her answer.
Pulse quickening, Catherine beckoned Samuel into the dappled shade of birch trees. “I see my father has put you to work on the Sabbath, too.”
“The roof, you mean?” He moved his shoulder in a circle, the one he’d dislocated years ago. “I didn’t mind. It was easy enough to repair.”
If only all things were. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. By the way, you’d be amazed at the view from up there. You want to know what I saw?”
Catherine waited, head tilted.
“Your hands.” Smiling, he reached into a pocket and withdrew the jar of salve she’d made for his ankles. “All right, I didn’t get a good look, but if they held your father’s interest, my guess is you could use some of your own medicine. Let’s see.”
Resigned, Catherine held out her hands. What a mess of calluses, blisters, and cracks. Whatever vanity she may have owned had dissolved in the laundry tub along with the lye.
“See, that’s what happens when you don’t spend years toughening up your hands like me.” He scooped ointment out of the jar with his finger and gently applied it to her skin.
She sucked in a breath at his touch on her palms, fingertips, knuckles. The slight pressure brought relief to her skin, but her heart pushed hard against her chest. Mastering herself, she chuckled. “I am covered in salve enough for both of us. You might have saved more for yourself.”
Replacing the lid, he slipped it into her front apron pocket. “I suspect Thankful may have use of it, as well.” Bending, he snapped seedpods from some pickerelweed, and Catherine’s stomach groaned loudly enough to hear. It felt as though it were gnawing at her backbone.
Samuel noticed. “I’d say it’s time you pick some seed yourself, but I don’t think it would taste very good right now.” He nodded at her ointment-coated hands. “Anyone watching us?”
A fresh wave of heat crawled up her neck. She glanced around. “No.” She knew what he meant to do. If she weren’t so hungry, she wouldn’t let him.
“Here.”
Wrinkling her nose, she opened her mouth. Samuel dropped some seeds inside, and she kept them there as long as she could, making them last before chewing. The warmth she’d felt before burst into a blazing inferno.
This was ridiculous. Here she was, sweating beneath the noonday sun, unpresentable hands covered in strong-smelling unguent, being fed weeds and blushing over it. The absurdity of it bubbled up inside her, eventually finding release in laughter.
Grinning, Sam helped himself to his own portion of seeds, then gave her a few more.
Was she going mad to laugh at a time like this? She went to cover her mouth with her hand, then stopped herself, but not before she’d smeared her cheek with salve.
Chuckling, Samuel wiped it off with the pad of his thumb. “How I’ve missed you, Catie.”
For a fleeting instant, possibility fluttered. Fire and ice came together inside her, each warring for the upper hand. She had burned for him, and burned against him. She had gone numb in his absence, and his return had left her cold.
“Please,” she whispered, all levity sifted away. “Don’t call me that anymore.”
Samuel studied her. “What then, you who push me away and then eat from my hand? You who stole the whole of my heart and keep it still? What would you have me call you?”
Yours. The word burst upon her mind with a suddenness, an intensity that overwhelmed her. With a violent shift, the gate to her guarded longings cracked open.
“What do you mean, I keep your heart?” She nudged peels of white bark on the ground with her toe. “Not now, I don’t. Not for years.”
A long moment passed, heavy with things unspoken. “I said too much. Forgive me.”
Catherine needed to summon her wits. In their limited time alone together, there was much to discuss. She needed to think. “Samuel,” she whispered, “we must talk about the war and your role in it while we have the chance, and not continue talking in circles about our past. But I will tell you I’m trying to forgive it all. Can you at least tell me why you changed your mind about us? Was it Joel’s death that altered our course? Was it the war and your loyalties to the British crown?”
He leaned back against a thin birch trunk. Plucking a leaf from a low-hanging branch, he smoothed it between thumb and fingers. “No. War was no match for our love.”
Bewilderment lodged in her throat. Catherine looped her arm around a tree opposite him, pressing her hip to the slender support. Sunlight speared through the leaves above them. “I just wish I understood why you stopped loving me.”
Samuel’s lips parted. The leaf slipped from his hand as he leaned forward. “Did you not hear me? I never stopped. Whatever happens, believe me: There is nothing wrong with you. You are far too good for the trials you suffer. Find a husband, Catherine, to bring you the happiness you deserve.”
She found no sense in his contradiction. “You still love me and yet tell me to seek another man to marry?”
“We cannot resume our relationship now. Too much has happened. There’s no going back.”
Unconvinced but not ready to show it, Catherine massaged the salve into her hands, coaxing it into her skin. Hurt and hope tangled together. “Why didn’t you at least write?”
“Catherine, I did.”
A gasp escaped her. “What? When? You mean before Joel’s death?”
“And after.”
The words burrowed into her and expanded until the pressure grew nearly unbearable. He could be lying. It would be easy enough to do and could not be proven either way. But she knew by his expression that he wasn’t. “That’s why you reacted the way you did when I asked about Joel.”
A ridge forming between his eyebrows, Samuel tapped his thumb against the hammer hooked into his waistband. “I thought you knew. I thought you’d received my letter, and that your lack of reply was response enough.”
The air left her lungs. Ache rushed in. Catherine felt hot and cold by turns. Water riffled and purled in the creek, and memory spilled over in her mind. The proposal, the parting, the promise that he’d return. The letter that never came. The empires must have been at war by the time Samuel sent it. You could have sent another, tried again a different way. She wouldn’t say it. One could drown in should-haves and what-ifs. These were distractions from the chief matter at hand.
But he still loved her. Or had she only dreamed it? She could not—would not—name the stirring she felt. Catherine kneaded her hands. Possessing herself, she met his unblinking gaze.
“Sam, I—”
Footfalls sounded. They were too widely spaced to be Thankful.
Samuel closed the gap between them. “Say you’ll help me. You know the way north, and you know I can’t get there on my own. I must get there before all the wheat does.”
She scanned their surroundings. Gabriel was returning for more water but was still too far away to hear their whispers. “Fontaine said this morning that the last of the harvest would arrive in Quebec by September 15.”
“Then I must get there before that date.” Urgency tightened his voice.
The knot of resistance inside her broke apart, transforming into an overwhelming conviction that a chance to end the war was worth the risks. Joseph and Bright Star didn’t think so, but Catherine had disagreed with them before.
“I’ll take you.”