Louisa Rawlings Read online

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the following:

  The good people of Long Lake, who were so kind and hospitable, and Mrs. Frances Seaman, the town historian, who gave me insights into Long Lake’s history; with the hope that they’ll overlook the few liberties I took! (Reuben Cary and Mitchell Sabattis each acquired a fictitious son, and Clear Pond—now called Lake Eaton—grew an island for the purposes of my story.)

  Also the staff of the wonderful Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake, who were so helpful to the lady who haunted the premises for a whole week, and even stocked my book in their gift shop, next to far more serious and worthy tomes.

  And a shout-out to Ann and Martin Fishman, for research material.

  And last, but scarcely least, my thanks to the glorious Adirondack Mountains, for a majesty and beauty that was, and always will be, inspiring.

  In the woods we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life…which nature cannot repair.

  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON

  Chapter One

  The streak of lightning knifed out of the sky and slashed at a solitary hemlock on the far shore. Marcy sucked in her breath sharply, watching in horrified fascination as the tree splintered and crumbled, a puff of blue smoke rising from the charred spot where the lightning had hit. She lifted a hand to cover the involuntary cry that had sprung to her lips, and saw that her fingers were shaking.

  “Tarnation, Marcy Tompkins,” she whispered. “What ails you?” She’d seen a hundred storms and laughed in the face of thunder and lightning. She took a deep breath, stilling her thudding heart, then giggled aloud.

  Look at you, miss, she thought. Scared and shaking like an old woman because of a bit of lightning. She looked up at the mountains that ringed the lake; the pines of Owls Head were beginning to sigh in the wind.

  Why should I be afraid? she thought. This is mine. The mountains. The wilderness. It’s always been mine.

  And the lake. Especially the lake. There were a thousand of them in the Adirondack Wilderness, but only one Long Lake. Her lake. Part of the chain that stretched for more than a hundred miles to the border of Canada. She’d paddled its length countless times, her boat gliding smoothly on the current. She knew it as a lover would—its every mood, each bend and curve, its rages when the wind whipped across it, as now it did, its friendly silences. It was in her blood, this aching love of the lake, of the wilderness.

  She smiled, remembering. Her father had felt it, too, that long-ago day, standing on the veranda of their small cabin that looked out upon the ten-mile length of Long Lake. Just come home from the war, he was. And still wearing the sash of his New York regiment, with a bit of black crape pinned on out of respect for poor Mr. Lincoln.

  He’d kissed her mother, then walked silently out to the veranda, while Marcy tagged behind, wishing he’d notice what a big girl she’d become since he’d marched off to fight for the Union. He’d gazed out on the lake, the western shore already in shadow, the tops of the bordering pines still on fire with the last rays of the sun. A golden eagle had swooped low, then wheeled and turned, heading toward Round Island. Her father had stood there, the tears washing his weather-beaten cheeks. Then he’d gulped, cleared his throat, and harrumphed loudly.

  “Marcy,” he’d said, “you reckon Pickwacket Pond is fished out yet?”

  “I love you, Daddy,” she’d whispered, and clasped the hand he’d held out to her.

  So long ago. Marcy sighed, then ducked under a tree as the first raindrops began to fall. She’d never make the cabin now. Might as well watch the storm a little longer, then head for Uncle Jack’s barn during a lull.

  Yes. It’s in my blood, she thought. This region. Just as it had been in her father’s. Then how to explain her sudden panic? The heart-tearing urge to run as far from the mountains as she could get? She’d come down to this sheltered cove, as she so often did, to watch the storm, to hear the thunder building far away across the lake, rolling through the valleys and echoing against the side of Owls Head. It never failed to thrill her. The air so still, oppressive almost. The black clouds gathering silently. The lake like glass. Then the first messenger of the storm: a gust of wind, bending the tops of the trees, working its way down the lake in serrated ranks like a ghostly army, ravaging the smooth surface.

  Then the lightning had struck the hemlock tree, splintering it, and Marcy had shuddered.

  “Nature is good,” her father always said. “Mother Nature. She looks after her children.”

  “What else do we need?” her mother would ask, mending her worn dress one more time. “We have each other. We have this beautiful country. Nature is good to us.”

  “No,” said Marcy softly, her heart twisting with pain. “No!” she cried. She raised tear-filled eyes to the shattered hemlock across the lake. The tree is dead, she thought. Why? How can Nature be good? What did the tree ever do, except to give comfort and shelter? And now it’s dead.

  Almost against her will, she turned to look at the ruins on the edge of the shore. And her parents were dead, buried in the wreckage of their cabin.

  Explain that, Mother Nature, she thought in bewilderment. Why did the earth shake so hard that the chimney toppled? They didn’t deserve that. They trusted in you.

  She shivered involuntarily. The earthquake had happened seven months ago. And since then, sleeping in her bed in Uncle Jack’s cabin, she’d never felt completely safe. Not ever again.

  She sighed and wiped at her cheeks. Maybe she should get away. Leave the North Woods. It wasn’t that she was actually afraid, of course. She still loved her mountains and her lake. But maybe it was time to see a little more of the world. She’d been to Albany only once, and Saratoga three times. And though she hadn’t much patience for the city slickers who’d crowded into North Creek since Dr. Durant had extended the railroad up from Saratoga Springs in ’71, she had to admit that the women’s gowns and parasols were the prettiest things she’d ever seen. She’d look nice in pretty dresses like that. She was a woman now. Eighteen last month. And even if her mirror hadn’t told her so, she knew she was good-looking. Every time she went over to Mr. Sabattis’s Boardinghouse to help out in the kitchen or clean the rooms for a few extra dollars, the fancy Dans, up for a few weeks of fishing and hunting and “roughing it,” would eye her like hungry kids at a strawberry festival.

  Yes. She was good-looking. Not as tall as she would have liked, and a little rounder and stronger and healthier-looking than those frail, pale creatures who came up from New York City for rustic pleasures and pure air and didn’t even have the sense to leave their corsets behind. But her hair was a rich mahogany with reddish glints, and her eyes were the blue-green of the rocks that shimmered in the bed of the Opalescent River. She’d look pretty in a fancy dress.

  But first she had to get away from the North Woods.

  And do what? she thought. She could take care of herself in the woods, but in the city…what was she fit for? She couldn’t hunt and fish in the city. She could clean other people’s houses, of course. But for that, she might as well stay in Long Lake and work in the boardinghouse.

  Or she could get married.

  She laughed aloud at the sudden thought. Tarnation! Why not? The summer was just beginning. The tourists and sportsmen would be invading the mountains, as they had every year since Mr. Murray had published his book on his adventures in the Wilderness. “Murray’s Fools” they’d called them in the summer of 1870, three years ago. That flock of greenhorns who’d come swarming into the mountains for a summer of disaster and cold and crowding. But the men were young and knew the ways of the world. And if she were ever to leave, they would be her ticket. Her friend Zeb Cary, the blacksmith’s son, had somehow stopped bei
ng a marriageable prospect ages ago, though she still let him kiss her and take some liberties.

  It might be fun—to live in a city, to marry one of those nice young men, to wear pretty dresses.

  To feel safe again.

  Not that she was afraid of the mountains that had taken her parents from her. No. She shook the unwelcome thoughts from her brain. It was only natural to want to see something of the world. To have all the things she’d only dreamed of. She’d find a man to marry her and take her away.

  It was raining harder now. She giggled at her own impulsive scheme and raced for Uncle Jack’s barn, holding the back of her skirt over her head and shoulders to protect her from the driving rain. The barn was dark. Marcy shook the rain from her skirt and leaned against the closed door, catching her breath.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Marcy Tompkins.”

  “Zeb!” Marcy turned, peering through the gloom at the rawboned young man lolling against a buckboard wagon. “What are you doing here?”

  “Old Jack asked me to look at this wheel rim. The storm caught me. I thought I’d wait it out. Still mad at me?”

  Marcy shrugged. “You can’t help it if your maw never taught you to dance. But you could have tried when the reverend brought in the fiddler especially for the church supper.”

  “Then you’re still mad.”

  “No.”

  “Then come kiss me.”

  Marcy made a face. “Tarnation, Zeb…”

  He moved toward her, scowling. “You used to like my kisses. Used to like a lot of things!”

  “We were both kids, Zeb.” She was glad for the dim light. Her face felt as if it were burning with shame. Remembering. They had grown up together. Shared their first tentative kiss at sixteen. By the time they were seventeen she had allowed him to fondle her breasts. She enjoyed it. Her body had felt pleasure at his touch, in the same way that her body responded to the warm sun, the icy winds, the soft breezes. What were bodies for, if not to feel? Only once had she felt a pang of guilt. Just after her parents had died, she and Zeb had been kissing at night, lying on the sandy shore of the lake. She had allowed his hand to stray up under her petticoat, to invade her drawers, to explore territory that had been inviolate until then. It had been a delicious sensation, thrilling and comforting all at the same time. She’d only felt wicked afterward, when she had returned to her room at Uncle Jack’s and found blood on her flannel drawers.

  And someone had seen them in the moonlight and told Uncle Jack. Despite Zeb’s protests that they were both old enough to do what they wanted, Uncle Jack (with Zeb’s father’s blessing) had marched the young man to the woodshed for a session with his razor strop. The knowledge that her mother would have done the same to her with a hairbrush had she been alive filled Marcy with added remorse. Since then, Zeb’s caresses had been confined to the region above her waist.

  “We’re not kids anymore, Marcy,” Zeb growled, strong hands gripping her by the shoulders.

  “Don’t you dare, Zeb Cary!”

  He dropped his hands. “I don’t know what’s got into you, Marce. The last few months… No. Even before then. After your parents died. When you came to live with your uncle. A body can’t tell what you’re thinking anymore, you’re that changed.”

  He looked so forlorn it nearly broke her heart. But he was right. She had changed. Had it been there all this time—and she unaware of it—the fear, the confused longing to leave the mountains? From the day her parents died. Maybe it had been in her brain all that time, and she hadn’t even known it herself.

  Not until the lightning hit the tree.

  “Oh, Zeb…” She put her arms around his neck—a gesture of friendship. Of sympathy.

  His arms tightened around her, and he kissed her full on the mouth. Hard. She resisted for a moment, angry that he should have misread her kindness, then relaxed against him. She really did enjoy being kissed. She closed her eyes and allowed his mouth to take hers again, savoring the pleasant sensation of his lips, the way his hands had begun to move lightly over her back. It was even more pleasant when his hands moved around to the front, cradling the roundness of her breasts. She groaned in contentment and nestled more firmly in his arms, feeling his hardness even through her skirts. It was only when he began to unbutton the top of her dress that she came to her senses. “Stop it, Zeb,” she murmured, pushing against him.

  His voice was strained and hoarse. “Please, Marcy. Please…just this one time before I go plumb crazy wanting you!” He tried to pull her down to the straw-covered floor.

  She felt an edge of panic. She couldn’t let Zeb make love to her. She couldn’t afford to be sidetracked. She’d be trapped forever in these mountains. “No!” she said firmly, pushing him away from her.

  He shook his head, bewildered. “I thought maybe you’d marry me…”

  “Marry you?” She threw back her head and laughed. “Marry you? If you’re not every way a jackass, Zeb Cary…” She realized her cruelty and softened at once. “You know there was never any chance of that, Zeb,” she said gently.

  “Why?”

  “Let it go.”

  “Drat it, Marcy. Why?”

  “Don’t make me say it.”

  He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. “Why?”

  His fingers were painful through the thin calico of her dress. “Because you’re green as a sapling,” she snapped. “Because I want a better life than you can give me!” She saw the pain in his eyes. “Because I’m not sweet on you, Zeb,” she said softly. “Never have been. You know it.”

  “You let me kiss you often enough!”

  “Kisses aren’t everything.” She swept past him and threw open the barn door. The rain had almost stopped.

  He gave a low growl behind her. “You let me take a walloping for you, Marcy. You owe me something for that, at least!”

  She whirled in anger, hands on hips. “I don’t owe you one blamed thing, Zeb Cary! I’m remembering that you didn’t mind kissing me!”

  “But I was waiting for more, and you know it!” he said, and lunged toward her. She sidestepped nimbly. He clutched at her, managing to catch her wrist, but she swung around and smacked him, open-handed, in the groin. Not very hard; he was still her childhood friend. He yelped in surprise and released her wrist, his hands going to his injured parts. “Darn you, Marcy!” he bellowed, standing forlornly in the doorway as she raced out of the barn and up the small rise to the cabin.

  Uncle Jack turned from the window when she slammed the door behind her and leaned against it, breathing hard. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the barn. “What in tarnation was that all about?”

  Crossing to a rough-hewn sideboard, Marcy tied on her apron, then pulled down a sack of beans from a shelf and measured a handful into a saucepan. She added some water from a covered pitcher, set the pot on the small cast-iron stove. “Zeb wants me to marry him.”

  “And…?”

  She took a slab of salt pork from a stone crock and began to dice it into little bits. “I turned him down. With no chance for a change of mind.”

  “I’ll be jiggered! Are you daft, girl?”

  “No. Just coming to my senses. I reckon I can do better than Zeb. A city slicker with an eye out for a wife…”

  He gaped in surprise. “Why would a fancy feller want to stay in Long Lake?”

  “What makes you think I want to stay?”

  “You are daft! If ever a body was married, it’s you…to these mountains.”

  Her chin jutted in defiance. “Well, maybe I want to be unmarried! Maybe I want more than just Zeb and Long Lake and the rest of it! Maybe I want to live in a city!”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know where you get these notions. You’re the contrariest girl, when you want to be. Miss Flibbertigibbet, like your paw used to call you!”

  “What’s wrong about wanting to live in a city?”

  “And married to a city feller? That you don’t love? That you don’t even know yet?”
r />   “You wouldn’t have cared if I married Zeb, and I don’t love him!”

  “But you were suited! Tarnation, girl, do you know how hard it is to live in a city?”

  She frowned in bewilderment. “What do you mean?”

  “You need money, girl! Life in a city is hard without money.”

  “I never thought of that. Do you really think so?” She bit her lip, feeling terribly young and untried.

  “I know so! Bill Peterson and his wife were never the same again after they came back from New York City. It right near broke their hearts to live so mean. Give up this silly idea!”

  She stirred the beans thoughtfully, then turned to him, her blue-green eyes lighting up with the innocent joy of a child. “Why then, I’ll marry a rich man!” She smiled in delight. It seemed such an easy solution.

  “Dag nab it, girl, if you don’t beat all! Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying?”

  “Bosh! Why should I? I’ll marry a rich man, that’s all.” She resumed her task with the salt pork, her knife clicking determinedly on the cutting block.

  “You’re as stubborn as your father was, once you set your mind to it. And how do you mean to bag your game, miss? Those rich fellers only stay a couple of nights at the boardinghouse before lighting out for the woods.”

  “Don’t you have a group of sportsmen coming up in a couple of weeks?”

  Old Jack scratched the graying stubble on his chin. “A biggish party, like as I can make out. One of the Sabattis boys is spoken for, and Amos Robinson, and Alonzo. One or two more, maybe. We’ll need four or five guide boats, I reckon.”

  “Hunters?”

  “Science folk, too, seems like, from their letters. A Dr. Marshall and his wife. Coming over from North Creek. They mean to set up at Clear Pond for a couple months. Use it as their base camp.”

  “Hmmm. There’ll be at least one eligible bachelor in the lot, I’m sure.”

  “Now, Marcy…”

  She set down her chopping knife and wiped her hands on her apron. “Let me come along, Uncle Jack. I haven’t in ages. If your feller is soft and weak, you might need an extra paddle!”