Part 26 (1/2)

Marni was waiting for him in the yard behind the house, rubbing a pinafore on a washboard. Thin whiffs of steam rose from the wash water. Nearby a black kettle was suspended above a fire made on the open ground. Her eyes lit up at the sight of the string of game. ”You did well.”

”Keep you from being hungry for a time,” he said. It was cold enough so Corm could see his breath when he spoke. He reached over and stroked her hair. Lately, when they were alone like this, she had taken to ignoring her mobcap, letting her long straight hair fall free. It was the color of fresh wheat and reached halfway down her back. When they made love and she was on top the way she liked to be, her hair hung around them like a curtain, shutting away the outside world.

Marni ducked away from his touch and reached for the birds. She spent a few seconds examining his kill, then cooed with pleasure. ”You didn't shoot them. You did it the Indian way.”

Cormac slid the bow from his shoulder and released the quiver of arrows. ”You prefer that, don't you? When I do things the Indian way.”

”Some things I do,” she agreed. Once, she'd made him show her how the Indians did it with squaws. He had her get down on all fours and he stood behind her and thrust himself into her. She'd hated it and they never did it again. ”With bird killing, anyway,” she said. ”With a bow and arrow there are no pellets of lead to break your teeth when you least expect it.”

”Shouldn't be any, no matter how the bird's killed. Not if it's cleaned proper.”

She smiled again, her pink tongue darting forward to taunt him. ”Clean them yourself if you do not like the way I do it.”

”I like everything you do. Well enough, anyways.” Again he reached out to stroke her hair and again she ducked away. ”You're beautiful,” he said. ”That's why I want to touch you.”

”But right now I'm busy.”

”Leave off what you're doing.”

”Why?”

”Because I want you to do something else.”

”Later. When I finish the was.h.i.+ng.”

Corm shrugged and began to remove his hunting s.h.i.+rt. ”Then you might as well scrub this, too.”

He'd been on the farm less than a week when she surprised him in the wash yard, though both of them knew the encounter was pure calculation. It was the first time she'd seen him s.h.i.+rtless and she had found his lack of chest hair startling. ”So it's true that you're half Indian,” she'd said.

”It's true. Anyway, I thought you knew everything about me.”

”I had heard ... But the way you look ... I thought maybe it was a lie.”

”It's no lie. So what do you think? Would my scalp be worth the full ten guineas in Halifax? That's the bounty Governor Lawrence has offered for an Indian scalp, isn't it?”

”There's a better price than that on your head,” she'd told him. ”The Abbe LeLoutre at Fort Beausejour, I hear he offers a hundred livres for the scalp of any English settler, and two hundred livres for yours. Twice that much if you are brought to him still breathing. So he can scalp you while you're alive, he says, and kill you after. But I do not go to Halifax. I have as little to do with the English as I can manage.”

”But you're living on the English side of the line,” he'd said.

Marni had shrugged. ”My family's farm was here before the line was drawn. No one consulted us about where it would be.”

For the Acadians, little had changed in the fifty years since most of l'Acadie had been ceded to the English. Seven months Corm had been here, and though as far as he could tell Marni never went near a church, most of her neighbors still practiced the Catholic faith, spoke French, not English, and swore only a limited allegiance to the English king. They said they would remain neutral if anyone took up arms against His Majesty, but they did not commit themselves to fighting on his behalf. Most important, they went on farming and being prosperous against all the odds. Those small sheds he'd seen when he came here were not for drying fish or storing apples as he thought. They were part of a remarkable system of earthen d.y.k.es that kept the seawater out and drained the rain from the wetlands, so eventually the salt marshes were washed clean and became sweet and were reclaimed for crops. The Acadians grew enough to amply feed themselves and had plenty left over to sell. And most of them secretly supplied the French forts before they traded with the English.

As for Marni and him, they were both outcasts. It was a fact that bound them to each other almost as strongly as the fire that had crackled between them the first time he accidentally touched her hand. She reached to take the s.h.i.+rt he'd suggested she wash. Corm tossed it aside and grabbed her and reeled her into his arms. Marni resisted for only a moment, then pressed herself to him.

Corm put his hand on her breast. ”Inside,” she said against his lips, pus.h.i.+ng her tongue into his mouth between the words. ”Inside. I want to be naked.”

Later he slept. After about an hour Marni woke him with a mug of warm milk and spruce beer. ”Here, open your eyes. You are acting like someone possessed. Shouting and arguing with ghosts. There can be no rest in such sleep.”

He came awake instantly. ”What did I say?”

”I have no idea. You were talking Indian.”

Corm took the mug and drank half of it in one long swallow. ”It's good, thanks. Are you going to cook me one of-”

The shout from outside cut off his words. ”Peace be to this house and all who dwell therein.” A stranger, and not far away.

Marni jumped up from her place beside his sleeping mat. Corm as well, and he reached for his long gun. ”No,” she whispered, talking while she bent over at the waist and twisted her long hair into a single coil, then stood and hid it beneath a mobcap. ”It's a priest. I'll go.”

”How do you know-”

”It's what they always say. You stay here. Hide in case I have to bring him inside.”

She had gone out the door and pulled it firmly shut behind her before he had a chance to protest.

”Good day to you, Monsieur le Cure.”

”And to you, mademoiselle. I came because I have not seen you at Holy Ma.s.s in the three weeks since I've been here.”

A black robe. She had heard that one had come to replace old Cure Vincent at the church of St. Gabrielle in the village. ”Perhaps if you had been here a little more time, Monsieur le Cure, you would know that I never go to church.”

”You will lose your immortal soul, mademoiselle.”

”Perhaps I have done that already.”

So, Phillippe Faucon thought, everything they said was true. She wasn't just a sinner, but a defiant one. He had little experience in the day-to-day care of souls, little idea of what to say in the face of such confirmed wrongheadedness. ”Eternity is a very long time to spend in the fires of h.e.l.l, mademoiselle.”

Marni shrugged. ”Perhaps it is only spent in the ground, Monsieur le Cure. Perhaps when we die we have only the grave to look forward to. I think we must take our pleasures in this life while we can.”

”They tell me you live here alone.”

”I do. My mother died many years ago, my father not long after. And I have no brothers or sisters.”

”And you are not married?”

Marni smiled. ”I am sure there are any number of people around here who will be happy to tell you the story of my betrothal, Monsieur le Cure. In fact, you must have heard it by now.”

”Yes. It is a sad tale, but-”

”But dead is dead. As I have said. Now, Monsieur le Cure, is there something more I can do for you?”

Philippe nodded toward the house. ”Perhaps if we go inside-”

”No.”

So she did have someone staying with her. But was it really Cormac Shea?

”Mademoiselle has asked you to leave, monsieur. I suggest it would be wise to do so.”

Marni turned as soon as she heard his voice. ”There is no need. I am able to-”