“It is.”
“You are wrong.”
Lewis started to think that he was indeed wrong, and this belief was confirmed in his mind as Renwell pulled the long green scarf from his neck and wound one end around one hand. Stretching himself out as flat as he could, he slowly slithered forward until the other end of the scarf was within Lewis’s reach.
As Lewis tried to grasp the scarf, he realized why he had not been sucked into the water by the river’s current — his woollen mitten and the right sleeve of his coat were frozen to the ice. With an effort that threatened to force his mouth under the water he heaved his left arm up and over the edge, and managed to touch the end of the scarf before he fell back again. Renwell wriggled forward another foot and threw the scarf once more. This time Lewis was able to grab it. Renwell started pulling slowly and steadily, and Lewis felt his body slide a little farther onto the ice. Winding a loop of the scarf around his arm as he inched forward, he was drawn gradually out of the water until he was close enough that Francis could reach his hand. Renwell slid backward gingerly until he was once again on solid ice. With a sharp jerk Lewis freed his frozen coat sleeve, but the mitten was left behind. He could not stand up. He had no feeling in his feet or legs and was so short of breath that attempting to inhale had become a trial. Renwell hunkered beside him, sharing body heat by wrapping his arms around him.
“You have to try to get up, Thaddeus. You can’t stay here. You’ll freeze.”
Lewis tried to get his feet under him, but his legs slid sideways and he collapsed. Then he felt himself being lifted, an arm around him, his body dragged toward the island shore. As he began to put one foot in front of the other a little feeling returned and they made better progress, but he felt a strange lethargy wash over him and he wanted nothing more than to lie down on the ice and sleep for a time.
“Keep going, keep going,” Renwell said when he realized what Lewis was trying to do. “You can’t stop. You have to keep going.”
Lewis tried to focus his numbed mind on the act of walking: One foot down. One foot down, the other foot down. One foot up, one foot down. Keep going. One foot, then the other.
They staggered toward the shore, Lewis at times nearly taking the other man down with him when his strength failed and his knees buckled. Each time he was lifted and urged forward.
When they at last reached the shore that had seemed a million miles distant, Renwell stopped.
“Look, there’s a house just here with a light in the window. They’ll let you in, I’m sure.”
“Where are you going?” He had clung to Renwell, to life, for what had felt like forever, and now he panicked at the thought that he would be alone. He wouldn’t make it to the house on his own, though it was only a few steps farther, he knew he wouldn’t.
“I’m a wanted man, Thaddeus. The reason I disappeared on the night of Sarah’s death was to join Mackenzie and his pathetic little army. She begged me not to go, but I laughed at her fears and off I went. And then, when things went so horribly wrong that night on Yonge Street, when Mackenzie’s pitchfork army was routed, I couldn’t go back. I’d been seen. I was a known rebel. And then I discovered that there was little to go back to anyway. I can’t stay in this country anymore. I’m not sure I’m welcome in any country, but if I can slip into the States I stand at least a chance of starting some kind of new life without the fear of being found out and arrested. It’s either that or Botany Bay. You won’t ever see me again, Thaddeus. I promise you that.”
“Francis …” Lewis wanted to speak so badly, to say that was precisely what he was most afraid of at that moment, of not ever seeing him again, and that he knew now how mistaken he had been and that he was sorry for it, yet he knew he needed all of his breath for the last few feet of his journey.
Renwell grinned weakly. “It’s all right. It’s enough for me that you know you were wrong. I only hope you realize that you’ve been wrong all along — about everything.”
Lewis nodded.
His grin grew a little broader. “I forgive you, Thaddeus. That’s the Christian thing to do, isn’t it?” And then his voice grew wistful. “Give Martha a kiss for me, will you?”
Renwell led him to the doorstep of the house, gave a quick rap on the door, and disappeared into the darkness. Lewis sank to his knees and scratched at the wood. He fell into the room when the door opened, this he remembered, but then all went black.
III
There was a long period of blackness of which Lewis was aware only by virtue of the fact that when he floated near the threshold of consciousness, he could feel his body — hot, stiff, aching. After that came the dreams, the mind’s effort to assemble events and emotions into a coherent story. He dreamt not, however, of his ordeal on the ice, but of his daughters. Sarah, lying on the bed with the open book in her hands — a dream he had had many times before. But it was his other daughters, the little ones lost to fever and accident, who came to him most often now. One by one they called to him — Grace and Ruth and Anna, none of whom had reached their third birthdays; the babies, each one succumbing to death before they had tasted more than a few days of life; and Mary, most of all, poor Mary. She visited him often — his first daughter, their first child. Memories of he and Betsy happy in the cabin back in the clearing, Mary toddling around after him, curious, laughing.
It had been summer, too hot to light a fire inside, but Betsy had insisted that both her child and her clothes be scrubbed and clean. Lewis had boiled the water outside, in the big iron pot that they used for almost everything, then carefully placed it inside the cabin door. Mary was just behind him, and he thought she was still behind him, following in the hopes that she might be allowed to help him harness the big draught horse, but knowing she would be chased to the safety of her mother’s side. But she was too curious. Wondering what was in the big pot her father had carried so carefully, she peered over the side….
Lewis and Betsy heard her screams and arrived at the cabin door at the same time. Together they reached for the writhing little body, scalding their hands to pull her out. Betsy ripped the dress off the little girl and bundled her in a blanket.
“Get the grease!” Lewis ran to the dry sink and fished underneath for the jar. Together they anointed the burns that ran from just below Mary’s shoulders to her small toes, knowing as they did so that it was futile. No amount of the cold, clammy substance could undo this amount of damage.
The child was strangely quiet as they did this, her eyes wide, her breathing shallow. It was only later that her screams filled the space inside the small cabin. Together they slathered her and tried to soothe her, not daring to pick her up for fear of further damaging the scalded tissue. They sat with her as she sank into a stupor, as the wailing subsided to whimpers. At last that, too, stopped.
Lewis had buried her himself, under a white oak tree that he’d left standing for the shade.
It was then that he had decided to leave farming and ride the circuits. He would have given anything to have had a word of comfort during that time, to have had someone else there to help him endure the sound of a small child’s agony, to assure him that she had left worldly woes behind and had gone to a better place. To tell him that it had been God’s plan, and not his own carelessness, that had taken her life. He would have given up his own soul in a moment to have had her back with him, he knew he would, although that wasn’t a sentiment he shared, not even with Betsy. But it doesn’t work that way, does it? No accommodating devil ever appears when you want him the most.
