Page 152 of The Frozen River

“Now I understand,” he says. “North’s lawyer, Henry Knowland, is an agent of the Kennebec Proprietors. Or at least he was. I’d wager he loses the position after Paul delivers the documents to them.”

“Documents?”

“A scheme the two of them had to take leases for themselves and gain a monopoly on the lumber trade in Kennebec County. This letter proves it. It also proves that he meant to use our property as a base of operations.”

“But why take ours? Why not just build his own? There are thousands of unclaimed acres here. Most of what he’s requesting in that letter is open land.”

“Perhaps. But it doesn’t have access to the river. Joseph North is a lazy man, Martha. He doesn’t want to go to all the hard work of building a thing himself when he can take it from someone else.”

See it, want it, take it, I think. He’s never changed.

“That doesn’t explain why he had our lease assigned to Burgess first.”

“I think you were right about that to start with. He bought Burgess’s silence with the promise of our land.”

“Burgess never made any secret of wanting property with river frontage,” I say.

“It’s likely how he talked Burgess into going to the Fosters’ that night in the first place. Burgess got what he wanted, and North got something to hold over his head. A way of controlling the property without having to do any of the work.”

“That’s a long game to play.”

“I found his original lease request, and it was for this property.”

I crane my neck to look at him. “How did we get it, then?”

Ephraim smiles. “Paul’s letter of recommendation.”

“Of course. Paul.”

We had arrived in Hallowell, in 1778, almost halfway through the Revolutionary War, thanks to a letter of recommendation written by the famed silversmith not three years after his infamous ride through Charlestown. On a horse borrowed from my husband, no less, the same night Ephraim had taken that dirty punch and got his nose broken.

“Then I take it to mean that you have settled the issue of our eviction?”

“I have. And gained a bit of influence in the process. You are looking at the newest agent of the Kennebec Proprietors. No one can try to wrest this property away from us again. We have been on the property twelve years this month.”

“So North…”

“Did everything he could to steal it in the limited time he had between October and April. But we have officially fulfilled all the terms of our lease. We own the land now.”

“That’s a relief. I am too old to start over in a new place.”

Ephraim takes the soap from its basket, plunges it into the water, and begins to lather my shoulders. “Keep going,” he says. “You found the letter in North’s office and then what?”

“I took it. Obviously. And then he walked in. I got away by telling him that I’d only come to care for Lidia. But he figured out the letter was missing soon enough. And came looking for it later. I went to Pollard’s after I left his house.” I look up. “The militia is back.”

“I meant to tell you that. In December. After I got back from doing that survey. They were stationed at Fort Halifax when I was there. Said they’d be coming through again this spring.”

“Well, they have.”

“And Sarah’s man? Is he with them?”

“I’m getting to that.”

I tell my husband how I came home and waited up for Jonathan after being at Pollard’s, and how Doctor arrived to tell me that Rebecca was in labor. I tell him of the difficult birth. The delivery. And what Rebecca asked me to do afterward. His hands still as he waits for me to finish. They rest on my shoulders, warm and soapy.

“I took the baby to Sarah White,” I tell him. “She has her for now. Until I can think of something different. Sarah also has a fiancé.”

His lip curls into a smile. “Her soldier?”