Page 60 of The Frozen River

“Seth wouldn’t approve. And if I take one of your horses, he’ll not ask where I’ve gone.”

“Where does he think you are now?”

“Here. With you. He saw me walk off. And he’ll see me walk home. I’m not lying. Not much at least,” she whispers.

Under different circumstances I might point out that a lie of omission is no different from any other kind, but I have no issue with lending her the horse.

“You can take Bucket. He’s old and slow but he’ll get you there.”

“Thank you. I only need him for a few hours.”

“Of course. But it’s a hard ride through the woods. Are you sure there isn’t something I can do for you here?”

“Yes,” she says without explanation.

“I’ll send Young Ephraim to the barn, then.”

Ellen thanks me again, and I go to find my son and give him instructions for the horse. Ten minutes later I stand at the door and watch my neighbor ride away—not down the lane and toward the main road, but into the north pasture, toward the path that winds three miles through the woods to Burnt Hill.

Four times a year a Negro woman known only as Doctor comes to Hallowell. She arrives unannounced and might remain for a single week or months on end. No one ever knows. But her arrival is always whispered about, and the news spreads from house to house like a fine mist drifting beneath the door. Doctor is one of the only people I know whose medical expertise exceeds my own. Some have argued that she has the gift of healing. Others, of course—Seth Parker among them—call her a witch. It’s an unimaginative accusation and one that I am frankly tired of hearing. Witchcraft. As though there is no other explanation for a woman who excels at her work.

Doctor speaks with a warm French accent and often describes herself as an accoucheuse. A midwife, same as me. Yet she is so much more. Doctor is a mystery to many in the Hook, and therefore they fear her. Yet I’ve never seen anyone who does not watch the woman with a kind of bewildered awe.

As of last week, there are one thousand, one hundred, ninety-nine residents in Hallowell. Families number one hundred eighty-four, and, of those, twelve are black. All free. There are no slaves in Hal-lowell, the Supreme Judicial Court having effectively abolished the practice in Massachusetts nine years ago by their ruling in the Mum Bett Case. The census counts everyone in the Hook except Doctor because she has asked those who live here to make sure the census takers don’t know she moves among us. Doctor has sworn never to return should her presence be revealed, and we are more than happy to keep her secret given how many of us rely on her services.

When I can no longer hear Bucket snort and stomp through the woods, I return inside and go to my workroom. I mix the ink and dip my pen:

Sunday, January 3—Clear. I have been at home. Mrs. Parker borrowed our horse to go and see the Negro woman doctor….

BURNT HILL WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6

I approach the cabin slowly.

For much of the year the logger’s base at the foot of Burnt Hill remains empty. In spring men come up from Winthrop and Pittston to camp and harvest timber that they later send down a heavily swollen Bracket Brook toward Hallowell, where it’s bundled at the Kennebec and ferried south in rafts. But in winter, the brook fades to a trickle, and the remote camp is abandoned.

The tallest point in three counties, Burnt Hill—so named for a decades-old fire—is windswept and bitterly cold, barren at its rounded peak, except for brush and rocks. Its slopes are thick with a canopy of aging paper birch and sugar maple. As they’re cut from the hillside, one by one, trembling aspen, balsam, and spruce rise to take their place. It is the aspen that I like best, however, not just for their pale, speckled bark, and astonishing show of gold each fall, but because every aspen in this great expanse of forest is connected by a single root system. They give life, one to another, and work to replace what the loggers take. There is much that men could learn from nature if we would only listen.

Beautiful though Burnt Hill might be, the only reason anyone would make the trek out to this place in the dead of winter is to see Doctor. Knowledge of her arrival is passed up and down the Kennebec in muted whispers, but she is only visited by those who strive to keep their secrets close.

As I ride into the clearing, a young Wabanaki family slips out the cabin door. A man, and a woman holding an infant swaddled in rabbit pelts. Both parents are draped in heavy wool blankets dyed a deep and startling red, and they wear the traditional leggings, tunics, and deerskin moccasins. The woman cradles her child close to her body and keeps her eyes on the ground, careful of each treacherous step through the snowdrifts. But the father looks to me and nods cautiously before taking the child, then helping his wife onto the horse. Once she is situated, he lifts the bundle to her again, then leads them from the clearing without a backward glance. Theirs are the only tracks in the two inches of fresh snow that blankets the clearing.

Fascinated, I wait until that flash of crimson is no longer visible between the pine boughs before I approach the cabin. In total, it is no bigger than my workroom and sits like a lopsided rectangle at the base of a small, stone outcropping. Smoke curls from the chimney, and I can hear humming within—a melodic rise and fall of voice that sounds both familiar and foreign.

I dismount Brutus and tie him to the side of a large covered wagon that sits beside the cabin. Behind it, and to the side, is a lean-to stable, built by loggers, and made from hewn, lashed timber. It rests against the rockface and is wide enough for only a single steed. Inside is the largest horse I have ever seen. Eighteen hands if he’s an inch and so ruddy he gleams like fire in the shadows. Brutus snorts at him, and he returns the gesture while I shake my head.

“It’s always a pissing contest with you men,” I say, then turn to the other horse. “And who are you?”

If I have a weakness for anything in this world it is a big, beautiful stallion.

“He is Goliath,” a voice calls out from inside the cabin. “And you, Martha Ballard, should come inside. C’est froid.”

It is cold, and I am grateful for the welcome, but I remember, at the last second, that I have brought a gift, and I go to retrieve the bottle from my saddlebag first. It is a bottle of syrup of currants and brandy, wrapped in a soft linen cloth and tied with a ribbon. I do not need Doctor’s services today—not in the usual sense, at least—but I have not forgotten to bring payment.

“Good to see you again, Doctor,” I say, as I step inside and shrug out of my riding cloak. I hang it on a peg and brush the snow from my hair, then close the door to shut out the cold that has drifted in after me like a fog. “How did you know it was me?”

Doctor offers a knowing smile, full lips curving around small, straight teeth.

“Oh,” I say, as the answer occurs to me. “You recognized my voice.”