The Center Cannot Hold

She was named for a relative who'd made herself famous during the War of 1812, warning that the Americans were coming in much the same way as Paul Revere had warned that the British were coming during the Revolution. If that hadn't been enough to make her a Canadian patriot, she'd been married to a soldier who was either missing or captured.

She hadn't wanted to look at Jonathan. He'd certainly wanted to look at her. She was tall and blond and shapely and pretty-and she was more of a man than most of the men he knew. She could take care of herself. In fact, she insisted on taking care of herself. He'd come back right after the war ended. Her husband hadn't. She sent him off with a flea in his ear anyhow.

But, when she was desperate for money to keep from being taxed off the farm, she'd written to him while he was in law school. He'd lent it to her. That had helped ease him into her good graces, though she'd paid back every dime. Helping that fellow over in Berlin regain his building had done far more. Any practical-minded American would say what happened mattered more than how it happened. Now…

Now, when Moss pulled onto the track that led from the road to her farmhouse and barn, he squeezed the bulb on the motorcar's horn. The raucous noise made a cow look up from the long, green grass it was cropping. The cow didn't act too startled. It had heard that noise before.

So had Laura Secord. Moss stopped the automobile just in front of her house. She came toward him, nodding a greeting. She carried a headless chicken, still dripping blood, by the feet. A hatchet was buried in a red-stained stump that did duty for a chopping block.

"Hello, Yank," she said, and held up the chicken. "Once I settle her, she'll make us a fine stew. Her laying's down, so I don't care about culling her."

"Suits me," Moss said. "How have you been?"

"Not bad," she replied.

By a year's custom, they were decorous with each other as long as they stayed outside, which made Moss want to hurry into the farmhouse. But this… Moss frowned. She sounded more-or rather, less-than merely decorous. He asked, "Is something wrong?"

She didn't answer right away. When she did, all she said was, "We can talk about it a little later, if that's all right."

"Sure. Whatever you want." Moss didn't see what else he could say. He wondered if he'd done something to put her nose out of joint. He didn't think so, but how could a mere male-worse, an American male-know for sure?

When they went inside, she gutted the chicken and threw the offal out for the farm cats, which were the wildest beasts Moss had ever known. She plucked the carcass with automatic competence, hardly looking at what her hands were doing. Then she got a fire going in the stove, cut up the bird, threw it in a pot with carrots and onions and potatoes and a cabbage, and put it over the fire to cook.

As soon as she'd got the chicken stew going, he expected her to throw herself into his arms. That was how things had gone since they became lovers. When they got inside the farmhouse, all bets were off. The first time they'd gone to bed together, they hadn't gone to bed. He'd taken her on the kitchen floor. If she hadn't got splinters in her behind, it wasn't because he hadn't rammed her against the floorboards.

Today, though, she shook her head when he took a step toward her. "We need to talk," she said.

"What about?" Moss asked with a sinking feeling worse than any he'd known while diving to escape an enemy pilot. Whenever a woman said something like that, the first careless joy of two people as a couple was over.

"Come into the parlor," Laura Secord told him. That surprised him, too; she hardly ever used the impressive-looking room. He'd walked past it on the way to the stairs that led to her bedroom, but he wasn't sure he'd ever actually been inside it. What could he do now, though, but nod and let her lead the way?

At her gesture, he sat down on the sofa. The upholstery crackled under his weight; the sofa wasn't used to working. On the table in front of the sofa stood a framed photograph of her late husband in Canadian uniform. Moss had resolutely forgotten his surname; thinking of Laura by her maiden name made it easier for him to forget the dead man altogether. But how could you forget someone whose image stared at you out of eyes that looked hard and dangerous?

The chair in which Laura Secord sat also made noises that suggested it wasn't used to having anyone actually sit in it. She looked at Moss, but didn't say anything. "You were the one who wanted to talk," he reminded her. "I asked you once, what about?"

She bit her lip and looked away. Something close to a sob burst from her. She's going to send me packing, Moss thought with sudden sick certainty. She can't stand a damn Yank rumpling her drawers any more, no matter how much she likes it. What do I do then? he wondered, panic somewhere not far under the surface of his mind. He'd spent years alternately chasing her and trying-always without much luck-to get her out of his mind. Now that he'd finally got her, finally found out just how much woman she was, losing her was the last thing he wanted. But two had to say yes. One was plenty for no.

"What is it?" he said again, like a man bracing himself for the dentist's drill. "After this buildup, don't you think you'd better tell me?"

Laura nodded jerkily. But then, instead of talking, she sprang up to light a kerosene lamp. The yellow glow added enough light to the parlor for him to see how pale she was. Another thought intruded on him- she's going to have a baby. He gave a tiny shrug. We'll deal with that, dammit. Shakespeare's first kid came along seven months after he got married. The world won't end.

She sat down again, biting her lip. Moss' nostrils twitched-not at the way she was behaving, but because he'd just got the first whiff of the stew. At last she said, so low he had to lean forward to hear her (which made the couch rustle again), "There's going to be… an uprising. Here. In Canada. Against… against the United…" She didn't get States out. Instead, she buried her face in her hands and wept as if her heart were breaking.

It probably is, Moss realized. "Why are you telling me? I thought you'd be…"

"Cheering them on?" Laura asked. He nodded, though leading them on was more what he'd had in mind. She said, "Because I don't want you to get hurt. Because I-" She stopped again.

"Well!" he said, quite taken aback. He didn't say anything else for close to a minute; what man wouldn't savor such a compliment? She cares for me, he thought dizzily, and not just for my… He shook his head and asked the other question that needed asking: "How do you know about this?"

Laura looked at him as if he'd been foolish. And so I have, he decided. She answered as she might have to a child: "I am who I am-I am what I am-after all."

"They thought you'd be cheering them on, too," Moss said. "Cheering them on or helping them, I mean."

"Yes." In the one word, Laura Secord unwittingly spoke volumes on how close they'd come to being right. Then she burst into tears. When Moss tried to comfort her, she pushed him away as fiercely as if he were still the enemy she'd thought him for so long.

L ucien Galtier took life a day at a time. As far as he could see, that was a good idea for any man, and an especially good idea for a farmer like himself. Sometimes you got sunshine, sometimes rain or snow or just clouds. Sometimes you got peace. Sometimes, he'd seen, you got war.

Sometimes you got a whole new country. He still had trouble remembering he lived in the Republic of Quebec. The USA had invaded the Canadian province of Quebec and found enough men willing to detach it from its longtime home to make a new nation. Without the United States, my country would not be, Galtier thought.

That had been a very strange notion, the first time it crossed his mind. By now, though, he'd realized the United States did as they pleased all through North America. When they point at this one and say Come! he cometh, and when they point at that one and say Go! he goeth.