The Fiery Cross, Page 25

  and fend for themselves, but who wandered the backcountry, robbing and plundering. Raiding Indians. Wild animals. And fire. Always fire.

  He had sent the Bugs on ahead, with Fergus to guide them, to save Claire dealing with the simultaneous chores of arrival and hospitality The Chisholms, the MacUods, and Billy Aberfeldy, with his wife and wee daughter, would all bide with them at the big house for a time; he had told Mrs. Bug to begin cooking at once. Decently mounted and not hindered by children or livestock, the Bugs should have reached the Ridge two days before. No one had come back to say aught was amiss, so perhaps all was well. But still ...

  He hadn't realized that Claire was tensed, too, until she suddenly relaxed against him, a hand on his leg.

  "It's all right," she said. "I smell chimney smoke."

  He lifted his head to catch the air. She was right; the tang of burning hickory floated on the breeze. Not the stink of remembered conflagration, but a homely whiff redolent with the promise of warmth and food. Mrs. Bug had presumably taken him at his word.

  They rounded the last turn of the trail and saw it, then, the high fieldstone chimney rising above the trees on the ridge, its fat plume of smoke curling over the rooftree.

  The house stood.

  He breathed deep in relief, noticing now the other smells of home; the faint rich scent of manure from the stable, of meat smoked and hanging in the shed, and the breath of the forest nearby--damp wood and leaf-rot, rock and rushing water, the touch of it cold and loving on his cheek.

  They came out of the chestnut grove and into the large clearing where the house stood, solid and neat, its windows glazed gold with the last of the sun.

  It was a modest frame house, whitewashed and shingle-roofed, clean in its lines and soundly built, but impressive only by comparison with the crude

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  cabins of most settlers. His own first cabin still stood, dark and sturdy, a little way down the hill. Smoke was curling from that chimney, too.

  "Someone's made a fire for Bree and Roger," Claire said, nodding at it. "That's good," he said. He tightened his arm about her waist, and she made a:=all, contented noise in her throat, wriggling her bottom into his lap.

  Gideon was happy, too; he stretched out his neck and whinnied to the two ,bkorses in the penfold, who trotted to and fro in the enclosure, calling greetings. Claire's mare was standing by the fence, reins dangling; she curled her lip in what looked like derision, the wee besom. From somewhere far down the trail behind them came a deep, joyous bray; Clarence the mule, hearing the racket and delighted to be coming home.

  The door flew open, and Mrs. Bug popped out, round and flustered as a tumble-turd. Jamie smiled at sight of her, and gave Claire an arm to slide down before dismounting himself.

  "All's well, all's well, and how's yourself, sit?" Mrs. Bug was reassuring him before his boots struck ground. She had a pewter cup in one hand, a polishing cloth in the other, and didn't cease her polishing for an instant, even as she turned up her face to accept his kiss on her withered round cheek.

  She didn't wait for an answer, but turned at once and stood a-tiptoe to kiss Claire, beaming.

  "Oh, it's grand that you're home, ma'am, you and Himself, and I've the supper all made, so you'll not be worrit a bit with it, ma'am, but come inside, come inside, and be takin' off those dusty cloots, and I'll send old Arch along to the mash-hoose for a bit of the lively, and we'll . . ." She had Claire by one hand, towing her into the house, talking and talking, the other hand still polishing briskly away, her stubby fingers dexterously rubbing the cloth inside the cup. Claire gave him a helpless glance over one shoulder, and he grinned at her as she disappeared inside the house.

  Gideon shoved an impatient nose under his arm and bumped his elbow. "Oh, aye," he said, recalled to his chores. "Come along, then, ye prickly wee bastard. "

  By the time he had the big horse and Claire's mare unsaddled, lAiped down, and turned out to their feed, Claire had escaped from Mrs. Bug; coming back from the paddock, he saw the door of the house swing open and Claire slip out, looking guiltily over her shoulder as though fearing pursuit.

  Where was she bound? She didn't see him; she turned and hurried toward the far corner of the house, disappearing in a swish of homespun. He followed, curious.

  Ah. She had seen to her surgery; now she was going to her garden before it got completely dark; he caught a glimpse of her against the sky on the upward path behind the house, the last of the daylight caught like cobwebs in her hair. There would be little growing now, only a few sturdy herbs and the overwintering things like carrots and onions and turnips, but it made no difference; she always went to see how things were, no matter how short a time she had been gone.

  He understood the urge; he would not feel entirely home himself until he had checked all the stock and buildings, and made sure of matters up at the still. The evening breeze brought him an acrid hint from the distant privy, sug-

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  gesting that matters there were shortly going to require his attention, speaking of buildings. Then he bethought him of the new tenants coming, and relaxed; digging a new privy would be just the thing for Chisholm's eldest two boys.

  He and Ian had dug this one, when they first came to the Ridge. God, he missed the lad.

  c1A Mhicheal bbeanaichtc," he murmured. Blessed Micbael, protect bint. He liked MacKenzie well enough, but had it been his choice, he would not have exchanged Ian for the man. it had been Ian's choice, though, not his, and no more to be said about it.

  Pushing away the ache of Ian's loss, he stepped behind a tree, loosened his breeks, and relieved himself. If she saw him, Claire would doubtless make what she considered witty remarks about dogs and wolves marking their home ground as they returned to it. Nothing of the sort, he replied to her mentally; why walk up the hill, only to make matters worse in the privy? Still, if you came down to it, it was his place, and if he chose to piss on it ... he tidied his clothes, feeling more settled.

  He raised his head and saw her coming down the path from the garden, her sent the last of the apron bulging with carrots and turnips. A gust of wind

  leaves from the chestnut grove swirling round her in a yellow dance, sparked with light.

  Moved by sudden impulse, he stepped deeper into the trees and began to look about.

  Normally, he paid attention only to such vegetation as was immediately comestible by horse or man, sufficiently straight-grained to serve for planks and timbers, or so obstructive as to pose difficulty in passage. Once he began looking with an eye to aesthetics, though, he found himself surprised at the variety to hand.

  Stalks of half-ripe barley, the seeds laid in rows like a woman's plait. A dry, fragile weed that looked like the lace edging on a fine handkerchief. A branch of spruce, unearthly green and cool among the dry bits, leaving its fragrant sap on his hand as he tore it from the tree. A twig of glossy dried oak leaves that reminded him of her hair, in shades of gold and brown and gray. And a bit of scarlet creeper, snatched for color,

  just in time; she was coming round the corner of the house. Lost in thought, she passed within a foot or two of him, not seeing him.

  'Sorcba, "he called softly, and she turned, eyes narrowed against the rays of the sinking sun, then wide and gold,%vith surprise at the sight of him. "Welcome home," he said, and held out the small bouquet of leaves and twigs.

  "Oh," she said. She looked at the bits of leaf and stick again, and then at him, and the corners of her mouth trembled, as though she might laugh or cry, but wasn't sure which. She reached then, and took the plants from him, her fingets small and cold as they brushed his hand.

  "Oh, Jamie-.they're wonderful." She came up on her toes and kissed him, warm and salty, and he wanted more, but she was hurrying away into the house, the silly wee things clasped to her breast as though they were gold.

  He fclt pleasantly foolish, and foolishly pleased with himself The taste of her was still on his mouth.

 
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  'Sorcha, "he whispered, and realized that he had called her so a moment before. Now, that was odd; no wonder she had been surprised. It was her name in the Gaelic, but he never called her by it. He liked the strangeness of her, the Englishness. She was his Claire, his Sassenach.

  And yet in the moment when she passed him, she was Sorcha. Not only "Claire," it meant-but light.

  He breathed deep, contented.

  He was suddenly ravenous, both for food and for her, but he made no move to hasten inside. Some kinds of hunger were sweet in themselves, the anticipation of satisfaction as keen a pleasure as the slaking.

  Hoofsteps and voices; the others were finally here. He had a sudden urge to keep his peaceful solitude a moment longer, but too late-in seconds, he was surrounded by confusion, the shrill cries of excited children and calls of distracted mothers, the welcoming of the newcomers, the bustle and rush of unloading, turning out the horses and mules, fetching feed and water ... and yet in the midst of this Babel, he moved as though he were still alone, peaceful and quiet in the setting sun. He had come home.

  IT WAS FULL DARK before everything was sorted, the smallest of the wild Chisholm bairns rounded up and sent inside for his supper, all the stock cared for and settled for the night. He followed Geoff Chisholm toward the house, but then held back, lingering for a moment in the dark dooryard.

  He stood for a moment, idly chafing his hands against the chill as he admired the look of the place. Snug barn and sound sheds, a penfold and paddock in good repair, a tidy fence of palisades around Claire's scraggly garden, to keep out the deer. The house loomed white in the early dark, a benevolent spirit guarding the ridge. Light spilled from every door and window, and the sound of laughter came from inside.

  He sensed a movement in the darkness, and turned to see his daughter coming from the spring house, a pail of fresh milk in her hand. She stopped by him, looking at the house.

  "Nice to be home, isn't it?" she said softly.

  "Aye," he said. "It is." They looked at each other, smiling. Then she leaned forward, peering closely at him. She turned him, so the light from the window fell on him, and a small frown puckered the skin between her brows.

  "What's that?" she said, and flicked at his coat. A glossy scarlet leaf fell free and floated to the ground. Her brows went up at sight of it. "You'd better go and wash, Da," she said. "You've been in the poison ivy."

  "YE MIGHT HAVE TOLD ME, Sasscnach." Jamie glowered at the table near the bedroom window, where I'd set his bouquet in a cup of water. The bright, blotchy red of the poison ivy glowed, even in the dimness of tile firelight. "And ye might get rid of it, too. D'ye mean to mock me?"

  "No, I don't," I said, smiling as I hung my apron from the peg and reached

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  for the laces of my gown. "But if I'd told you when you gave it to me, you'd have snatched it back. That's the only posy you've ever given me, and I don't imagine I'll get another; I mean to keep it."

  He snorted, and sat down on the bed to take off his stockings. He'd already stripped off coat, stock, and shirt, and the firelight gleamed on the slope of his shoulders. He scratched at the underside of one wrist, though I'd told him it was psychosomatic; he hadn't any signs of rash.

  "You've never come home with poison ivy rash," I remarked. "And you're bound to have run into it now and again, so much time as you spend in the woods and the fields. I think you must be immune to it. Some people are, you know."

  "Oh, aye?" He looked interested at that, though he went on scratching. "Is that like you and Brianna not catching illness?"

  "Something like, but for different reasons." I peeled off the gown of pale green homespun-more than a little grubby, after a week's travel-and stripped off my stays with a sigh of relief.

  I got up to check the pan of water I had set to heat in the embers. Some of the newcomers had been sent off to spend the night with Fergus and Marsali, or with Roger and Bree, but the kitchen, the surgery, and Jamie's study below were ftill of guests, all sleeping on the floor. I wasn't going to bed without washing off the stains of travel, but I didn't care to provide a public spectacle while doing it, either.

  The water shimmered with heat, tiny bubbles clinging to the sides of the pot. I put a finger in, just to check-lovely and hot. I poured some into the basin and put the rest back to keep warm.

  "We aren't completely immune, you know," I warned him. "Some thingslike smallpox-we can't ever catch, Roger and Bree and 1, because we've been vaccinated against them, and it's permanent. Other things, like cholera and typhoid, we aren't likcly to catch, but the injections don't give permanent immunity; it wears off after a time."

  I bent to rummage in the saddlebags he had brought up and dumped by the door. Someone at the Gathering had given me a sponge-a real one, imported from the Indies-in payment for my extracting an abscessed tooth. Just the thing for a quick bath.

  "Things like malaria-what Lizzie has-"

  "I thought ye'd cured her of that," Jamie interrupted, frowning. I shook my head, regretful.

  "No, she'll always have it, poor thing. All I can do is try to lessen the severity of the attacks, and keep them from coming too often. It's in her blood, you see."

  He pulled off the thong that bound back his hair, and shook out the ruddy locks, leaving them ruffled round his head like a mane.

  "That doesna make any sense," he objected, rising to unfasten his breeks. "Ye told me that when a person had the measles, if he lived, he'd not get it again, because it stayed in the blood. And so I couldna catch pox or measles now, because I'd had them both as a child-they're in my blood."

  "Well, it's not quite the same thing," I said, rather lamely. The thought of trying to explain the differences among active immunity, passive immunity,

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  acquired immunity, antibodies, and parasitic infection was more of a challenge than I felt up to, after a long day's ride.

  I dipped the sponge into the basin, let it take up water, then squeezed it out, enjoying the oddly silky, fibrous texture. A fine mist of sand floated out of the pores and settled to the bottom of the china basin. The sponge was softening as it took up water, but I could still feel a hard spot at one edge.

  "Speaking of riding-" Jamie looked mildly startled. "Were we speaking of riding?"

  "Well, no, but I was thinking of it." I waved a hand, dismissing the inconsequent distinction. "In any case, what do you mean to do about Gideon?"

  "Oh. " Jamie dropped his breeks in a puddle on the floor and stretched himself, considering. "Well, I canna afford just to shoot him, I suppose. And he's a braw enough fellow. I'll cut him, to start. That may settle his mind a bit."

  "Cut him? Oh, castrate him, you mean. Yes, I suppose that would get his attention, though it seems a bit drastic." I hesitated a moment, reluctant. "Do you want me to do it?"

  He stared at me in amazement, then burst out laughing.

  "Nay, Sassenach, I dinna think cutting an eighteen-hand stallion is a job for a woman, surgeon or no. It doesna really require the delicate touch, aye?"

  I was just as pleased to hear this. I had been working at the sponge with my thumb; it loosened a bit, and a tiny shell popped suddenly out of a large pore. It floated down through the water, a perfect miniature spiral, tinted pink and purple.

  "Oh, look," I said, delighted.

  "What a bonnie wee thing." Jamie leaned over my shoulder, a big forefinger gently touching the shell at the bottom of the basin. "How did it get into your sponge, I wonder?"

  "I expect the sponge ate it by mistake."

  "Ate it?" One ruddy eyebrow shot up at that.

  "Sponges are animals," I explained. "Or to be more exact, stomachs. They suck in water, and just absorb everything edible as it passes through."

  "Ah, so that's why Bree called the bairn a wee sponge. They do that." He smiled at the thought of Jemmy.

  "Indeed they do." I sat down and slipped the shift off my shoulders, letting th
e garment fall to my waist. The fire had taken the chill off the room, but it was still cold enough that the skin of my breasts and arms bloomed into gooseflesh.

  Jamie picked up his belt and carefully removed the assorted impedimenta it held, laying out pistol, cartridge box, dirk, and pewter flask on top of the small bureau. He lifted the flask and raised an inquiring eyebrow in my direction.

  I nodded enthusiastically, and he turned to find a cup amid the rubble of oddments. With so many people and their belongings stuffed into the house, all of our own saddlebags, plus the bundles and bits acquired at the Gathering, had been carried up and dumped in our room; the humped shadows of the luggage flickering on the wall gave the chamber the odd look of a grotto, lined with lumpy boulders.

  Jamie was as much a sponge as his grandson, I reflected, watching him roo-

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  tle about, completely naked and totally unconcerned about it. He took in everything, and seemed able to deal with whatever came his way, no matter how familiar or foreign to his experience. Maniac stallions, kidnapped priests, marriageable maidservants, headstrong daughters, and heathen sons-in-law ... Anything he could not defeat, outwit, or alter, he simply accepted-rather like the sponge and its embedded shell.

  Pursuing the analogy further, I supposed I was the shell. Snatched out of my own small niche by an unexpected strong current, taken in and surrounded by Jamie and his life. Caught forever among the strange currents that pulsed through this outlandish environment.

  The thought gave me a sudden queer feeling. The shell lay still at the bottom of the basin--delicate, beautiful ... but empty. Rather slowly, I raised the sponge to the back of my neck and squeezed, feeling the tickle of warm water down my back.

  For the most part, I felt no regrets- I had chosen to be here; I wanted to be here. And yet now and then small things like our conversation about immunity made me realize just how much had been lost-of what I had had, of what I had been. It was undeniable that some of my soft parts had been digested away, and the thought did make me feel a trifle hollow now and then.

  Jamie bent to dig in one of the saddlebags, and the sight of his bare buttocks, turned toward me in all innocence, did much to dispel the momentary sense of disquiet. They were gracefully shaped, rounded with muscle-and pleasingly dusted with a red-gold fuzz that caught the tight of fire and candle. The long, pale columns of his thighs framed the shadow of his scrotum, dark and barely visible between them.

  He had found a cup at last, and poured it half full. He turned and handed it to me, liffing his eyes from the surface of the dark liquid, startled to find me staring at him.

  "What is it?" he said. "Is there something the matter, Sassenach?"

  "No," I said, but I must have sounded rather doubtful, for his brows drew momentarily together.

  "No," I said, more positively. I took the cup from him and smiled, liffing it slightly in acknowledgment. "Only thinking."

  An answering smile touched his lips.

  "Aye? Well, ye dinna want to do too much of that late at night, Sassenach. It will give ye the nightmare."

  "Daresay you're right about that." I sipped from the cup; rather to my surprise, it was wine-and very good wine. "Where did you get this?"

  "From Father Kenneth. It's sacramental wine-but not consecrated, aye? He said the Sheriff's men would take it; he would as soon it went with me."

  A slight shadow crossed his face at mention of the priest.

  "Do you think he'll be all right?" I asked. The Sheriff's men had not struck me as civilized enforcers of an abstruse regulation, but rather as thugs whose prejudice was momentarily constrained by fear--of Jamie.

  "I hope so." Jamie turned aside, restless. "I told the Sheriff that if the Father were misused, he and his,men would answer for it."

  I nodded silently, sipping. If Jamie learned of any harm done to Father Donahue, he would indeed make the Sheriff answer for it. The thought made me a

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  trifle uneasy; this wasn't a good time to make enemies, and the Sheriff of Orange County wasn't a good enemy to have.

  I looked up to find Jamie's eyes still fixed on me, though now with a look of deep appreciation.

  "You're in good flesh these days, Sassenach," he observed, tilting his head to one side.

  "Flatterer," I said, giving him a cold look as I picked up the sponge again. -Ye must have gained a stone, at least, since the spring," he said with approval, disregarding the look and circling round me to inspect. "It's been a good fat summer, aye?"

  I turned round and flung the wet sponge at his head. He caught it neatly, grinning.

  "I didna realize how well ye'd filled out, Sassenach, so bundled as ye've been these last weeks. I havena seen ye naked in a month, at least." He was still eyeing me with an air of appraisal, as though I were a prime entrant in the Silver Medalist Round at the Shropshire Fat Pigs Show.

  "Enjoy it," I advised him, my cheeks flushed with annoyance. "You may not see it again for quite some time!" I snatched the top of the chemise up again, covering my-undeniably rather full-breasts.