An Echo in the Bone, Page 6

  He put a hand over his face, shaking his head slowly to and fro, and neither spoke nor moved while I finished the cleaning and bandaging of the wound.

  “Can ye do aught for Ian?” he said, when I’d finished. He took his hand away and looked up at me as I stood, his face drawn in exhausted misery, but calm again. “He’s …” He swallowed, and glanced at the door. “He’s badly, Sassenach.”

  I glanced at the whisky I’d brought: a quarter of a bottle. Jamie followed the direction of my gaze and shook his head.

  “Not enough.”

  “You drink it, then.” He shook his head, but I put the bottle in his hand and pressed his fingers round it.

  “Orders,” I said, soft but very firm. “Shock.” He resisted, made to put the bottle back, and I tightened my hand on his.

  “I know,” I said. “Jamie—I know. But you can’t give in. Not now.”

  He looked up at me for a moment, but then he nodded, accepting it because he had to, the muscles of his arm relaxing. My own fingers were stiff, chilled from water and frigid air, but still warmer than his. I folded both hands round his free one, and held it, hard.

  “There’s a reason why the hero never dies, you know,” I said, and attempted a smile, though my face felt stiff and false. “When the worst happens, someone still has to decide what to do. Go into the house now, and get warm.” I glanced out at the night, lavender-skied and wild with swirling snow. “I’ll … find Ian.”

  WHERE WOULD HE have gone? Not far, not in this weather. Given his state of mind when he and Jamie had come back with Mrs. Bug’s body, he might, I thought, simply have walked off into the woods, not caring where he went or what happened to him—but he’d had the dog with him. No matter what he felt like, he wouldn’t take Rollo off into a howling blizzard.

  And a blizzard was what it was shaping up to be. I made my way slowly uphill toward the outbuildings, sheltering my lantern under a fold of my cloak. It came to me suddenly to wonder whether Arch Bug might have taken shelter in the springhouse or the smoke shed. And … oh, God—did he know? I stopped dead on the path for an instant, letting the thickly falling snow settle like a veil on my head and shoulders.

  I had been so shocked by what had happened that I hadn’t thought to wonder whether Arch Bug knew that his wife was dead. Jamie said that he had called out, called for Arch to come, as soon as he realized—but there had been no answer. Perhaps Arch had suspected a trick; perhaps he had simply fled, seeing Jamie and Ian and assuming that they would certainly not harm his wife. In which case …

  “Oh, bloody hell,” I said under my breath, appalled. But there was nothing I could do about that. I hoped there was something I could do about Ian. I rubbed a forearm over my face, blinked snow from my lashes, and went on, slowly, the light from the lantern swallowed in the vortex of whirling snow. Were I to find Arch … My fingers clenched on the lantern’s handle. I’d have to tell him, bring him back to the cabin, let him see … Oh, dear. If I came back with Arch, could Jamie and Ian occupy him long enough for me to remove Mrs. Bug from the pantry and display her in more seemly fashion? I hadn’t had time to remove the jutting arrow or lay out the body decently. I dug the fingernails of my free hand into the palm, trying to get a grip of myself.

  “Jesus, don’t let me find him,” I said under my breath. “Please don’t let me find him.”

  But springhouse, smoke shed, and corncrib were all—thank God—empty, and no one could have hidden in the chicken coop without the chickens making a fuss about it; they were silent, sleeping out the storm. The sight of the coop brought Mrs. Bug suddenly to mind, though—the vision of her scattering corn from her apron, crooning to the silly things. She’d named them all. I didn’t bloody care whether we were eating Isobeaìl or Alasdair for supper, but just at the moment, the fact that no one now would ever be able to tell one from another, or rejoice in the fact that Elspeth had hatched ten chicks, seemed unspeakably heartrending.

  I found Ian at last in the barn, a dark form huddled in the straw by the feet of Clarence the mule, whose ears pricked up at my appearance. He brayed ecstatically at the prospect of more company, and the goats blatted hysterically, thinking I was a wolf. The horses, surprised, tossed their heads, snorting and nickering in question. Rollo, nestled in the hay next to his master, gave a short, sharp bark of displeasure at the racket.

  “Ruddy Noah’s Ark in here,” I remarked, shaking snow off my cloak and hanging the lantern on a hook. “All we need is a pair of elephants. Hush, Clarence!”

  Ian turned his face toward me, but I could see from his blank expression that he hadn’t taken in what I’d said.

  I squatted next to him and cupped a hand round his cheek; it was cold, bristled with young beard.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said gently.

  “I know,” he said, and swallowed. “But I dinna see how I can live.” He wasn’t dramatic about it at all; his voice was simply bewildered. Rollo licked his hand, and his fingers sank into the dog’s ruff, as though for support.

  “What can I do, Auntie?” He looked at me, helpless. “There’s nothing, is there? I canna take it back, or undo it. And yet I keep looking for some way that I can. Something I can do to make things right. But there’s … nothing.”

  I sat down in the hay next to him and put an arm round his shoulder, pressing his head toward me. He came, reluctantly, though I felt small constant shudders of exhaustion and grief running through him like a chill.

  “I loved her,” he said, so low I could barely hear him. “She was like my grandmother. And I—”

  “She loved you,” I whispered. “She wouldn’t blame you.” I had been holding on to my own emotions like grim death, in order to do what had to be done. But now … Ian was right. There was nothing, and in sheer helplessness, tears began to roll down my face. I wasn’t crying. Grief and shock simply overflowed; I could not contain them.

  Whether he felt the tears on his skin or only the vibrations of my grief, I couldn’t tell, but quite suddenly Ian gave way as well, and he wept in my arms, shaking.

  I wished with all my heart that he was a small boy, and that the storm of grief could wash away his guilt and leave him cleansed, at peace. But he was far beyond such simple things; all I could do was hold him, and stroke his back, making small, helpless noises myself. Then Clarence offered his own support, breathing heavily on Ian’s head and nibbling thoughtfully on a lock of his hair. Ian jerked away, slapping at the mule’s nose.

  “Och, awa’ wi’ ye!”

  He choked, laughed in a shocked way, wept a little more, and then straightened up and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He sat still for a little while, gathering the pieces of himself, and I let him be.

  “When I killed that man in Edinburgh,” he said at last, his voice thick but controlled, “Uncle Jamie took me to confession, and told me the prayer that ye say when ye’ve killed someone. To commend them to God. Will ye say it with me, Auntie?”

  I hadn’t thought of—let alone said—“Soul Leading” in many years, and stumbled awkwardly through the words. Ian spoke it without hesitation, though, and I wondered how often he had used it through those years.

  The words seemed puny and powerless, swallowed among the sounds of hay rustling and beasts chewing. But I felt a tiny bit of comfort for having said them. Perhaps it was only that the sense of reaching out to something larger than yourself gives you some feeling that there is something larger—and there really has to be, because plainly you aren’t sufficient to the situation. I surely wasn’t.

  Ian sat for a time, eyes closed. Finally, he opened them and looked at me, his eyes black with knowledge, face very pale under the stubble of his beard.

  “And then, he said, ye live with it,” he said softly.

  He rubbed a hand across his face.

  “But I dinna think I can.” It was a simple statement of fact, and scared me badly. I had no more tears, but felt as though I looked into a black, bottomless hole—and couldn’t look away.

>   I drew a deep breath, trying to think of something to say, then pulled a handkerchief from my pocket and gave it to him.

  “Are you breathing, Ian?”

  His mouth twitched a little.

  “Aye, I think so.”

  “That’s all you have to do, for now.” I got up, brushed hay from my skirts, and held out a hand to him. “Come along. We need to go back to the cabin before we’re snowed in here.”

  The snow was thicker now, and a gust of wind put out the candle in my lantern. It didn’t matter; I could have found the cabin blindfolded. Ian went ahead of me without comment, breaking a trail through the fresh-fallen snow. His head was bent against the storm, his narrow shoulders hunched.

  I hoped the prayer had helped him, at least a little, and wondered whether the Mohawk had any better means of dealing with unjust death than did the Catholic Church.

  Then I realized that I knew exactly what the Mohawk would do in such a case. So did Ian; he’d done it. I pulled the cloak tighter round me, feeling as though I had swallowed a large ball of ice.

  NOT YET AWHILE

  AFTER A GOOD DEAL of discussion, the two corpses were carried gently outside and laid at the edge of the porch. There simply was no room to lay them out properly inside, and given the circumstances …

  “We canna let auld Arch be in doubt any longer than he must,” Jamie had said, putting an end to the arguments. “If the body’s in plain sight, maybe he’ll come out and maybe he’ll not—but he’ll ken his wife’s dead.”

  “He will,” Bobby Higgins said, with an uneasy look toward the trees. “And what d’ye think he’ll do then?”

  Jamie stood for a moment, looking toward the wood, then shook his head.

  “Grieve,” he said quietly. “And in the morning, we’ll see what’s to do.”

  It wasn’t the normal sort of wake, but it was conducted with what ceremony we could manage. Amy had donated her own shroud—made after her first wedding, and carefully kept by—for Mrs. Bug, and Grannie MacLeod was clad in the remnants of my spare chemise and a couple of aprons, hastily stitched up into respectability. They were laid one on either side of the porch, foot to foot, with a small saucer of salt and a slice of bread on the chest of each corpse, though no sin-eater was available. I had packed a small clay firepot with coals and set this near the bodies, and it was agreed that we would all take it in turns through the night to sit over the deceased, as the porch would hold no more than two or three people.

  “The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow/Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,” I said softly. It did; the storm had blown over and the three-quarter moon cast a pure, cold light that made each snow-covered tree stand out, stark and delicate as a painting in Japanese ink. And in the distant ruins of the Big House, the jackstraw of charred timbers hid whatever lay below.

  Jamie and I were taking the first watch. No one had argued when Jamie announced this. No one spoke of it, but the image of Arch Bug, lurking alone in the forest, was in everyone’s mind.

  “You think he’s there?” I asked Jamie, low-voiced. I nodded toward the dark trees, peaceful in their own soft shrouds.

  “If it were you lying here, a nighean,” Jamie said, looking down at the still white figures at the edge of the porch, “I should be beside ye, alive or dead. Come sit down.”

  I sat down beside him, the firepot close to our cloak-wrapped knees.

  “Poor things,” I said, after a bit. “It’s a long way from Scotland.”

  “It is,” he said, and took my hand. His fingers were no warmer than my own, but the size and strength of them were a comfort, nonetheless. “But they’ll be buried amongst folk who ken their ways, if not among their own kin.”

  “True.” Should Grannie MacLeod’s grandsons ever come back, at least they would find a marker for her grave and know she had been treated with kindness. Mrs. Bug hadn’t any kin, save Arch—no one to come and look for the grave marker. But she would be among people who’d known and loved her. What about Arch, though? If he had kin in Scotland, he’d never mentioned it. His wife had been everything to him, as he to her.

  “You, um, don’t think that Arch might … do away with himself?” I asked delicately. “Once he knows?”

  Jamie shook his head, definite.

  “No,” he said. “It’s not in him.”

  On one level, I was relieved to hear this. On a lower and less compassionate level, I couldn’t help wondering uneasily just what a man of Arch’s passions might do, stricken by this mortal blow, now bereft of the woman who had been his anchor and safe harbor for most of his life.

  What would such a man do? I wondered. Run before the wind until he hit a reef and sank? Or tie his life to the makeshift anchor of fury, and take revenge as his new compass? I’d seen the guilt Jamie and Ian were bearing; how much more was Arch carrying? Could any man bear such guilt? Or must he turn it outward, as a matter of simple survival?

  Jamie had said nothing about his own speculations, but I’d noticed that he had both pistol and dirk in his belt—and the pistol was loaded and primed; I could smell the whiff of black powder under the resinous breath of spruce and fir. Of course, it might be for driving off a roving wolf or foxes …

  We sat in silence for a little while, watching the shifting glow of the coals in the firepot and the flicker of light in the folds of the shrouds.

  “Ought we to pray, do you think?” I whispered.

  “I havena given over praying since it happened, Sassenach.”

  “I know what you mean.” I did—the passionate prayer that it might not be, and the desperate prayer for guidance thereafter; the need to do something, when nothing, really, could be done. And, of course, prayer for the repose of the recently departed. At least Grannie MacLeod had expected death—and welcomed it, I thought. Mrs. Bug, on the other hand, must have been terribly startled at being so suddenly dead. I had a disconcerting vision of her standing in the snow just off the porch, glaring at her corpse, hands on stout hips, lips pursed in annoyance at having been so rudely disembodied.

  “It was rather a shock,” I said apologetically to her shade.

  “Aye, it was that.”

  Jamie reached into his cloak and drew out his flask. Uncorking this, he leaned forward and carefully poured a few drops of whisky on the head of each of the dead women, then lifted the flask in silent toast to Grannie MacLeod, then to Mrs. Bug.

  “Murdina, wife of Archibald, ye were a great cook,” he said simply. “I’ll recall your biscuits all my life, and think of ye wi’ my morning parritch.”

  “Amen,” I said, my voice trembling between laughter and tears. I accepted the flask and took a sip; the whisky burned through the thickness in my throat, and I coughed.

  “I know her receipt for piccalilli. That shouldn’t be lost; I’ll write it down.”

  The thought of writing reminded me quite suddenly of the unfinished letter, still folded up in my workbag. Jamie felt the slight stiffening of my posture and turned his head toward me in question.

  “I was only thinking of that letter,” I said, clearing my throat. “I mean, in spite of Roger and Bree knowing the house has burnt down, they’ll be happy to hear that we’re still alive—always supposing they do eventually get it.”

  Aware both of the precarious times and of the uncertain survival of historical documents, Jamie and Roger had worked out several schemes for the passage of information, ranging from the publication of coded messages in various newspapers to something elaborate involving the Church of Scotland and the Bank of England. All of these, of course, relied upon the basic fact of the MacKenzie family having made the passage through the stones safely and arrived in more or less the right time—but I was obliged for my own peace of mind to assume that they had.

  “But I don’t want to end it by having to tell them—about this.” I nodded toward the shrouded figures. “They loved Mrs. Bug—and Bree would be so upset for Ian.”

  “Aye, ye’re right,” Jamie said thoughtfull
y. “And chances are that Roger Mac would think it all through and realize about Arch. Knowing, and not able to do anything about it … aye, they’d be worrit, ’til they found another letter telling them how it’s all come out—and God knows how long it may be before it has all come out.”

  “And if they didn’t get the next letter …” Or if we didn’t survive long enough to write it, I thought.

  “Aye, best not tell them. Not yet awhile.”

  I moved closer, leaning against him, and he put his arm round me. We sat quiet for a bit, still troubled and sorrowful, but comforted at thought of Roger, Bree, and the children.

  I could hear sounds from the cabin behind me; everyone had been quiet, shocked—but normality was fast reasserting itself. Children couldn’t be kept quiet long, and I could hear high-pitched questions, demands for food, the chatter of little ones excited at being up so late, their voices threading through the clanging and thumps of food preparation. There would be bannocks and pasties for the next part of the wake; Mrs. Bug would be pleased. A sudden shower of sparks flew from the chimney and fell all round the porch like falling stars, brilliant against the dark night and the white, fresh snow.

  Jamie’s arm tightened round me, and he made a small sound of pleasure at the sight.

  “That—what ye said about the breast o’ the new-fallen snow”—the word emerged as “breest” in his soft Highland lilt—“that’s a poem, is it?”

  “It is. Not really appropriate to a wake—it’s a comic Christmas poem called ‘A Visit from Saint Nicholas.’ ”

  Jamie snorted, his breath white.

  “I dinna think the word ‘appropriate’ has much to do wi’ a proper wake, Sassenach. Give the mourners enough drink, and they’ll be singing ‘ O thoir a-nall am Botul ’ and the weans dancing ring-a-round-a-rosy in the dooryard by moonlight.”

  I didn’t quite laugh, but could envision it, all too easily. There was enough to drink, too; there was a fresh tub of beer just brewed in the pantry, and Bobby had fetched down the emergency keg of whisky from its hiding place in the barn. I lifted Jamie’s hand and kissed the cold knuckles. The shock and sense of dislocation had begun to fade with the growing awareness of the pulse of life behind us. The cabin was a small, vibrant island of life, afloat in the cold of the black and white night.

  “No man is an island, entire of itself,” Jamie said softly, picking up my unspoken thought.

  “Now, that one is appropriate,” I said, a little dryly. “Maybe too appropriate.”

  “Aye? How so?”

  “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee? I never hear No man is an island without that last line tolling right behind it.”

  “Mmphm. Ken the whole of it, do ye?” Not waiting for my reply, he leaned forward and stirred the coals with a stick, sending up a tiny drift of silent sparks. “It isna really a poem, ken—or the man didna mean it to be one.”

  “No?” I said, surprised. “What is it? Or was it?”

  “A meditation—something atwixt a sermon and a prayer. John Donne wrote it as part of his ‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions.’ That’s sufficiently appropriate, no?” he added, with a hint of wry humor.

  “They don’t get much more emergent than this, no. What am I missing, then?”

  “Mmm.” He pulled me closer, and bent his head to rest on mine. “Let me call what I can to mind. I’ll not have all of it, but there are bits that struck me, so I remember those.” I could hear his breathing, slow and easy, concentrating.

  “All mankind is of one author,” he said slowly, “ and is one volume. When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated. Then there are bits I havena got by heart, but I liked this one: The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth”—and his hand squeezed mine gently—“and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God.”

  “Hmm.” I thought about that for a bit. “You’re right; that’s less poetic, but a bit more … hopeful?”

  I felt him smile.

  “I’ve always found it so, aye.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “John Grey lent me a wee book of Donne’s writing, when I was prisoner at Helwater. That was in it.”

  “A very literate gentleman,” I said, somewhat piqued at this reminder of the substantial chunk of Jamie’s life that John Grey had shared and I had not—but grudgingly glad that he had had a friend through that time of trial. How often, I wondered suddenly, had Jamie heard that tolling bell?

  I sat up, reached for the flask, and took a cleansing swallow. The smell of baking, of onion and simmered meat, was seeping through the door, and my stomach rumbled in an unseemly manner. Jamie didn’t notice; he was squinting thoughtfully off toward the west, where the bulk of the mountain lay hidden by cloud.

  “The MacLeod lads said the passes were already hip-deep in snow when they came down,” he said. “If there’s a foot of new snow on the ground here, there are three in the high passes. We’re going nowhere ’til the spring thaw, Sassenach. Time enough to carve proper grave markers, at least,” he added, with a glance at our quiet guests.

  “You do still mean to go to Scotland, then?” He’d said so, after the Big House burned, but hadn’t mentioned it since then. I wasn’t sure whether he’d meant it or had merely been reacting to the pressure of events at the time.

  “Aye, I do. We canna be staying here, I think,” he said, with some regret. “Come the spring, the backcountry will be boiling again. We’ve come close enough to the fire.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the Big House’s charred remains. “I’ve no mind to be roasted, next time.”

  “Well … yes.” He was right, I knew. We could build another house—but it was unlikely we would be allowed to live peaceably in it. Among other things, Jamie was—or at least had been—a colonel of militia. Short of physical incapacity or simple absence, he couldn’t relinquish that responsibility. And sentiment in the mountains was by no means all in favor of rebellion. I knew a number of people who had been beaten, burnt out, and driven into the woods or swamps, or killed outright as the direct result of injudiciously expressed political sentiments.