A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [124]
“What, wee Gideon? Oh, we get on. Besides, he’s half my trade goods, lass.”
“Really?” She gave the big chestnut a suspicious glance. “Are you sure you won’t start a war, giving the Indians something like him?”
“Oh, I dinna mean to give him to them,” he assured her. “Not directly, at least.”
Gideon was a bad-tempered, thrawn-headed reester of a horse, with a mouth like iron and a will to match. However, these unsociable qualities seemed most appealing to the Indians, as did the stallion’s massive chest, long wind, and stoutly muscled frame. When Quiet Air, the sachem in one of the villages, had offered him three deerskins for the chance to breed his spotted mare to Gideon, Jamie had realized suddenly that he had something here.
“’Twas the greatest good fortune that I never found the time to castrate him,” he said, slapping Gideon familiarly on the withers and dodging by reflex as the stallion whipped his head round to snap. “He earns his keep, and more, standing at stud to the Indian ponies. It’s the only thing I’ve ever asked him to do that he’s not balked at.”
The lass was pink as a Christmas rose from the morning cold; she laughed at that, though, going an even deeper color.
“What’s castrate?” Jemmy inquired.
“Your mother will tell ye.” He grinned at her, ruffled Jemmy’s hair, and turned to Roger. “Ready, lad?”
Roger Mac nodded and stepped up into his stirrup, swinging aboard. He had a steady old bay gelding named Agrippa, who tended to grunt and wheeze, but was sound enough for all that, and good for a rider like Roger—competent enough, but with an abiding sense of inner reservation about horses.
Roger leaned down from the saddle for a last kiss from Brianna, and they were under way. Jamie’d taken a private—and thorough—leave of Claire earlier.
She was in the window of their bedroom, watching out to wave to them as they rode past, her hairbrush in her hand. Her hair was standing out in a great curly swash round her head, and the early-morning sun caught in it like flames in a thornbush. It gave him a sudden queer feeling to see her thus so disordered, half-naked in her shift. A sense of strong desire, despite what he’d done to her not an hour past. And something almost fear, as though he might never see her again.
Quite without thought, he glanced at his left hand, and saw the ghost of the scar at the base of his thumb, the “C” so faded that it was scarcely visible. He had not noticed it or thought of it in years, and felt suddenly as though there was not air enough to breathe.
He waved, though, and she threw him a mocking kiss, laughing. Christ, he’d marked her; he could see the dark patch of the love bite he’d left on her neck, and a hot flush of embarrassment rose in his face. He dug his heels into Gideon’s side, causing the stallion to give a squeal of displeasure and turn round to try to bite him in the leg.
With this distraction, they were safe away. He looked back only once, at the trailhead, to see her still there, framed by light. She lifted one hand, as though in benediction, and then the trees hid her from sight.
THE WEATHER WAS FAIR, though cold for as early in the autumn as it was; the horses’ breath steamed as they made their way down from the Ridge through the tiny settlement folk now called Cooperville, and along the Great Buffalo Trail to the north. He kept an eye on the sky; it was much too early for snow, but heavy rains were not uncommon. What clouds there were were mare’s tails, though; no cause for worry.
They didn’t speak much, each man alone with his thoughts. Roger Mac was easy company, for the most part. Jamie did miss Ian, though; he would have liked to talk over the situation as it stood now with Tsisqua. Ian understood the minds of Indians better than most white men, and while Jamie understood Bird’s gesture of sending the hermit’s bones well enough—it was meant as a proof of his continuing goodwill toward settlers, if the King should send them guns—he would have valued Ian’s opinion.
And while it was necessary that