A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [128]
But the moment passed, as did the illusion, and a great stillness came. Near at hand, a raven called.
THEY HAD ALMOST finished the burying, when the sound of hooves and jingling harness announced visitors—a lot of visitors.
Roger, ready to decamp into the woods, glanced at his father-in-law, but Jamie shook his head, answering his unasked question.
“Nay, they’d no come back. What for?” His bleak gaze took in the smoking ruin of the homestead, the trampled dooryard, and the low mounds of the graves. The little girl still lay nearby, covered with Roger’s cloak. He hadn’t been able to bear putting her into the ground just yet; the knowledge of her alive was still too recent.
Jamie straightened, stretching his back. Roger saw him glance to see that his rifle was to hand, leaning against a tree trunk. Then he settled himself, leaning on the scorched board he had been using as a shovel, waiting.
The first of the riders came out of the woods, his horse snorting and tossing its head at the smell of burning. The rider pulled it skillfully round and urged it closer, leaning forward to see who they were.
“So it’s you, is it, Fraser?” Richard Brown’s lined face looked grimly jovial. He glanced at the charred and steaming timbers, then round at his comrades. “Didn’t think you made your money just by selling whisky.”
The men—Roger counted six of them—shifted in their saddles, snorting with amusement.
“Have a bit o’ respect for the dead, Brown.” Jamie nodded at the graves, and Brown’s face hardened. He glanced sharply at Jamie, then at Roger.
“Just the two of you, is it? What are you doing here?”
“Digging graves,” Roger said. His palms were blistered; he rubbed a hand slowly on the side of his breeches. “What are you doing here?”
Brown straightened abruptly in his saddle, but it was his brother Lionel who answered.
“Coming down from Owenawisgu,” he said, jerking his head at the horses. Looking, Roger saw that there were four packhorses, laden with skins, and that several of the other horses carried bulging saddlebags. “Smelled the fire and come to see.” He glanced down at the graves. “Tige O’Brian, was it?”
Jamie nodded.
“Ye kent them?”
Richard Brown shrugged.
“Aye. It’s on the way to Owenawisgu. I’ve stopped a time or two; taken supper with them.” Belatedly, he removed his hat, plastering down wisps of hair over his balding crown with the flat of his hand. “God rest ’em.”
“Who’s burnt ’em out, if it wasn’t you?” one of the younger men in the party called. The man, a Brown by his narrow shoulders and lantern jaw, grinned inappropriately, evidently thinking this a jest.
The singed bit of paper had flown with the wind; it fluttered against a rock near Roger’s foot. He picked it up and with a step forward, slapped it against Lionel Brown’s saddle.
“Know anything about that, do you?” he asked. “It was pinned to O’Brian’s body.” He sounded angry, knew it, and didn’t care. His throat ached and his voice came out as a strangled rasp.
Lionel Brown glanced at the paper, brows raised, then handed it to his brother.
“No. Write it yourself, did you?”
“What?” He stared up at the man, blinking against the wind.
“Indians,” Lionel Brown said, nodding at the house. “Indians done this.”
“Oh, aye?” Roger could hear the undercurrents in Jamie’s voice—skepticism, wariness, and anger. “Which Indians? The ones from whom ye bought the hides? Told ye about it, did they?”
“Don’t be a fool, Nelly.” Richard Brown kept his voice pitched low, but his brother flinched a little, hearing it. Brown edged his horse nearer. Jamie stood his ground, though Roger saw his hands tighten on the board.
“Got the whole family, did they?” he asked, glancing at the small body under its cloak.
“No,” Jamie said. “We’ve not found the two elder children. Only the wee