A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [161]
“Springer,” he said, and gripped my arm eagerly. “Springer—was that it? Robert Springer?”
I had just enough presence of mind to clamp my jaw, thrust out my chin, and hold up my bound hands in front of him. Not another word until he cut me loose.
“Shit,” he muttered again, and with another hasty glance behind him, fumbled for his knife. He wasn’t skillful with it. If I had needed any evidence that he wasn’t a real Indian of the time . . . but he got my hands free without cutting me, and I doubled up with a groan, hands tucked under my armpits as the blood surged into them. They felt like balloons filled and stretched to the point of bursting.
“When?” he demanded, paying no attention to my distress. “When did you come? Where did you find Bob? Where is he?”
“1946,” I said, squeezing my arms down tight on my throbbing hands. “The first time. 1968, the second. As for Mr. Springer—”
“The second—did you say the second time?” His voice rose in astonishment. He choked it off, looking guiltily back, but the sounds of the men dicing and arguing round the fire were more than loud enough to drown out a simple exclamation.
“Second time,” he repeated more softly. “So you did it? You went back?”
I nodded, pressing my lips together and rocking back and forth a little. I thought my fingernails would pop off with each heartbeat.
“What about you?” I asked, though I was fairly sure that I already knew.
“1968,” he said, confirming it.
“What year did you turn up in?” I asked. “I mean—how long have you been here? Er . . . now, I mean.”
“Oh, God.” He sat back on his heels, running a hand back through his long, tangled hair. “I been here six years, as near as I can tell. But you said—second time. If you made it home, why in hell’d you come back? Oh—wait. You didn’t make it home, you went to another time, but not the one you came from? Where’d you start from?”
“Scotland, 1946. And no, I made it home,” I said, not wanting to go into details. “My husband was here, though. I came back on purpose, to be with him.” A decision whose wisdom seemed presently in severe doubt.
“And speaking of my husband,” I added, beginning to feel as though I might possess a few shreds of sanity after all, “I was not joking. He’s coming. You don’t want him to find you keeping me captive, I assure you. But if you—”
He disregarded this, leaning eagerly toward me.
“But that means you know how it works! You can steer!”
“Something like that,” I said, impatient. “I take it that you and your companions didn’t know how to steer, as you put it?” I massaged one hand with the other, gritting my teeth against the throb of blood. I could feel the furrows the rope had left in my flesh.
“We thought we did.” Bitterness tinged his voice. “Singing stones. Gemstones. That’s what we used. Raymond said . . . It didn’t work, though. Or maybe . . . maybe it did.” He was making deductions; I could hear the excitement rising again in his tone.
“You met Bob Springer—Otter-Tooth, I mean. So he did make it! And if he made it, maybe the others did, too. See, I thought they were all dead. I thought—thought I was alone.” There was a catch in his voice, and despite the urgency of the situation and my annoyance at him, I felt a pang of sympathy. I knew very well what it felt like to be alone in that way, marooned in time.
In a way, I hated to disillusion him, but there was no point in keeping the truth from him.
“Otter-Tooth is dead, I’m afraid.”
He suddenly stopped moving and sat very still. The faint glow of firelight through the trees outlined him; I could see his face. A few long hairs lifted in the breeze. They were the only thing that moved.
“How?” he said at last, in a small, choked voice.
“Killed by the Iroquois,” I said. “The Mohawk.” My mind was beginning,