A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [235]
She mumbled something inaudible, but the crying eased off into hiccups and sighs. Then she said something else.
“What’s that, Mrs. McCallum?”
“Why?” she whispered from under the faded calico. “Why has God brought me here?”
Well, that was a bloody good question; he’d asked that one fairly often himself, but hadn’t got back any really good answers yet.
“Well . . . we trust He’s got a plan of some sort,” he said a little awkwardly. “We just don’t know what it is.”
“A fine plan,” she said, and sobbed once. “To bring us all this way, to this terrible place, and then take my man from me and leave me here to starve!”
“Oh . . . it’s no such a terrible place,” he said, unable to refute anything else in her statement. “The woods and all . . . the streams, the mountains . . . it’s . . . um . . . very pretty. When it’s not raining.” The inanity of this actually made her laugh, though it quickly devolved into more weeping.
“What?” He put an arm round her and pulled her a little closer, both to offer comfort, and in order to make out what she was saying, under her makeshift refuge.
“I miss the sea,” she said very softly, and leaned her calico-swathed head against his shoulder, as though she was very tired. “I never shall see it again.”
She was very likely right, and he could find nothing to say in reply. They sat for some time in a silence broken only by the baby’s slobbering over its fist.
“I won’t let ye starve,” he said at last, softly. “That’s all I can promise, but I do. Ye won’t starve.” Muscles cramped, he got stiffly to his feet, and reached down to one of the small rough hands that lay limply in her lap. “Come on, then. Get up. Ye can feed the wean, while I tidy up a bit.”
THE RAIN HAD CEASED by the time he left, and the clouds had begun to drift apart, leaving patches of pale blue sky. He paused at a turn in the steep, muddy path to admire a rainbow—a complete one, that arched from one side of the sky to the other, its misty colors sinking down into the dark wet green of the dripping mountainside across from him.
It was quiet, save for the splat and drip of water from the leaves and the gurgle of water running down a rocky channel near the trail.
“A covenant,” he said softly, out loud. “What’s the promise, then? Not a pot of gold at the end.” He shook his head and went on, grabbing at branches and bushes to keep from sliding down the mountainside; he didn’t want to end up like Orem McCallum, in a tangle of bones at the bottom.
He’d talk to Jamie, and also to Tom Christie and Hiram Crombie. Among them, they could put out the word, and ensure the widow McCallum and her children got enough food. Folk were generous to share—but someone had to ask.
He glanced back over his shoulder; the crooked chimney was just visible above the trees, but no smoke came from it. They could gather enough firewood, she said—but wet as it was, it would be days before they had anything that would burn. They needed a shed for the wood, and logs cut, big enough to burn for a day, not the twigs and fallen branches Aidan could carry.
As though the thought had summoned him, Aidan came into view then. The boy was fishing, squatting on a rock beside a pool some thirty feet below, back turned to the trail. His shoulder blades stuck out through the worn fabric of his shirt, distinct as tiny angel wings.
The noise of the water covered Roger’s footsteps as he made his way down the rocks. Very gently, he fitted his hand around the skinny, pale neck, and the bony shoulders hunched in surprise.
“Aidan,” he said. “A word wi’ you, if ye please.”
THE DARK CAME DOWN on All Hallows’ Eve. We went to sleep to the sound of howling wind and pelting rain, and woke on the Feast of All Saints to whiteness and large soft flakes falling down and down in absolute silence. There is no more perfect stillness than the solitude in the heart of a snowstorm.
This is the thin time, when the beloved dead draw near. The world turns inward, and the chilling air grows thick with dreams and mystery. The sky goes from a sharp