A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [268]
“I doubt it,” Jamie said. “The last one I heard myself, I’d done for three bears at once, killin’ the last of them high in a tree, where he’d chased me after chewin’ off my foot.”
Despite himself, Cameron looked down at Jamie’s feet, then looked up and hooted with laughter, all the lines of his face curving in such irresistible merriment that Jamie felt his own laughter bubble up.
It was not, of course, proper to speak of business yet awhile. The hunting party had brought down one of the woods buffaloes, and a great feast was preparing: the liver taken away to be singed and devoured at once, the strap of tender meat from the back roasted with whole onions, and the heart—so Ian told him—to be shared among the four of them: Jamie, Cameron, Bird, and Running Fox, a mark of honor.
After the liver had been eaten, they retired to Bird’s house to drink beer for an hour or two, while the women made ready the rest of the food. And in the course of nature, he found himself outside, having a comfortable piss against a tree, when a quiet footfall came behind him, and Alexander Cameron stepped up alongside, undoing the fall of his breeches.
It seemed natural—though plainly Cameron had intended it—to walk about together for a bit then, the cool air of the evening a respite from the smoke inside the house, and speak of things of common interest—John Stuart, for one, and the ways and means of the Southern Department. Indians, for another; comparing the personalities and means of dealing with the various village chiefs, speculating as to who would make a leader, and whether there might be a great congress called within the year.
“Ye’ll be wondering, I expect,” Cameron said quite casually, “at my presence here?”
Jamie made a slight motion of the shoulders, admitting interest, but indicating a polite lack of inquisition into Cameron’s affairs.
Cameron chuckled.
“Aye, well. It’s no secret, to be sure. It’s James Henderson, is what it is—ye’ll ken the name, maybe?”
He did. Henderson had been Chief Justice of the Superior Court in North Carolina—until the Regulation had caused him to leave, climbing out the window of his courthouse and fleeing for his life from a mob bent on violence.
A wealthy man, and one with a due regard for the value of his skin, Henderson had retired from public life and set about increasing his fortune. To which end, he proposed now to buy an enormous tract of land from the Cherokee, this located in Tennessee, and establish townships there.
Jamie gave Cameron an eye, apprehending at once the complexity of the situation. For the one thing, the lands in question lay far, far inside the Treaty Line. For Henderson to instigate such dealings was an indication—had any been needed—of just how feeble the grasp of the Crown had grown of late. Plainly, Henderson thought nothing of flouting His Majesty’s treaty, and expected no interference with his affairs as a result of doing so.
That was one thing. For another, though—the Cherokee held land in common, as all the Indians did. Leaders could and did sell land to whites, without such legal niceties as clear title, but were still subject to the ex post facto approval or disapproval of their people. Such approval would not affect the sale, which would be already accomplished, but could result in the fall of a leader, and in a good deal of trouble for the man who tried to take possession of land paid for in good faith—or what passed for good faith, in such dealings.
“John Stuart knows of this, of course,” Jamie said, and Cameron nodded, with a small air of complacency.
“Not officially, mind,” he said.
Naturally not. The Superintendent of Indian Affairs could hardly countenance such an arrangement officially. At the same time, it would be smiled on unofficially, as such a purchase could not help but further the department’s goal of bringing the Indians further under the sway of British influence.
Jamie wondered idly whether Stuart profited in any personal way