Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [142]
“Take them off,” he said, pausing for air.
“But I—”
“Take them off,” he repeated firmly. He stepped back and tugged loose the lacing of his flies. “Ye can put them back on again after, Sassenach, but if there’s flinging and ravishing to be done, it’ll be me that does it, aye?”
PART FIVE
Strawberry Fields Forever
14
FLEE FROM WRATH TO COME
August 1767
They had hidden the woman in a tobacco shed on the edge of Farquard Campbell’s furthest fields. There was little chance of anyone noticing—other than Campbell’s slaves, who already knew—but we took care to arrive just after dark, when the lavender sky had faded nearly to gray, barely outlining the dark bulk of the drying shed.
The woman slid out like a ghost, cloaked and hooded, and was hoisted onto the extra horse, bundled hastily aboard like the package of contraband she was. She drew up her legs and clung to the saddle with both hands, doubled up in a ball of panic; evidently she’d never been on a horse before.
Myers tried to hand her the reins, but she paid no attention, only clung tight and moaned in a sort of melodic agony of terror. The men were becoming restive, glancing over their shoulders into the empty fields, as though expecting the imminent arrival of Sergeant Murchison and his minions.
“Let her ride with me,” I suggested. “Maybe she’ll feel safer that way.”
The woman was detached from her mount with some difficulty and set down on the horse’s rump behind my saddle. She smelt strongly of fresh tobacco leaves, pungently narcotic, and something else, a little muskier. She at once flung her arms around my waist, holding on for dear life. I patted one of the hands clutched about my middle, and she squeezed tighter, but made no other move or sound.
Little wonder if she was terrified, I thought, turning my horse’s head to follow Myers’s. She might not know about the hullabaloo Murchison was raising in the district, but she could have no illusions about what might happen if she was caught; she had certainly been among the crowd at the sawmill two weeks earlier.
As an alternative to certain death, flight into the arms of red savages might be slightly preferable, but not by much, to judge from her trembling; the weather was far from cold, but she shook as though with chill.
She nearly squeezed the stuffings out of me when Rollo appeared, stalking out of the bushes like some demon of the forest. My horse didn’t like the look of him, either, and backed up, snorting and stamping, trying to jerk the reins away from me.
I had to admit that Rollo was reasonably fearsome, even when he was in an amiable mood, which he was, at the moment—Rollo loved expeditions. Still, he undoubtedly presented a sinister aspect; all his teeth were showing in a grin of delight, his slitted eyes half closed as he whiffed the air. Add to that the way the grays and blacks of his coat faded into the shadows, and one was left with the queer and unsettling illusion that he had materialized out of the substance of the night, Appetite incarnate.
He trotted directly past us, no more than a foot away, and the woman gasped, her breath hot on my neck. I patted her hand again, and spoke to her, but she made no answer. Duncan had said she was Africa-born and spoke little English, but surely she must understand a few words.
“It will be all right,” I said again. “Don’t be afraid.”
Occupied with horse and passenger, I hadn’t noticed Jamie, until he appeared suddenly by my stirrup, light-footed as Rollo.
“All right, Sassenach?” he asked softly, putting a hand on my thigh.
“I think so,” I said. I nodded at the death-grip round my middle. “If I don’t die of suffocation.”
He looked, and smiled.
“Well, she’s in no danger of fallin’ off, at least.”
“I wish I knew something to say to her; poor thing, she’s so afraid. Do you suppose she even knows where we’re taking her?”
“I shouldna think so—I dinna ken where we’re going.” He wore breeks for riding, but had his plaid belted over them, the free