Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [148]
“So happen back fifty years, the Mohawk took and adopted the whole tribe of the Tuscarora. Don’t many tribes speak exactly the same language,” Myers explained. “But some are closer than others. Tuscarora’s more like the Mohawk than ’tis like the Creek or the Cherokee.”
“Can ye speak Mohawk yourself, Mr. Myers?” Ian’s ears had been flapping all through the explanation. Fascinated by every rock, tree, and bird on our journey, Ian was still more fascinated by any mention of Indians.
“Oh, a good bit.” Myers shrugged modestly. “Any trader picks up a few words here and there. Shoo, dawg.” Rollo, who had inched his nose within sniffing distance of Myers’s last trout, twitched his ears at the admonition but didn’t withdraw the nose.
“Will it be the Tuscarora ye mean to take Mistress Polly to?” Jamie asked, crumbling a corn dodger into edible chunks.
Myers nodded, chewing carefully; with as few natural teeth as he had left, even fresh corn dodgers were a hazardous undertaking.
“Aye. Be four, five days ride still,” he explained. He turned to me and gave me a reassuring smile. “I’ll see her settled fine, Mrs. Claire, you’ll not be worried for her.”
“What will the Indians think of her, I wonder?” Ian asked. He glanced at Pollyanne, interested. “Will they have seen a black woman before?”
Myers laughed at that.
“Lad, there’s a many of the Tuscarora ain’t seen a white person before. Mrs. Polly won’t come as any more a shock than your auntie might.” Myers took a vast swig of water and swished it around his mouth, eyeing Pollyanne thoughtfully. She felt his eyes on her, and returned his stare, unblinking.
“I should say they’d find her handsome, though; they do like a woman as is sweetly plump.” It was moderately obvious that Myers shared this admiration; his eyes drifted over Pollyanne with an appreciation touched with innocent lasciviousness.
She saw it, and an extraordinary change came over her. She seemed scarcely to move, and yet all at once, her whole person was focused on Myers. No white showed around her eyes; they were black and fathomless, shining in the firelight. She was still short and heavy, but with only the slightest change of posture, depth of bosom and width of hip were emphasized, suddenly curved in a promise of lewd abundance.
Myers swallowed, audibly.
I glanced away from this little byplay to see Jamie watching, too, with an expression somewhere between amusement and concern. I poked him unobtrusively, and squinted hard, in an expression that said as explicitly as I could manage—“Do something!”
He narrowed one eye.
I widened both mine and gave him a good stare, which translated to, “I don’t know, but do something!”
“Mmphm.”
Jamie cleared his throat, leaned forward, and laid a hand on Myers’s arm, jarring the mountain man out of his momentary trance.
“I shouldna like to think the woman will be misused in any way,” he said, politely, but with an edge of Scottish innuendo on “misused” that implied the possibility of unlimited impropriety. He squeezed a little. “Will ye undertake to guarantee her safety, Mr. Myers?”
Myers shot him a look of incomprehension, which slowly cleared, cognizance coming into the bloodshot hazel eyes. The mountain man slowly pulled his arm free, then picked up his cup, gulped the last mouthful of whisky, coughed and wiped his mouth. He might have been blushing, but it was impossible to tell behind the beard.
“Oh, yes. That is, I mean to say, oh, no. No, indeed. The Mohawk and the Tuscarora both, their women choose who they bed with, even who they marry. No such thing as rape among ’em. Oh, no. No, sir; she won’t be misused, I can promise that.”
“Well, and I’m glad to hear it.” Jamie sat back, at ease, and gave me an I-trust-you’re-satisfied glare out of the corner of his eye. I smiled demurely.
Ian might be not quite sixteen, but he was far too observant to have missed all these exchanges. He coughed, in a meaningful Scottish manner.
“Uncle, Mr. Myers has been kind enough to invite me to go with him and Mrs. Polly, to see the Indian village. I shall be sure to see