Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [279]
He nodded again, his old mouth working. He let me lead him to the bench by the door, where he sat down quite suddenly, as though all the strength had gone out of his legs.
The door opened, and John Grey came out. He had his pistol in his hand, but when I shook my head at him, he slid it at once into his shirt. The old man had not let go of my hand; he pulled, forcing me to sit down beside him.
“Gnädige Frau,” he said, and suddenly turned and embraced me, hugging me tight against his filthy coat. He shook with soundless crying, and even knowing what he had done, I put my own arms around him.
He smelled dreadful, sour and reeking with old age and sorrow, with beer and sweat and filth, and somewhere under all the other odors was the fetor of dried blood. I shuddered, caught in a web of pity, horror, and revulsion, but could not pull away.
He let go, finally, and seemed suddenly to see John Grey, who was hovering nearby, not sure whether to intervene or not. The old man started at sight of him.
“Mein Gott!” he exclaimed, in tones of horror. “Er hat Masern!” The sun was sinking fast, bathing the dooryard in bloody light. It struck Grey full in the face, highlighting the darkened spots on his face, flushing his skin with red.
Mueller turned to me, and frantically seized my face between his huge, horny paws. His thumbs scraped across my cheeks, and an expression of relief came into his sunken eyes, as he saw that my skin was still clear.
“Gott sei dank’,” he said, and letting go of my face, began to rummage in his coat, saying something in German so urgent and so mumbled that I could make out no more than the occasional word.
“He says he was afraid he would be too late, and is glad that he was not,” Grey said, seeing my bewilderment. He eyed the old farmer with suspicious dislike. “He says he’s brought you something—a charm of some kind. It will ward off the curse, and keep you safe from the illness.”
The old man withdrew an object wrapped in cloth from the recesses of his coat, and laid it in my lap, still babbling in German.
“He thanks you for all your help to his family—he thinks you are a fine woman, as dear to him as one of his daughters-in-law—he says that …” Mueller unfolded the cloth with shaking hands, and the words died in Grey’s throat.
I opened my mouth, but made no sound. I must have made some involuntary movement, for the cloth slipped suddenly to the ground, spilling out the sheaf of white-streaked hair to which a small silver ornament still clung. With it was the leather pouch, the woodpecker’s feathers draggled with blood.
Mueller was still speaking, and Grey was trying to, but I was only dimly aware of their words. Inside my ears echoed the words I had heard a year before, down by the stream, in Gabrielle’s soft voice, translating for Nayawenne.
Her name meant “It may be; it will happen.” Now it had, and all that was left me for consolation was her words: “She says you must not be troubled; sickness is sent from the gods. It won’t be your fault.”
29
CHARNEL HOUSES
Jamie smelled the smoke long before the village came in sight. Willie saw him stiffen, and tensed in his own saddle, glancing warily around them.
“What?” the boy whispered. “What is it?”
“I dinna ken.” He kept his own voice low, though there was no evidence that anyone was near enough to hear them. He swung down from his horse and handed the reins to Willie, nodding toward a vine-covered cliff face whose foot was shrouded in brush.
“Take the horses behind the cliff, lad,” he said. “There’s a deer path there, that leads up to a spruce grove. Get well in among the trees, and wait there for me.” He hesitated, not wanting to scare the boy, but there was no help for it.
“If I should not come back by dark,” he said, “leave at once. Dinna wait for the morning; go back to the wee stream we just crossed, turn to your left, and follow it to a place where there’s a waterfall—you’ll hear it, even in the dark. Behind the falls there’s a wee cave; the Indians use it when they’re hunting.”
A small rim of white showed all