Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [376]
A dozen times, they lost sight of the tiny messengers they followed, lost in the broken light over a stream, disappearing into brush too thick to follow. Each time, Jamie cast to and fro, finding another patch of flowers.
“There’s some!” she cried, pointing to a flash of brilliant red in the distance.
He squinted at them and smiled, shaking his head.
“Nay, not red,” he said. “The wee hummingbirds like the red ones, but bees like yellow and white—yellow’s best.” He plucked a small white daisy from the grass near her feet and handed it to her—the petals were streaked with pollen, fallen from the delicate stamens in the round yellow center of the bloom. Looking closer, she saw a tiny beetle the size of a pinhead crawl out of the center, its shiny black armor dusted with gold.
“The hummingbirds drink from the long-throated flowers,” he explained. “But the bees canna get all the way inside. They like the broad, flat flowers like this, and the ones that grow in heavy bunches. They light on them and wallow, till they’re covered over wi’ the yellow.”
They hunted up and down the mountainside, laughing as they dodged the bomber assaults of enraged bumblebees, hunting telltale patches of yellow and white. The bees liked the mountain laurel, but too many of those patches were too high to see over, too dense to pass through.
It was late afternoon before they found what they were looking for. A snag, the remnants of a good-sized tree, its branches reduced to stumps, bark worn away to show weathered silver wood beneath—and a wide split in the wood, through which the bees were crowding, hanging in a veil around it.
“Oh, good,” Jamie said, with satisfaction at the sight. “Sometimes they hive in the rocks, and then there’s little ye can do.” He unslung the ax at his belt, and his bags, and gestured to Brianna to sit down on a nearby rock.
“It’s best to wait till dark,” he explained. “For then all the swarm will be inside the hive. Meanwhile, will ye have a bite to eat?”
They shared the rest of the food, and talked sporadically, watching the light fade from the nearby mountains. He let her fire the long musket when she asked, showing her how to load a new round: swab the barrel, patch the ball, ram home ball, patch, and wadding with a charge of powder from the cartridge; pour the rest of the powder into the priming pan of the flintlock.
“You’re no a bad shot at all, lass,” he said, surprised. He bent and picked up a small chunk of wood, setting it on top of a large boulder as a target. “Try again.”
She did, and again, and again, growing used to the awkward weight of the weapon, finding the lovely balancing point of its length and its natural seat in the curve of her shoulder. It kicked less than she’d expected; black powder hadn’t the force of modern cartridges. Twice chips flew from the boulder; the third time the chunk of wood disappeared in a shower of fragments.
“Verra nice,” he said, one eyebrow raised. “And where in God’s name did ye learn to shoot?”
“My father was a target shooter.” She lowered the gun, cheeks flushed with pleasure. “He taught me to shoot with a pistol or a rifle. A shotgun, too.” Then her cheeks flushed a deeper hue, remembering. “Um. You wouldn’t have seen a shotgun.”
“No, I dinna suppose I have,” was all he said, his face a careful blank.
“How will you move the hive?” she asked, wanting to cover the awkward moment. He shrugged.
“Oh, once the bees have gone to their rest, I shall blow a bit o’ smoke into the hive, to keep them stunned. Then chop free the part of the trunk that’s got the combs in it, slide a bit of flat wood beneath it, and wrap it in my plaid. Once at the house, I’ll nail a bit of wood top and bottom, to make a bee gum.” He smiled at her. “Come morning, the bees will come out, look around, and venture out for the nearest flowers.”
“Won’t they realize they aren’t in their proper place?”
He shrugged again.
“And what will they do about it, if they do? They’ve no means to