Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [388]
“I thought we’d try up the stream, for wood ears.”
“Ah? Dinna go too far, aye? There are Indians hunting the far mountain. I smelt them on the ridge this morning.”
“You smelled them?” Brianna asked.
One red brow went up in inquiry. He saw Claire glance from Brianna to him and smile slightly, to herself; it was one of his own gestures, then. He lifted one brow, looking at Claire, and saw her smile grow wider.
“It’s autumn, and they’re dryin’ venison,” he explained to Brianna. “Ye can smell the smoking fires a great ways away, if the wind sets right.”
“We won’t go far,” Claire assured him. “Just above the trout pool.”
“Aye, well. I daresay it’s safe enough.” He felt some reluctance at letting the women go, but he could scarcely keep them mewed up in the house only because there were savages nearby—the Indians were no doubt peacefully employed as he was himself, in making winter preparations.
If he knew for sure it was Nacognaweto’s folk, he wouldn’t worry, but as it was, the hunting parties often roamed far afield and it could as easily be Cherokee, or the odd small tribe that called themselves the Dog People. There was only one village of them left, and they were deeply suspicious of white strangers—not without reason.
Brianna’s eyes rested on his bare chest for a moment, at the tiny knot of puckered scar tissue, but she showed no sign of disgust or curiosity—nor did she when she laid her hand briefly on his shoulder, kissing his cheek in goodbye, though he knew she must feel the healed welts beneath her fingers.
Claire would have told her, he supposed—all about Jack Randall, and the days before the Rising. Or perhaps not quite all. A small shiver that had nothing to do with cold ran up the crease of his spine, and he stepped back, away from her touch, though he still smiled at her.
“There’s bread in the hutch, and a little stew left in the kettle for you and Ian and Lizzie.” Claire reached up and flicked a stray wood chip from his hair. “Don’t eat the pudding in the pantry; that’s for supper.”
He caught her fingers in his and kissed her knuckles lightly. She looked surprised, and then a faint warm glow came up under her skin. She came up a-tiptoe and kissed his mouth, then hurried after Brianna, already at the edge of the clearing.
“Be careful!” he called after them. They waved, and disappeared into the woods, leaving him with their kisses soft on his face.
“Deo gratias,” he murmured again, watching them, and this time spoke with heartfelt gratitude. He waited until the last flicker of Brianna’s cloak had vanished, before returning to his work.
He sat on the chopping block, a handful of square-headed nails on the ground beside him, carefully driving them one at a time into the end of the ax handle with a small mallet. The dry wood split and spread, but held by the iron enclosure of the axhead, could not splinter.
He twisted the head, then finding it firm, stood up and brought the ax down in a mighty blow on the chopping block, by way of test. It held.
He was chilled now, from sitting, and pulled his shirt back on. He was hungry, too, but he would wait a bit for the young ones. Not but what they had likely stuffed themselves already, he thought cynically. He could almost smell the meat pies Sarah Woolam made, the rich scent twining in his memory through the actual autumn smells of dead leaves and damp earth.
The thought of meat pies lingered in his mind as he went on with his work, along with the thought of winter. The Indians said it would be hard, this winter, not like the last. How would it be, hunting in deep snow? It snowed in Scotland, of course, but often enough it lay light on the ground, and the trodden paths of the red deer showed black on the steep, bare mountainsides.
Last winter had been like that. But this wilderness was given to extremes. He had heard stories of snowfalls that lay six feet deep, valleys where a man might sink to his oxters, and ice that froze so thick on the creeks that a bear could walk across.