Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [77]
I put out a finger and delicately flicked the tiny drop away, before it further dampened his shirt.
“You’ve been telling him for two months that he has to go home to Scotland; he doesn’t want to hear that, I don’t think.”
Jamie opened one eye and surveyed me cynically.
“Is he in Scotland?”
“Well …”
“Mmphm,” he said, and closed the eye again.
I sat quietly for a bit, blotting the perspiration off my face with a fold of my skirt. The river had narrowed here; the near bank was no more than ten feet away. I caught a rustle of movement among the shrubs, and a pair of eyes gleamed briefly red with reflected light from our lantern.
Rollo lifted his head with a sudden low Woof, ears pricked to attention. Jamie opened his eyes and glanced at the bank, then sat up abruptly.
“Christ! That’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen!”
I laughed.
“It’s not a rat; it’s a possum. See the babies on her back?”
Jamie and Rollo regarded the possum with identical looks of calculation, assessing its plumpness and possible speed. Four small possums stared solemnly back, pointed noses twitching over their mother’s humped, indifferent back. Obviously thinking the boat no threat, the mother possum finished lapping water, turned, and trundled slowly into the brush, the tip of her naked thick pink tail disappearing as the lantern light faded.
The two hunters let out identical sighs, and relaxed again.
“Myers did say as they’re fine eating,” Jamie remarked wistfully. With a small sigh of my own, I groped in the pocket of my gown and handed him a cloth bag.
“What’s this?” He peered interestedly into the bag, then poured the small, lumpy brown objects out into the palm of his hand.
“Roasted peanuts,” I said. “They grow underground hereabouts. I found a farmer selling them for hogfood, and had the inn-wife roast some for me. You take off the shells before you eat them.” I grinned at him, enjoying the novel sensation of for once knowing more about our surroundings than he did.
He gave me a mildly dirty look, and crushed a shell between thumb and forefinger, yielding three nuts.
“I’m ignorant, Sassenach,” he said. “Not a fool. There’s a difference, aye?” He put a peanut in his mouth and bit down gingerly. His skeptical look changed to one of pleased surprise, and he chewed with increasing enthusiasm, tossing the other nuts into his mouth.
“Like them?” I smiled, enjoying his pleasure. “I’ll make you peanut butter for your bread, once we’re settled and I have my new mortar unpacked.”
He smiled back and swallowed before cracking another nut.
“I will say that if it’s a swampish place, at least it’s fine soil. I’ve never seen so many things grow so easily.”
He tossed another nut into his mouth.
“I have been thinking, Sassenach,” he said, looking down into the palm of his hand. “What would ye think of maybe settling here?”
The question wasn’t entirely unexpected. I had seen him eyeing the black fields and lush crops with a farmer’s glittering eye, and caught his wistful expression when he admired the Governor’s horses.
We couldn’t go back to Scotland immediately, in any case. Young Ian, yes, but not Jamie or me, owing to certain complications—not the least of these being a complication by the name of Laoghaire MacKenzie.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Indians and wild animals quite aside—”
“Och, well,” he interrupted, mildly embarrassed. “Myers told me they were no difficulty at all, and ye keep clear of the mountains.”
I forbore from pointing out that the Governor’s offer would take us into the precincts of precisely those mountains.
“Yes, but you do remember what I told you, don’t you? About the Revolution? This is 1767, and you heard the conversation at the Governor’s table. Nine years, Jamie, and all hell breaks loose.” We had both lived through war, and neither of us took the thought lightly. I laid a hand on his arm, forcing him to look at me.
“I was right, you know—before.” I had known what would happen at Culloden; had told him the fate of Charles Stuart and his men. And neither my knowing nor his had been