Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [312]
She was holding a leather strap, still fastened in a circle. A smear of blood discolored one side.
“Wiggled out of it here,” she said, bending the circlet between her hands. She looked back in the direction we had come, down that jagged fall of tangled rocks, deep pools and foaming rapids, and shook her head.
“However did ye manage, Jamie?” she said, half to herself.
We found an area of flattened grass, not far from the verge, where he had evidently lain to rest. I found a small brownish smudge on the bark of an aspen nearby.
“He’s hurt,” I said.
“Aye, but he’s moving,” Jenny answered, looking at the ground as she paced back and forth.
“Are you good at tracking?” I asked hopefully.
“I’m no much of a hunter,” she replied, setting off with me close behind, “but if I canna follow something the size of Jamie Fraser through dry bracken, then I’m daft as well as blind.”
Sure enough, a broad track of crushed brown fern led up the side of the hill and disappeared into a thick clump of heather. Circling around this point turned up no further evidence, nor did calling produce any answer.
“He’ll be gone,” Jenny said, sitting down on a log and fanning herself. I thought she looked pale, and realized that kidnapping and threatening armed men was no pursuit for a woman who had given birth less than a week before.
“Jenny,” I said, “you have to go back. Besides, he might go back to Lallybroch.”
She shook her head. “No, that he wouldna. Whatever MacDonald told us, they’re no likely to give up so easy, not with a reward at hand. If they havena hunted him down yet, it’s because they couldn’t. But they’ll have sent someone back to keep an eye on the farm, just in case. No, that’s the one place he wouldna go.” She pulled at the neck of her gown. The day was cold, but she was sweating slightly, and I could see growing dark stains on the bosom of her dress, from leaking milk.
She saw me looking and nodded. “Aye, I’ll have to go back soon. Mrs. Crook’s nursing the lassie wi’ goat’s milk and sugar water, but she canna do without me much longer, nor me without her. I hate to leave ye alone, though.”
I didn’t much care for the thought of having to hunt alone through the Scottish Highlands for a man who might be anywhere, either, but I put a bold face on it.
“I’ll manage,” I said. “It could be worse. At least he’s alive.”
“True.” She glanced at the sun, low over the horizon. “I’ll stay wi’ ye through the night, at least.”
Huddled around the fire at night, we didn’t talk much. Jenny was preoccupied with thoughts of her abandoned child, me with thoughts of just how I was to proceed on my own, alone with no real knowledge of geography or Gaelic.
Suddenly Jenny’s head snapped up, listening. I sat up and listened myself, but heard nothing. I peered into the dark woods in the direction Jenny was looking, but saw no gleaming eyes in the depths, thank God.
When I turned back to the fire, Murtagh was sitting on the other side, calmly warming his hands at the blaze. Jenny snapped round at my exclamation, and uttered a short laugh of surprise.
“I could ha’ cut both your throats before ye ever looked in the right direction,” the little man observed.
“Oh, could ye then?” Jenny was sitting with her knees drawn up, hands clasped near her ankles. With a lightning dart, her hand went under her skirt and the blade of a sgian dhu flashed in the firelight.
“None sae bad,” Murtagh agreed, nodding sagely. “Is the wee Sassenach that good?”
“No,” said Jenny, restoring her blade to her stocking. “So it’s good you’ll be with her. Ian sent for ye, I expect?”
The little man nodded. “Aye. Did ye find the Watch yet?”
We told him of our progress to date. At the news that Jamie had escaped, I could have sworn that a muscle twitched near the corner of his mouth, but it would have been stretching matters to call it a smile.
At length, Jenny rose, folding her blanket.
“Where are you going?” I asked in surprise.
“Home.” She nodded at Murtagh. “He’ll be wi’ ye now; you don’t need me,