The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [141]
She took advantage of the rough terrain not to answer, but was dismayed—and at the same time, rather shamefully pleased—to discover the lengths to which he’d been prepared to go in order to follow and find her.
The ground was covered with the mottled brown of shed needles, but so damp that there was neither crackle nor prick beneath her feet. It felt spongy, cool, and pleasant under her bare soles, with a give to it that made her think the mass of dead needles must be a foot thick, at least.
“Ow!” Roger, not so lucky in his passage, had set his foot on a rotten persimmon and slid, barely catching himself by grabbing hold of a holly bush, which promptly stabbed him with its prickly leaves.
“Shit,” he said, sucking the wounded thumb. “Good thing about the tetanus, aye?”
She laughed in agreement, but found herself worrying as they climbed. What about Jemmy, when he began to walk, and clamber over mountains barefoot? She’d seen enough of the small MacLeods and Chisholms—to say nothing of Germain—to realize that small boys punctured, scraped, lacerated, and fractured themselves on a weekly basis, at least. She and Roger were protected against things like diphtheria and typhoid—Jemmy would have no such protection.
She swallowed, remembering the night before. That murderous horse of her father’s had bitten him in the arm, and Claire had made Jamie sit down shirtless before the fire while she cleaned and dressed the bite. Jemmy had poked a curious head up from his cradle, and his grandfather, smiling, had scooped him out and taken him upon his knee.
“Gallopy trot, gallopy trot,” he’d chanted, bouncing a delighted Jemmy gently up and down. “’Tis a wicked horse that I have got!/Gallopy trot, gallopy trot/Let’s send him to hell and then he’ll be hot!”
It wasn’t the charming scene of the two redheads giggling at each other that stuck in her mind, though; it was the firelight glowing in her son’s translucent, perfect, untouched skin—and shining silver on the webbed scars across her father’s back, black-red on the bloody gash in his arm. It was a dangerous time for men.
She couldn’t keep Jem safe from harm; she knew that. But the thought of him—or Roger—being injured or ill made her stomach knot and cold sweat come out on the sides of her face.
“Is your thumb all right?” She turned back toward Roger, who looked surprised, having forgotten all about his thumb.
“What?” He looked at it, puzzled. “Aye, of course.”
Nonetheless, she took his hand, and kissed the wounded thumb.
“You be careful,” she said fiercely.
He laughed, and looked surprised when she glared at him.
“I will,” he said, sobering a little. He nodded at the gun she carried. “Don’t worry; I may not have fired one, but I know a wee bit about them. I won’t blow my fingers off. Does this look all right for a bit of practice?”
They had come out into a heath bald, a high meadow thick with grass and rhododendron. There was a stand of aspen at the far side, their pale branches aflutter with a few late tatters of gold and crimson leaves, vivid against the deep blue sky. A stream gurgled downhill, somewhere out of sight, and a red-tailed hawk circled high overhead. The sun was well up now, warm on her shoulders, and there was a pleasant, grassy bank nearby.
“Just right,” she said, and swung the gun down from her shoulder.
IT WAS A beautiful gun, more than five feet long, but so perfectly balanced you could rest it across your outstretched arm without a wobble—which Brianna was doing, by way of demonstration.
“See?” she said, pulling her arm in and sweeping the stock up to her shoulder in one fluid movement. “That’s the balance point; you want to put your left hand right there, grab the stock by the trigger with your right, and butt it back into your shoulder. Snug it in, really solidly. There’s some kick to it.” She bumped the burled walnut stock gently into the socket of her buckskinned shoulder in illustration, then lowered the gun