The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [214]
“We’ll wait,” he said, heaving the saddlebags over the mare’s back. He glanced over his shoulder at the house. “I’m hollow as a gourd, but I couldna stomach a bite within sight o’ this place.”
“I know what you mean.” I glanced back, too, uneasily, though there was nothing to see; the house stood still and empty. “I can’t wait to get away from here.”
The sun had sunk below the trees, and a chill blue shadow spread across the hollow where the farmhouse stood. The raw earth of Beardsley’s grave showed dark with moisture, a humped mound beneath the bare branches of the mountain ash. It was impossible to look at it without thinking of the weight of wet earth and immobility, of corruption and decay.
You will rot and die, Jamie had said to him. I hoped the reversal of those two events had been of some benefit to Beardsley—it had not, to me. I hugged my shawl tight around my shoulders and breathed out hard, then deeply in, hoping the cold, clean scent of the pines would eradicate the phantom reek of dead flesh that seemed to cling to hands and clothes and nose.
The horses were shifting, stamping, and shaking their manes, eager to be off. I didn’t blame them. Unable to stop myself, I looked back once more. A more desolate sight would be hard to imagine. Even harder to imagine was the thought of staying here, alone.
Evidently, Mrs. Beardsley had imagined it, and come to similar conclusions. At this point, she emerged from the barn, the kid in her arms, and announced that she was coming with us. So, evidently, were the goats. She handed me the kid, and disappeared back into the barn.
The kid was heavy and half-asleep, flexible little joints folded up into a cozy bundle. It huffed warm air over my hand, nibbling gently to see what I was made of, then made a small “meh” of contentment and relaxed into peaceful inertness against my ribs. A louder “meh!” and a nudge at my thigh announced the presence of the kid’s mother, keeping a watchful eye on her offspring.
“Well, she can’t very well leave them here,” I muttered to Jamie, who was making disgruntled noises in the dusk behind me. “They have to be milked. Besides, it’s not a terribly long way, is it?”
“D’ye ken how fast a goat walks, Sassenach?”
“I’ve never had occasion to time one,” I said, rather testily, shifting my small hairy burden. “But I shouldn’t think they’d be a lot slower than the horses, in the dark.”
He made a guttural Scottish noise at that, rendered more expressive even than usual by the phlegm in his throat. He coughed.
“You sound awful,” I said. “When we get where we’re going, I’m taking the mentholated goose grease to you, my lad.”
He made no objection to this proposal, which rather alarmed me, as indicating a serious depression of his vitality. Before I could inquire further into his state of health, though, I was interrupted by the emergence from the barn of Mrs. Beardsley, leading six goats, roped together like a gang of jovially inebriate convicts.
Jamie viewed the procession dubiously, sighed in resignation, and turned to a consideration of the logistical problems at hand. There was no question of mounting Mrs. Beardsley on Gideon the Man-Eater. Jamie glanced from me to Mrs. Beardsley’s substantial figure, then at the small form of my mare, little bigger than a pony, and coughed.
After a bit of contemplation, he had Mrs. Beardsley mounted on Mrs. Piggy, the sleepy kid balanced before her. I would ride with him, on Gideon’s withers, theoretically preventing any attempt on that animal’s part to fling me off his hindquarters into the underbrush. He tied a rope round the billy goat’s neck, and affixed this loosely to the mare’s saddle, but left the nannies loose.
“The mother will stay wi’ the kid, and the others will follow the billy here,” he told me. “Goats are sociable creatures; they’ll no be wanting to stray awa by themselves.