The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [219]
It dawned on me that we were, in fact, no longer on the trail—which was in any case no more than a narrow deer track, winding through the forest.
“We can’t be terribly far off it, surely?” I looked round, peering vainly into the dark, as though some lighted sign might indicate the position of the trail. In fact, I had no idea even in which direction it might lie.
“No,” Jamie agreed. “And by myself, I daresay I could pick it up sooner or later. But I dinna mean to go floundering through the forest in the dark with this lot.” He glanced round, evidently counting noses. Two very skittish horses, two women—one distinctly odd and possibly homicidal—and six goats, two of them incapable of walking. I rather saw his point.
He drew his shoulders back, shrugging a little, as though to ease a tight shirt.
“I’ll go and have a keek round. If I find the way at once, well and good. If I don’t, we’ll camp for the night,” he said. “It will be a deal easier to look for the trail by daylight. Be careful, Sassenach.”
And with a final sneeze, he vanished into the woods, leaving me in charge of the camp followers and wounded.
The orphaned goat was becoming louder and more anguished in its cries; it hurt my ears, as well as my heart. Mrs. Beardsley, though, had become somewhat more animated in Jamie’s absence; I thought she was rather afraid of him. Now she brought up one of the other nannies, persuading her to stand still for the orphan to suckle. The kid was reluctant for a moment, but hunger and the need for warmth and reassurance were overwhelming, and within a few minutes, it was feeding busily, its small tail wagging in a dark flicker of movement.
I was happy to see it, but conscious of a small feeling of envy; I was all at once aware that I had eaten nothing all day, that I was very cold, desperately tired, sore in a number of places—and that without the complications of Mrs. Beardsley and her companions, I would long since have been safely in Brownsville, fed, warm, and tucked up by some friendly fireside. I put a hand on the kid’s stomach, growing round and firm with milk, and thought rather wistfully that I should like someone simply to take care of me. Still, for the moment, I seemed to be the Good Shepherd, and no help for it.
“Do you think it might come back?” Mrs. Beardsley crouched next to me, shawl pulled tight around her broad shoulders. She spoke in a low tone, as though afraid someone might overhear.
“What, the panther? No, I don’t think so. Why should it?” Nonetheless, a small shiver ran over me, as I thought of Jamie, alone somewhere in the dark. Hiram, his shoulder firmly jammed against my thigh, snorted, then laid his head on my knee with a long sigh.
“Thome folk thay the catth hunt in pairth.”
“Really?” I stifled a yawn—not of boredom, simply fatigue. I blinked into the darkness, a chilled lethargy stealing over me. “Oh. Well, I should think a good-sized goat would do for two. Besides”—I yawned again, a jaw-cracking stretch—“besides, the horses would let us know.”
Gideon and Mrs. Piggy were companionably nose-and-tailing it under the poplar tree, showing no signs now of agitation. This seemed to comfort Mrs. Beardsley, who sat down on the ground quite suddenly, her shoulders sagging as though the air had gone out of her.
“And how are you feeling?” I inquired, more from an urge to maintain conversation than from any real desire to know.
“I am glad to be gone from that place,” she said simply.
I definitely shared that sentiment; our present situation was at least an improvement on the Beardsley homestead, even with the odd panther thrown in. Still, that didn’t mean I was anxious to spend very long here.
“Do you know anyone in Brownsville?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how large a settlement it was, though from the conversation of some of the men we had picked up, it sounded like a fair-sized village.