The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [441]
She wanted to shout at him. What happened? What in hell did you DO? But he couldn’t answer.
Suddenly, fury overwhelmed her. Mindful of the people passing to and fro nearby, she didn’t shout, but instead leaned down and gripped his shoulder—that seeming one of the reasonably undamaged spots—and hissed, “How in God’s name did you do this?” in his ear.
His eyes rolled slowly toward her, fixing on her face. He made a slight grimace which she couldn’t interpret at all, and then the shoulder under her hand began to vibrate. She stared at him in complete perplexity for a few seconds, before she realized that he was laughing. Laughing!
The tube in his throat jiggled, and made a soft wheezing noise, which aggravated her beyond bearing. She stood up, hands pressed against her aching breasts.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. “Don’t you bloody go anywhere, damn you!”
72
TINDER AND CHAR
GERALD FORBES WAS A SUCCESSFUL lawyer, and normally looked the part. Even dressed in his campaigning gear, and with the soot of gunpowder staining his face, he still had an air of solid assurance that served him well as a captain of militia. This air had not quite deserted him, but he seemed visibly uneasy, curling and uncurling the brim of his hat as he stood in the doorway of the tent.
At first I assumed that it was merely the discomfort that afflicts many people in the presence of illness—or perhaps awkwardness over the circumstances of Roger’s injury. But evidently it was something else; he barely nodded toward Brianna, who sat by Roger’s bed.
“My sympathies for your misfortune, ma’am,” he said, then turned at once to Jamie. “Mr. Fraser. If I might—a word? And Mrs. Fraser, too,” he added, with a grave bow in my direction.
I glanced at Jamie, and at his nod, got up, reaching by reflex for my medical kit.
There was not a great deal I could do; that much was obvious. Isaiah Morton lay on his side in Forbes’s tent, his face dead-white and sheened with sweat. He still breathed, but slowly, and with a horrible gurgling effect that reminded me unpleasantly of the sound when I had pierced Roger’s throat. He wasn’t conscious, which was a small mercy. I made a cursory examination, and sat back on my heels, wiping sweat from my face with the hem of my apron; the evening had not cooled much, and it was close and hot in the tent.
“Shot through the lung,” I said, and both men nodded, though they both clearly knew as much already.
“Shot in the back,” Jamie said, a grim tone to his voice. He glanced at Forbes, who nodded, not taking his eyes from the stricken man.
“No,” he said quietly, answering an unspoken question. “He wasn’t a coward. And it was a clean advance—no other companies in the line behind us.”
“No Regulators behind you? No sharpshooters? No ambush?” Jamie asked, but Forbes was shaking his head before the questions were finished.
“We chased a few Regulators as far as the creek, but we stopped there and let them go.” Forbes still held the hat between his fingers, and he mechanically rolled and unrolled the brim, over and over. “I had no stomach for killing.”
Jamie nodded, silent.
I cleared my throat, and drew the bloody remnants of Morton’s shirt gently over him.
“He was shot twice in the back,” I said. The second bullet had only grazed his upper arm, but I could plainly see the direction of the furrow it had left.
Jamie closed his eyes briefly, then opened them.
“The Browns,” he said, in grim resignation.
Gerald Forbes glanced at him, surprised.
“Brown? That’s what he said.”
“He spoke?” Jamie squatted beside the injured man, a frown drawing his ruddy brows together. He glanced at me, and I shook my head mutely. I was holding Isaiah Morton’s wrist, and could feel the flutter and stumble in his pulse. He would not likely speak again.
“When they brought him in.” Forbes squatted by Jamie, at last setting down the