The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [488]
And so it was that a week later, the hay safely in and four sides of venison peacefully hanging in the smokehouse, we set off toward the Treaty Line, bent on exorcism.
BESIDES JAMIE AND MYSELF, the party consisted of Brianna and Jemmy, the two Beardsley twins, and Peter Bewlie, who was to guide us to the village, his wife having gone ahead with Tsatsa’wi. Brianna had not wanted to come, more for fear of taking Jemmy into the wilderness than from disinclination to join the hunt, I thought. Jamie had insisted that she come, though, claiming that her marksmanship would be invaluable. Unwilling to wean Jemmy yet, she had been obliged to bring him—though he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the trip, hunched bright-eyed on the saddle in front of his mother, alternately gabbling happily to himself about everything he saw, or sucking his thumb in dreamy content.
As for the Beardsleys, it was Josiah that Jamie wanted.
“The lad’s killed two bears, at least,” he told me. “I saw the skins, at the Gathering. And if his brother likes to come along, I canna see the harm in it.”
“Neither do I,” I agreed. “But why are you making Bree come? Can’t you and Josiah handle the bear between you?”
“Perhaps,” he said, running an oily rag over the barrel of his gun. “But if two heids are better than one, then a third should be better still, no? Especially if it shoots like yon lass can.”
“Yes?” I said skeptically. “And what else?”
He glanced up at me and grinned.
“What, ye dinna think I have ulterior motives, do ye, Sassenach?”
“No, I don’t think so—I know so.”
He laughed and bent his head over his gun. After a few moments’ swabbing and cleaning, though, he said, not looking up, “Aye, well. I thought it no bad idea for the lass to have friends among the Cherokee. In case she should need a place to go, sometime.”
The casual tone of voice didn’t fool me.
“Sometime. When the Revolution comes, you mean?”
“Aye. Or . . . when we die. Whenever that might be,” he added precisely, picking the gun up and squinting down the barrel to check the sight.
It was bright Indian summer still, but I felt shards of ice crackle down my back. Most days, I managed to forget that newspaper clipping—the one that reported the death by fire of one James Fraser and his wife, on Fraser’s Ridge. Other days, I remembered it, but shoved the possibility to the back of my mind, refusing to dwell on it. But every now and then, I would wake up at night, with bright flames leaping in the corners of my mind, shivering and terrified.
“The clipping said, ‘no living children,’” I said, determined to face down the fear. “Do you suppose that means that Bree and Roger will have gone . . . somewhere . . . before then?” To the Cherokee, perhaps. Or to the stones.
“It might.” His face was sober, eyes on his work. Neither one of us was willing to admit the other possibility—no need, in any case.
Reluctant though she had been to come, Brianna too seemed to be enjoying the trip. Without Roger, and relieved of the chores of cabin housekeeping, she seemed much more relaxed, laughing and joking with the Beardsley twins, teasing Jamie, and nursing Jemmy by the fire at night, before curling herself around him and falling peacefully asleep.
The Beardsleys were having a good time, too. The removal of his infected adenoids and tonsils had not cured Keziah’s deafness, but had improved it markedly. He could understand fairly loud speech now, particularly if you faced him and spoke clearly, though he seemed to make out anything his twin said with ease, no matter how softly voiced. Seeing him look round wide-eyed as we rode through the thick, insect-buzzing forest, fording streams and finding faint deer paths through the thickets, I realized that he had never been anywhere in his life, save the area near the Beardsley farm, and Fraser’s Ridge.