The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [523]
Roger was wringing wet; more than the effort of lifting accounted for. There was a big smudge of brownish blood over his chest and stomach. He rubbed the heel of his hand over the knot in his belly, smearing the blood with sweat. He glanced casually round once more. Nothing moved among the trees.
“The women will be pleased,” he said.
Jamie laughed, taking the dirk from his belt.
“I shouldna think so. They’ll be up half the night, butchering and salting.” He nodded in the direction of Roger’s glance.
“Even if it’s near, it willna trouble us. Cats dinna hunt large prey unless they’re hungry.” He looked wryly at the torn flank of the dangling pig. “A half-stone of prime bacon will ha’ satisfied it for the moment, I should think. Though if not—” He glanced at his long rifle, leaning loaded against the trunk of a nearby hickory.
He held the pig while Jamie gutted it, then wrapped the stinking mass of intestines in the cloth from their lunch, while Jamie patiently worked at kindling a fire of green sticks that would keep the flies away from the hanging carcass. Streaked and reeking with blood, waste, and sweat, Roger walked across the field to the small stream that ran by the woods.
He knelt and splashed, arms and face and torso, trying to rid himself of the feeling of being watched. More than once, he had crossed an empty moor in Scotland, only to have a full-grown stag erupt from nowhere in front of him, springing by apparent magic from the heather at his feet. Despite Jamie’s words, he was all too aware that some piece of quiet landscape could abruptly detach itself and take life in a thunder of hooves or a snarl of sudden teeth.
He rinsed his mouth, spat, and drank deep, forcing water past the lingering tightness in his throat. He could still feel the stiff coldness of the pig’s carcass, see the caked dirt in the nostrils, the raw sockets where crows had pecked out the eyes. Gooseflesh prickled over his shoulders, chilled as much by his thoughts as by the cold stream-water.
No great difference between a pig and a man. Flesh to flesh, dust to dust. One stroke, that’s all it took. Slowly, he stretched, savoring the last soreness in his muscles.
There was a raucous croaking from the chestnut overhead. The crows, black blotches in the yellow leaves, voicing their displeasure at the robbery of their feast.
“Whaur . . . shall we gang and . . . dine the day?” he murmured under his breath, looking up at them. “Not here . . . you bastards. Get along!” Seized by revulsion, he scooped a stone from the bank and hurled it into the tree with all his might. The crows erupted into shrieking flight, and he turned back to the field, grimly satisfied.
But his belly was still knotted, and the words of the corbies’ mocking song echoed in his ears: “Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane/and I’ll pick oot his bonny blue e’en. Wi’ ae lock o’ his golden hair/we’ll theek oor nest when it grows bare.”
Jamie glanced at his face when he came back, but said nothing. Beyond the field, the pig’s carcass hung above the fire, its outlines hidden in wreaths of smoke.
They had cut the fencerails already, made from pine saplings they’d uprooted; the rough-barked logs lay ready by the edge of the forest. The fence would have drystone pillars to join the wooden rails, though; not one of the simple rick-rack fences meant to keep out deer or mark boundaries, but one solid enough to withstand the jostling of three- and four-hundred-pound hogs.
Within the month, it would be time to drive in the pigs that had been turned out to live wild in the forest, fattening themselves on the chestnut mast that lay thick on the ground. Some would have fallen prey to wild animals or accident, but there would likely be fifty or sixty left to slaughter or sell.
They worked well together, he and Jamie. Much of a size,