The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [538]
He stood up, shading his eyes as he looked toward the creek, where the lowering sun dazzled through the branches.
“It doesna make a bit of sense,” he said, squinting into the shadows. “There are only three kine on the Ridge, and I saw two of them bein’ milked this morning. The third belongs to Bobby MacLeod, and I should think he’d ken if it was his own cow he’d seen. Besides . . .” He turned slowly on his heel, looking up the steep slope they’d just descended.
He didn’t have to speak; no cow not equipped with a parachute could have come down that way.
“There’s more than one—a lot more,” Roger said. “You saw.”
“Aye, there are. But where did they come from?” Jamie glanced at him, frowning in puzzlement. “The Indians dinna keep kine, especially not at this season—they’d slaughter any beasts they had, and smoke the meat. And there’s no farm in thirty miles where they might have come from.”
“Maybe a wild herd?” Roger suggested. “Escaped a long time ago, and wandering?” Speculation sprang up in Jamie’s eyes, echoing the hopeful gurgle of Roger’s stomach.
“If so, they’ll be easy hunting,” Jamie said. Skepticism tempered his voice, even as he smiled. He stooped and broke off a small piece of the cow-pat, crushed it with a thumb, then tossed it away.
“Verra fresh,” he said. “They’re close; let’s go.”
Within a half-hour’s walking, they emerged onto the bank of the stream they had glimpsed from above. It was wide and shallow here, with willows trailing leafless branches in the water. Nothing moved save a sparkle of sun on the riffles, but it was plain that the cows had been there; the mud of the bank was cut and churned with drying hoofprints, and in one place, the dying plants had been pawed away in a long, messy trough where something large had wallowed.
“Why did I not think to bring rope?” Jamie muttered, pushing through the willow saplings on the bank as they skirted the wallow. “Meat’s one thing, but milk and cheese would be—” The muttering died away, as he turned from the stream, following a trail of broken foliage back into the wood.
Without speaking, the two men spread out, walking softly. Roger listened with all his might to the quiet of the forest. They had to be nearby; even such an inexperienced eye as Roger’s had picked up the freshness of the signs. And yet the wood was autumn-still, the silence broken only by a raven, calling in the distance. The sun was hanging low in the sky, filling the air in the wood with a golden haze. It was getting noticeably colder; Roger passed through a patch of shadow, and shivered, in spite of his coat. They’d have to find the others and make camp soon; twilight was short. A fire would be good. Better, of course, if there were something to cook over it.
They were going down, now, into a small hollow where wisps of autumn mist rose from the cooling earth. Jamie was some distance ahead, walking with as much purpose as the broken ground allowed; evidently the trail was still plain to him, in spite of the thick vegetation.
A herd of cows couldn’t just vanish, he thought, even in mist as heavy as this . . . not unless they were faery kine. And that, he wasn’t quite prepared to believe, in spite of the unearthly quiet of the woods just here.
“Roger.” Jamie spoke very quietly, but Roger had been listening so intently that he located his father-in-law at once, some distance to his right. Jamie jerked his head at something nearby. “Look.”
He held aside a large, brambly bush, exposing the trunk of a substantial sycamore tree. Part of the bark had been rubbed away, leaving an oozing whitish patch on the gray bark.
“Do cows rub themselves like that?” Roger peered dubiously at the patch, then picked out a swatch of woolly dark hair, snagged by the roughened bark.
“Aye, sometimes,” Jamie replied. He leaned close, shaking his head as he peered at the dark-brown tangle in Roger’s hand. “But damned if I’ve ever seen a cow wi’ a coat like that. Why