An Echo in the Bone (107 page)

He closed it and looked at me, the edge of his mouth tucked back.

“Aye, well,” he said. “I can still shoot, at least.”

“And I can tell one herb from another by smell, I suppose,” I said, and laughed. “Just as well. I don’t suppose there’s a spectacle-maker this side of Philadelphia.”

“No, I suppose not,” he said ruefully. “When we get to Edinburgh, though, I ken just the man.

I’ll buy ye a tortoiseshell pair for everyday, Sassenach, and a pair wi’ gold rims for Sundays.”

“Expect me to read the Bible with them, do you?” I inquired.

“Ah, no,” he said, “that’s just for show. After all”—he picked up my hand, which smelled of dill weed and coriander, and, lifting it to his mouth, ran the point of his tongue delicately down the lifeline in my palm—“the important things ye do by touch, aye?”

WE WERE INTERRUPTED by a cough from the door of the tent, and I turned to see a large, bearlike man with long gray hair loose upon his shoulders. He had an amiable face with a scar through the upper lip and a mild but keen eye, which went at once to the bag on the table.

I stiffened a little; there were strict prohibitions against the looting of farms, and while Jamie had taken these particular hens scratching in the wild, there was no way of proving that, and this gentleman, while dressed in casual homespun and hunting shirt, bore himself with the unmistakable authority of an officer.

“You’d be Colonel Fraser?” he said, with a nod toward Jamie, and extended a hand. “Daniel Morgan.”

I recognized the name, though the only thing I knew about Daniel Morgan—a footnote in Brianna’s eighth-grade history book—was that he was a famous rifleman. This wasn’t particularly useful; everyone knew that, and the camp had buzzed with interest when he had arrived at the end of August with a number of men.

He now glanced with interest at
me
, and then at the bag of chickens, flecked with incriminating tufts of feather.

“By your leave, ma’am,” he said, and without waiting for my leave, picked up the sack and pulled out a dead chicken. The neck flopped limp, showing the large, bloody hole through its head where an eye—well, two eyes—had once been. His scarred mouth pursed in a soundless whistle and he looked sharply up at Jamie.

“You do that a-purpose?” he asked.

“I always shoot them through the eye,” Jamie replied politely. “Dinna want to spoil the meat.”

A slow grin spread over Colonel Morgan’s face, and he nodded. “Come with me, Mr. Fraser.

Bring your rifle.”

WE ATE THAT night at Daniel Morgan’s fire, and the company—filled with chicken stew—raised cups of beer and hooted to toast the addition of a new member to their elite corps. I hadn’t had a chance of private conversation with Jamie since Morgan’s abduction of him that afternoon, and rather wondered what he made of his apotheosis. But he seemed comfortable with the riflemen, though he glanced now and then at Morgan, with the look that meant he was still making up his mind.

For my part, I was extremely pleased. By their nature, riflemen fought from a distance—and often a distance much greater than a musket’s range. They were also valuable, and commanders were not likely to risk them in close combat. No soldier was safe, but some occupations had a much higher rate of mortality—and while I accepted the fact that Jamie was a born gambler, I liked him to have the best odds possible.

Many of the riflemen were Long Hunters, others what they called “over-mountain men,” and thus had no wives with them here. Some did, and I made instant acquaintance with the women by the simple expedient of admiring one young woman’s baby.

“Mrs. Fraser?” one older lady said, coming to plump down on the log beside me. “Are you the conjure-woman?”

“I am,” I said pleasantly. “They call me the White Witch.” That reared them back a bit, but the forbidden has its own strong appeal—and after all, what could I do in the middle of military camp, surrounded by their husbands and sons, all armed to the teeth?

Within minutes, I was dispensing advice on everything from menstrual cramps to colic. I caught a glimpse of Jamie, grinning at sight of my popularity, and gave him a discreet wave before turning back to my audience.

The men, of course, continued drinking, with outbreaks of raucous laughter, then the fall of voices as one man took over a story, only to have the cycle repeat. At one point, though, the atmosphere changed, so abruptly that I broke off an intense discussion of diaper rash and looked over toward the fire.

Daniel Morgan was rising laboriously to his feet, and there was a distinct air of anticipation among the watching men. Was he about to make a speech, welcoming Jamie?

“Oh, dear Lord,” said Mrs. Graham under her breath beside me. “He’s a-doing it again.”

I hadn’t time to ask her
what he
was a-doing, before he a-did it.

He shambled to the center of the gathering, where he stood swaying like an old bear, his long gray hair wafting in the wind of the fire and his eyes creased with amiability. They were focused on Jamie, though, I saw.

“Got something to show you, Mr. Fraser,” he said, loudly enough that the women who had still been talking stopped, every eye going to him. He took hold of the hem of his long woolen hunting shirt and pulled it off over his head. He dropped it on the ground, spread his arms like a ballet dancer, and stumped slowly round.

Everyone gasped, though from Mrs. Graham’s remark, most of them must have seen it before.

His back was ridged with scars from neck to waist. Old scars, to be sure—but there wasn’t a square inch of unmarked skin on his back, massive as it was. Even I was shocked.

“The British did that,” he said conversationally, turning back and dropping his arms. “Give me four hundred and ninety-nine lashes. I counted.” The gathering erupted in laughter, and he grinned. “Was supposed to give me five hundred, but he missed one. I didn’t point it out to him.”

More laughter. Obviously, this was a frequent performance, but one that his audience loved.

There were cheers and more toasts when he finished and went to sit beside Jamie, still naked to the waist, his shirt wadded casually in his hand.

Jamie’s face gave nothing away—but I saw that his shoulders had relaxed. Evidently he had made up his mind about Dan Morgan.

JAMIE LIFTED THE LID of my small iron pot, with an expression somewhere between caution and hope.

“Not food,” I informed him, rather unnecessarily, as he was wheezing in the manner of one who has inadvertently inhaled horseradish into the sinuses.

“I should hope not,” he said, coughing and wiping his eyes. “Christ, Sassenach, that’s worse than usual. D’ye mean to poison someone?”

“Yes,
Plasmodium vivax
. Put the lid back on.” I was simmering a decoction of cinchona bark and gallberries, for the treatment of malarial cases.

“Have we
got
any food?” he asked plaintively, dropping the lid back in place.

“In fact we have.” I reached into the cloth-covered pail at my feet and triumphantly pulled out a meat pie, its crust golden and shimmering with lard.

His face assumed the expression of an Israelite beholding the promised land, and he held out his hands, receiving the pie with the reverence due a precious object, though this impression was dispelled in the next instant as he took a large bite out of it.

“Where did ye get it?” he asked, after a few moments of blissful mastication. “Are there more?”

“There are. A nice prostitute named Daisy brought them for me.”

He paused, examined the pie critically for signs of its provenance, then shrugged and took another bite.

“Do I want to know what it was ye did for her, Sassenach?”

“Well, probably not while you’re eating, no. Have you seen Ian?”

“No.” The response might have been abbreviated by the exigencies of eating pie, but I caught the slightest shiftiness in his manner and stopped, staring at him.

“Do you
know
where Ian is?”

“More or less.” He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the meat pie, thus confirming my suspicions.

“Do I want to know what he’s doing?”

“No, ye don’t,” he said definitely.

“Oh, God.”

IAN MURRAY, having carefully dressed his hair with bear grease and a pair of turkey feathers, removed his shirt, leaving this rolled up with his tattered plaid under a log, and told Rollo to guard it, then walked across a small stretch of open ground toward the British camp.

“Hold!”

He turned a face of bored impassivity toward the sentry who had hailed him. The sentry, a boy of fifteen or so, was holding a musket whose barrel shook noticeably. Ian hoped the numpty wouldn’t shoot him by accident.

“Scout,” he said succinctly, and walked past the sentry without a backward glance, though he felt a spider strolling to and fro between his shoulder blades.
Scout
, he thought, and felt a small bubble of laughter rise up. Well, it was the truth, after all.

He strolled through the camp in the same manner, ignoring the occasional stare—though most of those who noticed him merely glanced at him and then away.

Burgoyne’s headquarters was easy to spot, a large tent of green canvas that sprouted like a toadstool among the neat aisles of small white tents that housed the soldiers. It was some distance away—and he didn’t mean to get any closer just now—but he could glimpse the comings and goings of staff officers, messengers … and the occasional scout, though none of these was Indian.

The Indian camps were on the far side of the army encampment, scattered in the forest outside the neat military grid. He was not sure whether he might meet some of Thayendanegea’s people, who might in turn recognize him. This wouldn’t be a difficulty, as he had said nothing regarding politics during his ill-fated visit to Joseph Brant’s house; they would likely accept him on sight without any awkward questions.

If he were to encounter some of the Huron and Oneida that Burgoyne employed to harass the Continentals, that might be a wee bit touchier. He had complete confidence in his ability to impress them with his identity as a Mohawk—but if they were either too suspicious or too impressed, he wouldn’t learn much.

He had learned a few things simply from his walk through the camp. Morale was not high; there was rubbish between some of the tents, and most of the washerwomen among the camp followers were sitting in the grass drinking gin, their kettles cold and empty. Still, the atmosphere in general seemed subdued but resolute; some men were dicing and drinking, but more were melting lead and making musket balls, repairing or polishing their weapons.

Food was short; he could sense hunger in the air, even without seeing the line of men waiting outside the baker’s tent. None of them looked at him; they were focused on the loaves that emerged—these broken in half before being handed out. Half rations, then; that was good.

None of this was important, though, and as for troop numbers and armament—these were well established by now. Uncle Jamie and Colonel Morgan and General Gates would like to know about the stores of powder and ammunition, but the artillery park and powder magazine would be well guarded, with no conceivable reason for an Indian scout to be nosing round there.

Something tugged at the corner of his vision and he glanced cautiously round, then hastily jerked his eyes forward, forcing himself to walk at the same pace. Jesus, it was the Englishman he’d saved from the swamp—the man who’d helped him get wee Denny free. And—

He clamped down on that thought. He kent it well enough; no one could look like that and
not
be. But he felt it dangerous even to acknowledge the thought to himself, lest it show somehow on his face.

He forced himself to breathe as usual and walk without concern, because a Mohawk scout would have none. Damn. He’d meant to spend the remaining hours of daylight with some of the Indians, picking up what information he could, and then after dark come quietly back into camp, stealing up within earshot of Burgoyne’s tent. If yon wee lieutenant was wuthering round, though, it might be too dangerous to try. The last thing he wanted was to meet the man face-to-face.

“Hey!” The shout ran into his flesh like a sharp splinter. He recognized the voice, knew it was aimed at him, but didn’t turn round. Six paces, five, four, three … He reached the end of an alley of tents and sheared off to the right, out of sight.

“Hey!” The voice was closer, almost behind him, and he broke into a run, heading for the cover of the trees. Only one or two soldiers saw him; one started to his feet but then stood, uncertain what to do, and he pushed past the man and dived into the trees.

“Well, that’s torn it,” he muttered, crouched behind a brush shelter. The tall lieutenant was questioning the man he’d shoved past. Both of them were looking toward the wood, the soldier shaking his head and shrugging helplessly.

Christ, the wee loon was coming toward him! He turned and stepped silently through the trees, working his way deeper into the wood. He could hear the Englishman behind him, crashing and rustling like a bear just out of its den in the spring.

“Murray!” he was shouting. “Murray—is that you? Wait!”

“Wolf’s Brother! Is that you?”

Ian said something very blasphemous under his breath in Gaelic, and turned to see who had addressed him in Mohawk.

“It
is
you! Where’s your demon wolf? Did something finally eat it?” His old friend Glutton was beaming at him, adjusting his breechclout after having a piss.

“I hope something eats you,” Ian said to his friend, keeping his voice low. “I need to get away.

There is an Englishman following me.”

Glutton’s face changed at once, though it didn’t lose either its smile or its eager expression. The wide grin widened further, and he jerked his head behind him, indicating the opening to a trail.

Then his face went suddenly slack, and he staggered from one side to the other, lurching in the direction Ian had come.

Ian barely made it out of sight before the Englishman called William came rushing into the clearing, only to run slap into Glutton, who clutched him by the lapels of his coat, gazed up soulfully into his eyes, and said, “Whisky?”