Drums of Autumn (98 page)

There were general grunts of agreement with this, and another small round to accompany the change of subject.

“Hodgepile? No, I’ve not seen the man, though I do believe I’ve heard the name.” Duncan swilled the rest of his drink and set down his cup, wheezing gently. “You’ll want me to ask at the Gathering?”

Jamie nodded, and took another bannock. “Aye, if ye will, Duncan.”

Lizzie was bent over the fire, stirring the stew for supper. I saw her shoulders tighten, but she was too shy to speak before so many men. Brianna suffered no such inhibitions.

“I have someone to ask after, too, Mr. Innes.” She leaned over the table toward him, eyes fixed on him in earnest entreaty. “Will you ask for a man named Roger Wakefield? Please?”

“Och, indeed. Indeed I will.” Duncan went pink at the proximity of Brianna’s bosom, and in confusion drank down the rest of Kenny’s whisky. “Is there aught else I can do?”

“Yes,” I said, putting down a fresh cup in front of the disgruntled Lindsey. “While you’re asking after Hodgepile and Bree’s young man, would you also ask for a man named Joseph Wemyss? He’ll be a bondsman.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Lizzie’s thin shoulders slump in relief.

Duncan nodded, his composure restored as Brianna disappeared into the pantry to fetch butter. Kenny Lindsey looked after her, interested.

“Bree? Is that the name ye call your daughter?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

A smile showed briefly on Lindsey’s face. Then he glanced at Jamie, coughed, and buried the smile in his cup.

“It’s a Scots word, Sassenach,” Jamie said, a rather wry smile appearing on his own face. “A
bree
is a great disturbance.”

44

THREE-CORNERED CONVERSATION

October 1769

T
he shock of impact juddered through his arms. With a rhythm born of long practice, Jamie jerked the axhead free, swung it back and brought it down in a
tchunk!
of splintered bark and yellow wood chips. He shifted his foot on the log and struck again, the ax blow judged to a nicety, sharp metal embedded in the wood a scant two inches from his toes.

He could have told Ian off to do the chopping, and gone himself to fetch the flour from the tiny mill at Woolam’s Point, but the lad deserved the treat of a visit with the three unmarried Woolam daughters who worked with their father in the mill. They were Quaker girls, dressed drab as sparrows, but lively of wit and fair of face, and they made a pet of Ian, vying with each other to offer him small beer and meat pies when he came.

A good deal better the lad should spend his time flirting with virtuous Quakers than with the bold-eyed Indian lassies over the ridge, he thought, with a little grimness. He hadn’t forgotten what Myers had said about Indian women taking men to their beds as they liked.

He had sent the wee bondmaid with Ian as well, thinking the brisk fall air might bring a bit of color to the lassie’s face. The wean was white-skinned as Claire, but with the sickly blue-white cast of skimmed milk, not Claire’s pale glow, rich and grainless as the silk-white heartwood of a poplar tree.

The log was nearly split; one more blow, and a twist of the ax, and two good chunks lay ready for the hearth, smelling clean and sharp with resin. He stacked them neatly on the growing woodpile next to the pantry, and rolled another half log into place beneath his foot.

The truth of it was that he liked chopping wood. Quite different from the damp, backbreaking, foot-freezing job of cutting peats, but with that same feeling of soul-deep satisfaction at seeing a good stock of fuel laid by, which only those who have spent winters shivering in thin clothes can know. The woodpile reached nearly to the eaves of the house by now, dry split chunks of pine and oak, hickory and maple, the sight of them warming his heart as much as the wood itself would warm his flesh.

Speak of warmth; it was a warm day for late October, and his shirt was clinging to his shoulders already. He wiped a sleeve across his face and examined the damp patch critically.

If he got wringing, Brianna would insist on washing it again, protest as he might that sweat was clean enough. “Phew,” she would say, with a disapproving nostril-flare, wrinkling her long nose up like a possum. He had laughed out loud when he first saw her do it; as much from surprise as from amusement.

His mother had died long ago, in his childhood, and while the odd memory of her came now and then in dreams, he had mostly replaced her presence with static pictures, frozen images in his mind. But she had said “Phew!” to him when he came in mucky, and wrinkled up her long nose in just that way—it had come back with a flash when he saw Brianna do it.

What a mystery blood was—how did a tiny gesture, a tone of voice, endure through generations like the harder verities of flesh? He had seen it again and again, watching his nieces and nephews grow, and accepted without thought the echoes of parent and grandparent that appeared for brief moments, the shadow of a face looking back through the years—that vanished again into the face that was now.

Yet now that he saw it in Brianna…he could watch her for hours, he thought, and was reminded of his sister, bending close over each of her newborn bairns in fascination. Perhaps that was why parents watched their weans in such enchantment, he thought; finding out all the tiny links between them, that bound the chains of life, one generation to the next.

He shrugged, and pulled the shirt off. It was his own place, after all; there was no one to see the marks on his back, and no one whose business it would be to care if they did. The air was chill and sudden on his damp skin, but a few swings of the ax brought the warm blood pulsing back again.

He loved all Jenny’s children deeply—especially Ian, the wee gowk whose mixture of foolishness and pigheaded courage reminded him so much of himself at that age. They were his blood, after all. But Brianna…

Brianna was his blood, and his flesh as well. An unspoken promise kept to his own parents; his gift to Claire, and hers to him.

Not for the first time, he found himself wondering about Frank Randall. And what had Randall thought, holding the child of another man—and a man he had no cause to love?

Perhaps Randall had been the better man, come to that—to harbor a child for her mother’s sake, and not his own; to search her face with joy only in its beauty, and not because he saw himself reflected there. He felt vaguely ashamed, and struck down with greater force to exorcise the feeling.

His mind was concerned entirely with its thoughts, and not at all with his actions. While he used it, though, the ax was as much a part of his body as the arms that swung it. Just as a twinge in wrist or elbow would have warned him instantly of damage, some faint vibration, some subtle shift in weight arrested him in midswing, so that the loosened axhead flew harmlessly across the clearing, rather than slamming into his vulnerable foot.

“Deo gratias,”
he muttered, with rather less thankfulness than the words indicated. He crossed himself perfunctorily and went to pick up the slab of metal. Damn the dry weather; it hadn’t rained in nearly a month, and the shrunken haft of his ax was less worrying than the drooping heads of the plants in Claire’s garden near the house.

He cast a glance at the half-dug well, shrugging in irritation. Another thing that must be done, which there wasn’t time to do. It would have to wait a bit; they could haul water from the creek or melt snow, but without wood to burn they would starve or freeze, or both.

The door opened and Claire came out, cloak on against the chill of autumn shadows, her basket over her arm. Brianna was behind her, and at sight of them he forgot his annoyance.

“What have you done?” Claire said at once, seeing him with the axhead in one hand. Her eyes flicked over him quickly, looking for blood.

“Nay, I’m whole,” he assured her. “It’s only I’ve got to mend the handle. You’ll be foraging?” He nodded at Claire’s basket.

“I thought we’d try up the stream, for wood ears.”

“Ah? Dinna go too far, aye? There are Indians hunting the far mountain. I smelt them on the ridge this morning.”

“You smelled them?” Brianna asked.

One red brow went up in inquiry. He saw Claire glance from Brianna to him and smile slightly, to herself; it was one of his own gestures, then. He lifted one brow, looking at Claire, and saw her smile grow wider.

“It’s autumn, and they’re dryin’ venison,” he explained to Brianna. “Ye can smell the smoking fires a great ways away, if the wind sets right.”

“We won’t go far,” Claire assured him. “Just above the trout pool.”

“Aye, well. I daresay it’s safe enough.” He felt some reluctance at letting the women go, but he could scarcely keep them mewed up in the house only because there were savages nearby—the Indians were no doubt peacefully employed as he was himself, in making winter preparations.

If he knew for sure it was Nacognaweto’s folk, he wouldn’t worry, but as it was, the hunting parties often roamed far afield and it could as easily be Cherokee, or the odd small tribe that called themselves the Dog People. There was only one village of them left, and they were deeply suspicious of white strangers—not without reason.

Brianna’s eyes rested on his bare chest for a moment, at the tiny knot of puckered scar tissue, but she showed no sign of disgust or curiosity—nor did she when she laid her hand briefly on his shoulder, kissing his cheek in goodbye, though he knew she must feel the healed welts beneath her fingers.

Claire would have told her, he supposed—all about Jack Randall, and the days before the Rising. Or perhaps not quite all. A small shiver that had nothing to do with cold ran up the crease of his spine, and he stepped back, away from her touch, though he still smiled at her.

“There’s bread in the hutch, and a little stew left in the kettle for you and Ian and Lizzie.” Claire reached up and flicked a stray wood chip from his hair. “Don’t eat the pudding in the pantry; that’s for supper.”

He caught her fingers in his and kissed her knuckles lightly. She looked surprised, and then a faint warm glow came up under her skin. She came up a-tiptoe and kissed his mouth, then hurried after Brianna, already at the edge of the clearing.

“Be careful!” he called after them. They waved, and disappeared into the woods, leaving him with their kisses soft on his face.

“Deo gratias,”
he murmured again, watching them, and this time spoke with heartfelt gratitude. He waited until the last flicker of Brianna’s cloak had vanished, before returning to his work.

He sat on the chopping block, a handful of square-headed nails on the ground beside him, carefully driving them one at a time into the end of the ax handle with a small mallet. The dry wood split and spread, but held by the iron enclosure of the axhead, could not splinter.

He twisted the head, then finding it firm, stood up and brought the ax down in a mighty blow on the chopping block, by way of test. It held.

He was chilled now, from sitting, and pulled his shirt back on. He was hungry, too, but he would wait a bit for the young ones. Not but what they had likely stuffed themselves already, he thought cynically. He could almost smell the meat pies Sarah Woolam made, the rich scent twining in his memory through the actual autumn smells of dead leaves and damp earth.

The thought of meat pies lingered in his mind as he went on with his work, along with the thought of winter. The Indians said it would be hard, this winter, not like the last. How would it be, hunting in deep snow? It snowed in Scotland, of course, but often enough it lay light on the ground, and the trodden paths of the red deer showed black on the steep, bare mountainsides.

Last winter had been like that. But this wilderness was given to extremes. He had heard stories of snowfalls that lay six feet deep, valleys where a man might sink to his oxters, and ice that froze so thick on the creeks that a bear could walk across. He smiled a little grimly, thinking of bears. Well, and that would be eating for the whole winter if he could kill another, and the skin would not come amiss, either.

His thoughts drifted slowly into the rhythm of his work, one part of his mind dimly occupied with the words to “Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting,” while the other was taken up with a intriguingly vivid picture of Claire’s white skin, pale and intoxicant as Rhenish wine against the glossy black of a bearskin.

“Daddy’s gone to fetch a skin / To wrap his baby bunting in,” he murmured tunelessly under his breath.

He wondered just how much Claire
had
told Brianna. It was odd, though pleasant, their three-cornered way of talking; he and the lassie were a bit shy yet with each other—inclined to say personal things to Claire instead, confident that she would pass on their essence; their interpreter in this new and awkward language of the heart.

Thankful though he was for the miracle of his daughter, he wanted to make love to his wife in his bed again. It was getting overchilly to be having at it in the herb shed or the forest—though he would admit that floundering naked in the huge drifts of yellow chestnut leaves had a certain charm, even if it lacked dignity.

“Aye, well,” he muttered, smiling slightly to himself. “And when did a man ever worry for his dignity, doin’
that?
”

He glanced thoughtfully at the pile of long, straight pine logs that lay at the side of the clearing, then at the sun. If Ian was quick enough returning, they might shape and notch a dozen or so before sunset.

Setting down the ax for a moment, he crossed to the house and began to pace out the dimensions of the new room he planned, to make do while the big house was a-building. She was a grown woman, Brianna—she should have a wee place of her own, to be private in, she and the maid. And if that restored his own privacy with Claire, well, so much the better, aye?

He heard the small crackling noises among the dried leaves in the yard, but didn’t turn round. There was a tiny cough behind him, like a squirrel sneezing.

“Mrs. Lizzie,” he said, eyes still on the ground. “And did ye enjoy your ride? I trust ye found all the Woolams well.” Where was Ian and the wagon? he wondered. He hadn’t heard it on the road below.

She didn’t speak, but made an inarticulate noise that made him swing round in surprise to look at her.

She was pale and pinch-faced and looked like a scared white mouse. This was not unusual; he knew he frightened her with his size and deep voice, and so he spoke gently to her, slowly, as he would have done to a mistreated dog.

“Have ye had an accident, lass? Has something come amiss wi’ the wagon or the horses?”

She shook her head, still wordless. Her eyes were nearly round, gray as the hem of her washed-out gown, and the tip of her nose had gone bright pink.

“Is Ian all right?” He didn’t want to upset her further, but she was beginning to alarm him.
Something
had happened, that was sure.

“I’m fine, Uncle. So are the horses.” Quiet as an Indian, Ian appeared round the corner of the cabin. He moved to Lizzie’s side, offering her the support of his presence, and she took his arm as though by reflex.

He glanced from one to the other; Ian was outwardly calm, but his inner agitation was plain to see.

“What’s happened?” he asked, more sharply than he’d intended. The lassie flinched.

“Ye’d better tell him,” Ian said. “There might not be much time.” He touched her shoulder in encouragement, and she seemed to take strength from his hand; she stood up straighter and bobbed her head.

“I—there was—I saw a man. At the mill, sir.”

She tried to speak further, but her nerve had dried up; the tip of her tongue protruded between her teeth with effort, but no words came out.