Outlander [08] Written in My Own Heart's Blood

by Diana Gabaldon

  He could hear men fighting in the ravine—perhaps three hundred yards from where he was—but there was sufficient growth that he was hidden from them. Only a scuffle, from the sounds—he’d heard or seen that a dozen times already today; men on both sides, driven by thirst down to the creeks that had carved the ravines, occasionally meeting and going for one another in a bloody splash among the shallows.

  The thought of it reminded him of his own thirst—and the horse’s, for the creature was stretching out her neck, nostrils greedily flaring at the scent of water.

  He slid off and led the way down to the creek’s edge, careful of loose stones and boggy earth—the creek bank here was mostly soft mud, edged with mats of duckweed and small reedbeds. A glimpse of red caught his eye and he tensed, but it was a British soldier, facedown in the mud and clearly dead, his legs swaying in the current.

  He shucked his moccasins and edged out into the water himself; the creek was fairly wide here and only a couple of feet deep, with a silty bottom; he sank in ankle-deep. He edged out again and led the horse farther up the ravine, looking for better footing, though the mare was desperate for the water, pushing Ian with her head; she wouldn’t wait long.

  The sounds of the skirmish had faded; he could hear men up above and some way off, but nothing in the ravine itself anymore.

  There, that would do. He let the horse’s reins fall, and she lunged for the creek, stood with her forefeet sunk in mud but her hind feet solid on a patch of gravel, blissfully gulping water. Ian felt the pull of the water nearly as much and sank to his knees, feeling the blissful chill as it soaked his clout and leggings, that sensation fading instantly to nothingness as he cupped his hands and drank, and cupped and drank again and again, choking now and then in the effort to drink faster than he could swallow.

  At last he stopped—reluctantly—and dashed water over his face and chest; it was cooling, though the bear grease in his paint made the water bead and run off his skin.

  “Come on,” he said to the horse. “Ye’ll burst and ye keep on like that, amaidan.” It took some struggle, but he got the horse’s nose out of the creek, water and bits of green weed sloshing out of the loose-lipped mouth as the horse snorted and shook her head. It was while hauling the horse’s head round in order to lead her up the bank that he saw the other British soldier.

  This one was lying near the bottom of the ravine, too, but not in the mud. He was lying facedown, but with his head turned to one side, and …

  “Och, Jesus, no!” Ian flung his horse’s reins hastily round a tree trunk and bounded up the slope. It was, of course. He’d known it from the first glimpse of the long legs, the shape of the head, but the face made it certain, even masked with blood as it was.

  William was still alive; his face twitched under the feet of a half-dozen black flies feeding on his drying blood. Ian put a hand under his jaw, the way Auntie Claire did, but, with no idea how to find a pulse or what a good one should feel like, took it away again. William was lying in the shadow of a big sycamore, but his skin was still warm—it couldn’t help but be, Ian thought, even if he was dead, on a day like this.

  He’d risen to his feet, thinking rapidly. He’d need to get the bugger onto the horse, but maybe best undress him? Take off the telltale coat, at least? But what if he were to take him back toward the British lines, find someone there to take charge of him, get him to a surgeon? That was closer.

  Still need to take the coat off, or the man might die of the heat before he got anywhere. So resolved, he knelt again, and thus saved his own life. The tomahawk chunked into the sycamore’s trunk just where his head had been a moment before.

  And, a moment later, one of the Abenaki raced down the slope and leapt on him with a shriek that blasted bad breath into his face. That split second of warning, though, was enough that he’d got his feet under him and pushed to the side, heaving the Abenaki’s body over his hip in a clumsy wrestling throw that landed the man in the mud four feet away.

  The second one was behind him; Ian heard the man’s feet in the gravel and weeds and whirled to meet the downward strike, catching the blow on his forearm, grabbing for the knife with his other hand.

  He caught it—by the blade, and hissed through his teeth as it cut into his palm—and chopped down on the man’s wrist with his half-numbed arm. The knife jarred loose. Hand and knife were slippery with blood; he couldn’t get hold of the hilt but had got it away—he turned and threw it as far as he could upstream, and it plunked into the water.

  Then they were both on him, punching, kicking, and tearing at him. He staggered backward, lost his balance but not his grip on one of his attackers, and succeeded in falling into the creek with the man atop him. After that, he lost track.

  He had one of the Abenaki on his back in the water, was trying earnestly to drown him, while the other rode his own back and tried to get an arm around his neck—and then there was a racket on the other side of the ravine and everything stopped for a moment. A lot of men, moving in a disorganized sort of way—he could hear drums, but there was a noise like the distant sea, incoherent voices.

  The Abenaki stopped, too, just for an instant, but that was long enough: Ian twisted, flinging the man off his back, and bounded awkwardly through the water, slipping and sinking in the muddy bottom, but made it to shore and ran for the first thing that met his eye—a tall white oak. He flung himself at the trunk and shinned up, grabbing at branches as they came in reach to pull himself higher, faster, reckless of his wounded hand, the rough bark scraping his skin.

  The Indians were after him, but too late; one leapt and slapped at his bare foot but failed to get a grip, and he got a knee over a large branch and clung, panting, to the trunk, ten feet up. Safe? He thought so, but after a moment peered down cautiously.

  The Abenaki were casting to and fro like wolves, glancing up at the noise above the rim of the ravine, then up at Ian—then across the creek toward William, and that made Ian’s wame curl up. God, what could he do if they should decide to go cut the man’s throat? He hadn’t even got a stone to throw at them.

  The one good thing was that neither of them seemed to have either a gun or a bow; must have left those with their horses, up above. They couldn’t do anything but throw stones at him, and they seemed disinclined.

  More noise from above—a lot of men up there; what were they shouting?—and the Abenaki abruptly abandoned Ian. They splashed back across the stream, their leggings clinging with water and streaked with black mud, paused briefly to turn William over and rummage his clothes—evidently he’d already been robbed, for they found nothing—and then untied Ian’s horse and with a last mocking call of “Mohawk!” disappeared with the mare into a growth of pussy willows downstream.

  IAN HAD DRAGGED himself one-handed up the slope, crawled some distance, and then lay for a while under a fallen log on the edge of a clearing, spots coming and going before his eyes like a swarm of midgies. There was a lot going on nearby, but none of it near enough to cause him immediate concern. He closed his eyes, hoping that would make the spots go away. They didn’t, instead turning from black to a horrid constellation of swimming pink and yellow blobs that made him want to vomit.

  He hastily opened his eyes again, in time to see several powder-blackened Continental soldiers, stripped to their shirts, some bare to the waist, dragging a cannon down the road. They were followed in short order by more men and another cannon, all staggering with the heat and white-eyed with exhaustion. He recognized Colonel Owen, stumping along between the limbers, sooty face set in unhappy desperation.

  Some sense of stirring drew Ian’s wandering eye away toward a group of men, and he realized with a faint sense of interest that it was a very large group of men, with a standard hanging limp as an unstuffed haggis against its pole.

  That in turn stirred recognition. Sure enough, there was General Lee, long-nosed and frowning but looking very keen, riding out of the mass toward Owen.

  Ian was too far away and there was
too much noise to hear a word, but the trouble was obvious from Owen’s gestures and pointings. One of his cannon was broken, burst, probably from the heat of firing, and another had broken free of its limber and was being dragged with ropes, its metal scraping on the rocks as it juddered along.

  A dim sense of urgency was reasserting itself. William. He needed to tell someone about William. Plainly it wasn’t going to be the British.

  Lee’s brows drew in and his lips thinned, but he kept his composure. He had bent down from his saddle to listen to Owen; now he nodded, spoke a few words, and straightened up. Owen wiped a sleeve across his face and waved to his men. They picked up their ropes and leaned into the weight, disconsolate, and Ian saw that three or four were wounded, cloths wrapped round heads or hands, one half-hopping with a bloody leg, a hand on one of the cannon for support.

  Ian’s wame had begun to settle now, and he was desperately thirsty, despite having drunk his fill at the creek only a short time before. He’d taken no notice where he was going but, seeing Owen’s cannon come down the road, knew he must be near the bridge, though it was out of sight. He crawled out of his hiding place and managed to stand up, holding on to the log for a moment while his vision went black and white and black again.

  William. He had to find someone to help … but first he had to find water. He couldn’t manage without it. Everything he’d drunk at the creek had run off him as sweat, and he was parched to the bone.

  It took several tries, but he got water at last from an infantryman who had two canteens hanging round his neck.

  “What happened to you, chum?” the infantryman asked, eyeing him with interest.

  “Had a fight with a British scout,” Ian replied, and reluctantly handed back the canteen.

  “Hope you won it, then,” the man said, and waved without waiting for an answer, moving off with his company.

  Ian’s left eye was stinging badly and his vision was cloudy; a cut in his eyebrow was bleeding. He groped in the small bag at his waist and found the handkerchief wrapped round the smoked ear he carried. The cloth was a small one, but big enough to tie round his brow.

  He wiped his knuckles over his mouth, already longing for more water. What ought he to do? He could see the standard now being vigorously waved, flapping heavily in the thick air, summoning the troops to follow. Plainly Lee was headed over the bridge; he knew where he was going, and his troops with him. No one would—or could—stop to climb down a ravine to aid a wounded British soldier.

  Ian shook his head experimentally and, finding that his brains didn’t seem to rattle, set off toward the southwest. With luck, he’d meet La Fayette or Uncle Jamie coming up, and maybe get another mount. With a horse, he could get William out of the ravine alone. And whatever else might happen today, he’d settle the hash of those Abenaki bastards.

  HIGH NOON

  ONE OF LA FAYETTE’S men came up at this point with orders to fall back, to rejoin La Fayette’s main body near one of the farms between Spotswood South Brook and Spotswood Middlebrook. Jamie was pleased to hear it; there was no reasonable way for half-armed militia companies to lay siege to the artillery entrenched in the orchard, not with rifles guarding the cannon.

  “Gather your companies, Mr. Guthrie, and join me on the road up there,” Jamie said, pointing. “Mr. Bixby, can ye find Captain Kirby? Tell him the same thing; I’ll fetch along Craddock’s troops.”

  Captain Craddock’s companies had been badly demoralized by his death, and Jamie had brought them under his own direct command to prevent them scattering like bumblebees.

  They made their way across the fields, picking up Corporal Filmer and his men at the farmhouse—it was deserted; no need to leave anyone there—and across the bridge over one of the creeks. He slowed a little as his horse’s hooves thudded on the planks, feeling the blessed cool dampness coming up from the water thirty feet below. They should stop, he thought, for water—they hadn’t, since early morning, and the canteens would be running dry—but it would take too long for so many men to work their way along the ravine, down to the creek, and back up. He thought they could make it to La Fayette’s position; there were wells there.

  He could see the road ahead and peeled an eye for lurking British. He wondered, with a moment’s irritation, where Ian was; he would have liked to know where the British were.

  He found out an instant later. A gunshot cracked nearby, and his horse slipped and fell. Jamie yanked his foot free and rolled out of the saddle as the horse hit the bridge with a thud that shook the whole structure, struggled for an instant, neighing loudly, and slid over the edge into the ravine.

  Jamie scrambled to his feet; his hand was burning, all the skin taken off his palm when he’d skidded on the splintered boards.

  “Run!” he shouted, with what breath he had left, and waved an arm wildly, gathering the men, pointing them down the road toward a growth of trees that would cover them. “Go!”

  He found himself among them, the surge of men carrying him with them, and they stumbled into cover, gasping and wheezing with the effort of running. Kirby and Guthrie were sorting out their companies, the late Captain Craddock’s men were clustering near Jamie, and he nodded, breathless, to Bixby and Corporal Greenhow to count noses.

  He could still hear the sound the horse had made, hitting the ground below the bridge.

  He was going to vomit; he felt it rising and knew better than to try to hold it back. He made a quick staying motion toward Lieutenant Schnell, who wanted to speak to him, stepped behind a large pine, and let his stomach turn itself out like an emptied sporran. He stayed bent for a moment, mouth open and forehead pressed against the rough bark for support, letting the gush of saliva wash the taste of it from his mouth.

  Cuidich mi, a Dhia … But his mind had lost all notion of words for the moment, and he straightened up, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. As he came out from behind the tree, though, all thought of what might be going on and what he might have to do about it vanished. Ian had come out of the trees nearby and was making his way across the open space. The lad was afoot and moving slowly, but doggedly. Jamie could see the bruises, even from a distance of forty feet.

  “That one of ourn or one of theirn?” a militiaman asked doubtfully, raising his musket to bear on Ian, just in case.

  “He’s mine,” Jamie said. “Don’t shoot him, aye? Ian! Ian!” He didn’t run—his left knee hurt too much to run—but made his way toward his nephew as fast as possible and was relieved to see the glassy look in Ian’s eyes shatter and brighten into recognition at sight of him.

  “Uncle Jamie!” Ian shook his head as though to clear it and stopped abruptly with a gasp.

  “Are ye bad hurt, a bhalaich?” Jamie asked, stepping back and looking for blood. There was some, but nothing dreadful. The lad wasn’t clutching himself as though wounded in the vitals.…

  “No. No, it’s—” Ian worked his mouth, trying to get up the spit to make words, and Jamie thrust his canteen into Ian’s hand. There was pitifully little water left in it, but some, enough, and Ian gulped it.

  “William,” Ian gasped, lowering the empty canteen. “Your—”

  “What about him?” Jamie interrupted. There were more men coming down the road, some of them half-running, looking back. “What?” he repeated, grasping Ian’s arm.

  “He’s alive,” Ian said at once, correctly gauging both intent and intensity of the question. “Someone hit him on the head and left him in the bottom of yon ravine.” He gestured vaguely toward the scouts. “Maybe three hundred yards west o’ the bridge, aye? He’s no dead, but I dinna ken how bad hurt he may be.”

  Jamie nodded, making instant calculations.

  “Aye, and what happened to you?” He could only hope that William and Ian hadn’t happened to each other. But if William was unconscious, it couldn’t be he who’d taken Ian’s horse, and plainly someone had, for—

  “Two Abenaki scouts,” Ian replied with a grimace. “The buggers have been following me for—�
��

  Jamie was still holding Ian by the left arm and felt the impact of the arrow and the shock of its reverberation through the lad’s body. Ian glanced unbelievingly at his right shoulder, where the shaft protruded, and gave at the knees, his weight pulling him from Jamie’s grasp as he keeled over.

  Jamie launched himself over Ian’s body and hit the ground rolling, avoiding the second arrow; he heard it rip the air near his ear. Heard the militiaman’s gun speak just above him and then a confusion of screaming and shouting, a group of his men breaking, running toward the source of the arrows, bellowing.

  “Ian!” He rolled his nephew onto his back. The lad was conscious, but as much of his face as showed under the paint was white and ghastly, his throat working helplessly. Jamie grasped the arrow; it was lodged in what Claire called the deltoid, the fleshy part of the upper arm, but it didn’t budge when he shook it gently.

  “I think it’s struck the bone,” he said to Ian. “No bad, but the tip’s stuck fast.”

  “I think so, too,” Ian said faintly. He was struggling to sit up, but couldn’t. “Break it off, aye? I canna be going about wi’ it sticking out like that.”

  Jamie nodded, got his nephew sitting unsteadily upright, and broke the shaft between his hands, leaving a ragged stub a few inches long with which to pull the arrow out. There wasn’t much blood, only a trickle running down Ian’s arm. Claire could see to getting the arrowhead out later.

  The shouting and confusion were becoming widespread. A glance showed him more men coming down the road, and he heard a fife signaling in the distance, thin and desperate.

  “D’ye ken what’s happened up there?” he said to Ian, nodding toward the noise. Ian shook his head.

  “I saw Colonel Owen comin’ down wi’ his cannon all in shambles. He stopped to say a word to Lee and then came on, but he wasna running.”

  A few men were running, though in a heavy, clumsy way—not as though pursuit was close. But he could feel alarm beginning to spread through the men around him and turned to them at once.