by Barbara Mack
“I am the seventh son of a seventh son, and your mother was the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. This is a powerful sign, and your fortune was foretold to me by my granny who was a great seer, when I was but fourteen years old. It was the reason I came here to this strange land, never to see Scotland again. You will be a healer, she told it to me long ago, and you will be a great one. You will be gentle yet strong, a giant of a man, and you will have the gift of sight, and you will never know when this gift will manifest itself.”
At this point, his father had turned to him and smiled a broad, loving smile. “She also told me that my son would know a wondrous love and that his wife would bear him seven children, and that all these children would have the sight in varying degrees . . . but the strongest would be the seventh, and she would have an amazing destiny. She would begin the first step toward this destiny on her third birthday, and many would witness it. She said much more than that, but I dinna think you will be old enough to hear it all just yet.” He winked at Duncan. “Fair burned my ears off, it did.” His father had clapped a hand to Duncan’s shoulder. “Let’s be goin’ back to yer mother, boy. I have a hankering to see her pretty face.”
Duncan had disbelieved this prophecy of his ancestor, though he never said so out loud. He did not want to be disrespectful of his father’s ancestors; they were undoubtedly sacred and wise, and were owed much respect. But this prophecy could not be true. He was not a giant and was not likely to become one; he was skinny and small for his age and he had so far showed no signs of becoming anything else. And if this ancestor of his was wrong about the one thing, then it stood to reason that she could be wrong about the rest of the prophecy as well.
When his mother died and they moved away from his beloved mountains, Duncan thought for a time that he would die, too. He did not, of course, for grief rarely kills children, and in his tenth year, he began to grow . . . and grow, and grow. When he finally stopped growing, he was eighteen, and at least a foot taller than any man he stood beside. He believed his great-granny’s prophecy—and he could still track anything that moved over any terrain.
Duncan paced with Kathleen, reminding her of some big cat who had been caged by mistake and now could not be still until he found his way out. Ned, mercifully, had come awake only long enough to take a drink and another dose of laudanum. Duncan was glad that he did not have to explain to the old man that his niece was missing and that the only ones looking for her so far were a couple of green deputies that could not find their rear ends with both hands.
He near wore a hole in the floor of the surgery with his pacing, until finally Kathleen snapped at him to sit down, she was tired of craning her neck back to look at him, it was giving her an aching head. He was going to go and wear a hole right through the floor into the room below, she said, if he did not stop pounding on it. Surely the poor floor could not take the strain of him galumphing back and forth like some great beast for hours and hours.
Duncan did not think that the floor would fall, but he could see that he was making Kathleen even more nervous; her eyes darted everywhere, her hands played together in her lap, and she almost twisted one strand of her hair completely off. He thought briefly of sending her to the kitchen of his living quarters downstairs, but he knew she would bristle up like a little hedgehog if he suggested it. It would be nice, though, he thought wistfully, if he could have some more of those pies and cakes like the ones that she had brought with her. And it would certainly calm her down. He put the thought out of his mind when he caught her glaring at him. He was definitely out of favor at the moment, there would be no more pies and cakes and cookies for him for quite a while, not if she had anything to say about it.
Nick showed up at almost the same moment as Doctor Fell, and he had brought extra horses, a nice little string, all with the stamina of mountain goats. Duncan explained the whole situation to the older man while he saddled one of the mares, the biggest one Nick had brought. She needed to be big to accommodate the weight of his big body, and they were going to be moving fast. Nick was not happy to have his company, but Duncan was going, and there would not be any argument about it. Nick would have set up camp with the devil himself if he thought it would get Maggie back, and Duncan had said with certainty that he could find her, even off of this cold trail. Something in his eyes when he said it made Nick believe him.
“Did you bring a rifle?” he asked the thin-lipped Nick, and was met with an affirmative. Duncan hurried; whoever had taken Maggie had a big head start.
The wind was excruciatingly cold and it battered them unmercifully, stirring up flurries of
snow. Duncan pulled his mare up into the alley where he had found the footsteps and closed his eyes.
“This way,” he said firmly after a while, opening his eyes, and Nick looked at him strangely but followed him anyway, the two extra horses trailing behind him. They might need them before the night was over.
Nick was stiff with terror, and his fear for Maggie was eating away at the insides of him. They had to find her–he could not stand to think of her hurt or cold, or mistreated. The idea of her fear drove him mad. It had been months since she had felt that paralyzing fright and he did not want her to go backwards into that living hell. She did not deserve to live with the fear that had crippled her for so long.
It was freezing cold out here and the wind buffeted them fiercely, and he wondered if she was warm. Hypothermia could be so gradual that a person did not notice it; it just consumed the body’s reserves and agility until they fell asleep and never woke up again. He hoped that she was warm and dry.
He wanted to be with her one more time, to tell her . . . his body suddenly flooded with emotion, and Nick caught his breath at the pain of it.
He loved her. He loved Maggie. Only now, when she was gone did he know it.
He had to find her, so that he could tell her. He had to hold her in his arms one more time, so that he could tell her what he felt, so that he could rock her against his chest and press his cheek to her soft brown hair. He needed to mold her softness to him and kiss every spot on her curvy frame, worship her with his body the way that he worshiped her with his mind. Nick realized that he had loved her for a long time, and he had been too afraid to tell her so.
Maggie was more alive than any woman he had ever met, and he was more alive when he was with her. She greeted every new day with joy and a sense of adventure, and that had been something that was missing from Nick’s life for so long that he had not even realized he had been lacking it. He had been bored before her, and lonely, and he wanted fiercely to tell her so. She was not afraid to wring the last drop of pleasure from her life, and when he remembered the mousy, frightened thing she had been when they first met, Nick marveled at the depth of the changes time and care had wrought in her.
Maggie had forced herself back into the light, after being kept in darkness and dread for three long years, and he admired her so much for that. She had heart, his sweet Maggie, and enough nerve for two women. He called her face up in his mind, the way that she had been this morning, the way she had put her head back and let the snow kiss her sweet face even in the depths of her fear for her uncle, and Nick’s eyes squeezed shut from the hurt in his chest. She suited him all the way from the crown of his head down to the soles of his feet, Maggie did, and he would not settle for anyone else now that he knew what perfection felt like. So they would just have to find her, he thought grimly. No one else would do.
Nick wished that he had not wasted so much time in running away from his feelings for Maggie; in a strange kind of way, he was in debt to Duncan for making him realize just how much Maggie meant to him. He still did not really know what had happened on that catastrophic night that he had found them in the stables, but he had a good suspicion. It did not matter now. He had promised to trust Maggie, and he would. As far as he was concerned, the scene in the stables had never happened, and he would never bring it up to her ever again.
Kathleen and Tommy had
been a bit more downcast over his and Maggie’s conspicuous avoidance of each other after the night he had found her in the stables with Duncan than one might expect them to be. He was not a stupid man . . . and Kathleen was quite vocal in her hatred of slavery. As a distraction, finding Maggie in Duncan Murdoch’s arms had done the trick–it had sure got his full attention. He still felt murderous whenever he saw Duncan standing too close to his Maggie, whenever he appeared to be speaking intimately to her. He knew that Maggie liked the man and he liked her, and the good doctor was just a little too handsome and masculine for comfort. Nick would bet all his money that Duncan had left a long trail of broken hearts behind him in St. Louis.
If they found her...
Nick forced that unwelcome thought away, and followed Duncan’s big horse, close on his rump so that he did not lose him in the snow that was falling, thicker and thicker, from the dark sky. He was trusting that the man knew what he was doing.
They had to find her. He refused to believe that he could discover the one woman in the world who made him complete only to lose her to some capricious whim of fate. Destiny would not be so cruel as to take her from him. Nick tried not to think about all the other people who had been taken from him before, like his parents, like Mary . . . He shook off the shudder that rippled through his body and fixed his eyes on Duncan’s broad back. They had to find her . . . or he would die in the trying. He did not want to live without his Maggie.
Duncan rode with his eyes slitted almost shut against the wind and snow. He could feel Maggie’s dread and fright, and he was following that mental trail the same way he would follow a physical one. They were getting close; he knew it as surely as he knew the sun would come up every morning. The fool who had taken Maggie, and he was positive that the man staying in the hotel had taken her, was not even bothering to hide his tracks. The man was over-confident, and a bit stupid, to say the least, and Duncan was heartened by this. It was going to be a lot easier to best a stupid man than a smart one, though Duncan had seen a lot of not-too-bright men come out on the winning end of a fight, usually because of brute strength. There were two of them and one of him, though, and he was not a big man, Duncan could tell by the length of the tracks he had found in the alley.
Duncan turned and shouted to Nick over the howling of the wind. Nick gave a shrug that
showed he could not hear, and rode up beside Duncan, holding his hat on his head.
“Is there a barn or deserted house around here close?” Duncan said, leaning over to practically scream it in Nick’s ears. “I think that is where they are headed.”
“The old Quimby place,” Nick said. “It is about a mile down the road. When you get to that big oak tree that is been hit by lightning, you bear west. But how . . . “
Duncan ignored the question that he knew was coming, turning his horse in the direction Nick had indicated. He gave his horse a little kick, making her move just a little faster. They were getting close to her now. He could feel a swell of rising terror make his hands shake, and an adrenaline rush that left him trembling, and he knew these things were coming from Maggie, that he was reading her emotions so clearly that he was sharing in them. Duncan tried to separate himself from what he knew Maggie was feeling, but it was difficult. As always when he tracked, there was an invisible bond between him and the person that he hunted, and he tried to send Maggie a sense of peace and of hope. Duncan thought, just maybe, that the exchange of emotions went both ways. He would bet that she needed to feel both of those things about right now, and hoped that she received them.
Duncan closed his eyes. Maggie was in great danger, and it was growing. He rode grimly toward the old Quimby place, Nick solidly beside him, picking up on Duncan’s urgency and pushing his own tired horse to greater speeds. Their horses were exhausted, and if they’d had time, they would have stopped and switched their saddles to the fresher mounts. But Duncan felt a desperate need to get there quickly, and he did not want to waste the time involved in changing mounts, so they rode on, going faster and faster until their horses were nearly galloping dangerously through the trees that failed to shield them from the falling snow and stiff wind. Nick’s face was white with fear; he knew that if his horse stumbled and went down, they would waste precious minutes, and he had been infected with Duncan’s compulsion to go ever faster. He felt in his heart that they must hurry, and catch up with them soon or lose Maggie forever.
When Maggie came to, she was thrown face down over the back of a horse, tied to the saddle in such a way that she was unable to move. The small horse she was lashed to had a peculiar, skittering gate, and Maggie was bounced around unmercifully. Her head thumped painfully against the saddle with every stride that the horse took, though she tried to keep still. She had little success, and a sob of hopelessness forced its way from her throat even as she attempted to hold it back. She could hear David cursing as he tried to control both the animal he rode and the one he led, the one she was tied to, and she kept still, hoping that he would not realize she was awake. The longer she could escape his notice, the better.
She was dangerously cold; one of her gloves had slipped off, and the scarf Kathleen had forced on her was trapped uselessly between her body and the rigid leather of the saddle. But no external temperature had ever made her feel as icy as the thought that raced through her mind right now.
No one would know where she was, or that David had taken her. They all thought him dead, just as Maggie had.
She had thought him dead when he had seen him last; he lay there on the floor before her, covered in blood. He had not seemed to be breathing, and she had been so shocked at her own actions, thinking only of running away before someone came and caught her. She had fled . . . and now he was here, alive, and he had taken her back.
It was the vivid landscape of her nightmares, come to life. She could only imagine what terrible retaliation he had planned for her. He had ever been one to save up his griefs and then exact a punishment that far exceeded the real or imagined slight. Maggie shuddered in dread,
thinking of some of the other chastisements he had forced on her. She could not go through that again, she could not . . .
Maggie tried to think, but it was nearly impossible. The wind shrieked around her like some wild thing, and she shivered almost uncontrollably now. Her head hurt so badly . . .
Maggie tried to lift up her head enough to see where David was taking her, but it was useless. Because of the way that she was tied, she could only lift her head off of the saddle a few inches, and her vision was blurred. Add the blowing snow into the equation, and visibility was nearly zero. Maggie realized that the blurred vision came from the blow on the head he had given her, and she vaguely recalled hitting her head again, hard, on the ground as she fell.
Nick.
Just the thought of him, of his dear face, made weak tears spring to her eyes, but Maggie brushed them resolutely away. Now was not the time; she had to think of some way to help herself. Maggie managed to wiggle around until her scarf touched her bound hands. She pulled, and strained, and tugged it from its position beneath her; it dangled for a moment before it dropped to the ground, the dark maroon color shockingly visible against the white background of the new fallen snow. Anyone who came this way would be bound to see it lying there. She just hoped that David did not turn his head and see it there on the white of the snow.
Maybe Nick would come for her; perhaps he was already searching. Surely, after an hour or so, Duncan and Kathleen had gone looking for some sign of her. How long had it been before they had realized that she was not coming back? Just how much of a lead did David have on anyone who might be searching for her?
Maggie realized that they were slowing down, then suddenly her horse came to an abrupt halt, jolting her on the saddle and startling a cry of pain from her. She heard the sound of a stubborn door creaking open, then she was being led out of the wind and into the building, whatever it was.
Even as Maggie blessed the surcease of wind that t
hreatened to freeze her into a solid ice block, she feared what would happen now. She forced herself to go limp, playing dead and hoping that David would leave her alone as long as he thought her unconscious. He cut the knotted ropes from the saddle; Maggie could only assume that they were frozen and too stiff to handle. He left the ropes binding her ankles and wrists, then dragged her off of the horse by her hair and threw her onto the ground. Maggie felt a rib crack and tried to stay limp, but her face must have betrayed her. David laughed and drew back his boot to kick her viciously, close enough to the broken bone that Maggie curled up into a whimpering ball, flashes of light behind her eyes as she gasped through the excruciating pain and fought to stay conscious for real.
“I know that you are awake,” he crooned in a tender voice that frightened her far more than if he had shouted. “Come, my darling wife, open your eyes.” And he kicked her again with his boot, in the very same spot, making her scream in agony.
Maggie opened her eyes and looked into his hated face, because it was futile not to. He would just keep hurting her until he forced her to do what he wanted. She stared dispassionately at him, showing not a trace of fear, and that bothered him. He grew uneasy looking at her expressionless face. He wanted her to cringe and cower before him as she had before.
Maggie was shocked at the difference in David’s appearance. Being in the middle of a snowstorm was not sufficient excuse for the extent of the change in him. He had always been fastidious about his looks, but evidently that was a thing of the past.
