The catch was that holders of such grants were legally required to be white Protestant males of good character, above the age of thirty. And while Jamie met the other requirements, Tryon was well aware of his Catholicism.
Do as the Governor required, and … well, the Governor was a successful politician; he knew how to keep his mouth shut about inconvenient matters. Defy him, though, and it would take no more than a simple letter from New Bern to deprive Fraser’s Ridge of its resident Frasers.
“Hmm. So you’re thinking that if you take the available men from the Ridge—can’t you leave out a few?”
“I havena got so many to start with, Sassenach,” he pointed out. “I can leave Fergus, because of his hand, and Mr. Wemyss to look after our place. He’s a bond servant, so far as anyone knows, and only freemen are obliged to join the militia.”
“And only able-bodied men. That lets out Joanna Grant’s husband; he’s got a wooden foot.”
He nodded.
“Aye, and old Arch Bug, who’s seventy if he’s a day. That’s four men—and maybe eight boys under sixteen—to look after thirty homesteads and more than a hundred and fifty people.”
“The women can probably manage fairly well by themselves,” I said. “It’s winter, after all; no crops to deal with. And there shouldn’t be any difficulties with the Indians, not these days.” My ribbon had come loose when I pulled off the cap. Hair was escaping from its undone plaits in every direction, straggling down my neck in damp, curly strands. I pulled the ribbon off and tried to comb my hair out with my fingers.
“What’s so important about Josiah Beardsley, anyway?” I asked. “Surely one fourteen-year-old boy can’t make so much difference.”
“Beardsley’s a hunter,” Jamie answered, “and a good one. He brought in nearly two hundred weight of wolf, deer, and beaver skins to the Gathering—all taken by himself alone, he said. I couldna do better, myself.”
That was a true encomium, and I pursed my lips in silent appreciation. Hides were the main—in fact, the only—winter crop of any value in the mountains. We had no money now—not even the paper Proclamation money, worth only a fraction of sterling—and without hides to sell in the spring, we were going to have difficulty getting the seed corn and wheat we needed. And if all the men were required to spend a good part of the winter tramping round the colony subduing Regulators instead of hunting …
Most women on the Ridge could handle a gun, but almost none could hunt effectively, as they were tethered to their homes by the needs of their children. Even Bree, who was a very good hunter, could venture no more than half a day’s travel away from Jemmy—not nearly far enough for wolf and beaver.
I rubbed a hand through my damp locks, fluffing out the loosened strands.
“All right, I understand that part. Where do the tonsils come in, though?”
Jamie looked up at me and smiled. Without answering at once, he got to his feet and circled behind me. With a firm hand, he gathered in the fugitive strands, captured the flying bits, and braided it into a tight, thick plait at the base of my neck. He bent over my shoulder, plucked the ribbon from my lap, and tied it neatly in a bow.
“There.” He sat down by my feet again. “Now, as to the tonsils. Ye told the lad he must have them out, or his throat would go from bad to worse.”
“It will.”
Josiah Beardsley had believed me. And, having come near death the winter before when an abscess in his throat had nearly suffocated him before bursting, he was not eager to risk another such occurrence.
“You’re the only surgeon north of Cross Creek,” Jamie pointed out. “Who else could do it?”
“Well, yes,” I said uncertainly. “But—”
“So, I’ve made the lad an offer,” Jamie interrupted. “One section of land—wee Roger and myself will help him to put up a cabin on it when the time comes—and he’ll go halves with me in whatever he takes in the way of skins for the next three winters. He’s willing—provided you’ll take out his tonsils as part o’ the bargain.”
“But why today? I can’t take someone’s tonsils out here!” I gestured at the dripping forest.
“Why not?” Jamie raised one eyebrow. “Did ye not say last night it was a small matter—only a few wee cuts wi’ your smallest knife?”
I rubbed a knuckle under my nose, sniffing with exasperation. “Look, just because it isn’t a massive bloody job like amputating a leg doesn’t mean it’s a simple matter!” It was, in fact, a relatively simple operation—surgically speaking. It was the possibility of infection following the procedure, and the need for careful nursing—a poor substitute for antibiotics, but much better than neglect—that raised complications.
“I can’t just whack out his tonsils and turn him loose,” I said. “When we get back to the Ridge, though—”
“He doesna mean to come back with us directly,” Jamie interrupted.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“He didna say; only that he had a bit of business to do, and would come to the Ridge by the first week of December. He can sleep in the loft above the herb shed,” he added.
“So you—and he—expect me just to slash out his tonsils, put in a few stitches, and see him on his merry way?” I asked sardonically.
“Ye did nicely wi’ the dog,” he said, grinning.
“Oh, you heard about that.”
“Oh, aye. And the lad who chopped his foot with an ax, and the bairns wi’ milk rash, and Mrs. Buchanan’s toothache, and your battle wi’ Murray MacLeod over the gentleman’s bile ducts …”
“It was rather a busy morning.” I shuddered briefly in remembrance, and took another sip of whisky.
“The whole Gathering is talking of ye, Sassenach. I did think of the Bible, in fact, seeing all the crowd clamoring round ye this morning.”
“The Bible?” I must have looked blank at the reference, because the grin got wider.
“And the whole multitude sought to touch him,” Jamie quoted. “For there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.”
I laughed ruefully, interrupting myself with a small hiccup. “Fresh out of virtue at the moment, I’m afraid.”
“Dinna fash. There’s plenty in the flask.”
Thus reminded, I offered him the whisky, but he waved it away, brows drawn down in thought. Melting hail had left wet streaks in his hair, and it lay like ribbons of melted bronze across his shoulders—like the statue of some military hero, weathered and glistening in a public park.
“So ye’ll do the lad’s tonsils, once he comes to the Ridge?”
I thought a moment, then nodded, swallowing. There would still be dangers in it, and normally I wouldn’t do purely elective surgery. But Josiah’s condition was truly dreadful, and the continued infections might well kill him eventually, if I didn’t take some steps to remedy it.
Jamie nodded, satisfied.
“I’ll see to it, then.”
My feet had thawed, even wet as they were, and I was beginning to feel warm and pliable. My belly still felt as though I’d swallowed a large volcanic rock, but I wasn’t minding all that much.
“I was wondering something, Sassenach,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Speakin’ of the Bible, ye ken.”
“Got Scripture on the brain today, have you?”
One corner of his mouth curled up as he glanced at me.
“Aye, well. It’s only I was thinking. When the Angel of the Lord comes along to Sarah and tells her she’ll have a bairn the next year, she laughs and says that’s a rare jest, as it’s ceased to be wi’ her after the manner of women.”
“Most women in that situation likely wouldn’t think it at all a funny idea,” I assured him. “I often think God’s got a very peculiar sense of humor, though.”
He looked down at the large maple leaf he was shredding between thumb and forefinger, but I caught the faint twitch of his mouth.
“I’ve thought that now and again myself, Sassenach,” he said, rather dry
ly. “Be that as it may, she did have the bairn, aye?”
“The Bible says she did. I’m not going to call the book of Genesis a liar.” I debated the wisdom of drinking more, but decided to save it for a rainy—well, a rainier—day, and put the stopper back in the flask. I could hear a certain amount of stirring in the direction of the campsite, and my ears caught a word of inquiry, borne on the chilly breeze.
“Someone’s looking for Himself,” I said. “Again.”
Himself glanced over his shoulder and grimaced slightly, but made no immediate move to answer the call. He cleared his throat, and I saw a faint flush move up the side of his neck.
“Well, the point is,” he said, carefully not looking at me, “that so far as I ken, if your name’s not Mary and the Holy Ghost isna involved in the matter, there’s only the one way of getting wi’ child. Am I right?”
“So far as I know, yes.” I put a hand over my mouth to stifle a rising hiccup.
“Aye. And if so … well, that must mean that Sarah was still bedding wi’ Abraham at the time, no?”
He still wasn’t looking at me, but his ears had gone pink, and I belatedly realized the point of this religious discussion. I reached out a toe and prodded him gently in the side.
“You were thinking perhaps I wouldn’t want you anymore?”
“Ye dinna want me now,” he pointed out logically, eyes on the crumbled remains of his leaf.
“I feel as though my belly is full of broken glass, I’m half-soaked and mud to the knees, and whoever’s looking for you is about to burst through the shrubbery with a pack of bloodhounds at any moment,” I said, with a certain amount of asperity. “Are you actually inviting me to participate in carnal revelry with you in that mound of soggy leaves? Because if you are—”
“No, no,” he said hastily. “I didna mean now. I only meant—I was only wondering if—” The tips of his ears had gone a dull red. He stood up abruptly, brushing dead leaves from his kilt with exaggerated force.
“If,” I said in measured tones, “you were to get me with child at this point in the proceedings, Jamie Fraser, I would have your balls en brochette.” I rocked back, looking up at him. “As for bedding with you, though …”
He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. I smiled at him, letting what I thought show plainly on my face.
“Once you have a bed again,” I said, “I promise I won’t refuse it.”
“Oh,” he said. He drew a deep breath, looking suddenly quite happy. “Well, that’s all right, then. It’s only—I wondered, ye ken.”
A sudden loud rustling in the shrubbery was followed by the appearance of Mr. Wemyss, whose thin, anxious face poked out of a nannyberry bush.
“Oh, it’s yourself, sir,” he said, in evident relief.
“I suppose it must be,” Jamie said, in resignation. “Is there a difficulty, Mr. Wemyss?”
Mr. Wemyss was delayed in answering, having become inextricably entangled with the nannyberry bush, and I was obliged to go and help release him. A onetime bookkeeper who had been obliged to sell himself as an indentured servant, Mr. Wemyss was highly unsuited to life in the wilderness.
“I do apologize for troubling ye, sir,” he said, rather red in the face. He picked nervously at a spiny twig that had caught in his fair, flyaway hair.
“It’s only—well, she did say as she meant to cleave him from crown to crutch wi’ her ax if he didna leave off, and he said no woman would speak to him in that manner, and she does have an ax …”
Accustomed to Mr. Wemyss’s methods of communication, Jamie sighed, reached out for the whisky flask, uncorked it, and took a deep, sustaining swig. He lowered the flask and fixed Mr. Wemyss with a gimlet eye.
“Who?” he demanded.
“Oh! Er … did I not say? Rosamund Lindsay and Ronnie Sinclair.”
“Mmphm.”
Not good news; Rosamund Lindsay did have an ax; she was roasting several pigs in a pit near the creek, over hickory embers. She also weighed nearly two hundred pounds and, while normally good-humored, was possessed of a notable temper when roused. For his part, Ronnie Sinclair was entirely capable of irritating the Angel Gabriel, let alone a woman trying to cook in the rain.
Jamie sighed and handed the flask back to me. He squared his shoulders, shaking droplets from his plaid as he settled it.
“Go and tell them I’m coming, Mr. Wemyss,” he said.
Mr. Wemyss’s thin face expressed the liveliest apprehension at the thought of coming within speaking range of Rosamund Lindsay’s ax, but his awe of Jamie was even greater. He bobbed a quick, neat bow, turned, and blundered straight into the nannyberry bush again.
A wail like an approaching ambulance betokened the appearance of Marsali, Joan in her arms. She plucked a clinging branch from Mr. Wemyss’s coat sleeve, nodding to him as she stepped carefully round him.
“Da,” she said, without preamble. “Ye’ve got to come. Father Kenneth’s been arrested.”
Jamie’s eyebrows shot up.
“Arrested? Just now? By whom?”
“Aye, this minute! A nasty fat man who said he was sheriff o’ the county. He came up wi’ two men and they asked who was the priest, and when Father Kenneth said it was him, they seized him by the arms and marched him straight off, with none so much as a by your leave!”
The blood was rising in Jamie’s face, and his two stiff fingers tapped briefly against his thigh.
“They’ve taken him from my hearth?” he said. “A Dhia!”
This was plainly a rhetorical question, and before Marsali could answer it, a crunching of footsteps came from the other direction, and Brianna popped into sight from behind a pine tree.
“What?” he barked at her. She blinked, taken aback.
“Ah … Geordie Chisholm says one of the soldiers stole a ham from his fire, and will you go and see Lieutenant Hayes about it?”
“Yes,” he said promptly. “Later. Meanwhile, do you go back wi’ Marsali and find out where they’ve taken Father Kenneth. And Mr. Wemyss—” But Mr. Wemyss had at last escaped the clinging embrace of the nannyberry bush. A distant crashing signaled his rush to fulfill his orders.
A quick look at Jamie’s face convinced both girls that a swift retreat was the order of the day, and within seconds, we were alone again. He took a deep breath, and let it slowly out through his teeth.
I wanted to laugh, but didn’t. Instead I moved closer; cold and damp as it was, I could feel the heat of his skin through his plaid.
“At least it’s only the sick ones who want to touch me,” I said. I held out the flask to him. “What do you do when all the virtue’s gone out of you?”
He glanced down at me, and a slow smile spread across his face. Ignoring the flask, he stooped, cupped my face in his hands, and kissed me, very gently.
“That,” he said.
Then he turned and strode downhill, presumably full of virtue once more.
13
BEANS AND BARBECUE
I took the kettle back to our camp, only to find the place momentarily deserted. Voices and laughter in the distance indicated that Lizzie, Marsali, and Mrs. Bug—presumably with children in tow—were on their way to the women’s privy, a latrine trench dug behind a convenient screen of juniper, some way from the campsites. I hung the full kettle over the fire to boil, then stood still for a moment, wondering in which direction my efforts might be best directed.
While Father Kenneth’s situation might be the most serious in the long run, it wasn’t one where my presence would be likely to make a difference. But I was a doctor—and Rosamund Lindsay did have an ax. I patted my damp hair and garments into some sort of order, and started downhill toward the creek, abandoning the mobcap to its fate.
Jamie had evidently been of the same mind regarding the relative importance of the emergencies in progress. When I fought my way through the thicket of willow saplings edging the creek, I found him standing by the barbecue pit, in peaceful conversation with Ronnie Sinclair—meanwhile
leaning casually on the handle of the ax, of which he had somehow managed to possess himself.
I relaxed a bit when I saw that, and took my time in joining the party. Unless Rosamund decided to strangle Ronnie with her bare hands or beat him to death with a ham—neither of these contingencies being at all unthinkable—my medical services might not be needed after all.
The pit was a broad one, a natural declivity bored out of the clay creekbank by some distant flood and then deepened by judicious spadework in the years succeeding. Judging by the blackened rocks and drifts of scattered charcoal, it had been in use for some time. In fact, several different people were using it now; the mingled scents of fowl, pork, mutton, and possum rose up in a cloud of apple-wood and hickory smoke, a savory incense that made my mouth water.
The sight of the pit was somewhat less appetizing. Clouds of white smoke billowed up from the damp wood, half-obscuring a number of shapes that lay upon their smoldering pyres—many of these looking faintly and hair-raisingly human through the haze. It reminded me all too vividly of the charnel pits on Jamaica, where the bodies of slaves who had not survived the rigors of the Middle Passage were burned, and I swallowed heavily, trying not to recall the macabre roasting-meat smell of those funeral fires.
Rosamund was working down in the pit at the moment, her skirt kirtled well above plump knees and sleeves rolled back to bare her massive arms as she ladled a reddish sauce onto the exposed ribs of a huge hog’s carcass. Around her lay five more gigantic shapes, shrouded in damp burlap, with the wisps of fragrant smoke curling up around them, vanishing into the soft drizzle.
“It’s poison, is what it is!” Ronnie Sinclair was saying hotly, as I came up behind him. “She’ll ruin it—it’ll no be fit for pigs when she’s done!”
“It is pigs, Ronnie,” Jamie said, with considerable patience. He rolled an eye at me, then glanced at the pit, where sizzling fat dripped onto the biers of hickory coals below. “Myself, I shouldna think ye could do anything to a pig—in the way of cooking, that is—that would make it not worth the eating.”
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