“For one thing, he’ll no learn, and I dinna give him the chance. For another …” He paused, turning to look back at me. “For another, I didna want the whole boiling coming along to the Beardsleys’ and maybe hearing of their missing servant. The whole camp saw Josiah last night, aye? If you’ve a lad missing, and hear of a lad popping up and causing a stir in the forest nearby, conclusions might be drawn, d’ye not think?”
He turned back, and I followed him through a narrow defile between the pine trees. Dew gleamed like diamonds on bark and needle, and small icy drops fell from the boughs above, startling my skin where they fell.
“Unless this Beardsley is old or infirm, though, won’t he be joining you?” I objected. “Someone’s bound to mention Josiah in his hearing sooner or later.”
He shook his head, not turning round.
“And tell him what, if they do? They saw the lad when we dragged him in, and they saw him run away again. For all they ken, he got clear away.”
“Kenny Lindsay saw them both when you brought them back.”
He shrugged.
“Aye, I had a word wi’ Kenny, while we were saddling the horses. He’ll say nothing.” He was right, I knew. Kenny was one of his Ardsmuir men; he would follow Jamie’s orders without question.
“No,” Jamie went on, skillfully reining round a large boulder, “Beardsley’s not infirm; Josiah told me he’s an Indian trader—taking goods across the Treaty Line to the Cherokee villages. What I don’t know is if he’s to home just now. If he is, though—” He drew breath and paused to cough as the cold air tickled his lungs.
“That’s the other reason for sending the men ahead,” he continued, wheezing slightly. “We’ll not join them again until tomorrow, I think. By that time, they’ll have had a night to drink and be sociable in Brownsville; they’ll scarce recall the lad, and be the less likely to speak of him in Beardsley’s hearing. With luck, we’ll be well away before anything’s said—no chance of Beardsley leaving us to pursue the lad then.”
So he was counting on the Beardsleys being sufficiently hospitable as to put us up for the night. A reasonable expectation, in this neck of the woods. Listening to him cough again, I resolved to sit on his chest this evening, if necessary, and oblige him to be well-greased with camphor, whether he liked it or not.
We emerged from the trees, and I glanced dubiously at the farmhouse ahead. It was smaller than I had thought, and rather shabby, with a cracked step, a sagging porch, and a wide patch of shingles missing from the weathered roof. Well, I had slept in worse places, and likely would again.
The door to a stunted barn gaped open, but there was no sign of life. The whole place seemed deserted, save for the plume of smoke from the chimney.
I had meant what I said to Jamie, though I hadn’t been entirely accurate. He was honest, and also law-abiding—provided that the laws were those he chose to respect. The mere fact that a law had been established by the Crown was not, I knew, sufficient to make it law in his eyes. Other laws, unwritten, he would likely die for.
Still, while the law of property meant somewhat less to an erstwhile Highland raider than it might to others, it hadn’t escaped my attention—and therefore certainly hadn’t escaped his—that he was about to claim both hospitality and duty from a man whose property he had just helped to abscond. Jamie had no deep-seated objection to indenture as such, I knew; ordinarily, he would respect such a claim. That he hadn’t meant that he perceived some higher law in operation—though whether that was friendship, pity, the claim of his earbsachd, or something else, I didn’t know. He had paused, waiting for me.
“Why did you decide to help Josiah?” I asked bluntly, as we made our way across the ragged cornfield that lay before the house. Dry stalks snapped beneath the horses’ feet, and ice crystals glittered on the litter of dead leaves.
Jamie took off his hat, and set it on the saddle before him, as he tied back his hair in preparation for meeting company.
“Well, I said to him that if he was set on this course, so be it. But if he chose to come to the Ridge—alone or with his brother—then we must rid him of the mark on his thumb, for it would cause talk, and word might get back to yon Beardsley, wi’ the devil to pay and a’ that.”
He took a deep breath and let it out, the smoke of it wisping white around his head, then turned to look at me, his face serious.
“The lad didna hesitate for a moment, though he’d been branded; he knew. And I’ll tell ye, Sassenach—while a man may do a desperate thing once from love or courage … it takes something more than that, if ye’ve done it once already, and ye know damn well what it’s going to feel like to have to do it again.”
He turned away without waiting for my response, and rode into the dooryard, scattering a flock of foraging doves. He sat his horse upright, his shoulders broad and square. There was no hint of the deep-webbed scars that lined his back beneath the homespun cloak, but I knew them well.
So that was it, I thought. As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man. And the law of courage was the one he had lived by for the longest.
Several chickens huddled on the porch, fluffed into balls of yellow-eyed resentment. They muttered balefully among themselves as we dismounted, but were too cold to do more than shuffle away from us, reluctant to abandon their patch of sunshine. Several boards of the porch itself were broken, and the yard nearby was littered with scraps of half-hewn lumber and scattered nails, as though someone had meant to mend it, but had not yet found a moment to attend to the job. The procrastination had lasted for some time, I thought; the nails were rusty, and the newly cut boards had warped and split with damp.
“Ho! The house!” Jamie shouted, stopping in the center of the dooryard. This was accepted etiquette for approaching a strange house; while most people in the mountains were hospitable, there were not a few who viewed strangers warily—and were inclined to make introductions at gunpoint, until the callers’ bona fides should be established.
With this in mind, I kept a cautious distance behind Jamie, but made sure I was visible, ostentatiously spreading my skirts and brushing them down, displaying my gender as evidence of our peaceable intent.
Damn, there was a small hole burnt through the brown wool, no doubt from a flying campfire spark. I concealed the burned spot in a fold of skirt, thinking how odd it was that everyone regarded women as inherently harmless. Had I been so inclined, I could easily have burgled houses and murdered hapless families from one end of the Ridge to the other.
Fortunately the impulse to do so hadn’t struck me, though it had dawned on me now and then that the Hippocratic Oath and its injunction to “Do no harm” might not have strictly to do with medical procedure. I’d had the impulse to dot one of my more recalcitrant patients over the head with a stick of firewood more than once, but had so far managed to keep the urge in check.
Of course, most people hadn’t the advantage of a doctor’s jaundiced view of humanity. And it was true that women didn’t go in so much for the recreational sorts of mayhem that men enjoyed—I rarely found women beating each other into pulp for fun. Give them a good motive, though, and …
Jamie was walking toward the barn, shouting at intervals, to no apparent effect. I glanced round, but there were no fresh tracks in the dooryard save our own. A scatter of dung balls lay near the half-hewn log, but those had plainly been left days ago; they were moist with dew, but not fresh—most had crumbled to powder.
No one had come, no one had gone, save on foot. The Beardsleys, whoever and however many of them there were, were likely still within.
Lying low, though. It was early, but not so early that farm people would not already be about their chores; I had seen someone earlier, after all. I stepped back and shaded my eyes against the rising sun, looking for any sign of life. I was more than curious about these Beardsleys—and more than slightly apprehensive about the prospects of having one or more male Beardsleys riding with us, given recent events.
I turned back to the door, and noticed an odd series of notches cut into the wood of the jamb. Each one was small, but there were a great many, running the complete length of one doorpost, and halfway down the other. I looked closer; they were arranged in groups of seven, a scant width of unscarred wood between the groups, as a prisoner might count, keeping track of the weeks.
Jamie emerged from the barn, followed by a faint bleating. The goats he’d mentioned, of course; I wondered whether it had been Keziah’s job to milk them—if it was, his absence was going to become rapidly apparent, if it wasn’t already.
Jamie took a few paces toward the house, cupped his hands round his mouth, and shouted again. No answer. He waited a few moments, then shrugged and strode up onto the porch, where he hammered on the door with the hilt of his dirk. It made enough noise to wake the dead, had there been any in the vicinity, and sent the chickens squawking away in a feather-scattering panic, but no one appeared in answer to the thunderous summons.
Jamie glanced back at me, one eyebrow raised. People didn’t normally go off and leave their farms untended, not if they had livestock.
“Someone’s here,” he said, in answer to the unvoiced thought. “The goats are fresh-milked; there are drops still on their teats.”
“Do you think they could all be out searching for … er … you know who?” I murmured, moving closer to him.
“Perhaps.” He moved to the side, bending to peer into a window. It had once been glassed, but most of the panes were cracked or missing, and a sheet of ratty muslin had been tacked over the opening. I saw Jamie frown at it, with the craftsman’s disdain for a shoddy repair.
He turned his head suddenly, then looked at me.
“D’ye hear something, Sassenach?”
“Yes. I thought it was the goats, but …”
The bleat came again—this time unmistakably from the house. Jamie set his hand to the door, but it didn’t budge.
“Bolted,” he said briefly, and moved back to the window, where he reached carefully into the frame and pulled loose a corner of the muslin cloth.
“Phew,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the air that wafted out. I was used to the odors of a winter-sealed cabin, where the scents of sweat, dirty clothes, wet feet, greasy hair, and slop jars mingled with baking bread, stewing meat, and the subtler notes of fungus and mold, but the aroma within the Beardsley residence went well beyond the norm.
“Either they’re keeping the pigs in the house,” I said, with a glance at the barn, “or there are ten people living in there who haven’t come out since last spring.”
“It’s a bit ripe,” Jamie agreed. He put his face into the window, grimacing at the stink, and bellowed, “Thig a mach! Come out, Beardsley, or I’m comin’ in!”
I peered over his shoulder, to see whether this invitation might produce results. The room within was large, but so crowded that scarcely any of the stained wooden floor was visible through the rubble. Sniffing cautiously, I deduced that the barrels I saw contained—among other things—salt fish, tar, apples, beer, and sauerkraut, while bundles of woolen blankets dyed with cochineal and indigo, kegs of black powder, and half-tanned hides reeking of dog turds lent their own peculiar fragrances to the unique mephitis within. Beardsley’s trade goods, I supposed.
The other window had been covered as well, with a tattered wolf hide, so that the interior was dim and shadowy; with all the boxes, bundles, barrels, and bits of furniture lying in heaps, it looked like a poverty-stricken version of Ali Baba’s cave.
The sound came again from the back of the house, somewhat louder; a noise midway between a squeal and a growl. I took a step back, sound and acrid smell together vividly recalling an image of dark fur and sudden violence.
“Bears,” I suggested, half-seriously. “The people are gone and there’s a bear inside.”
“Aye, Goldilocks,” Jamie said, very dryly. “Nay doubt. Bears or not, there’s something wrong. Fetch the pistols and cartridge box from my saddlebag.”
I nodded and turned to go, but before I could step off the porch, a shuffling noise came from inside, and I turned back sharply. Jamie had grasped his dirk, but as he saw whatever was inside, his hand relaxed on the hilt. His eyebrows also rose in surprise, and I leaned over his arm to see.
A woman peered out from between two hillocks of goods, looking round suspiciously, like a rat peering out of a garbage dump. She was not particularly ratlike in appearance, being wavy-haired and quite stout, but she blinked at us in the calculating way of vermin, reckoning the threat.
“Go away,” she said, evidently concluding that we were not the vanguard of an invading army.
“Good morning to ye, ma’am,” Jamie began, “I am James Fraser, of—”
“I don’t care who you are,” she replied. “Go away.”
“Indeed I will not,” he said firmly. “I must speak with the man o’ the house.”
An extraordinary expression crossed her plump face; concern, calculation, and what might have been amusement.
“Must you?” she said. She had a slight lisp; it came out as mutht you? “And who says that you must?”
Jamie’s ears were beginning to redden slightly, but he answered calmly enough.
“The Governor, madam. I am Colonel James Fraser,” he said, with emphasis, “charged with the raising of militia. All able-bodied men between the ages of sixteen and sixty are called to muster. Will ye fetch Mr. Beardsley, please?”
“Mili-ish-ia, is it?” she said, handling the word with care. “Why, who will you be fighting, then?”
“With luck, no one. But the call to muster is sent out; I must answer, and so must all able-bodied men within the Treaty Line.” Jamie’s hand tightened on the crosspiece of the inner frame and rattled it experimentally. It was made of flimsy pine sticks, the wood shrunken and badly weathered; he could plainly rip it out of the wall and step through the opening, if he chose to do so. He met her eyes straight on, and smiled pleasantly.
She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, thinking.
“Able-bodied men,” she said at last. “Hmp. Well, we’ve none of those. The bond lad’s run off again, but even if he were here, he’s not able; deaf as that doorpotht, and quite as dumb.” She nodded toward the door in illustration. “If you care to hunt him down, you’re welcome to keep him, though.”
It didn’t look as though there would be any hue and cry after Keziah, then. I took a deep breath, in a sigh of relief, but let it out again, swiftly.
Jamie wasn’t giving up easily.
“Is Mr. Beardsley in the house?” he asked. “I wish to see him.” He gave an experimental tug on the frame, and the dry wood cracked with a sound like a pistol shot.
“He’s thcarce fit for company,” she said, and the odd note was back in her voice; wary, but at the same time, filled with something like excitement.
“Is he ill?” I asked, leaning over Jamie’s shoulder. “I might be able to help; I’m a doctor.”
She shuffled forward a step or two, and peered at me, frowning under a heavy mass of wavy brown hair. She was younger than I’d thought; seen in better light, the heavy face showed no cobweb of age or slackening of flesh.
“A doctor?”
“My wife’s well-kent as a healer,” Jamie said. “The Indian folk call her White Raven.”
“The conjure woman?” Her eyes flew wide in alarm, and she took a step back.
Something struck me odd about the woman, and looking at her, I realized what it was. Despite the reek in the house, both the woman’s person and her dress were clean, and her hair was soft and fluffy—not at all the norm at this time of year, when people generally didn’t bathe for several months in the cold weather.
“Who are you?” I asked bluntly. “Are you Mrs. Beardsley? Or perhaps Miss Beardsley?”
No more than twenty-five, I thought, in spite of the bulk of her swaddled figure. Her shoulders swelled fatly under her shawl, and the width of her hips brushed the barrels she stood between. Evidently tr
ade with the Cherokee was sufficiently profitable to keep Beardsley’s family in adequate food, if not his bond servants. I eyed her with some dislike, but she met my gaze coolly enough.
“I am Mrs. Beardthley.”
The alarm had faded; she pursed her lips, and pushed them in and out, regarding me with an air of calculation. Jamie flexed his arm, and the window frame cracked loudly.
“Come you in, then.”
The odd tone was still in her voice; half defiance, half eagerness. Jamie caught it and frowned, but released his grip on the frame.
She moved out from between the boxes and turned toward the door. I caught no more than a glimpse of her in motion, but that was enough to see that she was lame; one leg dragged, her shoe scraping on the wooden floor.
There was a bumping and grunting as she fumbled with the bolt; a grating noise, and then a thunk as she dropped it on the floor. The door was warped, stuck in its frame; Jamie put his shoulder to it and it sprang loose and swung in, boards quivering with the shock. How long since it had been opened? I wondered.
A good long time, evidently. I heard Jamie snort and cough as he went in, and did my best to breathe through my mouth as I followed. Even so, the smell was enough to knock a ferret over. Beyond the reek of the goods, there was an outhouse smell from somewhere; stale urine and a ripe fecal stench. Rotting food, too, but something else besides. My nostrils twitched cautiously as I tried to inhale no more than a few molecules of air for analysis.
“How long has Mr. Beardsley been ill?” I asked.
I had picked out a distinct stench of sickness amid the general fetor. Not only the ghost of long-dried vomit, but the sweet smell of purulent discharge and that indefinable musty, yeast-rising odor that seems to be simply the smell of illness itself.
“Oh … thome time.”
The Outlander Series 7-Book Bundle Page 485
