The Fiery Cross

by Diana Gabaldon

  I wondered what he would make of the Cherokee-and they of him and his brother. Peter had told Jamie that the Cherokee regarded tvvins as particularly blessed and lucky; the news that the Beardsleys would be joining the hunt ha delighted Tsatsa',Ai.

  Josiah seemed to be having fun, too-insofar as I could tell, he being a very contained sort of person. As we drew closer to the village, though, I thought that he was becoming slightly nervous.

  I could see that Jamie was a trifle uneasy, too, though in his case, I suspected the reason for it. He didn't mind at all going to help with a hunt, and was pleased to have the opportunity to visit the Cherokee. But I rather thought that having his reputation as the Bear-Killer trumpeted before him, so to speak, was making him uncomfortable.

  This supposition was borne out when we camped on the third night of our journey. We were no more than ten miles from the village, and would easily make it by mid-day next day.

  I could see him making up his mind to something as we rode, and as we all sat down to supper round a roaring fire, 1 saw him suddenly set his shoulders and stand up. He walked up to Peter Bewlie, who sat staring dreamily into the fire, and faced him with decision.

  "There's a wee thing I have to be sayin', Peter. About this ghost-bear we're off to find."

  Peter looked up, startled out of his trance. He smiled, though, and slid over to make room for Jamie to sit down.

  "Oh, aye, Mac Dubb?"

  Jamie did so, and cleared his throat.

  "Well, ye see-the fact is that I dinna actually ken a great deal about bears, as there havena been any in Scotland for quite some years now."

  Peter's eyebrows went up,

  "But they say ye killed a great bear wi' naught but a dirk!" Jamie rubbed his nose with something approaching annoyance.

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  ... so I did, then. But I didna hunt the creature down. It came "Aye, well

  r me, so I hadna got a choice about it, after all. I'm none so sure that I shall of any great help in discovering this ghost-bear. It must be a particularly er bear, no? To have been walking in and out of their village for months, I an, and no one with m0

  "Smarter than the averraegtehabreaarsingle glimpse of it?"

  , I rianna agreed, her mouth twi swallow of beer. row took, which he switched to me as I chokching tly. Jamie gave her a nar ed on stily.

  1, ,what?" he demanded te othing at all."

  ,"Nothing," I gasped. "N i, -aught sight of Josiah in disgust, Jam 'uddenty c

  !,Turning his back on us doing a tittle mouth-twitching of his eardsley, who, while not guffawing, was

  -he jerked -a thumb "Whatr, Jamie barked at him. "They're no but loons-

  at Brianna and me_,,but what,s to do wi' you, eh?"

  r his finger tried to look grave, but Josiah immediately erased the grin from his face and

  the corner of his mouth kept on twitching, and a hot flush was rising in his narfirelight. Jamie narrowed his eyes and a stifled noise "tow cheeks, visible even b, Josiah. He clapped a hand across his

  11hat might have been a giggle escaped

  outh, staring up at Jamie- politely.

  ), -What, then?" Jamie inquired was lip, hunched closer to his ( Keziah, obviously gathering that something a brief, unconscious min, squaring up beside him in support. Josiah made- e. His face was still movement toward Kezzie, but didn't took away from Jami

  red, but he seemed to have got himself under control. ,Well, I suppose I best say, sir." quizzical took. -I suppose ye had-" Jamie gave him a

  Josiah drew a deep breath, resigning himself.

  it was me."

  'Twasn't a bear, always. sometimes began to Then the corners of his mouth

  Jamie stared at him for a moment. twitch.

  "Oh, aye?" Josiah explained. But when his wanderings through the "Not all the time," h of one of the Indian villages-"OnlY if I wilderness brought him within reac d to add-he would lurk cautiously in the was hungry, though sirl'-he hastene-

  eafter dark and absconding with any easilyforest nearby, stealing into the plac ating from the ould remain in the area for a few days, e

  reached edibles. He w rength and his pack were replenished, then move on to village stores until his st des to the cave where he had made a hunt, eventually returning with his hi

  cache. oughout this recital hadn't changed; I wasn't sure Kezzie's expression thr ,t appear surprised. His hand rested how much of it he had heard, but he didn of meat.

  slid off, reaching for a skewer

  on his twin's arm for a moment) then listening to Josiah's conBrianna's laughter had subsided, and she had been

  fession with a furrowed brow. sure you didn't take the baby in its cradle"But you didn't-I mean, I'm . . did you?" board. Arid you didn't kill the woman who was partly eaten .

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  Josiah blinked, though he seemed more baffled than shocked by the q,,,,tion.

  "Oh, no. Why'd I do that? You don't think I ate

  em, do ye?" He smiled at that, an incongruous dimple appearing in one cheek

  - "Mind, I been hungry enough now and then as I might consider it, if I happened on somebody dead

  -providin' it was fairly recent," he added judiciously. "But not hungry enough as I'd kill someone a-purpose."

  Brianna cleared her throat, with something startlingly like

  one of Jarnies Scottish noises.

  "No, I didn't think you ate them,"

  she said dryly. "I just thought that if someone happened to have Hied them-for some other reason-the bear could have come along and gnawed on the bodies,"

  Peter nodded thoughtfully, seeming interested but unf

  azed by the assorted confessions.

  "Aye, a bear'll do that," he said. "They're no picky caters, bears. Carrion is fine by them,"

  Jamie nodded in response, but his attention was still fixed on Josiah,

  "Aye, I've heard that, forbye. But Tsatsa'wi said he did see the bear take his friend-so it does kill People, no?"

  "Well, it killed that one," Josiah agreed. There was an odd tone to his voice, though, and Jamie's look sharpened, He liftd

  , brow at Josiah, who worked his lips slowly in and out, deciding something. He glanced at Kezzie, who smiled at him. Kezzie,

  the right. I saw, had a dimple in his left cheek, while Josiah's -,vas in Josiah sighed and turned back to f

  ace Jamie.

  "I wasn't a-goin' to say about this part," he said frankly. "But you be, straight with us, Sir, and I see it ain't ri _n knOwin' what else might be there." ght I let You go after that bear not

  I felt the hairs rise on the back Of my neck, and resisted the sudden impulse to turn round and look into the shadows behind me. The urge to laugh had left me,

  "What else?" Jamie slowly lowered the chunk of bread he had been about to bite into. "And just. .

  . what else might be there, then?"

  "Well, Was only the once I saw for sure, mind," Josiah warned him. "And Was a moonless night, too. But I'd been out all the night, and n well-accustomed to the starlight-you'll know the way of it, Sir.,, -1y eyes was Jamie nodded, looking bemused.

  "Aye, well enough. And ye were where, at the timep,

  Near the village we were headed toward. Josiah had been there before, and was familiar with the layout of the place. A house at the end of the village was his goal; there were strings of corn hung to dry beneath the eaves, and he thought he could get away with one easily enough, provided he didn't rouse the village dogs.

  "Rouse one, Ye've got 'em all a

  -yowling on your tail," he said, shaking his head. "And it wasn't but a couple of hours before the dawn. So I crept along Slow-like, looking to see was one of the rascals curled up asleep by the house I had my eye on." Lurking in the wood, he had seen a figure come out of the

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  699

  dogs took exception to this, it was a reasonable conclusion that se. As no

  nged to the house. The m
an had paused to make water, and person belo

  shouldered a bow and quiver, and marched directly tI, to Josiah's alarm, had

  d the woods where he lay hidden.

  ie but Ivxent up a tree quick as a bob"I didn't think as he could be after n

  cat, and not makin' no more noise than one neither," he said, not ragging.

  had most likely been a hunter, making an early start for a distant I:The man

  am where raccoon and deer would come to drink at dawn. Not seeing any so near his own village, the man had not displayed any, walking d of caution

  ough the forest quietly, but with no attempt at concealment.

  Josiah had crouched in his tree, no more than a few feet above the man's disappearing at once into the d, holding his breath. The man had gone on, ,

  avy undergrowth, Josiah had been just about to descend from his perch n he had heard a sudden exclamation of surprise, followed by the sounds of brief scuffle that concluded with a sickening thunk!

  "Just like a ripe squash when you chunk it with a rock to break it open," he apured Jamie. "Made- MY arse-hole draw up like a pursc-string, hearin' that hoise, there in the dark."

  Alarm was no bar to curiosity, though, and he had eased through the wood the direction of the sound. He could hear a rustling noise, and as he peered

  1.

  cautiously through a screen of cedar branches, he made out a human form etched upon the ground, and another bending over it, evidently struggling Pull some kind of garment off the prone maWs body.

  "He was dead," Josiah explained, matter-offactly. "I could smell the blood, ind a shit-smell, too. Reckon the little fella caved in his head with a rock or maybe a club."

  "Little fella?" Peter had been following the story with close attention. "How little d'ye mean? Did Ye see his face?"

  Josiah shook his head.

  "No, I saw naught but the shadow of him, movin' about. It was full dark, still; the sky hadn't started to go tight yet." He squinted, making a mental estimate. "Reckon he'd be shorter than me; maybe so high." He held out a hand in illustration, measuring a distance some four -and a half feet from the ground.

  The murderer had been interrupted in his work of plundering the body, though. Josiah, intent on watching, had noticed nothing, until there came a sudden crack from a breaking stick, and the inquiring -whuff of a questing bear.

  "You best believe the little fella run when he heard that," he assured Jamie. "He dashed right past, no further from me than you are now. That was when I got the only good took I had at him."

  "Well, don't keep us in suspense," I said, as he paused to take -a gulp of his beer. "What did he look like?"

  He wiped a line of foam from the sparse whiskers on his upper lip, looking thoughtfal.

  "Well, ma'am, I was pretty near sure he was the devil. Only I did think the devil would be bigger," he added, taking another drink.

  This statement naturally caused some confusion. Upon ffirther elucidation,

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  it appeared that Josiah merely meant that the mysterious "little fella" had been black.

  "Wasn't 'til I went along to that Gathering of yours that it come to e some regular folks just are black, m that " he explained. "I hadn't never seen anybody who was, nor heard tell of it, neither."

  Kezzie nodded soberly at this.

  "Devil in the Book," he said, in his odd, gruff voice.

  "The Book," it seemed, that Aaron Beardsley had taken was an old Bible

  somewhere in trade and never f

  ound a buyer for. Neither of e boys had ever th been taught to read, but they were most entertained by the pictures in the Book, which included several drawings of the devil, depicted as a crouching black creature, going about his sly business of tempting and seduction,

  "I didn't see no forked tail," Josiah said, shaking his head,

  "but then, fie went by so fast,

  stood to reason I might have missed it in the dark and all." Not wanting to draw the attention of such a person to himself, Josiah had stood still, and thus been in a position to hear the bear giving its att

  ention to the unfortunate inhabitant of the village.

  "It's like Mr. Peter says," he said, nodding at Peter Bewlie in acknowledgment. "Bears ain't particular. I never did see this 'un, so I can't say was it the white one or no-but it surely did cat on that Indian. I heard it, chawin' and slobberin'like anything." He seemed untroubled by this recollection, but I saw Brianna's nostrils pinch at the thought.

  Jamie exchanged looks with Peter, then glanced back at Josiah. He rubbed a forefinger slowly down the bridge of his nose, thinking,

  "Well, then," he said at last. "It seems that not all the evil doings in your -in-law's village can be laid at the ghost

  brother -bear's door, aye? What wil Josiah stealin' food, and wee black devils killing f

  .1k. What d'ye ken, Peter? Might a bear take a taste for human flesh, once he'd had it, and then maybe go to hunting humans on his own?"

  Peter nodded slowly, f

  ace creased in concentration,

  "That might be, Mac Dubb," he allowed. "And if there's a wee black bastard hangin' about in the wood-who,s to say how many the bear's killed, and how many the wee black devil's done for, and the bear takin' the blame?"

  "But who is this wee black devil?" Bree asked. The men looked from one to another, and shrugged, more or less in unison.

  "It must be an escaped slave, surely?" I said, liffing my brows at Jamie. "I can't see why a free black in his right mind would off go into the wilderness alone like that."

  "Maybe he isn't in his right mind," Bree suggested. "Slave or free. If he's going around killing people, I mean." She cast an uneasy look at the wood around us, and put a hand on Jemmy, who was curled in a blanket on the ground beside her, sound asleep.

  The men looked automatically to their weapons, and even I reached under my apron to touch the knife 1 wore at my belt for digging and chopping.

  The forest seemed suddenly both sinister and claustrophobic. It was much too easy to imagine lurking eyes in the shadows, ascribe the constant soft rustle of leaves to stealthy footsteps or the brush of passing fur.

  Jamie cleared his throat.

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  701

  4'Your wife's not mentioned black devils, I suppose, Peter?"

  Bewhe shook his head. The concern with which he had greeted Josiah's tale As still stamped upon his grizzled face, but a small touch of amusement med in his eyes.

  '-No- I can't say as she has, Mac Dubb. The only thing I recall in that regard the Black Man o' the West."

  "And who is that?" Josiah asked, interested. tche Peter shrugged and scra

  . Aye well, I shouldna say it'd at his beard. s anyone, so to

  'it , the four speak. Only that the shamriatnhsassaya is a spirit who lives in each o irections, and each spi

  &ere hen they go to singin' their prayers and the like, they'll P, "

  lor to him-so w i0

  be call the Red Man 0' the East to help the person they're singing for, beL.._V

  uccess. North, that's blue dthe Blue e Red is the color of triumph and s

  _feat an

  to give the spirit of the North his right name-that's de trouble. ,An

  ye'd call on bim to come and give your enemy a bit of grief, aye? To the I piness; they sing to him that's the White Man, and he's peace and haP_

  th and the like."

  the women with child, ted to hear this. r

  Jamie looked both startled and interes I"That's verra like the four airts, peter5 is it no?"

  "Well, it is, then," Peter agreed, nodding, "Odd, no) That the Cherokee otions as we Hielanders have?"

  uld get hold of the same n ed to the- dark wood, beyond the small cir:"Oh, not so much." Jamie gestur aye? Hunters, and dwellers in the mounas we do,

  e of our fire. "They live

  s. why should they not see what we have seen?"

  dded slowly, but
Josiah was impatient with this philosophizing. Peter no West, thenP" he demanded. Both Jamie "Well, what's the Black Man o' the

  -Peter was short, squat, antdo lgoeok at him. The two men looked noth-and Peter turned their heads as one nially bearded, Jamie tall and elegant, ing alike thing identical in their ere was some

  even in his hunting ctothes-and yet th

  eyes, that made little mouse-feet run skittering down my spine. "What we have seen," indeed' I thought.

  e home of _ dead,,, Jamie- said softly, and Peter nodded, "The West is th the

  soberly. "Or so say the "And the Black Man o' the West is death himself," he added.

  Cherokee." Josiah was heard to mutter that he didn,t think so very much of that idea, but Brianna thought even less of it. ut in the woods conking "I do not believe that the spirit of the West was o

  people on the head," she declared firmly. ,It was a person Josiah saw. And it was a black person. Ergo, it was either a free black or an escaped slave. And given the odds, I vote for escaped slave." . rocess, but I was inclined to I wasn,t sure it was a matter for democratic P

  agree with her. she said looking round. "What if it's this little "Here's another thought," n peoplO Aren't some Of black man who's responsible for some of the half-eate

  the African slaves cannibals?" t that; so did the Beardsleys5, Kezzie cast an unPeter Bewlie's eyes popped a Josiah.

  easy took over his shoulder and edged closer to

  702 Diana Gabaldon

  Jamie appeared amused at this suggestion, though.

  rica," he "Well, I suppose ye might get the odd cannibal here and there in Af

  agreed. "Though I canna. say I've heard of one amongst the slaves. I shouldna