Elaine Coffman - [MacKinnon 04] (33 page)

She stepped quickly around the man standing directly in
front of her and began pushing her way through the crowd, her hands shoving
angrily at the broad backs that stood between her and her husband. “Get out of
my way,” she said. “Let me through.”

Her blood pounding like a fist against her temples, she
could see nothing but backs and heads, and then she stepped out of the crowd
into a clearing. Adrian turned toward her. His face was no longer pale. Now it
was dark and furious. For a moment she felt as if she were the condemned man,
stepping out alone against a crowd, faced only with her courage, which seemed
to be more cowardly than she. An ice-cold chill passed over her, and she
suddenly felt alone as if she were standing in the dark.

Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light
excelleth darkness. The wise man’s eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh
in darkness.

Were these words from Ecclesiastes for her? She stared
stupidly at Adrian for a moment, wondering what she had done. She swallowed
hard and forced herself flat up against the wall of determination. She had come
this far. She could not back down now. She started to speak. The look on
Adrian’s face stopped her.

Maggie had seen many faces on this man she had married—cynical,
hard, aloof, accusing—but today his look was one she had never seen before. It
was a look that pierced her; a look that was both determined and painful, a
look that, while not pleading, begged.
Humbled
was the first thing that
passed through her mind. The thought that this proud, self-made man would beg,
even if it was only with his eyes, was silencing.

“Go back to the house, Maggie. This doesn’t concern you,” he
said. His voice was no longer angry, or even explosive.

Maggie’s face, which had lost all its color, was suddenly
suffused with red. His gentleness made her feel more the fool than his fury
ever could.

“What in the name of all that’s holy is wrong with you?” she
asked angrily. “How can you tell me this isn’t my concern? Someone is being mistreated.”

Turning to glare at the men standing around them, she said,
“How can you call yourselves men? You disgust me!” Turning her anger back to
Adrian, she continued, “You can’t lock this man up like an animal and tie him
to a bed. It’s inhuman.”

Adrian swiftly crossed the few feet that separated them,
taking Maggie by the arm, and walking her back toward Big John. His voice was
low, ominous, and throbbing with anger. “I said this is none of your concern.”

She was so astonished that her mouth gaped open.

“None of my concern? How holy you sound. Never mind that I’m
your wife! Go ahead! Bruise my arm! Push me about! I’m only something you want
to rid yourself of—any way that you can!”

As if they had some magical power, her words seemed to drain
his face of color, turning it fish-belly white. “And I will rid myself of you,”
he roared, taking both of her arms in his hands. His fingers gouging into her
flesh, he shook her hard. “Whether you want to go or not!” He shoved her toward
Big John, who caught her as she fell against him.

“Get her out of here,” Adrian said.

Maggie twisted and pulled away. “Aye…get me out of here!
Send me away! That’s the easy way to deal with everything! I’m not Katherine,
so get rid of me!” she said, deliberately trying to hurt him.

“Is that what you think?” he said.

“It’s what I know. Since the day I came here, you haven’t
been able to forgive me for not being Katherine.”

“You’re wrong. I don’t expect you to be Katherine any more
than you expect me to be Bruce. But unlike you, I don’t expect you to care for
me simply because I’ve willed it.”

“Willed it? You think that’s what I’ve done? That I’ve
simply willed it?”

“I do. You came over here determined to make this marriage
work, regardless of how I felt. You didn’t just want to be married, to give me
children—which is what you knew I wanted from the first. You wanted it
all—love, devotion, commitment—and when I didn’t give it to you, you set out to
make me pay. I may not have loved you, Maggie, but at least I’ve been fair—and
I’ve been honest. Which is more than I can say for you.”

“Och! Aye, you’ve been honest!” she shouted. “You kept her
portrait up, and you didna care if I ken all about her. At least I was kinder.
I didna tell you about Bruce and the children and try to rub your nose in it.”

“No, you kept it all to yourself. That part of your life was
too precious, too beloved, to share, wasn’t it?”

Maggie was chilled by his words. While keeping it from him
had not been her intention, still, she had not made any effort afterward—after
he found out—to ease his fears.

She was panting now from exertion and anger, and in spite of
her new awareness, she was unable to back down. Bruce and Katherine belonged in
another war, one that still had to be fought. Later.

This battle belonged in this war. “If you want to tie up
someone,” she said, “tie me.”

Adrian stood stock-still, looking down at her for a moment,
wearing an expression she had never seen before—a combination of disbelief,
anger, embarrassment, and uncertainty. At last he gave her a dismissing look
and said, “Go home, where you belong. I’ll handle this.”

“I won’t let you do this, Adrian.”

For a moment she thought he might strike her. Then, grabbing
her arm and looking over her head, he said roughly, “John, get her away from
here…and keep her away… I don’t care if you have to gag her.”

When John reached for her, Adrian shoved Maggie forward to
meet him. Without another word, Adrian turned away, going back to where the two
men stood, still holding the third, who by now had fought himself into a state
of exhaustion.

“What are you waiting for?” Adrian said to them. “I told you
to lock him up, didn’t I?”

“Come on, Mrs. Mackinnon. You shouldn’t be here,” Big John
said, holding her by the arm.

“He was right,” Maggie screamed over her shoulder at Adrian
as John led her away. “I ken you are a cold, unfeeling bastard.”

The expression on Adrian’s face struck terror in her heart.
It wasn’t a look of anger, but of abject pain. He watched her, then his gaze
flicked over to Big John before he turned away.

“You shouldn’t speak to him in front of his men like that,”
Big John said grimly, taking her to the buggy and helping her into it. Maggie
stopped midway, turning back to glance down at him. She was unable to ever
remember Big John looking at her as he did now, with contempt and hostility.

“Surely to God you dinna agree with what he’s doing? You
canna think that kind of treatment is right—no matter what that poor fool has
done.”

Big John didn’t answer. He simply snorted, putting his big
hands on her fanny and shoving her upward, into the seat of the buggy.

“Hout!” Maggie said as she fell forward, catching herself
with her hands. She didn’t hurt herself, but the impact sent her hat shooting
over her face.

Coming to a sitting position, she righted her hat and straightened
her skirts. She was trying to subdue a hopelessly broken feather that
persistently flopped in her face. At last she broke the feather and tossed it
to the ground, then turned to Big John. “I dinna understand why you are acting
like this to me when it’s Adrian you should be concerned with. Didn’t you see
what he was doing?”

Walking to the hitching post, Big John untied the lead. Only
when he climbed into the seat next to her did he speak. “I saw, but that isn’t
what I’d be concerned with, if I were you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It ain’t so much as what he’s done, as it is what he’s
liable to do. I’d be a mite worried about that, missy, if I were in your shoes
right now.” They had pulled out of camp by this time and were headed up the
road that ran up the hill to the big house. It was usually at this point that
Maggie felt sorry for the horse, straining to pull the buggy up such an
incline, but today she had her mind on what Big John was saying.

“Adrian may seem cold and cruel to you, but he was acting in
the best interest of every man in this camp. It takes a man of strong
conviction to do what he did this morning. The men know that. That’s why none
of them intervened. It’s too bad you couldn’t trust him a little more.”

“Trust him?” She snorted. “Trust is the virtue of an ass.
I’d sooner trust the gentleness of a wolf, the soundness of a horse, or the
oath of a whore.”

Big John gave her a look that made her feel three inches
high. “Trust,” he repeated, “such a big notion for such a little word. Still, I
wouldn’t think that would be so hard. Considering.”

“Considering what?”

“You’re his wife, aren’t you?”

“Aye,” she said slowly, remembering it was with wits as with
razors—they were never so apt to cut those who used them as when they had lost
their edge.

She remembered Adrian’s words this morning.
Trust me in
this, Maggie.

Adrian’s words echoed in her mind, but she was too furious
to listen. “Trust him?” she scoffed. “You make it sound so easy, but I know how
Adrian’s mind works. I’d sooner trust a rabbit to deliver a head of lettuce.”
With a look of contempt, she said, “If you had an ounce of decency in you, you
wouldn’t let something like this happen. I’m disappointed in you. I didna know
you could be as cruel as he is.”

Big John was clearly angrier than she had ever seen
him—furious even. She felt her own anger rise against him. “If you were any
kind of a man, you would have stopped it.”

“I was never one to listen to an egg trying to teach a
chicken,” he said. “And since you’re so fond of advice, you’d best be
remembering some I gave you a while ago. You’d be smart to stop worrying about
what don’t concern you, missy, and worry a little about what Adrian is liable
to do to you.”

Maggie felt a knot form in her throat. “What do you mean,
what he’s liable to do?”

“You’ll find out soon enough, although I’d be highly in
favor of his tanning your bare arse, like he would any snotty-nosed youngun
bent on rebellion.”

“Rebellion!” she sputtered. “I’m not the one in the wrong
here. He is!” Even to her, those words had a false ring that left the taste of
tin in her mouth.

“I always thought you to be a sensible lass,” Big John said,
“but when you get all riled, your head swells up and your brain stops working.”

“Och! My brain? What about his?” she shouted in a roar of outrage.
“Why must you overlook what he’s done in order to castigate me?”

“Because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you
think that’s all he’s got to do—run around trying to decide who he’s going to
be cruel to next? Did it ever occur to you that he might have to do something
cruel to one man in order to save the lives of the rest?”

Her mind went blank. Her mouth fell open.

She bit her lip, thinking. “‘
To
save lives’? Of the
rest of the men?”

“That’s what I said, missy,” Big John said.

Maggie sighed and closed her eyes, pinching the tension that
seemed to gather at the bridge of her nose. When she opened her eyes, she said
simply, “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

“And your good sense along with it.”

She was silent for a moment. “Tell me what you meant,” she
said at last, “about saving the lives of the rest.”

“A mad wolf was spotted in the higher elevations—up where
the men were felling trees a few weeks ago. One of the lumberjacks shot it, and
before anyone could caution him, Baxter drew his knife and went running to
where the wolf had dropped. He wanted the pelt. The wolf wasn’t dead yet. It
bit him.”

“That was the man,” she said softly, “the one Adrian ordered
locked up.”

Big John nodded. “He has to be locked up until we know if
he’s going to go as mad as that wolf.”

“Hydrophobia,” she said slowly. “You mean the wolf was
rabid?”

“Yes, as mad as they come. Adrian let the man go as long as
he could. We thought Baxter might be lucky enough to escape having hydrophobia,
but this morning he woke up complaining of a headache and numbness in his arm
where the wolf bit him. There was nothing else Adrian could do. He had to be
locked up.”

“But why tie him to the bed?”

“Convulsions.” Big John turned his head to look at her. She
had never noticed how blue his eyes were. “Have you ever seen a man go mad,
Maggie?”

“No,” she whispered, unable to think of anything at this
point except the look on Adrian’s face when she called him a cold, unfeeling
bastard. It wasn’t so much the way he looked at her, but the regret she saw in
his eyes when he looked at Big John. She had humiliated him in front of his
men. He would never forgive her for that.

Never.

“A man in convulsions…well, it ain’t a pretty sight. After
the numbness sets in, the throat begins to lock up, and they become terrified
of water. Convulsions usually follow, and by that time they’re out of their
head and dangerous. Quarantine is the only way to keep a man with hydrophobia
from attacking and giving it to the others.”

“How long will it take for him to die?”

“Four or five days.”

Maggie’s stomach lurched. She felt nausea rise in her
throat. She turned her head away.

When they reached the house and Big John helped her down,
Maggie looked at him, placing her hand on his arm. “You’re his friend,” she
said softly. “What should I do?”

For a big man, Big John looked rather helpless. “I don’t
know,” he said. “I honest to God don’t know. But I can tell you this much; I
wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”

“Aye,” Maggie said, turning away slowly. “I ken I dinna want
to be in them either. They’re feeling a mite too big right now.”

She stood in the doorway and watched Big John drive away.

A sadder and wiser man, he rose the morrow morn.