Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (44 page)

Jenny had just finished her prayer. She put out a hand and rested it very gently for a moment on Amy’s white-capped head.
“Biodh sith na Màthair Beannaichte agus a mac Iosa ort, a nighean.”
she said quietly. May the peace of the Blessed Mother and of her son, Jesus, be on you, daughter.

Rachel looked at Amy’s body and swallowed, but didn’t flinch or look away.

“Germain said it was a bear,” she said, and I saw her eyes slide toward the pitiful pile of tattered, bloodstained garments. “Was thee…present, Claire?”

“No. Brianna was with her when it happened, picking grapes. Some of the children were there, too. Jemmy, Germain, and Aidan. The little boys. And Mandy.”

“Dear God. Did they
see
it?” Rachel asked, shocked.

I shook my head.

“They were up above, playing. Bree and Amy were picking muscats in that little gorge beyond the creek. She—Brianna—got the children away and then ran for Jamie. She—Amy—was just barely alive when I got to her.” My throat tightened, seeing the small pale hand, limp in Roger’s, the twitch at the corner of her mouth as she’d tried to bid her children farewell. Despite my determination, a small hot tear slid down my cheek.

Rachel made a small sound of distress and smoothed my hair away from my cheek. Jenny cleared her throat, reached into her pocket, and handed me a clean handkerchief.

“Well, the front door was open when we came in,” Jenny said, ticking off a mental checklist. She glanced at the huge, glassless surgery window, open to the day. “And ye’ll not need to open the windows.”

This tinge of dry humor, small though it was, relieved the tension and I felt a small
crack
between my shoulder blades as my spine relaxed, for what seemed the first time in days, not hours.

“No,” I said. I blotted the tears and sniffed. “What else—mirrors? There’s only the hand glass in my bedroom and it’s already lying facedown.”

“No birds in the house? I see ye’ve got salt…” A few grains had spilled on the counter when Elspeth had thrown salt into the water. “…and bread willna be a worry.” She cocked a still-black eyebrow in the direction of the kitchen. I could hear the voices of women as they greeted new arrivals, unpacked baskets, made things ready. I wondered if I should go and organize things, tell them where to place the coffin…Ought it to be in the front room, or in the much bigger kitchen? Oh, God, a coffin; I hadn’t even thought of that.

“Och,” said Jenny, in a different voice. “Here’s Bobby a-coming up the hill wi’ Roger Mac.” As one, we all glanced at Amy’s body, then looked at one another, questioning. We had made her as seemly as we could, but could we leave Bobby alone with her? That didn’t seem right, but neither did a crowd of women, likely to set each other off if one burst into tears—

“I’ll stay with him,” Rachel said, swallowing. Jenny glanced at me, eyebrow raised, then nodded. Rachel had a gift for stillness.

“I’ll mind our wee man,” Jenny said, and, kissing Rachel affectionately on the forehead, went out. Elspeth Cunningham had already vanished, presumably to help the women now murmuring in the kitchen, busy but subdued, the sound of them like termites working in the walls of the house.

I waited with Rachel to receive Bobby, mentally compiling a list. There was a full cask of whisky and a half-empty one in the pantry, but no beer. Caitlin Breuer might bring some; I should send Jem and Germain up to ask…And perhaps Roger would go speak to Tom MacLeod about the coffin.

Footsteps in the hall, and the sound of choked breathing. Bobby appeared in the doorway, but to my surprise, it was Brianna, not Roger, supporting him. She looked nearly as destroyed as Bobby did, but had her arm firmly round his shoulders. She was four inches taller than he was, and despite her obvious distress stood solid as a rock.

“Amy,” he said, seeing the white shroud, and her name was no more than an anguished breath. “Oh, my God…Amy…” He looked at me, in red-eyed appeal and silent despair. How could I have let her die?

Nothing could have saved her and we both knew it, but I felt the sting of helplessness and guilt, nonetheless.

Bobby began to cry, in the awful, wrenching way that men do. Brianna had been pale and blotchy with grief and shock; now she flushed, her own eyes welling.

Rachel moved near my shoulder, and next thing I knew, she’d taken Bobby from Bree as easily as she might have accepted a fresh egg in her hand, careful of him, but calm.

“Let us sit with thy wife for a bit,” she said softly, and guided him to a stool. She cast a quick look over her shoulder at Brianna, and nodded to me before sitting down beside Bobby.

I walked Bree out of the surgery and straight out of the house, thinking that she wouldn’t want the other women to see her so distraught. I must give her something for the shock, I thought, but before I could suggest anything, she’d turned and gripped me by the elbow, wet eyes blazing through her tears.

“Da’s gone,” she said. “And he’s taken Roger and Jem and Aidan
with
him! To hunt that bloody bear!”

“Oh, aye,” Jenny said behind me, before I could speak. She laid a hand on Brianna’s arm and squeezed. “Dinna fash, lass. Jamie’s a hard man to kill, and Ian’s painted his face. And I said the blessing for them both—the one for a warrior goin’ out. They’ll be fine.”

ROGER CAUGHT UP
with Jamie and the two boys—he was glad to see that they’d met Germain along the way—just short of the opening to the small gorge where the grapevines grew in abundance. They’d heard him crashing along and had paused to wait for him.

He stopped, breathing heavily, and nodded toward the rocky wall where the vines rippled and quivered in the light breeze. “This is where it happened?” The smell of ripe muscats was strong and sweet above the rough, bitter smell of the leaves, and his stomach growled in response; he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Jamie reached into his sporran and handed him half a crumbling bannock, without comment.

“Farther on, Dad,” Jemmy said. “We were over there, up on top of the cliff. Mam and Mrs. Higgins were down below—see where that big shadow is, that’s where—” He broke off abruptly, stared, then shrieked. “The bear! The bear! There it is!”

Roger dropped the bannock and his staff and seized Jemmy by one arm and Aidan by the collar, dragging them back. Jamie and Ian didn’t move. They looked down the length of the gorge, looked at each other, then shook their heads.

“Dinna fash,
a bhalaich,
” Jamie said to Aidan, kindly. “It’s no the bear.”

“Ye’re…sure of that, are ye?” Roger felt as though the breath had been knocked out of him. He could see what Jemmy’d seen: a small growth of hemlocks on the left rim of the gorge cast deep shadow over the vines on the right, and something was moving in that shadow.

“Foxes,” Ian said, with a one-shouldered shrug. “Come to—ah—” He broke off, noticing Aidan, who was breathing like a steam engine.

“Sanguinem culum lingere,”
Jamie said tersely. “Bluebell! Come to me,
a nighean.
”

All the dogs were interested in the foxes, tugging at their leashes and whining, but not barking.

To lick the blood.
Roger’s mind made the Latin translation and rapidly readjusted itself to events, presenting him with a stomach-dropping sense of what had happened here, only a few hours ago.

Jamie was talking to Ian and Gillebride in Gaelic now, gesturing along the ridge. Jem and Aidan clustered close to Roger, silent and big-eyed. The breeze had changed direction, and he heard the squealing and barks of the foxes.

“Did you see what happened to Mrs. Higgins?” Roger asked Jem, low-voiced.

Jem shook his head. “Mandy did,” he said. “Mam came up the grapevines and got us. Like Tarzan,” he added.

“Like what?” Ian had picked that up and turned to look down at Jem, puzzled. Roger made a dismissive gesture, and Ian turned back to the discussion. This lasted no more than a few moments, and they set off along the edge of the gorge, the dogs sniffing eagerly to and fro.

“GO,” HER MOTHER HAD
said firmly. “You need to move, and someone needs to go and tell Tom MacLeod that we'll be needing a coffin. As soon as possible.” Her mother cast a quick, haunted glance back into the house. “If we can have it by tonight, for the wake…”

“So soon?” Brianna had thought she was numbed by the shocks of the day, but this was a fresh one. “She's—she—it was only a few hours ago!”

Her mother sighed, nodding.

“I know. But it's still warm out.”

“Flies,” Mrs. Cunningham added baldly. She had come to the door, presumably looking for Claire. She nodded bleakly at Brianna. “I've been to wakes in hot weather where there were maggots dropping from the shroud and wriggling across the floor. At least if there's a coffin, they—”

“We'll put her body in the springhouse for now,” her mother said hastily, with a reproachful look at Elspeth Cunningham. “It will be all right. Go, darling.”

She went.

TOM MACLEOD BOASTED
that he was the only coffin maker between the Cherokee Line and Salem. Whether this was true, Brianna didn't know, but as he told her, he did usually have at least one coffin a-building, in case of sudden need.

“This one's near finished,” he said, leading Brianna into an open-sided shed smelling of the fresh wood shavings that covered the floor. “Higgins, you say…not sure I know which lady that might be. How big would you say…?”

Brianna mutely held a hand at the level of her chest, and Mr. MacLeod nodded. He was old, leathery, and mostly bald, with a half-sprouted gray beard and shoulders stooped by constant bending over his work, but he exuded a sense of calm competence.

“This'll do, then. Now, as to when…” He squinted at the half-finished coffin, balanced on wooden sawhorses. Pine planks in different stages of preparation leaned against the walls. She could hear the rustle of what were probably mice in the shadows, and found it oddly soothing, almost domestic.

“I could help you,” she blurted, and he looked up at her, startled.

“I'm a good builder,” she said. There were tools hanging on one wall, and she stepped across and took down a plane, holding it with the confidence of one who knows what to do with it. He saw that, and blinked slowly, considering. Then his eyes passed slowly up her body, taking in her height—and her bloodstained clothes.

“You're Himself's lass, are ye not?” he said, and nodded, as though to himself. “Aye, well…if ye can drive a nail straight, fine. Otherwise, ye can sand wood.”

ROGER SAID A
silent prayer as they passed through the gorge. One for the soul of Amy Higgins, and on its heels another for the safety of the hunting party. The boys walked soberly, keeping near him as they'd been told to, glancing to and fro as though expecting the bear to leap out of the grapevines.

Perhaps a half hour later, the walls of the gorge spread apart and flattened into forest, and they walked into the shadow of tall pines and poplars, the dogs shuffling shoulder-deep in the fallen leaves and dry needles, forging the way. Ian was in the lead; he stopped at the bottom of a steep slope and nodded to the other men, pointing upward.

“Is the bear up there?” Aidan whispered to Roger.

“I don't know.” Roger took a firmer grip on his staff. He had a knife on his belt, but it wouldn't begin to penetrate the hide and fat of a bear.

“The dogs do,” Germain observed.

They did. One of the bear hounds threw up his head and made a deep, eager
arrooo, arrooo
sound, and lunged forward. Gillebride loosed him at once and he shot up the slope into the trees, followed by Bluebell and the other hound, the three of them swift as water, calling as they went.

And they were all running then, the dogs and the men after them, as fast as they could through the crunching leaves. Roger's chest began to burn and he could hear the boys gulping air and panting, but they kept up.

All the dogs had the scent and were baying with excitement, long tails waving stiff behind them.

Ian and Jamie were swarming up the slope, long-legged, hurdling fallen logs and dodging trees. Gillebride was laboring alongside Roger, now and then finding enough breath to shout encouragement to the dogs.

“Sin e! An sin e!”

Roger didn't know which man had shouted; Jamie and Ian were well out of sight, but the Gaelic words rang faintly through the trees.
There! There it is!

Aidan made a high choking noise, put his head down, and began to run as though his life depended on it, plowing his way up the slope. Roger grabbed Jemmy's hand and followed with Germain, jabbing his staff hard into the ground to help them along.

They crested the slope, lost their balance, and slid and tumbled down into a small dell, where the dogs were leaping like flames around a tall tree, yammering and howling at a large—a very large—dark shape thirty feet off the ground, wedged in the crotch between two trunks.

Roger scrambled to his feet, shedding dry leaves and looking for the boys. Aidan was nearby; he'd got halfway up and was frozen on his hands and knees, looking up. His mouth moved, but he wasn't talking. Roger looked round wildly for Jemmy.

“Jem! Where are you?”

“Right here, Da,” Jem said from behind him, through the noise of the dogs. “Is Aidan okay?”

He felt a thump of relief at sight of Jem's red head; his plait had come undone and his hair was full of pine needles. There was a scrape on his cheek, but he clearly wasn't hurt. Roger patted him briefly and turned to Aidan, crouching down beside the boy.

“Aidan? Are ye all right?”

“Aye.” He seemed dazed, and no wonder. He'd not taken his eyes off the bear. “Will it come down and eat us?”

Roger gave the bear in the tree a wary look. It bloody well might, for all he knew.

“Himself and the others ken what to do,” he assured Aidan, rubbing the boy's small, bony back in reassurance. He hoped he was right.

“If it comes for ye, hit it across the snout as hard as ye can,”
Jamie had told him.
“If it makes to bite, drive your stick down his throat…”

He'd lost his staff, tumbling down. Where—there. He scrambled down the slope, keeping an eye on the bear, a solid black blob against the blue sky. It didn't seem disposed to move, but he felt much better with the stick in his hand.

The hunters had gathered together a little way off and were regarding the bear, narrow-eyed. The dogs were ecstatic, leaping, clawing the tree, barking and yelping and plainly willing to keep doing it for as long as it took.

“Come on.” Roger gathered the boys and led them up the slope, behind Jamie and the others. Now that he'd got them safely in hand, he had a moment to actually look at the bear. It was moving its head restively from side to side, peering down at the dogs and clearly thinking,
What the hell…?
He was surprised to feel a sense of sympathy for the treed animal. Then he remembered Amy and sympathy died.

“…canna get a decent shot,” Jamie was saying, sighting along his rifle. He lowered it and glanced at Ian. “Can ye move him for me?”

“Oh, aye.” Ian unslung his bow, unhurried, and with no fuss at all, nocked an arrow and shot it straight into the bear's backside. The bear squealed with rage and backed rapidly halfway down the trunk, gave the dogs a quick glance, and then with an amazing grace jumped to another tree ten feet away, grabbing the trunk.

The men all shouted and the dogs instantly swarmed the new tree, just as the bear started down. The bear, the arrow sticking absurdly out behind it, went back up, looked to and fro for a better idea, and not finding one, jumped back to its original tree. Jamie shot it, and it thumped to the ground like a huge sack of flour.

“Crap,” said Jemmy, awed. Germain grabbed his hand. Aidan gave a howl of rage and lunged toward the fallen bear. Roger lunged, too, and grabbed Aidan's collar, but the worn shirt ripped and Aidan ran, leaving a handful of cloth in Roger's grasp.

“Fucking stay there!” Roger shouted at Jem, who was staring openmouthed, and went after Aidan, crashing through fallen branches and twisting his ankles and scraping his shins on stumps and deadfalls.

The other men were all shouting and running, too. But Aidan had got the knife from his belt and was roaring in a high treble as he stumbled the last few feet toward the bear. The dogs had already reached it and were snapping and tearing at the carcass—if it was a carcass.

Gillebride was belting down the slope, spear in both hands and bellowing at the dogs. The bear rose suddenly, swaying, and swatted Bluebell away. She crashed against a tree with a yelp and fell and Aidan stabbed his little knife into the bear's side, screaming and screaming, and then Roger had him, grabbed him round the middle and flung himself away with Aidan beneath him and heard behind him the
thunk!
of the spear and a long, long sigh from the bear. Leaves flew up as the bear hit the ground. They touched Roger's face and one of the dogs galloped across him, its nails digging into his back as it launched itself at the dead bear.

“Dad! Dad! Are you okay?” Jemmy was pulling at him, yelling. He dimly heard Gillebride and Ian beating the dogs away from the carcass and felt a big, hard hand under his elbow, pulling him upright, and the forest spun.

“The dog's all right,” Jamie was saying, and Roger wondered whether he must have asked without realizing it, or whether Jamie was just making conversation. “She's maybe cracked a rib, nay more. The wee lad's fine, too,” he added. “Here.” He took a small flask from his sporran and wrapped Roger's hands around it.

“Daddy?” Jem was kneeling by him, anxious. Roger smiled at him, though his face felt like melted rubber, unable to hold its shape for more than a few seconds.

“It's all right,
a bhalaich
.”

The strong smell of the bear mingled with the scent of whisky and dead leaves. He could hear Aidan sobbing and looked for him. Ian had him, an arm round the boy, cuddled against his side as they sat in the yellow leaves against a fallen log. He saw that Ian had thumbed some of the white paint mixed with bear fat from his own face and streaked it across Aidan's forehead.

Jamie and Gillebride were by the bear, examining it, Germain peeking cautiously from behind his grandfather. With a great effort, Roger got to his feet and held out a hand to Jem.

“Come on.”

It was a beautiful thing, in spite of the wounds. The softness of its muzzle, the colors of the body, and the perfect vivid curves of claws, pads, huge rounded back, brought him close to tears.

Jamie knelt by the bear's head and lifted it, the heavy skull moving easily as he turned it and thumbed the lip away from the big teeth, fingers moving along the jaw. He grimaced and, reaching gingerly into the bear's maw, drew out a tiny scrap from between the back teeth—something that looked like a fragment of some plant, something dark green. He spread out his palm and touched the thing, spreading it open, and Roger saw that it was a scrap of dark-green homespun, tinged black at one edge. The wet black seeped out onto Jamie's palm, and Roger could see that it was blood.