The Fiery Cross (165 page)

“Bonnet. I must tell ye what I’ve put in train.”

“Aye?” For the first time, Roger felt something other than simple worry for Fraser’s welfare.

“There is a man named Lyon—Duncan Innes will ken best how to find him. He works on the coast, buying from the smugglers who run the Outer Banks. He sought me out at the wedding, to see would I deal with him, over the whisky.”

The plan in outline was simple enough; Jamie meant to send word—by what route, Roger had no notion—to this Lyon, indicating that he was willing to enter into business, provided that Lyon would bring Stephen Bonnet to a meeting, to prove that he had a man of the necessary reputation and skill to manage the transport up and down the coast.

“Necessary reputation,” Roger echoed under his breath. “Aye, he’s got that.”

Fraser made a sound that might have been a laugh.

“He’ll not agree that easily—he’ll bargain and set terms—but he’ll agree. Tell him ye’ve got enough whisky to make it worth his while—give him a barrel of the two-year-old to try, if ye must. When he sees what folk will pay for it, he’ll be eager enough. The place—” He stopped, frowning, and breathed for a moment before going on.

“I’d thought to make it Wylie’s Landing—but if it’s you, ye should choose a place to your liking. Take the Lindsays with ye to guard your back, if they’ll go. If not, find someone else; dinna go alone. And go ready to kill him at the first shot.”

Roger nodded, swallowing heavily. Jamie’s eyelids were swollen, but he looked up under them, his eyes glinting sharp in the firelight.

“Dinna let him get close enough to take ye with a sword,” he said. “Ye’ve done well—but ye’re not good enough to meet a man like Bonnet.”

“And you are?” Roger couldn’t stop himself from saying. He thought Fraser was smiling, but it was difficult to tell.

“Oh, aye,” he said softly. “If I live.” He coughed then, and lifted a hand, dismissing Bonnet for the moment.

“For the rest . . . watch Sinclair. He’s a man to be used—he kens everything that passes in the district—but no a man to turn your back on, ever.”

He paused, brow furrowed in thought.

“Ye can trust Duncan Innes and Farquard Campbell,” he said. “And Fergus—Fergus will help ye, if he can. For the rest—” He shifted again and winced. “Go wary of Obadiah Henderson; he’ll try ye. A-many of them will, and ye let them—but dinna let Henderson. Take him at the first chance—ye willna get another.”

Slowly, with frequent pauses to rest, he went down the list of the names of the men on the Ridge, the inhabitants of Cross Creek, the prominent men of the Cape Fear valley. Characters, leanings, secrets, obligations.

Roger fought down panic, struggling to listen carefully, commit it all to memory, wanting to reassure Fraser, tell him to stop, to rest, that none of this was necessary—at the same time knowing it was more than necessary. There was war coming; it didn’t take a time traveler to know it. If the welfare of the Ridge—of Brianna and Jemmy, of Claire—were to be left in Roger’s inexperienced hands, he must take heed of every scrap of information that Fraser could give him.

Fraser’s voice trailed off in hoarseness. Had he lost consciousness? The shoulder under Roger’s hand was slack, inert. He sat quietly, not daring to move.

It wouldn’t be enough, he thought, and a dull fear settled in the pit of his stomach, an aching dread that underlay the sharper pangs of grief. He couldn’t do it. Christ, he couldn’t even shoot a thing the size of a house! And now he was meant to step into Jamie Fraser’s shoes? Keep order with fists and brain, feed a family with gun and knife, tread the tightrope of politics over a lighted powderkeg, tenants and family all balanced on his shoulders? Replace the man they called Himself? Not fucking likely, he thought bleakly.

Fraser’s hand twitched suddenly. The fingers were swollen like sausages, the skin stretched red and shiny. Roger laid his free hand over it, and felt the fingers move, trying to curl around his own.

“Tell Brianna I’m glad of her,” Fraser whispered. “Give my sword to the bairn.”

Roger nodded, unable to speak. Then, realizing that Fraser couldn’t see him, cleared his throat.

“Aye,” he said gruffly. “I’ll tell her.” He waited, but Fraser said no more. The fire had burned very low, but the hand in his burned hot as embers. A gust of wind knifed past, whipping strands of his hair against his cheek, sending up a spray of sudden sparks from the fire.

He waited as long as he thought he dared, the cold night creeping past in lonely minutes. Then leaned close, so Fraser could hear him.

“Claire?” he asked quietly. “Is there anything ye’d have me tell her?”

He thought he’d waited too long; Fraser lay motionless for several minutes. Then the big hand stirred, half-closing swollen fingers; the ghost of a motion, grasping after time that slipped away.

“Tell her . . . I meant it.”

I
’VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING like that in my entire life.” I leaned closer, peering. “That is absolutely
bizarre
.”
“And you a healer half your life,” Jamie muttered crossly. “Ye canna tell me they’ve no got snakes in your time.”

“They haven’t got many in downtown Boston. Besides, they wouldn’t call out a surgeon to deal with a case of snakebite. Closest I came was when a keeper at the zoo was bitten by a king cobra—a friend of mine did the autopsy, and invited me to come and watch.”

I refrained from saying that Jamie looked a lot worse at present than the subject of the autopsy had.

I set a hand gingerly on his ankle. The skin was puffy, hot and dry under my hand. It was also red. Bright red. The brilliant color extended from his feet up nearly to his rib cage; he looked as though he’d been dipped in boiling water.

His face, ears, and neck were also flushed the color of a plum tomato; only the pale skin of his chest had escaped, and even that was dotted with pinpricks of red. Beyond the lobsterlike coloration, the skin was peeling from his feet and hands, hanging in wispy shreds like Spanish moss.

I peered closely at his hip. Here, I could see that the redness was caused by a denser version of the rash on his chest; the stipple of tiny dots showed up clearly on the stretched skin over the ilial crest.

“You look like you’ve been roasted over a slow fire,” I said, rubbing a finger over the rash in fascination. “I’ve never seen anything so red in my life.” Not raised; I couldn’t feel the individual spots, though I could see them at close range. Not a rash as such; I thought it must be petechiae, pinpoint hemorrhages under the skin. But so many of them . . .

“I shouldna say ye’ve much room to criticize, Sassenach,” he said. Too weak to nod, he cut his eyes at my fingers—stained with huge blotches of yellow and blue.

“Oh,
damn
!” I leaped to my feet, threw the quilts hastily on top of him, and ran for the door. Distracted by Jamie’s dramatic arrival, I had left a vat full of dyeing to mind itself in the side yard—and the water had been low. Christ, if it boiled dry and burned the clothes . . .

The hot reek of urine and indigo hit me in the face as I shot out the door. In spite of that, I drew a deep breath of relief, as I saw Marsali, red in the face with the effort of levering a dripping mass from the pot with the big wooden clothes-fork. I went hastily to help her, snatching the steaming garments one by one from the sopping pile and flinging them onto the blackberry bushes to dry.

“Thank goodness,” I said, waving my scalded fingers in the air to cool them. “I was afraid I’d ruined the lot.”

“Weel, they’ll be a bit dark, maybe.” Marsali wiped a hand across her face, plastering back the fine blond strands that escaped from her kerch. “If the weather keeps fine, though, ye can leave them in the sun to fade. Here, let’s move the pot before it scorches!”

Crusts of indigo had already started to crackle and blacken in the bottom of the pot as we tipped it off the fire, and clouds of acrid smoke rose up around us.

“It’s all right,” Marsali said, coughing and fanning smoke from her face. “Leave it, Mother Claire; I’ll fetch up water so it can soak. Ye’ll need to see to Da, aye? I came down at once when I heard; is he verra poorly?”

“Oh, thank you, dear.” I was overwhelmed with gratitude; the last thing I had time to do just now was to haul several buckets of water from the spring to soak the pot. I blew on my scalded fingers to cool them; the skin under the splotches of dye was nearly as red as Jamie’s.

“I think he’ll be all right,” I assured her, suppressing my own fears. “He feels dreadful, and looks worse—I’ve never seen anyone look like that in all my born days—but if the wound doesn’t get infected . . .” I crossed my sore fingers in superstitious prophylaxis.

“Ah, he’ll do,” Marsali said confidently. “Fergus said as they thought he was dead when they found him and Roger Mac, but by the time they crossed the second ridge, he was makin’ terrible jokes about the snake, so they didna worry anymore.”

I wasn’t quite so sanguine myself, having seen the state of his injured leg, but I smiled reassuringly.

“Yes, I think he’ll be fine. I’m just going to make an onion poultice and clean out the wound a bit. Go and see him, why don’t you, while I fetch the onions?”

Luckily there were plenty of onions; I had pulled them two weeks before, when the first frost came, and dozens of knobbly braided strings hung in the pantry, fragrant and crackling when I brushed against them. I broke off six large onions and brought them into the kitchen to slice. My fingers were tingling, half-burned and stiff from handling the boiling clothes, and I worked slowly, not wanting to slice off a finger accidentally.

“Here, I’ll do that,
a leannan
.” Mrs. Bug took the knife out of my hand and dealt briskly with the onions. “Is it a poultice? Aye, that’ll be the thing. A good onion poultice will mend anything.” Still, a worried frown puckered her forehead as she glanced toward the surgery.

“Can I help, Mama?” Bree came in from the hallway, also looking worried. “Da looks awful; is he all right?”

“Ganda full?” Jem popped into the kitchen after his mother, less worried about his grandfather than interested in the knife Mrs. Bug was using. He dragged his little stool toward her, face purposeful under his coppery fringe. “Me do!”

I brushed the hair out of my face with the back of my hand, eyes watering fiercely from the onions.

“I think so.” I sniffed and blotted my eyes. “How’s Roger?”

“Roger’s good.” I could hear the small note of pride in her voice; Jamie had told her Roger had saved his life. Possibly he had. I just hoped it
stayed
saved.

“He’s asleep,” she added. Her mouth curved slightly as she met my eyes, with complete understanding. If a man was in bed, at least you knew where he was. And that he was safe, for the moment.

“Jem! You leave Mrs. Bug alone!” She scooped him off his stool and whirled him away from the chopping board, feet kicking in protest. “Do you need anything, Mama?”

I rubbed a finger between my brows, considering.

“Yes, can you try to find me some maggots? I’ll need them for Jamie’s leg.” I frowned, glancing out the window at the bright autumn day. “I’m afraid the frost has killed all the flies; I haven’t seen one in days. Try the paddock, though; they’ll lay eggs in the warm dung.”

She made a brief face of distaste, but nodded, setting Jemmy down on the floor.

“Come on, pal, let’s go find ickies for Grannie.”

“Icky-icky-icky-icky!” Jemmy scampered after her, enchanted at the prospect.

I dropped the sliced onions into a bowl made from a hollowed gourd and scooped a little of the hot water from the cauldron into it. Then I left the onions to stew, and went back to the surgery. In the center of the room was a sturdy pine table, serving as examination table, dentist’s chair, drug preparation surface, or auxiliary dining table, depending on medical exigencies and the number of dinner guests. At the moment, it was supporting the supine form of Jamie, scarcely visible under his heap of quilts and blankets. Marsali stood close to the table, head bent toward him as she held a cup of water for him to sip.

“You’re sure you’re all right, Da?” she said. One hand stole toward him, but she stopped, clearly afraid to touch him in his present condition.

“Oh, aye, I’ll do.” I could hear the deep fatigue in his voice, but a big hand rose slowly out from under the quilts to touch her cheek.

“Fergus did braw work,” he said. “Kept the men together through the night, found me and Roger Mac in the morning, brought everyone home safe across the mountain. He’s a fine sense of direction.”

Marsali’s head was still bent, but I saw her cheek curve in a smile.

“I did tell him so. He’ll no give over berating himself for lettin’ the beasts get away, though. Just one would ha’ fed the whole Ridge for the winter, he said.”

Jamie gave a small grunt of dismissal.

“Och, we’ll manage.”

It was plainly an effort for him to speak, but I didn’t try to send Marsali away. Roger told me Jamie had been vomiting blood as they brought him back; I couldn’t give him brandy or whisky to ease the pain, and I hadn’t any laudanum. Marsali’s presence might help to distract him from his wretchedness.