An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana. Страница 176

Movement caught my eye, and I looked up. The unmistakable figure of Lieutenant Ransom stalked out of the tents and came across the road. It lifted my heart a little to see him, though the sight of him renewed my worry for Jamie—and reminded me, with a small sharp pang, of Brianna. At least she was safe, I thought. Roger and Jemmy and Amanda, too. I repeated their names to myself as a small refrain of comfort, counting them like coins. Four of them safe.

William had undone his stock, and his hair was untidy, his coat stained with sweat and dirt. Evidently the pursuit was wearing on the British army, too.

He glanced round the field, spotted me, and turned purposefully in my direction. I got my feet under me, struggling upward against the press of gravity like a hippopotamus rising from a swamp.

I’d barely got to my feet and raised a hand to smooth my hair when someone else’s hand poked me in the back. I started violently but luckily didn’t scream.

“It’s me, Auntie,” Young Ian whispered from the shadows behind me. “Come with—oh, Jesus.”

William had come within ten paces of me and, raising his head, had spied Ian. He leapt forward and grabbed me by the arm, yanking me away from the trees. I yelped, as Ian had an equally firm grip on the other arm and was yanking lustily in that direction.

“Let her go!” William barked.

“The devil I will,” Ian replied hotly. “You let go!”

Mrs. Wellman’s little son was on his feet, staring round-eyed and openmouthed into the forest.

“Mama, Mama! Indians!”

Shrieks rose from the women near us, and everyone began a mad scramble away from the forest, leaving the wounded to their own devices.

“Ah, bugger!” Ian said, letting go in disgust. William didn’t, jerking me with such force that I crashed into him, whereupon he promptly wrapped his arms about my waist and dragged me a little way into the field.

“Will ye bloody leave go of my auntie?” Ian said crossly, emerging from the trees.

“You!” said William. “What are you—well, never mind that. Your aunt, you say?” He looked down at me. “Are you? His aunt? Wait—no, of course you are.”

“I am,” I agreed, pushing at his arms. “Let go.”

His grasp loosened a little, but he didn’t release me.

“How many others are in there?” he demanded, lifting his chin toward the forest.

“If there were any others, ye’d be deid,” Ian informed him. “It’s just me. Give her to me.”

“I can’t do that.” But there was an uncertain note in William’s voice, and I felt his head turn, glancing toward the cabin. So far, no one had come out, but I could see some of the sentries near the road shifting to and fro, wondering what the matter was. The other captives had stopped running, but were quivering with incipient panic, eyes frantically searching the shadows among the trees.

I rapped William sharply on the wrist with my knuckles and he let go and took a step back. My head was spinning again—not least from the very peculiar sensation of being embraced by a total stranger whose body felt so familiar to me. He was thinner than Jamie, but—

“D’ye owe me a life or not?” Not waiting for an answer, Ian jerked a thumb at me. “Aye, then—it’s hers.”

“Hardly a question of her life,” William said, rather crossly, with an awkward nod in my direction, acknowledging that I might have a possible interest in this discussion. “Surely you don’t suppose we kill women?”

“No,” Ian said evenly. “I dinna suppose it at all. I ken verra well that ye do.”

“We do?” William echoed. He looked surprised, but a sudden flush burned in his cheeks.

“You do,” I assured him. “General Howe hanged three women at the head of his army in New Jersey, as an example.”

He seemed completely nonplused by this.

“Well… but—they were spies!”

“You think I don’t look like a spy?” I inquired. “I’m much obliged for your good opinion, but I don’t know that General Burgoyne would share it.” There were, of course, a good many other women who’d died at the hands of the British army, if less officially, but this didn’t seem the moment to make an account of them.

“General Burgoyne is a gentleman,” William said stiffly. “So am I.”

“Good,” Ian said briefly. “Turn your back for thirty seconds, and we’ll trouble ye nay more.”

I don’t know whether he would have done it or not, but just then, Indian cries tore the air, coming from the far side of the road. Further frantic screams came from the captives, and I bit my own tongue in order not to scream, too. A tongue of fire shot up into the lavender sky from the top of the officers’ tent. As I gaped, two more flaming comets shot across the sky. It looked like the descent of the Holy Ghost, but before I could mention this interesting observation, Ian had seized my arm and jerked me nearly off my feet.

I managed to snatch up the canteen as we passed, on a dead run for the forest. Ian grabbed it from me, almost draggging me in his haste. Gunfire and screams were breaking out behind us, and the skin all down my back contracted in fear.

“This way.” I followed him without heed for anything underfoot, stumbling and twisting my ankles in the dusk as we threw ourselves headlong into the brush, expecting every moment to be shot in the back.

Such is the brain’s capacity for self-amusement, I was able to imagine in vivid detail my wounding, capture, descent into infection and sepsis, and eventual lingering death—but not before being obliged to witness the capture and execution of both Jamie—I had recognized the source of the Indian screams and flaming arrows without difficulty—and Ian.

It was only as we slowed—perforce; I had such a stitch in my side that I could barely breathe—that I thought of other things. The sick and wounded I had left behind. The young wheelwright with the bright red throat. Walter Woodcock, teetering over the abyss.

You couldn’t give any of them more than a hand to hold, I told myself fiercely, limping as I stumbled after Ian. It was true; I knew it was true. But I also knew that now and then a hand in the dark gave a sick man something to cling to, against the rushing wind of the dark angel. Sometimes it was enough; sometimes it wasn’t. But the ache of those left behind dragged at me like a sea anchor, and I wasn’t sure whether the wetness streaming down my cheeks was sweat or tears.

It was full dark now, and the boiling clouds covered the moon, allowing only fitful glimpses of its brilliant light. Ian had slowed still more, to let me keep up with him, and took my arm now and then to help me over rocks or across creeks.

“How… far?” I gasped, stopping once more for breath.

“Not much,” Jamie’s voice replied softly beside me. “Are ye all right, Sassenach?”

My heart gave a tremendous bump, then settled back in my chest as he groped for my hand, then gathered me briefly against himself. I had a moment of relief so profound that I thought my bones had dissolved.

“Yes,” I said, into his chest, and with great effort lifted my head. “You?”

“Well enough now,” he said, passing a hand over my head, touching my cheek. “Can ye walk just a bit further?”

I straightened, swaying a little. It had begun to rain; heavy drops plopped into my hair, cold and startling on my scalp.

“Ian—have you got that canteen?”

There was a soft pop! and Ian set the canteen in my hand. Very carefully, I tilted it into my mouth.

“Is that brandy?” Jamie said, sounding astonished.

“Mmm-hmm.” I swallowed, as slowly as I could, and handed the canteen to him. There were a couple of swallows left.

“Where did ye get it?”

“Your son gave it to me,” I said. “Where are we going?”

There was a long pause from the darkness, and then the sound of brandy being drunk.

“South,” he said at last, and taking my hand, led me on into the wood, the rain whispering on the leaves all round us.