A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
Carolina—until the Regulation had caused him to leave, climbing out the window of his courthouse and fleeing for his life from a mob bent on violence.
A wealthy man, and one with a due regard for the value of his skin, Henderson had retired from public life and set about increasing his fortune. To which end, he proposed now to buy an enormous tract of land from the Cherokee, this located in Tennessee, and establish townships there.
Jamie gave Cameron an eye, apprehending at once the complexity of the situation. For the one thing, the lands in question lay far, far inside the Treaty Line. For Henderson to instigate such dealings was an indication—had any been needed—of just how feeble the grasp of the Crown had grown of late. Plainly, Henderson thought nothing of flouting His Majesty’s treaty, and expected no interference with his affairs as a result of doing so.
That was one thing. For another, though—the Cherokee held land in common, as all the Indians did. Leaders could and did sell land to whites, without such legal niceties as clear title, but were still subject to the ex post facto approval or disapproval of their people. Such approval would not affect the sale, which would be already accomplished, but could result in the fall of a leader, and in a good deal of trouble for the man who tried to take possession of land paid for in good faith—or what passed for good faith, in such dealings.
“John Stuart knows of this, of course,” Jamie said, and Cameron nodded, with a small air of complacency.
“Not officially, mind,” he said.
Naturally not. The Superintendent of Indian Affairs could hardly countenance such an arrangement officially. At the same time, it would be smiled on unofficially, as such a purchase could not help but further the department’s goal of bringing the Indians further under the sway of British influence.
Jamie wondered idly whether Stuart profited in any personal way from the sale. Stuart had a good reputation and was not known to be corrupt—but he might well have a silent interest in the matter. Then again, he might have no financial interest himself, and be turning an officially blind eye to the arrangement only in furtherance of the department’s purposes.
Cameron, though . . . He couldn’t say, of course, but would be most surprised if Cameron had no finger in the pie.
He did not know where Cameron’s natural interest lay, whether with the Indians among whom he lived or with the British to whom he had been born. He doubted that anyone did—perhaps not even Cameron. Regardless of his abiding interests, though, Cameron’s immediate goals were clear. He wished the sale to be met with approval—or at least indifference—by the surrounding Cherokee, thus keeping his own pet chiefs in good odor with their followers, and allowing Henderson to go forward with his plans with no undue harassment by Indians in the area.
“I shall not, of course, say anything for a day or two,” Cameron told him, and he nodded. There was a natural rhythm to such business. But of course, Cameron had told him now so that he might be of help when the subject arose in due course.
Cameron took it for granted that he would help. There was no explicit promise of a bit of Henderson’s pie for himself, but no need; it was the sort of opportunity that was a perquisite of being an Indian agent—the reason that such appointments were considered plums.
Given what Jamie knew of the near future, he had neither expectation nor interest in Henderson’s purchase—but the subject did give him a welcome opportunity for a useful quid pro quo.
He coughed gently.
“Ye ken the wee Tuscarora lassie I bought from Bird?”
Cameron laughed.
“Aye. And he’s most perplexed what ye mean to do with her; he says ye willna take any of the lasses he sends to warm your bed. She’s no so much to look at—but still . . .”
“Not that,” Jamie assured him. “She’s marrit, for the one thing. I brought two Tuscaroran lads with me; she belongs to one of them.”
“Oh, aye?” Cameron’s nose twitched with interest, scenting a story. Jamie had been waiting for this opportunity since the sight of Cameron first gave him the notion, and he told it well, with the satisfactory outcome that Cameron agreed to take the three displaced young Tuscaroras with him, and sponsor their adoption into the Overhill Band.
“It’ll no be the first time,” he told Jamie. “There are more and more of them—wee scraps of what were villages, even whole peoples—wandering about the country starved and wretched. Heard of the Dogash, have ye?”
“No.”
“Nor are ye like to,” Cameron said, shaking his head. “There’s no but ten or so of them left. They came to us last winter; offered themselves as slaves, only so that they might survive the cold. No—dinna fash yourself, man,” he assured Jamie, catching sight of Jamie’s expression. “Your wee lads and the lass won’t be slaves; my word on it.”
Jamie nodded his thanks, pleased with the business. They had wandered some distance outside the village, and stood talking near the edge of a gorge, where the wood opened suddenly over a vista of mountain ranges, rolling away and away like furrows plowed in some endless field of the gods, their backs dark and brooding beneath a starlit sky.
“How can there ever be people enough to settle such a wilderness?” he said, moved suddenly by the sight of it. And yet the smell of woodsmoke and cooking meat hung heavy in the air. People did inhabit it, few and scattered as they were.
Cameron shook his head in contemplation.
“They come,” he said, “and they keep on coming. My ain folk came from Scotland. You have,” he added, teeth a brief gleam in his beard. “And dinna mean to go back, I’ll warrant.”
Jamie smiled at that, but made no answer, though a queer feeling rose in his wame at the thought. He did not mean to go back. Had said goodbye to Scotland at the rail of the Artemis, knowing full well it was likely his last sight of the place. And yet, the notion that he would never set foot there again had never fully settled on him ’til this moment.
Calls of “Scotchee, Scotchee” summoned them, and he turned to follow Cameron back to the village, conscious all the time of the glorious, terrifying emptiness behind him—and the more terrifying emptiness within.
THEY SMOKED THAT night, after feasting, in ceremonious observance of Jamie’s bargain with Bird, in welcome to Cameron. When the pipe had gone twice around the fire, they began to tell stories.
Stories of raids, of battles. Exhausted from the day, head still throbbing, mellowed by food and spruce beer, and slightly intoxicated by the smoke, Jamie had meant only to listen. Perhaps it was the thought of Scotland, so casually evoked by Cameron’s remark. But at some point, a memory had stirred, and when the next expectant silence fell, he was surprised to hear his own voice, telling them of Culloden.
“And there near a wall I saw a man I knew, named MacAllister, besieged by a horde of enemies. He fought with gun and sword, but both failed him—his blade was broken, his shield shattered upon his breast.”
The fume of the pipe reached him and he raised it and drew deep, as though he drank the air of the moor, hazed with rain and the smoke of the day.
“Still they came, his enemies, to kill him, and he seized up a piece of metal, the tongue of a wagon, and with it, killed six”—he held up both hands, fingers stuck up in illustration—“six of them, before he was at last brought down.”
Sounds of awe and tongue clicks of approval greeted this recounting.
“And you yourself, Bear-Killer, how many men did you kill in this battle?”
The smoke burned in his chest, behind his eyes, and for an instant he tasted the bitter smoke of cannon fire, not sweet tobacco. He saw—he saw—Alistair MacAllister, dead at his feet among the red-clothed bodies, the side of his head crushed in and the round curve of his shoulder shining solid through the cloth of the shirt, so wetly did it cling to him.
He was there, on the moor, the wet and cold no more than a shimmer on his skin, rain slick on his face, his own shirt sopping and steaming on him with the heat of his rage.
And then h
He looked up to see Talltree glance sharply at his face, and he saw the dark old eyes harden, then narrow under a frown—and then the old man took the pipe, drank deep, and blew the smoke across him, bowing forward. Talltree did this twice more, and a hum of hushed approval at the honor came from the clustered men.
He took the pipe and returned the honor of the gesture, then passed it to the next man, refusing to speak further.
They didn’t push him to, seeming to recognize and respect the shock he felt.
Shock. Not even that. What he felt was the blankest astonishment. Cautiously, unwilling, he stole a keek at that picture of Alistair. God, it was there.
He realized that he was holding his breath, not wanting to breathe the reek of blood and spilled bowels. He breathed, soft smoke and a copper tang of seasoned bodies, and could have wept, swept with sudden longing for the cold, sharp air of the Highlands, pungent with the scents of peat and gorse.
Alexander Cameron said something to him, but he couldn’t reply. Ian, seeing the difficulty, leaned forward to answer, and they all laughed. Ian gave him a curious look, but then turned back to the conversation, beginning a story of a famous game of lacrosse he had played among the Mohawk. Leaving Jamie to sit still, wreathed in the smoke.
Fourteen men. And he did not remember a single face. And that random thumb, hovering uncertainly. Whatever did he mean by that? That he had fought yet another, but not made certain of the fellow?
He was afraid even to think of the memory. Unsure what to do with it. But at the same time, conscious of a sense of awe. And despite everything, grateful to have this small thing back.
IT WAS VERY LATE, and most of the men had gone to their own houses, or lay comfortably asleep around the fire. Ian had left the fire, but hadn’t come back. Cameron was still there, smoking his own pipe now, though he shared this with Bird, taking turn and turn about.
“There is a thing I would tell you,” Jamie said abruptly, in the midst of a drowsy silence. “Both of you.” Bird raised his brows in slow question, drugged with tobacco.
He hadn’t known he meant to say it. Had thought to wait, judge his time—if he spoke at all. Perhaps it was the closeness of the house, the dark intimacy of the fireside, or the intoxication of tobacco. Perhaps only the kinship of an exile for those who would suffer the same fate. But he’d spoken; had no choice now but to tell them what he knew.
“The women of my family are . . .” He groped, not knowing the Cherokee word. “Those who see in dreams what is to come.” He darted a look at Cameron, who appeared to take this in his stride, for he nodded, and closed his eyes to draw smoke into his lungs.
“Have they the Sight, then?” he asked, mildly interested.
Jamie nodded; it was as good an explanation as any.
“They have seen a thing concerning the Tsalagi. Both my wife and my daughter have seen this thing.”
Bird’s attention sharpened, hearing this. Dreams were important; for more than one person to share a dream was extraordinary, and therefore most important.
“It grieves me to tell you,” Jamie said, and meant it. “Sixty years from this time, the Tsalagi will be taken from their lands, removed to a new place. Many will die on this journey, so that the path they tread will be called . . .” He groped for the word for “tears,” did not find it, and ended, “the trail where they wept.”
Bird’s lips pursed, as though to draw smoke, but the pipe fumed unnoticed in his hands.
“Who will do this?” he asked. “Who can?”
Jamie drew a deep breath; here was the difficulty. And yet—so much less difficult than he had thought, now that it came to the matter.
“It will be white men,” he said. “But it will not be King George’s men.”
“The French?” Cameron spoke with a hint of incredulity, but frowned, nonetheless, trying to see how this might come to pass. “Or the Spanish, do they mean? The Spanish are a good deal closer—but none sae many.” Spain still held the country south of Georgia, and parts of the Indies, but the English held Georgia firmly; there was little apparent chance of any northward movement by the Spaniards.
“No. Not Spanish, not French.” He could wish Ian had stayed, for more than one reason. But the lad had not, and so he would have to struggle with the Tsalagi, which was an interesting tongue, but one in which he could talk fluently only of solid things—and of a very limited future.
“What they tell me—what my women say—” He struggled to find sensible words. “A thing that they see in their dreams, this thing will come to pass, if it concerns many people. But they think it may not come to pass, if it concerns a few, or one.”
Bird blinked, confused—and no wonder. Grimly, Jamie tried again to explain.
“There are large things, and there are small things. A large thing is a thing like a great battle, or the raising up of a notable chief—though he is one man, he is raised up by the voices of many. If my women dream of these large things, then they will happen. But in any large thing, there are many people. Some say do this; others, do that.” He zigzagged his hand to and fro, and Bird nodded.
“So. If many people say, ‘Do this’”—he stabbed his fingers sharply to the left—“then this happens. But what of the people who said, ‘do that’?” And he jerked a thumb back the other way. “These people may choose a different way.”
Bird made the hm-hm-hm! sound he used when startled.
“So it may be that some will not go?” Cameron asked sharply. “They might escape?”
“I hope so,” Jamie said simply.
They sat in silence for a bit, each man staring into the fire, each seeing his own visions—of the future, or the past.
“This wife you have,” Bird said at last, deeply contemplative, “did you pay a great deal for her?”
“She cost me almost everything I had,” he said, with a wry tone that made the others laugh. “But worth it.”
IT WAS VERY LATE when he went to the guesthouse; the moon had set, and the sky had that look of deep serenity, the stars singing to themselves in endless night. His body ached in every muscle, and he was so tired that he stumbled on the threshold. His instincts were still working, though, and he felt, rather than saw, someone move in the shadows of the sleeping-couch.
God, Bird was still at it. Well, tonight it wouldn’t matter; he could lie naked with a covey of young women, and sleep sound. Too exhausted to be annoyed by her presence, he struggled for some polite acknowledgment of the woman. Then she stood up.
The firelight showed him an elderly woman, her hair in grizzled plaits, her dress of white buckskin decorated with paint and porcupine quills. He recognized Calls-in-the-Forest, dressed in her best. Bird’s sense of humor had finally got completely out of hand; he had sent Jamie his mother.
All grasp of Tsalagi deserted him. He opened his mouth, but merely gaped at her. She smiled, very slightly, and held out her hand.
“Come and lie down, Bear-Killer,” she said. Her voice was kind and gruff. “I’ve come to comb the snakes from your hair.”
She drew him unresisting to the couch, and made him lie down with his head in her lap. Sure enough; she unplaited his hair and spread it out across her knees, her touch soothing to his throbbing head and the painful knot on his brow.
He had no idea how old she might be, but her fingers were muscular and tireless, making small, rhythmic circles in his scalp, on his temples, behind his ears, near to the bone at t
She was humming to herself, or rather whispering some song, the words too indistinct to make out. He watched the silent shapes stream upward in the smoke, and felt his body growing heavy, limbs filled with wet sand, his body a sandbag placed in the path of a flood.
“Talk, Bear-Killer,” she said very softly, breaking off her chant. She had a wooden comb in her hand; he felt the teeth of it caress his scalp, rounded with wear.
“I cannot call your words to me,” he said, searching for each word in Tsalagi, and thus speaking very slowly. She made a small snorting noise in reply.
“The words don’t matter, nor the tongue in which you speak,” she said. “Only talk. I will understand.”
And so he began haltingly to speak—in Gaelic, as it was the only tongue that didn’t seem to require any effort. He understood that he was to speak of what filled his heart, and so began with Scotland—and Culloden. Of grief. Of loss. Of fear.
And in the speaking turned from past to future, where he saw these three specters loom again, cold creatures coming toward him out of the fog, looking through their empty eyes.
Another stood among them—Jack Randall—confusingly on both sides of him. Those eyes were not empty, but alive, intent in a misty face. Had he killed the man, or not? If he had, did the ghost follow at his heels? Or if he had not, was it the thought of vengeance unsatisfied that haunted him, taunted him with its imperfect memory?
But in the speaking, he seemed somehow to rise a little way above his body, and see himself at rest, eyes open, fixed upward, his hair darkly flaming in a halo round his head, streaked with the silver of his age. And here he saw that he merely was, in a place between, apart. And quite alone. At peace.
“I hold to no evil in my heart,” he said, hearing his voice come slow, from a long way off. “This evil does not touch me. More may come, but not this. Not here. Not now.”
“I understand,” whispered the old woman, and went on combing his hair as the white smoke rose silent toward the hole to the sky.
45
A TAINT IN THE BLOOD
June 1774
I SAT BACK ON MY HEELS and stretched, tired but pleased. My back ached, my knees creaked like hinges, my fingernails were caked with dirt, and strands of hair stuck to my neck and cheeks—but the new crops of pole beans, onions, turnips, and radishes were planted, the cabbages weeded and culled, and a dozen large peanut bushes had been pulled up and hung to dry on the garden palisades, safe from marauding squirrels.
I glanced up at the sun; still above the chestnut trees. Time enough then before supper for a last chore or two. I stood up and surveyed my small kingdom, debating where best to spend my remaining time. Rooting up the catmint and lemon balm that threatened to engulf the far corner of the garden? Carting baskets of nicely rotted manure up from the heap behind the barn? No, that was man’s work.
Herbs? My three French lavender bushes stood knee-high, thick with deep blue swabs on slender stalks, and the yarrow was well in bloom, with lacy umbels of white and pink and yellow. I rubbed a finger under my itching nose, trying to recall whether this was the proper phase of the moon in which to cut yarrow. Lavender and rosemary should be cut in the morning, though, when the volatile oils had risen with the sun; it wasn’t as potent if taken later in the day.
Down with the mint, then. I reached for the hoe I had left leaning against the fence, saw a face leering through the palisades, and started back, my heart leaping into my throat.
“Oh!” My visitor had jumped back, too, equally startled. “Bitte, ma’am! Didn’t mean to fright ye.”
It was Manfred McGillivray, peeping shyly through the drooping vines of morning glory and wild yam. He’d come earlier in the day, bringing a canvas-wrapped bundle containing several muskets for Jamie.
“That’s all right.” I stooped to pick up the hoe I had dropped. “Are you looking for Lizzie? She’s in—”
“Ach, no, ma’am. That is, I—do ye think I might have a word, ma’am?” he asked abruptly. “Alone, like?”
“Of course. Come along in; we can talk while I hoe.”
He nodded, and went round to let himself in by the gate. What might he want with me? I wondered. He had on a coat and boots, both covered in dust, and his breeches were badly creased. He’d been riding some way, then, not just from his family’s cabin—and he hadn’t been into the house yet; Mrs. Bug would have dusted him off, forcibly.
“Where have you come from?” I asked, offering him the gourd dipper from my water bucket. He accepted it, drinking thirstily, then wiped his mouth politely on his sleeve.
“Thank ye, ma’am. I’ve been to Hillsboro, for to fetch the . . . er . . . the things for Mr. Fraser.”
“Really? That seems a long way,” I said mildly.
A look of profound uneasiness crossed his face. He was a nice-looking boy, tanned and handsome as a young faun under his crop of dark, curly hair, but he looked almost furtive now, glancing back over his shoulder toward the house, as though fearful of interruption.
“I . . . um . . . well, ma’am, that’s to do, a bit, with what I meant to speak to ye about.”
“Oh? Well . . .” I made a cordial gesture, indicating that he should feel free to unburden himself, and turned away to begin my hoeing, so that he might feel less self-conscious. I was beginning to suspect what he wanted to ask me, though I wasn’t sure what Hillsboro had to do with it.
“It’s . . . ah . . . well, it’s to do with Mrs. Lizzie,” he began, folding