9
TWO-THIRDS OF A GHOST
The surface of the river gleamed like oil, the water moving gently past without a ripple. There was a single lantern hung from the starboard bow; sitting on a low stool perched on the forward deck, I could see the light below, not so much reflected in the water as trapped under it, moving slowly side by side with the boat.
The moon was a faint sickle, making its feeble sweep through the treetops. Beyond the thick trees that lined the river, the ground fell away in broad sweeps of darkness, over the rice plantations and tobacco fields. The heat of the day was sucked down into the earth, glowing with unseen energy beneath the surface of the soil, the rich, fertile flatlands simmering in black heat behind the screen of pines and sweetgum trees, working the alchemy of water and trapped sun.
To move at all was to break a sweat. The air was tangible, each tiny ripple of warmth a caress against my face and arms.
There was a soft rustle in the dark behind me, and I reached up a hand, not turning to look. Jamie’s big hand closed gently over mine, squeezed and let go. Even that brief touch left my fingers damp with perspiration.
He eased himself down next to me with a sigh, plucking at the collar of his shirt.
“I dinna think I’ve breathed air since we left Georgia,” he said. “Every time I take a breath, I think I’ll maybe drown.”
I laughed, feeling a trickle of sweat snake down between my breasts.
“It will be cooler in Cross Creek; everyone says so.” I took a deep breath myself, just to prove I could. “Doesn’t it smell wonderful, though?” The darkness released all the pungent green scents of the trees and plants along the water’s edge, mingling with the damp mud of the riverbank and the scent of sun-warmed wood from the deck of the boat.
“Ye’d have made a good dog, Sassenach.” He leaned back against the wall of the cabin with a sigh. “It’s no wonder yon beast admires ye so.”
The click of toenails on deckboards announced the arrival of Rollo, who advanced cautiously toward the rail, stopped a careful foot short of it, and lowered himself gingerly to the deck. He laid his nose on his paws and sighed deeply. Rollo disapproved almost as strongly of boats as Jamie did.
“Hullo there,” I said. I extended a hand for him to sniff, and he politely condescended to let me scratch his ears. “And where’s your master, eh?”
“In the cabin, bein’ taught new ways to cheat at cards,” Jamie said wryly. “God kens best what will happen to the lad; if he’s not shot or knocked on the head in some tavern, he’ll likely come home wi’ an ostrich he’s won at faro next.”
“Surely they haven’t either ostriches or faro games up in the mountains? If there aren’t any towns to speak of, surely there aren’t many taverns, either.”
“Well, I shouldna think so,” he admitted. “But if a man’s bound to go to the devil, he’ll find a way to do it, no matter where ye set him down.”
“I’m sure Ian isn’t going to the devil,” I replied soothingly. “He’s a fine boy.”
“He’s a man,” Jamie corrected. He cocked an ear toward the cabin, where I could hear muffled laughter and the occasional comfortable obscenity. “A damn young one, though, and fat-heided with it.” He looked at me, a rueful smile visible in the lantern light.
“If he were a wee lad yet, I could keep some rein on him. As it is—” He shrugged. “He’s old enough to mind his own business, and he’ll not thank me for sticking my nose in.”
“He always listens to you,” I protested.
“Mmphm. Wait till I tell him something he doesna want to hear.” He leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes. Sweat gleamed across the high cheekbones, and a small trickle ran down the side of his neck.
I put out a finger and delicately flicked the tiny drop away, before it further dampened his shirt.
“You’ve been telling him for two months that he has to go home to Scotland; he doesn’t want to hear that, I don’t think.”
Jamie opened one eye and surveyed me cynically.
“Is he in Scotland?”
“Well…”
“Mmphm,” he said, and closed the eye again.
I sat quietly for a bit, blotting the perspiration off my face with a fold of my skirt. The river had narrowed here; the near bank was no more than ten feet away. I caught a rustle of movement among the shrubs, and a pair of eyes gleamed briefly red with reflected light from our lantern.
Rollo lifted his head with a sudden low Woof, ears pricked to attention. Jamie opened his eyes and glanced at the bank, then sat up abruptly.
“Christ! That’s the biggest rat I’ve ever seen!”
I laughed.
“It’s not a rat; it’s a possum. See the babies on her back?”
Jamie and Rollo regarded the possum with identical looks of calculation, assessing its plumpness and possible speed. Four small possums stared solemnly back, pointed noses twitching over their mother’s humped, indifferent back. Obviously thinking the boat no threat, the mother possum finished lapping water, turned, and trundled slowly into the brush, the tip of her naked thick pink tail disappearing as the lantern light faded.
The two hunters let out identical sighs, and relaxed again.
“Myers did say as they’re fine eating,” Jamie remarked wistfully. With a small sigh of my own, I groped in the pocket of my gown and handed him a cloth bag.
“What’s this?” He peered interestedly into the bag, then poured the small, lumpy brown objects out into the palm of his hand.
“Roasted peanuts,” I said. “They grow underground hereabouts. I found a farmer selling them for hogfood, and had the inn-wife roast some for me. You take off the shells before you eat them.” I grinned at him, enjoying the novel sensation of for once knowing more about our surroundings than he did.
He gave me a mildly dirty look, and crushed a shell between thumb and forefinger, yielding three nuts.
“I’m ignorant, Sassenach,” he said. “Not a fool. There’s a difference, aye?” He put a peanut in his mouth and bit down gingerly. His skeptical look changed to one of pleased surprise, and he chewed with increasing enthusiasm, tossing the other nuts into his mouth.
“Like them?” I smiled, enjoying his pleasure. “I’ll make you peanut butter for your bread, once we’re settled and I have my new mortar unpacked.”
He smiled back and swallowed before cracking another nut.
“I will say that if it’s a swampish place, at least it’s fine soil. I’ve never seen so many things grow so easily.”
He tossed another nut into his mouth.
“I have been thinking, Sassenach,” he said, looking down into the palm of his hand. “What would ye think of maybe settling here?”
The question wasn’t entirely unexpected. I had seen him eyeing the black fields and lush crops with a farmer’s glittering eye, and caught his wistful expression when he admired the Governor’s horses.
We couldn’t go back to Scotland immediately, in any case. Young Ian, yes, but not Jamie or me, owing to certain complications—not the least of these being a complication by the name of Laoghaire MacKenzie.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Indians and wild animals quite aside—”
“Och, well,” he interrupted, mildly embarrassed. “Myers told me they were no difficulty at all, and ye keep clear of the mountains.”
I forbore from pointing out that the Governor’s offer would take us into the precincts of precisely those mountains.
“Yes, but you do remember what I told you, don’t you? About the Revolution? This is 1767, and you heard the conversation at the Governor’s table. Nine years, Jamie, and all hell breaks loose.” We had both lived through war, and neither of us took the thought lightly. I laid a hand on his arm, forcing him to look at me.
“I was right, you know—before.” I had known what would happen at Culloden; had told him the fate of Charles Stuart and his men. And neither my knowing nor his had been enough to save us. Twenty aching years of separation, and the ghost of a daughter he would never see lay behind that knowing.
He nodded slowly, and lifted a hand to touch my cheek. The soft glow of the small lantern overhead attracted clouds of tiny gnats; they swirled suddenly, disturbed by his movement.
“Aye, ye were,” he said softly. “But then—we thought we must change things. Or try, at the least. But here—” He turned, waving an arm at the vast land that lay unseen beyond the trees. “I shouldna think it my business,” he said simply. “Either to help or to hinder much.”
I waved the gnats away from my face.
“It might be our business, if we lived here.”
He rubbed a finger below his lower lip, thinking. His beard was sprouting, a glimmer of red stubble sparked with silver in the lantern light. He was a big man, handsome and strong in the prime of his life, but no longer a young one, and I realized that with sudden gratitude.
Highland men were bred to fight; Highland boys became men when they could lift their swords and go to battle. Jamie had never been reckless, but he had been a warrior and a soldier most of his life. As a young man in his twenties, nothing could have kept him from a fight, whether it was his own or not. Now, in his forties, sense might temper passion—or at least I hoped so.
And it was true; beyond this aunt whom he didn’t know, he had no family here, no ties that might compel involvement. Perhaps, knowing what was coming, we might contrive to stay clear of the worst?
“It’s a verra big place, Sassenach.” He looked out over the prow of the boat, into the vast black sweep of invisible land. “Only since we left Georgia, we have traveled farther than the whole length of Scotland and England both.”
“That’s true,” I admitted. In Scotland, even among the high crags of the Highlands, there had been no way to escape the ravages of war. Not so here; should we seek our place carefully, we might indeed escape the roving eye of Mars.
He tilted his head to one side, smiling up at me.
“I could see ye as a planter’s lady, Sassenach. If the Governor will find me a buyer for the other stones, then I shall have enough, I think, to send Laoghaire all the money I promised her, and still have enough over to buy a good place—one where we might prosper.”
He took my right hand in his, his thumb gently stroking my silver wedding ring.
“Perhaps one day I shall deck ye in laces and jewels,” he said softly. “I havena been able to give ye much, ever, save a wee silver ring, and my mother’s pearls.”
“You’ve given me a lot more than that,” I said. I wrapped my fingers around his thumb and squeezed. “Brianna, for one.”
He smiled faintly, looking down at the deck.
“Aye, that’s true. She’s maybe the real reason—for staying, I mean.”
I pulled him toward me, and he rested his head against my knee.
“This is her place, no?” he said quietly. He lifted a hand, gesturing toward the river, the trees and the sky. “She will be born here, she’ll live here.”
“That’s right,” I said softly. I stroked his hair, smoothing the thick strands that were so much like Brianna’s. “This will be her country.” Hers, in a way it could never be mine or his, no matter how long we might live here.
He nodded, beard rasping gently against my skirt.
“I dinna wish to fight, or have ye ever in danger, Sassenach, but if there is a bit I can do…to build, maybe, to make it safe, and a good land for her…” He shrugged. “It would please me,” he finished softly.
We sat silently for a bit, close together, watching the dull shine of the water and the slow progress of the sunken lantern.
“I left the pearls for her,” I said at last. “That seemed right; they were an heirloom, after all.” I drew my ringed hand, curved, across his lips. “And the ring is all I need.”
He took both my hands in his, then, and kissed them—the left, which still bore the gold ring of my marriage to Frank, and then the right, with his own silver ring.
“Da mi basia mille,” he whispered, smiling. Give me a thousand kisses. It was the inscription inside my ring, a brief quotation from a love song by Catullus. I bent and gave him one back.
“Dein mille altera,” I said. Then a thousand more.
* * *
It was near midnight when we tied up near a brushy grove to rest. The weather had changed; still hot and muggy, now the air held the hint of thunder, and the undergrowth stirred with small movements—random air currents, or the scurryings of tiny night things hastening for home before the storm.
We were nearly at the end of the tidal surge; from here it would be a matter of sail and pole, and Captain Freeman had hopes of catching a good breeze on the wings of a storm. It would pay us to rest while we could. I curled into our nest on the stern, but was unable to fall asleep at once, late as it was.
By the Captain’s estimation, we might make Cross Creek by evening tomorrow—certainly by the day after. I was surprised to realize how eagerly I was looking forward to our arrival; two months of living hand-to-mouth on the road had given me an urgent longing for some haven, no matter how temporary.
Familiar as I was with Highland notions of hospitality and kinship, I had no fears regarding our welcome. Jamie plainly did not consider the fact that he hadn’t met this particular aunt in forty-odd years to be any bar to our cordial reception, and I was quite sure he was right. At the same time, I couldn’t help entertaining considerable curiosity about Jocasta Cameron.
There had been five MacKenzie siblings, the children of old Red Jacob, who had built Castle Leoch. Jamie’s mother, Ellen, had been the eldest, Jocasta the youngest. Janet, the other sister, had died, like Ellen, well before I met Jamie, but I had known the two brothers, Colum and Dougal, quite well indeed, and from that knowledge, couldn’t help speculating as to what this last MacKenzie of Leoch might be like.
Tall, I thought, with a glance at Jamie, curled up peacefully on the deck beside me. Tall, and maybe red-haired. They were all tall—even Colum, victim of a crippling degenerative disease, had been tall to begin with—fair skinned Vikings, the lot of them, with a ruddy blaze to their coloring that shimmered from Jamie’s fiery red through his uncle Dougal’s deep russet. Only Colum had been truly dark.
Remembering Colum and Dougal, I felt a sudden stir of unease. Colum had died before Culloden, killed by his disease. Dougal had died on the eve of the battle—killed by Jamie. It had been a matter of self-defense—my self, in fact—and only one of so many deaths in that bloody April. Still, I did wonder whether Jamie had given any thought as to what he might say, when the greetings were past at River Run, and the casual family chat got round to “Oh, and when did you last see So-and-so?”
Jamie sighed and stretched in his sleep. He could—and did—sleep well on any surface, accustomed as he had been to sleeping in conditions that ranged from wet heather to musty caves to the cold stone floors of prison cells. I supposed the wooden decking under us must be thoroughly comfortable by contrast.
I was neither so elastic nor so hardened, myself, but gradually weariness overwhelmed me, and even the prick of curiosity about the future was unable to keep me awake.
I woke to confusion. It was still dark, and there was noise all around, shouting and barking, and the deck beneath me trembled with the vibration of stamping feet. I jerked upright, half thinking myself aboard a sailing ship, convinced that we had been boarded by pirates.
Then my mind cleared, along with my foggy vision, and I discovered that we had been boarded by pirates. Strange voices shouted oaths and orders, and booted feet were heavy on the deck. Jamie was gone.
I scrabbled onto my hands and feet, taking no heed for clothes or anything else. It was near dawn; the sky was dark, but light enough that the cabin showed as a darker blotch against it. As I struggled upright, clinging to the cabin roof for support, I was nearly knocked flat by flying bodies hurling themselves across it.
There was a confused blur of fur and white faces, a shout and a shot and a terrible thud, and Ian was crouching ashen on the deck, over Rollo’s heaving form. A strange man, hatless and disheveled, pushed himself to his feet.
“Damn! He nearly got me!” Unhinged by the near miss, the robber’s hand trembled as he fumbled with the spare pistol at his belt. He pointed it at the dog, face drawing down in an ugly squint.
“Take that, arse-bite!”
A taller man appeared from nowhere, his hand knocking down the pistol before the flint could strike.
“Don’t waste the shot, fool.” He gestured to Troklus and Captain Freeman—the latter volubly incensed—being herded toward me. “How d’you mean to hold them with an empty gun?”
The shorter man cast an evil look at Rollo, but swung his pistol to bear on Freeman’s midriff instead.
Rollo was making an odd noise, a low growling mixed with whimpers of pain, and I could see a wet, dark stain on the boards under his twitching body. Ian bent low over him, hands stroking his head helplessly. He looked up, and tears shone wet on his cheeks.
“Help me, Auntie,” he said. “Please help!”
I moved impulsively, and the tall man stepped forward, thrusting out an arm to stop me.
“I want to help the dog,” I said.
“What?” said the short robber, in tones of outrage.
The tall man was masked—they all were, I realized, my eyes adjusting to the growing half-light. How many were there? It was impossible to tell under the mask, but I had the distinct impression that the tall man was smiling. He didn’t answer, but gave a short jerk of his pistol, giving me leave.
“Hullo, old boy,” I said under my breath, dropping to my knees next to the dog. “Don’t bite, there’s a good doggie. Where is he hurt, Ian, do you know?”
Ian shook his head, sniffing back the tears.
“It’s under him; I can’t get him to turn over.”
I wasn’t about to try to heave the dog’s huge carcass over either. I felt quickly for a pulse in the neck, but my fingers sank into Rollo’s thick ruff, prodding uselessly. Seized by inspiration, I instead picked up a front leg and felt up its length, getting my fingers into the hollow where the leg met the body.
Sure enough, there it was; a steady pulse, throbbing reassuringly under my fingers. I began by habit to count, but quickly abandoned the effort, as I had no idea what a dog’s normal pulse rate should be. It was steady, though; no fluttering, no arrhythmia, no weakness. That was a very good sign.
Another was that Rollo hadn’t lost consciousness; the great leg I held tucked under my elbow had the tension of coiled spring, not the limp dangle of shock. The dog made a long, high-pitched noise, halfway between a whine and a howl, and began to scrabble with his claws, pulling his leg out of my grasp in an effort to right himself.
“I don’t think it’s very bad, Ian,” I said in relief. “Look, he’s turning over.”
Rollo stood up, swaying. He shook his head violently, shaggy coat twitching from head to tail, and a shower of blood drops flew over the deck with a sound like pattering rain. The big yellow eyes fixed on the short man with a look that was clear to the meanest intelligence.
“Here! You stop him, or I swear I’ll shoot him dead!” Panic and sincerity rang out in the robber’s voice, as the muzzle of the pistol drifted uncertainly between the little group of prisoners and Rollo’s lip-curled snarl.
Ian, who had been frantically undoing his shirt, whipped the garment off and over Rollo’s head, temporarily blinding the dog, who shook his head madly, making growling noises inside the restraint. Blood stained the yellow linen—I could see now, though, that it came from a shallow gash in the dog’s shoulder; evidently, the bullet had only grazed him.
Ian hung on grimly, forcing Rollo back on his haunches, muttering orders to the dog’s swaddled head.
“How many aboard?” The taller man’s sharp eyes flicked toward Captain Freeman, whose mouth was pressed so tightly together, it looked no more than a purse seam in the gray fur of his face, then toward me.
I knew him; knew the voice. The knowledge must have shown in my face, for he paused for a moment, then jerked his head and let the masking kerchief fall from his face.
“How many?” Stephen Bonnet asked again.
“Six,” I said. There was no reason not to answer; I could see Fergus on the shore, hands raised as a third pirate herded him at gunpoint toward the boat; Jamie had materialized out of the darkness beside me, looking grim.
“Mr. Fraser,” Bonnet said pleasantly, at sight of him. “A pleasure to be renewing our acquaintance. But did ye not have another companion, sir? The one-armed gentleman?”
“Not here,” Jamie replied shortly.
“I’ll have a look,” the short robber muttered, turning, but Bonnet stopped him with a gesture.
“Ah, now, and would ye be doubting the word of a gentleman like Mr. Fraser? No, you’ll be after guarding these fine folk here, Roberts; I’ll be having the look around.” With a nod to his companion, he vanished.
Looking after Rollo had distracted me momentarily from the commotion going on elsewhere on the boat. Sounds of breakage came from inside the cabin, and I leapt to my feet, reminded of my medicine box.
“Here! Where you going? Stop! I’ll shoot!” The robber’s voice held a desperate note, but an uncertain one, as well. I didn’t stop to look at him, but dived into the cabin, cannoning into a fourth robber, who was indeed rummaging through my medicine chest.
I staggered back from the collision, then clutched his arm, with a cry of outrage. He had been carelessly opening boxes and bottles, shaking out the contents, and tossing them on the floor; a litter of bottles, many of them broken, lay amid the scattered remnants of Dr. Rawlings’s selection of medicines.
“Don’t you dare touch those!” I said, and snatching the nearest vial from the chest, I popped out the cork and flung the contents in his face.
Like most of Rawlings’s mixtures, it contained a high proportion of alcohol. He gasped as the liquid hit, and reeled backward, eyes streaming.
I pressed my advantage by seizing a stone ale bottle from the wreckage and hitting him on the head with it. It hit with a satisfying thunk! but I hadn’t hit him quite hard enough; he staggered but stayed upright, lurching as he grabbed at me.
I drew back my arm for another swing, but my wrist was seized from behind by a grip like iron.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Mrs. Fraser dear,” said a polite, familiar Irish voice. “But I really cannot allow ye to crack his head. It’s not very ornamental, sure, but he needs it to hold up his hat.”
“Frigging bitch! She hit me!” The man I had hit was clutching his head, his features screwed up in pain.
Bonnet hauled me out onto the deck, my arm twisted painfully behind my back. It was nearly light by now; the river glowed like flat silver. I stared hard at our assailants; I meant to know them again, if I saw them, masks or no masks.
Unfortunately, the improved light allowed the robbers better vision as well. The man I had hit, who seemed to be bearing a distinct grudge, seized my hand and wrenched at my ring.
“Here, let’s have that!”
I yanked my hand away and made to slap him, but was stopped by a meaningful cough from Bonnet, who had stepped close to Ian and was holding his pistol an inch from the boy’s left ear.
“Best hand them over, Mrs. Fraser,” he said politely. “I fear Mr. Roberts requires some compensation for the damage ye’ve caused him.”
I twisted my gold ring off, hands trembling both with fear and rage. The silver one was harder; it stuck on my knuckle as though reluctant to part from me. Both rings were damp and slippery with sweat, the metal warmer than my suddenly chilled fingers.
“Give ’em up.” The man poked me roughly in the shoulder, then turned up a broad, grubby palm for the rings. I reached toward him, reluctantly, rings cupped in my hand—and then, with an impulse I didn’t stop to examine, clapped my hand to my mouth instead.
My head hit the cabin wall with a thud as the man knocked me backward. His callused fingers jabbed my cheeks and poked into my mouth, probing roughly in search of the rings. I twisted and gulped hard, mouth filling with saliva and a silver taste that might have been either metal or blood.
I bit down and he jerked back with a cry; one ring must have flown out of my mouth, for I heard a faint, metallic ping somewhere, and then I gagged and choked, the second ring sliding into my gullet, hard and round.
“Bitch! I’ll slit your friggin’ throat! You’ll go to hell without your rings, you cheating whore!” I saw the man’s face, contorted in rage, and the sudden glitter of a knife blade drawn. Then something hit me hard and knocked me over, and I found myself crushed to the deck, flattened under Jamie’s body.
I was too stunned to move, though I couldn’t have moved in any case; Jamie’s chest was pressing on the back of my head, squashing my face into the deck. There was a lot of shouting and confusion, muffled by the folds of damp linen around my head. There was a soft thunk! and I felt Jamie jerk and grunt.
Oh, God, they’ve stabbed him! I thought, in an agony of terror. Another thump and a louder grunt, though, indicated only a kick in the ribs. Jamie didn’t move; just pressed himself harder against the deck, flattening me like the filling of a sandwich.
“Leave off! Roberts! I said leave him!” Bonnet’s voice rang out in tones of authority, sharp enough to penetrate the muffling cloth.
“But she—” Roberts began, but his querulous whine was stopped abruptly with a sharp, meaty smack.
“Raise yourself, Mr. Fraser. Your wife is safe—not that she deserves to be.” Bonnet’s husky baritone held mingled tones of amusement and irritation.
Jamie’s weight lifted slowly off me, and I sat up, feeling dizzy and mildly sick from the blow on the head. Stephen Bonnet stood looking down at me, examining me with faint distaste, as though I were a mangy deerhide he’d been offered for sale. Next to him, Roberts glared malevolently, dabbing at a smear of blood at his hairline.
Bonnet blinked finally, and switched his gaze to Jamie, who had regained his feet.
“A foolish woman,” Bonnet said dispassionately, “but I suppose you don’t mind that.” He nodded, a faint smile showing. “I am obliged for the opportunity to repay my debt to ye, sir. A life for a life, as the Good Book says.”
“Repay us?” Ian said angrily. “After what we’ve done for ye, ye’ll rob and spoil us, lay violent hands upon my aunt and my dog, and then ye’ll ha’ the gall to speak of repayment?”
Bonnet’s pale eyes fixed on Ian’s face; they were green, the color of peeled grapes. He had a deep dimple in one cheek, as though God had pressed a thumb there in his making, but the eyes were cold as river water at dawn.
“Why, were ye never after learning your Scripture, lad?” Bonnet shook his head reprovingly, with a click of the tongue. “A virtuous woman is prized above rubies; her price is greater than pearls.”
He opened his hand, still smiling, and the lantern light glittered off three gems: emerald, sapphire, and the dark fire of a black diamond.
“I’m sure Mr. Fraser would agree, would ye not, sir?” He slipped the hand into his coat, then brought it out empty.
“And after all,” he said, cold eyes swiveling once more toward Ian, “there are repayments of different kinds.” He smiled, not very pleasantly. “Though I should not suppose you can be old enough to know that yet. Be glad I’ve no mind to give ye a lesson.”
He turned away, beckoning to his comrades.
“We have what we came for,” he said abruptly. “Come.” He stepped up onto the rail and jumped, landing with a grunt on the muddy riverbank. His henchmen followed, Roberts casting an evil look at me before splashing awkwardly into the shallows and ashore.
The four men disappeared at once into the brush, and I heard the high-pitched greeting whinny of a horse, somewhere in the darkness. Aboard, all was silence.
The sky was the color of charcoal, and thunder grumbled faintly in the distance, sheet lightning flickering just above the far horizon.
“Bastards.”