THEY LAY HALF-CLOTHED and comfortably tangled beneath the tattered quilt, sleepy and sticky with half-dried milk, the heat of their joining still warm around them.
The sun through the empty branches overhead made black ripples behind the lids of her closed eyes, as though she looked down through a dark red sea, wading in the blood-warm water, seeing black volcanic sand change and ripple round her feet.
Was he awake? She didn’t turn her head or open her eyes to see, but tried to send a message to him, a slow, lazy pulse of a heartbeat, a question surging from blood to blood. Are you there? she asked silently. She felt the question move up through her chest and out along her arm; she imagined the pale underside of her arm and the blue vein along it, as though she might see some telltale subterranean flash as the impulse threaded through her blood and down her forearm, reached her palm, her finger, and delivered the faintest throb of its pressure against his skin.
Nothing happened at once. She could hear his breathing, slow and regular, a counterpoint to the sough of breeze through trees and grass, like surf coming in upon a sandy shore.
She imagined herself as a jellyfish, he another. She could see them clearly; two transparent bodies, lucent as the moon, veils pulsing in and out in hypnotic rhythm, borne on the tide toward one another, tendrils trailing, slowly touching . . .
His finger crossed her palm, so lightly it might have been the brush of fin or feather.
I’m here, it said. And you?
Her hand closed over it, and he rolled toward her.
LATE IN THE YEAR as it was, the light died early. It was still a month ’til the winter solstice, but by mid-afternoon, the sun was already brushing the slope of Black Mountain, and their shadows stretched to impossible lengths before them as they turned eastward, toward home.
She carried the gun; instruction was over for the day, and while they weren’t hunting, if the opportunity of game offered, she would take it. The squirrel she had killed earlier was already cleaned and tucked in her sack, but that was barely flavoring for a vegetable stew. A few more would be nice. Or a possum, she thought dreamily.
She wasn’t sure of the habits of possum, though; perhaps they hibernated over winter, and if so, they might already be gone. The bears were still active; she’d seen half-dried scat on the trail, and scratches on the bark of a pine, still oozing yellow sap. A bear was good game, but she didn’t mean either to look for one, or to risk shooting at one unless it attacked them—and that wasn’t likely. Leave bears alone, and they’ll generally leave you alone; both her fathers had told her that, and she thought it excellent advice.
A covey of bobwhite blasted out of a nearby bush like exploding shrapnel, and she jerked, heart in her mouth.
“Those are good to eat, aren’t they?” Roger nodded at the last of the disappearing gray-white blobs. He had been startled, too, but less than she had, she noticed with annoyance.
“Yeah,” she said, disgruntled at being taken unawares. “But you don’t shoot them with a musket, unless all you want is feathers for a pillow. You use a fowling piece, with bird shot. It’s like a shotgun.”
“I know,” he said, shortly.
She felt disinclined to talk, jarred out of their peaceful mood. Her breasts were beginning to swell again; it was time to go home, to find Jemmy.
Her step quickened a little at the thought, even as her mind reluctantly surrendered the memory of the pungent smell of crushed dry fern, the glow of sunlight on Roger’s bare brown shoulders above her, the hiss of her milk, gilding his chest in a spray of fine droplets, slick and warm and cool by turns between their writhing bodies.
She sighed deeply, and heard him laugh, low in his throat.
“Mmm?” She turned her head, and he motioned to the ground before them. They had begun to move together as they walked, neither noticing the unconscious pull of the gravitational force that bound them. Now their shadows had merged at the top, so an odd, four-legged beast paced spiderlike before them, its two heads tilted toward each other.
He put an arm around her waist, and one shadow-head dipped, joining the other in a single bulbous shape.
“It’s been a good day, aye?” he said softly.
“Aye, it has,” she said, and smiled. She might have spoken further, but a sound came to her above the rattle of tree branches, and she pulled suddenly away.
“What—” he began, but she put a finger to her lips to shush him, beckoning as she crept toward a growth of red oak.
It was a flock of turkeys, scratching companionably in the earth beneath a large oak tree, turning up winter grubs from the mat of fallen leaves and acorns. The late sun shone low, lighting the iridescence in their breast feathers, so the birds’ drab black glimmered with tiny rainbows as they moved.
She had the gun already loaded, but not primed. She groped for the powder flask at her belt and filled the pan, scarcely looking away from the birds. Roger crouched beside her, intent as a hound dog on the scent. She nudged him, and held the gun toward him in invitation, one eyebrow up. The turkeys were no more than twenty yards away, and even the smaller ones were the size of footballs.
He hesitated, but she could see the desire to try it in his eyes. She thrust the gun firmly into his hands and nodded toward a gap in the brush.
He shifted carefully, trying for a clear line of sight. She hadn’t taught him to fire from a crouch as yet, and he wisely didn’t try, instead standing, though it meant firing downward. He hesitated, the long barrel wavering as he shifted his aim from one bird to another, trying to choose the best shot. Her fingers curled and clenched, aching to correct his aim, to pull the trigger.
She felt him draw breath and hold it. Then three things happened, so quickly as to seem simultaneous. The gun went off with a huge phwoom!, a spray of dried oak leaves fountained up from the earth under the tree, and fifteen turkeys lost their minds, running like a demented football squad straight at them, gobbling hysterically.
The turkeys reached the brush, saw Roger, and took to the air like flying soccer balls, wings frantically clapping the air. Roger ducked to avoid one that soared an inch above his head, only to be struck in the chest by another. He reeled backward, and the turkey, clinging to his shirt, seized the opportunity to run nimbly up his shoulder and push off, raking the side of his neck with its claws.
The gun flew through the air. Brianna caught it, flipped a cartridge from the box on her belt, and was grimly reloading and ramming as the last turkey ran toward Roger, zigged away, saw her, zagged in the other direction, and finally zoomed between them, gobbling alarms and imprecations.
She swung around, sighted on it as it left the ground, caught the black blob outlined for a split second against the brilliant sky, and blasted it in the tail feathers. It dropped like a sack of coal, and hit the ground forty yards away with an audible thud.
She stood still for a moment, then slowly lowered the gun. Roger was staring at her, openmouthed, pressing the cloth of his shirt against the bloody scratches on his neck. She smiled at him, a little weakly, feeling her hands sweaty on the wooden stock and her heart pounding with delayed reaction.
“Holy God,” Roger said, deeply impressed. “That wasn’t just luck, was it?”
“Well . . . some,” she said, trying for modesty. She failed, and felt a grin blossom across her face. “Maybe half.”
Roger went to retrieve her prize while she cleaned the gun again, coming back with a ten-pound bird, limp-necked and leaking blood like a punctured waterskin.
“What a thing,” he said. He held it at arm’s length to drain, admiring the vivid reds and blues of the bare, warty head and dangling wattle. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, save roasted on a platter, with chestnut dressing and roast potatoes.”
He looked from the turkey to her with great respect, and nodded at the gun.
“That’s great shooting, Bree.”
She felt her cheeks flush with pleasure, and restrained the urge to say, “Aw, shucks, it warn’t nothin’,” settling instead for a simple, “Thanks.”
They turned again toward home, Roger still carrying the dripping carcass, held slightly out from his body.
“You haven’t been shooting all that long, either,” Roger was saying, still impressed. “What’s it been, six months?”
She didn’t want to lower his estimation of her prowess, but laughed, shrugged, and told the truth anyway.
“More like six years. Really more like ten.”
“Eh?”
“Daddy—Frank—taught me to shoot when I was eleven or twelve. He gave me a twenty-two when I was thirteen, and by the time I was fifteen, he was taking me to shoot clay pigeons at ranges, or to hunt doves and quail on weekends in the fall.”
Roger glanced at her in interest.
“I thought Jamie’d taught you; I’d no idea Frank Randall was such a sportsman.”
“Well,” she said slowly. “I don’t know that he was.”
One black brow went up in inquiry.
“Oh, he knew how to shoot,” she assured him. “He’d been in the Army during World War Two. But he never shot much himself; he’d just show me, and then watch. In fact, he never even owned a gun.”
“That’s odd.”
“Isn’t it?” She moved deliberately closer to him, nudging his shoulder so that their shadows merged again; now it looked like a two-headed ogre, carrying a gun over one shoulder, and a third head held bloodily in its hand. “I wondered about that,” she said, with attempted casualness. “After you told me—about his letter and all that, at the Gathering.”
He shot her a sharp look.
“Wondered what?”
She took a deep breath, feeling the linen strips bite into her breasts.
“I wondered why a man who didn’t ride or shoot should take such pains to see that his daughter could do both those things. I mean, it wasn’t like it was common for girls to do that.” She tried to laugh. “Not in Boston, anyway.”
There was no sound for a moment but the shuffling of their feet through dry leaves.
“Christ,” Roger said softly, at last. “He looked for Jamie Fraser. He said so, in his letter.”
“And he found a Jamie Fraser. He said that, too. We just don’t know whether it was the right one or not.” She kept her eyes on her boots, wary of snakes. There were copperheads in the wood, and timber rattlers; she saw them now and then, basking on rocks or sunny logs.
Roger took a deep breath, lifting his head.
“Aye. And so you’re wondering now—what else might he have found?”
She nodded, not looking up.
“Maybe he found me,” she said softly. Her throat felt tight. “Maybe he knew I’d go back, through the stones. But if he did—he didn’t tell me.”
He stopped walking, and put a hand on her arm to turn her toward him.
“And perhaps he didn’t know that at all,” he said firmly. “He may only have thought ye might try it, if you ever found out about Fraser. And if you did find out, and did go . . . then he wanted you to be safe. I’d say no matter what he knew, that’s what he wanted; you to be safe.” He smiled, a little crookedly. “Like you want me to be safe. Aye?”
She heaved a deep sigh, feeling comfort descend on her with his words. She’d never doubted that Frank Randall had loved her, all the years of her growing up. She didn’t want to doubt it now.
“Aye,” she said, and tilted up an inch on her toes to kiss him.
“Fine, then,” he said, and gently touched her breast, where the buckskin of her shirt showed a small wet patch. “Jem’ll be hungry. Come on; it’s time we were home.”
They turned again and went down the mountain, into the golden sea of chestnut leaves, watching their shadows go before them as they walked, embracing.
“Do you think—” she began, and hesitated. One shadow head dipped toward the other, listening.
“Do you think Ian’s happy?”
“I hope so,” he replied, and his arm tightened round her. “If he has a wife like mine—then I’m sure he is.”