Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (15 page)

“The commander was an officer named Buncombe. Your father called him ‘a decent fellow for a Sassenach’—and he was. Brian had brought two bottles of whisky—good stuff,” he added, glancing at Jamie, and saw the flicker of a returned smile at that. “We drank with Buncombe, and he promised to have his soldiers make inquiries. That made me feel…hopeful. As though I might really have some chance of finding Jem.”

He hesitated for a moment, trying to think how to say what he wanted to, but after all, Jamie
had
known Brian himself.

“It wasn’t so much Buncombe’s courtesy. It was Brian Dhu,” he said, looking straight at Jamie. “He was…kind, very kind, but it was more than that.” He had a vivid memory of it, of Brian, riding in front of him up a hill, bonnet and broad shoulders dark with rain, his back straight and sure. “You felt—
I
felt—as though…if this man was on my side, then things would be all right.”

“Everyone felt that about him,” Jamie said softly, looking down.

Roger nodded, silent. Jamie’s auburn head was bent, his gaze fixed on his knees—but Roger saw that head turn a fraction of an inch, and tilt as though in answer to a touch, and a tiny ripple of something between awe and simple acknowledgment stirred the hairs on his own scalp.

There it is,
he thought, at once surprised and not surprised at all. He’d seen it—or rather, felt it—before, but it had taken several repetitions before he’d realized fully what it was. The summoning of the dead, when those who loved them spoke of them. He could feel Brian Dhu, here beside this mountain creek, as surely as he had felt him that dreich day in the Highlands.

Roger gave a brief nod to the ghost who stood with them, thought,
Forgive me,
and went on.

He told of William Buccleigh MacKenzie, who’d once nearly killed Roger but now was in the way of making amends by helping to find Jem. How together they had met Dougal MacKenzie, out collecting rents with his men—

“Jesus,” Jamie said, though Roger noticed he didn’t cross himself at mention of Dougal. His mouth curved up at the corner. “Did Dougal ken the—that this man Buck was his son?”

“No,” Roger said dryly. “As Buck hadn’t been born yet. Buck kent Dougal was his father, though; that was a bit of a shock for him.”
Not only for him.

“I imagine it would be,” Jamie murmured. A tinge of amusement lingered on his face, and Roger wondered—not for the first time—at the ability of Highlanders to step back and forth between this world and the next. Jamie had killed his uncle when he had to, but had made his peace postmortem; he’d heard Jamie call on Dougal for help in battle—and seen him get it, too.

Roger and Buck had got it, as well: Dougal had lent them horses for their journey.

But as Roger had said, this wasn’t about his own search for son and father. This was about what he owed to another father and another son. To the shade of Brian Dhu—and to Jamie.

“I’ll tell ye the rest sometime. But for now—we went back to Lallybroch, for Brian had sent word that he’d found a thing that was maybe to do with my business.

“The thing was a sort of pendant sent to him from the garrison commander at Fort William. It seemed odd and it had the name
‘MacKenzie’
on it, so both the commander and Brian thought I should see it.” There was a remembered tightness in his chest as he saw the disks in his mind: pressed cardboard, one red, one green, both imprinted with the name
“J. W. MacKenzie”
and a string of cryptic numbers—the ID dog tags of an RAF flyer, and proof positive that they were looking for a different Jeremiah.

“We needed to find where those tags had come from, aye? So we went back to Fort William. And—” He had to stop and breathe deep, to get it out. “Captain Buncombe had left; the new garrison commander was a Captain Randall.”

All amusement had vanished from Jamie’s face, which was now blank as a slate.

“Aye,” Roger said, and coughed a bit. “Him.” The new commander had been cordial, personable. “Helpful,” Roger said. “It was—” He searched for a word, then spread his hands, helpless to find it. “It was weird. I mean…I
knew…
what he’d…”

“Done to me?” Jamie’s eyes were fixed on his, unreadable.

“What he’d do to you. Claire told me—us. When she…” He caught sight of Jamie’s face and hurried on. “I mean, she kent ye were dead, or I’m sure she wouldn’t have—”

“She told ye everything, then.” Jamie’s expression hadn’t changed much, but his face had gone pale.

Oh, shit.

“Well, just the…er…the general outli—” He stopped.
Ye’ll never make a decent minister if ye can’t be honest.
Buck had said that to him, and he was right. Roger took a breath.

“Yes,” he said simply, and felt his innards hollow out.

Without a word, Jamie got to his feet and, turning away, took several steps into the bushes, stopped, and threw up.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. What was I thinking!

Roger felt as though he’d been holding his breath for an hour, and took a sip of air, and then another. He’d been thinking far ahead—to what he needed to say to Jamie, to explain and apologize, to ask forgiveness. He needed to do that, if he and Bree were to live here again. But he hadn’t thought at all that Jamie might not realize that Roger—
and Bree, for God’s sake!
—knew the intimate details of his personal Gethsemane; had known them for years.

Bloody, bloody, bloody…oh, hell…

Roger sat with his fists clenched, listening to Jamie gulp air, spit, and pant. He kept his eyes fixed on a scarlet ladybug with black spots that had lighted on his knee; it trundled to and fro over the gray homespun, curious antennae prodding the cloth. At last there was a rustling of bushes, and Jamie came back and sat down, back pressed against the sapling. Roger opened his mouth, and Jamie made a short chopping gesture with one hand.

“Don’t,” he said. His shirt was damp with sweat, wilted over his collarbones. All the evening insects had come out now; clouds of gnats floated over their heads, and the crickets had begun to chirp. A mosquito whined past Roger’s ear, but he didn’t lift a hand to swat it.

Jamie sighed and gave Roger a very direct look.

“Go on, then,” he said. “Tell me the rest.”

Roger nodded and met Jamie’s eyes.

“I knew about Randall, and what he was,” he said bluntly. “And what would happen. Not just to you—to your sister. And your father.”

This time Jamie did cross himself, slowly, and whispered something in Gaelic that Roger didn’t catch, but didn’t ask to have repeated.

“I told Buck, then—just, about the—the flogging, not about—” The fingers of Jamie’s maimed hand flickered, as though about to make the chopping motion again. “About your father, and what happened to him then.”

He felt again the cold horror of that conversation. If he did nothing to stop Jack Randall, Brian Dhu Fraser would be dead within a year, dead of an apoplexy suffered while watching his son being flogged to death (as he thought) by Captain Randall. Jamie would be outlawed, wounded in body and soul, bearing the guilt of knowing that his father’s death lay upon him, knowing that he had abandoned his home and tenants to his bereaved and shattered sister. And Jenny, that lovely young girl, left completely alone, without even a brother’s protection.

Jamie didn’t flinch at the telling, but Roger could feel the words go into his own flesh like darts.
Jenny. Christ, how will I face her?

He drew a deep breath. They were nearly there.

“Buck wanted to kill him—Randall. Right away, without hesitation.”

There was the barest breath of a laugh in Jamie’s voice, though it wavered a bit.

“He
was
Dougal’s son, then.”

“Absolutely no doubt about it,” Roger assured him. “You should have seen the two of them together.”

“I wish I had.”

Roger rubbed a hand over his face, shaking his head.

“The thing is—we could have stopped him. Killed him, I mean. We were armed. I’d been to see him before, with your da. He’d have no fear of me; I could have gone into his office with Buck and done it. Or we might have followed him to his lodgings, done it there; we’d have had a good chance of getting away.”

Jamie had flinched, just once, at the word “da.” He sat quiet now, though, his eyes the only thing alive in his face.

“I wouldn’t let Buck do it,” Roger blurted, speaking to those eyes. “I
knew
what would happen—all of it—and I let it happen. To your family. To you.”

Jamie looked down but didn’t speak. Roger felt fresh air from the creek come up from below, and felt the cold shadow of the trees touch his burning face.

At last Jamie stirred, nodding his head once, then twice, deciding.

“And if ye’d killed him?” he said quietly. “If I hadna been an outlaw, I’d not have been near Craigh na Dun, and in bad need of a healer, on that day when…” One eyebrow lifted.

Roger nodded, wordless.

“Brianna?” Jamie said softly, her name the sound of cool breeze in the
Gàidhlig
. “Would she have happened? And the bairns? You, for that matter?”

“It—we—might still have happened,” Roger said, and swallowed. “Another way. But aye. I was scared it might not. But I’m not—” He bit that off. Jamie knew he wasn’t making excuses.

“Aye, well.” Jamie got to his feet, scattering a cloud of gnats like a shower of gold dust in the evening light. “Dinna fash, then. I willna let Jenny kill ye. Come on, or the supper will be burnt.”

Roger felt rather as though a rug had been pulled out from under him. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but apparent calm acceptance wasn’t it.

“You…don’t…” he began hesitantly.

“I don’t.” Jamie reached down a hand, and when Roger took it, hauled him to his feet so they stood face-to-face, the trees beginning to rustle around them in the evening breeze.

“I spent a great deal of time thinking, ken,” Jamie said conversationally, tilting his head toward the creek, “when I lived as an outlaw after Culloden. Out under the sky, listening to the voices ye hear in the wind. And I would look back, wondering at the things I’d done—and not done—and thinking what if I’d done it differently? If we’d not chosen to try to stop Charles Stuart…it would have been different for us, at least, if not for the Highlands. I’d maybe have kept Claire by me. If I’d not gone to fight Jack Randall in the Bois de Boulogne, would I have two daughters now?” He shook his head, the lines in his face deep and his eyes dark with shadows.

“No man owns his own life,” he said. “Part of you is always in someone else’s hands. All ye can do is hope it’s mostly God’s hands you’re in.” He touched Roger’s shoulder, nodding toward the trail. “We should go.”

Roger followed, eased in mind, but unable to see the grubby, coarse shirt that covered Jamie’s back without still seeing the scars beneath.

“Mind,” Jamie said, turning to Roger at the head of the trail, “I think ye maybe shouldna tell Jenny what ye just told me. Not first thing, I mean. Let her get used to ye.”

JAMIE TOOK THE
kindling sticks from Fanny and Mandy and bade them watch to see how you put them in to build up a fire. The fire had been burning all day, but low, as it wasn’t needed to do anything more than boil water and cook the stew Claire had made: bits of roasted possum flavoring a mass of young potatoes with carrots, peas, wild mushrooms, and onions. He glanced over his shoulder to be sure she was occupied elsewhere, then beckoned the girls in, conspiratorially.

“Let’s have a wee whiff,” he whispered, and they giggled, pressing in against his shoulders as he reached out with the pot lifter and slowly raised the lid, letting out a puff of damp steam, scented with meat and wine and onions. The girls sniffed as hard as ever they could, and he let it come in through his nose, all the way to the back of his throat. His wame rumbled at the luscious smell, and the girls burst into giggles again at the sound, glancing guiltily round.

“What on earth are you doing, Da?” He turned to find his daughter towering over him, a look of disapproval on her face. “Mandy, watch out! You’ve got Esmeralda almost in the fire!”

“Only teaching the wee lassies a bit o’ cookery,” he said airily, and, handing her the pot lifter, bowed and left, the music of girls’ laughter in his ears.

It was a good time to go; supper would be ready soon, and the light was going. He’d been looking out for Jenny, meaning to take her aside and prepare her a bit before she met Roger Mac.

Prepare her, how?
he wondered. Say,
“D’ye mind a man who came to Lallybroch forty years ago, lookin’ for his son? Ye don’t? Oh. Well, he’s here…only…”

Maybe she
would
remember. She’d been a young lass and Roger Mac was no bad-looking. And from what Roger Mac had told him, Da had spent a good bit of time in helping him to search, so perhaps…

The realization that he’d thought about Da so casually, thinking of him as still alive, made him feel as though he’d missed the last stair and come down staggering.

“Eh?” He became aware that Claire had asked him something and was waiting for an answer. “Sorry, Sassenach, I was thinking. What did ye say?”