Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (30 page)

“The what?”

“That’s what little Mandy called ’em,” Bobby said, holding his hand level by his thigh and about the height of Mandy’s head. “She said they looked like bad guys, and wanted me to go shoot them.”

Jamie smiled, not quite surprised at Mandy’s acute perceptions, but appreciating them.

“What did ye think of them yourself, Bobby?”

Bobby shook his head. “I didn’t see ’em. The little’uns were playing up by the springhouse and saw two strange men go by. They came home and told me, and I wondered aloud who they were, and Germain told me they were looking for Captain Cunningham. So that’ll be the same fellows, I expect.”

“I expect so. Will ye join me in a can of ale, Bobby?”

The ale was remarkably bad—Fanny and Brianna had made it—but it was strongly alcoholic, and they drank it without complaint, talking over the tenants and any concerns Bobby might have.

“I’m thinkin’ it’s maybe time we raised a militia company, Bobby,” Jamie said casually.

To his surprise, Bobby nodded soberly. “Past time, maybe, sir, if you’ll forgive me saying so.”

“I will,” Jamie said, wary. “But what makes ye say so?”

“Josiah Beardsley was by, two days ago, and told me that he’d seen a group of men in the forest between here and the Blowing Rock. Armed men—and he was sure that he’d seen at least one redcoat among them.” Bobby took a swig of beer and wiped his mouth, adding, “It’s not the first I’ve heard of such a group, but these men were closer than any I’ve heard of.”

“Aye,” Jamie said softly. He remembered what he’d told Brianna, when she’d told him about Rob Cameron, and the hairs prickled at the base of his spine.
Someone will come.
He doubted that these men had anything to do with the wicked buggers that had tried to kill his daughter in her own home and her own time—but these days,
someone
could be a threat, regardless.

“The sooner the better, then. Make me a list, will ye, Bobby? What kind of arms every man on the Ridge has to hand—whether it’s a musket or a scythe. Even a skinning knife will do.”

IN THE EVENT,
it was Rachel who told him all about Captain Cunningham. He’d meant to lend Roger Mac and Richard MacNeill a hand with the rooftree of the new church, and had come by Ian’s cabin to see if the lad would come along. With four men, they could have half the roof on by sunset; it wasn’t a large building.

He found Rachel alone, though, peacefully churning butter on the porch of her cabin, aspen shadows fluttering over her like a cloud of transparent butterflies.

“Ian’s gone hunting with one of the Beardsleys, Jamie,” she told him, smiling, but not missing a stroke. “Thy sister has taken Oggy to visit Aggie McElroy—I think for the purpose of exhibiting him as a terrible example, in hopes of keeping Aggie’s youngest daughter from marrying the first young man who asks her.”

“That would be Caitriona?” he asked, running through his mental map of the Ridge. “She’s nay more than fourteen, surely?”

“Thirteen—but ripe, I believe. She’ll not wait long. No great sense in the girl,” she said, shaking her head. She drew breath and went on, “Though in fairness, it’s as much fear as lust or desire for novelty,” she added, gasping slightly, though her shoulders kept moving evenly. “She
is
the youngest, and…fears that she will be compelled…to remain unwed in order to care for her parents…as they grow elderly, if she does not escape…before they begin actually to dodder.”

Gordon McElroy was five years younger than himself, Jamie reflected, and Aggie maybe forty-five. He wondered whether he would notice if he was doddering or not.

“Ye’re a keen observer of human nature, lass,” he said, smiling.

“I am,” she said, smiling back. “Though I cannot claim much perception with regard to Caitriona…as she told me of her feelings herself.” Rachel had been working for some time; the day was warm, but sweat darkened the edge of her fichu, and her skin, normally the color of cream with a spoonful of coffee, had taken on a pink bloom.

On an impulse, he stepped up onto the porch beside her and, reaching out, took the handle of the churn, nudging her aside without missing a stroke.

“Sit, lassie,” he said. “Rest for a bit, and tell me if ye ken anything about Captain Cunningham.”

“Thee is much too tall for that churn,” she said, but sat down nonetheless on the edge of the porch, stretching out her legs and shrugging her shoulders with a sigh of relief.

“The butter will come soon,” he said. “Won’t it?” It had been a long time since he’d churned butter himself—perhaps…fifty years? That thought disturbed him, and he churned slightly faster.

“It will,” she said, turning her head to frown up at him. “But not unless thee goes more slowly.”

“Oh, aye.” He obediently slowed to her previous rhythm, enjoying the sense of the heavy liquid moving to and fro in the churn with a soft rhythmic slosh. “Have ye seen the captain at all?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, slightly surprised. “I met his mother a few weeks ago, soon after they came. In the forest, gathering comfrey. We talked for a bit, and I helped her to carry her baskets to her house. Her son was very kind, and offered me tea.” She raised an eyebrow to see whether he appreciated this bit of intelligence, which he did.

“I dinna suppose anyone in the backcountry has even seen tea in the last five years.”

“No,” she said thoughtfully. “He said that he has friends from his naval career who are so kind as to send him a small chest of tea and other dainties now and then.”

“Ye said ‘soon after they came’—when did they come?”

“At the end of April. Bobby Higgins told me that the captain told him that, like Odysseus, he had walked away from the sea with an oar on his shoulder until he came to a place where no one knew what it was—and having found such a place, proposed to stay, if he could.”

Jamie couldn’t help smiling at that.

“Does Bobby ken who Odysseus was?”

“He didn’t, but I told him a bit of the story and explained that the captain had been speaking metaphorically. The captain made Bobby rather nervous, I think,” she added delicately. “But there was no good reason to deny him—and he paid five years’ rent in advance. In cash.”

Any figure of government authority would make Bobby nervous, with the murderer’s brand on his face, this inflicted after a skirmish in Boston, where he was a soldier, had left a citizen dead.

“Seems that people tell ye a great many things, Rachel,” he said. She looked up at him, hazel-eyed and open-faced, and nodded.

“I listen,” she said simply.

She knew a number of small things regarding the Cunninghams, for she stopped now and then at their cabin when she’d been foraging in their vicinity—it was no more than a mile and a half—to share, if she had extra of something. None of the things she knew seemed unusual, though, save that Cunningham had confided to her a desire to preach.

“To preach?” Jamie nearly stopped churning, but a certain resistance reminded him that the butter was coming, and he continued. “Did he say why? Or how?”

“He did, evidently, when he was a sea captain. Preach to his men, I mean, on Sundays aboard his ship. I gather that he found it gratifying, and had a notion, when he retired, of becoming a lay preacher. He has no real idea of how that might be accomplished, but his mother assured him that God would find a way.”

The news of the captain’s desire to preach was surprising, but also something of a comfort. Still, he reminded himself, there were a good many preachers who would call down hellfire in the service of an army, and having a vocation to preach didn’t limit a man’s beliefs in other directions. It wasn’t likely that a retired sea captain of the British navy would have strong tendencies toward independency for the American colonies. And he didn’t think wee Frances’s observations regarding Mr. Partland were in any way mistaken.

“Did ye ken that Roger and Brianna called on them, and were shown the door for their trouble?” he asked. “I think the butter’s come.”

She rose, smoothing her dark hair back under her cap, and came to look. She took the churn handle, worked it a few times, and nodded.

“Yes. Brianna told me. I think,” she added delicately, “that perhaps Roger should try to speak with Friend Cunningham in the absence of his mother.”

“Perhaps he should.” He pulled off the top of the churn and they looked in, to see the flakes and clumps of pale-gold butter swimming in the cream.

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL
day, and I had persuaded Jamie—with some difficulty—that the world would not end if he didn’t hang the door for the kitchen today. Instead, we collected the children and walked up through the woods toward Ian’s cabin, bearing small presents for Rachel, Jenny, and Oggy.

“What will ye wager me, Sassenach, that they’ve settled on a name for yon wee man?”

“What odds?” I said, diverted. “And are you betting that they have, or that they haven’t?”

“Five to two against. As to stakes…” He glanced round to see that our companions weren’t within hearing distance and lowered his voice. “Your drawers.”

My “drawers” were in fact the lower half of a planned pair of flannel pajamas, made with an oncoming winter in mind.

“And what on earth would you do with my drawers?”

“Burn them.”

“No bet. Besides, I don’t think they’ve chosen a name yet, either. The last suggestions I heard were Shadrach, Gilbert, and whatever the Mohawk might be for ‘Farts Like a Goat.’ ”

“Let me guess. It was Jenny suggested that last one?”

“Who would know goats better?”

Bluebell snuffled energetically through the layers of crackling leaves, tail moving to and fro like a metronome.

“Can you train that sort of dog to hunt for specific things?” I asked. “I mean, I know it’s called a coonhound, but plainly she isn’t looking for raccoons right now.”

“She’s no a coonhound, though I suppose she wouldna pass one up. What did ye want her to hunt for, Sassenach?” Jamie asked, smiling. “Truffles?”

“You need a pig for that, don’t you? And speaking of pigs…Jemmy! Germain! Keep an eye out for pigs, and watch Mandy!” The boys were squatting by a pine tree, picking bits of bark shaped like puzzle pieces off it, but at my call they looked vaguely round.

“Where
is
Mandy?” I shouted.

“Up there!” Germain called, pointing upslope. “With Fanny.”

“Germain, Germain, look, I got a thousand-legger! A
big
one!”

At Jem’s call, Germain instantly lost interest in the girls and squatted beside Jem, scrabbling dried leaves out of the way.

“Had I better go look, do you think?” I asked. “Millipedes aren’t venomous, but the big centipedes can have a nasty bite.”

“The lad can count,” Jamie assured me. “If he says it’s got a thousand legs, I’m sure it does—give or take a few.” He gave a short whistle and the dog looked up, instantly alert.

“Go find Frances,
a nighean.
” He flung out an arm, pointing uphill, and the dog barked once, agreeably, and bounded up the rocky slope, yellow leaves exploding under her eager feet.

“Do you think she—” I began, but before I could finish, I heard the girls’ voices above, mingled with Bluey’s excited yaps of greeting. “Oh. She
does
know who Frances is, then.”

“Of course she does. She kens all of us now—but she likes Frances best.” He smiled a little at the thought. It was true; Fanny adored the dog and spent hours combing her fur, taking ticks out of her ears, or curled up by the fire with a book, Bluebell comfortably snoring on her feet.

“Why do you always call her Frances?” I asked curiously. “Everybody else calls her Fanny—she calls herself that, for that matter.”

“Fanny is a whore’s name,” he replied tersely. Seeing my look of astonishment, though, his expression relaxed a bit. “Aye, I ken there are respectable women wi’ that name. But Roger Mac tells me Cleland’s novel is still in print in your time.”

“Cleland’s…oh, John Cleland, you mean—
Fanny Hill
?” My voice rose slightly, less in surprise that the famously pornographic
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
was still going strong 250 years on—some things never go out of style, after all—than at the fact that he’d been discussing it with Roger.

“And he tells me the word is a…vulgarism…for a woman’s privates,” he added, frowning.

“Well, it will be,” I admitted. “Or for someone’s bottom, depending whether you come from Britain or America. But it hasn’t got that meaning
now,
does it?”

“No,” he admitted reluctantly. “But still—Lord John told me once that ‘Fanny Laycock’ is a cant term for whore.” His brow furrowed. “I did wonder—her sister gave her name as Jane Eleanora Pocock. I thought it maybe wasna her real last name, but more a—a—”

“Nom de guerre?”
I suggested dryly. “I shouldn’t wonder. Does ‘po’ mean a chamber pot, these days?”

“Pot de chambre?”
he asked in surprise. “Of course it does.”

“Of course it does,” I murmured. “Putting that aside—if Pocock
wasn’t
her real last name, do you think Fanny—er, Frances—knows what the real one is?”

He shook his head, looking slightly troubled.

“I dinna like to ask her,” he said. “She hasna spoken again about—whatever it was that happened to her parents, has she?”

“Not to me. And if she’d told anyone else, I think they’d have mentioned it to you or me.”

“D’ye think she’s forgotten?”

“I think she doesn’t want to remember—which may not be the same thing.”

He nodded at that, and we walked in silence for a bit, letting the peace of the wood settle with the slow rain of falling leaves. I could hear the children’s voices under and over the rustle of the chestnut trees, like the calling of distant birds.

“Besides,” Jamie said, “William called her Frances. When he gave her to me.”

WE WALKED ON
slowly, pausing now and then as I spotted something edible, medicinal, or fascinating, which required a stop every few feet.

“Oo!” I said, heading for a slash of deep, bloody red at the foot of a tree. “Look at that!”

“It looks like a slice of fresh deer’s liver,” Jamie said, peering over my shoulder. “But it doesna smell like blood, so I’m guessing it’s one of the things ye call shelf funguses?”

“Very astute of you.
Fistulina hepatica,
” I said, whipping out my knife. “Here, hold this, would you?”

He accepted my basket with no more than a slight roll of the eyes and stood patiently while I cut the fleshy chunks—for there was a whole nest of them hidden under the drifted leaves, like a set of crimson lily pads—free of the tree. I left the smaller ones to grow, but still had at least two pounds of the meaty mushroom. I packed them in layers of damp leaves, but broke off a small piece and offered it to Jamie.

“One side makes you taller, and one side makes you small,” I said, smiling.

“What?”

“Alice in Wonderland—the Caterpillar. I’ll tell you later. It’s said to taste rather like raw beef,” I said.

Muttering “Caterpillar” under his breath, he accepted the bit, turned it from side to side, inspecting it critically to be sure it harbored no insidious legs, then popped it in his mouth and chewed, eyes narrowed in concentration. He swallowed, and I relaxed a little.

“Maybe like verra old beef that’s been hung a long time,” he allowed. “But aye, a man could stomach it.”

“That’s actually a very good commendation for a raw mushroom,” I said, pleased. “If I had a few anchovies to hand, I’d make you a nice
tartare
sauce to go with it.”

“Anchovies,” he said thoughtfully. “I havena had an anchovy in years.” He licked his lower lip in memory. “I might find some, next time I go to Wilmington.”

I looked at him in surprise.

“Are you planning to go to Wilmington soon?”

“Aye, I thought I might,” he said casually. “D’ye want to come, Sassenach? I thought ye’d maybe be busy wi’ the preserving.”

“Hmpf.” While it was perfectly true that I ought to be spending every waking hour in picking, finding, catching, smoking, salting, or preserving food (when not grinding, infusing, or decocting medicines)…it was equally true that I ought to be replenishing our stocks of needles, pins, sugar—that was a good point, I’d need more sugar to be making the fruit preserves—and thread, to say nothing of other bits of household ironmongery and the medicines I couldn’t find or make, like ether.

And, if you came right down to it, wild horses couldn’t keep me from going with him. Jamie knew it, too; I could see the side of his mouth curling.

Before I could either gracefully accept his offer or poke him in the ribs, an unearthly yodel sounded through the trees, and Bluebell shot down the hill in front of us, all four children in hot pursuit, likewise baying.

“What was that about raccoons, Sassenach?” Jamie squinted toward the distant tree under which the hound had taken up residence, her front feet on the trunk, pointing her muzzle up into the branches and letting out ear-piercing howls.

Rather to my surprise, it
was
a raccoon, fat, gray, immense, and extremely irascible at being roused before nightfall. It filled a jagged hollow, halfway up a lightning-struck pine, and was peering out in a belligerent way. I
thought
it was growling, but nothing could be heard over the wild cries of dog and children.

Jamie hushed all of them—except the dog—and eyed the coon with a hunter’s natural avidity. So, I noticed, did Jem. Germain and Fanny had drawn close together, looking up wide-eyed at the raccoon, and Mandy was wrapped tightly round my leg.

“I don’t want it to bite me!” she said, clutching my thigh. “Don’t let it bite me, Grandda!”

“I won’t,
a nighean.
Dinna fash yourself.” Not taking his eyes off the treed raccoon, Jamie unslung the rifle from his back and reached for the shot pouch on his belt.

“Can I do it, Grandda? Please, can I shoot it?” Jem was itching to get his hands on the rifle, rubbing them up and down his breeches. Jamie glanced at him and smiled, but then his gaze shifted to Germain—or so I thought.

“Let Frances try, aye?” he said, and held out his hand to the startled girl. I rather expected her to recoil in horror, but after a moment’s hesitation, a glow rose in her cheeks and she stepped bravely forward.

“Show me how,” she said, sounding breathless. Her eyes flickered from gun to coon and back, as though fearing one or both would disappear.

Jamie normally carried his rifle loaded, but not always primed. He crouched on one knee and laid the gun along his thigh, handed her a half-filled cartridge, and explained how to pour the powder into the pan. Jem and Germain watched jealously, occasionally butting in with know-it-all remarks like, “That’s the frizzen, Fanny,” or “You want to hold it up close to your shoulder so it won’t break your face when it goes off.” Jamie and Fanny both ignored these helpful interjections, and I towed Mandy off to a safe distance and sat down on a battered stump, putting her on my lap.

Bluebell and the raccoon had continued their vocal warfare, and the forest rang with howling and a sort of high-pitched angry squealing. Mandy had put her hands dramatically over her ears but removed them to inquire whether I knew how to shoot a gun.

“Yes,” I said, avoiding any elaborations. I did technically know how, and had in fact discharged a firearm several times in my life. I’d found it deeply unnerving, though—the more so after I’d been shot myself at the Battle of Monmouth and understood the effects on a truly visceral level. I preferred stabbing, all things considered.

“Mam can shoot anything,” Mandy noted, frowning in disapproval at Fanny, who was now holding the wobbling weapon to her shoulder, looking simultaneously thrilled and terrified. Jamie crouched behind her, steadying the gun, his hand on hers, adjusting her grip and her sights, his voice a low rumble, barely audible under the racket.

“Go to your grannie,” he said to the boys, raising his voice. His eyes were fixed on the coon, which had fluffed itself to twice the normal size and was hurling insults at Bluebell, completely ignoring its audience. Jem and Germain reluctantly but obediently came to stand beside me, a safe distance away—or at least I hoped so. I repressed the urge to make them move farther off.

The gun went off with a sharp
bang!
that made Mandy scream. I didn’t, but it was a near thing. Bluey dropped to all fours and seized the raccoon, which had been knocked out of the tree by the shot. I couldn’t tell whether it was dead already, but she gave it a tremendous, neck-breaking shake, dropped the bloody carcass, and let out a high, warbling
oo-hooo!
of triumph.