Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (74 page)

IAN DIDN’T PRETEND
not to know why she asked.

“Small,” he said, holding his hand about three inches above his elbow.
Four inches shorter than I…
“Neat, with a—a pretty face.”

“If she is beautiful, Ian, thee may say so,” Rachel said dryly. “I am a Friend; we aren’t given to vanity.”

He looked at her, his lips twitching a little. Then he thought better of whatever he’d been about to say. He closed his eyes for an instant, then opened them and answered her honestly.

“She was lovely. I met her by the water—a pool in the river, where the water spreads out and there’s not even a ripple on the surface, but ye feel the spirit of the river moving through it just the same.” He’d seen her standing thigh-deep in the water, clothed but with her shirt drawn up and tied round her waist with a red scarf, holding a thin spear of sharpened wood and watching for fish.

“I canna think of her in—in her parts,” he said, his voice a little husky. “What her eyes looked like, her face…” He made an odd, graceful little gesture with his hand, as though he cupped Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa’s cheek, then traveled the line of her neck and shoulder. “I only—when I think of her—” He glanced at her and made a
hem
noise in his throat. “Aye. Well. Aye, I think of her now and then. Not often. But when I do, I only think of her as all of a piece, and I canna tell ye in words what that looks like.”

“Why should thee not think of her?” Rachel said, as gently as she could. “She was thy wife, the mother of—of your children.”

“Aye,” he said softly, and bent his head. Emily had borne him one stillborn daughter and miscarried two more babes. Rachel thought she might have chosen her place better; they were in the shed that served as a small barn and there was a farrowing sow in a pen right in front of them, a dozen fat piglets thrusting and grunting at her teats, a testament to fecundity.

“I need to tell ye something, Rachel,” he said, raising his head abruptly.

“Thee knows thee can tell me anything, Ian,” she said, and meant it, but her heart meant something different and began to beat faster.

“The—her—Emily’s children. I told ye I’d met them when I saw her last. The two young ones—she had those by Sun Elk, but the eldest, the boy…” He hesitated. “She asked me to name the baby—that’s a great honor,” he explained, “but something made me name the boy, instead. I called him Swiftest of Lizards—he was catching lizards when I met him, catching them in his hand. We—got on,” he said, and smiled briefly at the memory.

“I’m sorry, Rachel, I ken ye’ll think that’s wrong, but I’m no sorry I did it.”

“I see…” she said slowly, though she didn’t. She was beginning to have a hollow feeling in her middle, though. “So what thee is telling me is—”

“I think he’s maybe mine,” Ian blurted. “The boy. He would ha’ been born about the right time, after I left. The thing is…ken, I told ye the Mohawk say that when a man lies with a woman, his spirit fights with hers?”

“I wouldn’t say they’re wrong, but—” She flapped a hand, interrupting herself. “Go on.”

“And if his spirit conquers hers, she’ll get wi’ child.” He put his arm round her, his hand big and warm on her elbow. “So maybe Auntie Claire was wrong about the things in the blood—I mean, our wee man is fine. Maybe it was Emily’s blood that…aye, well…” He bent his head and rested it on hers, so they stood forehead-to-forehead, eye-to-eye.

“I dinna ken, Rachel,” he said quietly. “But—”

“We have to go,” she said, though her heart had gone so small she could barely feel its beating. “Of course we must go.”

“THEE WOULD MAKE A
good Friend, thee knows,” Rachel remarked, holding back a laurel branch for her mother-in-law, who was burdened by a large basket of quilting. Rachel herself was burdened with Oggy, who had fallen asleep in the sling she carried him in.

Janet Murray gave her a sharp look and made what Claire had privately described to Rachel as a Scottish noise, this being a mingled snort and gargling sound that might indicate anything from mild amusement or approval to contempt, derision, or impending forcible action. At the moment, Rachel thought her mother-in-law was amused, and smiled herself.

“Thee is forthright and direct,” Rachel pointed out. “And honest. Or at least I suppose thee to be,” she added, slightly teasing. “I can’t say I have ever caught thee in a lie.”

“Wait ’til ye’ve kent me a bit longer, lass, before ye make judgments like that,” Jenny advised her. “I’m a fine wee liar, when the need arises. What else, though?” Her dark-blue eyes creased a little—definitely amusement. Rachel smiled back and thought for a moment, threading her way over a steep patch of gravel where the trail had washed out, then reaching back to take the basket.

“Thee is compassionate. Kind. And fearless,” she said, watching Jenny come down, half-sliding and grabbing branches to keep erect.

Her mother-in-law’s head turned sharply, eyes wide.

“Fearless?” she said, incredulous.
“Me?”
She made a noise that Rachel would have spelled as “Psssht.” “I’ve been scairt to the bone since I was ten years old,
a leannan
. But ye get used to it, ken?” She took back the basket, and Rachel hoisted Oggy, whose weight had doubled the moment he fell asleep, into a more secure position.

“What happened when thee was ten?” she asked, curious.

“My mother died,” Jenny answered. Her expression and voice were both matter-of-fact, but Rachel could hear bereavement in it, plain as the high, thin call of a hermit thrush.

“Mine died when I was born,” Rachel said, after a long pause. “I can’t say that I miss her, as I never knew her—though of course…”

“They say ye canna miss what ye never had, but they’re wrong about that one,” Jenny said, and touched Rachel’s cheek with the palm of her hand, small and warm. “Watch where ye’re walkin’, lass. It’s slick underfoot.”

“Yes.” Rachel kept her eyes on the ground, striding wide to avoid a muddy patch where a tiny spring bubbled up. “I dream, sometimes. There’s a woman, but I don’t know who she is. Perhaps it’s my mother. She seems kind, but she doesn’t say much. She just looks at me.”

“Does she look
like
ye, lass?”

Rachel shrugged, balancing Oggy with a hand under his bottom.

“She has dark hair, but I can’t ever remember her face when I wake up.”

“And ye wouldna ken what she looked like, alive.” Jenny nodded, looking at something behind her own eyes. “I kent mine—and if ye ever want to know what
she
looked like, just go and have a keek at Brianna, for she’s Ellen MacKenzie Fraser to the life—though a wee bit bigger.”

“I’ll do that,” Rachel assured her. She found her new cousin-in-law slightly intimidating, though Ian clearly loved her. “Scared, though—and thee said thee has been frightened ever since?” She didn’t think she’d ever met someone less frightened than Janet Murray, whom she’d seen only yesterday face down a huge raccoon on the cabin’s porch, driving it off with a broom and a Scottish execration, in spite of the animal’s enormous claws and menacing aspect.

Jenny glanced at her, surprised, and changed the heavy basket from one arm to the other with a small grunt as the trail narrowed.

“Oh, no scairt for myself,
a nighean,
I dinna think I’ve ever worrit about bein’ killed or the like. No, scairt for
them.
Scairt I wouldna be able to manage, to take care o’ them.”

“Them?”

“Jamie and Da,” Jenny said, frowning a little at the squashy ground under her feet. It had rained hard the night before, and even the open ground was muddy. “I didna ken how to take care of them. I kent well I couldna fill my mother’s place for either one. See, I thought they’d die wi’out her.”

And you’d be left entirely alone,
Rachel thought.
Wanting to die, too, and not knowing how. It does seem much easier for men; I wonder why? Do they not think anyone needs them?

“Thee managed, though,” she said, and Jenny shrugged.

“I put on her apron and made their supper. That was all I kent to do. Feed them.”

“I’d suppose that was the most important thing.” She bent her head and brushed the top of Oggy’s cap with her lips. His mere presence made her breasts tingle and ache. Jenny saw that, and smiled, in a rueful sort of way.

“Aye. When ye ha’ bairns, there’s that wee time when ye really
are
all they need. And then they leave your arms and ye’re scairt all over again, because now ye ken all the things that could harm them, and you not able to keep them from it.”

Rachel nodded, and they made their way in silence—though a close, listening sort of silence—through the little oak wood and round the edge of the smaller hayfield, to the growth of aspens where the cabin stood.

She had thought she’d leave it to Ian to tell his mother, but the mood between them was one of love, and the spirit moved her to speak now.

“Ian means to go to New York,” she said. Oggy was stirring, and she hoisted him to her shoulder, patting his firm little back. “To satisfy himself regarding the welfare of—the…er…his…”

“The Indian woman he was wed to?” Jenny said bluntly. “Aye, I thought he’d want to, when I heard about the massacre.”

Rachel didn’t waste time asking how Jenny
had
heard about it. The Mohawks had stayed three days, and news of any kind seeped through the Ridge like indigo dye through a wet cloth.

“I will go with him,” she said.

Jenny made a noise that might be spelled
glarmph,
but nodded.

“Aye. I thought ye might.”

“You did?” Rachel was surprised—and perhaps a little affronted. She had expected shock and argument, attempted dissuasion.

“He’s told ye about his dead bairns by her, I expect?”

“He did, yes, before we wed.” Oggy’s live weight in her arms was a double blessing; she knew how much Ian had feared never being able to sire a live child.

Jenny nodded.

“He’s an honest man. And kind, to boot, but I doubt he’ll ever make a decent Friend.”

“Well, so do I,” Rachel admitted. “And yet miracles happen.”

That made Jenny laugh. She stopped at the edge of the porch and put down her basket in order to scrape the mud from the soles of her shoes, then held Rachel’s elbow to balance her while she did the same.

“Fearless, ye said,” Jenny said, meditatively. “Friends are fearless, are they?”

“We don’t fear death, because we think our lives are lived only in preparation for eternal life with God,” Rachel explained.

“Well, if the worst thing that can happen to ye is death, and ye’re no afraid of
that…
well, then.” Jenny shrugged. “I suppose ye’re right.” Her face crinkled suddenly and she laughed. “Fearless. I’ll need to think on that one for a bit—get used to it, ken. Still—” She lifted her chin, indicating Oggy, who had roused at the scent of home and was rooting sleepily at Rachel’s breast.

“Do ye not fear for him? Takin’ him all that way through a war?”

She didn’t add,
“Wouldn’t losing him be worse than death?”
but she didn’t need to.

Rachel unfastened her blouse and put Oggy to suck, drawing in her breath as he seized her nipple, then relaxing as her milk let down. Jenny was waiting for her, eyes fixed on Oggy’s head. Rachel spoke evenly.

“Would thee let thy husband go alone seven hundred miles to rescue his first wife and her three children—one of whom might just possibly be his?”

Jenny’s mouth opened, but apparently there were no Scottish sounds appropriate to the occasion.

“Well, no,” she said mildly. “Thee has a point.”

HE’D HAVE TO TELL
her, and sooner rather than later. At least he’d got a plan made, whether she liked it or not.

It was raining, and the solid drops pounded the tin roof of the goat shed like gunfire. Ian ducked inside to find his mother milking one of the nannies and singing a waulking song called
“Mile Marbhaisg Air A’ Ghaol”
at the top of her lungs. She glanced up at him, nodded to indicate that she’d be with him in a wee bit, and went on singing “A Thousand Curses on Love” and milking.

The goats looked up at him, too, but recognized him and went on munching their grass with nothing more than the twitch of an ear. They seemed to be enjoying the song; they weren’t agitated by the rain—or the thunder, in the distance but growing steadily louder. His mother stripped off the udder with a wee flourish and concluded with
“A’ Ghaol!”
Ian applauded, which startled all the goats into a belated chorus of
mehhh
s.

“Hark at ye, ye wee gomerel,” his mother said, but in a tolerant tone. She rose, loosed the goat from the stanchion, and picked up the brimming pail. “Here, carry this into the house, but tell Rachel not to churn it ’til the storm passes—I dinna ken if she knows ye mustn’t churn during thunder; the butter won’t come.”

“I think she kens well enough that ye dinna want to stand on the front stoop doin’ it while the rain’s pissing down, even if ye weren’t like to be struck by lightning.”

“Piff,” she said, and pulled her shawl up over her head. No sooner had she done so, though, than the rain changed abruptly to hail.
“A Mhoire Mhàthair!”
she said, making the horns. “Dinna go out there now, ye’ll be brained.”

She
might
have added something about the quality of his brain, but it was impossible to hear a word. Hailstones the size of pig’s knuckles were thundering on the tin roof, bouncing and rolling on the green grass outside the open shed. He set the pail down by the wall, where it wouldn’t be kicked over, and, raising a brow at his mother, crossed his arms and leaned against one of the timbers, prepared to wait. He’d worked himself up for this and he wasn’t doing it over again. Do it and have done; there wasn’t time to haver.

The goats, goatlike, wandered over to him and began to nose him familiarly for anything loose, but aside from his shirttail, which he’d already gathered up in his hand, there was nothing to attract them. Despite the open front of the shed and the cold breath of the passing storm, it was pleasantly warm amongst the inquisitive, hairy bodies, and he felt his anxiety over the coming conversation subsiding a bit.

His mother came over to stand by the goat nosing his buttocks and stood gazing contentedly out at the storm, scratching the goat between the ears. It was a fine view, to be sure; she’d chosen the site for her goat shed and he’d built it so she could look out through a wide gap in the trees and see Roan Mountain in the distance, very dramatic at the moment, its top disappearing into lowering black clouds that sparked and spat lightning. As they watched, a huge thunderbolt split both sky and air and he and the goats all jerked back at the dazzling crash.

As though the lightning had been a signal, though, the hail abruptly stopped, and the rain resumed, more quietly than before.

“It looks like the MacKenzies’ badge, no?” his mother remarked, nodding at the distant mountain. “Fires all over it.” There were in fact three small plumes of smoke rising from the lower slopes, where the lightning had struck something flammable. Nay bother; with this much rain, they wouldn’t burn long enough to matter.

“I’ve never seen a MacKenzie badge,” he said. “A mountain, is it? With fires?”

She glanced up at him, momentarily surprised, but then nodded. “Aye, I was forgetting. All that was gone before ye could walk.” Her mouth tightened, but only for a moment. “Did your da ever tell ye the Murrays’ motto?”

“Aye, but I dinna remember much…something about fetters, was it?”

“Furth, Fortune, and Fill the Fetters,” she said succinctly. “Go ye out, and make sure to come back wi’ gold and captives.”

That made him laugh.

“A warlike lot, were they? The auld Murrays?”

She shrugged. “Not as I ever noticed, but ken, your da did go for a mercenary when he was a young man. And your uncle Jamie, too.” Her mouth twitched. “I’m sure Jamie’s telt ye the Fraser motto, more than once.
Je suis prest
?”

“He has.” Ian smiled, a little ruefully. “I am ready.”

His mother smiled at that, glancing up at him. The shawl had slipped back to her shoulders, and her bound hair glowed like polished steel in the rain-light.

“Aye. Well, there’s a second Murray motto—the first was made by the Duke of Atholl, bloodthirsty auld creature—but the second one’s better:
Tout prest.
”

“Quite ready? Or ready for anything?”

“Both. I thought o’ that, now and then, whilst they were gone away to France.
Je suis prest…Tout prest.
And every night, I’d pray to the Virgin that they were. Ready, I mean.” She fell silent, her hand resting on the goat’s brown-and-white head.

He’d not find a better moment. He coughed.

“As for bein’ ready, Mam…” She caught the note in his voice and looked at him sharply.

“Aye?”

“I’ve spoken to Barney Chisholm. Ye’ll be welcome to stay wi’ him and Christina, while—whilst we’re gone. Rachel and me,” he added, swallowing. “We’re going up into the North, to see about—about—”

“Your Indian wife?” she asked dryly. “Dinna trouble yourself; I’ve already asked the MacDonald lassies to care for the goats.”

“You…what?” He felt as though she’d stuck out a foot and hooked his legs out from under him. She gave him a look of mild exasperation.

“Ye dinna think I’d let Rachel follow ye alone through a war, and her wi’ that lolloping great bairn of yours?”

“But…” The words died in his throat. He kent his mother well enough to see that she meant it. And no matter what the Frasers
said
their motto was, he kent fine that it might as well have been
Stubborn as a Rock.
He’d seen that look on Uncle Jamie’s face often enough to recognize it now.

“Besides,” she added, pushing the goat’s nose away from the fringe of her shawl, “I dinna suppose ye’ll find much gold wi’ the Mohawk, but I’d just as soon ye didna end up in fetters yourself in a redcoat prison.”

There wasn’t much to do but laugh. He had one last try, though, just so he could tell his da he had.

“D’ye think Da would let ye go do such a daft thing?”

“I dinna see that he’d have much room to talk,” she said, with a one-shouldered shrug. “Here, take this one.” She handed over the full pail and bent for the other one. “Besides, he wouldna try to stop me; wee Oggy’s his blood, as much as mine. Ian Mòr will be right there wi’ me, all the way.”

Ian swallowed a wee lump in his throat, but felt curiosity along with remembered grief.

“Ye feel Da by ye?” he asked. “I—do. Sometimes.”

His mother gave him the second pail and opened the gate across the front of the shed. The rain had let up and the air shimmered round them, silver in the grayness.

“Ye dinna stop loving someone just because they’re deid,” she said reprovingly. “I canna suppose they stop lovin’ you, either.”

“HOW OLD
IS
thy mother?” Rachel said to Ian. “I’d welcome her company, and to have help with the bairn would be a great relief, but thee knows better than I do what such a journey may be like.”

Ian grinned, not at the question, but at the way she said
“bairn,”
hesitating for an instant before saying it, as though afraid it might get away before she could clap a lid over it.

“I dinna ken for sure,” he said, in answer to her question. “She’s two years the elder of Uncle Jamie, though.”

“Oh.” Her face eased a bit at that.

“And it’s barely a year since she left Scotland and came wi’ Uncle Jamie, all the way across the ocean, and then makin’ their way hundreds of miles cross-country to Philadelphia. This journey may be a bit longer,” he coughed a little, thinking
and just a bit more dangerous,
“but we’ll have good horses and enough money for inns, where there are any.

“Besides,” he said, shrugging. “She says she’s comin’ with us. So she is.”