The Outlandish Companion Page 14

  Investigations into the girl’s identity and her presence reveal that she is an army laundress, without family or connections. The public assumption is that, finding herself inconveniently with child, she would have sought to rid herself of the burden—but alone, or with someone’s help?

  A step ahead of the investigation, Claire deduces the presence of a slave-woman known for her medical skills—a woman named Pollyanne, who has fled from her shack to hide in the woods, obviously afraid that she will be blamed for the death of the girl—and die in turn, a victim of the bloodshed law.

  Jamie’s efforts to establish the girl’s identity take him into Cross Creek, to the garrison headquarters there, where he meets an old enemy—Sergeant Murchison, who, with his twin brother, was once an officer at Ardsmuir Prison. The Sergeant is no more pleased by the meeting than is Jamie, and his temper grows no better when he finds what errand has brought the Frasers to his office.

  Returning from this acrimonious encounter, the Frasers discover that Duncan and Ian have succeeded in finding the slave-woman Pollyanne, whom they have hidden in a remote tobacco barn. Still, there is an urgent need to smuggle her away from the district, and Myers, nearly recovered from his public surgery, suggests a plan: He has friends among the Tuscarora tribe, and is sure that the Indians would accept the woman into one of their villages, where she would be safe.

  Myers’s plan offers not only safety for Pollyanne, but advantages for Jamie—he can remove himself from his aunt’s scheming long enough to make up his own mind without pressure, he can avoid the antagonistic presence of Sergeant Murchison— and in the process of delivering Pollyanne to her refuge, he can survey the mountainous backcountry land offered to him by Governor Tryon, in order to weigh the possibilities afforded.

  A small expedition accordingly sets off for the mountains: Myers, Pollyanne, Jamie, Claire—and Young Ian, who is keen to see adventure and Red Indians. Duncan remains behind to help Jocasta with the business of the estate.

  Once into the mountains, the party separates; Myers and Young Ian make their way into the Tuscarora’s territory, to deliver Pollyanne, while Claire and Jamie make their way upward into the mountains.

  As they travel, Claire is torn between joy in Jamie’s evident delight—he is at home in the free air of the mountains, as he is nowhere else—and fear of what that joy might mean. She has seen his tombstone in Scotland; so long as he stays in America, she thinks, he will be safe. But if he should decide to take up the Governor’s offer, he will need men to settle the land— and where else should he get them, save in Scotland?

  At last, they come to a high ridge, covered in wild strawberries, which Jamie takes as a sign. The strawberry plant is the emblem of clan Fraser—the white flower for courage, green leaves for constancy, and the fruit for passion, shaped like a heart. It is a good place, one that speaks to the Highlander. What would she think? Jamie asks. Would she be willing to settle here with him? Plant crops, raise beasts, build a cabin—establish their new life here, high in the mountains, free of the obligations and uncertainties of life in the valley?

  Claire sees the hope and the joy in him, but cannot share it for fear. At last, she breaks down and confides what she fears; that if he goes to Scotland to raise men for the land, he will die there.

  Apprised of her fears, Jamie is incredulous. How, he demands, does she expect him to go to Scotland and raise men— walking on the water? While they have some capital now, from the sale of one stone, they are a long way from rich. Besides, he adds reassuringly, he does not intend to go to Scotland. If he should be so foolhardy as to take up the Governor’s invitation, he would instead seek out the men of Ardsmuir—his men, transported to the Colonies.

  And why, Claire demands, should these men follow him? Those who survived will have worked out their indenturement; many will have begun new lives. Why should they abandon everything, risk everything, to follow him?

  “You did, Sassenach,” he said.

  IN THE INVERNESS of 1969, Roger Wakefield is waiting impatiently for the arrival of Brianna. Beyond the joy of seeing her again, there is an extra dimension to his anticipation; he means to ask her to marry him.

  The arrival of the postman with a forwarded letter for Brianna exposes a certain complication, though; Brianna has—without telling Roger—begun searching the historical record for any mention of her parents. Roger is at first hurt that she didn’t tell him, but understands her ambivalence; the fear of finding out versus the fear of never knowing. In fact, he may be the only person in the world who truly does understand.

  He will help her, he says. Beyond a simple desire to assist the girl he loves lies both personal curiosity and a certain personal concern; he fears that she cannot or will not give herself fully to a life with him in the present, if her questions of the past remain unanswered.

  The two continue with the long job of clearing up the Reverend Wakefield’s effects, and the business of dismantling his childhood home increases Roger’s longing for a home and family of his own—and for Brianna as his wife, always by his side. For her part, Brianna makes it clear that she wants him, too, and so emboldened, Roger asks her to marry him as they walk home from the midnight services on Christmas Eve.

  “I want you, Brianna,” he said softly. “I cannot be saying it plainer than that. I love you. Will you marry me?”

  She didn’t say anything, but her face changed, like water when a stone is thrown into it. He could see it plainly as his own reflection in the bleakness of a tarn.

  “You didn’t want me to say that.” The fog had settled in his chest; he was breathing ice, crystal needles piercing heart and lungs. “You didn’t want to hear it, did you?

  She shook her head, wordless.

  “Aye. Well.” With an effort, he let go her hand. “That’s all right,” he said, surprised at the calmness in his voice. “You’ll not be worried about it, aye?”

  Brianna is worried about it, though; what worries her is not doubt of her feelings for Roger, nor his for her—what troubles her is the possibility that they won’t last. They can’t be wed at once, she points out; she has another year of schooling, Roger has his position at the university to think of. What if something were to happen in the meantime, what if one of them was to meet someone else?

  She leaned against the lamppost, hands behind her, and met his eyes directly. “I think I love you, too.”

  He didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until he let it out.

  “Ah. You do.” The water had condensed in his hair, and icy trickles were running down his neck. “Mmphm. Aye, and is the operative word there ’think,’ then, or is it ’love’?”

  She relaxed, just a little, and swallowed. “Both.”

  She held up a hand as he started to speak.

  “I do—I think. But—but I can’t help thinking what happened to my mother. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

  “Your mother?” Simple astonishment was succeeded by a fresh burst of outrage. “What? You’re thinking of bloody Jamie Fraser? Ye think ye cannot be satisfied with a boring historian—ye must have a—a— great passion, as she did for him, and you think I’ll maybe not measure up?”

  “No! I’m not thinking of Jamie Fraser!

  I’m thinking of my father!“ She shoved her hands deep in the pockets of her jacket, and swallowed hard. She’d stopped crying, but there were tears on her lashes, clotting them in spikes.

  “She meant it when she married him—I could see it, in those pictures you gave me. She said ’better or worse, richer, poorer’— and she meant it. And then … and then she met Jamie Fraser, and she didn’t mean it anymore.”

  Her mouth worked silently for a moment, looking for words.

  “I—I don’t blame her, not really, not after I thought about it. She couldn’t help it, and I—when she talked about him, I could see how much she loved him—but don’t you see, Roger? She loved my father, too—but then something happened. She didn’t expect it and it wasn’t her fau
lt—but it made her break her word. I won’t do that, not for anything.”

  IF SHE TAKES A VOW, Brianna says stubbornly, she’ll keep it—no matter what. But she will not take that vow until she’s positive she can keep it. She loves him, she wants him; she’ll sleep with him, if he likes—but she won’t marry him; not yet. Seeing that there is no moving her, Roger reluctantly accepts her decision—though with his own warning. He will have her all, he says … or not at all.

  And so matters rest between them, symbolized by Roger’s Christmas gift— a plain silver bracelet, engraved in French:

  “JE T’AIME …“ it says. “Un peu, beau-coup, passionement, pas du tout.” I love

  you. A little, a lot, passionately… not at all.

  HAVING FOUND a place he feels his own, Jamie asks Claire to stay and begin their life on the mountain at once; not even returning to Cross Creek, where Jocasta spreads her tempting nets of obligation. The cost of labor and hardship seems small, measured against the prospect of freedom.

  Ian stays with them to help in the building of their first simple shelter, Myers returning to Cross Creek to deliver Jamie’s letter of acceptance to the Governor, apprise Jocasta of her nephew’s decision— and bring back with him such supplies as may be needed to build a cabin and plant a small crop in the spring.

  In the course of exploring, Claire and Jamie have met some of the Indians whose hunting territory lies nearby; the Tuscarora chief, Nacognaweto, and two of his sons, who were most impressed by Jamie’s prowess in killing a bear with his dirk. As the Frasers work on their new habitation, Nacognaweto returns, bringing with him his womenfolk—his wife, his stepdaughter, and his grandmother, Nayawenne, who is a singer and a healer—bearing gifts of food.

  Nayawenne recognizes Claire as a kindred spirit, and shows her many of the useful plants that grow nearby. The old woman seems to know her, and eventually tells her that they have met before, in a dream; a dream in which Claire appeared as a white raven—rather a sinister omen. In parting, the old woman makes a cryptic prophecy, telling Claire not to worry: “Sickness comes from the gods. It won’t be your fault.”

  IT IS A FRAGILE and tenuous foothold that they have upon the mountain as winter sets in—but a foothold, for all that. As the snows come down, the Frasers turn inward, to each other, taking pleasure in their close companionship and the warmth of their small cabin. They talk now and then of their daughter, Claire telling Jamie stories of Brianna, he confiding his dreams of her, and his curiosity about this child he’s never seen.

  “If she goes on wi’ the history—d’ye think she’ll find us? Written down somewhere, I mean?”

  The thought had honestly not occurred to me, and for a moment I lay quite still. Then I stretched a bit, and laid my head on his shoulder with a small laugh, not altogether humorous.

  “I shouldn’t think so. Not unless we were to do something newsworthy.” I gestured vaguely toward the cabin wall and the endless wilderness outside. “Not much chance of that here, I don’t imagine. And she’d have to be deliberately looking, in any case.”

  “Would she?”

  I was silent for a moment, breathing the musky, deep scent of him.

  “I hope not,” I said quietly, at last. “She should have her own life—not spend her time looking back.” The fire crackled softly to itself casting red and yellow highlights on the wooden walls of our snug refuge, and we lay in quiet peace, not bothering to sort out whose limbs were whose. On the very verge of sleep, I felt Jamie’s breath, warm on my neck.

  “She’ll look,” he said, with certainty.

  BRIANNA IS LOOKING, searching history for traces of her parents, seeking identity and reassurance. Roger, unsure of her wisdom and afraid of what she might find, still is helping with the search, understanding her need as only a man raised without a father could.

  Roger’s fears are borne out, though, when he discovers a small announcement in an eighteenth-century newspaper, reporting the deaths by fire of one James Fraser and his wife, Claire, in North Carolina in 1776. Shocked and grieved himself, he hesitates to show the clipping to Brianna—not only out of reluctance to hurt her, but from a deeper fear; there is still time. If Brianna were to risk the journey through the standing stones, she might reach her parents before the date of the fire. If he tells her what he has found, she may well insist on going, whether in an attempt to save them—or only to seize the last chance of seeing the father she has never known.

  Roger is himself convinced that history cannot change; Brianna cannot save her parents or alter their fate. He understands an orphan’s longing for knowledge and connection, all too well. If she goes through the stones, though, she may be lost to him forever. Wracked by pangs of guilt, Roger reaches his conclusion; he will not show Brianna the announcement. Lest she find it herself, he makes up his mind that he must now try to dissuade her gently from her search, telling her that he has found nothing, trying to persuade her, bit by bit, that it is both fruitless and unhealthy to look backward too much; better that she turn her thoughts to the future— with him.

  But knowledge once gained cannot be unlearned, and Roger cannot turn his own thoughts so easily away from his visions of fire and haunting loneliness.

  ON FRASER’S RIDGE, the tiny homestead is slowly prospering and Claire’s reputation as a healer is spreading to the far-flung farms of the nearby countryside. She makes her medical rounds on horseback, traveling—mostly—unafraid through the mountains. The wilderness has its dangers, though; returning from attendance at a birth, she is thrown from her horse during a thunderstorm and stranded miles from anywhere, lost, wet, and completely alone.

  Taking refuge from the storm beneath the upflung roots of a giant red cedar that has toppled in the wind, she sinks into the troubled sleep of cold, hunger, and exhaustion, waking to a sense of someone nearby. Searching in the darkness for her shoes, she makes instead a bizarre discovery: a buried skull, and with it a smooth rock with an incised petroglyph. More disturbing still, the skull shows clear evidence of violence; the man—whoever he was— had been beheaded.

  Waiting out the hours of the night, with nothing but this macabre companion, she sees a light coming down the slope toward her refuge.

  THERE WAS A LIGHT on the ridge. A small spark, growing to a flame. At first I thought it was the lightning-blasted tree, some smoldering ember come to life—but then it moved. It glided slowly down the hill toward me, floating just above the bushes.

  I sprang to my feet, realizing only then that I had no shoes on. Frantically, I groped about the floor, covering the small space again and again. But it was no use. My shoes were gone.

  I seized the skull and stood barefoot, turning to face the light.

  I CLUTCHED THE SKULL closer. It wasn’t much of a weapon—but somehow I didn’t think that whatever was coming would be deterred by knives or pistols, either.

  It wasn’t only that the wet surroundings made it seem grossly improbable that anyone was strolling through the woods with a flaming torch. The light didn’t burn like a pine torch or oil lantern. It didn’t flicker, but burned with a soft, steady glow.

  It floated a few feet above the ground, just about where someone would hold a torch they carried before them….

  It is an Indian who holds the torch; a man dressed in breechclout and war paint, a man with his face painted black.

  I was invisible, completely hidden in the darkness of my refuge, while the torch he held washed him in soft light, gleaming off his hairless chest and shoulders, shadowing the orbits of his eyes. But he knew I was there.

  I didn’t dare to move. My breath sounded painfully loud in my ears. He simply stood there, perhaps a dozen feet away, and looked straight into the dark where I was, as though it were the broadest day. And the light of his torch burned steady and soundless, pallid as a corpse candle, the wood of it not consumed.

  “WHATEVER DO YOU WANT?“ I said, and only then realized that we had been in some sort of communication for some time. Whatever this was,
it had no words. Nothing coherent passed between us—but something passed, nonetheless….

  “What do you want?” I said again, feeling helpless. “I can’t do anything for you. I know you’re there; I can see you. But that’s all.”

  Nothing moved, no words were spoken. But quite clearly the thought formed in my mind, in a voice that was not my own.

  That’s enough, it said.

  With the disappearance of the mysterious apparition, Claire sinks gradually back into a troubled sleep, waking again to the welcome realization of daylight and of rescue: Jamie, Ian, and Ian’s dog Rollo have found her.

  Once past the relief of reunion, Claire asks how they found her, so far from home and with no knowledge that she was lost in the first place. Jamie replies that they had been asleep the night before, but were suddenly awakened by Rollo’s baying, flinging himself at the cabin door, insistent on a pursuit of some kind. Catching up their plaids and mounting their horses, they had followed the wolf-dog to Claire’s refuge.

  Delighted to be rescued, but still puzzled by the means, Claire wonders how Rollo could have led them to her.

  “We searched the clearing” Jamie said, “from the penfold to the spring, and didna find a thing—except these.” He reached into his sporran and drew out my shoes. He looked up into my face, his own quite expressionless.

  “They were sitting on the doorstep, side by side.”

  Every hair on my body rose. I lifted the flask and drained the last of the brandy-wine. The brandywine was buzzing in my ears, swaddling my wits in a warm, sweet blanket, but I had enough sense left to tell me that for Rollo to have followed a trail back to me… someone had walked all that way in my shoes.

  RETURNED TO THE SAFETY of home on the Ridge, Claire tells Jamie of her experience on the mountain, and shows him the stone that was buried with the skull; it is a large opal, the rocky matrix incised in the shape of a spiral, showing the fiery stone beneath.