Still shaking, I forced myself to stand up. I wiped a sleeve across my face and saw the forest blurred and shattered around me. Broken limbs dangled from trees, and the air was thick with the smell of crushed plants and powder smoke. And men were still running uphill, panting, flickering through the trees; one knocked into me in passing and I fell back against the big walnut tree.
“Auntie!” Young Ian appeared suddenly, grasping my arm. “What are ye doing here? Are ye all right? What have ye done wi’ Roger Mac?”
I hadn’t managed more than a faint bleat in reply when I heard Colonel Campbell’s voice bellowing somewhere below me.
“One more, boys! One more whoop!”
Answering whoops rose from every man near enough to hear him. Ian disappeared up the hill into the rising smoke, leaving me swaying like one of the broken tree limbs, hanging by a thread of bark.
Suddenly there was a crunch and slither of dirt as someone slipped and a muffled curse, and I turned to look into the face of a woman. She was as startled as I was; we stared at each other for an instant, and I registered nothing but her eyes, black with terror. She ran past me, stumbling and falling and rising in what seemed the same movement, and disappeared down the mountain. I blinked, not sure I’d seen her at all. But I had; she’d ripped her dress and left a strip of her yellow calico gown fluttering from a dogwood. I looked around, dazed.
“What the devil are you doing here?” Colonel Campbell was on foot now, next to me, still in his shirtsleeves, face black with powder smoke. “Go down, go down at once, ma’am!” He didn’t pause to see if I obeyed, but ran upward, shouting. There were cries from above and a wash of men coming down, but only a little way, then moving to the side, following an officer for another try. Two crows came sailing down and landed in a nearby tree, eyeing me with casual interest. One noticed the flapping yellow rag and hopped down, pecking at it.
My mouth was dry, and when I raised a hand to wipe sweat from my forehead, I realized that my face was imprinted with the pattern of the walnut’s bark.
The whistle was shrieking above, then drowned by a tremendous shouting—and the sound of shots again, in great number. The attackers had reached the meadow.
Jamie
THE KERCHIEF ROUND his head was sopping, sweat and gun smoke stung his eyes. He blinked hard to clear them, felt the clash and thud of loading in his bones, the weight of the rifle in his hands, butt hard against his sore shoulder. Green … The meadow was surging with men, speckled with clots of green uniforms. He fired and one dropped.
Ferguson’s whistle screamed thin and high through the noise. The man was still on his horse, trying to rally his men, though by now it was like rallying fish in a net—they surged to and fro, bayonets still fixed, stabbing air, some firing, but being driven closer in, jostling as they strove to find a target.
Why not?
He coughed again, smoke rasping in his chest, and spat. It was no more than minutes now, and he kent from Randall’s book what would happen to Ferguson. Spare him knowing what’s coming to him … Let it be a Scot, at least … He hadn’t time to think more, before his sight fixed on the checked shirt and his finger tightened on the trigger. He took a step sideways, barrel following his target, and something snagged round his foot. He kicked at the clinging shrub, impatient, and a thorn pierced his calf.
“Ifrinn!” He jerked, and looked down. The large snake that had bitten him was writhing round his leg in panic, and he flung himself away, kicking out in his own panic.
The first bullet struck him in the chest.
147
A Lot of Blood
IT SEEMED TO GO on forever, but I knew it was only minutes, would be only minutes more. Shouts from above, yelling, shooting … the crash of fired muskets and the higher-pitched crack of rifles … I felt each shot as though it had hit me and shuddered against my tree.
I HEARD IT when the tide turned. An instant’s silence and more shooting and yelling, but it was different now. Less noise, the shots were fewer … The whistle fell silent, and the yelling increased, but it had a different tone. Savage. Exultant.
I couldn’t wait any longer. I left the refuge of my tree and scrambled up the mountainside, slipping and falling and scrambling on all fours.
I came high enough to be able to see what was going on. Chaos, but the shooting had all but stopped. I made my way up higher, onto the meadow. I was drenched in sweat, my legs shaking from the tension of the last hour and my heart pounding like a steam hammer.
Where are you? Where are you?
There was a crush of men at one side of the meadow; the Loyalist prisoners, half of them in green Provincial uniforms, the rest farmers like our own men …
Our own—I tried to look in all directions at once, to see, if not Jamie himself, someone I knew.
I saw Cyrus. The Tall Tree, looking as though he’d been struck by lightning, his face black with powder smoke except where the sweat had made runnels. He was standing up, though, looking about him in a dazed sort of way.
People were moving, everywhere, jostling, milling—one young man ran into me, knocking me off-balance. I caught myself and began to say “I beg your pardon” by reflex.
Then I saw that he had Jamie’s rifle.
“Where did you get that gun?” I said fiercely, and grabbed him by the arm, squeezing as hard as I could.
“Who the hell are you?” He was shocked and offended, trying to pull away. I dug my fingers into his armpit, and he yelped and jerked, trying to get away.
“Where did you get it!” I screamed.
I was clinging like grim death and he screamed, too, writhing and cursing. He kicked me solidly in the shin, but he loosed his hold on the rifle and I let go his other arm and snatched it.
“Tell me where you fucking got this, or so help me God I will beat you to death with it!”
His eyes showed white, like a panicked horse, and he backed away from me, hands out in placation.
“He’s dead! He don’t need it no more!”
“Who’s dead?” I hardly heard the words; the blood had surged so hard into my ears that they were ringing. But a big hand clasped me by the shoulder and pulled me away from the boy. He promptly turned to flee, but Bill Amos—for it was he—let go of me and with two giant strides he had hold of the boy, picked him up with both hands, and shook him like a rag.
“What’s going on, Missus?” he asked, setting the boy down and turning to me. The words were calm, but he wasn’t; he was trembling all over with a mixture of bloodlust and reaction, and I thought he might just kill the boy inadvertently; his big fist was squeezing the boy’s shoulder rhythmically, as though he couldn’t stop, and the boy was squealing and begging to be let go.
“This—” I couldn’t hold the rifle; it slipped from my grasp and I barely caught it, its butt jolting into the ground. “It’s Jamie’s. I need to know where he is!”
Amos blew out a long breath and huffed air for a moment, nodding.
“Where’s Colonel Fraser?” he asked the boy, shaking him again, but more gently. “Where’s the man you took this’n from?”
The boy was crying, head wobbling and tears making tracks through the dirt and powder stains on his face.