“Ich war dort. Ich habe ihn geschen,” said Herr Gottfried, sweat trickling down his cheeks at the recollection. I was there. I saw.
Summoned by a hysterical message from the women, the Pastor had ridden into the stableyard, to find two long tails of dark hair hanging from the barn door, stirring gently in the wind above the crudely painted legend Rache.
“That means ‘revenge,’ ” Lord John translated for me.
“I know,” I said, my mouth so dry I could barely speak. “I’ve read Sherlock Holmes. You mean he…”
“Evidently so.”
The Pastor was still speaking; he seized me by the arm and shook it, trying to communicate his urgency. Grey’s look sharpened at whatever the minister was saying, and he broke in with an abrupt question, answered by frenzied noddings.
“He’s coming here. Mueller.” Grey swung round to me, his face set in alarm.
Terribly upset by the scalps, the Pastor had gone in search of Herr Mueller, only to find that the patriarch had nailed his grisly trophies to the barn and then left the farm, bound—he had said—for Fraser’s Ridge, to see me.
If I hadn’t been sitting down already, I might have collapsed at this. I could feel the blood draining from my cheeks, and was sure I looked as pale as Pastor Gottfried.
“Why?” I said. “Is he—he couldn’t! He couldn’t think I had done anything to Petronella or the baby. Could he?” I turned in appeal toward the Pastor, who pushed a pudgy, trembling hand through his gray-streaked hair, disordering its carefully larded strands.
“The clerical gentleman doesn’t know what Mueller thinks, or what his purpose is in coming here,” said Lord John. He cast an interested eye over the pastor’s unprepossessing form. “Much to his credit, he set off alone, hell-for-leather after Mueller, and found him two hours later—insensible by the side of the road.”
The huge old farmer had evidently gone for days without food on his hunt for revenge. Intemperance was not a common failing among the Lutherans, but under the stimulus of fatigue and emotion, Mueller had drunk deeply upon his return, and the enormous draughts of beer he had consumed had been too much for him. Overcome, he had contrived to hobble his mule, but then had wrapped himself in his coat and fallen asleep among the trailing arbutus by the road.
The Pastor had made no attempt to rouse Mueller, being well acquainted with the man’s temper and feeling it would not be improved by drink. Instead, Gottfried had mounted his own horse and ridden as quickly as he could, trusting to Providence to bring him here in time to warn us.
He had had no doubt that my Mann would be competent to deal with Mueller, no matter what his state or intentions, but with Jamie gone…
Pastor Gottfried looked helplessly from me to Lord John, and back again.
“Vielleicht solten Sie gehen?” he suggested, making his meaning clear with a jerk of his head toward the paddock.
“I can’t leave,” I said, and gestured toward the house. “Mein—Christ, what’s nephew?—Mein junger Mann ist nicht gut.”
“Ihr Neffe ist krank” Lord John corrected briskly. “Haben Sie jemals Masern gehabt?”
The Pastor shook his head, distress altering to alarm.
“He hasn’t had the measles,” Lord John said, turning to me. “He mustn’t stay here, then, or he will put himself in danger of contracting the disease, is that so?”
“Yes.” The shock was beginning to recede slightly, and I was starting to pull myself together. “Yes, he should go at once. It’s safe for him to be near you, you aren’t contagious any longer. Ian is, though.” I made a vain attempt at smoothing my hair, which was standing on end—little wonder if it was, I thought. Then I thought of the scalps on Mueller’s barn door and my hair actually did stand on end, my own scalp rippling with horror.
Lord John was speaking authoritatively to the little Pastor, urging him toward his horse by means of a grip on his sleeve. Gottfried was making protests, but increasingly weak ones. He glanced back at me, round face full of trouble.
I tried to smile reassuringly at him, though I felt as distressed as he did.
“Danke,” I said. “Tell him it will be all right, will you?” I said to Lord John. “He won’t go, otherwise.” He nodded briefly.
“I have. I told him I am a soldier; that I will not let any harm come to you.”
The Pastor stood for a moment, hand on his horse’s bridle, talking earnestly to Lord John. Then he dropped the bridle, turned with decision and crossed the dooryard to me. Reaching up, he laid a hand gently on my tousled head.
“Seid gesegnet,” he said. “Benedicite.”
“He said—” began Lord John.
“I understand.”
We stood silently in the dooryard, watching Gottfried make his way through the chestnut grove. It seemed incongruously peaceful out here, with a soft autumn sun warm on my shoulders, and birds going about their business overhead. I heard the far-off knocking of a woodpecker, and the liquid duet of the mockingbirds that lived in the big blue spruce. No owls, but naturally there would be no owls now; it was midmorning.
Who? I wondered, as another aspect of the tragedy belatedly occurred to me. Who had been the target of Mueller’s blind revenge? The Mueller farm was several days ride from the mountain line that separated Indian territory from the settlements, but he could have reached several Tuscarora or Cherokee villages, depending on his direction.
Had he entered a village? If so, what carnage had he and his sons left behind? Worse, what carnage might ensue?
I shuddered, cold in spite of the sun. Mueller was not the only man who believed in revenge. The family, the clan, the village of whomever he had murdered—they would seek vengeance for their slain, as well; and they might not stop with the Muellers—if they even knew the identity of the killers.
And if they did not, but only knew the murderers to be white…I shuddered again. I had heard enough massacre stories to realize that the victims very seldom did anything to provoke their fate; they only had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fraser’s Ridge lay directly between Mueller’s farm and the Indian villages—which at the moment seemed distinctly the wrong place to be.
“Oh, God, I wish Jamie were here.” I wasn’t aware that I had spoken aloud, until Lord John replied.
“So do I,” he said. “Though I begin to think that William may be far safer with him than the boy might be here—and not only by reason of the illness.”
I glanced at him, realizing suddenly how weak he still was; this was the first time he had been out of bed in a week. He was white-faced under the remnants of his rash, and he was gripping the doorjamb for support, to keep from falling down.
“You shouldn’t even be up!” I exclaimed, and grasped him by the arm. “Go in and lie down at once.”
“I am quite all right,” he said irritably, but he didn’t jerk away, or protest when I insisted he get back into bed.
I knelt to check Ian, who was tossing restlessly on the trundle, blazing with fever. His eyes were shut, his features swollen and disfigured with the emergent rash, the glands in his neck round and hard as eggs.
Rollo poked an inquiring nose under my elbow, nudged his master gently and whined.